F-22 Raptor Stealth
A quick look at the F-22 reveals an adherence to fundamental shaping principles of a stealthy design. The leading and trailing edges of the wing and tail have identical sweep angles (a design technique called planform alignment). The fuselage and canopy have sloping sides. The canopy seam, bay doors, and other surface interfaces are sawtoothed. The vertical tails are canted. The engine face is deeply hidden by a serpentine inlet duct and weapons are carried internally.
Advances in low-observable technologies provide significantly improved survivability and lethality against air-to-air and surface-to-air threats. The F-22's combination of reduced observability and supercruise accentuates the advantage of surprise in a tactical environment. The most publicized and most revolutionary technology for aircraft is stealth. Stealth makes an object become very difficult to detect by sensors such as radar, heat seekers (infrared), sound detectors and even the human eye. While not invisible, the F-22's radar cross section is comparable to the radar cross sections of birds and bees. Compared to other current fighters, the F-22 is much more difficult to detect.
To make a stealthy aircraft, designers had to consider five key ingredients: reducing the imprint on radar screens, muffling noise, turning down the heat of its infrared picture, stifling radio transmissions and making the plane less visible. The leading and trailing edges of the wing and tail have identical sweep angles (a design technique called planform alignment). The fuselage and canopy have sloping sides. The canopy seam, bay doors and other surface interfaces are saw-toothed. The vertical tails are canted. The engine face is deeply hidden by a serpentine inlet duct and weapons are carried internally.
The F-22 represents a significant design evolution beyond the highly successful F-117A Nighthawk stealth fighter, with performance not achievable by today's front-line fighters. Low observable, or stealth, technology has advanced to the point where conventional aerodynamic configurations can be made incorporating low observability without compromising aerodynamic performance or increasing costs significantly. Design development risk was greatly reduced by the performance demonstrated in the dem/val program where angle of attack attitudes up to 60 degrees were flown. The validity of the low observability features of the F-22's design were confirmed by full-scale pole model testing.
Low observability is achieved by a range of measures. The F-22 employs planform shaping and faceting with blended facet boundaries, the latter a necessary concession to high performance aerodynamics. This is apparent in the shape of the nose, the fuselage sides about the inlets and engines, and the upper forward fuselage. Lockheed/B/GD used serrated edges extensively, as with the F-117A, to control the returns from panel boundaries, this is very visible on the undercarriage and weapon bay doors. The planform results in a multiple lobe design, as the boundaries of the major surfaces are not parallel with respect to each other. Planform return lobe structure is defined by the radiation pattern lobes resulting from surface wave reflections which occur at the leading and trailing edges of the airframe's major surfaces. The objective of lobing is to concentrate this unavoidable radar return into specific directions so as to minimise frontal/aft/beam aspect return and maximise scintillation in the direction of the lobe. Scintillation is a measure of how rapidly the size of the return varies with angle, the greater this variation, the more difficult a target is to track. The lower the number of lobes and the narrower the lobes, the lower the probability of detecting any return.
Radar absorbant materials, or RAM is applied sparingly on the F-22 airframe as opposed to the entire airframe on the F-117. This is because designers have incorporated curves on crucial surfaces and edges, which lessens the need for RAM. For example, new ceramic-matrix RAM is utilized on the engine exhaust nozzles to reduce radar and IR signatures, and a greater amount of wide-band structural RAM is used on the wing edges. The interesting shape of the radome on the F-22 reflects radar signals at all frequencies except the precise wavelengths emitted from the F-22. This can be attributed to the radome's low bandpass type.
To apply the complex system of paints and coatings necessary to meet the F-22's stringent radar cross section (RCS) requirements takes not only state-of-the-art equipment and hands-on technicians, but also a wide-ranging support system. A new type of paint, or topcoat, increases the F-22 Raptor's stealthiness by reducing its vulnerability to infrared threats. To meet F-22 requirements, Boeing developed the topcoat to protect the aircraft against a broad range of wavelengths. The new paint replaces conventional topcoats, performing all the required environmentally protective functions while also reducing the aircraft's vulnerability to detection. The topcoat does not add to the F-22's weight, and provides performance enhancement at a very modest cost. It is applied in a two-tone camouflage design, patterned after the F-15 "Mod-Eagle" paint scheme. Development of the new topcoat began during the early stages of the F-22 program. Since that time, a small team at Boeing in Seattle has worked to refine the paint and improve its application characteristics in a production-level environment. Technicians at Lockheed
Another important feature of the F-22's stealth characteristics is the new low-RCS air data system. This system uses four ports distributed along the forward fuselage to reduce emission control (EMCON). In addition, the F-22 is the first fighter aircraft to include a completely frameless canopy. This eliminates RCS reflections from the windshield arc without compromising structural integrity.
Fundamentals of Stealth Design
Design for low observability, and specifically for low radar cross section (RCS), began almost as soon as radar was invented. The predominantly wooden deHavilland Mosquito was one of the first aircraft to be designed with this capability in mind.
Against World War II radar systems, that approach was fairly successful, but it would not be appropriate today. First, wood and, by extension, composite materials, are not transparent to radar, although they may be less reflective than metal; and second, the degree to which they are transparent merely amplifies the components that are normally hidden by the outer skin. These include engines, fuel, avionics packages, electrical and hydraulic circuits, and people.
In the late 1950s, radar absorbing materials were incorporated into the design of otherwise conventionally designed aircraft. These materials had two purposes: to reduce the aircraft cross section against specific threats, and to isolate multiple antennas on aircraft to prevent cross talk. The Lockheed U-2 reconnaissance airplane is an example in this category.
By the 1960s, sufficient analytical knowledge had disseminated into the design community that the gross effects of different shapes and components could be assessed. It was quickly realized that a flat plate at right angles to an impinging radar wave has a very large radar signal, and a cavity, similarly located, also has a large return.
Thus, the inlet and exhaust systems of a jet aircraft would be expected to be dominant contributors to radar cross section in the nose on and tail on viewing directions, and the vertical tail dominates the side on signature.
Airplanes could now be designed with appropriate shaping and materials to reduce their radar cross sections, but as good numerical design procedures were not available, it was unlikely that a completely balanced design would result In other words, there was always likely to be a component that dominated the return in a particular direction. This was the era of the Lockheed SR-71 'Blackbird'.
Ten years later, numerical methods were developed that allowed a quantitative assessment of contributions from different parts of a body. It was thus possible to design an aircraft with a balanced radar cross section and to minimize the return from dominant scatterers. This approach led to the design of the Lockheed F-117A and Northrop B-2 stealth aircraft.
Since then there has been continuous improvement in both analytical and experimental methods, particularly with respect to integration of shaping and materials. At the same time, the counter stealth faction is developing an increasing understanding of its requirements, forcing the stealth community into another round of improvements. The message is, that with all the dramatic improvements of the last two decades, there is little evidence of leveling off in capability.
Radar Cross Section Fundamentals
There are two basic approaches to passive radar cross section reduction: shaping to minimize backscatter, and coating for energy absorption and cancellation. Both of these approaches have to be used coherently in aircraft design to achieve the required low observable levels over the appropriate frequency range in the electromagnetic spectrum.
There is a tremendous advantage to positioning surfaces so that the radar wave strikes them at close to tangential angles and far from right angles to edges, as will now be illustrated.
To a first approximation, when the diameter of a sphere is significantly larger than the radar wavelength, its radar cross section is equal to its geometric frontal area.
The return of a one-square-meter sphere is compared to that from a one-meter-square plate at different look angles. One case to consider is a rotation of the plate from normal incidence to a shallow angle, with the radar beam at right angles to a pair of edges. The other is with the radar beam at 45 degrees to the edges. The frequency is selected so that the wavelength is about 1/10 of the length of the plate, in this case very typical of acquisition radars on surface to air missile systems.
At normal incidence, the flat plate acts like a mirror, and its return is 30 decibels (dB) above (or 1,000 times) the return from the sphere. If we now rotate the plate about one edge so that the edge is always normal to the incoming wave, we find that the cross section drops by a factor of 1,000, equal to that of the sphere, when the look angle reaches 30 degrees off normal to the plate.
As the angle is increased, the locus of maxima falls by about another factor Of 50, for a total change of 50,000 from the normal look angle.
Now if you go back to the normal incidence case and rotate the plate about a diagonal relative to the incoming wave, there is a remarkable difference. In this case, the cross section drops by 30 dB when the plate is only eight degrees off normal, and drops another 40 dB by the time the plate is at a shallow angle to the incoming radar beam. This is a total change in radar cross section of 10,000,000!
From this, it would seem that it is fairly easy to decrease the radar cross section substantially by merely avoiding obviously high-return shapes and attitude angles.
However, multiple-reflection cases have not yet been looked at, which change the situation considerably. It is fairly obvious that energy aimed into a long, narrow, closed cavity, which is a perfect reflector internally, will bounce back in the general direction of its source. Furthermore, the shape of the cavity downstream of the entrance clearly does not influence this conclusion.
However, the energy reflected from a straight duct will be reflected in one or two bounces, while that from a curved duct will require four or five bounces. It can be imagined that with a little skill, the number of bounces can be increased significantly without sacrificing aerodynamic performance. For example, a cavity might be designed with a high-cross-sectional aspect ratio to maximize the length-to-height ratio. If we can attenuate the signal to some extent with each bounce, then clearly there is a significant advantage to a multi-bounce design. The SR-71 inlet follows these design practices.
However, there is a little more to the story than just the so called ray tracing approach.
When energy strikes a plate that is smooth compared to wavelength, it does not reflect totally in the optical approximation sense, i.e., the energy is not confined to a reflected wave at a complementary angle to the incoming wave.
The radiated energy, in fact, takes a pattern like a typical reflected wave structure. The width of the main forward scattered spike is proportional to the ratio of the wavelength to the dimension of the reradiating surface, as are the magnitudes of the secondary and tertiary spikes. The classical optical approximation applies when this ratio approaches zero. Thus, the backscatter - the energy radiated directly back to the transmitter increases as the wavelength goes up, or the frequency decreases.
When designing a cavity for minimum return, it is important to balance the forward scatter associated with ray tracing with the backscatter from interactions with the first surfaces. Clearly, an accurate calculation of the total energy returned to the transmitter is very complicated, and generally has to be done on a supercomputer.
It is fairly clear that although surface alignment is very important for external surfaces and inlet and exhaust edges, the return from the inside of a cavity is heavily dependent on attenuating materials. It is noted that the radar-frequency range of interest covers between two and three orders of magnitude. Permeability and dielectric constant are two properties that are closely associated with the effectivity of an attenuating material. They both vary considerably with frequency in different ways for different materials. Also, for a coating to be effective, it should have a thickness that is close to a quarter wavelength at the frequency of interest.
Reduction of radar cross section of engine nozzles is also very important, and is complicated by high material temperatures. The electromagnetic design requirements for coatings are not different from those for low temperatures, but structural integrity is a much bigger issue.
The driver determining radar return from a jet wake is the ionization present. Return from resistive particles, such as carbon, is seldom a significant factor. It Is important in calculating the return from an ionized wake to use nonequilibrium mathematics, particularly for medium and high altitude cases.
The very strong ion density dependency on maximum gas temperature quickly leads to the conclusion that the radar return from the jet wake of an engine running in dry power is insignificant, while that from an afterburning wake could be dominant.
When the basic aircraft signature is reduced to a very low level, detail design becomes very important. Access panel and door edges, for example, have the potential to be major contributors to radar cross section unless measures are taken to suppress them.
Based on the discussion of simple flat plates, it is clear that it is generally unsatisfactory to have a door edge at right angles to the direction of flight. This would result in a noticeable signal in a nose on aspect. Thus, conventional rectangular doors and access panels are unacceptable.
The solution is not only to sweep the panel edges, but to align those edges with other major edges on the aircraft.
The pilot's head, complete with helmet, is a major source of radar return. It is augmented by the bounce path returns associated with internal bulkheads and frame members. The solution is to design the cockpit so that its external shape conforms to good low radar cross section design rules, and then plate the glass with a film similar to that used for temperature control in commercial buildings.
Here, the requirements are more stringent: it should pass at least 85% of the visible energy and reflect essentially all of the radar energy. At the same time, a pilot would prefer not to have noticeable instrument-panel reflection during night flying.
On an unstable, fly by wire aircraft, it is extremely important to have redundant sources of aerodynamic data. These must be very accurate with respect to flow direction, and they must operate ice free at all times. Static and total pressure probes have been used, but they clearly represent compromises with stealth requirements. Several quite different techniques are in various stages of development.
On board antennas and radar systems are a major potential source of high radar visibility for two reasons. One is that it is obviously difficult to hide something that is designed to transmit with very high efficiency, so the so called in band radar cross section is liable to be significant. The other is that even if this problem is solved satisfactorily, the energy emitted by these systems can normally be readily detected. The work being done to reduce these signatures cannot be described here.
There are two significant sources of infrared radiation from air breathing propulsion systems: hot parts and jet wakes. The fundamental variables available for reducing radiation are temperature and emissivity, and the basic tool available is line of sight masking.
Recently some interesting progress has been made in directed energy, particularly for multiple bounce situations, but that subject will not be discussed further here. Emissivity can be a double edged sword, particularly inside a duct.
While a low emissivity surface will reduce the emitted energy, it will also enhance reflected energy that may be coming from a hotter internal region. Thus, a careful optimization must be made to determine the preferred emissivity pattern inside a jet engine exhaust pipe.
This pattern must be played against the frequency range available to detectors, which typically covers a band from one to 12 microns.
The short wavelengths are particularly effective at high temperatures, while the long wavelengths are most effective at typical ambient atmospheric temperatures. The required emissivity pattern as a function of both frequency and spatial dispersion having been determined, the next issue is how to make materials that fit the bill.
The first inclination of the infrared coating designer is to throw some metal flakes into a transparent binder. Coming up with a transparent binder over the frequency range of interest is not easy, and the radar coating man probably won't like the effects of the metal particles on his favorite observable.
The next move is usually to come up with a multi layer material, where the same cancellation approach that was discussed earlier regarding radar suppressant coatings is used. The dimensions now are in angstroms rather than millimeters.
The big push at present is in moving from metal layers in the films to metal oxides for radar cross section compatibility. Getting the required performance as a function of frequency is not easy, and it is a significant feat to get down to an emissivity of 0.1, particularly over a sustained frequency range. Thus, the biggest practical ratio of emissivities is liable to be one order of magnitude.
Everyone can recognize that all of this discussion is meaningless if engines continue to deposit carbon (one of the highest emissivity materials known) on duct walls. For the infrared coating to be effective, it is not sufficient to have a very low particulate ratio in the engine exhaust, but to have one that is essentially zero.
Carbon buildup on hot engine parts is a cumulative situation, and there are very few bright, shiny parts inside exhaust nozzles after a number of hours of operation. For this reason alone, it is likely that emissivity control will predominantly be employed on surfaces other than those exposed to engine exhaust gases, i.e., inlets and aircraft external parts.
The other available variable is temperature. This, in principle, gives a great deal more opportunity for radiation reduction than emissivity, because of the large exponential dependence. The general equation for emitted radiation is that it varies with the product of emissivity and temperature to the fourth power.
However, this is a great simplification, because it does not account for the frequency shift of radiation with temperature. In the frequency range at which most simple detectors work (one to five microns), and at typical hot-metal temperatures, the exponential dependency will be typically near eight rather than four, and so at a particular frequency corresponding to a specific detector, the radiation will be proportional to the product of the emissivity and temperature to the eighth power. It is fairly clear that a small reduction in temperature can have a much greater effect than any reasonably anticipated reduction in emissivity.
The third approach is masking. This is clearly much easier to do when the majority of the power is taken off by the turbine, as in a propjet or helicopter application, than when the jet provides the basic propulsive force.
The former community has been using this approach to infrared suppression for many years, but it is only recently that the jet-propulsion crowd has tackled this problem. The Lockheed F 117A and the Northrop B 2 both use a similar approach of masking to prevent any hot parts being visible in the lower hemisphere.
In summary, infrared radiation should be tackled by a combination of temperature reduction and masking, although there is no point in doing these past the point where the hot parts are no longer the dominant terms in the radiation equation.
The main body of the airplane has its own radiation, heavily dependent on speed and altitude, and the jet plume can be a most significant factor, particularly in afterburning operation. Strong cooperation between engine and airframe manufacturers in the early stages of design is extremely important. The choice of engine bypass ratio, for example, should not be made solely on the basis of performance, but on a combination of that and survivability for maximum system effectiveness.
The jet-wake radiation follows the same laws as the engine hot parts, a very strong dependency on temperature and a multiplicative factor of emissivity. Air has a very low emissivity, carbon particles have a high broadband emissivity, and water vapor emits in very specific bands.
Infrared seekers have mixed feelings about water vapor wavelengths, because, while they help in locating jet plumes, they hinder in terms of the general attenuation due to moisture content in the atmosphere. There is no reason, however, why smart seekers shouldn't be able to make an instant decision about whether conditions are favorable for using water-vapor bands for detection.
The low signatures achieved by modern special-purpose aircraft are due to a combination of shaping, material, material selection, and careful attention to detail design. Budgeting of component signatures across a wide range of frequencies and attitude angles is mandatory. just as in a blackout, the game can be given away by one chink of light.
Stealth
Although several recent Western fighter aircraft are less detectable on radar than previous designs using techniques such as radar absorbent material-coated S-shaped intake ducts that shield the compressor fan from reflecting radar waves, the F-22 design placed a much higher degree of importance on low observance throughout the entire spectrum of sensors including radar signature, visual, infrared, acoustic, and radio frequency.
The stealth of the F-22 is due to a combination of factors, including the overall shape of the aircraft, the use of radar absorbent material (RAM), and attention to detail such as hinges and pilot helmets that could provide a radar return.[58] However, reduced radar cross section is only one of five facets that designers addressed to create a stealth design in the F-22. The F-22 has also been designed to disguise its infrared emissions to make it harder to detect by infrared homing ("heat seeking") surface-to-air or air-to-air missiles. Designers also made the aircraft less visible to the naked eye, and controlled radio and noise emissions.[58] The Raptor has an under bay carrier made for hiding heat from missile threats, like surface-to-air missiles.[59]
The F-22 apparently relies less on maintenance-intensive radar absorbent material and coatings than previous stealth designs like the F-117. These materials caused deployment problems due to their susceptibility to adverse weather conditions.[60] Unlike the B-2, which requires climate-controlled hangars, the F-22 can undergo repairs on the flight line or in a normal hangar.[60] Furthermore, the F-22 has a warning system (called "Signature Assessment System" or "SAS") which presents warning indicators when routine wear-and-tear have degraded the aircraft's radar signature to the point of requiring more substantial repairs.[60] The exact radar cross section of the F-22 remains classified. In early 2009 Lockheed Martin released information on the F-22, showing it to have a radar cross section from certain critical angles of -40 dBsm — the equivalent radar reflection of a "steel marble".[61] However the stealth features of the F-22 require so much "tape and paste" maintenance work that their readiness rate is approximately 80% of non-stealth USAF fighters.[62][63]
B-2 Spirit
Two air force pilots are safe after their B-2 Stealth Bomber crashed on the island of Guam. The crash occurred Saturday morning local time as the B-2 Stealth bomber was taking off from Andersen Air Force base on Guam, a US territory that lies south of Japan. This is the first crash of a B-2, a $1.2 billion aircraft which first flew in July 1989. The United States had 21 of the bombers, nowe reduced to 20.
The B-2 Spirit is a multi-role bomber capable of delivering both conventional and nuclear munitions. Along with the B-52 and B-1B, the B-2 provides the penetrating flexibility and effectiveness inherent in manned bombers. Its low-observable, or "stealth," characteristics give it the unique ability to penetrate an enemy's most sophisticated defenses and threaten its most valued, and heavily defended, targets. Its capability to penetrate air defenses and threaten effective retaliation provide an effective deterrent and combat force well into the 21st century.
The blending of low-observable technologies with high aerodynamic efficiency and large payload gives the B-2 important advantages over existing bombers. Its low-observability provides it greater freedom of action at high altitudes, thus increasing its range and a better field of view for the aircraft's sensors.
Four General Electric F118-GE-100 non-afterburning turbofan engines (each delivering approximately 19,000 lbs. of thrust) drive the airplane to a maximum speed described as "high subsonic," and to altitudes near 50,000 ft. They also provide an unrefueled range of approximately 6,000 nautical miles. A single aerial refueling extends this to some 10,000 miles and multiple visits to air tankers stretches the range indefinitely.
The B-2's low observability is derived from a combination of reduced infrared, acoustic, electromagnetic, visual and radar signatures. These signatures make it difficult for the sophisticated defensive systems to detect, track and engage the B-2. Many aspects of the low-observability process remain classified; however, the B-2's composite materials, special coatings and flying-wing design all contribute to its "stealthiness."
The B-2 has a crew of two pilots, an aircraft commander in the left seat and mission commander in the right, compared to the B-1B's crew of four and the B-52's crew of five.
The B-2 is intended to deliver gravity nuclear and conventional weapons, including precision-guided standoff weapons. An interim, precision-guided bomb capability called Global Positioning System (GPS) Aided Targeting System/GPS Aided Munition (GATS/GAM) is being tested and evaluated. Initially the bomber’s principal weapon is the 2,000-pound Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM, GBU-31). The basic aircraft continues to undergo multiple modifications, some of which are aimed at correcting deficiencies in the original aircraft design, while others are intended to enhance capability and improve the aircraft’s operational effectiveness and suitability. Planned modifications for FY04 and beyond include addition of an extremely highfrequency satellite communication system, upgrades to the DMS, advances in LO materials, Link-16 integration, weapon integration, and periodic software upgrades. Weapons being added include the Enhanced GBU-28 (EGBU-28), the Joint Air-to-Surface Stand-off Missile (JASSM), and the 500-pound JDAM (GBU-38).
The B-2 radar requires an upgrade called the Radar Modernization Program (RMP) to move the radar to a new operating frequency. This upgrade is necessitated to avoid interference with primary authorized users of the current B-2 radar frequency. The RMP will feature an active electronically scanned array and is scheduled to undergo IOT&E in FY07. The B-2 was employed in combat operations during Operation Allied Force (March through May 1999), Operation Enduring Freedom (October 2001), and Operation Iraqi Freedom (March through April 2003).
B-2s, in a conventional role, staging from Whiteman AFB, MO; Diego Garcia; and Guam can cover the entire world with just one refueling. Six B-2s could execute an operation similar to the 1986 Libya raid but launch from the continental U.S. rather than Europe with a much smaller, more lethal, and more survivable force. Using the rotary launcher assembly, all B-2s are capable of employing 16 Mk 84 JDAMs, 16 JSOWs, or 8 GBU-37/BLU-113s (to be replaced by EGBU-28).
Modifications currently under way will allow each B-2 to carry 80 500-pound GBU-38 JDAMs. The B-2 can also carry eight of the massive 5,000-pound GBU-37 bunker-buster bombs, and may eventually carry a pair of the 30,000-pound Massive Ordnance Penetrators. Proponents claim that by 2007 the B-2 could carry 216 [some accounts say as many as 324] of the 250-pound SDBs. Each BRU-61/A smart pneumatic carriage holds four SDB weapons, the rack weighs 320 pounds (145 kg) empty, and 1,460 pounds (664 kg) loaded with four 285 pound (130 kg) bombs. In principle, the B-2 has a total of 80 attach points for the 500-lb MK82 GBU-30 JDAM, each of which could accomodate a single BRU-61/A rack, for a total of 320 SDB weapons. In practice, the resulting 117,000 lbs (53,000 kg) weight would exceed the B-2's nominal 40,000 pound (18,000 kilogram) payload by some wide margin. The bomber could of course trade up for somewhat more payload by trading off against fuel and un-refueled range. The widely cited 216 SDB carriage would result in 54 BRU-61/A racks, 27 in each bomb bay, for a total 78,800 pound (35,800 kilogram) payload, roughly double the nominal value.
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