The Russians Are at it again

[OVERLORD_CHRIS]

Well seeing that they announced the F-22 will be flying once again near the beginning of fall, I'm sure we'll learn more about her. As well as the F-35.

-Jake

They Haven't been flying?


[center]Ren

[Jayhawk Jake]

Wow, I thought the curves just scattered the radar waves around like in normal planes. But the B-2 also has a flat bottom, which is very common in stealth fighters. That's probably because it reflects the radar waves away from the radar reciever since the radar waves' angle of reflection must be the same as the the angle of incidence, right?

What I don't understand is the purpose of the angles of the wings and tailplanes, for example in the F-22, having to be equal, leading edge to leading edge and trailing edge to trailing edge. And on the B-2 the jagging of the trailing edge also has parallel lines.

Symmetry is a good thing   Makes it a lot easier to design and build (one set of tooling makes two wings)

[Slotback]

@ Xpand

"Planform alignment is also often used in stealth designs. Planform alignment involves using a small number of surface orientations in the shape of the structure. For example, on the F-22A Raptor, the leading edges of the wing and the tail surfaces are set at the same angle. Careful inspection shows that many small structures, such as the air intake bypass doors and the air refueling aperture, also use the same angles. The effect of planform alignment is to return a radar signal in a very specific direction away from the radar emitter rather than returning a diffuse signal detectable at many angles."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stealth_technology

It can be noticed the most on the F-22 but also to a lesser extent on the F-35, B-2, and other stealth aircraft. The access panels and the skin of the aircraft are often jagged at the same angles as well. Apparently the T-50 at its current iteration does not have the latter two at this stage although it has some planform alignment.

http://i38.tinypic.com/169mdya.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... anform.jpg

Pretty much all aircraft have curves, the only one that didn't was the F-117 but I think that's because computers were not powerful enough back then to compute curved surfaces that retained a low RCS.

What matters is the way the radar waves are reflected. Curved surfaces in stealth aircraft are OK as long as they are not likely to reflect radar back to the enemy radar. For example, you wouldn't want an aircraft shaped like a sphere... or a barrel... which is why no stealth aircraft have those shapes unlike non-stealth aircraft.

[hyperpep111]

My head is about to explode!!! :-/


[center]Ren

[Xpand]

Wow, thanks for the info!