By Kris Osborn, President, Warrior
Air Force engineers and weapons developers are making specific efforts to preserve, sustain and upgrade the stealth properties of the F-35 to ensure it maintains its stealth advantage as it flies into future years. This is a high priority undertaking for the US Air Force and other F-35 services because the Pentagon plans to upgrade and continue flying the jet into the 2070s and beyond.
The ongoing work, which both maintains and upgrades the stealth effectiveness of the jet, involves re-sealing bolts, surfaces, edges and upgrading specially engineered radar absorbent composite materials on the fuselage.
An interesting essay from the US Air Force says that technicians are now applying specialized coatings and reseal surfaces with extreme attention to detail, as even minor imperfections can affect how the aircraft is detected.
“You could have a jet that flies and fights perfectly, but if it lights up on radar, the advantage is gone,” Tech. Sgt. Samuel Holt, 48th EMS low observable noncommissioned officer in charge, said in an Air Force essay . “Without LO, you’re not projecting power, you’re just showing up on someone’s scope. That’s the difference between shaping the battlefield and reacting to it.”
As described by the Air Force essay, a small edge, dent or hole in any part of the aircraft can create a “structure,” “shape,” or “object” off of which an electromagnetic “ping” from an enemy radar can simply “bounce off” to generate a return signal. Smooth, blended wing-body designs without protruding structures, external bolts, sharp edges or hard points of an airframe make it much more difficult for electromagnetic signals to generate a “rendering” or return image for enemy radar systems to target. These kinds of configurations and engineering form the essential basis of “stealth” and provide critical protections. Also, new radar absorbent materials can be added to the fuselage as they become available. The idea is to have an F-35 appear like a small “bird” to enemy radar and therefore be able to elude advanced surface-to-air missiles and air defense radar.
Upgrading stealth effectiveness for the F-35 is extremely critical moving forward given that many advanced Russian and Chinese air defenses are increasingly capable of detecting even some stealth platforms from longer ranges on a wider range of frequencies.
Kris Osborn is President of Warrior Maven – Center for Military Modernization. Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a highly qualified expert in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Masters Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University
