Stealth - How Does it Work? (Northrop B-2 Spirit)
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- Опубликовано: 23 май 2016
- Thanks for watching! Sorry the audio is a little off in this video.
Currently trying to cut back on my expenses and had to move into a new apartment with shitty acoustics.
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Once again thanks to Bensound.com for the amazing royalty free music. This time I used Bensound - New Dawn
All external footage is either in the public domain or fair use.
seeing the B-2 on radar:
guy 1: what that there?
guy 2: it's probably just a bird
guy 1: but it going 600 mph
guy 2: it's a big fast bird
probably the first intuition would be that it is a missile (?)
Guy 3: are you two kidding me?!? It just took out a bunker you but skulls!! Declare war!!!!
the soldiers are fast
*but big bird with bomb is faster*
It'd get filtered out
Giant falcon that's diving
*Looking at radar* "Eh, why is there a large bird flying at 600 mph?" *Hears explosion* "Damnit"
PRO tip: if you ever detect a bird flying at 600 mph in your radar, shot it down!
That's how the serbs detected f117 , the hardest part is locking on them but we have more computing powers that we were , so stealth basically useless
@@boiboiboi1419 Nope, he got hit by missile switched to line-of-sight guidance.
I think you might find that the radar might not display things as small as birds, or the radar display would just be cluttered. Whether they can distinguish between bird signals travelling at high speed is another thing. If stealth is useless, why are other countries building stealth aircraft as well. Longer wave length radars seem to have some effect in finding stealth aircraft, but these can not achieve a missile lock.
Degsie1975 why? For deterrence, only usa , china and russia building stealth aircraft, and the rest of the world aiming for super maneuverable craft like gripen , su35 , mirages
Why ? Because of wing man drones, wing man drones can be customized into many thing , anti stealth , anti bvr , anti jammers
We're going back to dog fighting
It's got a cross-section of a bird but going 1000 km/h. Lol
Radar operator: sir this bird is moving at mach 1
Objects like birds are filtered out
"Damn that's a pretty fast bird."
Rcs of a bird is better than having the Rcs of a b 52
hella underated comment lol
Nah, Mach 1 is 1234 km/h... B-2 has a top speed of Mach 0.81 or 1010 km/h
My friends father was one of the core designers of this aircraft when he served in the air force. He still to this very day won't even tell his own son (my friend) a peep about it. I'm still amazed how ingenious him and his team were to create such a fine piece of engineering for its time.
I designed the atomic bomb but never tell anyone about it either.
It has the radar cross section of a large bird, travelling at 650mph.
Kalgoorlie10 exactly what I thought xd
You mean you've never seen a Jet-Powered bird before?
Get with the times, Sheesh...
Except for the fact that radars filter out small things such as birds
What about the pootis bird traveling at the speed of light.
Why filter out the birds just make it higher send-recieve timing and add a predictive trajectory computer. If it flies fast enough show it.
Nice one Real Engineering!
haha thanks bud, just call me Brian
Wasn't sure if you wanted your real name out there. Nice one Brian then!
I figured! I don't feel the need to hide it, my second channel is under my full name.
+Real Engineering You should add it in to the links in the description if you're actually going to use it!
It will be inactive for a long while, not even sure what I will use it for yet. I'll focus on this one for now
Am I surprised the Germans made a similar concept in the 40s? Nope, not at all. They might have been the biggest assholes around at the time, but they have always been phenomenal engineers
+M Wadud
As did Northrop...
M Wadud
Yeah that’s what I like about Germany. I wonder what kind of cool stuff they try to do/invent next.
M Wadud it was a wood prototype and not nearly like the b2
I bet you $1 million, that Northrop had German engineers after WW2..
Suxx there probably tied for that time period.
Someone:”what your plane made off?”
B-2 owner:”PLASTIC “
Actually it is alunmium and titanium
@@haidweng7948 It's carbon-reinforced plastic, bro. Makes no difference if a missile hits carbon fiber or Titanium. But carbon fiber does absorb radiation very well. The paint and the shape are really what do most of the stealth job. Maybe there is some other material cause the military won't tell us.
@@walangchahangyelingden8252 Marshmallows
That plane flew over my house once. You don't need radar, it's louder than a comet blowing up all of Australia
Nuclear stealth bomber B2- spirit idk, maybe it flew lower on purpose (it was on route to an air show)
they fly past the sound barrier so once you hear them its too late.
Random Guy....wrong. They do not fly faster than the speed of sound.
true, they do not fly past the speed of sound, i was wrong
I had the chance to see it once, flew over the camp I was working at. Must have had it's engines turned off, I didn't notice it until it almost passed us above.
Can you show the picture of the actually aircraft? All I see is a video of clouds.
RBearLion Whats wrong with the diagram?
Gameknight
Which diagram? It is all blue
Wooosh me if your gay
I’m color blind there’s just a blank screen
Richard Santalone it’s. A. Joke.
@@richardsantalone9380
It's a "stealth" bomber. Get it?
An awesome channel like this has slipped under my radar up until now.
And everyone in the comment section have Military grade education
I have 2400 hours on Arma3. 1600 on Arma2. Try me, mortal
Yes, Im here
I have seen two other videos on tanks and crossbows prior to this one.
I am a simple man, I play fsx🙂
WTR ok you like could actually know what you are talking about with that many hours
I saw more comments of people like you than actual military grade education comments
Hope you like the video. Really excited for my new video, it's about one of the subjects that first sparked my interest in engineering as a kid.
I'm currently in a bit of a hectic stage, stuck in indecision about moving home to Ireland or staying in sunny Malaysia. Staying here is proving difficult after quiting my job in Oil & Gas. The next video may take me a while to make, a lot of interesting history in the subject!
Great video, keep up the good work
you got yourself a subscriber : )
great videos man. watched and upvoted all of them, just wish they were a bit longer.
They will get longer with time. I think the next video will be a lot longer. These videos take me a long time to make and I need to grow my channel fast, so short shareable videos are my priority right now. As the channel grows I can afford to invest more time in each video.
Ling Earth nothing like a surprise bombing. vote trump
Your page is dope. You're dope. Thanks for making these videos!
+Jack Macejko right back at ya!
Real Engineering and
Jack Macejko Don't do dope. stay in school.
+Sam Horler it cures cancer tho just think of no more feminists or vegans
reply
This is still a classic man. Crazy how far you've come in the quality and flow of videos. The fact that you made such an amazing video before having the fancy tools and experience you do now is a testament to your talent and hard work. But what really set you apart was your dedication to detailed researched science knowledge and the ability to translate it to a detailed/accurate but easily understandable form. That combined with your genuine interest and love for sharing that really is what makes you special. You always had the talent to earn this all yourself. Sometimes its luck, or marketing, or tricks etc but you always brought cutting edge complex science that you could not find anywhere else. Its always to a level and quality that just gives you the top spot in your content area.
Short and interesting videos like this is such a joy to watch
There's something you missed, I actually consider kind of a big thing, the B-2 isn't invisible to ALL radars. Here's the thing: lots of SAM sites (very big ones such as S-400/ 500) consist of two kinds of radar systems, Low frequency radar (L-band, early warning radar, in use during WWII) and High frequency radar (X-band, also used on fighter jets). The L-band radars don't really care about the shape of an object, and in fact can detect the B-2 easily, even though the B-2 does have some L-band reducing design features, they only help a little, but there's a catch. L-band radars are not accurate enough to give targeting info to a missile (another downside to L-band is that they have to be huge and cumbersome) so this is where X-band radars come in. These type of radars are used to guide radar guided missile to their intended target, which is why fighter jets use them, but this part of the spectrum is where the B-2 is meant to be stealthy, so they can see the B-2 but can't shoot anything at it. X-band radars do consider the shape of the object a lot more significantly than L-band so the B-2's shape absorbs and deflects radar waves WAAAAAAY easier than it does with L-band radars. Otherwise fantastic video :3
Also the B-2 isn't invisible to X-band radars, it just needs to get closer to be detected, often times significantly.
Mr.Fluffybutt Gaming Low frequency radars can't guide SAM's in though
L band is vhf and is easily jammed....
Also the missile doesn't have l band vhf so it cant see the b2
This reduces chances of a successful intercept
ALSO no one wants to discuss us total spectrum dominance program.....
80s tech blowing minds still b21 will shut keyboard warriors down
Same
Fun fact: Every COD4 player knows how much a B-2 costs.
I also know how much a single Valkyrie rocket costs.
Advanced uav 12 killstreak
@@Zucarino he means cod 4, not cod modern warfare 4
"Cost of a single B-2 bomber is 2.2 billion"
I still play cod4x in 2020
This video is really helpful. I tried searching the internet for the characteristics of the B2 for a project, but I couldn’t find good answers. Luckily, I came across this video. Thanks a lot!
Haha, watching this today, as you say, "I blew through 10,000 subscribers." You currently are just a few short of 2 million. Way to go!
Channels like you, CGP Grey, and Wendover Productions are what make my day.
Adam!!! I have to tell you something! 1!1!1 YOU ARE A PLANE 😱
How can i help u turn back human???
The problem with stealth was hinted in the video - many ground radar systems can detect something the size of a bird, so when they see a bird moving at 500mph they know what it is!
Exactly.
The software also ignores anything under certain speeds.
Gummy Bugz Hahaha
Good radars will see a large bird (probably bigger than that) moving at 500 mph. Cheap soviet-era radars won't see anything. A great majority of Chinese/North Korea/Iraq militaries are made up of soviet-era technology. Any modern tools these militaries have are few and far between, and these few are legally bought or poorly copied from American defense contractors. I wouldn't be surprised if they suddenly stopped working in a war against the people who made them :P
Doesn't matter if they know that a tiny blip moving that fast is a stealth aircraft. What matters is when they can spot it, and if they can track it well enough to guide missiles in the timeframe that it's visible. Stealth aircraft have never been invisible to radar, but they have always been able to fly routes that would be dangerous to normal aircraft. Stealth tech doesn't need to eliminate the enemies ability to see it, just reduce it enough to fly through airspace it otherwise wouldn't be able to.
Dom but at least it won't be a sitting duck
Thanks for the tutorial now I can make my own stealth aircraft!
I honestly love this channel
When I was a teen I had a friend who's dad maintained the wheels and doors of B-2 Stealth Bombers. He said that he was told there are additional factors to it's ability to mitigate it's radar profile. Such as white paneling made of a material that reflects radar underneath the darker paneling back into the darker paneling so that waves don''t get a chance to bounce. He also said that radar projects upward and traces a cone. So if they know where the radar stations are they can fly low enough to pass through negative space in the area stations cover. Anecdotal at best I know. But it made sense to me on the surface of it at least.
You leaked the secret information. Now I’m about to make one of my own.....
Delete this comment before China finds it
@@uvuvwevwevweonyetenyevweug3450 Heheheha
Interesting, interesting indeed! The B-2 has always been an intriguing aircraft!
That looks fabulous & amazing
10k subs lmao. Youre at 3.5mil now. Its funny to look at old videos that creators have made. You're killing it.
The Man who taught me radar in college was one of the radar specialists who worked to develop this plane. Fun fact, he was a member of the program, but it was strictly top secret so he couldn't tell anyone. Also, secretly, his wife was a member of the program. Neither had any idea the other was a member of the program, and they both lived double lives for many years. Now they look back at it and laugh. The guy is an expert on radar guided missiles and whatnot, and that's what he taught me in college.
Melthornal wow
FAke
Guys lying his ass off. I work for Northrop and it ain't like that, unless he was working in an Area 51 level.
Melthornal *its top secret he cant tell anyone* except he tells hundreds of kids with every new class he has
Its The Real McCoy he only told them after it was public knowledge.
"Classified" Love that word.
*Yep.*
@@memetasticvondank131 yipppy
@@memetasticvondank131 Yippie!!!!!!!!!
Excellent video - informative and interesting - thanks!
Congratulations for this video !
You forgot one more thing I think you should have added, the creator of the whole company of Northrop (Jack Northrop) is the man who made the first fly wing prototype in the world, the N-9M was the first flying wing ever to fly, made in 1929, followed by the Horton Brother's Ho-229 world's first jet powered flying wing, and then back to Northrop, the XB-35 Piston engine bomber and then the YB-49 Jet powered flying wing, and then with the advent of fly by wire, the creation of the B-2 Spirit.
Oh hey storm ! XD
+sushil george do you know when the 6th episode of the cab show
+sushil george is airing?
sushil george Right, i am aware
What I read N-9M first flight in 1942. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_N-9M
This has always been my favorite aircraft. I like how it is still ahead of our time, even though it is using technology from the 70's and 80's. It was a great feat in engineering, and really sparks interest in all of us.
Really good channel. Keep going guyz .we will support you .
Wonderful aircraft man, like brilliant the designers are genius
There's a B2 on public display at the USAF National Museum in Dayton, Ohio. Apparently Russian spies have tried to scrape paint samples off of it right there in the middle of the museum. Funny thing is, that's not the real paint on it.
lol can imagine their dissapointment lol
Why would they do that when they could just borrow parts of downed f117 in Serbia?
@@0trov_ 😂😂
@@0trov_ because it's not the same technology ?
The Horten 229 was not designed to be a stealth aircraft. You can see directly into the engine which is a huge addition to RCS
people tend to think "oh it's the same shape so it has the same function"
That's up for debate. It was made with wood and glue infused carbon powder, both absorb radar. The thing flying wing profile does help with RCS, despite the engines being slightly exposed.
To top it off, Northrop used it when researching their designs.
Most of the internet heavily exaggerates many aspects of German WWII military tech - a lot of amateur fringe sites multiplying the errors & exaggerations. I looked up the Wiki on the Horton Ho 229 & it is very poor indeed. A far better source is the website for the Smithsonian National Air & Space museum - the people who actually had their hands on the real thing! If you are interested you need only search for: Smithsonian + Horton + "is it stealth?"
*Reimar Horton* learned his trade as a designer of pre-war gliders where wood construction was the norm. In the closing parts of WWII materials shortages was a serious problem for the Germans & it was natural to go to a steel frame covered in plywood. For Horton stealth was low on the list of design priorities whereas range & fuel economy was at the top. Thus the overall shape was dictated by the need for low drag to achieve the range required.
Also note that It wasn't until 1983 that Horten mentioned that he *PLANNED* to mix sawdust, charcoal & glue between the plies of the wood, but we know it was never actually implemented. The Wiki of course tells a different story - the wrong story. There is a strong likelihood [IMO] that Horton wasn't being entirely honest in '83 - especially as all the major airplane stealth concepts [including radar absorbent coatings] was a hot topic within military airplane design circles years before '83. Very tempting for him to promote himself as being even more visionary than he was - & yes he was visionary.
However the WWII Germans were probably the first to consciously incorporate anti-radar detection into their designs in any major way. *PERHAPS* ... For example it has been suggested that their prototype electric U-Boat had canted sides partly for this reason & also I have read [on sites I don't trust] that the standard U-Boat snorkel head was covered in a rubberised material late in the war for a short time to reduce radar reflection, but it wasn't a success due to salt water & inhospitable conditions quickly removing it. NB I haven't the time today today to check the statements in this para via reliable sources [which ain't Wiki :) ]
In my long post I left this bit out in error: Thanks for an interesting & _absorbing_ vid !!!
+Real Engineering the famous British mosquito was made of wood because of metal shortages because of the production of other aircraft.
Thanks for uploading this video
Very informative 👌🏼
National Geographic created a reproduction of Horton 229 and tested it for radar cross-section using the same frequencies that Brits used in WWII and it was not stealthly, the engine intakes are very reflective. But it was less visible and much faster than any other aircraft of that time meaning when Brits would be able to detect it, it would be way too late to intercept it.
Plus it was supposed to be insanely difficult to fly.
The only reason it was less visible is because it was mostly made of wood, which isn't the best microwaves reflecting material in the first place.
Are you british ?
I remember the progam. As I recall it did reduce detection range though not as a deliberate design factor.
Even the B-2 isn't completely stealth, the Ho-229 was a very advanced tech for its time...
Awesome!
Geetings from Uruguay!
Dude I’m a new subscriber. I loooooce this channel...
Love the description:)
How many degrees of freedom?
1776
@@CheckYourHealthUS I like the fact that you are automatically assuming things based on a joke I made
@@CheckYourHealthUS ok well that's just your opinion
@@CheckYourHealthUS because the term you are talking about included the word freedom and it included degrees so I was meaning 1776° of freedom.
@@CheckYourHealthUS He's referring to the year 1776. How much more freedom can that get?
While I was at RAF Fairford for the RIAT a B-2 flew over. It was so quiet!
I loved the night hawk shape it’s so COOL
Very very good video I get a lot of information thanks
Jeremy Clarkson: "Arent we meant to not be able to see that?"
"Captain we are receiving a radar signal."
"Duck down, Homie, duck down!!"
Thank god you made video on stealth
Looks really cool
Still, one of them costs $700M
actually its more like $2,000,000,000
+osu sucks no, it's $737 million
$6,000,000,000
Oops! one of them cost $89,000,000,000,000
+Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light. What's up with your name
About the Ho 229, it really wasn't that stealthy. Due to the engines being imbedded into the fueselage, it's radar cross section was only 20% less than other aircraft of the time. It also suffered instability issues due to a lack of rudder, and had no radar absorbing materials. Stealth simply wasn't a priority for it. It likely only had the shape of a flying wing to meet the contract requirements, but not specifically for stealth.
You need huge RCS reductions to have a relevant impact. Having a 20% lower RCS is pretty much irrelevant.
I live in north Las vegas and I've seen a few of these flying over my home for a while, amazing how many people will never see this
I wish I can create a channel like real engeering one day (y) Man you are my inspiration since 2015
Americans: This plane is invisible to any radar
Serbians: Hold my rakija
they shot down a F117 not a B2
Its funny ass hell that in 70 days they can only bring down one plane and it was only after it had already bombed it's target 🎯 🤣😂🤡
1:30 What if radar waves hit B-2's wing perpendicularly?
Imagine a radar station which direction from a flying B-2 is perpendicular to B-2's wing leading edge. More precisely, wing's leading edge angle is 35º, therefore an azimuth of 35º from B-2 to radar station would compromise plane's stealth?
Also, it's known that B-2 surfaces use "continuous curvature". I don't know if this suffices to avoid the before-mentioned situation.
Great video. ☺️
Your explanations are really good 👍
Make more.....
US: lemme introduce our Alien Technology.
The Germans did that before the American
German: *German Science is the best in the world!*
@@Nich-ib7xv ?
@@Nich-ib7xv for fucks sake how many of you brainwashed are there? The stealth is a soviet technolegy but the first stealth plane is amercain that was made in the 70's! If it looks like a dorito it doesnt mean its stealth
Copied from Germans
When i was young I asked my dad how it works, he told me basically that if you threw a ball at it it would never come straight back to you which makes sense actually
stealthy and badass, I've always liked this plane
Why is this video showing us nothing?
Please make a video on the SR71 .
Oh you know it. It's gonna be a long one!
+Real Engineering I can be patient. Awesome to see a reply so quickly.
+Real Engineering can you make a video on the challenger 2 tank? A lot of people do the Abrams but it has British armor so you may as well do a British tank :)
The M1A2 doesn't have the same armor as the Challie.
Challie has a better version of Chobham than the Abrams because we Brits keep our best tech and send earlier versions for export :3
When will it be out? The sr71 broke the speed record on my birthday (July 28) so I think it would be cool to learn more!
so radar works like sonar but with radio waves instead of sound?
pretty much
Hence the similar name Ra-DAR, Radio Detection And Ranging. So-DAR, Sonic/Sound Detection And Ranging, the name for using this principle in meteorological instruments, for military use it's called So-NAR: Sonic Navigation and Ranging. Then there's also (just had to look it up) Vi-DAR, Video Detection And Ranging, and LIDAR, Laser Imaging/Light Detection And Ranging. All work on the same basic principle: sending a pulse and look for how long it takes to get a reflection and where from, except VIDAR, that just a high-speed camera looking for speeding cars, comparing images to calculate speed :D
No ahit
research and development of this must have been so fun
Hey lad, here's to 10,000 subscribers. You have great content I'm sure you'll hit 20 in no time! Edit: *sigh* nevermind...
How does the influence of nazi designs, when Jack Northrop also came up with the idea in 1939, and the XP-56 Black Bullet.
Which lead to the XB-35 and YB-49. Northrop was a champion of flying wings.
don't like the ho229 being described as 'stealthy', when clearly the comparison stops at the shape. The shape of the B-2 obviously contributes to the radar cross-section, but do we know if this was what the germans were thinking when building it?
He says in the video that they didn't understand those principles when they built it.
+Sean Dali he also implied that the ho229 is stealthy and could have changed the war because of that, while giving no evidence of the stealthiness apart from the pictures showing a flying wing.
*****
That's not what he said.
+Sean Dali "we can only imagine the impact this plane would have had if it were ready before the wars' end" while showing pictures of a destroyed London.
+Sean Dali by the way I will not reply if you don't have a valuable contribution to the discussion anymore.
So I understand how it can yaw using the airbreaks and differential thrust but what about stabilization, how well does it track?
If it's TLDR, watch "Was the horten really stealthy".
The horten was never expected to be stealthy, and it wasn't by any means. It only had a 15% smaller signature than other jets of the time, it wasn't even made of any strong radar absorbing material.
I wrote a paper on Tacit Blue which was the origin for stealth plane design, before B2! Let me know if you want to read it
always interested in learning more! My email is in my about section or send it over to me on twitter!
The Tacit Blue was the origin for stealth.
Actually it wasnt, Northrop made a working flying wing before the 229 and because of Jack Northrops obsession with flying wings he kept pushing the design and his designs later inspired the B-2.
2:16 is it just me or does the side view look like it's been designed using biomimicry. It looks like the side view of a bird
Yeah!
The design is inspired from the peregrine falcon.
A lot of great designs of aircrafts are rooted in a flying animals anatomy
@@bagel8383 Makes sense
Yeah, like Waff Tart said, a lot of airplane designs are inspired by flying animals (mainly birds)
Thanks, for the blueprint, I'll go make my own.
Great video but just a little information about the Horten 229 is that is was never intended to be a stealth aircraft and when it was being planed out the material that made it was found out to have actually make it more radar visible
Horton 229: who are you?
B-2 Spirit: I’m you but stronger
*Horten ho 229
Special Person oof
Special Person nerd!
@@ib7566 got em
Nonsense.
The Ho229 would have had the same impact as the Me262. It was too late for Germany.
It was simply a proof of concept. Not intended for combat.
This thing was first introduced in the late 80's. If this was the shit they were able to show us PUBLICLY back then, imagine what they AREN'T showing us today, over 30 years later.
We made history in our life time together and thanks for making history with US
No rudders? Clever engineering to save the day! :D
First used exactly like that in the Ho-229. German engineering "exported" to the US.
very Northrop
*****
I've wrote a research paper about the Operation Paperclip and it's soviet counterpart, the takeover of german machines and gadgets (since the Americans got all the scientists) during the early cold war. So yeah, i am pretty familiar with that topic. Of course, the B-2 is decades ahead of the Horton, since it's developed decades later, but the influence on modern rocket and plane/weapon development is undeniable, since the germans were years ahead, especially with their aeronautic designs.
*****
Yeah, guess many had influence in modern rocketry. It never was one person alone.
*****
Well, there were quite some around at the same time like Max Valier. Then there was Hermann Oberth, Walther Hohmann (the important Hohmann-Transfer is named after him), Johannes Winkler, Kurt Heinrich Debus, Sergei Korolev, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and of course Wernher von Braun. They all had a place, some theoretically, some by experimenting (like Goddard).
Many of them were Germans, organized in the "Society for Space Travel" were they build and tested rockets in the late 20ies and early 30ies. By 1933 the German military got interested and many moved and lived in Pennemünde, the testside for rockettech, where they developed numerous rockets and flying objects like the V2 Aggregat, the first artificial object that crossed the border to space.
imagine checking the radar and spotting a small dot going as fast as 700 mph
I'm laughing imagining a dot and then it just goes by the entire screen in a second
Love the music
Hello Real Engineering! Awesome video! One question: How do the inside and outside elvevons work on a tailless delta wing aircraft like the Mirage III, F-102, Space Shuttle, etc? Thanks, :)
I've read that the Horten 229 only used the flying wing purely for it's flight characteristics, with the stealth being a false claim after the war. What do you guys know about this?
+Andrew Quinlan
Almost exactly correct. It was largely chosen at the time of their development given their smaller use of materials in that form, and possible flight surface control experimentation.
Ah. Thanks for correcting me.
When you get that stealth bomber in mw2 in a care package since it wasn't worth a killstreak slot
Nice. Thx 4 sharing
I feel so privileged to see these flying around a couple times a year due to my proximity to Nellis AF base, saw them especially when I used to go to the community college near by it. Love them.
Not as stealthy as the military try to make out. It makes for a good story though.
As well as getting potential enemies worried. (a little bit)
Horton 229 was stealth cause of its material (wood). It wasnt on purpouse. Same with mosquito.
not true, the wing shape's reflection properties also redirected away radio waves to the left and right, making the wings essentially invisible to radar. it was the engines inlets that were the only thing that would have shown up on radar, which combined with its speed would have made it capable of bombing Britain and leaving before interception would have been possible. good thing it never flew offensively.
I have my doubts of this was intentional.
GabrielKirov maybe not but both sides would have been very quick to realise what was happening, the war wouldn't have lasted long if the 229 had made it to full production...
[1] GabrielKirov is correct in what he wrote - the Ho 229 was "stealth" [to a small extent] because of the partial wooden construction, but "stealth" was not the design goal. *Reimar Horton* learned his trade as a designer of pre-war gliders where wood construction was the norm. In the closing parts of WWII
materials shortages was a serious problem for the Germans & it was natural to go to a central steel frame covered in a plywood skin & an all-wooden wing with plywood skin. For Horton stealth
was low on the list of design priorities whereas range & fuel
economy was at the top. Thus the overall shape was dictated by the need for low drag to achieve the range required. Nothing at all to do with stealth
[2] You are incorrect about the *"wing shape's reflection properties [...] redirected away radio waves"* - nearly all of the wing was wooden & thus it didn't reflect radar at all. The reason for the smallish radar footprint was:
[a] lack of propellers - metallic prop discs are very, very 'bright' on radar due to their large diameter & vertical orientation
[b] the small amount of vertical radio reflective area because no tail assembly with vertical fin
[3] It is not known if the engine inlets were particularly prone to radar detection - the inlets were not tested for this property - only the nose cone was tested
[4] Although the wing skeleton is wooden & the skin is wooden ply the engines, inlets, & central body of the plane are metal - thus the plane does have a radar signature
I recommend that you go to the website for the *Smithsonian National Air & Space museum* - they are the people who actually had their hands on the real thing. If you are interested you need only search for: *Smithsonian + Horton + "is it stealth?"*
Something else to consider: It wasn't until 1983 that Horten mentioned that he PLANNED to mix sawdust, charcoal & glue between the plies of the wood for the purposes of radar 'stealth', but we know it was never actually implemented in any of the prototypes. The Wiki of course tells a different story regarding the Ho 229 - the wrong story. There is a strong likelihood [IMO] that Horton wasn't being entirely honest in '83 - especially as all the major airplane stealth concepts [including radar absorbent coatings] was a hot topic within military airplane design circles years before '83. Very tempting for him to promote himself as being even more visionary than he was - & yes he was visionary.
lol.. you are seriously overstating the effectiveness and reliability of radar.
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While it's true that the Horten Ho-229 had many of the same *basic* design features and radar characteristics, many decades earlier than the B-2, it wasn't primarily designed for stealth. The Horten brothers simply knew how efficient and maneuverable the flying wing design was, and were pioneers in the their development.
+Alex Parker
The Hortens did not have any R.A.D.A.R. characteristics comparable to the B-2, analogically speaking. It wasn't stealth by title or capabilities. It was a lower R.C.S. aircraft compared to most other designs, but only because of its inherent construction and size. The DeHavilland Mosquito shared a similar reduction in R.C.S. because of its construction.
yeah we saw the american stealth when a russian anti air rocket in yogoslavia dropped a nighthawk with no problem
StingyThe WhiteSupremacist The F117 was very primitive stealth wise, plus the F117's flew the same routes over and over again allowing the Serbians to set up to counter it
StingyThe WhiteSupremacist and it took the bomb doors jamming to even get a lock
it was shot down becuase it flew only a few miles from the radar, and had it been just a few miles to the side the radar would have a much more difficult time shotting it down
The problem is that if you have a radar sensitive enough to detect a large bird, and software that only shows pip moving above certain velocities, then you can very easily spot a stealth plane.
This is correct. When stealth planes were being designed and built in the late 70s/early 80s, computing power was very weak compared to what it is now. Since then radar technology and computer processing power has improved exponentially while the design of the "stealthy" aircraft has remained static. What was white noise showing up on radar is now a clearly defined image of an aircraft.
Neither matters with the B-1 Lancer, since it just flies below the radar at > Mach 1. Even if you do manage to spot it, it's statistically very unlikely that an intercept fighter could catch one and achieve a firing solution.
Kerbal AirForce No it can't. The B1 is only capable of 0.9 mach at sea level and barely above Mach 1 at altitude.
pacus123 Sure. If you accept the declassified top speed as absolute, and assume any targets are at or near sea level.
Kerbal AirForce Good point. Nonetheless I seriously doubt the B1 has a top speed of more than 50% of its declassified top speed.This would still put it sub Mach 2 in which case it would be cannon fodder for Mig 31s with their look down shoot down capability.
this is just cool
Great Information👍👍
Interesting - so the B2 still reflects all the radar signal, it just scatters it. Couldn't this be defeated by having a networked array of radar stations? If they sent out pulses at different times, they would receive scattered signals and you could triangulate the location of a stealth plane.
I think this might be done IRL
I heart that even stealth planes can be spottet fairly easy when you have a good radar system.
a F-117 stealth bomber even got shot down over serbia in 1999.
from this german side it seems like they used 3 slightly modified soviet P-12 radar stations, SAMs and some Mig-21
they used triangulation to get the plane spottet.
home.snafu.de/veith/Texte/Stealth.htm
(you can use google translate for a rough translation or search for yourself for info)
Sure but then you have to remember its now possibly 1mile away because it takes a minute to fully piece it together.
You could triangulate the location, but detection isn't tracking. This shouldn't be enough for a lock-on.
The F-117 has only been shot down, because its bomb bays were jammed. They were open, increasing their RCS. They have flown hundreds of sorties, every single night. Just one has been shot down. B2's have flown over Belgrade, not even 30 miles from the F-117 crash site. Yet, it wasn't picked up by their radars.
In theory yes - with a but.
Most radar arrays have T/R arrays Short for transmit/receive
They cycle between the 2 and cannot receive while transmitting
To do this you would need a Transmit array and multiple different sites running receive, they would need to be networked with a super computer which would compare multiple received signals to triangulate the reflection
this is feasible but not as cost effective, this is why it hasn't been used.
The Russians have made claims to be able to link radar sites to sync T/R Cycles to better detect stealth aircraft in the way you described but they haven proven that it is a working tech.
More interestingly, if you took a photo of B2 in broad daylight, it looks like missing pixels indicating broken camera than a huge plane.
Gotta be crazy to see this in person
beautiful😍