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By: - 6th April 2013 at 20:51 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
I don't think anybody in particular was the "inventor" of stealth, as reducing visibility became popular right at the time when aircraft were incorporated in military forces. This visual component of "stealth" evolved through counter-shading and what not, up to the point of active optical camouflage by the second World War.
People started taking a look at reducing infrared visibility when infrared devices started seeing action (also during World War II).
Likewise, reducing radar visbility quickly became a matter of interest when radars became an important component of air defense (WWII again...). Other "stealthy" things like avoiding contrails have been done since planes first were able to reach altitudes where contrail formation is common, and on it goes. These and many others are the components of stealth, and they are all just as old as the things they're supposed to "hide" from, with visual stealth being the oldest (as eyes predate aircraft :D).
Ufimtsev did however perfect the mathematical framework for calculating radar cross sections (as opposed to the earlier, more trial-and-error laden approach). Thus he can be said to be the father of modern (radar) stealth, but obviously not the inventor of the phenomena itself.
It has to be said that off setting the power balance by sheer performance was the more viable option back in the day, even though certain high performance aircraft also incorporated early "stealth" measures (e.g. the A-12/SR-71). Thus interest in "stealth" skyrocketed at the time that became more difficult, and thanks to Ufimtsev, Lockheed (that saw the potential in his research) and FBW (that was sorely needed to get the earlier products flightworthy) modern stealth made its entrance in the late 70's (though not in the public eye, of course).
I have a vague recollection of Ufimtsev being tasked by the USSR to model an aircraft based on his ideas. The end result was supposed to have been a grotesque looking thing (F-117-like...) and deemed totally unflyable and useless at the time (pre computer-assisted FBW).
Lockheed engineers had a far more successful go at it later (when the necessary parallell technologies had matured), and when Ufimtsev first saw the American F-117 he's supposed to have said "that's exactly what I meant" or something along those lines.
If anything, Lockheed deserves just as much cred as Ufimtsev, I'd say. :) And FBW deserves cred, and the Horten brothers deserve cred... And about a gazillion other inventors and theoreticians, too...
By: - 6th April 2013 at 21:04 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Stealth is Russian invention? Not quite.
What Ufimtsev demonstrated was that it would be possible to calculate the RCS of a complex shape by breaking it down into a series of smaller more easily calculable flat surfaces. So the RCS of a design could be predicted before it was built. The Soviets considered this technique to be so unimportant that they allowed it to be published in an unclassified journal.
Lockheed realised was that this concept would allow them to assess the real-world effects of technological developments in RCS-reduction. Skunk Works designers still faced the problems of developing a structure based on emerging low-RCS technology, and working out how in practice such as aircraft would be assembled.
By: - 6th April 2013 at 21:06 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
To put into the simplest terms that even those that arrived here on the short bus can understand: NO
What the Russian Scientist did was come up with a theory and some calculations of what if would take to achieve a low enough RCS to be tactically significant. Unfortunately, they were not able to further develop, prove, and take advantage of his theories.
People & governments have been trying to hide from and fool radar since the day it was first turned on. It was not something that the Russians started.
Think of it this way... Who invented the airplane? Without thinking the first name in your mind will be the Wright Brothers. Why? Simple as they were the first to make it work. Can you remember the hundreds of people that studied flight going back hundreds of years? Of course not since they could not make it work.
The same hold true for stealth.
By: - 6th April 2013 at 21:08 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
How much stealth or RCS reducement did the SR-71 incorporate back in the days?
Cause thinking of it, it was both detected and tracked on many different occation by SU Land based Radar stations, and they manage to guide their Migs on an intercept course on some occations as well. Alltough it never was sucsessfull.
Given the Radar technology of SU back then and the altitude of the SR-71, it sounds as the Stealth enhancment was not something to write home about..
By: - 6th April 2013 at 21:20 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
How much stealth or RCS reducement did the SR-71 incorporate back in the days?
Not a militarily-significant amount. I have some figures in my files, but not the time to look them up right now. For the next week I will be travelling to warmer climes, and my mental energies are going to be focussed on nothing more modern than the 22nd Dynasty of Ancient Egypt.
All going well, I will try to dig out the SR-71 RCS stuff when I get back, provided that the Little Man with the Bad Haircut does not provide me with a new set of work-related priorities. But my experience has been that absence from my desk usually results in an overflowing IN tray.
By: - 6th April 2013 at 21:29 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Brits used RAM to tailor multipath and improve antenna performance early in WWII. Americans borrowed the idea and expanded it. In 1959-60, initial work on Fish, Kingfish and A-11 began. The idea was to reduce the tracking range of X-band SAM radars like those which shot down Gary Powers.
By: - 6th April 2013 at 21:34 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Didn't the Horten wing also work pretty well..20% reduction in RCS ?
By: - 6th April 2013 at 21:43 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Not a militarily-significant amount. I have some figures in my files, but not the time to look them up right now. For the next week I will be travelling to warmer climes, and my mental energies are going to be focussed on nothing more modern than the 22nd Dynasty of Ancient Egypt.All going well, I will try to dig out the SR-71 RCS stuff when I get back, provided that the Little Man with the Bad Haircut does not provide me with a new set of work-related priorities. But my experience has been that absence from my desk usually results in an overflowing IN tray.
GL with Bubastite
By: - 6th April 2013 at 21:52 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
no, its german.
By: - 6th April 2013 at 22:05 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
British Mosquito :O
http://voices.yahoo.com/the-first-stealth-fighter-de-havilland-mosquito-486295.html
By: - 6th April 2013 at 22:25 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
no, its german.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weFQ2FfbMfc
By: - 7th April 2013 at 23:27 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lq-xlLcL_1kPetr Ufimtsev
What of it if it were? (i.e. who cares, why would it matter?)
By: - 7th April 2013 at 23:34 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Fortunately (or unfortunately depending on your perspective) enough, it took a free society to recognize the potential brilliance and importance of his original theoretical work. In fact, I think it speaks volumes in an anecdotal sense as to why the USSR was ultimately doomed to absolute failure.
By: - 8th April 2013 at 00:16 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Fortunately (or unfortunately depending on your perspective) enough, it took a free society to recognize the potential brilliance and importance of his original theoretical work. In fact, I think it speaks volumes in an anecdotal sense as to why the USSR was ultimately doomed to absolute failure.
This must be why Germany led the world in R&D for the first half of the 20th century. :rolleyes:
American mythology is always amusing.
By: - 8th April 2013 at 01:48 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
This must be why Germany led the world in R&D for the first half of the 20th century. :rolleyes:American mythology is always amusing.
Both societies (USSR and Nazi Germany) suffered under extremely self destructive governments/dictatorships. Hitler did welcome innovation and scientific free thought more than the Soviets did from what I have gathered, and I certainly wouldn't argue that both weren't innovative at times. Obviously the Soviet Union recognized the value of German wartime space advances, and they quickly succeeded in beating the rest of the world in that realm. They had a lot of indigenous intellect and technical expertise, but unfortunately for them, it seems like more often than not, unless the Kremlin ordered it, innovations were lost by the wayside. It took an act of God (or maybe the Politburo more specifically) to even permit the pursuit of a blended wing design in the MIG-29, and clearly only after Western success with such a design (ie F-15, etc) proved to them that it was worth anything. They were smart people that could have done a lot more with their skills and resources had they been allowed to....that is my point, not to poke fun at them as a society, but rather to point out that their system of government hindered their success......I don't think anyone would argue that the USSR was defeated by anything else than itself.
By: - 8th April 2013 at 02:32 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Apologies for my previous tone. I agree that institutions and societies can be structured so as to encourage innovation or discourage it; however I do not believe one can simply reduce this to a comparison of 'free' vs. 'unfree' societies. The most significant complicating factor is the role of state capital, which in turn leverages off the wealth of the society. It is American wealth (which is not exceptional on per-person basis, America simply has more people than other advanced nations) that propelled it to the forefront of global science and industry, not American values or ideas.
Consider the signature technologies of the 20th century: aircraft, space technology, nuclear technology, even computer technology extending to the internet -- all involved massive state intervention and funding. The trend for future technologies appears little different: today governments all over the world are pouring money into e.g. new energy storage mechanisms such as fuel cells. The prospects are murky, but without this state support (driven in part by competition between states) they would be almost non-existent. Private industry simply won't invest needed funds for so uncertain return. Advances in civil aviation have slowed to a crawl precisely because civil aviation has diverged from the military (i.e. state-funded) path that it was able to piggyback until the 1960s. The age of the backyard tinkerer is well and truly over.
Regarding the Soviet system, I have no doubt that it often acted to suppress innovation. But on the other hand, without the Soviet state-led industrialisation programs the matter of blended wing design would not have arisen in the first place and the relevant personages would be disagreeing over approaches to crop rotation! I am not endorsing the human costs of those industrialisation programs -- although one can understand the impetus for them in the context of the international system esp. a reviving Germany -- merely presenting the point.
Irrespective of governmental system I think the increasingly capital-intensive nature of major R&D is acting to dampen innovation compared to previous eras. The more money is involved, the less risk folks -- state, corporate, private investor -- are willing to take. The only way to bypass this is with a radical vision from the top divorced from strict risk assessment grounds, akin to the 1960s space program commitment. Neither contemporary American or Chinese systems seem particularly amenable to this kind of thing, although competition with one another can promote it. For better or worse, when Stalin or Hitler has an idea everyone gets on board. :p
By: - 8th April 2013 at 02:41 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Considering how many risky and innovative technologies the USSR went with in their defense industry, using their rejection of Ufimstev's work as an across-the-board illustration of the USSR's tendencies is ridiculous.
By: - 8th April 2013 at 02:56 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Only Soviets could invent the anti-tank dog. :p
By: - 8th April 2013 at 06:35 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Only Soviets could invent the anti-tank dog. :p
Or engineered man-ape hybrid to work on the salt mines !
Sorry but that document really blew me away.
By: - 8th April 2013 at 10:47 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
To put into the simplest terms that even those that arrived here on the short bus can understand: NO
Absolutely right. Ufimtsev's work was just one step (a valuable one) on a long path. For example, he depended on Clerk Maxwell's equations, & as the former head of the Lampyridae project when it was revealed in the 1990s, they'd been public for over 100 years, so it was hardly a surprise that Germany & the USA independently arrived at similar solutions for a low RCS aircraft).
People & governments have been trying to hide from and fool radar since the day it was first turned on. It was not something that the Russians started.
Also absolutely right. But as already said up-thread, stealth is more than low RCS. Aircraft have been designed to be quiet, for low-speed low-altitude infiltration, for example. That's stealth - and it's been made to work, & used successfully in war. Painting them in low-visibility colours has been done since WW1. That's stealth. Infra-red signature suppression is stealth, & has been done for many years.
We're talking about incremental change, not revolutions.
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By: topspeed - 6th April 2013 at 19:46
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lq-xlLcL_1k
Petr Ufimtsev