stealth technology

views updated

stealth technology Methods used to render an aircraft nearly invisible, primarily to radar or heat detection. To achieve ‘invisibility’, a stealth aircraft must have sympathetic airframe design (all radar-reflecting ‘hard’ edges smoothed away), engine exhaust-dampers that mask and disperse jet efflux, and radar absorbent material that ‘holds’ electronic emissions rather than reflecting them. This coating has to be regularly applied, since it is sensitive to water and wear. The US Lockheed F-117A was the first ‘stealth’ aircraft to enter frontline service (1983), followed a decade later by the Northrop B-2. The F-19 stealth fighter was used in the Gulf War (1991).

More From encyclopedia.com