A-12 Avenger Scenario(s)

[quellish]

Lehman believed that sharing the technology was not only a precondition but absolutely essential to development of the A-12 since the airplane was to be a miniature B-2 with all the unstable flight controls and inlets and outlets, that an enormous amount of money could be saved on wind tunnel time and development process, simply by using Air Force Northrop data.

This is not entirely accurate.
The source of this information is a 1995 deposition by Lehman for the A-12 lawsuit(s). In it, he does state:

there was an unquestioned assumption when we started the [A-12] program that [the Navy] would have full and unimpeded access to all of the B-2 technology.

Which Stevenson focused on with almost tunnel vision in his book. Stevenson through omitted the context of that information. This is from the same deposition:

since the airplane was to be a miniature B-2, which would face all of the same unstable flight control issues, all of the same wind tunnel expenses, all of the same issues of dealing with engine inlets and outlets, it was just a smaller version of the B-2, that an enormous amount of money could be saved in wind tunnel time and development process by simply using the Air Force Northrop data.

Lehman was actually talking about the Northrop ATA design (which is also obvious from the rest of his deposition). There is of course no way that B-2 wind tunnel data would have helped the GD ATA design - they were completely different aircraft. Northrop though would have been able to use some of that data, and of course would have had access to their own stealth technology and experience (which was their own IP). The Air Force owned almost none of the B-2 development data - Northrop did.

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

@LEG

You are working very hard to not let the facts get in the way of a good story.

 

[LEG]

This is not entirely accurate.
The source of this information is a 1995 deposition by Lehman for the A-12 lawsuit(s). In it, he does state:

Which Stevenson focused on with almost tunnel vision in his book. Stevenson through omitted the context of that information. This is from the same deposition:

A 174 million dollar airframe made entirely from composites. A flying which which would be inherently difficult to land on a carrier. And it's not stealthy?

Lehman was actually talking about the Northrop ATA design (which is also obvious from the rest of his deposition). There is of course no way that B-2 wind tunnel data would have helped the GD ATA design - they were completely different aircraft. Northrop though would have been able to use some of that data, and of course would have had access to their own stealth technology and experience (which was their own IP). The Air Force owned almost none of the B-2 development data - Northrop did.

And you ignore the subsequent statement, by Lehman, that he would have gone to Cheney and demanded the OSD get involved because 'promises had been made' and the A-12 was about to spill it's lunch tray from having more to-do items than program funds to pay for them at the cashier.

The idea that these folks are sitting around waiting for the likes of Jeff Cook (Navy A-12 Engineering Officer) to 'remember to place a call' is _ridiculous_. How many bonuses. How many promotions were centered on performance of this program?

Why do you think I included references to the Have Key/X-100/Sneaky Pete references? EVEN IF external data was not forthcoming, there should be multiple mentions of 'reaching into our own bag of tricks and coming up with X'. As GD had a functioning LO office from about 1979-80. They were NOT ignorant of the field. As Lehman himself pointed out.

You are parsing out data from the central focus as a means to distract from the assertion: the VLO data was not forthcoming from Northrop. Why. Not. Because Northrop did not own the data. Someone else did.

Did you look at the photos of the A-12 model with a completely new LE?

Did you watch the video where Keith Jackson specifically states that their Signatures were better than the Northrop design?

Have you not heard the literally DOZENS of arguments that the B-2 is not a VLO airframe but rather has a SIOP+12 RCS of about .1m2? If the entire threat IAMDS is irradiated rubble when you arrive, the threat you face from longrange Voronezh or Rezonans type threats is going to be minimal and so long as they are up and radiating, you can see the residual SA-5/10/12 sites _really easily_.

Look at the windscreen of the B-2 and tell me that's a VLO front end. It's not.

Now tell me how Keith Jackson is wrong about signatures. When Ben Rich said he had 'exhaust and trailing edge' assigned RCS reduction control surfaces and nozzle fabrication for the Skunkworks.

These guys are all dancing around a narrative like they are doing the Nutcracker Ballet as a solo improv.

But the organization lies in what they refuse to talk about, as the details of ownership. Harry Stonecipher of GD did not go to Thomas Jones of Northrop and whisper "Pssst, you know that promise about VLO..." GD went to the USAF.

And the USAF 'action officer' said they knew, two years before it came out via the Beach Report and PBT, that the A-12 was borderline non-functional due to weight. WHERE WAS THE VLO THEN if 'lightweight RAM and a boot' was the primary weight issue which Chris Bowser did not know about when he was making his _A-12 weights and requirements officer_ assessment of how far off the ATA Team was?

Shouldn't he have already known?

What the heck is the lag on the USAF side about? Why is everyone talking to ONE USAF officer about VLO rather than having a knock down drag out bar brawl at the weekly status briefing? "YOU are not performing. Get the data we need or WE will call up DOD Comptroller and get Christie and Christle out here to bend you over and make you squeal with the DAES reports you've been LYING ABOUT (CPI/CPL numbers) since this rolling goat fornication got started!"

Navair was clearly not in charge of the signatures data. So you walk right on up and over their scalps to Big Blue U and get the Blue Suiter brigade to unstuck the logjam. And if they fail to perform, you do the same thing to arrive at OSD.

WHERE IS THAT PAPER TRAIL. Memos and Phone Calls as 'diaries' of daily actions which every executive who ever CYA'd has known to keep, since the 1950s.

Guh.

Watch the video. Look at the photos. Tell me what you see. Is Jackson mentally fumbling as badly as he handles the slide machine remote? Thanks.

 

[yeetmahboi]

Did you watch the video where Keith Jackson specifically states that their Signatures were better than the Northrop design?

Ehyeehhh I doubt so. First it's 3 edges. Triangle. Northrup had the golden recipe with the X alignment (2 pair of parallel edges). Then there's panel gap alignment. That seals the deal totally. Even ol Nighthawk has better panel gap alignments

 

[yeetmahboi]

Forgot to address these.

Also, 1990s USAF would've still 99% relied on low level pen/stand off against high threat adversaries. F-117 was small, silver bullet type fleet. B-2 was in the future, ATF was further still in the future, and anything later is completely 2000s and on. Even main weapon to replace low-level tactics(in safe world) - JDAM - was still far into the future.

A-12 is contemporary to B-2.

The hardest opponent we see B-2 was used against is Serbia (supressed and unable to stop even teen fighters, stealth or not) and Yemen.
I am personally lik 95% sure no one will seriously use B-2 as it is for penetration missions into China or Russia nowadays. Even if it's still fully effective 20 years later(which is ?), it's a fleet of dozen aircraft. Count in availability, add on accident, lose a couple in combat, and reliable B-2 capability is lost.

What's all this gibberish supposed to mean? The attack profile evaluation predates the QDR cuts.

So did tomahawks and JASSMs. When US had to strike Damascus past Hmeimim defences with unknown ROE - only munitions flew in.

Unknown ROE? Neither TacTom nor JASSM has the degree of in-mission flexibility the B-2, its crew and sensors could've afforded. TacTom was selected because it was the cheapest option for the role. Near to nil were shot down depending on who your source is and that's how a late 70s weapon perform with current planning and intel. B-2s would've slaughtered that region.

(1)no, ISIS never had a large reservoir of MANPADs.

Contradicted by the evolution of Army/Marines ASE/EWSP throughout the 2000s.

 

[LEG]

I think the USAF was always lukewarm about the ATA, and once they learned the A-12 the Navy wanted was going to be optimized for low altitude they probably lost any interest they had. As far as I know the Air Force's buy-in was really just about ensuring the Navy would commit to NATF.

I'm not sure if it's technically correct to say low altitude penetration wasn't feasible. I think more accurate to say you simply lose most of the advantages of a VLO design down there. The sort of threats you face would be at such short ranges where the minimal radar signature doesn't make the huge difference it would in other conditions. Vehicles like the ZSU-23-4 Shilka or 2S6M Tunguska could probably still throw up a great deal of fire in the likely flight path without a clear lock. And despite features to to reduce IR signature I wouldn't want to be the one to bet my life to those if a dozen different models of IR guided SAM are being launched after you. In that context how much of an improvement would the A-12 be over something like the upgraded A-6F Intruder II?

Again, a 174 million dollar airframe made entirely from composites. A flying wing which which would be inherently difficult to land on a carrier. And it's not stealthy. Uhh-hunnnh. Nuhhhh-Uhhh!

First things first... Contrail Suppression Tank.

https://s1.ax1x.com/2020/08/21/dYPLdI.jpg

Upper rear fuselage, lower left of picture.

Tha A-12 was not intended to be only a LOLO intruder.

It was also intended to carry a variety of standoff munitions which (FOG-S, TSSAM) were capable of keeping the airframe out of the terminal or even area defense zone bubble of the threat IAMDS.

The jet also had a comprehensive MWS setup, with sensors dotting the LE/TE and around the canopy, both upper and lower hemisphere.

The MWS and ESM were interconnected via an EWMS and so the jet handled it's own self defense expendables releases (the first key to defeating MPADs is detecting the launch and defeating the missile while it's still in boost phase and has not reached top end). As stated, there was also a Towed Radar decoy, so basically, you are talking about the same IDECM setup as was supposed to go into the A-6E SWIP/A-6F.

As a 540-570 knot penetrator, it was found to be harder to intercept than the equivalent F/A-18E because it simply did not run out of lift and so was able to terrain follow at very high speeds.

And speaking of maneuvering capacity, it had more ITR than the Hornet when operating at min weight or max weight and more STR than the F/A-18 in mil thrust or the A-6 at all speeds/weights.

Contrary to popular myth, the aircraaft was quite agile for it's size and the GD designer, Keith Jackson, quoted an improved thrust increment of 15,000lbf per side vs. an empty weight of about 37,000lbs, indicating that whatever the intended powerplant at program start (F404-F5D2 or F412, depending on source), it was not the final, 'settled', engine.

Something which is further supported by the increased climb rate, cruise ceiling and range of the post fat-wing modded aircraft.

Almost as though the 7,930lb weight overage was a myth...

 

[Scott Kenny]

The flat trailing edge has the bad habit of bouncing a not-insignificant chunk of RF energy directly back at the emitter in the forward hemisphere.

 

[LEG]

Ehyeehhh I doubt so. First it's 3 edges. Triangle. Northrup had the golden recipe with the X alignment (2 pair of parallel edges). Then there's panel gap alignment. That seals the deal totally. Even ol Nighthawk has better panel gap alignments

Three alignments with a cross-pol cancellation system looking at each, so that each 'edge' is reverse polarized to the opposed direction of impedance and surface waves are heavily attenuated by applications of SWAM sheeting.

If you look at the drawings I also included, every panel which is articulate has 'RAM sealant' labels on it. We don't know what the final production versions would have looked like, but it is worth noting that Jackson states that access panels were an issue for the weight reduction problem because there were so many of them. That tends to suggest that the access panels were heavy and numerous. Heavy because they were RAM sealed on a RAM foam inner shelf to seal the opening. Multitudinous because they were cut to size for the wave band they were vulnerable to and the size of system they covered.

Most equipment bays would be sealed semi-permanently as having low accessibility requirements and, when opened, have the damaged seals replaced and the signature level restored when resealed. Others, like the avionics WRA racks are fold down items dropping out from within the weapons bays. These are common to other stealth aircraft today.

What are important are major features, like the canopy and weapons bay doors, both of which show saw toothing which says that the concepts were understood. We never saw the airframe built up but it is safe to assume that it would have looked more like an F-35 with its turtleback and forward fuselage seals around things like the IRST fairing as well as the boarding ladder and AAR probe, both of which actually opened from the upper surface.

If this is a high-altitude airframe with tuned intake ramps and a 15,000lbf core that is flat rated for cruising in or above the contrail belt, how much of it is going to be LOS visible by lower hemisphere radiators anyway? Ten percent? Centered around the LE surfaces? Note how all of the sensor apertures are shared, 'behind glass'. The two CFF targeting FLIRs on each side have shaped scallop covers to maximize FOV without exposing the back-cavity and articulated gimbal head and the MWS/NFLIR/LST/OADS are all behind their own, shared, window. The Optical Air Data Sensor uses _A LASER_ to monitor flow of air molecules past that glass, to feed the AHRS or IMU stable tables with a separate, differential, set of 'wind speeds' to establish vertical and horizontal velocities. Do you see this on the F-22 or F-35? No. They have conventional, circular, total pressure (aero-mechanical) sensors and an L-shaped pitot tube.

Finally, look at all the blades this thing has for ATC/ACLS, VHF/UHF, Satcomms and so on. And notice how, on each and every drawing, it says: _retractable_.

Look at the sensor FOV lines. They are all oriented laterally on a cross-track engagement with glide or powered weapons arcing across while the A-12 _never closes_ on the primary (IAMDS defended) target line as each sensor has a 60` FOV but is oriented 30-45` from the waterline. Look at the radars. Originally, the ATA was to have the Ka-band APQ-173 by Norden. But it later switched this out (with the A-6F) to pick up the Westinghouse X-band APQ-183. Why? To enable _much longer_ sensor squints, from altitude, than the 18-20GHz Norden radar could get returns from. This suggests a high-altitude penetration mode.

And that high altitude intruder mode, to support enhanced target squints and glide ranges on everything from FOG-S to AIWS, to more modern SDB and JDAM-ER, is _only possible_ if the jet is safe, from all angles, as it literally passes into and through the surveillance network whose ADGE cues the SAM sites.

This bogus nonsense with 'it's not VLO, it's barely F/A-18E levels of signature reduction!' (.1m2 or -15dbsm, clean, with RCS treatments) has _got to stop_. Because it flatly does not correlate with the care being shown on the systems embed for everything else on a (final cost, after the Marines dropped out and the USAF outyeared their purchases) a 174 million dollar airframe. Even the figure which I think it was Stevenson quoted: 630 jets for 57 billion comes up to 90.4 million per airframe.

This is not a 'sorta LO, multirole' jet. You are making a conscious shift from a Five Squadron setup with two 'light attacks' not even in the game for 500nm after the heavy VA jets are swingin' it. To a 4-squadron setup, probably of 12-14 jets, (like they are trying to do with the F-35C) where half are F-14 ST-21 and half are A-12s. Because nothing else has the legs.

You cannot afford to lose a 90 million dollar jet. You cannot continue to sustain heavy attrition during high-tempo air ops at extended ranges, with only 40-50 jets in the airwing. And this is supported, in _The Five Billion Dollar Misunderstanding_, by depicting the A-12 as hitting, not just multiple aimpoints within a target matrix but multiple target matrixes, within a single mission. You go in as one group and _while covered by that Alpha package escorts_ you do the grand tour. The timelines for anything else simply don't work.

Yet, using X16 Mk.82 and X10 Mk.83 or X4 Mk.84 class munitions, especially with SWAK glider kits, supported by 70nm ranging HARM-E and 120nm ranging AAAM. You can do this, if the bombers can penetrate as VLO assets.

The problem with this, in a 'sorta LO' strike bomber is that you would deplete your expendables, right quick, against late-series S-300PMU-2 or S-400 threats which were undoubtedly on the horizon by 1990. Never mind the Area Intercept fighters (Flanker and Foxhound) which were capable of being bearing and range vectored to 'within 10nm of the stealth' where their own radars could acquire it.

And finally, consider that, if you're at 838nm, you're all in.

You cannot afford to be at high throttle settings, even IRT, because you're probably 250-300nm beyond then nearest egress tanker. So you have to run that gorilla package, including ADVCAP EA-6B and F-14D ST-21, like a train. Get in, get it done and get out. With the escorts handling the HiMADS and any DCA area intercept as you march like soldiers, through the parade of BRLs.

Try doing that without massive amounts of VLO on your side. You'll get your gahoolies shot off.

Note that, with the JH-36, this is exactly the profile that the Chinese are using. Except that they have three engines and supercruise plus ~30,000lbs of gas to support it.

Listen to me when I tell you that folks like Quellish and Overscan are 'professionals'. Cointelpro as in. Look at the data and trust your instincts. Realize that, back in the 1980s, we still had the residue of the highly trained German WWII engineering competencies brought over with paperclip and we were facing a threat which we seriously believed would kill us if we didn't face them down with the best available option, ALL THE TIME. We didn't run out of artillery shells during the Cold War. We didn't spend ungodly bazillions putting downloadable aps into a 'fighter' with the kinematics of a dump truck. We kept roles and missions separate and tailored performance according to a driving mission synergy in the pre-GPS age where you had to bring death to within radar LOS to program the munition IMU on the flyout.

We would not have made this kind of stupid cheetos-not-doritoes level mistake.


LINKS-
A-12 Sectionals

https://s1.ax1x.com/2020/08/19/d1Tx1g.jpg

A-12 Planform

https://s1.ax1x.com/2020/08/21/dYPLdI.jpg

 

[Scott Kenny]

Three alignments with a cross-pol cancellation system looking at each, so that each 'edge' is reverse polarized to the opposed direction of impedance and surface waves are heavily attenuated by applications of SWAM sheeting.

That's not how that works. If you are perpendicular to any edge, you get a spike of RF energy kicked back at the emitter. That's why edge alignment is important, so that you only have one angle per side where you get that spike. The fewer the angles, the narrower the spikes so the less likely it is to detect.

Shape is way more important than RAM/RAS, the F-117 proved that.

MDD thought that RAM was how you got a low RCS, not shape.

 

[quellish]

A 174 million dollar airframe made entirely from composites. A flying which which would be inherently difficult to land on a carrier. And it's not stealthy?

Again, a 174 million dollar airframe made entirely from composites. A flying wing which which would be inherently difficult to land on a carrier. And it's not stealthy. Uhh-hunnnh. Nuhhhh-Uhhh!

It is really not clear what aircraft you are referring to here. What flying wing aircraft that is 174 million dollars?

Composite materials are not inherently stealthy. Building something out of composites does not mean it will be stealthy and in fact frequently the opposite is true. Many types of composites are very, very bad for signature reduction.

For example, aircraft made out of Kevlar composites are "transparent" to radar, which is very bad for the RF signature.

Carbon fiber can be transparent, absorbing, or reflective to radar. The same piece of carbon fiber can be all 3, each from different look angles.

Building an aircraft entirely out of composites is not a good thing from an RF signature perspective.

Why do you think I included references to the Have Key/X-100/Sneaky Pete references? EVEN IF external data was not forthcoming, there should be multiple mentions of 'reaching into our own bag of tricks and coming up with X'. As GD had a functioning LO office from about 1979-80. They were NOT ignorant of the field. As Lehman himself pointed out.

GD had competent RF people long before that. They built RATSCAT. They were a part of the original low observables studies that set the RCS thresholds for the XST program. But during those studies they stated they thought it was impossible to reach the level of RCS reduction necessary and advocated for a combination of RCS reduction and EW.

They turned out to be wrong. But many of those same attitudes carried over into the A-12 program. GD was completely unaware of the *level of RCS reduction* achieved by the HAVE BLUE, TACIT BLUE, SENIOR PROM, etc. programs. They were still shooting for the wrong goal and did not emphasize shaping enough to reach that level.

You are parsing out data from the central focus as a means to distract from the assertion: the VLO data was not forthcoming from Northrop. Why. Not. Because Northrop did not own the data. Someone else did.

Northrop's data was proprietary. DoD could only share the data that DoD owned, they could not give Northrop's competitors data nor compel Northrop to do so. Nor would it have helped GD at all.

The "superior knowledge" argument of the legal case(s) was not about low observables at all. It was about composites. GD had little experience with composites. They assumed that the techniques used for small composite structures would scale to large composite structures. They didn't. This was the knowledge that they argued DoD should have provided to allow them to execute their contract. GD argued that DoD should have stepped in and told them how to fix their problems.

Have you not heard the literally DOZENS of arguments that the B-2 is not a VLO airframe but rather has a SIOP+12 RCS of about .1m2?

I think that is a great number, and I welcome any adversaries to base their planning around that number.

Look at the windscreen of the B-2 and tell me that's a VLO front end. It's not.

It is. Why do you beleive it is not?

And the USAF 'action officer' said they knew, two years before it came out via the Beach Report and PBT, that the A-12 was borderline non-functional due to weight. WHERE WAS THE VLO THEN if 'lightweight RAM and a boot' was the primary weight issue which Chris Bowser did not know about when he was making his _A-12 weights and requirements officer_ assessment of how far off the ATA Team was?

The "primary weight issue" was the structure and GD's inexperience with composites. They designed an airplane that could not be built correctly.

The "lightweight RAM and a boot" was far more than that. The A-12 was only going to be a "Dorito" for the first 8-9 aircraft. After that point it would be completely different - the "nose boot", inlets, wings, and major structures would be changed. It would be effectively a completely different airplane. The production aircraft would have been completely different than the aircraft that was supposedly a year from first flight at the time of cancellation. Drawings of the production design are present on this forum, labelled as something else.

Tha A-12 was not intended to be only a LOLO intruder.

The A-12 was intended to be a multi-mission aircraft. It's primary mission was low-level strike. That mission drove most of the requirements and design.

As stated, there was also a Towed Radar decoy, so basically, you are talking about the same IDECM setup as was supposed to go into the A-6E SWIP/A-6F.

Why would a LO aircraft need or want a towed decoy? This is like waving a big flag that says "I AM HERE".

Three alignments with a cross-pol cancellation system looking at each, so that each 'edge' is reverse polarized to the opposed direction of impedance and surface waves are heavily attenuated by applications of SWAM sheeting.

It is a little strange to see talk of "direction of impedance and surface waves" along with talk of leading edge radomes and sensors. "Cross-pol" cancellation being even stranger.

If you have found the cave of the Magic Stealth Dust, you should share the location!

If you look at the drawings I also included, every panel which is articulate has 'RAM sealant' labels on it. We don't know what the final production versions would have looked like, but it is worth noting that Jackson states that access panels were an issue for the weight reduction problem because there were so many of them. That tends to suggest that the access panels were heavy and numerous. Heavy because they were RAM sealed on a RAM foam inner shelf to seal the opening. Multitudinous because they were cut to size for the wave band they were vulnerable to and the size of system they covered.

This is not correct. The reason that bays and their access covers or doors increase weight is structural. The aircraft structure has to accommodate these covers, doors, and bays. The RAM sealant does not add any significant weight. There is no reason to have "a RAM foam inner shelf to seal the opening". To the contrary, you want a conductive seal for a door opening, covered with RAM that matches the impedance of the surrounding RAM.

Most equipment bays would be sealed semi-permanently as having low accessibility requirements and, when opened, have the damaged seals replaced and the signature level restored when resealed. Others, like the avionics WRA racks are fold down items dropping out from within the weapons bays. These are common to other stealth aircraft today.

This is not correct. The A-12 was not designed to minimize the number of access points, drains, etc. and made little distinction between access frequency. There were few areas that were "sealed semi-permanently" in any way different from other areas that were accessed more frequently.

What are important are major features, like the canopy and weapons bay doors, both of which show saw toothing which says that the concepts were understood.

What concepts would those be?

Finally, look at all the blades this thing has for ATC/ACLS, VHF/UHF, Satcomms and so on. And notice how, on each and every drawing, it says: _retractable_.

Yes, retractable antennas are great until you have to call someone. Or an antenna fails to retract. Having many retractable antennas is not a good thing. Why are they not LO antennas, like the B-2, F-22, TACIT BLUE, etc?

Look at the sensor FOV lines. They are all oriented laterally on a cross-track engagement with glide or powered weapons arcing across while the A-12 _never closes_ on the primary (IAMDS defended) target line as each sensor has a 60` FOV but is oriented 30-45` from the waterline. Look at the radars. Originally, the ATA was to have the Ka-band APQ-173 by Norden. But it later switched this out (with the A-6F) to pick up the Westinghouse X-band APQ-183. Why? To enable _much longer_ sensor squints, from altitude, than the 18-20GHz Norden radar could get returns from. This suggests a high-altitude penetration mode.

This is not correct.
GD awarded the radar contract to Norden for the AN/APQ-173 in January 1988. In April of 1989 GD terminated the contract due to poor performance. The schedule for the A-12 and the radar was aggressive and Norden was required to deliver radar systems starting in July of 1989. They had not met any of their performance milestones by April 1989. Norden could not get the radar to work, and could not meet any of their schedules. Norden sued General Dynamics in federal court over the contract termination (Norden Sys. v. General Dynamics Corp., 1991 Ct. Sup. 6620 (Conn. Super. Ct. 1991))

GD then awarded a contract to Westinghouse to produce the AN/APQ-183 for the A-12. Unlike the Norden radar, the Westinghouse radar actually had features (PSP, etc.) that could be used to enable low observable operation. Also unlike Norden, Westinghouse had experience with modern radars. Westinghouse had extensive experience with LO programs including the DARPA UPP and LPIR radar programs as well as the ATF.

Switching radars though meant redesigning the antenna and radomes. On a normal stealth aircraft this is not trivial. On an aircraft where the these are in the edges this is very, very difficult. While Westinghouse did deliver a radar on time just before cancellation, they had no idea how to integrate it into the airplane. And airplane that itself would change considerably between the 1st aircraft and the 10th produced.

And that high altitude intruder mode, to support enhanced target squints and glide ranges on everything from FOG-S to AIWS, to more modern SDB and JDAM-ER, is _only possible_ if the jet is safe, from all angles, as it literally passes into and through the surveillance network whose ADGE cues the SAM sites.

No aircraft - and certainly no stealth aircraft - is "safe from all angles". Stealth is as much tactics as technology. No aircraft can have a minimal signature across all angles. The energy has to go somewhere. Stealth aircraft are flown in such a way that the least vulnerable angles are shown to threats.

The problem with this, in a 'sorta LO' strike bomber is that you would deplete your expendables, right quick, against late-series S-300PMU-2 or S-400 threats which were undoubtedly on the horizon by 1990. Never mind the Area Intercept fighters (Flanker and Foxhound) which were capable of being bearing and range vectored to 'within 10nm of the stealth' where their own radars could acquire it.

I agree - an Su-27 could definitely acquire an A-12 within 10km. Probably within 60km. Especially if the A-12 is coming at it and the radar is polarized.

And finally, consider that, if you're at 838nm, you're all in.

Try doing that without massive amounts of VLO on your side. You'll get your gahoolies shot off.

Listen to me when I tell you that folks like Quellish and Overscan are 'professionals'. Cointelpro as in. Look at the data and trust your instincts. Realize that, back in the 1980s, we still had the residue of the highly trained German WWII engineering competencies brought over with paperclip and we were facing a threat which we seriously believed would kill us if we didn't face them down with the best available option, ALL THE TIME. We didn't run out of artillery shells during the Cold War. We didn't spend ungodly bazillions putting downloadable aps into a 'fighter' with the kinematics of a dump truck. We kept roles and missions separate and tailored performance according to a driving mission synergy in the pre-GPS age where you had to bring death to within radar LOS to program the munition IMU on the flyout.

I would like to think I have better musical taste than a counterintelligence/disinformation agent.

Also, my dance steps are fresher AND I am in the process of suing the federal government for not disclosing facts they are legally required to. Did I mention my dance steps?

I do enjoy any mention of Project Paperclip though. I'll have to buy some more aluminium composite to make hats!

We would not have made this kind of stupid cheetos-not-doritoes level mistake.

Uh..... I have spent a lot of time around the Navy, and I assure you they would rise to the challenge of any level of stupid mistake, proudly.

 

[LEG]

Scott Kenny wrote-

"That's not how that works. If you are perpendicular to any edge, you get a spike of RF energy kicked back at the emitter. That's why edge alignment is important, so that you only have one angle per side where you get that spike. The fewer the angles, the narrower the spikes so the less likely it is to detect.

Shape is way more important than RAM/RAS, the F-117 proved that.

MDD thought that RAM was how you got a low RCS, not shape."

Actually RAM is the solution, but only partially, to shape the signal band usage and level the loading pathways within the bandwidth efficiency of the absorber...

Radar coming back at a front quarter emitter from the trailing edge is not specular, it is not a reflection, it is, by definition, a traveling wave. While shape is important to this, especially as a condition of half wavelength dipole effects on things like outer wing panels, empennage, inlets and canopy/windscreen, the truth is that the impedance value in/along the material boundary, it's resonant resistance, is the major electric driver on boundary breakup. It always has been and the proof is that anything other than a perfect ange of incidence to the beam would cause radar looking up, into the major shapes of the airframe (fuselage, wings, intakes etc.) to instantly create mirrored glint angles due to the sheer area involved.

Imagine that you are setting up a counterveiling wave along the surface duct, across which the radar flows. Like an air dam on the top of a semi tractor.

Now the radar hits it and is deflected, like a coanda surface cohesion in a fluid reaching breakover point. And again, from the point where dissimilar materials with different charge values meet, you again have reflection.

Change this around to assume this charge value is not a dam but a screen door, an electronic mesh, where 'going one way' the charge polarization is not interfered with but going the other, it very much is. The return is shredded by counterpolarization and/or shifted, to run along a different propagation path.

This is how an active cancellation 'jammer' works.

Look at the YF-22 and F-22. If 'shape, shape, shape and materials' is so bloody important, why did they lower the sweep angle and so bring the arc of return back to a much narrower scattering regime, off the nose? And why does it have a thin splitter panel on a conventional inlet whose thin edges and boundary channel gap are all dire mistakes in terms of multi-angle coadjacencies, cavity reflectors and material changes?

Look at the B-2 bomber. If shape is so important why would they stick a conventional airliner cabin/windscreen on the front and then RUIN the original beavertail with a sawtooth edge that is scattering every which way _and_ reducing the altitude performance of the bomber? The B-21 is what the B-2 was always meant to be. From the angled, side looking, windshield panes (like the canopy on the F-117) to single surface lifting tail which some numb nuts decided to destroy both the RF efficiencies and the total lift from to provide a low level alternate ingress profile.

Look at the F-35. From the top planview, it's an F-5 or F-104. With barely 25` of planform alignment between LE/TE edges. Meaning it's frontal signature protection zone is only about 40` and only at X-band. Anything longer wavelengthed and/or broader lobed is going to catch enough of the sum airframe to generate a soft return. Including the inlets.

Now look at it from the sides and bottom. It is COVERED in greeblies, surface breaks for doors and inlets, compound curves and general _bloat_ that should never be on the bottom of a stealth jet and indeed, _is not_, on the J-20 and F-22.

The F-35 is further more not a BVR atlatl for long range AAM shots and instead has to come within 10-12nm to release large, completely non-stealthy (strap on guidance kit with multiple fins and fuses and homing heads) inertially aided munitions after passing through 2-3 layers of surveillance and target acquisition radars with, 'Sniper at your feet!' the engagement radar only coming on at the last instant.

Everyone assumes you're going to do this 'weave between the raindrops' nonsense when it comes to getting illuminated by radars all around the F-35, releasing the JDAM and then breaking away to flank the radar. As if PD notch filtering couldn't overcome the radial velocity of a 3D target slant presenting you it's chunkiest side. Utter lunacy.

What is especially telling here is that the F-22 (ALR-94) and especially F-35 (ASQ-239 have fire control quality ELS suites which can literally launch an AMRAAM or HARM at a target without illuminating them. <1` angular proficiency is _useless_ if it's not coupled to a missile which ranges farther than SAR or (EOTS) FLIR can target the enemy anyway.

And yet there it is. And it comes with Mission Data Files as threat libraries without which the parent jet is 'helpless'. Why? It's passively near-perfect stealthy to -40dbsm/.0001m2 RCS isn't it?

ISN'T IT?!?

The answer is no, it is not. Not even close. Frontal, the F-35 might be .002m2. Global, it's most likely .01m2. Which will never penetrate a radar IAMDS.

Passive stealth never was the answer for another reason: Because _especially_ in the 1970s when the technology base of the F-117 was being set up, the materials impedance matching and diagnostic checking capabilities were simply not that good. You hand fit pieces of thick foam backed RAM, cut like linoleum sheets and basted with 'butter' as a highly toxic sealant which blended the two chunks of aligned filament or fiber woven RAM close enough not to create that impedance step which would cause the signal to break and flash back. We didn't even have the cop radar gun level test equipment to get a manual function check.

That's totally out of line with what NMC controlled autolayup machines and large scale autoclave curing can achieve today. What began with some components of the B-2 wing is not throughout the 'baked right in' Keebler goodness of the F-35. And yet how wise is that choice, if passive materials can never be changed without stripping the entire bonded skin off a fighter jet which only has something like 8,000hrs (compared to 20+ for the F-15EX) and so may need 1-2 replacement wing sets etc. during it's lifetime, but not once every 2-3 years, to 'update the stealth'.

The reason the F-35 works at all. Has the features it does, is because it is a giant active cancellation system, wherein the Keebler is not a passive system at all. Just like it was not on the B-2. That ELS quality Barracuda is not calculating shoot-back angles, it's calculating how much juice to send to/through the dielectric skin to actively cancel the inbound signal.

This is why there is a large giggle factor on the part of the U.S. stealth players when it comes to the best immitation envy can by on the Chinese and Russian jets. They understand the shaping, they understand the materials, they do not know how stealth really works.

If you want to know how stealth really works, start with those images that circulated a few months ago of an F-35 being craned down the assembly line while covered in stacked magnetic bricks.

Like a ship preparing to cross a minefield, they are degaussing the airframe to 'tune the inviso-tech with the machine spirit of the vehicle.'

Stealth as described would only work at specific aspects, waveforms and bands. It does not. Denys Overholser's little meme is a flat out lie. Cointelpro and the art of disinformation is a combination 'Oooh, Squirrel!' distraction from the main (obvious) Hypothesis, Counterpoint and Conclusion and the careful crafting of a prevarication to cover up for that process with a substantive but erroneous secondary (well asserted) opinion which has the target audience either mesmerized by the ooh-wow of it all or chasing their own tails with logic puzzles based on falsheoods.

Stealth has likely never been entirely passive and almost certainly not since Gen-2 late (ZSR-61/62_ and Gen-3 (ASQ-239 Barracuda).


LINKS-
Stealth, Incidence And Loading Plus 'Plasma Stealth'

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRTFbMKzakg


Millennium 7, Impedance, Permittivity, Permeability

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJL0TtdvcGc


A-12 Avenger And Single Aspect Stealth: Laser Pointers And Boom Boxes 'Break The Code'

View: https://youtu.be/o5SQ-iyY6Fw?t=686


BAe ASQ-239 'Simultaneous jamming without interfering with radar and radar warning receiver allows the aircraft to reach well-defended targets, even in signal-dense environments'

https://www.baesystems.com/en-media/uploadFile/20230815193244/1434583878736.pdf

Snicker oh yah, it's 'not interfering' all right, because it never leaves the skin!

 

[quellish]

Actually RAM is the solution, but only partially, to shape the signal band usage and level the loading pathways within the bandwidth efficiency of the absorber...

No. You can always reflect more energy than you can possibly absorb. This is physics.

traveling wave
dipole
impedance
resonant resistance

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTRKCXC0JFg

The return is shredded by counterpolarization and/or shifted, to run along a different propagation path.

And where does this "counter polarization" come from?

This is how an active cancellation 'jammer' works.

No, no it does not. What you are attempting to describe is actually some form of passive cancellation. Active cancellation is completely different and requires "antennas" and "power".

multi-angle coadjacencies, cavity reflectors and material changes?

These are words that do not belong together.

Look at the B-2 bomber. If shape is so important why would they stick a conventional airliner cabin/windscreen on the front and then RUIN the original beavertail with a sawtooth edge that is scattering every which way _and_ reducing the altitude performance of the bomber?

That is not a conventional airliner windscreen. It took a great deal of effort to create a LO transparency with double compound curvature.

The original design did not HAVE a beaver tail. This was added, along with the sawtooth edge, when the low altitude requirements were added. The sawtooth edge is not "scattering every which way". It is scattering into the existing 4 spikes.

Anything longer wavelengthed and/or broader lobed is going to catch enough of the sum airframe to generate a soft return. Including the inlets.

No, longer wavelengths are not going to see into the inlets. The wavelength is too large.

Now look at it from the sides and bottom. It is COVERED in greeblies, surface breaks for doors and inlets, compound curves and general _bloat_ that should never be on the bottom of a stealth jet and indeed, _is not_, on the J-20 and F-22.

Compound curves are not necessarily a bad thing.
"Surface breaks" do not matter if there is no jump or break in impedance. Physical "breaks" and electrical "breaks" are not always the same thing.

Everyone assumes you're going to do this 'weave between the raindrops' nonsense when it comes to getting illuminated by radars all around the F-35, releasing the JDAM and then breaking away to flank the radar. As if PD notch filtering couldn't overcome the radial velocity of a 3D target slant presenting you its chunkiest side. Utter lunacy.

I again invite adversaries to believe your statements wholeheartedly.

What is especially telling here is that the F-22 (ALR-94) and especially F-35 (ASQ-239 have fire control quality ELS suites which can literally launch an AMRAAM or HARM at a target without illuminating them. <1` angular proficiency is _useless_ if it's not coupled to a missile which ranges farther than SAR or (EOTS) FLIR can target the enemy anyway.

They also both have LPI radars, so it doesn't matter so much if they illuminate someone.

And yet there it is. And it comes with Mission Data Files as threat libraries without which the parent jet is 'helpless'. Why? It's passively near-perfect stealthy to -40dbsm/.0001m2 RCS isn't it?

-40dbsm?
1970 is calling. It wants it's RCS numbers back.

Passive stealth never was the answer for another reason: Because _especially_ in the 1970s when the technology base of the F-117 was being set up, the materials impedance matching and diagnostic checking capabilities were simply not that good.

Actually, they were that good. At the time you're speaking of, each major contractor had their own facilities and processes. The Skunk Works and several others places had mastered measuring absorbers and creating absorber material with consistent properties - something that is still a mystery to many. They invented their own equipment and processes.

You hand fit pieces of thick foam backed RAM, cut like linoleum sheets and basted with 'butter' as a highly toxic sealant which blended the two chunks of aligned filament or fiber woven RAM close enough not to create that impedance step which would cause the signal to break and flash back. We didn't even have the cop radar gun level test equipment to get a manual function check.

That is not how those materials were produced or used during that time or even later, however I again invite adversaries to replicate the processes described above. And then they can put it on a flat plate and measure its RCS in a chamber.

That's totally out of line with what NMC controlled autolayup machines and large scale autoclave curing can achieve today.

There seems to be some confusion. The processes to make RAM are not the same processes used to create composite structures. There is no autolayup or autoclaving with RAM.

The reason the F-35 works at all. Has the features it does, is because it is a giant active cancellation system, wherein the Keebler is not a passive system at all. Just like it was not on the B-2. That ELS quality Barracuda is not calculating shoot-back angles, it's calculating how much juice to send to/through the dielectric skin to actively cancel the inbound signal.

Please show the antennas for this magic active cancellation system.

This is why there is a large giggle factor on the part of the U.S. stealth players when it comes to the best immitation envy can by on the Chinese and Russian jets. They understand the shaping, they understand the materials, they do not know how stealth really works.

I would argue they do not understand the shaping or the materials, but hey, that's just me and my physics textbooks talking. Did I not mention my dance steps in a previous post?

Stealth has likely never been entirely passive and almost certainly not since Gen-2 late (ZSR-61/62_ and Gen-3 (ASQ-239 Barracuda).

What do you think the ZSR-6x are?

 

[Scott Kenny]

Actually RAM is the solution, but only partially, to shape the signal band usage and level the loading pathways within the bandwidth efficiency of the absorber...

No. It's not.

That's not how any of that works.

[...]

This is how an active cancellation 'jammer' works.

No, it's not.

You probably own an active cancellation jammer yourself. Got Bose earphones?

They listen to the incoming wave (whether by microphone or direct conversion of the EM signal into electrical), flip the wave 180deg, and rebroadcast it.

Look at the YF-22 and F-22. If 'shape, shape, shape and materials' is so bloody important, why did they lower the sweep angle and so bring the arc of return back to a much narrower scattering regime, off the nose?

Because they matched an angle used elsewhere for the nose.

And why does it have a thin splitter panel on a conventional inlet whose thin edges and boundary channel gap are all dire mistakes in terms of multi-angle coadjacencies, cavity reflectors and material changes?

Because LockMart hadn't developed the Diverterless Supersonic Inlet yet.

Look at the B-2 bomber. If shape is so important why would they stick a conventional airliner cabin/windscreen on the front and then RUIN the original beavertail with a sawtooth edge that is scattering every which way _and_ reducing the altitude performance of the bomber? The B-21 is what the B-2 was always meant to be. From the angled, side looking, windshield panes (like the canopy on the F-117) to single surface lifting tail which some numb nuts decided to destroy both the RF efficiencies and the total lift from to provide a low level alternate ingress profile.

You do know that the Sawtooth on the B-2 is parallel to the leading edges, right?

So the edges all reflect in exactly the same direction.

Look at the F-35. From the top planview, it's an F-5 or F-104. With barely 25` of planform alignment between LE/TE edges. Meaning it's frontal signature protection zone is only about 40` and only at X-band. Anything longer wavelengthed and/or broader lobed is going to catch enough of the sum airframe to generate a soft return. Including the inlets.

So?

If you can't be seen on X-band, no missile guidance radar can track you!

Now look at it from the sides and bottom. It is COVERED in greeblies, surface breaks for doors and inlets, compound curves and general _bloat_ that should never be on the bottom of a stealth jet and indeed, _is not_, on the J-20 and F-22.

Look closer at an F-22. All the greeblies are there.

The F-35 is further more not a BVR atlatl for long range AAM shots and instead has to come within 10-12nm to release large, completely non-stealthy (strap on guidance kit with multiple fins and fuses and homing heads) inertially aided munitions after passing through 2-3 layers of surveillance and target acquisition radars with, 'Sniper at your feet!' the engagement radar only coming on at the last instant.

Everyone assumes you're going to do this 'weave between the raindrops' nonsense when it comes to getting illuminated by radars all around the F-35, releasing the JDAM and then breaking away to flank the radar. As if PD notch filtering couldn't overcome the radial velocity of a 3D target slant presenting you it's chunkiest side. Utter lunacy.

Again, if an X-band fire control radar cannot lock onto you, you cannot be shot. They'll know you're there, there just isn't a damn thing they can do about it. Maybe engage the bomb, which as you correctly note a JDAM is non-stealthy.

What is especially telling here is that the F-22 (ALR-94) and especially F-35 (ASQ-239 have fire control quality ELS suites which can literally launch an AMRAAM or HARM at a target without illuminating them. <1` angular proficiency is _useless_ if it's not coupled to a missile which ranges farther than SAR or (EOTS) FLIR can target the enemy anyway.

And yet there it is. And it comes with Mission Data Files as threat libraries without which the parent jet is 'helpless'. Why? It's passively near-perfect stealthy to -40dbsm/.0001m2 RCS isn't it?

ISN'T IT?!?

The answer is no, it is not. Not even close.

While you're correct that the RCS is nowhere near -40dbsm, your assumption is in the wrong direction.

 

[LEG]

It is really not clear what aircraft you are referring to here. What flying wing aircraft that is 174 million dollars?

The final cost of the A-12 was stated to be between 148 and 174 million dollars.



From Page 311 of _The Five Billion Dollar Misunderstanding, The Collapse Of The Navy's A-12 Stealth Bomber Program_, James P. Stevenson.



"Cann and Yockey used different aircraft quantity figures with 562 aircraft the only common quantity. Using their common number, Cann said the total program cost would be $79 billion while Yockey was saying $87 to $100 billion. Cann's PAUC (Program Acquisition Unit Cost, flyaway plus R&D and initial spares) was $151 million while Yockey was asserting a range of $154 million to $178 million."

Composite materials are not inherently stealthy. Building something out of composites does not mean it will be stealthy and in fact frequently the opposite is true. Many types of composites are very, very bad for signature reduction.

For example, aircraft made out of Kevlar composites are "transparent" to radar, which is very bad for the RF signature.

Carbon fiber can be transparent, absorbing, or reflective to radar. The same piece of carbon fiber can be all 3, each from different look angles.

Building an aircraft entirely out of composites is not a good thing from an RF signature perspective.

Composite is structurally light and offers uniform impedance values from monolithic airframe parts which can be assembled like a model: skin-over-structure. Composites also allow for imbedded secondary susbtances as both metamaterials and specifical fibers. The J-20 stealth composite is an analogue to a Jaquard Weave of steel and quartz fibers with the following characteristics-



>

Maintenance logs from the U.S. Air Force, corroborated by media reports from outlets such as Aviation Week in 2024, reveal that the F-22’s stealth coatings suffer from delamination under environmental stressors—high-speed flight, abrasive desert sandstorms, and coastal humidity—necessitating costly reapplications every three weeks at an estimated expense of $60,000 per flight hour.



This vulnerability, evocatively likened by engineers to the “moulting cicada wings” shedding their exoskeleton, exposes a critical flaw in Western stealth paradigms: a reliance on surface-level solutions rather than intrinsic material resilience. Meanwhile, across the Pacific, China’s aerospace sector claims to have transcended this limitation by resurrecting a 3,000-year-old textile innovation—the silk jacquard weaving techniques of the Han dynasty (206 BC–AD 220)—to fortify the stealth capabilities of its own fifth-generation fighters, such as the Chengdu J-20. This remarkable synthesis of ancient craftsmanship and modern electromagnetism, detailed in a January 2025 study published in the Chinese peer-reviewed journal Knitting Industries, offers a structural revolution that absorbs 90.6% of radar waves across the 8–26 GHz spectrum, outperforms traditional coatings, and withstands tensile stresses exceeding 93.5 megapascals.
>

https://debuglies.com/2025/03/04/ancient-silk-meets-modern-stealth-how-chinas-3000-year-old-jacquard-techniques-enhance-fifth-generation-fighter-jets-in-2025/

So you are making a very narrow argument with little balancing attempt to also state the case that for MOST stealth applications, composites are essential. A fact proven by the F-35 with its aluminum understructure having a destructive interaction with the entire wing when a FACO Cameri inspection hatch, improperly coated (edges and top), formed a galvanic cell which, in a matter of _days_ ate half the airfoil and caused the USAF to reject the delivered airframe.


All composite stealth = all common material incident angle orientation (autowindings on a layup machine) = easier VLO design and fabrication and essential survivability in a marine corrosion environment. A precision composite has much better panel fit and thus much less water infiltration. A composite which is lightweight allows for much higher system imbeds. Such as when you entirely alter the front of the jet with a stealth bra that contains an active cancellation antenna element across it's entire front. Raising weight from the 1,650lbs initially spec'd as a 'chinning bar' by Peg Olsen to the 7,930lb eventuated overage.



If that design had been an aluminum airframe the A-12 would not have been carrier capable. Just like the B-2 with an aluminum wing would have dropped from a 6,000nm ranged airframe to under 4,000nm and been unsuited for the task of hunting SS-24/25 TELs in the Soviet's backyard.



But mostly, composites are essential to stealth because composites are how you get active cancellation systems to work.



Whether you like admitting the lie that Stealth Is Passive or not.

GD had competent RF people long before that. They built RATSCAT. They were a part of the original low observables studies that set the RCS thresholds for the XST program. But during those studies they stated they thought it was impossible to reach the level of RCS reduction necessary and advocated for a combination of RCS reduction and EW.

They turned out to be wrong. But many of those same attitudes carried over into the A-12 program. GD was completely unaware of the *level of RCS reduction* achieved by the HAVE BLUE, TACIT BLUE, SENIOR PROM, etc. programs. They were still shooting for the wrong goal and did not emphasize shaping enough to reach that level.


Northrop's data was proprietary. DoD could only share the data that DoD owned, they could not give Northrop's competitors data nor compel Northrop to do so. Nor would it have helped GD at all.

The "superior knowledge" argument of the legal case(s) was not about low observables at all. It was about composites. GD had little experience with composites. They assumed that the techniques used for small composite structures would scale to large composite structures. They didn't. This was the knowledge that they argued DoD should have provided to allow them to execute their contract. GD argued that DoD should have stepped in and told them how to fix their problems.

I think that is a great number, and I welcome any adversaries to base their planning around that number.

Composites are the key to stealth. When the A-12 switched from the skinny wing to the fat wing, they also moved from 785nm radius to 838nm and from 540 knots cruise to 568 knots, from a 200fpm SEROC to a 400fpm single engine climb and from a 10 knot launch speed to -5 knot launch. All while retaining a 180ft/sec Ps value.



This, at a time (1988) when the Navy had already admitted that it ATA design was the lightest airframe the ATA team could be expected to achieve and the most successful weight reduction effort they had ever seen.



Why was it so important? Because they had a specific equipment item whose own weight could not be reduced. That item WAS NOT FUEL, despite the common assertion that it the fat wing was moved to in order to recapture aerodyamic KPPs, like range, specifically.



When the Navy A-12 chief military engineer (the competent nerd opposite to Elberfeld) said 'Hold on, i'm getting it!', he wasn't talking about the B-2 data, which he later starkly said he was _not_ read into. He was talking Secret Squirrel, 'Level 4', access to _the gadget_ that would let the A-12 go Full Romulan. He was talking GFE.



If Pike Farr (McDonnell Chief Engineer on the A-12) was going to go to anyone in the tan side of the pentagon circus for B-2 dataa, it would have been to direct to Captain Elberfeld, PEO and the guy who had the weight of Admiral Morris' and Dunn's hand on his shoulder, backing his every call. Or Dave Christenson who, after 1988, when FSED was signed (and it was this contract which should have given Farr legally binding access to the B-2 data) that he would have gone as the USAF POC 'Action Officer' on a USAF program.



The same is true of Richard Rumpf who, as Secretary of Technology and Acquisition, had his own way out, to Cheney. Not to Lehman. Not to Cook. Not toe anyone in the program or 'above' its officers in the USN chain of command.



Yet here is what _actually_ happened-



Page 81



"To that end Farr began, as early as the spring of 1986, to ask for information from other programs, so the Team would not have to reinvent what was already known. Farr asked specifically about B-2 technology. The Navy confirmed the B-2's existence to Farr as well as the fact that it was manufactured by the GD-McAir's rival in the ATA competition. In response to Frr's repeatedd requests for information, Nat Haskell and other Navy representatives replied "The contractor team which won the ATA FSED contract would be granted access to the B-2 information.""



So, in other words: 'Get the weight out, if you win through to contract signing on FSED, we will let you scooch through PDR and give you the big boy toys you want so badly.'



Which is exactly what happened. Except that waiting two years compressed the design schedule even more and put the ATA team behind the delivery and first flight schedule eight ball to the tune of 50 million per month over 1.5 years.



A fact which both Rumpf and Farr would have had the BRR signature and corporate seniority to 'No, _NOW_' get going faster. Or they would have gone to Cheney, right then. Again, this looks like smoke and mirrors as people with direct financial culpability act like they don't know the contents of their Rolodex and have the political acumen of summer help interns rather than running a multibillion dollar program for one of the world's largest defense aerospace companies at the behest of the Pentagon, respectively.



That means this story is bogus. That means the B-2 was never the source of the 'magic stealth tech' because the B-2 was itself way behind schedule and would not fly until July 1, 1989 a YEAR AFTER the A-12 won FSED (Page 376). And did not have the onboard ZSR 62 jammer at that date. Indeed, at that time, the A-12 was so far slipped that it was not estimate to achieve first flight until September 1991. So the ATA program may well have been screwed, not because it was late but because the Spirit was. You cannot hand over the details of a given capability which is not then ready as flight hardware on the program (ATB) it is intended for.


>
B-2 Jamming Unit May Have Been Canceled
By RALPH VARTABEDIAN
June 27, 1991 12 AM PT


TIMES STAFF WRITER
The Air Force has reportedly curtailed development of a controversial, multibillion-dollar electronic jamming system for the Northrop B-2 bomber, according to a former Northrop employee who cites a memorandum issued by the firm’s legal counsel.

The memo was written by the law firm Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson in an effort to rebut allegations brought in a lawsuit against Northrop by former strategic analyst Richard Sylvester.

Sylvester alleged in his suit, filed under the federal False Claims Act, that the jamming system is riddled with defects and would cost $7.5 billion to maintain over the operational life of the B-2. Sylvester’s attorneys assert that the memo shows the jammer, the ZSR-62, “has been put on hold after $1 billion has been spent.”


The allegations were dismissed last March by federal Judge Mariana R. Pfaelzer, who characterized them as vague. Earlier, the Justice Department declined to join Sylvester’s case.

A Northrop spokesman said, “It is a classified system, and I cannot comment on it.”

Investigators close to the case said the ZSR-62, if not already canceled, is “on its deathbed,” having come under sharp congressional scrutiny.



Sylvester said he reviewed the Fried, Frank memo in a meeting with Justice Department attorneys late last year. He said the memo indicated that the Air Force had canceled development of an improved version of the ZSR-62 under what was dubbed a “cost-reduction initiative.”

Advertisement

“We don’t know if they are making a new version of the ZSR-62 under a different name,” Sylvester said. “If they are not, then the B-2 will not be able to execute its mission.”

The Justice Department meeting was held to consider the merits of Sylvester’s allegations and to determine whether it wanted to intervene in the suit.



The department decided against intervening because the ZSR-62 was no longer part of the B-2 and thus the government believed that it was not damaged, according to Phillip Benson, an attorney with Herbert Hafif, who represents Sylvester.



Hafif has alleged that the Justice Department attempted to cheat several whistle-blowers and brought the ZSR-62 matter to the attention of congressional investigators in recent weeks.

The ZSR-62 is among sub-systems on the B-2 that remain highly classified. Extensive interviews this year with congressional sources and technical experts serving the White House have indicated that certain electronics systems on the plane, including the jamming system, represent major technical risks.

But Air Force officials have said that there are no “great problems” with the electronic systems on the B-2.

>

B-2 Jamming Unit May Have Been Canceled

The Air Force has reportedly curtailed development of a controversial, multibillion-dollar electronic jamming system for the Northrop B-2 bomber, according to a former Northrop employee who cites a memorandum issued by the firm's legal counsel.

www.latimes.com

>

Purpose:
The ZSR-62, or SP-3, was intended to be a radar jamming device for the B-2 bomber.

Problems and Cancellation:
The system did not function as planned and was canceled in 1987-88.
>



Google



If the above is true, it is a sudden explanation for why the A-12 was 'denied stealth data'. Whatever the actual source of the GFE: it was not working and had been previously cancelled. And yet, according the plans, it clearly was not removed from the airframe.

It is. Why do you believe it is not?

The "primary weight issue" was the structure and GD's inexperience with composites. They designed an airplane that could not be built correctly.

The "lightweight RAM and a boot" was far more than that. The A-12 was only going to be a "Dorito" for the first 8-9 aircraft. After that point it would be completely different - the "nose boot", inlets, wings, and major structures would be changed. It would be effectively a completely different airplane. The production aircraft would have been completely different than the aircraft that was supposedly a year from first flight at the time of cancellation. Drawings of the production design are present on this forum, labelled as something else.

And I provided LINKS to my arguments...

The A-12 was intended to be a multi-mission aircraft. It's primary mission was low-level strike. That mission drove most of the requirements and design.

I do not agree. A contrail suppression tank and the all the doctrine and special materials handling to go with handling HEFA or CSFA is not a minor commitment, especially on a jet which is already supposedly 7,930lbs overweight.



>

A 50/50 blend of kerosene and HEFA (hydrocarbon ester fatty acid) can result in a 50% to 70% reduction in soot and ice crystal contrails.




In the past, research explored injecting chlorosulfonic acid (CSFA) into engine exhausts to suppress contrails, according to Aviation Stack Exchange.

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Orientation of the sensors with primary cross coverage (CFF) and look-down (IRST and Radar). And general common sense from Vietnam studies which showed SAMs beat fighters and AAA beat SAMs. Before MPADS changed everything by giving SAMs to every other infantryman.

Why would a LO aircraft need or want a towed decoy? This is like waving a big flag that says "I AM HERE".

Similarly, all F-35s carry the ALE-70 Towed Radar Decoy and the most sluggish of the lot, the F-35C, will also have a kinematic expendable based on the Brite Cloud. See, this is yet further proof of how SOMEONE knows that stealth can be killed if you bring the active missile close enough, quick enough, in sufficient numbers, to run the search volume, top to bottom, while the Ninja Fighters tries to stand very still.

It is a little strange to see talk of "direction of impedance and surface waves" along with talk of leading edge radomes and sensors. "Cross-pol" cancellation being even stranger.

If you have found the cave of the Magic Stealth Dust, you should share the location!

Everyone here knows what active cancellation involves as a 180` out of phase signal to null the incident radar wave. I would propose that such a system is, in fact, multi-aspect capable to help deal with the most modern of bistatic arrays and passive listening systems like the Moskva, Krasukha, Vera and Tamara systems. The Russians are quite clever at REC and it would not be beyond them to force EW responses to one emitter class which caused another ESM or PCLS to prick up it's ears.



By 'crossing the beams' from two adjacent jammers you get a crosseye or cross-polarization effect which really messes with monopulse and even AESA seekers. The potential also exists to cancel multi-frequent radars as well as those whose power and large scale transmission arcs (Voronezh/Rezonans) makes it possible to see glimmerings of the jammer protected shape from behind the side lobes of it's suppressed return as a result of canceling the inbound signal like a pair of windshield wipers so that the radar cannot use cognitive techniques to look through the jammer dwell.



I will back up how I think this works in a moment.

This is not correct. The reason that bays and their access covers or doors increase weight is structural. The aircraft structure has to accommodate these covers, doors, and bays. The RAM sealant does not add any significant weight. There is no reason to have "a RAM foam inner shelf to seal the opening". To the contrary, you want a conductive seal for a door opening, covered with RAM that matches the impedance of the surrounding RAM.

So the description by Keith Jackson, chief designer of the A-12, is inaccurate? And your association with the ATA program was....what again?


The F-22 has RAM impregnated foam on it's most common inspection panel access points. We know this because, when repeated use and aerodynamic load conditions caused early fatigue to set in, these access bays sunk below skin level, creating a nigh insuperable break in skin contiguity as material impedance value which caused enough of a ruckus to reach public ears.

Yes, retractable antennas are great until you have to call someone. Or an antenna fails to retract. Having many retractable antennas is not a good thing. Why are they not LO antennas, like the B-2, F-22, TACIT BLUE, etc?

The J-20 has fully retractable/reversible RCS enhancers. The J-20 has a low drag/RCS SRM launcher mechanism that doesn't require a high energy motor efflux inside the fuselage. The difference? 10 years of design experience as a desire to do better.



You have not made a convincing argument for retractable/non-retracting antenna capabilities. The F-117 had retractable blades and an MWS/RHAWS cluster, just behind the wing LE, hardly the place to be experimenting. Its signature is still superior to the F-22s.



The A-12 would have operated in a saltwater contamination saturated environment. Having a fewer bits and bobs exposed translates to fewer CPC interventions.

This is not correct.
GD awarded the radar contract to Norden for the AN/APQ-173 in January 1988. In April of 1989 GD terminated the contract due to poor performance. The schedule for the A-12 and the radar was aggressive and Norden was required to deliver radar systems starting in July of 1989. They had not met any of their performance milestones by April 1989. Norden could not get the radar to work, and could not meet any of their schedules. Norden sued General Dynamics in federal court over the contract termination (Norden Sys. v. General Dynamics Corp., 1991 Ct. Sup. 6620 (Conn. Super. Ct. 1991))

GD then awarded a contract to Westinghouse to produce the AN/APQ-183 for the A-12. Unlike the Norden radar, the Westinghouse radar actually had features (PSP, etc.) that could be used to enable low observable operation. Also unlike Norden, Westinghouse had experience with modern radars. Westinghouse had extensive experience with LO programs including the DARPA UPP and LPIR radar programs as well as the ATF.

Switching radars though meant redesigning the antenna and radomes. On a normal stealth aircraft this is not trivial. On an aircraft where the these are in the edges this is very, very difficult. While Westinghouse did deliver a radar on time just before cancellation, they had no idea how to integrate it into the airplane. And airplane that itself would change considerably between the 1st aircraft and the 10th produced.

See, I was told that, as a part of 'ATA Multirole Capability', the USN wanted a forward placed stealthy killer scout alternative for cuing AIM-152 fired by conventional signater F-14D ST-21, from way way out there before the CW pod on the Tomcat took over terminal illumination based on shared tracks. But it doesn't change the fact that X goes farther than K band. By a considerable distance.

No aircraft - and certainly no stealth aircraft - is "safe from all angles". Stealth is as much tactics as technology. No aircraft can have a minimal signature across all angles. The energy has to go somewhere. Stealth aircraft are flown in such a way that the least vulnerable angles are shown to threats.

I agree - an Su-27 could definitely acquire an A-12 within 10km. Probably within 60km. Especially if the A-12 is coming at it and the radar is polarized.

Which does nothing to undercut the argument that an APG-70 outranges a Tornado GMR by a considerable distance and ranged standoff, in the air to ground mode, is crucial for delivering munitions like GBU-53 into a GMTI basket via DBS/SAR.

And finally, consider that, if you're at 838nm, you're all in.

I would like to think I have better musical taste than a counterintelligence/disinformation agent.

Also, my dance steps are fresher AND I am in the process of suing the federal government for not disclosing facts they are legally required to. Did I mention my dance steps?

I do enjoy any mention of Project Paperclip though. I'll have to buy some more aluminium composite to make hats!

The Luftwaffe Typhoon has 'locked on' to the F-22 at 40nm. A fact so embarrassing, back in 2005-06 or so that the British ordered several forums gleefully chatting up the event (the USAF said they needed to 'freshen up' their coatings and 'we'ren't ready') to cease and desist.



In 2014, a JAS-39C pair, using elementary EWS-39 (without the Arexis pod) were able to beat back a 20kw APG-77 section pair of Raptors with such 'can't see this' efficacy that the F-22s had to Make Big Boy Steps to jet on out of the way as they Capped The Gap and the Gripens pulled up into them from under 12nm out.



In this, I can only quote Stevenson again, from Page 53:



"When the A-12 contract was awarded in January 1988, Vice Adm. Robert Dunn was the assistant chief of operations for air warfare. He was the senior naval aviator. When asked if he thought that Stealth worked, he said:



"I did then, I don't now, I know better. I remember Tony Batista and he said, "You know admiral, this stealth stuff is perishable." And he was right. For example the Navy has a program called CEC [Cooperative Engagement Concept, now NIFC-CA Naval Integrated Fire Control, Counter Air] which involves several ships in different locations observing a supposed "Stealth" aircraft on their radar. These various inputs are put into a computer at a central location and as a result, you an track the aircraft and get a firing solution."



Like Admiral Dunn, I have never believed passive stealth worked. I do not believe Stealth is passive but rather is a threshold level (base RCS) capability wherein the number of centroid hotspots from any given angle are sufficiently reduced/combined that an active cancellation waveform, or perhaps some kind of quantum buzz kill cyber insert, can nullify the residua return.



Yet the truth remains that the Russians are not fools, have been netcentric since the 1970s, where it increasingly looks like counter-LO is basically about leavening the spectrum use and emitter schedules like a loaf of bread until 'something rises' to the occasion of focused engagement.


And given we are broke off our ass, paying for other people's wars.


While the Chinese go increasingly towards the 'my math engine is bigger than yours!' AI/Cognitive Radar solution which has, via a Type 055 (Chinese AEGIS) destroyer just recently looked right past the glare of a pair of Super Hornets and put the stink eye right on the carrier group bearing down on them with intent to party crash as the VLS covers came up and everyone in the CSG got the hard lock alarm.



Can we allow the F-35 to ruin the United States defense acquisition/operations budgets for three decades and, 2.2 trillion dollars to deliver (maybe, next year, send in the clowns...) a 700nm radius strike bomber into a massively CLO and A2AD leveraged theater? Even though, at full stretch, it still doesn't put the carrier beyond the reach of the ASBM/ASCM threats of an ICD, netcentric, defense that begins with 80+ Yaogan satellites in rapid overhead flyby?




We need to stop lying about stealth and decide if trying to finesse things really makes more sense than simply developing the automan to pump the missile stocks while employing HALE as pseudolites of our own. In far fewer, better stood off and ultimately better able to continuous ISR monitor developing opportunities to target any resulting 'blot out the sun' missile strike.



From a 5 billion dollar VPM Virginia instead of a 30 bilion Carrier Strike Group.



Within this scenario, blowing the spiderwebs off a done and dusted VLO precursor to the laughing stock which the F-35C represents is perhaps a good way for Americans begin retaking power back from the trillion per year autocrats and equestrian class, who collectively run the military so badly, that we actually cannot build or buy the manufacturing capacity to keep up with a single MTW's artillery shell needs.



Yet who also insist that a 300 million dollar fighter (to a tune of 200 examples no less...) is 'just the thing' to keep the Dragon at bay.



There was a time when we were a better engineering competence and strategically capable society than this. Increasingly, I believe the wrong people won WWII and it happened, not because Hitler was actually a nice man. But rather because we put on the Paladin's helm and lost our common sense and discipline in staying out of other idiot's wars while continuing to build our own society into something better.

Uh..... I have spent a lot of time around the Navy, and I assure you they would rise to the challenge of any level of stupid mistake, proudly.

Well, the debasement of Navair through the ATA, A/X, A/FX, F/A-18E/F, F-35B/C and now the NGAD as F/A-XX certainly does look like the progression of the impaired from banana peel to milk bucket to rake and staircase. The jury is still out on whether it was a parade led by engineers or by OSD/Military officers.



But in this instance, the facts of the original case do not fit the description of events as outlined. People don't act that way without another mitigating/exacerbating condition. And we really need that truth as we start to make serious fiscal decisions on how big an Armed Forces we can actually afford.



We cannot Juke, Jive or Jimmy Whistle, hands in pockets, away from the crime scene on this.



Which brings me to my assertion of why that fat wing was needed. If you look at the planview diagram, there is a large, approximately 30-40" diameter, antenna, both sides, top and bottom. In other drawings there is a second, smaller, array in the wing tip. IMO, these are the active cancellation systems. For much the same reason that 'Mission Data Files' doesn't refer to emitter thumbprints for ID/Targeting purposes but specifically to denote emitter matched jamming techniques. By changing 'Countermeasure' (ICMS) to 'Support Measure' (ESM) you can put the blatant in the open.



Going from their size, each one of those JAMMERS is a mid/lowband system which is designed to prevent surveillance from handing off to fire control because L/S band systems are more powerful, offer a large lobe and a tailored scan pattern designed to volume sweep a larger chunk of sky. Without their dog-goes-stiff cuing, there is no reason to expose the battery engagement systems.



But just because you are not in their fixated sights, doesn't mean they don't see you with enough collated clarity to launch an active missile into the volume and get the kill, based on closure and hi-PRF loading of a vulnerable sector.



Thus, having an active jamming system to defeat high band threats and an active cancellation system, the mask the airframe from vulnerable aspects with Romulan tech is better than pretending a lawndart 'can do it all', from all aspects, as it penetrates to drop a bomb, 10-12nm out, on its own.

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

Much as I would love to to be a paid counterintelligence agent for the US Deep State, I'm just a British guy living in New Zealand, working in IT with an interest in aviation.

 

[LEG]

No. It's not.

That's not how any of that works.


No, it's not.

You probably own an active cancellation jammer yourself. Got Bose earphones?

They listen to the incoming wave (whether by microphone or direct conversion of the EM signal into electrical), flip the wave 180deg, and rebroadcast it.

AC Headphones are closed loop, not open environment. To roll back threat radar emissions, you have to have a rolling cycle of analytics which allow the radar to be thumbprinted even as its own ECCM hardware tries its best to dodge the search light of the jammer shining in its face by altering the very conditions of that frequency, PRI/PRF and scan cycle.

Which you can deal with, like a normal jammer, by stacking priority threats and rotating between deception and noise techniques to try and 'fill their listen, out shout their yells' the threat's duty cycle.

But your overall profile also has to be LO enough that you don't blank out a sector of the sky and become a passive HOJ freebie.

Active cancellation, in combination with RAM, narrows the response range you have to deal with by suppressing hot spots, in particular frequencies, at specific aspects, on your airframe via cladding of objects whose feature size might respond to a specific radar. It doesn't replace good design, to remove the extraneous greeblies but it does have the benefit of being able to broad-band across the sweep range of it's techniques generator while maximizing RAM efficiencies by creating cancellation of primary signal, on the jet, rather than at the enemy antenna face.

ACJ does this by acting as a permittive/permiabilty variable in scaling how fast those signals attenuate across the skin. By means of impedance traction or scattering based on phase (polarization) diffraction from base return bearing to one of the jammer's choice.

It functions in an open-air, dynamic environment, condition and it is simultaneously transmitting on several overlapping frequencies to cover all threats on all bearings. Because the threat radar is also dithering in it's scan and likely band limits. As part of a network of radars which may be trying to track the stealth jet together.

Active cancellation is how you beat cognitive radar systems It is how (theoretically) you beat quantum radars. You are literally sucking the trons out of ALL active bands on that particular incident aspect radial as the jammer radiates across the airframe itself.

Because they matched an angle used elsewhere for the nose.

Because LockMart hadn't developed the Diverterless Supersonic Inlet yet.

You do know that the Sawtooth on the B-2 is parallel to the leading edges, right?

So the edges all reflect in exactly the same direction.

It's the total breadth of arc from which you get minimal returns which is important.

See the Lockheed A/FX and the specific differences between the USAF 'full LEX' and the USN 'need the vortices on approach and for dogfighting' differences. You want a maximal reduction in dbsm, across the whole of the radiative engagement angle. If you settle for the little chunk of 'off the radome deicing tip' that is inherent to pointing the jet at ONE radar, you will get slimed by everyone else in the CEC loop.

And they will feed fused trackfile data to the shooter you may or may not know is out there,(he doesn't have to emit, he can move, you may not here his landline or datalink participation in the CEC 'live chat') as he launches a lofted salvo of missiles which comes down ontop of your jet, looking into high feature density areas like canopy, ECS, satcomms, UHF blades, gun fairings, verticals and even the curve between the airframe spine and the upper deck. All of which will give off different radiative patterns at levels which (25GHz/35GHz/94GHz) the coatings on your jet may not be a good enough absorber to prevent the husky-goes-pitbull onslaught.

That is how R-37M works. And it is designed to help a Foxhound hunt B-2As and AGM-129s. Not AWACS. Not Tankers.

So?

If you can't be seen on X-band, no missile guidance radar can track you!

Look closer at an F-22. All the greeblies are there.

Nope. No MLG fairings, no ECS exhausts, flat belly, minor curves up to the tail rather than having an appendage, buried empennage in the wing TE with no dihedral, fully doped and shaped exhausts. The F-22 is a BVR spear chucker. The Algernon is a penetrating striker.

One has to get close to drop a bomb from Mach .9. The other can lob Mach 4-5 missiles from the bozosphere and the better part of a hundred miles away.

The F-35 should be a flying wing. Or/and use standoff ordnance with, if the UMPK is any indication, a lot more than 40-60nm of standoff.

Again, if an X-band fire control radar cannot lock onto you, you cannot be shot. They'll know you're there, there just isn't a damn thing they can do about it. Maybe engage the bomb, which as you correctly note a JDAM is non-stealthy.

Again, if the threat is doing fused track with Podlyets, Nebo-M, Protivnik-G, Gamma-S1, Nebo SVU, Vostok and they in turn are getting general EWR hits from Voronezh, A-50/A-100, and Rezonans, the likelihood that you are going to be illuminated beyond your comfort zone for aspect or band is pretty high.


The F-35 is measured (in the West) by it's frontal = optimal RCS, only in the fire control bands. In the East, it's measured by all spectra at all aspects snd the numbers they come up with are much, much, higher. Fortunately, we also have numerical FES models available on high end PCs, owned by Western online sources and they tend to support the Russians with an RCS in the .02m2 region for a steel model with cloaked inlets in X-Band and .06 in S-Band.

Just like Abrams are now suddenly 'just another tank, subject to tanky levels of attrition from everyone, now that they have been lost in Ukraine, the notion that the F-35 could turn out to be vulnerable to detection at 40-60nm instead of 15-20nm would do a lot to level heads after the fantasy science bender America has long been on.

Forcing us to make real choices about force mixes, vulnerability (can't turn, can't climb, can't run...). And if the 'optimism' shown on the A-12 is as oversold on the F-35, it will be the beginning of the end for manned combat aviation because it is simply easier to get lts of missiles to theater and indeed to _make more of them_ every FY.

Which is likely the sole common ground between the singular A-12 debacle and the ongoing horror show which is JSF.

While you're correct that the RCS is nowhere near -40dbsm, your assumption is in the wrong direction.

Support it. With LINKS. There are multiple NATO members with high end Gen 4 jets, pre-AESA, that would like to have a word if you do.

 

[quellish]

AC Headphones are closed loop, not open environment. To roll back threat radar emissions, you have to have a rolling cycle of analytics which allow the radar to be thumbprinted even as its own ECCM hardware tries its best to dodge the search light of the jammer shining in its face by altering the very conditions of that frequency, PRI/PRF and scan cycle.

Having developed, years ago, an active noise cancellation system for open office environments using parametric speakers (essentially acoustics AESA), I can tell you this is incorrect.

Active cancellation, in combination with RAM, narrows the response range you have to deal with by suppressing hot spots, in particular frequencies, at specific aspects, on your airframe via cladding of objects whose feature size might respond to a specific radar. It doesn't replace good design, to remove the extraneous greeblies but it does have the benefit of being able to broad-band across the sweep range of it's techniques generator while maximizing RAM efficiencies by creating cancellation of primary signal, on the jet, rather than at the enemy antenna face.

No, it does not, and active cancellation is essentially incompatible with (liberal) use of RAM. For active cancellation to work it needs antennas. Antennas and RAM do not work well together. Antennas and stealth in general do not work well together, and for an active cancellation system you need a lot of antennas.

If I am reading these posts correctly, your hypothesis is that:
1. US stealth aircraft use active cancellation as their primary means to reduce detection range (not shaping)
2. The ZSR-62 / ZSR-63 ESM system used on the B-2 is not an ESM system, it is a jammer or active cancellation system.

#2 seems to be based on popular press reporting in the late 1980s and early 1990s, such as:

"Glitches Conceded in B-2's Stealth System"

Glitches Conceded in B-2's Stealth System

The Air Force acknowledged that it has encountered setbacks in two of the Northrop B-2 stealth bomber's electronic warfare systems, the same type of problem that crippled the B-1 bomber during the 1980s.

www.latimes.com

"B-2 Jamming Unit May Have Been Canceled"

B-2 Jamming Unit May Have Been Canceled

The Air Force has reportedly curtailed development of a controversial, multibillion-dollar electronic jamming system for the Northrop B-2 bomber, according to a former Northrop employee who cites a memorandum issued by the firm's legal counsel.

www.latimes.com

These reports were inaccurate and based on little more than hearsay. Now, 30 years later, the story of the ZSR-62 and ZSR-63 are much more clear and open. These were not "jammers" or any kind of active cancellation system. These were ESM components of the B-2 Defensive Management System. This is well documented. Both of these systems had no capability to transmit, they only receive.

https://cdn.calisphere.org/data/13030/m5/c8kw5mm5/files/Northrop-FullSeries2.pdf

If there is evidence these were active cancellation systems, or that active cancellation systems are used on other US stealth aircraft, please present it.

The F-35 is measured (in the West) by it's frontal = optimal RCS, only in the fire control bands. In the East, it's measured by all spectra at all aspects snd the numbers they come up with are much, much, higher. Fortunately, we also have numerical FES models available on high end PCs, owned by Western online sources and they tend to support the Russians with an RCS in the .02m2 region for a steel model with cloaked inlets in X-Band and .06 in S-Band.

Again, I encourage adversaries to use these numbers in their defensive planning.

 

[Scott Kenny]

AC Headphones are closed loop, not open environment. To roll back threat radar emissions, you have to have a rolling cycle of analytics which allow the radar to be thumbprinted even as its own ECCM hardware tries its best to dodge the search light of the jammer shining in its face by altering the very conditions of that frequency, PRI/PRF and scan cycle.

No, headphones are by definition open loop. They have to be, to hear what the incoming sounds are to be able to cancel them!

Which you can deal with, like a normal jammer, by stacking priority threats and rotating between deception and noise techniques to try and 'fill their listen, out shout their yells' the threat's duty cycle.

But your overall profile also has to be LO enough that you don't blank out a sector of the sky and become a passive HOJ freebie.

Active cancellation, in combination with RAM, narrows the response range you have to deal with by suppressing hot spots, in particular frequencies, at specific aspects, on your airframe via cladding of objects whose feature size might respond to a specific radar. It doesn't replace good design, to remove the extraneous greeblies but it does have the benefit of being able to broad-band across the sweep range of it's techniques generator while maximizing RAM efficiencies by creating cancellation of primary signal, on the jet, rather than at the enemy antenna face.

ACJ does this by acting as a permittive/permiabilty variable in scaling how fast those signals attenuate across the skin. By means of impedance traction or scattering based on phase (polarization) diffraction from base return bearing to one of the jammer's choice.

It functions in an open-air, dynamic environment, condition and it is simultaneously transmitting on several overlapping frequencies to cover all threats on all bearings. Because the threat radar is also dithering in it's scan and likely band limits. As part of a network of radars which may be trying to track the stealth jet together.

Active cancellation is how you beat cognitive radar systems It is how (theoretically) you beat quantum radars. You are literally sucking the trons out of ALL active bands on that particular incident aspect radial as the jammer radiates across the airframe itself.

Which then leaves a "hole in the sky" that you claim would attract a HOJ missile...

that you don't blank out a sector of the sky and become a passive HOJ freebie.

It's the total breadth of arc from which you get minimal returns which is important.

Wow, something you said that is actually correct!

proper edge alignment means that you have maybe 4 spikes in your RCS, and they're a total of maybe one square degree. Which means 1 out of 129,600 square degrees that you might be detectable in.

Nope. No MLG fairings, no ECS exhausts, flat belly, minor curves up to the tail rather than having an appendage, buried empennage in the wing TE with no dihedral, fully doped and shaped exhausts. The F-22 is a BVR spear chucker. The Algernon is a penetrating striker.

One has to get close to drop a bomb from Mach .9. The other can lob Mach 4-5 missiles from the bozosphere and the better part of a hundred miles away.

The B-2 proves that compound curves do not compromise LO shaping.

The F-35 should be a flying wing. Or/and use standoff ordnance with, if the UMPK is any indication, a lot more than 40-60nm of standoff.

Small standoff ordnance did not exist at the time the JSF specs were written. So the bays are sized for a pair of GBU-15s and a pair of AMRAAMs.

Again, if the threat is doing fused track with Podlyets, Nebo-M, Protivnik-G, Gamma-S1, Nebo SVU, Vostok and they in turn are getting general EWR hits from Voronezh, A-50/A-100, and Rezonans, the likelihood that you are going to be illuminated beyond your comfort zone for aspect or band is pretty high.

And again, if an X-band fire control radar cannot get a lock, it doesn't matter if the bad guys know you're there. They cannot hurt you!

The F-35 is measured (in the West) by it's frontal = optimal RCS, only in the fire control bands. In the East, it's measured by all spectra at all aspects snd the numbers they come up with are much, much, higher. Fortunately, we also have numerical FES models available on high end PCs, owned by Western online sources and they tend to support the Russians with an RCS in the .02m2 region for a steel model with cloaked inlets in X-Band and .06 in S-Band.

Good thing that the F-35 isn't made from steel, then.

Support it. With LINKS.

Any such links would be classified all to hell and back. As in, about 24hrs after posting, I'd just fucking disappear into Federal custody and never be seen or heard from again.

No thank you.

 

[LEG]

No, headphones are by definition open loop. They have to be, to hear what the incoming sounds are to be able to cancel them!

They are closed loop in that the bad guys are not actively trying to rock concert or frequency range change the nature of the sound so that they can interactively defeat you. Whether immediately, on the battlefield by using passive systems, including PCLS to see the buzz of your cancellation against the backing signal. Or by years of study and illumination in secondary theaters (Syria) and exercises (Bersama Warrior) where international monitoring is impossible to avoid.

More importantly, you have the system orientation backwards in that AC headphones what to keep you from hearing their noise. Like a guarded signal antenna complex. Radar wants to pick up the ping and, increasingly, it doesn't care about whether the antenna that sent it is the same as the one which receives the return.

As the man once said: "Just wipe them all!" then becomes the solution, if the active loading stays attached to the airframe because the signal on the airframe is responding to impedance loads which can be broad band dealt with at a phase opposition and charge level.

RAM in this instance is what either takes care of residuals or swaths the variable permittents/permeability breaks in material zones so that the flow stays constant and doesn't create a resonant backscatter. In other words, it keeps the surface waves attached. Couple this with deep channel ribbons of high density RAM, specifically to remove edge glints and your active VLO works. Because it's not going to do so in a material optimized for X-Band at a particular polariation being struck by something at C/S Band and an entirely different waveform encoding.

AESA is the death of passive stealth because radar can be spun up or down across such a wide instantaneous bandwidth that it cannot be prevented from creating an impedance load which becomes a surface wave which becomes an edge scatter rebro.

Which then leaves a "hole in the sky" that you claim would attract a HOJ missile...

That was my fault, I said blanked out, I should have said whited out. If the jamming does not look at the emitter but rather at the target, modifying it's signature values (electric charge, polarity etc.) on the fly, the jammer doesn't have to see the resonance of the jammer strobe leaking through the radar pulse as each struggles to out-mime/out-aria the other. Like Opera vs. Rap.

Wow, something you said that is actually correct!

proper edge alignment means that you have maybe 4 spikes in your RCS, and they're a total of maybe one square degree. Which means 1 out of 129,600 square degrees that you might be detectable in.

The B-2 proves that compound curves do not compromise LO shaping.

Not if you are realistically being tracked by having a long wave strategic emitter about which you can do little cue ten large L/S band systems. The Russians are multistatic and mulltiband.

And the B-2 is not VLO. There are so many features on that jet which say otherwise, not least being the sawteeth which actually act as corner radiators at key bands, but I'll let General Merrill L. McPeak say it-

_The FIve Billion Dollar Misunderstanding, The Collapse Of The Navy's A-12 Stealth Program_, James P. Stevenson, Page 54.

"Perry's enthusiasm, in 1980, for the stealth benefit of the B-2, nee` the Advanced Technology Bomber, cause the print media to describe the stealth bomber as "Nearly Invisible", an assertion Perry never disputed. Eleven years later, the Chief of Staff of the Air Force would repudiate William Perry, as General Merrill L. McPeak said the Soviets could detect the B-2. Undeterred, Perry who later returned as the secretary of defense in the Clinton administration, could not give up the claim of stealth invisibility."

And there's this-

>
The most fundamental problem, however, is that stealth planes are hardly undetectable to enemy defenses. The B-2 is nearly as visible as a 747 to a ground observer, one reason that it — like the F-117 — flies only at night. Furthermore, the Pentagon’s supposedly invisible stealth aircraft fly into action with the same radar-jamming escort planes that accompany conventional warplanes. Demand for jammers was so high during the Kosovo conflict that the Pentagon had to redeploy electronic warfare planes from Turkey, where they are being used in the ongoing air campaign against Iraq. “For stealth planes, jammers are just like American Express,” says a military analyst who works with Congress. “Don’t leave home without them.”
>

The Pentagon’s 300-Billion-Dollar Bomb

The military is committed to stealth aircraft and may never buy another conventional plane. But amid all the hype, stealth's glaring flaws have evaded Washington's radar.

www.motherjones.com

And then there is this-



Now I know you are going to say 'detect does not equal track' but, in a modern, integrated, ADGE, it really does. Because missiles fly out on a CNS profile of comms cuing nav positioning, not just on the target but the missile's own reference position to it. So the navigator can match kinematic bearings and prepoint the seeker from a lead position. And that's before you consider that period 70s SA-2/SA-5 had 'strategic variants' with nuclear warheads. And now the TVM SA-23 does as well.

If you bring the seeker close enough it will see the SARH or go active and detect the 'no see'em too good' target, just like the main surveillance radar does. Even if it's X/Ka instead one of the low band A/L/S etc. systems.

Finally, keep in mind that the B-2 got those saw tooth cutouts because someone thought it would be A REALLY GOOD IDEA to low level, in a highly irradiated environment, where multiple other strategic strike aircraft were already active. You wouldn't normally be doing that unless you had decided that the B-2 was so compromised that it could not remain penetrative at medium/high levels where it would have the best legs to reach the Empty Quarter or Pakistan or wherever they though a dry lakebed might let them meet up with a recovery team.

Small standoff ordnance did not exist at the time the JSF specs were written. So the bays are sized for a pair of GBU-15s and a pair of AMRAAMs.

MMTD which became SDB existed. AIWS which became JSOW-C (and the prototype D, flight tested with turbine propulsion did), the AGM-84 SLAM-ER did. And, courtesy of the Australians and their Kerkanya anything you know now as 'JDAM-ER' was getting SWAK'd (Swing WIng Adaptor Kit) envisioned in the 1988-89 period. Also attached to the MMTD, though originally their own program (and later separated again) was the LOCAAS and LOCATM, 200km range micro-turbojet weapons which could hunt individual targets through complex roadway and search grid onboard maps, via a shared datalink. Finally, if you want to talk about the GBU-15, the CWW was originally the PWW and mooted for the first 'Paveway 4', off the F-111, as swing wing, rocket motor and seeker/DME frontend back in early 1980s. Like AASM only looking like a cross between a Skipper and a GBU-8 with a swing wing kit

So, no, the JSF is not a victim of it's 1994 birthdate. It's a victim of venality and stupidity aligning to give the Congress the stealth jet micro force they saw as the pathway to BUR and a 'Peace Dividend' (more social engineering programs with easier to hid kickbacks) while the USAF promising that if they could just have the F-16C.50s they really wanted as their Over-IPE'd Sky Ferrari, they would be good boys and make sure the fighter than came after could carry two GBU-10/31 or whatever gnat-hammer came next. Honest!

Never mind that, from day one, this was mooted as a battlefield support fighter and that things like XIMER and SMER as what would become the BRU-61 (20 years later) were the really absent without a brain indicaators that 'both bombs today!' the F-35 spec was written by guy who designed the F-5A.

And again, if an X-band fire control radar cannot get a lock, it doesn't matter if the bad guys know you're there. They cannot hurt you!

Good thing that the F-35 isn't made from steel, then.

It's all relative. Digital processing has made systems like Nebo-M and later variants able to spot small UAV helicopters _as discriminant images_ 'over the horizon', tens of miles away. There are demos on Youtube showing this, live, while the commentator watches. Whether they are using some kind of iono-bounch or surface wave doesn't matter.

What matters is that if you are bearing+range able to spot that class of micro-target, then you can sling a Buk-M3 or 9M96 or 40N6 or whatever to go pluck that berry because the missile doesn't have to LOBL see the target until it's just a few miles (Pitbull) or fives of miles (Huskey) away. Which an S-400 battalion, with perhaps 48-64 missiles attached will have no problem 'experimental shot' attempting.

Subsonic anything which has to come closer than a 80-100nm is asking to get whacked. See the Su-34 vs. PAC-3MSE fight for how panting and curses ugly that can get. And then you need to climb right back up and take another salvo to the face because all your munitions are bleeping GLIDE BOMBS anyway!

Any such links would be classified all to hell and back. As in, about 24hrs after posting, I'd just fucking disappear into Federal custody and never be seen or heard from again.

No thank you.

FIne. I don't know you from Jack. I have no reason to trust you. And while you have done nothing beyond the snide and supercilious to show you actually 'know the math', in the way of formulas and generic explanations, I am doing the heavy lifting to contradict all of your assertions and you refuse to comment even on THOSE links.

I think it is clear to everyone that there is something missing in the stealth vs. everything debate. Clear guideposts which are being ignored on the simplest of 'who is the radiator, what's his distance and aspect to the target when he tries to target it?' matters. And that these are further complicated by the muddy assertion 'Can detect, can't track' when the very nature of CEC and NIFC-CA suggests that, with enough processing, even longer wavelength systems can indeed _track_ targets. And do so without adding in the factors like multi-statics which programs like Mountain Top, MSI highlighted before going dark and which now are being worked on, 'behind the scenes', using Retract Maple SBIR/STTR funding, at a gallop.

Bluntly, we had the beginnings of some truly advanced ideas. But either didn't have the technology baselines, didn't have the funding commitment or had both and got them to service, but not on all platforms. As a result most of our Gen-2 stealth are now 'perishable' outdated or at least signatures matched, as passive only platforms. And our Gen-3 is almost laughably bad in all the other areas which matter (Kinematics, payload, radius) that even if it's AC works, it's not going to do anything useful with it because the 'send everything!' approach to supporting VLO with conventional jamming and tanking and offboard sensor sources is simply not viable because the threat, with stealths and satellites and very long range missiles, including AXE/CAAM equivalents, can take them out too.

Until we are honest about this, everything we do is just paying for someone's second yacht or early retirement. Because the junk passing for VLO today lacks both the capacity and the sustainability to be useful against the sole opponent it would be needed against: Peer Threats with not just counter-LO but actual Nuclear Weapons as the ultimate A2AD operational theater exclusion strategy.

We must prove this, prove how helpless we really are, with our over-hyped Stealth assets, not able to stand up to the tasks needed to break into such a bastion defense, before we can begin to have a sane, limited, defense upgrade program which literally brings us back to the levels of dominant strategic and theater capability which we enjoyed in the 1980s.

At half the 1.25 trillion (black and white budgets) which we throw at the military, today.

 

[quellish]

Couple this with deep channel ribbons of high density RAM, specifically to remove edge glints and your active VLO works. Because it's not going to do so in a material optimized for X-Band at a particular polariation being struck by something at C/S Band and an entirely different waveform encoding.

The "active VLO" is incompatible with the use of RAM. An active cancellation system needs antennas to both receive and transmit. These are the same signals the RAM will absorb.

If these antennas are within the edges (i.e. leading edge) of the aircraft it will not be possible to suppress the edge diffraction of that physical or electrical surface meeting free space. Your leading edge can be an antenna/radome or an absorber, but not both.

AESA is the death of passive stealth because radar can be spun up or down across such a wide instantaneous bandwidth that it cannot be prevented from creating an impedance load which becomes a surface wave which becomes an edge scatter rebro.

No, it isn't. Again, the laws of physics have not changed.

Now I know you are going to say 'detect does not equal track' but, in a modern, integrated, ADGE, it really does. Because missiles fly out on a CNS profile of comms cuing nav positioning, not just on the target but the missile's own reference position to it. So the navigator can match kinematic bearings and prepoint the seeker from a lead position. And that's before you consider that period 70s SA-2/SA-5 had 'strategic variants' with nuclear warheads. And now the TVM SA-23 does as well.

Detecting and tracking are different things that are part of a complete kill chain. Disrupt any part of a kill chain and survivability increases. Stealh is about increasing survivability. It is not about being "invisible". This was something Stevenson probably understood, but did not fit within his bias of "stealth doesnt work" etc.

Finally, keep in mind that the B-2 got those saw tooth cutouts because someone thought it would be A REALLY GOOD IDEA to low level, in a highly irradiated environment, where multiple other strategic strike aircraft were already active. You wouldn't normally be doing that unless you had decided that the B-2 was so compromised that it could not remain penetrative at medium/high levels where it would have the best legs to reach the Empty Quarter or Pakistan or wherever they though a dry lakebed might let them meet up with a recovery team.

The ATB low altitude requirement was added as the result of a set of Air Force Red Team studies that indicated the aircraft could become vulnerable to a possible set of threats late in the projected aircraft lifetime. This was based on entirely hypothetical threats that could possibly be developed 20+ years into the future. Much later analysis showed that this would not have been the case even if the hypothetical threat system was developed. This is all well documented in many places such as:

"B-2 Systems Engineering Case Study"

Defense Technical Information Center

apps.dtic.mil

MMTD which became SDB existed. AIWS which became JSOW-C (and the prototype D, flight tested with turbine propulsion did), the AGM-84 SLAM-ER did. And, courtesy of the Australians and their Kerkanya anything you know now as 'JDAM-ER' was getting SWAK'd (Swing WIng Adaptor Kit) envisioned in the 1988-89 period. Also attached to the MMTD, though originally their own program (and later separated again) was the LOCAAS and LOCATM, 200km range micro-turbojet weapons which could hunt individual targets through complex roadway and search grid onboard maps, via a shared datalink. Finally, if you want to talk about the GBU-15, the CWW was originally the PWW and mooted for the first 'Paveway 4', off the F-111, as swing wing, rocket motor and seeker/DME frontend back in early 1980s. Like AASM only looking like a cross between a Skipper and a GBU-8 with a swing wing kit

MMTD: Not standoff. This was a technology demonstration begun in 1995. It was one of a succesion of several programs that eventually lead to SDB, which has little resemblance to MMTD. The SDB program had no momentum until Gen. Jumper wanted to add air to ground capability to the F-22 in 2000. Before that SDB and related programs were developmental programs with no plans for procurement.

AIWS and JSOW: Standoff, but not small.

JDAM: Program began in 1994 after a technology demonstration with flight tests starting in 1996.

LOCASS and LOCATM: Had nothing to do with MMTD.

https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/boeing-sdb-i-gbu-39-b.44198/#post-727755

None of these munitions were part of JAST/JSF planning.

It's all relative. Digital processing has made systems like Nebo-M and later variants able to spot small UAV helicopters _as discriminant images_ 'over the horizon', tens of miles away. There are demos on Youtube showing this, live, while the commentator watches. Whether they are using some kind of iono-bounch or surface wave doesn't matter.

No, all the signal processing in the world can not change the laws of physics.

I think it is clear to everyone that there is something missing in the stealth vs. everything debate. Clear guideposts which are being ignored on the simplest of 'who is the radiator, what's his distance and aspect to the target when he tries to target it?' matters. And that these are further complicated by the muddy assertion 'Can detect, can't track' when the very nature of CEC and NIFC-CA suggests that, with enough processing, even longer wavelength systems can indeed _track_ targets. And do so without adding in the factors like multi-statics which programs like Mountain Top, MSI highlighted before going dark and which now are being worked on, 'behind the scenes', using Retract Maple SBIR/STTR funding, at a gallop.

It is clear to (almost) everyone how stealth actually works - by reflecting the majority of the incoming RF energy in a direction away from the receiver and absorbing a small portion of the remainder.

In previous posts "active cancellation" has been mentioned frequently. Active cancellation is... impractical. Why?

Knott, E. F., Schaeffer, J. F., Tulley, M. T. (2004). "Radar Cross Section". United States: Institution of Engineering and Technology.:

Also known as active loading, active cancellation is even more ambitious than passive loading. In essence, the target must emit radiation in time coincidence with the incoming pulse whose amplitude and phase cancel the reflected energy. This implies that the target must be "smart" enough to sense the angle of arrival, intensity, frequency, and waveform of the incident wave. It must also be smart enough to know its own echo characteristics for that particular wave length and angle of arrival rapidly enough to generate the proper waveform and frequency. Such a system must also be versatile enough to adjust and radiate a pulse of the proper amplitude and phase at the proper time. Clearly, the relative difficulty of active cancellation increases with increasing frequency, as scattering centers go in and out of phase with smaller aspect changes and where scattering patterns become more complex.
Thus, if it has a place at all, active cancellation appears most suitable for low-frequency RCSR, where use of absorber and shaping become very difficult and scattering patterns exhibit broader lobes. Research on the technique is likely to continue because other practical means of RCSR are also difficult to apply for low frequencies. Nevertheless, it is worthwhile to remember that an active canceler that is not working correctly has another name—it is called a beacon!

And the above ignores a number of practical engineering issues with active cancellation like radomes, power requirements, etc.

In previous posts in a related thread the term "fuzzy balls" and the program name "TEAL PARROT" were used together :

Having said this, what I am interested in is Teal Parrot and 'Fuzzyballs'. Because, IMO, that's the only way the JSF works and it would have likely applied to the AX and certainly the A/FX.

This appears to be a reference to a 1989 Washington Post article "STEALTH FROM 18-INCH MODEL TO $70 BILLION MUDDLE" (https://www.washingtonpost.com/arch...-muddle/4d9a3c88-33a4-49c9-bb68-c8446dedaba4/)

Which stated:

To replicate the "fuzzball" -- the impious term given to natural electronic signals always present in the atmosphere -- considerable attention was paid to technology developed under Project Teal Parrot, which negates some enemy radar frequencies by broadcasting a similar wavelength in a process called "active cancellation."

Which was incorrect.
TEAL PARROT was a 1974-1976 program investigation into RCS reduction techniques. These were all theoretical exercises. While some attention was paid to active cancellation it was quickly discarded. TEAL PARROT did investigate a number of different passive absorbing and cancellation techniques. The program was focused on reducing the RCS of the B-1A bomber. The techniques they were looking at though only offered marginal improvements that were not worth the weight and complexity.

For example, one area that was studied extensively during TEAL PARROT was using passive resonators (coupling them to the surface of an object). They also explored using a Luneberg lens modified to focus at infinity as a method of "cancellation". This is from the TEAL PARROT program files I have right in front of me.

The TEAL PARROT participants were unaware of other stealth work being done until late in the program where some were read into other programs - which resulted in TEAL PARROT ending. The TEAL PARROT work could not possibly achieve the level of RCS reduction being seen in the XST program.

TEAL PARROT was a dead end.

 

[MadRat]

These are some long winded posts mashing timelines and programs that equate to nonsensical claims. A-12 would have been pretty good but politics crushed it. Where the money went upon cancellation is enough evidence of why it got cancelled.

 

[Scott Kenny]

Nope, I'm done.

I can't tell if it's just a bad case of Dunning-Kreuger or full on Malicious Intent. You are relying on exactly one source. There is obviously ZERO evidence that would change your mind, ergo this was never a discussion. This was always you preaching your opinion at people who know better, but are often bound by nasty criminal-penalty-for-breach NDAs.

Good Day, Sir.

 

[Scott Kenny]

These are some long winded posts mashing timelines and programs that equate to nonsensical claims. A-12 would have been pretty good but politics crushed it. Where the money went upon cancellation is enough evidence of why it got cancelled.

No, the MDD A-12 likely never would have worked.

The NG A-12 would have.

 

[Hydroman]

Having developed, years ago, an active noise cancellation system for open office environments using parametric speakers (essentially acoustics AESA), I can tell you this is incorrect.



No, it does not, and active cancellation is essentially incompatible with (liberal) use of RAM. For active cancellation to work it needs antennas. Antennas and RAM do not work well together. Antennas and stealth in general do not work well together, and for an active cancellation system you need a lot of antennas.

If I am reading these posts correctly, your hypothesis is that:
1. US stealth aircraft use active cancellation as their primary means to reduce detection range (not shaping)
2. The ZSR-62 / ZSR-63 ESM system used on the B-2 is not an ESM system, it is a jammer or active cancellation system.

#2 seems to be based on popular press reporting in the late 1980s and early 1990s, such as:

"Glitches Conceded in B-2's Stealth System"

Glitches Conceded in B-2's Stealth System

The Air Force acknowledged that it has encountered setbacks in two of the Northrop B-2 stealth bomber's electronic warfare systems, the same type of problem that crippled the B-1 bomber during the 1980s.

www.latimes.com

"B-2 Jamming Unit May Have Been Canceled"

B-2 Jamming Unit May Have Been Canceled

The Air Force has reportedly curtailed development of a controversial, multibillion-dollar electronic jamming system for the Northrop B-2 bomber, according to a former Northrop employee who cites a memorandum issued by the firm's legal counsel.

www.latimes.com

These reports were inaccurate and based on little more than hearsay. Now, 30 years later, the story of the ZSR-62 and ZSR-63 are much more clear and open. These were not "jammers" or any kind of active cancellation system. These were ESM components of the B-2 Defensive Management System. This is well documented. Both of these systems had no capability to transmit, they only receive.

https://cdn.calisphere.org/data/13030/m5/c8kw5mm5/files/Northrop-FullSeries2.pdf

If there is evidence these were active cancellation systems, or that active cancellation systems are used on other US stealth aircraft, please present it.



Again, I encourage adversaries to use these numbers in their defensive planning.

ZSR-62 worked and worked very well, just did not need to be implemented. ZSR-63 worked as well. 63 was for threat management, I remember our test flights.

 

[quellish]

ZSR-62 worked and worked very well, just did not need to be implemented. ZSR-63 worked as well. 63 was for threat management, I remember our test flights.

sssshhh.. What happens north of Vegas, stays north of Vegas.
Funny thing is that the 63 ended up also going into another aircraft that was not originally NG but is now.

 

[Cancerman]

ZSR-62 worked and worked very well, just did not need to be implemented. ZSR-63 worked as well. 63 was for threat management, I remember our test flights.

You know where and in what labs I worked in. You are correct, I won't say any more about the systems.

 

[Scott Kenny]

I hate it that you guys can tease us like this...