Stealth Technology
...975 at Lockheed-Martin’s secret facility in Burbank, CA also known as the “Skunk Works”? The first flight of the most technically advanced aircraft of its time took off in June 1981. The aircraft that made that flight was the F-117 “Nighthawk”. It holds the record for being the best TSgt Hofmister/SNCOA/03020903/BSH/368/20 Oct 03 kept secret the U.S. military has ever known. It is a single-seat attack aircraft that can carry 2 Guided Bomb Unit (GBU) – 27’s which are 2,000-pound class precision-guided laser bombs. It is almost always used in night operations. These operations usually take place at high altitudes. “Today, one F-117, flying a single sortie and dropping one bomb, can accomplish what it took B-17 bombers flying 4,500 sorties and dropping 9,000 bombs to do during World War II, or 95 sorties and 190 bombs during Vietnam” (Alvin and Heidi Toffler, War and Anti-War, Little, Brown and Co., New York, 1993). “In terms of today’s technology, a typical strike mission without stealth would require 32 planes with bombs, 16 fighter escorts, eight Wild Weasel [F- 4Gs with electronic warfare equipment] aircraft to suppress enemy radar, four aircraft to jam enemy radar electronically, and 15 tankers to refuel the group. The same mission could be accomplished with only eight F-117s and two tankers to refuel them” (Airman Magazine, Oct 96). The F-117 with its stealth ability was the only aircraft allowed to fly bombing raids over downtown Baghdad during the Gulf War. Aircraft design of the future seems to be the way the AF will use this miraculous technology. The B-2 Bomber was our next step into this new technology. “The B-2 Bomber, at $2 billion per copy, is the most expensive airplane ever built and perhaps history’s most intimidating combat aircraft” (Washington Post, Febuary 18, 1998). “An assessment published by the USAF showed that two B-2s armed with precision weaponry can do the job of 75 conventional aircraft” (http://www.airforce-technology.com/projects/b2/index.html). “The B-2’s low observability [stealth] is derived from a combination of reduced infrared, acoustics, electromagnetic, visual, and radar signatures. These signatures make it difficult for the sophisticated defensive systems to detect, track, and engage the B-2. Many aspects of the low-observability process remains 2 classified; however, the B-2’s composite materials, special coatings and flying-wing design contributes to its “stealthiness”(http://www.af.mil/news/factsheets/B_2_Spirit.html). As you can see, stealth technology is steering the AF into the direction for most aircraft of the future. The next scheduled combat aircraft due into the AF inventory, sometime around 2005, is the F/A-22 Raptor. It will use a combination of stealth, speed, range, and sensor fusion. As with the F-117 and the B-2, the F/A-22 will most defiantly be ch...