DATE: MARCH 17, 1999
EDITION: 1999
VOLUME/ISSUE: 031/011
BY LINE:
Nick Cook JDW Aviation Editor
Piotr Butowski JDW Correspondent
London & Moscow
TEXT:
A Russian scientific research organisation is to offer for export
a 'bolt-on' stealth device that it claims renders non-stealthy
aircraft practically invisible to radar.
The system, which envelops the aircraft in a cloak of ionised gas
known as a plasma, is said to be fully developed, with work on a
"third-generation visibility-reduction system" under
way.
Keldysh NITs (Nauchno-Issledovatelskiy Tsentr or Scientific
Research Centre) is making the claims. According to its director,
Anatoliy Koroteyev, the system weighs less than 100kg and consumes
little more than several dozen kW of power.
Given the state of the Russian economy, analysts consider it
unlikely that any of NITs' work has been applied to Russian Air
Force aircraft. According to Koroteyev, however, the system will
soon be offered for export.
By installing the system, a typical aircraft radar cross-section
(RCS) might be cut "by more than 100 times", Keldysh NITs officials
said. This would be much the same RCS as dedicated US stealth
aircraft such as the Lockheed Martin
F-117 stealth fighter and the
Northrop Grumman B-2 stealth bomber.
The claims are given credence by corroborating information on the
status of Russian aerospace plasma research acquired by Jane's
Defence Weekly last year. Russian work in the use of plasmas that
purported to reduce aircraft drag by as much as 30% was collated by
British Aerospace (BAe) in the mid-1990s. BAe has since been trying
to verify the Russian claims in experiments carried out jointly
with the UK Defence Evaluation and Research Agency (DERA) and the
UK Ministry of Defence (JDW 17 June 1998).
One of the spin-offs of 'plasma aerodynamics', Russian officials
told BAe, was that it vastly reduced an aircraft's RCS. The
absorption of radio waves by plasmas is well known as the
communications black-out that a space vehicle encounters on
re-entry is caused by the shielding effects of plasma. This builds
naturally in front of the spacecraft as it hits the Earth's
HEADLINES , RUSSIANS OFFER RADICAL STEALTH DEVICE FOR EXPORT p 63
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atmosphere and shocks the air to high temperature.
The same principle applies to the absorption of radar energy.
Although the aircraft would appear to glow like a lightbulb, using
plasma generators all around the airframe, it would be almost
invisible on a radar screen, Russian officials
maintain.
In the opinion of designers at Mikoyan and Sukhoi, the expense of
all-embracing low-observable technology as applied in the US Air
Force's F-117 and B-2 outweighs its effectiveness. Russians prefer
to stress the 'balance' achieved in their latest-generation of
fighter designs between aerodynamic efficiency and stealth. The
Mikoyan 1-44 and Sukhoi S-37 technology demonstrators, both of
which have been rolled out in the past 18 months, are supposed to
make use of radar-absorbent paint and materials but are short of
inherent stealth features.
Keldysh NITs said that "first- and second-" generation
plasma-generators had been tested on the ground and in flight. The
centre is working on a third-generation system "based on new
physical principles", a possible reference to the use of
electrostatic energy around an airframe to reduce RCS. Others
believe the Russians could be attempting to duplicate secret work
under way in the USA to make aircraft invisible to the human eye by
using 'smart skins' that mimic their background.