Stealth maybe not so stealthy?

[jerryzflies 0]

Lockheed engineer: F-22 Raptor Stealth tech is 'defective'

Emperor's invisible clothes actually visible shocker



By Lewis Page

www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/30/raptor_stealth_crap_lawsuit/page2.html



30th June 2009



An engineer formerly employed by Lockheed, maker of the famous F-22 Raptor stealth jet, has mounted a whistleblower lawsuit alleging that Lockheed has supplied the controversial superfighter with "defective" stealth coatings. The claims are sure to add fuel to the fiery debate raging at present in Washington over whether to cease production of the Raptor.



In the lawsuit, filed in US District Court in California, Darrol O Olsen states that between 1995 and 1999 he witnessed Lockheed knowingly use on Raptors "coatings that Lockheed knew were defective". Olsen says that he was "one of the top... low observables engineers in the stealth technology industry", having worked on the original F-117 stealth fighter and at Northrop on the B-2 stealth bomber before joining the F-22 team.



Olsen further alleges that low-quality stealth coatings have not only worsened the radar and infrared visibility of the F-22, but that they have been a factor in dangerous and expensive accidents - as when a piece of coating broke off and was sucked into an F-22 engine last year, causing over a million dollars of damage.



Olsen goes on to say that such "third-party reports" indicate that the Raptor's stealth protection "has not been remedied through the present date". He says that Lockheed "continued to misrepresent the problems with the F-22's coatings through at least October 2004 and likely to the present date".



Allegations could strengthen Obama's hand in cancelling further Raptor production



At the moment a hard-fought debate is raging in Washington regarding the future of Raptor production. President Obama and his Defense Secretary Robert Gates want to cease manufacture once the US air force has a total of 187 F-22s; however, politicians from districts where the Raptor is made are resisting them. Furthermore, although Gates has managed to partially bring the US airforce to heel by replacing its two top bosses last year, institutionally the service passionately desires a much larger Raptor fleet.



Gates' desire to save money for combat troops by purchasing drones and "affordably stealthy" F-35s, more useful for strike missions, is backed by the other US services for different reasons. Furthermore, the White House has signalled (www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/25/obama_threatens_veto_on_raptor/) that President Obama may deploy his veto against attempts to maintain the pricey Raptor in production. Nonetheless, it's plain that Gates has a fight on his hands.



A lot of observers have always questioned the need for the Raptor, designed for a Cold War scenario of high-intensity conventional air combat above Europe against Soviet superfighters which never actually appeared. Now Olsen's lawsuit, in at least some eyes (pogoblog.typepad.com/pogo/2009/06/former-lockheed-martin-engineer-calls-fraud-on-f22-stealth.html), has further called "the justification for the whole [F-22] program" into question, let alone the matter of continued production.



On the other hand, people knowledgeable about stealth technology have always indicated that shape is more important than coatings when building a stealthy aircraft. Olsen's allegations, even if true, may not mean that the F-22's stealthiness is entirely invalidated: and after all, the plane is in service and has already flown in many air-combat exercises.



If its radar cross-section is in fact unacceptably high, one would expect the US armed services to know already - Lockheed couldn't have kept the fact secret to this point. None of this is to suggest that Lockheed wouldn't be in significant trouble - perhaps to the point of massive fines and jailed executives - if Olsen's allegations are true, but dodgy coatings wouldn't on the face of it make the F-22 completely worthless.



The Reg has contacted Lockheed reps in the UK today, but so far the company has declined to offer any comment on the matter.



In summary: Olsen's lawsuit, even if true, wouldn't on its own seem likely to invalidate the whole concept of the Raptor and lead to the plane's withdrawal from service. But it will provide ammunition for critics of the expensive superfighter, strengthening the SecDef's (and the President's) hand in their attempts to shift US defense funding to other areas.



------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Ex-F-22 engineer to sue Lockheed for stealth design

By Stephen Trimble

www.flightglobal.com/articles/2009/06/30/329025/ex-f-22-engineer-to-sue-lockheed-for-stealth-design.html



A stealth expert on the F-117 and B-2 programmes intends to file suit against Lockheed Martin later this week for concealing alleged deficiencies with the stealth coatings for the F-22.



The pending lawsuit accuses Lockheed of knowingly providing defective coatings used to reduce the aircraft's radar and visual signatures, and covering up the problem by adding 272kg (600lbs) worth of extra layers.



The lawsuit comes after the Department of Justice declined an opportunity under the Fair Claims Act to take up the case under seal.



Now, Darrol Olsen, who was fired by Lockheed in 1999, has turned to the US District Court in California's central division to seek justice.



Olsen wants to be re-instated with back-pay plus interest since losing his job more than a decade ago, says Samuel Boyd, Olsen's attorney. Olsen also is asking the court to order Lockheed to pay the US government $50 million for each of the 183 F-22's currently ordered, says Boyd. That amount equates roughly to the cost of the allegedly compromised stealth technology on each jet.



Lockheed was not immediately able to comment on the lawsuit.



Olsen began his Lockheed career in 1979 at Skunk Works, where he worked on developing new composite materials for the F-117, according to court documents. Olsen bounced between the F-117 and Northrop's B-2 programme during the 1980s, finally returning to support Northrop's B-2 flight test programme in 1990.



In 1995, Olsen finally joined Lockheed's materials and processes engineering group in Marietta, Georgia, to work on the low observables system for the F-22.



The F-22 requires three layers of coatings to reduce its radar signature, according to Olsen's statements in his case.



A primer seals the surface of the aircraft skin and helps with the adhesion of the next layer. Next, a conductive coating with silver flakes mixed with polyurethane materials is applied to keep radar waves from bouncing back to the emitter source. Finally, a topcoat layer has properties, including metallic materials, to reduce heat, which lowers the risk of radar detection.



"If those coatings are not effective, the other stealth measures of the aircraft's design are negated," the lawsuit says.



Olsen claims he witnessed Lockheed management misleading USAF officials about the quality of the stealth coatings. Olsen's supervisors instructed him not to speak at meetings with USAF officials.



In 1998, Olsen claims he refused to participate in an award ceremony that falsely honoured his team for solving problems he knew still persisted.



Lockheed also schemed to avoid government inspections of the coatings, secretly shipping batches of the stealth materials to the homes, the lawsuit states.



Although Olsen was fired for "failure to follow instructions" in 1999, the lawsuit says, he believes the problems have never been fully addressed.



In March 2008, an F-22 sustained major damage after a small strip of stealth coating inside the engine nacelle peeled off and was ingested by the fan blades of the Pratt & Whitney F119 engine.



In November, John Young, who stepped down in May as under secretary of defence for acquisition, technology and logistics, told reporters he was concerned about the F-22's stealth, or low observable, maintenance requirements.



"I would highlight in general the maintenance on the airplane is too high," Young said. "They're struggling with some of the LO and other issues, and there's clearly work that needs to be done there to make that airplane both capable and affordable to operate."

If you can't fix it with a hammer, the problem's electrical.

[downwardspiral 0]

The problem with this guy's complaint is low observability, or lack there of, is observable.

www.FourWheelerHB.com

[warpedskydiver 0]

Jerry would probably prefer if we had no F22 Raptors at all.

Maybe he would even prefer if we had no military.

[downwardspiral 0]

F-22s are expensive no doubt but it's estimated to cost less than a fleet of F-15s in the long run due to needing less to perform the same mission and lower maintenance costs. F-35s are significantly lower in cost but can it keep up with the capabilities of the SU-30, SU-37, and SU-47? All three of those airplanes can outfly the Raptor btw.

www.FourWheelerHB.com

[warpedskydiver 0]

SU-37 rocks.

The only thing it lacks is stealth and C&C capability.

If it had that we would be fucked.

An SU-37 with a wing of UCAVS would be a bitch.

They are very good at doing a SB as well (Sneaky Bastard)

Over the tops of the shrubs and at high speed.

The either get on the 6 or do a cobra and fire.

It sucks to get suprised I bet.

Good thing we already know about them.

In sims the Sukhoi's are a menace

[downwardspiral 0]

damn you people and your acronyms!

C&C - Command and Conquer? Comm & Control?

Would be interesting to the F-22 and SU-37 at a Red Flag exercise. To make it fair they'd have to make the Raptor ping tho. then it would be all about the cobra. What a beautiful sight that would be.

www.FourWheelerHB.com

[lawrocket 3]

I don't see much of an issue with regard to coating effectiveness. This issue would have been discovered by now during testing.

I am, however, suspicious of the craft. I have nothing to back this up but speculation, but a Raptor crashed and killed a companu test pilot during envelope testing a couple of months ago.

According to reports the wreckage was strewn over three ravines. I reckon that this is an area of at LEAST a couple of square miles.

Dead test pilot. Wreckage spread over a wide area. Envelope testing. I've seen no investigstive updates - nothing since the incident, in fact.

Putting those together gets me to presume the damned thing disintegrated. Inertial coupling. Wheaties Welch over again.

I hope I'm wrong..

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[quade 4]

And yet, if you look at the testing of just about every fighter plane ever flown, you will find a number of similarities. Planes crash during testing. It happens. Sometimes the general public doesn't get to hear the details because, well, the airplanes are secret or at least a good chunk of it is.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[lawrocket 3]

Absolutely. Test flight os designed to learn the breaking point. On the other hand, we have gotten pretty good at figuring out the limits beforehand. If this pilot was performing, for example, -4g loop and the plane disintegrated, it'd be a problem. One that may require more redesign that would be more trouble than increasing the size of the tail on the F-100.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[nerdgirl 0]

Quote

damn you people and your acronyms!

C&C - Command and Conquer? Comm & Control?

"Command and Control," which gets even more expansive as C^4ISR, aka Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance.

Some submissions for most awesomely bad military acronyms.
Another short collection of some note.

The one that still makes me laugh is NORTHCOM’s … uh, Northern Command’s … CCMRF aka the CBRNE Consequence Management Response Force. It’s both an acronym with in an acronym, and it’s is pronounced “see-smurf.” [double]-

I was sitting in a FLA-designated (four-letter-acronym) room on Tuesday afternoon and started keeping a list of acronyms used: JPEO, DRC, TMTI, NIE, the JASONs … & on to a list of 32 acronyms. Prolly missed a few too.

/Marg

Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters.
Tibetan Buddhist saying

[kelpdiver 2]

Quote

I was sitting in a FLA-designated (four-letter-acronym) room on Tuesday afternoon and started keeping a list of acronyms used: JPEO, DRC, TMTI, NIE, the JASONs … & on to a list of 32 acronyms. Prolly missed a few too.

/Marg

Yep, my JASON directives run the world.

My favorite business land acronym was BASAP. The B stands for before. And no, it apparently wasn't a joke in their minds (one of the major standing banks).

[warpedskydiver 0]

Quote

Quote

damn you people and your acronyms!

C&C - Command and Conquer? Comm & Control?

"Command and Control," which gets even more expansive as C^4ISR, aka Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance.

Some submissions for most awesomely bad military acronyms.
Another short collection of some note.

The one that still makes me laugh is NORTHCOM’s … uh, Northern Command’s … CCMRF aka the CBRNE Consequence Management Response Force. It’s both an acronym with in an acronym, and it’s is pronounced “see-smurf.” [double]-

I was sitting in a FLA-designated (four-letter-acronym) room on Tuesday afternoon and started keeping a list of acronyms used: JPEO, DRC, TMTI, NIE, the JASONs … & on to a list of 32 acronyms. Prolly missed a few too.

/Marg

WANG

The Wisconsin Air National Guard.

[longtall 0]

It MUST work; IVE never seen one.

" 90 right, five miles then cut."---Pukin Buzzards

[sundevil777 102]

Quote

A primer seals the surface of the aircraft skin and helps with the adhesion of the next layer. Next, a conductive coating with silver flakes mixed with polyurethane materials is applied to keep radar waves from bouncing back to the emitter source. Finally, a topcoat layer has properties, including metallic materials, to reduce heat, which lowers the risk of radar detection.

I would think it is quite wrong for this type of info to get out. No reason to give any help to others that want to develop such coatings.

People are sick and tired of being told that ordinary and decent people are fed up in this country with being sick and tired. I’m certainly not, and I’m sick and tired of being told that I am

[BlindBrick 0]

Couple of isses here, but to explain them I need to give a short primer on current stealth tech.

The fundamentals behind current aircraft stealth tech are a three step process.

1. You contour the airfcraft so that any radar beams that strike it are reflected at an oblique angle. This works because traditionally the radar receiver is in the same place as the radar emitter.

There are always going to be some surfaces that can't be sufficiently contoured, so you need another method to deal with them. This is where steps two and three come in.

2. Is a coating of paint that has been specially formualted to absorb as much radiation in the radar bands as possible. this takes care of the majority of the problem but not all which is where step three comes in.

3. The final piece is electronic counter measures. ECM comes in several types, but stealth relies on a type called deceptive that rather than the more familiar approach of just trying to 'white out' an area with radar "noise' instead emits signals designed to confuse the radar return thus muddying what little return escapes the first two steps.

Now the first issue.

There are many indications that the current stealth technology is a dead end. Computing power has advanced to the point that it's a fairly simple mattter to build a network of radar emitters and receivers to achieve passive detection of current stealth platforms. This works because as we saw the primary tool of current stealth technology is redirecting the radar beam away from the radar emitter since traditionally that's been where the receiver was also. With a networked array of recievers, the coordinating computer catches the misdirected signal from multiple receivers and then performs triangualtion to fix the actual position of the aircraft.

Real world applicability?

An F-117 was lost in operations over Bosnia in what the USAF has claimed was a one in a million lucky shot. What most people don't realize is that that region of the world has some ofthe most notorius software virus makers on the planet, and a bit before the F-117 shootdown the "Warez" rumor mill was awash with rumors that those guys had developed something that was really hot but not a virus.

Second issue

Stealth only works against radar.

Shortly before the Soviet fall, the USSR spent a huge amount of money devloping the best infra red detection technology in the world. They then developed that tech into seeker heads, sensor suites and fire control systems. The seeker heads were then mated to russian short and medium range air to air missiles which had the advantage of Russia's undisputed mastery of rocketry seasoned with a few truely innovative ideas filched from American designs.

The Soviet Air Force also moved away from centralized ground-based tactical control of fighters once it became apperant that WWIII wouldn't begin with a massive spamming of B-52's and B1's.

The net result is that the Soviet Air Force's fighter corps developed into a true hunter-killer force that hunts its targets with a virtually indetectable sensor suite and then prosecutes the attack with some of the world's best AAM's mated to the world's most manuverable aerial warfare platofrms. the net result is that enemy planes are ganked before they even know what has happened.

Fast Forward a decade and now that technology is for sale to everyone and their dog. fast forward another five years and a signifcant number of Russian pilots have entered the market as freelance advisors who teach the doctrine and tactics needed to get the most out of the sold systems.

-Blind

"If you end up in an alligator's jaws, naked, you probably did something to deserve it."