The Stealth category covers stealth aircraft designed to minimize radar detection. These planes are built using materials and geometries that reduce the reflection of radio waves, making their detection more complex.
Stealth aircraft are designed to avoid detection using a variety of technologies that reduce reflection/emission of radar, infrared, visible light, radio frequency (RF) spectrum, and audio, all collectively known as stealth technology.
The stealth program was designed to defeat the radars used by the former Soviet Union. But the stealth planes are easy to pinpoint with older air defense radars that use lower frequencies. There are also new heat-sensitive infrared radar systems that will render stealth technology obsolete.
Stealth aircraft attempt to minimize all radar reflections, but are specifically designed to avoid reflecting radar waves back in the direction they came from (since in most cases a radar emitter and receiver are in the same location). They are less able to minimize radar reflections in other directions.
The Soviet Union is involved in stealth technology development that includes: Aircraft skin materials--composites, coatings, and the capabilty to absorb and retransmit a radar signal in another direction. This technology by the USSR operates within the atmosphere in the infrared wavelength at 14-18 microns.
Is the US the only country with stealth technology?
The F-22, F-35, and upcoming B-21 are all fully stealth. The Russians have the Sukhoi Su-57, their first-ever stealth aircraft, although only a few are operational. Similarly, the Chinese have their first-ever stealth aircraft, the Chengdu J-20 and carrier-based J-35.
The AGM-129A advanced cruise missile is a stealth, nuclear-capable cruise missile used exclusively by U.S. Air Force B-52H Stratofortress strategic bombers.
Pyotr (Petr) Yakovlevich Ufimtsev (Russian: Пётр Я́ковлевич Уфи́мцев; born 1931) is a Soviet Russian electrical engineer and mathematical physicist, considered the seminal force behind modern stealth aircraft technology.
The entire plane has no sharp, angled edges -- every surface is curved in order to deflect radio waves. The curves are designed to bounce almost all radio waves away at an angle. The B-2 is designed to contain its own radio signals, the electromagnetic energy generated by onboard electronics.
The B-2's low observability is derived from a combination of reduced infrared, acoustic, electromagnetic, visual and radar signatures. These signatures make it difficult for the sophisticated defensive systems to detect, track and engage the B-2.
With the retirement of the B-2 Spirit bomber, the USAF now only has 18 strategic bomber aircraft, which are frequently used in conflicts worldwide. “The B-2 bomber was retired because the cost of repairing it was uneconomical,” according to the U.S. Department of Defense in its annual restructuring report.
Yes. The Northrop B-2 Spirit Stealth Bomber is still the US Air Forces only Strategic Stealth Heavy Bomber in its arsenal. It will remain in service until the Northrop B-21 Raider Strategic Heavy Bomber enters service with the US Air Force in enough numbers to enable the retirement of the B-2.
Canada's Hyperstealth Biotechnology already manufactures camouflage uniforms for militaries across the globe. But now, the company has patented a new "Quantum Stealth" material that disguises a military's soldiers — or even its tanks, aircraft, and ships — by making anything behind it seem invisible.
For three decades, the B-2 Spirit, built by Northrop Grumman, has been the backbone of stealth technology for the U.S. Air Force and has been commemorated in the Pioneers of Stealth Memorial at the National Museum of the United States Air Force Memorial Park, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio.
Despite occasional leaks and glimpses, the stealthy aircraft would not appear in the open for almost 10 years. The public rollout of the B-2 was in November 1988. The F-117 was publicly revealed in April 1990, four months after its combat debut in the Panama invasion of 1989.
The T-50 is the first Russian fighter equipped with radar-evading stealth technology, a key component of the so-called fifth-generation jets. The unique shape of the airframe will make the fighter less visible to radar.
Apart from the US, Russia, China and India have active stealth aircraft programs underway. Stealth technology in piece meal applications can also be found to have been incorporated on other non-truly stealth aircraft in other regions of the world.
While superficially similar to the later F-117, the Have Blue prototypes were smaller aircraft, about one quarter the weight of the F-117, with a wing sweep of 72.5° and inward-canted vertical tails (inverse V-tail).
In the 37 years since the first flight of the U.S. Air Force's F-117, the very first operational stealth warplane, the roster of air arms with their own low-observable aircraft steadily has grown. Despite this, America still is the world's leading operator of stealth aircraft.
Misty is reportedly the name of a classified project by the United States National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) to operate stealthy reconnaissance satellites.
The Kremlin's Nebo-M system uses two low-frequency radar arrays, the Nebo SVU in the VHF-band and the Protivnik G in the L-band, to detect the presence of stealth fighters as they approach.
Primarily designed as a nuclear bomber, the B-2 was first used in combat to drop conventional, non-nuclear ordnance in the Kosovo War in 1999. It was later used in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Yemen.
Hide and Starseek. Chinese researchers claim that by using the radiation emitted by SpaceX's Starlink constellation, they can detect enemy stealth fighter jets. As the South China Morning Post reports, the team used a DJI Phantom 4 Pro drone as a stand-in for such an aircraft for an experiment.
The Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II is an American family of single-seat, single-engine, supersonic stealth strike fighters. A multirole combat aircraft designed for both air superiority and strike missions, it also has electronic warfare and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities.
