Aircraft Cloaking Technology

I thought the latest gen of radar were going to render all "stealth" obsolete by detecting the pressure changes in the atmosphere around the plane.

All current stealth is designed to reduce, obscure, reflect or absorb all forms of EM coming off the object and that would include visible and the work on electrochromics. Sound and pressure are harder to deal with. Go supersonic and you've got one hell of a pressure wave e.g. boom. Go subsonic and that turbine and airframe noise is pretty loud to sensitive receivers....

Could/would someone also enlighten me as to when was the last time that a pilot actually used visual sighting to actually shoot down another plane?? Isn't it more like pickle a missile these days??

no, not necessairly, a plane is at its louwdest when it crossess in between supersonic speeds such as Mach 1 Mach 2 etc., there is a massive sonic boom, but normally flying, yea it'd make a bit of niose, but if u can't see it u don't know ehere its coming from

Originally posted by Dima
hey intelgurl, do u think adding the electrochromic panels above the RAM and coat apintings will reduce the stealthiness of the design? and increase the IR signature because u're charging the panel with electricity, wouldn't that alone give off a high RCS?

hope i'm not overloading u, but one last question, do u think that the two Crey supercomputers inside the F-22 will be able to match the surroundings of the area by analyzing the density and luminosity every nano-second?

i'm not really familiar with how powerful the F-22's avionics suite really is

I'm thinking that the panels themselves are of an RA nature - this isn't "off the shelf" materials they are using.

As far as the avionics go, it's actually the power of two Cray supercomputers, not 2 actual Cray units... and electrochromatic panels will not make the plane invisible, just much harder to visually detect from a distance. Apparently the panels would change hue and luminance in real time with the most prominent background color.

It also stands to reason that as technology like this matures, it would be fitted more to the mission of attack helos than an intermediate or theater bomber which would attack from 20 - 30,000 ft. That said, the USAF does seem to think that there will be a benefit to having these panels on any new bomber such as the FB-22 concept.

Originally posted by UofCinLACould someone also enlighten me as to when was the last time that a pilot actually used visual sighting to actually shoot down another plane?? Isn't it more like pickle a missile these days??

If the FB-22 is not seen at a distance on the radar screen of an opposing aircraft, and if the IR signature is not distinct enough for a weapons lock, then visual sighting would definitely be the issue of concern.

Originally posted by UofCinLA
I thought the latest gen of radar were going to render all "stealth" obsolete by detecting the pressure changes in the atmosphere around the plane.

I'm not sure current Doppler Radar technology can achieve a fine enough resolution to actually track something as small as the turbulence surrounding an aircraft the size of an F-22. The most common commercial dopplers are used for weather observation, since they're pretty good at seeing rain density in storm clouds and weather fronts. Yes the Doppler may pick up the actual breaking of the sound barrier, but tracking the wake created by a small supersonic aircraft would definitely be more of a challenge... not impossible theoretically, but certainly more of a challenge.

Stealth is not necessarily a "silver bullet" rendering an aircraft invisible in all spectrums like some Klingon Bird of Prey on the TV show Star Trek ... Stealth is simply a way of enhancing the survivability of an aircraft so that it stands a better chance of conducting it's mission and returning the pilot safely.
As time goes on anti-stealth technology will continue to improve and conversely you can expect more technological enhancements to stealth concepts as well.

I've probably caused more questions than I have answered...
sigh...



[edit on 11-12-2004 by intelgurl]

yes, yes i know that the F-22 doesn't actually have two Crey supercomputers in its cockpit, i mean that the avionivs suite is equivalent to two Crey supercomputers

intelgurl (way hot by the way..!!)

I really can't understand just why visual cloaking is beneficial. Just about all planes these days have dispensed with guns so you have to rely on radar to get a lock to pickle the missile. My understanding is that standoff is the current mindset and that true dogfighting is a thing of the past....

If the next gen of radar is pressure based then the game is over (not sure if it could be installed in a fighter or just ground based) and as somebody mis-stated it's not the crossing of Mach's that causes the boom it's any speed over Mach 1 that causes it. A plane in supercruise will have one hell of a wave front that is easily detected....

Visual is just too small a portion of the EM spectrum to be of any significant benefit in my opinion unless you're fighting an enemy that only has their eyeballs and nothing else....

Modern tech and warfare has changed all the rules - it's shoot first undetected and skoot and as we've seen since Vietnam, there have been no dogfights as missiles do the job just fine - I suppose just ask any military pilot - it's get a shot off before they see you - by whatever means....

About using sound...
You would need lot of observations to get even rough course.
And other nice (depending from side) thing in sound is that its speed is very limited compared to EM radiation.
Good example would be Blackbird, it sure as hell makes very loud noise but if it flyes at 25 km sound reaches ground when plane is already 75 km away.


I think that aircraft changing its colour to match general color of surrounding won't be far away. (with propably different colors for bottom/top sides)
But making it fully "transparent" is definitely much more farther away.


About using radar to detect turbulence caused by aircraft.
Much would depend from size of turbulence, fighter capable to supercruising (aerodynamic and small drag) would leave much much smaller trace as wide body aircrafts.

And accurasy of weather radars aren't very good except from short range.
For studying tornadoes and their forming in supercells scientists have to have "mobile radars" which are driven to near storm.

These weather radar pictures are from one supercell storm. (which are the most strongest type of thunderstorms capable to producing tornados)

Latter being "velocity" image meaning different colors means different direction of wind.
www.extremeinstability.com...

For anyone interested, here's some damn nice "hardcore" shots with some radar pictures.
www.extremeinstability.com...

E_T well said.

I in no way implied that any of the tech is easy. EM is the easiest to detect - sound can work as can pressure if the resolution is decent and I read a couple of papers that said that is what they are looking into for the next gen of radar. Any object in the air disturbs that air and can not be eliminated by any known means - hence the focus on it. EM can be futzed with by absorption/reflection or active cancellation but pressure gradients in the atmosphere can not.

I just don't see what benefit visual cloaking can bring since it's such a tiny portion of the whole EM spectrum and most of the weapons these days are not visually launched. Nifty tech - yes, useful - maybe....

Originally posted by UofCinLA
I just don't see what benefit visual cloaking can bring since it's such a tiny portion of the whole EM spectrum and most of the weapons these days are not visually launched. Nifty tech - yes, useful - maybe....

I certainly see your point, and I personally think that the urgent need for visual cloaking is for ground units and close air support such as helos.

However, if visual cloaking, stealth were so unimportant, then perhaps B-2's should have a lovely two tone paint scheme,,, maybe a sexy shade of teal or mauve rather than black. Or maybe the black flying wing should fly combat missions over heavily fortified areas in broad daylight. Hey, there's a good idea!

No... the USAF, not me, not the fantasizing public, but the USAF places importance on visual stealth. Among various white papers etc, the USAF 2025 Future Weapons proposal calls for research into optical deception and cloaking, with the hope that something could be operational by 2025.

Didn't they leave a gun in the JSF because it was to late to redesign and there are no plans to arm it??

Visual is nifty and I'm sure it will be used. If you gain air superiority then visual is what gets you shot at so I suppose it could have value - as long as the enemy is not too sophisticated....

Full agreement of land and ship assets - cloak'em. We should put this on a NWO thread - cloaked round up van's. That will give the NWO worriers a whole new game to consider!!

Originally posted by UofCinLA
Didn't they leave a gun in the JSF because it was to late to redesign and there are no plans to arm it??

Visual is nifty and I'm sure it will be used. If you gain air superiority then visual is what gets you shot at so I suppose it could have value - as long as the enemy is not too sophisticated....

Full agreement of land and ship assets - cloak'em. We should put this on a NWO thread - cloaked round up van's. That will give the NWO worriers a whole new game to consider!!

No, its not cloaking its active stealth. al that is trying to be done here is to reduce the visual range of detection, not to become invisible. Its the sam as other forms of stealth, reduce the detection range significantly to give you an edge. The plane in no way will be invisible, just hard to find. It may be a good idea to put it on tanks ans APC for longe range fighting, but itl be useeless in the urban fighting area when then enemy is close by.

Just as I said in my first post somewhat,,, I found it..ohh yeah I definantly found it, But it was hard to see and I was so suprised that I was able to point it out to my buddy also. He saw it, but not for as long as I did because I was trying to distinguish what it was. I wasnt sure if it was coming from Area 51 or not, although that would have been cool. (It would have been my first guess). But I am pretty sure that it was going to Eglin AFB because some people I have talked to have said that there are secret aircraft flying into Eglin pretty much all the time. Btw, read my story at: www.abovetopsecret.com...' ..Pretty interesing something that happend to me when I was younger,,nobody will probably believe it but I know what happend becasue I was there.

UofCinLA says:

"Didn't they leave a gun in the JSF because it was to late to redesign and there are no plans to arm it??"

No, they designed a 37 mm gun in the JSF in response to the RFQ; although Lockmart got the airplane, the gun and its integration were a Boeing IDS effort.

OtS, you must mean 27mm gun

Are there still plans on equiping the F-35 with a gun? I know the US-Marine Corps version will have gun-pods as an option.

And a question about stealth, I heard about pods being developed for the FB-22 (Dima I believe) that store ordannents(sp?), funny enough when I made a concept model for something like a A-17 (as in my mini-profile pic)
I designed pods which were like external bays of stealthy design, is this what the FB-22 will have? and will it increase RCS at all?

Does anybody think maybe prehaps...Air Force will be implanted with this Active Stealth ?

Originally posted by creamsoda
Does anybody think maybe prehaps...Air Force will be implanted with this Active Stealth ?

What do you meana by Implanted?

sorry yall i meant Air Force 1...do you think it will be "fitted" with active stealth ? or maybe it already has it ??...

Originally posted by creamsoda
sorry yall i meant Air Force 1...do you think it will be "fitted" with active stealth ? or maybe it already has it ??...

doubt it, but intreging.

It would be wierdif an enemy fighter knew where it would be at a specific time and was waiting, then when the 747 Air Foce 1 Flies by they see it on there radar but they dont see it, lol, they would probably be pounding on there instriments thinking they are malfunctioning.

Originally posted by Kriskaos
OK I agree with the the cloaking thing but to get a plane cloaked you would need millions of cells that recreate the surroundings of the area also they would have to nano cells to not create a blurred distortion. Also the computer and receptors would have to reconfigure every nano second of air the plane travels.

This is totally achieveable right now, trust me.

the best forms of implementing this technology would be on tanks, self-propelled howitzers and artillery and helicopters

for tanks, it wouldn't be a problem, not that much of a problem anyways, just lower the decibal level of the tanks and implement a few strategies for making the tank stealthy and u have an awesome tank there

an example will be America's future stealth tank the M2 Knox, the american army is only requesting 333 of these because they will cost a lot more than the M1A2 Abrams here's a site

www.icons.umd.edu...

yea, just do the same for both tanks and self-propelled pieces of artillery(such as howitzers) equip them with stealth and visual deception techniques

but helicopters, #, this will be hard, we already know that RAM and paint coatings work on helicopters exp. RAH-66

www.lowobservable.com...

and apply this visual stealth, it would be a lot easier on the avionics because helicopters move much slower than supersonic aircraft and therefore the computer systems don't need to be as advanced, anyways, reduce the niose, i think they already ddi that with the RAH-66 by putting the engine exhaust slot under the fuselage

just a quick question i've heard many reports that the US will operate the RAH-66 in 2006, but i have also heard reports that the project was cancelled because it costed too much or something like that

The Comanche is cancelled, and any site that says otherwise hasn't been updated. (and theres a LOT of those)

The Comanche was quiter then others because of its engines and blades. Its exhaust heat was funneled to the back so it could be dispersed very quickly by the tail rotor.

Ground vehicles will be the last thing to go visual stealth because its easier for the enemy to get there hands on it. Helicopters are one thing that should have visual stealth, but again, it they shoot it down, then they have this tech capability.