Soviet Origins of Stealth?

Dilandu

Dilandu

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pavel1972 said:
The inventor Stealth was called Viktor Tryschulkov. What Ufimtsev?! Solzhenitsyn writes - Tryschulkov.
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Solzhenitsyn lies as his name suggest (rus. Solgat - to tell a lie, Lzhets - liar). The theory of stealth technology in USSR was indeed, developed by Ufimtsev in parallel with Lockheed works. Lockheed engineers actually used his book to check their own progress on ECHO-1 program. Soviet military did not took much interest in it, considering the efficient stealth to be outside of the available technology (and they actually were right - at that moment, of course).

The aforementioned "Viktor Tryshulyakov" seems to be a Solzhenitsyn own invention. He is not mentioned anywhere outside his books.
 
Do you love Russia? Any priority of Russian discoveries is love for Russia. I understand Americans in comments. But if he writes Russian ... The invention of anti-radar technology in 1945-47 in the USSR is already interesting. Is it disgusting to you? Anti-Semites dislike Solzhenitsyn. This is a head-on question.

Good luck. It's all.
 
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pavel1972 said:
Any priority of Russian discoveries is love for Russia.
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It's remind me of our old Russian anekdote:

"United Nations declared the year of elephant. All leading nations decided to publish a book about elephants.

Germans published the book titled "Elephants"

British published the book titled "Some facts about elephants"

French published the book titled "Elephants in the history of France"

And USSR published the book titled "Russia, as unquestioned motherland of all elephantkind...""
 
The excerpt merely says Tryshulyakov claimed to have found a way to absorb radar - and Tryshulyakov didn't give any details specific enough to allow Solzhenitsyn and colleagues to build a working sample, or even theorize how this would work.

I don't think you can call that an "invention of stealth technology". Tryshulyakov came up with an interesting theory, but didn't have a way to put it into practice. It would have required a series of experiments to find a material combination that worked, and evidently Tryshulyakov didn't get to that stage.

After the invention of radar, it'd be obvious to anyone working in this field that there should be a way to make aircraft invisible to radar, by either deflecting or absorbing the radar energy. A bunch of layers of partially-reflective materials is an obvious way to do this. So it's not surprising to me that an inventive Russian would think of this.

from Wikipedia:
The earliest forms of stealth coating were the materials called Sumpf and Schornsteinfeger, a coating used by the German navy during World War II for the snorkels (or periscopes) of submarines, to lower their reflectivity in the 20 cm radar band the Allies used. The material had a layered structure and was based on graphite particles and other semiconductive materials embedded in a rubber matrix. The material's efficiency was partially reduced by the action of sea water.
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So by 1947 radar-absorbent materials had been used in combat. The difficulty with RAM was in finding a material that works well, and stands up to regular use.

Tryshulyakov's idea cannot be compared to the work Umfitsev did. Umfitsev developed a mathematical model that could be tested, and be applied to real-world objects. Lockheed built a tool on that model that made stealth practical, while at the same time Northrop was working on a more trial-and-error basis to find shapes that would deflect radar waves in desirable ways.

Tryshulyakov seems to have been one of the people who said "wouldn't it be nice if we were able to hide an aircraft from radar". Umfitsev's work made this practical.
 
Dilandu said:
pavel1972 said:
The inventor Stealth was called Viktor Tryschulkov. What Ufimtsev?! Solzhenitsyn writes - Tryschulkov.
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Solzhenitsyn lies as his name suggest (rus. Solgat - to tell a lie, Lzhets - liar). The theory of stealth technology in USSR was indeed, developed by Ufimtsev in parallel with Lockheed works.
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This is so far removed from reality...

In the 1960s Ufimtsev began developing a high-frequency asymptotic theory for predicting the scattering of electromagnetic waves from two-dimensional and three-dimensional objects.
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He was solving a mathematical problem of describing how waves scatter. At no point was this anything to do with Stealth.Theoretical work.

His article was translated to English and attracted the attention of Denys Overholser at Lockheed, who realised he could use Ufimsev's work to help calculate the RCS of simple shapes with some accuracy. This was helpful in designing the first stealth aircraft.

Noone in the USSR seems to have taken any notice of Ufimtsev's work. Soviet stealth research came as a response to US work in this area, and was without any rigour or true understanding until the details of the F-117 were made public.
 
overscan (PaulMM) said:
He was solving a mathematical problem of describing how waves scatter. At no point was this anything to do with Stealth.Theoretical work.
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Agreed, and as I said -

The theory of stealth technology in USSR was indeed, developed by Ufimtsev
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But I agree, I should said "the UNDERLYING theory beneath the stealth technology".

overscan (PaulMM) said:
Noone in the USSR seems to have taken any notice of Ufimtsev's work. Soviet stealth research came as a response to US work in this area, and was without any rigour or true understanding until the details of the F-117 were made public.
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That's true.
 
What's the underlying theory excluding one of the skunkworks engineers calling it a Rosetta stone of stealth?

Feeling cute, probably going to have both skunkwork engineer quotes for each post I make.
 
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The 'Rosetta Stone' idiom describes a keystone piece of information that unlocks a greater body of knowledge. That is accurate.

Ufimtsev's theory was the keystone piece of information that "unlocked" the ability for Lockheed to accurately predict radar cross sections of flat planes, which lead to the development of the F-117 at Lockheed.

Northrop managed to do a fairly good job on their XST without it, coming from a different angle, and in some respects Lockheed became enslaved by their breakthrough into sticking with faceted designs too long because they understood how to measure them.

You are also falling into the "great man" historical fallacy. Denys Overholser recognized a practical application of a piece of relatively arcane mathematics. Teams of engineers turned that into a workable body of engineering knowledge called "Stealth." Ufimtsev's work was important but it wasn't "how to design a stealth aircraft".

The US were working on Stealth aircraft well before Overholser found that report. If he hadn't most likely Northrop would have won and built their XST. History would unfold differently.
 
overscan (PaulMM) said:
Northrop managed to do a fairly good job on their XST without it, coming from a different angle, and in some respects Lockheed became enslaved by their breakthrough into sticking with faceted designs too long because they understood how to measure them.
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That is true, Lockheed's faceted designs lost to Northrop's curved shapes for the ATB (B-2) and the ATA (A-12), during the ATF RFI, Lockheed had a poor showing and was initially last out of the seven companies due to their commitment to faceting (it was more or less a tailed F-117 with afterburning engines). That was when they shifted away from faceting, but even their initial Configuration 090P submission for the RFP bore some resemblances to the F-117 in the forward fuselage, although Lockheed's first place ranking after the down-select was more due to their systems engineering and technology development efforts.
 
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1) Ufimtsev didn't invent Stealth. His monography was about math methods of calculation the optimal shape of radioantennas to make them more effective in terms of gain. That's why it was openly published and has become available to LM/Skunks and gave them the idea to use this math not for the signal gain, but for its weakening.

2) There is a fundamental difference between the method of RCS reduction via EM-wave deflection - Stealth form; and its attenuation - Radiation-absorbent material or RAM.

3) RAM were widely known long before 1973.
 
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Scar said:
1) Ufimtsev didn't invent Stealth. His monography was about math methods of calculation the optimal shape of radioantennas to make them more effective in terms of gain. That's why it was openly published and has become available to LM/Skunks and gave them the idea to use this math not for the signal gain, but for its weakening.

2) There is a fundamental difference between the method of RCS reduction via EM-wave deflection - Stealth form; and its attenuation - Radiation-absorbent material or RAM.

3) RAM were widely known long before 1973.
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Dont think Mindstorm from Russia defense would last much of a week here, but I will just re-iterate what he posted over there not to bring back bad memories, but if that someone had a response for mindstorm before leaving that forum(dont blame him I would be screwed continuing that arguement with him as well) as last being seen or what anyone elses thoughts are on what he said. His words not mine.

"That is completely false.

For one PTD has been much more fundamental for B2 Spirit program than for F-117; in facts ,as anyone can easily understand, capability to compute re-radiating cones both for shadow boundaries and caustic diffracting regions (where OTD mostly fail) was literally critical, above all for designs incorporating asymptotic curved edges, including the subsequent US fighter type designs.

As said by the same Kenneth Mitzner (the Northrop theoretical seminal and development mind, togheter with F. Oshiro, behind B-2 and Tacit Blue) B-2 program would have been practically impossible without the PTD:

"I cannot imagine the B-2 having been designed without the influence of his work," Dr. Mitzner added. "Let me put it this way: without Ufimtsev, today's stealth aircraft would probably have looked the way the speculative artists portrayed them, before their real shapes were publicly disclosed"
Also today the most advanced solution system of equations for computing diffraction fields generated by, so called, VLO and ULO aerodynamics objects are kept in Federation's Institutes, not US ones , with a theoretical understanding edge that in those decades even widened.
What US brands can instead surely boast is the large scale production mastering, with all the related making and maintenance engineering know-how cumulated, of similar complex LO vehicles.

The ridiculous story, likely created, from thin air, by part of some westener with very small knowledges and instead a very big grudge about the fact that this true "allowing" technology for all western stealth designs was coming from directly Soviet Institutes (a thing that deeply worry them......and at reason i can add) circulating about how the, supposedly, "less evolved" F-117 faceted design was created using PTD because of the limits in processign capabilities of computers of the times while the "most advanced" B-2 ,F-22 and F-35 designs has been created using different, unspecified, "US-developed theoretical basis" is a true offense to human intelligence.

П. Уфимцев works was deeply examined in two instances by two different Soviet military Scientific Commissions and rightly considered publicly releasable .
Hard radar data (in the latests years coming also from Syrian airspace control) most than 50 years later, give today perfect reason to the correctness of the scientific assessment of the time."

About instead its importance for, at the time, the over-ocean scientifical community of the field it WAS much more than merely what you define 'the book on stealth' (at least for western approach to aircraft designs with reduced area of dispersion in high frequency radar regimes) it was the true "Rosetta Stone breakthrough for stealth technology" as said directly by Ben Rich -the Director of the team at SkunkWorks charged to carry on the XST program-.

Whats OTD and PTD?
 
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Based on a theoretical study published in 1962 by the Russian mathematician Pyotr Ufimtsev, Lockheed scientist William Schroeder concluded that a surface cut into facets such as diamonds could be used to reflect radar waves in all directions... except for the receiver. If the use of right-angle junctions was avoided, it would be possible to disperse 99 per cent of the incident electromagnetic energy.

In theory this physical principle could be useful to camouflage land vehicles and even warships, but its use in airplanes seemed impossible, it would have been necessary to re-write everything that was known about aerodynamics.

In 1975 a team of computer scientists from Lockheed, under the direction of Denys Overholser, created the "Echo-1" program capable of automatically determining the radar signature of any aircraft model.

Thanks to "Echo-1" Lockheed designers were able to create an aircraft, with sharply swept wings, capable of flying at high subsonic speed despite being fully covered with polygonal facets that avoided 90-degree corners.

The first prototype code named "Have Blue" made its first flight in the Area 51 test site on December 1, 1977.

Both the development and flight tests of the "Have Blue" were carried out under Special Access Programs (SAF) restrictions that override normal chains of command.
 
Again, Ufimtsev didn't invent Stealth. Stealth is a complex of methods to hide the object from the enemy sensors, while Ufimtsev developed his math apparatus to increase antennas effectiveness. But of course Ufimtsev's monography provided great help and influence to US works on Stealth technology.

It's like you can use one and the same math to make airliner or fighter or missile. Or you can use polyamide for car tires production(which polyamide fiber, better known as Kevlar was invented for, originally), or to make the armor for military use.

Nearly every technology is a double-edged blade, you can use to cut the bread...or throats.
 
PTD is the Physical Theory of Diffraction.

Northrop’s XST was developed without Ufimtsev’s work. Indeed, the first American engineer to take note of the translated work was Overholser of Lockheed, who created the Overholser calculator that was instrumental in developing the F-117. Although Northrop’s XST didn’t match the F-117 in X-band stealth, it had a wider low-RCS bandwidth, especially at lower frequencies. Subsequent stealth design efforts by Northrop, including Tacit Blue and ATB (B-2), did use Ufimtsev’s work.

Ufimtsev’s PTD publication no doubt has profound influence on the development of stealth aircraft, but it’s one of many breakthroughs that made it possible.

 
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Yes that's my point. No one is denying it is a very useful mathematical tool. Stealth was invented by American engineers, and one of the key tools they used was the Physical Theory of Diffraction (PTD) created by the Russian Ufimtsev. He deserves credit for his work, for enabling the work of others, but not for all the subsequent work other people did using it. The Stealth pioneers have always given him ample credit.

I also never said that the B-2 didn't use PTD. It absolutely did, its a great tool.

The Northrop XST didn't, but was still a basically viable Stealth design, my point being Stealth aircraft design is possible without PTD. Painful, but possible. But once you have the tool in your arsenal, you use it!

I'm also unsure why not believing that

The theory of stealth technology in USSR was indeed, developed by Ufimtsev in parallel with Lockheed works.
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Makes me biased against Russia. Ufimtsev's PTD was published way earlier than the XST program. Parallel it is not. The Physical Theory of Diffraction was invented in the USSR years prior to "Lockheed works" on Stealth.
 
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overscan (PaulMM) said:
Ufimtsev's theory is one of the parts of RCS modelling but far from "the underlying theory". If anything that is the 19th century Maxwell's equations.
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Ufimtsev's method only models the contribution of edges to scattering, not surfaces themselves. While important it is only part of the solution for predicting RCS.
 
Ryan Model 154 / AQM-91 / COMPASS ARROW was semi-stealth... before stealth, and in ways different from SR-71 / D-21.
So there are probably different paths toward "stealth"...
 
Archibald said:
Ryan Model 154 / AQM-91 / COMPASS ARROW was semi-stealth... before stealth, and in ways different from SR-71 / D-21.
So there are probably different paths toward "stealth"...
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Every flying wing or blended body aircraft can be described as "semi-stealth". But this doesn't mean there is some other way, other than deflection and/or attenuation.
 
GERMAN STEALTH

Early in1944, the Allies could already interfere any German radio guidance system and most missiles construction programs had to be cancelled.

Germany lost the initiative and was forced to adopt a survivor strategy based on antiradar techniques and equipment: advanced radar technologies as lobe switching, conical scanning, continuous beam, beam steering, phased array, frequency agility, pulse compression and pulse Doppler, radar-absorbent materials (RAM) as rubbers, silicones, dielectric foams, and carbon composites.

The old Matratzen and Hirschgeweith antennae were replaced by swivelling mountings Panorama and parabolic mirrors Parabolspiegel.

Every detecting equipment was improved adding filters, Doppler devices, frequency switching devices (Bernhard, Eidechse, Feuerzange, Goldhammer, K-Laus, Kurmark, Laus, Mosaik, Nürnberg, ,Nürnburg, Reiss-Laus, Riese-Gustav, Schliebelaus, Stendal, Tastlaus, ,Taunus, Urechse, Wismar, Würzlaus) named Flammen and complementary infra-red detectors and sound locators.

The airplanes and missiles were equipped with passive receivers of the emissions of Allied radars of the types Naxos, Fishpond, Kleine Heidelberg, Postklystron and Radieschen. The U-Boats and surface vessels of the Kriegsmarine received the naval versions from these devices named Metox, Bali, Cypern, Palau, Sumatra and Timor. To jam the radars of the Allied, aluminium bands similar to the Window British system (named by the German Düppelstreifen) were also used. Besides being launched from bombers in the classic way, launch rockets of 86 mm (similar to the current Chaff) were designed for the Kriegsmarine under the name Spgr.L/4.8 Kurhessen. They surrounded the ship in a cloud of metallic strips when detected by enemy radar. The U-Boats used the Aphrodite IV system (Fu MT1) since June 1943. They were radar decoy balloons coated with metallic painting that floated a few meters above the water surface anchored to a floating plate, producing a strong radar echo similar to that of the U-boat conning tower on British radar screens.

Another antiradar technique Netzhemd absortion durch was the manufacturing of radar-absorbent materials (RAM). The first practical application consisted of coating the U-Boat snorkels with a special compound of rubber and carbon named Sumpf that almost obliterated the radar profile. Its use was started in May 1944, with a plastic Zelligelit coating against water and pressure effects.

Coatings Tarnmatte and Wesch were developed shortly afterwards for other parts of the submarine, like the deck and conning tower. The first one was a thick sheet of Buna synthetic rubber that contained iron oxide powder used against the 9.7 cm wavelength of the H2S British radar. The second one was a carbonyl iron powder loaded rubber sheet, about 7.62 mm thick, with a resonant frequency at 3 GHz. The rest of the submarine hull was covered with Alberich anechoic coating, 4 mm thick rubber called Oppanol against the ASDIC sonar pulses.

There also existed an antiradar painting for airplanes, the Schornsteinfeger developed in the BHF (Hochfrequenzinstitut) of Travemünde. A radar camouflage material consisting of a thick bituminous paint heavily loaded with carbon. When applied in thickness carefully calculated in relation to the radar frequency the arriving signal would be trapped within the dielectric material and its return energy damped out and transformed itself in heat. The painting was more efficient if applied over non-metallic structures predecessors of the current composite materials.

The most efficient device was the IG-Jaumann developed by IG Farben. It consisted of 8 cm thick panels formed by 7 layers of conductive material plastic/carbon separated by layers of di-electric Igelit polyvinylchloride. It was used against the wavelengths between 2 and 50 cm effectively reducing the reflectivity of -20dB over 2.15 GHz. However, it could only be manufactured in curved or straight panels, which made its use on aircrafts very difficult.

At least three aircraft manufacturers were experimenting with antiradar materials during the last months of the war. The designer Kurt Tank of the firm Focke-Wulf built the night fighter Ta 154 with wood to make it less easily detected by the radars of the Allied. The structure was of plywood Lignofol L90 and the coating was of a new plastic known as Dynal Z5 manufactured by Dynamit Nobel-Troisdorff.

The elasticity modules should be assembled with synthetic glue named Tego-Film (equivalent to the Araldite used in the British Mosquito). The Tego-Film was made of phenolic resin glues. Unfortunately it could not be used for the mass production of the Ta 154 as the manufacturing plant that synthesised it (Goldmann Company) was destroyed during the bombing of Wuppertal. The replacing of the Tego Film by the Kaurit adhesive, manufactured by Dynamit AG in Leverkausen, was not possible due to its high acid rate that eventually destroyed the wood.

The Ta 154 was not the only casualty of the lack of Tego-Film suffered by the Stealth project. The construction of the prototype Lippisch P.11, a Schnellbomber (fast bomber) flying wing equipped with two HeS 011 turbojets, was also stopped. It was a fast bomber able to fly at high altitude by means of radio navigation devices and incorporated different antiradar technologies. The structure was of plywood and the coating of Dynal Z5.
 
Flying Wings
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By the mid 30’s, the German chemical companies Rohm und Haas AG and Dynamit Nobel AG-Troisdorf were interested in perfecting the plastic sheeting for aircraft use, with the cooperation of the Horten Brothers who, at that time, dedicated to the construction of flying wing sailplanes.

In October 1935, the Horten Ho IIa Habicht flying wing was fitted with a transparent nose made of Plexiglas (polymethyl methacrylate) and Mipolam (polyvinyl chloride) and the wing leading edge was covered with Astralon film (cellulose acetate). Early 1936 one Lippisch conventional sailplane named Hol’s der Teufel was fitted with an experimental wing made of Trolitax DN7019 (plywood sandwich composite with Tronal filling). Tronal, a phenol resin-impregnated corrugated cardboard, was the first synthetic material in the world developed by Dr. Barschfeld of Dynamit AG.

By April 1936 flying tests of the Lippisch sailplane were satisfactory. A weight saving of 15 per cent was realized, with no loss in strength. The success encouraged the Hortens’ to design the first aircraft built of synthetic materials: The Ho Va (W.-Nr. 5) a research flying wing with 14 m span, powered by two 79 hp Hirth HM 60R engines driving counter-rotating pusher propellers. Pilot and passenger lay prone in the nose under Mipolam sheet glazing.

The entire wing structure was made of Dynal Z5 composite, much stronger than Trolitax, the new material consisting of two layers of cardboard reinforced by phenolic resin with a Tronal core. Wing coating was made of Polystal K-10 smooth skin of pressed alternate sheets of Dynal and Tronal that reduced considerably the drag. The propellers were made of Lignofol L90, beech wood impregnated with synthetic resin. Early 1937 the aircraft was destroyed during a take-off. Following the accident, Dynamit AG collected the remains to carry out tests of material strength.

After the prototype loss the Hortens’ started the construction of the Parabel flying wing at Aegidienberg, a high-altitude research sailplane with 12 m span parabolic sweptback wing and semi-prone pilot. Theoretically, the continuous curve of a parabola might resolve some of the classic aerodynamic problems of swept wings configuration with the minimum induced drag. The prototype was damaged in transit for flight testing in 1938 and burned unflown early 1939 because it was too costly to repair.

The Gotha/Horten team created several designs of flying wing fitted with excellent antiradar characteristics due to their outer shape (without any tailfin) and to their moulded wood coating Formholz -15 mm plywood/carbon sawdust/plywood composition- and Tronal plastic.

Unfortunately for the Germans the Ho IX V2 jet-prototype (decades ahead of its time) was destroyed during the third test flight, on March 18, 1944.

Horten Ho 229 V3 was just a prototype built with moulded wood coating Formholz (15 mm plywood/carbon sawdust/plywood composition) and Tronal plastic.

The V3 was used to test in flight the behavior of a flying wing powered by turbojets.

The production version would use anti-radar Schornsteinfeger paint.
It is believed that this type of structures might have certain Stealth capacity against the radars of the time, the British Chain Home reaction time would have had 8 minutes instead of the usual 19 minutes.

It seems odd that the Horten brothers, a couple of enthusiastic amateurs, attracted the attention of Göring with their little orthodox designs. One might speculate that Germans discovered the Stealth effect by chance, associated to the flying wings. Perhaps due to an unusual Freya contact or from a confidential report of Dynamit AG Troisdorff, after analysing the inner structure of the Horten Va, a flying wing entirely built of synthetic material.

Perhaps Göring saw this technology the weapon that would allow the negotiation of an honourable peace, as that of 1918. A similar advantage to that obtained with the Stuka in 1939 or with the Window in 1943.

Flying wings are inherently stealthy in nature because of their low radar cross section and able to pass through the 20-50 MHz radar defenses of the British ‘Chain Home’

When the Stealth properties of flying wings were discovered, a new concept of ‘unstoppable’ bomber was born. Their manufacturing did not require the use of strategic materials, and in the future, it would not be necessary to have great fleets of bombers built of aluminum that would make massive attacks at the cost of great losses, like in 1940. A reduced number of flying wings, equipped with the most advanced navigation devices, could do the work without losing dozens of well-trained crew members in each raid. Besides, the flying wings could transport more weight of weapons and fuel at a greater distance than the conventional airplanes, given their large wing surface and low drag.

On 27 January 1945, the OKL published the Vorrückenprogramm for high performance night fighters, equipped with the new radar Telefunken FuG 244 Bremen 0 with parabolic antenna of 70 cm of diameter. It was INTERNALLY installed within an aerodynamic container of di-electric material, placed in the nose of the airplane.

The Hortens’ modified their project to adapt to the new Hochleistung Nachtjäger specification with the Ho 229 B-1 version, armed with 30 mm cannons in forward firing configuration and Schräge Musik, rockets R4M and R 100 BS/MS, detachable fuel tanks, ejector seats, gyroscopic gunsight and additional tail warning radar Neptun R-3.

The Ho 229 B-1 was presented to the OKL on 1 March 1945. Would it have been manufactured it had surpassed everything the Allies had in service… or in project. It possessed powerful armament, versatility of its electronic equipment and unusual stealth properties, due both to its aerodynamic features and to the use of RAM materials for its construction.

A very much discussed experiment made by Northrop Grumman in 2008 proved that the radar signature of the Ho 229 was 40% that of a Messerschmitt Bf 109, which means that it, would have been practically undetectable to the radars used by the British Chain Home during the war.

Unfortunately for the Germans, the Hortens’ did not have the industrial capacity for the series-production of the 229. The OKL assigned this task to the Gothaer Waggonfabrik firm in May 1945. There was a confrontation there between the philosophy of design of the Hortens’ and the available production techniques. Finally, the Gotha design team, under direction of Dr. Ing. Hunerjäger, reached to the conclusion that the additional weight of the electronic equipment and extra crew member so penalised the longitudinal stability of the Ho 229 B-1 that made the take-off impossible without a considerable ballast of about 500 kg at the rear of the airplane.

This was the last “pure wing” design of the Horten team. After the crash suffered by the Ho IX 2 on 18 February 1945, the OKL banned the manufacturing or airplanes without a tailfin.

The Horten Brothers were questioned in May 9, 1945 by the U.S. Strategic Air Forces Intelligence in Europe staff (USSTAF A-2), in May 19-21 by Kenneth Wilkinson of the Royal Aircraft Stablishment (RAE), in September-October 1945 by the RAE Tailless Advisory Committee and during March 1948 by the U.S. 970th Counter Intelligence Command.

In March 1945, the Horten family house in Bonn was inspected by the British-American Combined Objectives Sub-Committee (CIOS) intelligence team who retrieved numerous documentation on the Horten sailplanes Ho I to Ho XII.

In June 7, 1945 the Ho IIIf and the Ho IIIh sailplanes were inspected at Wiesbaden by sailplane experts of the B.N. Slingsby British manufacturer.

In April 12, 1945 the U.S. Third Army retrieved parts of the Ho XVIII in Khala underground facilities and the Ho IX V3 prototype in GWF plant Friedrichroda.

The Ho IV, Ho VII and parts of the Ho VIII were recovered in Gottingen by the U.S. 8th Armored Division, along with a complete set of plans.

In August 1945 the Ho IX V3 prototype reached America and were displayed at Freeman Field AFB.

In October 1947 several sailplanes of the types Ho IIL, Ho IIIf, Ho IIIh and Ho IV were inspected by Northrop engineers at Hawthorne plant.

It was known that the Soviets had captured the scientist Dr. Günther Bock in Eilenburg on 29 April 1945, together with two Horten prototypes, all the drawings of the Ho VIII buried by Horten employees of the Sonderkommado 9 near Kilenburg, a complete set of blueprints of the Ho IX and several engineers of the Gothaer Waggonfabrik Flugzeugbau firm, with extensive knowledge on RAM techniques.

But despite all the Allied efforts to obtain information from the Hortens' they managed to preserve their secrets, including the most important of all: Stealth.
 
German Flying Wings Bibliography

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‘Gegenüberstellung 8-229 Go P-60’ by Nauber. Translation of captured enemy document, F-TS525-RE 21, February 1946, by Intelligence T-2, Air Document Division, Headquarters Air Technical Service Command, Wright Field.

‘Vorlaufige Baubeschreibung der Nurflügel 229’ by Schmid. Translation of captured enemy document, F-TS526-RE, 24 February 1946, by Intelligence T-2, Air Document Division, Headquarters Air Technical Service Command, Wright Field.

‘Towards the Ideal Aircraft’ by Alain Pelletier, Air Enthusiast Nº 64, July/August 1996.

‘Horten 229’ by David Myhra, Monogram Close-up 12, 1983.

‘Ho 229’ by Arthur L. Bentley, Scale Aviation Modeller International, August 2005.

‘Die Gebrüden Horten und ihre Nurflügelflugzeuge’ by E. Uden, Modell Fan, Juli 2001.

‘Horten Exotica’, Air Enthusiast/Thirty-One.

‘German Secret Weapons: Blueprint for Mars’ by Brian J. Ford, Ballantine Books, 1972.

‘Secret Weapons: Technology, Science and the Race to Win World War II’ by Brian J. Ford, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2011.

‘Electronic Combat over the Third Reich’ by Major Stephen R. Fraley, Air Command and Staff College. AD-A215-411.

‘Augen durch Nach und Nebel’ by Cajus Bekker, Gerhard Stalling Verlag, Oldemburg 1958.

‘The radar eye blinded: the USAF and electronic warfare 1945-1955’ by Lt.Col. Daniel T. Kuehl, AFIT/CI, Wright Patterson AFB. AD-A265-494.

‘Nurflügel, Die Geschichte der Horten Flugzeuge 1933-1960’ by Reimar Horten and Peter F. Selinger, Weishaupt Verlag, Graz, 1985.

‘The Horten Brothers and their all-wing aircraft’ by David Myhra, Schiffer, 1998.

‘Jet Planes of the Third Reich’ by J. Richard Smith and Eddie J. Creek, Monogram 1982.

‘The Warplanes of the Third Reich’ by William Green, Galahad Books, 1970.

‘Luftwaffe Secret Projects, Fighters, 1939-1945’ by Walter Schick and Ingolf Meyer, Midland 1997.

‘Luftwaffe Secret Projects, Bombers, 1935-1945’ by Dieter Herwig and Heinz Rode, Midland 2000.

‘Luftwaffe Secret Projects, Ground Attack and Special Purpose Aircraft’ by Dieter Herwig and Heinz Rode, Midland 2003.

‘Geheimprojekte der Luftwaffe, Band II, Strategische Bomber 1935-1945’ by Dieter Herwig and Heinz Rode, Motorbuch Verlag, 1988.

‘Jet Planes of the Third Reich, The Secret Projects, Volume one’ by Manfred Griehl, Monogram 1998.

‘Jet Planes of the Third Reich, The Secret Projects, Volume two’ by Manfred Griehl, Monogram 2004.

‘Schlachtflugzeuge und Kampfzerstörer 1935-1945’ by Dieter Herwig and Heinz Rode, Motorbuch Verlag, 2002.

‘Deutsche Nurflügel bis 1945’ by Hans-Peter Dabrowski, Podzun-Pallas Verlag.

‘Horten Ho 229 Spirit of Thuringia’ by Huib Ottens, Classic, 2006.

‘Les Ailes Volantes’ by Alain Pelletier, E-T-A-I, 1999.

‘German Jet Genesis’ by David Masters, Jane’s, 1982.

‘Paper Planes of the Third Reich’ by F/Lt. J.L. newton, Toros Publications, 1988.

‘German aircraft, new and projected types’ by Sqn. Leader H.F. King, Air Intelligence Report Nº 2383, January 1946.

‘German Aircraft Paints’ by G. Palmer at al. BIOS Final Report 365.c.1945.

‘Ein Dreieck Fliegt’ by Alexander Lippisch, Motorbuch Verlag, 1976.

‘Last Talons of the Eagle’ by Gary Hyland and Anton Gill, Headline, 1998.

‘Luftwaffe over America’ by Manfred Griehl, Pen & Sword, 2016.

‘Die deutschen Funkmessersfahren bis 1945’ by Fritz Trenkle, Motorbuch Verlag, 1986.

‘Die deutsche luftrüstung 1933-1945, Band 1 to 4’ by Heinz J. Nowarra, Bernard & Graefe Verlag, 1986.

‘Nurfügel, Die Ho 229-Vorläufen der heutingen B2’ by Hans-Peter Dabrowski, Waffen-Arsenal S-17, 1990.

‘The Horten tailless aircraft, British Intelligence Objectives Sub-Committee, Item Nº25, File Nº XXIII-6, May 1945.

‘The Horten Tailless Aircraft’ by K.G. Wilkinson, B.Sc. D.I.C. Farnborough Hants.

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flateric said:
You may want to read article on Wiki to check up with timeline of RAM usage for military purposes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation-absorbent_material
Click to expand...
Timeline from Google US patent.
Application US292089A events
1952-06-06

Application filed by Individual
1952-06-06

Priority to US292089A (Nothing about Stealth @ Google Patent search)
1958-02-04

Application granted
1958-02-04

Publication of US2822539A
1975-02-04

Anticipated expiration
Status

Expired - Lifetime.

 

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You have problems with understanding. Various RAM were invented and massively used much earlier than June 1952.
 
I worked in LO while I was part of the LHX program. A lot of the papers discussing RCS analysis, including RAM design were translated from Russian. It's really not particularly surprising; RCS analysis and RAM design are applications of Maxwell's equations. It's just that the USSR, which did include some quite good mathematicians and physicists in its population, had articles published.

On a different note, don't rely on patents to determine scientific precedence. Patent examiners may be unable to investigate or possibly consider foreign publications, even open sources. This failure was endemic in the US Patent Office in the 1990s to early 2000s where patents were granted to, among other things, several sorting algorithms developed in the early 1960s. Of course, the actual developer wasn't granted the patent.
 
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Ufimtsev (blargh that's a tongue-twister for an English-speaker!), and more importantly his equations were one of the keys to being able to write code that could predict the RCS of a shape. Before, you'd have to build it, stick it on a pole at the test range, run your tests, then make modifications and test them.

Being able to test shapes virtually instead of spending all the money to build them full size and correct materials made a huge difference for Lockheed.

Today, I suspect that most good graphics engines can give you RCS in real time.
 
flateric said:
You have problems with understanding. Various RAM were invented and massively used much earlier than June 1952.
Click to expand...
Kudos to all who were involved, (in proper order) before and after.
But "Stealthily bombing" out the US patent holder from among other things, Internet search?
It WAS what it IS.
 
Quick and easy does not solve the problem. During the war, there was no word "stealth" or in 1952.

In Germany, it was called "radar camouflage." The problem of avoiding radar returns was understood. Various materials were developed.
 
DWG said:
Well, the word's been around from 1200 or so, it's just the usage that's new.
Click to expand...

I'm not talking about general usage, as in "by guile and stealth." I'm talking about the specific usage in aerospace today. I cannot point to any usage of the word in aerospace prior to 1960.
 
edwest4 said:
I'm not talking about general usage, as in "by guile and stealth." I'm talking about the specific usage in aerospace today. I cannot point to any usage of the word in aerospace prior to 1960.
Click to expand...

A certain individual has claimed many times that he coined “stealth” in the 1970s. I have seen it used in the 1960s as well. “Radar camouflage” and “anti radar” were the more common terms into the late 1970s.
 
In 1953 a British bomber Canberra B2 (WH726) was modified with the installation of a K-30 Perkin-Elmer camera in the bomb bay.

In August, as part of the Operation ROBIN, the plane took off from Giebelstadt-West Germany overflying Kiev, Kharkov, and Stalingrad at 46,000-48,000 ft. It was unsuccessfully attacked by fifteen MiG-17 fighters.

At that time the MiG-17 F could reach 46,000 ft. in 6.3 minutes but at that altitude the Canberra was faster, and the MiG could not achieve interception.

After the Canberra managed to photograph the missile test facility at Kapustin Yar, flying at 48,500 ft, it was again attacked and damaged by Soviet fighters, although it managed to land safely in Iran.

The MiG-17 F could reach 54,500 ft. (16,600 m) if he had enough time, being able to intercept the Canberra over Kapustin Yar. But at that altitude the Soviet fighter could only maneuver to make a single attack.

Between April 23, 1954, and July 23, 1955, British reconnaissance planes Canberra PR.3 based at Lübeck-West Germany flew nine ROBIN deep penetration missions into Soviet airspace to collect electronic intelligence flying at 40,000 ft.

These spy planes used the paint MX-410, a crude form of stealth radar-absorbent, to get through the P-20 Peryskop (Bar Lock-Token) radar defenses.

On April 28, 1954, some night fighters tried to intercept them but without success, demonstrating that the MX-410 system was also effective against the AI radar RP-1 Izumrud-1 (Scan Odd) used by the all-weather interceptors MiG-17 PF.

In the fall of 1956, scientists of MIT and Cambridge Scientific Engineering Institute conducted experiments into radar-absorbing techniques, under Project Rainbow.

The antiradar system was tested into the Soviet airspace by several U-2s, under the codename Dirty Birds (DB), but the radar-deception materials did not prove very effective, and Rainbow was cancelled in May 1958.
 

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