Who REALLY invented stealth?

In 1983, Lockheed’s dark and angular F-117 Nighthawk secretly entered service for the United States Air Force, silently becoming the world’s first operational stealth aircraft.

But the true story of stealth dates back much further than that.

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[williampulley]

My mom invented stealth. She could sneak up on me doing something dumb and I never knew the smack across the back of my head was coming until it was too late.

[RandomDeforge]

Song: NEFFEX - Just Breathing
Just because the tune is [Copyright Free] doesn't mean you shouldn't still credit it's author, Alex.

[texasranger]

The US Army just chose General Dynamics and Rheinmetall as finalists for the 4000 Bradley replacement IFVs.
Could you do a Firepower series video about this program, the two finalists and the other three that dropped out. Or more generally the current state of IFVs (Bradley, CV90, Puma, Lynx) and their most likely future. Maybe even including anti air IFVs like some CV90 variants and SkyRanger.

[granatmof]

The Wright brothers. Could you imagine the radar return of a canvas and wooden airplane?

[shanehayes]

Lovely synopsis of the topic. I'm especially delighted by the final determinate conclusion of your work. Another good job Alex.

[RyneLanders]

While the concept has been around for awhile, I think credit should be provided like it is in academia: the first to crack it wins. In the case of stealth, it was a combination of the Skunkworks team that Ben credited, and the Russian scientist's equations that led to the breakthrough. So while the concept had been thought of and tested into by degrees for awhile, the F-117 and its "hopeless diamond" shape + radar absorbing paint and other design attributes were really the first to crack stealth as we know it.

[lucasokeefe]

I became obsessed with this story since I saw the first iteration of Modern Marvel's stealth tech episode. I had it on video tape. All versions I can find of it online now are either completely different or heavily edited to the point where James Clark Maxwell isn't even mentioned. I stopped watching the History Channel entirely after I found that out.

[Laminar-Flow]

I always love your work, Alex. Would love to see a video on the impacts cheaper cost to orbit will have in the space domain, and what China & (mainly) the US have and will have to bear as a result.

[dougcoombes]

Lockheed was already making some pretty stealthy aircraft long before Have Blue. The A-12/SR-71 has an RCS of just 0.01 meters squared. What the program Denis Overholser and Bill Schroeder created allowed RCS to become the central factor in an aircraft design, not something that was included as an addition to the original design.

They created the stealthiest shape possible then worked backwards to make the aircraft flyable. In the case of the F-117 just barely, it being unstable in all three axis. You had very little time to eject from an F-117 when the electronic flight control system was lost.

[ThomasPapadakis]

Alex! I'm now intrigued by your latest YouTube video about the SR-72! AND. the things that you're bringing to the light of speculation is? The fact that upon watching T/G MAVERICK the first thing was the thought, "This is all too real and close to fact!" Is an occurrence that has entered my mind several times since the movie aired earlier this year! I'm wondering about the DARPA research that Dr. CHRIS Combs' RDE! And as this episode comes in at a close 2nd place to that episode, which i keep watching because I keep catching information that I'd missed in previous viewing! Imagine that?! About the possible capabilities of a development of the RDE in place of the Afterburner unit? Brings a whole new aspect of the possibilities of a simpler evolution of the quest for Mach 6 plus hypersonic flight as a reliable reality! I really like that term! RELIABLE REALITY! That you conjured up in my mind about not having to go to such a complexity of doing the conversion process in flight as to the simplification of just closing the turbojet/fan off from the incoming supersonic airflow, directly into the RDE at high mach supersonic speeds to calm the transition of acceleration the smooth evolution to mach 8 and higher because as the atmosphere entering the RDE is increased? The developed thrust capabilities are exponentially increased with velocity! It brings a whole new realm off hypersonic possibilities that are only limited to human/automation and temperature capabilities of the airframe limits this velocity increase! Alex, I've become addicted to your show due to these amazing possibilities you bring to light!.I'll be 60 on the 7th of December, 3 years after my most impressive hero Chuck Yeager passed, which also coincides with The Bombing Attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Which brought about our technological evolution of our Great Country that put us at the pinnacle of this exciting period of the what is of the result of Orville and Wilbur Wrights Kittyhawk breakthrough in 1903! Astounds my mind of what that small occurrence in history has been made possible. I do hope I don't appear too scatter brained with this comment? But, I'm just a simple career automotive technician that's been an aviation enthusiast all his life, has induced the excitement of this awe inspiring event during our time! And at the period of the bleak events going on with Ukraine, Israel and China are forcing the technology to be relevant right now! Signed, in awe of your fantastic show! Thomas Papadakis.

[JohnnyWishbone]

The concept of stealth has been around almost as long as radar itself. Some of the very first systematic attempts to implement what I'll call low-observable/radar-evading technology were by the German Ubootwaffe during the latter half of the Aecond World War. They attempted to create periscopes and snorkels for their submarines that were invisible to the new centimeter-wave radar technology the allies were deploying on maritime patrol aircraft. Those radars could see periscopes and snorkels at long range, which meant there was no safe way for German U-boats to charge their batteries, day or night. They worked to both create both radar-absorbing materials that could be applied to existing systems, and more inherently stealthy periscopes and snorkels. The main thing that frustrated them was the necessity of creating stealthy designs that could tolerate the abuse brought about by the marine environment.

*EDIT:* Applied a correction on the nature of the radar.

[jacob_s]

I've been reading up recently on the way some types of Radar Absorbing Materials work. There's a lot more to it than I initially thought. One of the more interesting methods was to use a material with a thickness half the wavelength of the incoming radar wave. The surface of this material is made out of a substance which splits the radar beam in two, one half reflects off of it, and the other half penetrates the material, before reflecting off the back layer. The two waves then combine and cancels out most of the wave (although I think the leading and trailing edge would still be detectable)

One thing I've been thinking about is that given the US has had stealth planes for so long, I have to imagine we've come up with a way to detect them and have been keeping it under wraps. While some wavelengths would be absorbed by the RAM surface, other wavelengths of radar would simply be diverted away, meaning if you put a crap ton of radar dishes everywhere, you could listen for the reflected signals, and spending a few billion dollars putting up listening stations is Uncle Sam's specialty (see SOSUS).

[captbart]

Actually, Northrop did, by accident. The Airforce discovered that the YB-49 was extremely hard to detect by radar. Once they decided to go with the B-47 they ordered the -49’s broken up so no one would stumble on the fact of its stealth. It had some control issues that made the -47 a better bomber platform but the stealth was “interesting “. Notice who’s building the bomber now.

[NiklasAndersson]

The math came from Russia, the stealth implementation Lockheed Martin. I would say that Lockheed Martin 'Skunkworks' rightly deserves the credit.

[antonzanki]

I remember reading a Road and Track magazine article in my high school library in around 1982 that compared multiple road vehicles radar cross sections as measured by police radars on the highway. This was my first exposure to stealth theory. They showed forward facing photos of various cars with a simple line graph of the percentage of radar return they had tested with a standard California Hwy Patrol instrument at a controlled location. The differences were striking with a Mac truck returning nearly 100% of the radar waves and a Porsche 911 somewhere around 25 or 30%.

[antonioduenas]

It’s a true video of stealth aviation history. Thanks Alex! It goes to law!

[njgrplr]

I believe the Skunkworks deserves the credit. They were the ones who researched, developed and continually refined multiple aircraft in a concerted effort to produce the world's first stealth aircraft. Just take a look at how many patents for new inventions incorporate preexisting materials and products. If you incorporate those elements as part of a larger system, that system becomes your intellectual property. Seems to me that is exactly what Lockheed Martin did.

[donaldbadowski]

YB-49. During testing it was discovered radar had a tough time tracking it. This was considered a problem. YB_49 was scrapped due to stability issues, only to be reserected decades later as the B-2.

[everTriumph]

In ww1 some fighters were covered in clear film to make them 'see through', so less visible from the ground. Being basically 'cellophane' a cellulose product, it could not be flown in the wet or in cloud. The DH Mosquito, being made of wood for fuselage and wings, had a lower radar signature than other contemporary 'planes. This was recognised at the time, but was not a design objective (radar was a very new development when the aircraft was designed). The Vulcan V bomber had its engines buried deep in its wing which masked the compressor blades, which are one of the most visible objects on radar. It was also close to being a 'flying wing', so had some of the radar characteristics of that. A bit of work could have improved it no end, but flying low and fast sufficed (and remember, it did nuke the US twice in exercises).

[kathrynck]

Broadly speaking, the first to put low-observable tech into the air on working airframes (on purpose), were Lockheed & Convair in the 1950's.
And even during WWII when radar was brand new, it was observed that using the curvature of the earth by flying low, and trying to put 'exciting' weather fronts between a plane and a ground radar, were worth doing. But that's not really an engineering feat. I'd give it to Lockheed and Convair.
Ufimstev's work, and the subsequent adaptation of that to computer modeling in the US, were significant leaps forward for stealth tech. But there were a lot of leaps forward for stealth tech.
I feel kinda like this video is based on an old post of mine under another video ;)