WHAT YOU DON'T SEE IS WHAT YOU GET

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00806R000100660001-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 5, 2010
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: May 18, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/05: CIA-RDP90-00806R000100660001-7
What You
Don't See
Is What
You Get
I N THE NAME of national security,
tens of billions of dollars in defense
spending are being hidden from public
scrutiny so that we can build war planes
that are equally invisible to our enemies.
This program is called Stealth.
Already concealed from most public
accounting are at least 50 Lockheed
strike fighters that probably cost about
$40-$50 million apiece; a new General
Dynamics cruise missile program that is
expected to cost about $7 billion; and the
most expensive warplane ever built, Nor-
throp's Advanced Technology Bomber
(ATB), with expected program costs be-
tween $35 billion and (according to hostile
sources) $80 billion.
The Pentagon considers Stealth to be
so sensitive that it will not say what the
Northrop bomber or the General Dynam-
ics cruise missile will look like or when
they will enter service. So that nobody
can guess these dates from the way mon-
ey flows into the program, the Pentagon
has classified all the cost figures as well.
In the case of the Lockheed fighter, the
Pentagon bluntly refuses to acknowledge
that the plane exists at all.
The Pentagon has classified these
weapons because they are based on a rad-
ical departure in warplane design. Instead
of using height, speed, defensive maneu-
vers, weapons or electronic radar jam-
mers to protect themselves from attack,
Stealth airplanes and missiles are de-
signed to avoid detection by radar or oth-
er detection devices.
Here is why the Pentagon believes we
need Stealth. In order for, say, the new
BiB bomber to have its best chance of
surviving against the Soviet Union's elab-
orate air defense system, it would fly
Bill Sweetman is technical editor in North
America for the Interavia Publishing
Group of Geneva, Switzerland, publishers
of Interavia and International Defense
Review, and the author of "Stealth
Aircraft-Secrets of Future Arrpower,"
published by Motorbooks International.
WASHINGTON POST
18 May 1986
barely 250 feet off the ground. But the Stealth is not a single magic trick but a
terrain which hides the bomber from the means of designing a warplane so that
defenses also hides the targets from the its "signature" or "observables" are
bomber. To hunt for a target such as a drastically reduced. A plane's radar reflec-
mobile ICBM, the B1B must climb to a tions&e the most important, but emissions
better vantage point, exposing itself to 0t li8+, heat or sound are significant, too.
attack. In a few years, too, it will be vul- M Mt conventional aircraft are ideal radar
targets. They present large flat surfaces,
nerable to new Soviet airborne radars that such -as the body sides and vertical fin, at
can pick out low-flying targets against the right,.engles to the direction from which
"clutter" from the ground below them. mostMadar waves are likely to arrive. Thev
These ground-hugging tactics might have:large intakes and exhausts for their
not be enough for fighter-bomber pilots in engins, which trap and re-reflect radar
Europe if they had to attack targets such f av4i They are festooned with bombs and
l
as airfields, command bunkers and sur-
face-to-air missile sites. The Soviet mil-
itary has built up so much firepower
around these targets that no strike force
could escape without massive losses.
Stealth may be the answer to these
problems. It aims at making the attacker
virtually invisible to radar and other elec-
tronic detection devices without which
defensive fighters, surface-to-air missiles
and guns are impotent.
Why does it all have to be so secret? It
is partly a matter of tradition. The first
truly Stealth aircraft were unmanned spy
planes and were developed in secret be-
cause their intended missions were co-
vert. When a practical manned Stealth
fighter became a possibility, its develop-
ment was entrusted to a section of Lock-
heed called the Skunk Works, where se-
crecy is basic to the management doc-
trine. By the late 1970s, Stealth was be-
ginning to emerge from the shadows, and
details of the technology might well have
become public knowledge had Jimmy Car-
ter been re-elected in 1980.
As it was, Stealth became the first test
of the Reagan/Weinberger philosophy: If
in doubt, classify; if doubt remains, up-
grade the classification. It could also be-
come the first test of that policy's ability
to withstand congressional and public op-
position. The Stealth bomber may be able
to hide from the Soviet Union's air de-
fenses, but it may be too big to hide fro
y
m to make most conventional aircraft look like
Capitol Hill.
While the secrecy surrounding Stealth tractors.
has precluded most discussion of the sub- Radar is not the only signature to worry
ject, reports of progress with Stealth air- about. Stealth aircraft use special exhausts
craft have appeared in the aerospace and to mix the hot carbon dioxide from their
defense press from time to time and in tech engines with cool outside air; hot carbon
nical"papers presented at open industry dioxide has an infrared signature that can
meetings, most of which took place before betray an airplane at ranges of almost 100
the Reagan information freeze. While the miles. Chemical additives have been devel-
information is fragmentary, it can be pieced oped to discourage the formation of con-
together with context gleaned from unclas- trails,, Also, a Stealth aircraft cannot give
sified textbooks. The latter also help to find itself away with the electronics it uses to
screen the disinformation issued by uniden- targets-they have to be disguised as
tifiable sources in the past few years. well.
cow
ue
tanks, which tend to create "corner
reflectors." (Sheet-metal devices using the
sam4rinciple are attached to small boats
to mae them more visible to radar.)
TIVe are a few basics to designing a
Steab aircraft. Bombs and fuel must he
carried internally; the engines must be con-
ceals4behind long, curved inlet and exhaust
ducts,- and vertical flat surfaces should be
eliminated. (The B1 bomber's sinuous
shape, reflects some of this thinking, al-
thottgb it is not a Stealth design.) This does
not sound too complicated, but the snag lies
in a formula called the "radar range equa-
tion.".This states that cutting the radar im-
age of 'a target in half knocks no more than
an iugignificant 15 percent off the detection
range. The benefits of Stealth are not felt at
all until the radar image is cut by at least 90
percent.
This calls for the use of special radar-ab-
sorbent materials ranging from plastic-
based coatings to complex sandwiches of
fiber glass and chemically treated foam.
Most of them contain an electrically resis-
tant "active ingredient" such as carbon or
one of a family of iron products called fer-
rites: The objective is to draw the energy
out of the radar wave as it penetrates the
material, just as food in a microwave oven
absorbs radar waves and converts them into
heat.
Another problem is that gaps, sharp cor-
ners and sudden changes in the conductivity
of the airplane's skin will produce radar
echoes. Stealth airplanes must have a
smooth and seamless finish; they are likel
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/05: CIA-RDP90-00806R000100660001-7