20 OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2018 www.vanguardcanada.com
Stealth:
stealth is a term that
has come to mean total
inVisiBility. thanks to
hollywood and irre-
sponsiBle reporting,
most people think that
stealth is supposed
to make an aircraft
completely inVisiBle to
radar, infrared and eVen
the naked eye.
AerosPACe
BY CHRIS BLACk
Lo and BehoLd
Lockheed Martin F-117. (Photo: Lockheed Martin)
T
his of course, like so many
other things, is far from re-
ality. Stealth isn't meant to
make an aircraft invisible
per se; its intended purpose
is to diminish a radar or infrared aircraft
signature sufficiently to make targeting
difficult or even impossible. Depending
on the system, it can be almost invisible
as discerning a stealth aircraft signature
from background clutter at range can be
difficult. Modern stealth fighters like the
F-22 and F-35 make use of multiple lay-
ers of stealth technology to achieve these
goals.
The first and most obvious aspect of lay-
ered stealth design arose from the "Have
Blue" demonstrator, which was Lock-
heed's proof-of-concept for what would
become the F-117 program. The shape
and angular design of the airframe aims
to deflect and scatter as much radar en-
ergy away from the receiver as possible.
This way less signal returns to the receiver
which makes targeting aircraft more dif-
ficult. This particular tactic is still quite
effective; however, as modern radars are
more sophisticated and better able to col-
lect signals, they're also better at separat-
ing background clutter and noise, which
further improves tracking capabilities de-
spite these measures. The F-117's faceted
design limits its kinematic performance.
That's why the F-22 and F-35 fighter jets
have only a few deflection angles in their
design, while retaining an appearance
more similar to traditional fighters. Their
designs are more effective from frontal
