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The magnificent Lockheed SR-71A was designed with strong emphasis on minimum radar cross-section. This was achieved by careful shaping, wing/body blending and the selective application of radar-absorbent materials
Technology Explained
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The Long Range Penetrator
On the 11th July, 1986, in the early hours of the morning a USAF fighter aircraft crashed into a hillside in a mountainous country, northeast of Bakersfield in Southern California. The pilot, USAF Major Ross Mulhare of the 4450th Tactical Air Group at Nellis AFB, was killed.
While fire-fighters battled the resulting bush fire, the USAF declared the crash site a national security area, cordoned it off and subsequently had fire-fighters and other civilians involved sign forms in which they agreed not to disclose what they saw. The consensus of most informed observers in the US was that the aircraft was a Lockheed built Stealth fighter, a strike/recce aircraft designed to penetrate hostile airspace without detection.
The USAF’s response underscores the military significance of Stealth, a very general term applied to the reduction of a combat aircraft’s infra-red, electromagnetic, acoustic and visual signatures and radar cross-section. The objective of Stealth technologies is to deny hostile weapon systems critical target information thus defeating detection, acquisition, tracking and guidance systems. This will reduce the ability of an air defence system to inflict losses, thus increasing the cost effectiveness of tactical and strategic air strikes. This in turn forces an opponent to concentrate a maximum of effort into air defence thus consuming resources otherwise applied to the tactical air battle.
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