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Chinese Researchers Reveal Active Stealthy Material (popsci.com)

Posted by timothy on from the roach-hotel-for-signals dept.

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 .

6 of 138 comments (clear)

  1. So... by Etherwalk · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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?

    1. Re:So... by gtall · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Oh, which country has the U.S. stolen since WWII, Tibet? Which sea is the U.S. claiming to entirely own, the S. China Sea? And them missiles aimed at Taiwan, the U.S. is claiming to own that as well?

    2. Re:So... by SharpFang · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yep, the first free elections in Iraq. The Nation spoke. They wanted islamist fundamentalist party at the helm. The USA choose to simply disregard the results of the elections and set up a government of their choice. "Democracy."

      "Puppet government" and "government friendly to us" is just two different names for the same thing, depending on which side you're sitting.

      "self-interest in survival" is a very interesting way to put their motivations behind remaining friendly to the USA.

      --
      45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
    3. Re:So... by Gim+Tom · · Score: 5, Informative

      The Russian physics paper was very theoretical and derived the equations needed to show that this technology was possible. The equations could not, and probably still can not, be directly solved. However, this paper was translated by the US Air Force as were many such technical publications and circulated through channels to aircraft manufacturers, and others. It was an engineer at Lockheed who realized that you could implement this technology without solving the equations if you were willing to devote huge amounts of computer resources to doing numerical solutions, which, are great for engineers, but frowned upon by theorists. We had the computer power to do this and the USSR did not. Even then the F117, sometimes called the wobbly goblin, had to sacrifice much in terms of aerodynamics and flight characteristics to implement the first true stealth aircraft.

  2. 5/16 Inch = 8mm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Translation: 5/16 Inch = 8mm

  3. Re:Gamble? by Z00L00K · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Dodging in the form of guerrilla warfare where you move around all the time seems to work still. It's why it was so hard to find Bin Laden and that there's still ongoing work trying to locate IS leaders.

    Bunkers are outdated when it comes to serious assault stuff, but such weapons are expensive and limited in supply so if you can trick your opponent into wasting bunker busters and missiles by fake bunkers and similar then you can at least let things play in your favor.

    During WWI it was not unusual to have the "disappearing guns" in fixed artillery fortress locations protecting harbors. They became obsolete with the advent of the bomber aircraft, which resulted in a ceiling on the fortresses to protect against incoming bombs, which was pretty common during WWII. When the battleships got gyro-stabilized guns with high precision and aircraft able to do precision attacks on bunkers they became obsolete too since they now were essentially death traps.

    That's why most artillery units (both coastal and land) today are highly mobile. They can be operated by 1-2 men, stop and fire several rounds in under a minute and then be on their way again. (Bofors Archer)

    When you look at aircraft today it's a lot of stealth, but the downside with that technology is that it limits the punch it can carry. The A10 is non-stealth, and carries over 1000 30mm rounds, carries rockets externally to the level that it looks like a porcupine while the F-35 has a few hundred 20mm rounds and have to hide every rocket inside the hull. The stealth capabilities are also constraining the aerodynamics so that maneuverability suffers.

    However the advantage with stealth is that the first strike may appear with little warning, but after that the advantage is lower - and since the carried payload is lower it takes more missions to get the job done. A war zone is also highly fluid - the weapons you brought with you at the beginning of the mission may not be the right weapons when you arrive in the strike zone.

    --
    If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.