Radar Stealth Aircraft and Facts
When did the idea of developing a stealth aircraft first appear? It is known that the radar device was discovered by the British and started to be used in 1940. The British started to use the radar device for the first time in history with the Battle of Britain, which continued between 9 July 1940 and 31 October 1940, in which German aircraft carried out offensive operations against Britain in the 2nd World War. is coming. Although the radar device was newly discovered, they were effective in detecting and shooting down German planes attacking England. As a remedy against this, the Germans began to work on an invisible aircraft project. It has only recently emerged that German engineers developed a delta-wing light bomber in 1944, the undetected Horten Ho-229 (Gotha Go-229). This project could not be realized after Germany lost the war.
Representative photo of the German Ho-229 aircraft
The Americans experienced a similar need for the development of an invisible aircraft project against the downing of their aircraft, which were detected by radars in the Second World War, during the Cold War. After the American pilot Francis Gary Powers was shot down on May 1, 1960, while he was making a reconnaissance flight over Russia with his U-2 spy plane, the radar invisible aircraft project was launched this time in the United States.
In those years of the Cold War, the Americans made great use of the U-2 reconnaissance aircraft in order to detect the combat power of the Soviet Union and especially the locations of its nuclear weapons.
US Lockheed U-2 Strategic Reconnaissance Aircraft
U-2 aircraft were using Pakistan's Peshaver Air Base, Akrotiri Air Base at the southern tip of Cyprus, where British aircraft were stationed, and our Incirlik Air Base to spy on targets over the Soviet Union and take pictures. Soviet radars could follow this aircraft, which could operate at an altitude of 65,000 feet, but since the interceptors could not reach this altitude, it was not possible for them to shoot down the aircraft. Finally, on May 1, 1960, a U-2 plane flew 1,500 km from Moscow. It was a great shock to the Americans that they shot down an S-75 Dvina missile while flying around the city of Sverdlovsk as far east and captured Gary Powers, the pilot of the plane, who jumped with a parachute.
The Pentagon then started working on the project of whether an invisible plane could be built. An agreement was made with Lockheed to carry out the technical and engineering studies of this project. Lockheed had manufactured the F-80, the first jet-powered combat aircraft of the USA in 1944. The company's chief engineer, Clarence (Kelly) Johnson, together with his assistant Benjamin (Ben) Rich and his team, had designed and manufactured the F-104 aircraft, which flew at 2 MACH (twice the speed of sound) for the first time in the world, in the early 1950s. In 1966, the same team of engineers designed and manufactured the SR-71 Strategic Reconnaissance Aircraft, which can fly at 3 MACH speed and operate at very high altitudes such as 85,000 feet, and gained great experience in the design and manufacture of such unique aircraft.
The project initiated to build the radar invisible aircraft was codenamed "Skunk Works". Kelly Johnson's assistant, Ben Rich, was put in charge of the project. In a hangar on the edge of the Burbank airport runway near the city of Los Angeles, the team began work under strict secrecy.
The production of the aircraft, named F-117A Nighthawk by the American Air Force, was completed at the desired time, with the team responsible for the project working day and night. The first prototype of the aircraft made its maiden flight in June 1981, and the aircraft entered service in October 1983. As it is known, the first of the features that give an aircraft invisibility capability is the aerodynamic shape given to the fuselage, wing and tail, and the placement of the air intake and exhaust cone at the most suitable angles to the fuselage, and second, that no load is carried under the fuselage and the wing, thus making the Radar Cross Section Area (Radar Cross Section Area) Cross Section - RCS) to a minimum; The third is the use of paint and composite materials such as carbon fiber, ceramic and silicon carbide (SIC) that absorb electromagnetic waves (RAM-Radar Absorbent Material) from radar beams in the manufacture of the aircraft.
After successfully completing the tests on the F-117A, such as landing, take-off, climb, turn, G limits, engine performance, flight and engine hours, flight controls, landing gear, brakes, tail parachute, and operation of the dive flaps, it is the turn of the aircraft that leaves the production line. had come to personally fly test whether this aircraft would appear under the scope of a radar device.
US Air Force F-117A Nighthawk aircraft
For the stealth test of the F-117A, the Air Force representatives, who are the users of the aircraft, designed and manufactured the aircraft. Engineer Ben Rich, who was the head of the group that made the flight, went together to the radar site where the test would be held on the planned day, and went to the radar scope at the time of the flight. When the radar controller at the head of the scope detected the echo of a single aircraft flying on the flight route at the given time according to the flight planning, he thought that this echo belonged to the F-117 aircraft, which should not be visible on the radar, and was upset that the F-117 was not successful. However, the radar controller did not know that a T-38 trainer was following the F-117 at a distance to control its flight. At that moment, there were two planes flying close to each other in the air, but the echo of a single plane was visible in the radar scope. The echo that the controller saw in his radar scope was not the echo of the F-117, but of the T-38 aircraft closely following it. With this trial, it was proved personally that the F-117 was not visible on the radar.
Three squadrons were formed with a total of 64 F-117A aircraft. Since the Air Force, the user of the aircraft, wanted the F-117A squadrons to be used only in the offensive role, the configuration of the aircraft was designed to meet this purpose and the weapon systems were placed accordingly. As a result of the crisis that started with Iraq's invasion of Kuwait on August 2, 1990, with the decision of the United Nations Organization, a coalition of nearly 40 countries, including the United Kingdom, France, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Egypt, was led by the USA. It was decided to organize an offensive operation against Iraq with the force of the Turkish army.
In the planning phase of the offensive operation, the first priority was given to the destruction of the command and control centers in and around the city of Baghdad, the Presidential Palace and the Ministry of Defense building, and the bridges over the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. While analyzing the targets in this region, it was evaluated that the Soviet-made air defense missiles placed around Baghdad pose a great threat to the aircraft that will attack these targets. It is unbelievable, but according to information gathered from intelligence sources, it was determined that 16,000 anti-aircraft missiles and 3,000 anti-aircraft machine guns were placed around the city in order to protect the city of Baghdad and its surrounding sensitive targets. This number of anti-aircraft missiles and machine guns was greater than the number of missiles deployed in the vicinity for the defense of Moscow at the time. According to the defense concept at that time, air defense missiles were placed around the capitals of many countries. By the way, let's remember that four fleets were deployed on the Anatolian side and four fleets on the European side, out of eight missile fleets made up of Nike Ajax and Nike Hercules model missiles, in order to provide Istanbul's air defense in those years.
While analyzing the targets to be attacked on Iraq, it was calculated that the best results would be obtained with which type of weapon attacked against which type of target. It was determined that the 2,000-pound MK-84 bomb would be the most suitable weapon for the destruction of the command and control centers and bridges located in thick concrete bunkers around Baghdad. Among other targets, it is planned to use Tomahawk model cruise missiles launched from ships for the destruction of targets such as radars, missile positions, material and weapons depots. The Tomahawk missiles, which will be launched from ships of the US Navy in the Mediterranean and Persian Gulf, and each of them has a 996 lb warhead, had a range that could easily cover targets around Baghdad.
The most suitable aircraft type to be used to destroy targets in the vicinity of Baghdad, which is defended by an extremely dense missile and anti-aircraft system, is capable of carrying 2,000-pound MK-84 type bombs that can cause the desired destruction on the target, and can go to the target without being seen and inflicted by air defense radars and missile radars. It would be an F-117A aircraft that could turn. For this purpose, an F-117A squadron of 37 aircraft was transferred to King Khalid Air Base, located in the Southwestern tip of Saudi Arabia. This base, which is 900 miles from Baghdad, was chosen as the base for deployment, since it was outside the range of the Russian-made Skud missiles launched from land to land in Iraq.
Colonel Barry Horne, who was the commander of the F-117A unit that was transferred to the base, describes a very interesting event that proved the invisibility of the F-117 in his memoirs he wrote later. Bats come at night to hunt insects inside the concrete shelters where planes are placed. When the pilots and mechanics came to the shelter to check the planes in the morning, they noticed that there were dead bats under the tail of the plane. Bats, with the features created by nature, were flying at night, without hitting anything, with the reflection of the vibrations reflected from their brain like echoes of a sonar device, and they were killed by hitting the non-reflective tail part of the plane. Pilots knew and believed by experience that their planes were invisible to radars during their training flights for years. revenge When they saw that bats crashed into the tail sections of the planes and died in the concrete bunkers of their base, they no longer doubted the invisibility ability of their planes.
The First Iraq Operation, also known as Desert Storm, was launched on 17 January 1991 at 03:00 am in Baghdad local time, with the attack of the F-117 arms on the command and control centers, the Presidential Palace and the Ministry of Defense building in the vicinity of Baghdad. Other targets were also hit by Tomahawk cruise missiles launched from warships. In the following days of the operation, F-117s carried out a total of 1,271 attack sorties. This number of sorties was only 1% of the number of sorties made by Air Force aircraft included in the coalition, but it was determined that 40% of the damage on the attacked targets was done by F-117s. In these attack sorties, 39 of a total of 43 bridges on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers were destroyed by 2,000-lb MK-84 LGB bombs dropped by F-117s. Not a single F-117 aircraft was lost in these attacks made in this region, which is heavily defended by anti-aircraft missiles.
Utilizing the experience of the radar-invisible F-117 fighter aircraft, the Americans started a project to develop an invisible-to-radar bomber this time. After secret negotiations with aircraft companies to manufacture the aircraft, they gave the project to Northrop Grumman. The B-2 Spirit bomber, manufactured by Northrop Grumman, entered service in 1989.
When the fuselage and wing shapes of the American B-2 Spirit aircraft, photographed below, and the Horten Ho-229 aircraft, which were developed by the Germans in the 1940s, whose representative photograph is shown on the first page above, are compared, it is seen that the B-2 aircraft is almost German Ho-229 in terms of fuselage and wing shape. It is immediately striking that it is an exact copy of .
US Air Force B-2 Spirit Stealth Bomber
Since this important success of the F-117s in the Iraqi air campaign without any loss was attributed to the ability of the aircraft to be invisible to the radars, other technologically advanced countries, especially Russia and China, engaged in intensive work in order to discover this invisibility capability and take measures against it.
After the Iraq campaign, the F-117s were used for the second time in 1999, during the NATO Air Force air campaign that ended with the disintegration of Yugoslavia. Despite the intense missile defense in the region, there was not a single F-117 loss in the air operation over Iraq. However, an F-117A plane was shot down near the city of Bogdanovici on 27 March 1999 during the Yugoslav campaign. The plane's parachuting pilot, Lieutenant Colonel Dale Zelko, was found and rescued by a search/rescue helicopter. The cockpit and damaged canopy of the downed F-117A are still on display at the Belgrade air museum.
The downing of the F-117, which was believed to be invisible to the radar, with a missile shocked the American public, just as it did when the U-2 reconnaissance plane was shot down over Russia on May 1, 1960. Was a technology developed that could eliminate this ability of invisible aircraft and bring it down?
Meanwhile, the Americans designed and manufactured the F-22 Raptor as a more modern aircraft, invisible to radars, to replace the F-117s. A total of 195 aircraft were manufactured, of which 8 were for testing and 187 for operational purposes. On the grounds that the attacks on the twin towers in New York on September 11, 2001 were carried out by al-Qaeda elements nesting in Afghanistan, the USA launched a war against this country on October 7, 2001. This war, in which some other allied countries of the USA also participated, lasted 13 years until 2014. The Americans, who used all kinds of aircraft and weapons in this long war, for some reason did not use the F-22 Raptor aircraft.
The Americans opened a tender to build an aircraft to replace the under-radar twin-engine F-22 Raptor. In the preliminary agreement signed at the beginning of the F-35 JSF program, designed by Lockheed Martin company, which won the tender, 2103 US Naval Kv. USA Hv.Kv. It is planned to manufacture 3,100 F-35 aircraft of three different models, one for the US Marine Corps and the US Marine Corps. The Netherlands reduced the number of F-35s it planned to buy 85 at the beginning of the program to 37. Britain announced that it would buy 48 F-35 aircraft by canceling the purchase of 90 (60%) of the 138 F-35 aircraft it had planned to purchase at the beginning of the program. There were reports in the media that Australia, one of the F-35 partner countries, did not like the performance of the F-35 aircraft. Three separate A, B and C models of the F-35 aircraft, which faced great difficulties in manufacturing, have been manufactured so far. It has been declared by the Russians and Chinese as well as the American officials, who are the users of the aircraft, that the low stealth capabilities of the aircraft gradually lose value during the use of the 5th generation aircraft. has spoken. US Navy Commander Admiral Greenert and US Combat Air Force Commander General Herbert Carlisle stated in their statements in TIME magazine in 2013 that the 5th Generation Stealth aircraft's invisibility capabilities to radar are gradually decreasing. At the same time, an official from the Russian Air Force said that they could see stealth aircraft on their radar systems. In a report in the Chinese press, it was stated that Chinese technicians were able to detect and track stealth capable aircraft in the air by developing VHF frequency anti-aircraft radars. The Chinese claimed that they tracked the flights of US Air Force F-22 stealth planes stationed at an airbase in South Korea with this radar. German authorities also sent two F-35A aircraft of the US Air Force, which came to participate in the aviation fair held at Berlin/Schoenefeld airport in April 2018, on their return routes, 150 km with the Twinvis-Passive radar produced by HENSOLDT company. They declared that they are following. It is understood that the aircraft companies, which see that it is inevitable that the stealth capability will gradually lose its value in the 5th generation combat jet aircraft, will apply different technologies in the future in the manufacturing methods they use.
Following the UK's reduction of F-35 purchases by 60%, at the Farnborough Airshow, one of the world's two largest aviation fairs, held in June 2018, the British Minister of Defense presented the exact size mockup cover of the new 6th generation Tempest fighter jet. It was opened with a ceremony and introduced to the press and visitors. With the participation of England, Sweden and Italy, they signed an agreement to develop the partnership aircraft manufacturing program, which was named "Team Tempest". British BAE Systems, Leonardo UK, Martin Baker (ejection system manufacturer), Rolls Royce (engine), MEDA UK; Swedish Saab and Italian Leonardo Italia companies will work together.
At the opening of the Paris / Le Bourget Airshow, one of the world's two largest aviation fairs, in July 2019, the new 6th generation combat jet aircraft, which will be manufactured in partnership with France, Germany and Spain, was unveiled on a one-to-one scale and introduced to the press and visitors. The program to be carried out by the French Dassault and the German Airbus Division was given the definition of "Future Combat Air System (FCAS)".
After the announcement that the 6th generation Tempest aircraft will be produced with the joint participation of England, Sweden and Italy, and the 6th generation FCAS aircraft will be produced with the joint participation of France, Germany and Spain, the US Department of Defense Pentagon has decided to manufacture the 6th generation combat jet aircraft in September 2020. He declared that he flew. The aircraft, which was given the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) designation, was designed and flown within one year, which was met with a great surprise in aviation circles. While 720 (23%) of the 5th generation F-35 aircraft, which the Americans initially planned to manufacture together with the partner countries, a total of 3100, have been produced so far, the design and flight of a 6th generation aircraft did not find the performance of the F-35 aircraft sufficient. It brings to mind the question of whether they started to manufacture an airplane.
