1959 Article: A Theoretical Method For The Calculation of RCS

[overscan (PaulMM)]

http://stinet.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=0227695&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf

The method presented is to break down the shape into geometric shapes whose RCS can be calculated. It falls down in its imprecision in simulating the real aircraft.

 

[FutureSpaceTourist]

I've read the story in Ben Rich's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Rich) Skunk Works book about how the F-117 Nighthawk development stemmed from a Lockheed expert reading a translation of the Russian 1964 paper, "Method of Edge Waves in the Physical Theory of Diffraction", by Pyotr Ya. Ufimtsev. This being the seminal paper that showed that the strength of a radar return is derived from an object's shape, not size, and provided a means to calculate the RCS.

I'm not a technical expert at all, but I wonder if there's any relationship between this 1959 paper and the subsequent work?

 

[bipa]

Awesome. Great find. The authors Crispin-Siegel also edited a famous book on this same matter, kind of like the RCS Handbook by Ruck-Barrick-Stuart.

Ufimtsev's PTD is not exactly the same. It is a slightly more advanced theory that elegantly overcomes some deficiencies of the Physical Optics approximation. It greatly enhances RCS predictions for faceted objects with wedge discontinuities.

 

[FutureSpaceTourist]

Thank you for the extra information. I thought it was too incredible to be true that the US built its stealth technology on Soviet research only for there to have been pre-existing US research that could have been used instead! ;D