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Chinese Stealth Fighter Jet May Use US Technology
Ponca City writes "In 1999, a US F-117 Nighthawk was downed by a Serbian anti-aircraft missile during a bombing raid. It was the first time one of the fighters had been hit, and the Pentagon blamed clever tactics and sheer luck. The pilot ejected and was rescued. Now, the Guardian reports that pieces of the wrecked F-117 stealth fighter ended up in the hands of foreign military attaches. 'At the time, our intelligence reports told of Chinese agents crisscrossing the region where the F-117 disintegrated, buying up parts of the plane from local farmers,' says Admiral Davor Domazet-Loso, Croatia's military chief of staff during the Kosovo war. 'We believe the Chinese used those materials to gain an insight into secret stealth technologies... and to reverse-engineer them.' Zoran Kusovac says the Serbian regime routinely shared captured western equipment with its Chinese and Russian allies. 'The destroyed F-117 topped that wish-list for both the Russians and Chinese,' says Kusovac."
So our F-117A gets shot down by a Yugoslav-made SAM, based on a Soviet design, in Serbia ten years ago. The F-117A was already close to 20 years old at the time, and it was retired in 2008. This is definitely the tech I want to be copying for my state-of-the-art stealth aircraft.
So, why exactly are we concerned that the J-20 will give the F-22 or F-35 a run for their money? We already know that the F-22 can splash (in mock combat) F-15s and F-16s with missiles before the F-22 is even detected. If the Chinese merely copied stealth tech from the F-117A and (apparently) photos of the F-35, is it really going to have good enough stealth to stand up against the F-22 or even just the F-35 in actual combat?
The F-117 was used in the Serbian conflict because it had the ability to make quick, stealthy precision strikes on the Serbian air command, paving the way for the heavy cavalry to move in and decimate the ground forces.
As a Hungarian, I'm also pleased that the one and only time the Goblin was downed was at the hands of a Hungarian commander, one Zoltán Dani, who used an old modified Russian radar unit operating at very long wavelengths to defeat the F-117's stealth capability, and used manual guidance on the missiles along with several spotters who reported the flight path.
As for the new Chinese stealth fighter, it's reported to be an even match for the Raptor, and used designs on a Lockheed HDD that was not wiped before being sold overseas. I wonder what else remained on that drive, though...
Hyperbole: I use it liberally!
In March it was shot down, in May, the US "accidentally" bombed the Chinese Embassy. There was widespread speculation the next day that it was to destroy stealth material. It wasn't a random bomb that fell onto Embassy grounds, but the most precise bomb that was available, with GPS coordinates given by the CIA rather than military intelligence, and dropped right on top of a specific foreign agents office, 5 times.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._bombing_of_the_Chinese_embassy_in_Belgrade
The F-117 was used in the Serbian conflict because it had the ability to make quick, stealthy precision strikes on the Serbian air command, paving the way for the heavy cavalry to move in and decimate the ground forces.
When I visited Belgrade some years ago, I was told by someone in a position to know that US planes were actually kept away from the most demanding targets. Apparently, it was mostly the French (gasp!) who accounted for the strikes in downtown Belgrade. Their handiwork was impressive, to say the least: The Ministry of Defence building was completely destroyed, falling in on itself, while neighbouring buildings sported only a few nicks from flying debris.
The US were responsible for at least one raid in Belgrade itself. But more about that in a moment....
As a Hungarian, I'm also pleased that the one and only time the Goblin was downed was at the hands of a Hungarian commander, one Zoltán Dani, who used an old modified Russian radar unit operating at very long wavelengths to defeat the F-117's stealth capability, and used manual guidance on the missiles along with several spotters who reported the flight path.
At least some parts of the wreckage must have made it into the Chinese hands. That would account for the *cough* tragically mistaken bombing of the their Embassy. (The US knew what it was doing. If you don't think that NATO had spotters on the ground, you too are tragically mistaken.)
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
I'm pretty skeptical that these pieces could really have led to a stealth fighter. Stealth tech isn't that tough to figure out and I'm sure the most you can gain from these pieces is what materials were used.
There's actually quite a bit of complicated technology to stealth fighters or everyone would have had them by now.
First of all there's the chemistry of the ablative coatings used on the equipment. They have to absorb wavelengths, prevent infrared emissions from the aircraft, scatter radar in a certain manner, and still be light, adhere well, provide corrosion resistance, and so on.
There's also specific angles for stuff like air intakes, exhaust nozzles, instrumentation, etc. so you have as little backscatter on radar as possible. Some of the concepts are simple but tricky to implement in an vehicle that still needs to be aerodynamic and efficient in flight. These aircraft also use special alloys for various purposes and pieces of the aircraft would be great for reverse engineering those alloys.
All this stuff still has to be able to fly and there's a lot of engineering involved in designing the control surfaces, not to mention the computerized and fly-by-wire systems needed to stabilize a craft which is not as easy to control as a non-stealth aircraft.
So yeah, there's a lot of technology for someone to capture.
Sapere aude!
One of the more serious problems with the military-industrial complex's development process, besides obvious little things like threatening to kill millions of people and possibly initiate nuclear winter, is that it takes a large number of scientists and engineers and diverts them away from useful civilian technology and diverts their talents to working on projects that ideally will never be used, and hides any parts of that work that could be useful away where the public can't use it.
A long time ago (perhaps in the 1960s) I saw a quote from the head of one of the major Japanese corporations. Might have been Sony, but I can't find it now. He said (something like) "American engineers are very good, American first-rate engineers are better than ours. But your first-rate engineers are working on military products. We're building consumer products, and win in the marketplace because our first-rate engineers are better than your second-rate engineers."