Reuben Johnson
Key Points and Summary – Many nations market new fighters as “stealth,” but most only manage radar signature instead of achieving true low observability.
-U.S. programs defined successive generations—from angled F-117 to blended F-35—and now aim beyond shaping with Boeing’s F-47/NGAD.
F-117 Nighthawk Stealth Fighter. Image taken on 7/19/2025 in Dayton, Ohio, USAF Museum.
-Core rules still apply: avoid concave reflectors, bury inlets, and control seams with extreme precision and materials.
-Claims that canard-equipped designs rival U.S. standards don’t survive physics; forward surfaces and sloppy joins raise RCS significantly.
-This piece explains what real stealth means, why “managed RCS” isn’t enough, and how NGAD points to the next era of survivability and air dominance.
Stealth: Truly Made in USA
WARSAW, POLAND – It has become a common practice among fighter aircraft designers and producers outside the United States to present new designs and claim them to be stealthy.
To some degree, according to US experts in this esoteric field of aerospace technology, they can describe what they have developed as “stealthy,” but most do not meet US standards in this regard.
Stealth is a term used very broadly in many instances and often inaccurately. The airplanes these other nations have designed are, in the words of those specialists who spoke to National Security Journal, “platforms where the signature or radar cross section (RCS) of the aircraft has been managed or mitigated. They may look like a stealthy aircraft, but in reality, they are far more visible on radar than we are led to believe.
No comments:
Post a Comment