Chinese Researchers Reveal Active Stealthy Material (popsci.com)

hackingbear writes: Even after billions and billions of dollars spent on the stealthy skin used on F-22, F-35 and B-2, the material has weaknesses, and one of those is ultra-high-frequency (UHF) radar, which can pick up traces of the plane that other radar misses. Chinese researchers came to the rescue and created a material just 5/16 of an inch thick that can safeguard stealth planes against UHF detection. The material tunes itself to a range of detection frequencies, protecting against a large swath of radar scans. What's even more amazing? They published this seemingly top secret invention wide open in the Journal of Applied Physics .

Comments

So...

[Etherwalk]

Are they publishing it because (1) they have something better, (2) they have figured out a way to beat it and hope we will use it, or (3) they were simply incompetent?

Re:So...

[Anonymous Coward]

They stole it from the Americans and want everybody to know because that's what is "really" used in US stealth aircraft, the bastards!

Well if you want to go down that route, the Americans stole stealth technology from the Russians. It was Russians that first published a physics paper on stealth technology although at the time it wasn't called that. Free science paper for all to read. The Americans read it, understood the implications and went the engineering road culminating in the SR71 and later the F117.

Re:So...

[Zocalo]

I'm going with 1 *and* 2. Based on discussions I have had with Chinese tech companies the days of China having to steal all of its tech and being incapable of developing its own are long since past and they are now quite capable of developing stuff on their own, from scratch if need be. Any industrial espionage is more than likely just to save them time and effort so they can take a shortcut and compare notes.

I'm also reminded of how the US once published spy satellite pictures of the Nile delta showing all of the subterranean waterways as a means of informing the Russian military that they could, by inference, also see all of the missile silos and other underground facilities the Soviets had build in Siberia, etc.; so this is probably also about sending a similar message. Quite nicely done too, unlike the Russian's ham fisted efforts with their "leak" of nuclear torpedo schematics via state TV over the weekend. Yeah right, like the Ra-Ra-Putin Channel doesn't have an official censor to vet everything it airs...

Re:So...

[DarkOx]

They just set up the puppet governments that do the US bidding.

Friendly yes puppets no. Its true that the governments we helped stand up after or during various conflicts are usually friendly to us. That is beneficial yes its good to have friends. Its good for them to keep us as friends too, in almost all those cases those governments could not resist the various threats to them without an umbrella of US Military protection or at least apparent protection.

The are not puppets though, their self interesting in survival, not causing us to have to sever ties with them is a requirement for that. Even with that said most of those governments very much have at times resisted our policies in favor of their other interests. We have permitted them to do that as well. Its not colonialism and its not expansionism its something certainly but its neither of those things.

I am not saying its all good either, just trying to be fair.

Re:Gamble?

[gtall]

The future of air warfare (neglecting space) is pilotless aircraft. They can pull much higher Gs and no pilot means you don't have to put up with propaganda showing captured pilots. Just about all of the U.S. military knows this except a few spaghetti splattered uniformed Air Force generals.

this compound is worthless

[WindBourne]

first, UHF does not detect American stealth. China just claims it in hopes that fools will buy their radar.
China is giving up nothing. They have a compound that will absorb UHF, but all others are reflected. IOW, it is worthless.
So, why not publish it?

Re:5/16 Inch = 8mm

[kelarius]

While it may or may not be dense, it's not likely to be conducive towards aircraft design, adding 8mm of material all over an airplane would A) royally fuck the aerodynamics and B) be stupidly hard to maintain. Think covering your plane in Styrofoam, you're going to lose alot of material to air friction every time you move the thing around.

And also I don't see much practical ground application, UHF isn't very useful for ground target detection due to it's inability to penetrate ground clutter. I suppose you could slap this stuff on a naval vessel and effectively "raise the horizon" on your vessel from surface detection but again, limited use.

I suspect the Chinese allowed this article to go to print as there isn't alot of military application here for a material as unwieldy as this, and they likely (and probably correctly) assumed that other governments are already aware of this material and have decided not to use it, for the same reasons.