Long-Wave Radar Can Take the Stealth From Stealth Technology 275
AbrasiveCat (999190) writes "In the continuing game of cat and mouse between offensive and defensive technologies of war, the technology of radar stealth may have been matched by new multiple frequency radar systems. U.S Naval Institute News reports the Chinese and Russians may be developing such systems. The present radar systems use high frequency waves for accurately locating an incoming target. Stealth aircraft are designed to adsorb or reflect these waves away from the receiver. It turns out longer wave radars can see the stealth aircraft. The longer wave radar lacks the precision of the high frequency radar, but when the two are combined, as the Russians, Chinese (and U.S.) are doing, you can produce accurate targeting radar. The F117 may have been in a golden age for stealth technology, it will be interesting to see if the F35 arrives too late to be effective against other countries with advanced radar systems."
Rebirth of the Russian Woodpecker (Score:2, Informative)
Longwave radar is not new,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Woodpecker
Not news (Score:5, Informative)
The F117 that was lost in the Balkans NATO mission in 1999 was shot down by an S-125 modified to use longer wavelenths than the RAM paint on the aircraft would absorb. The issue has been known since then and it's very likely that the F22 and F35 low observability design characteristics have taken this into account as much as physics and material science will allow.
Re:Might cause a re-thinking of the F-35 (Score:5, Informative)
TL;DR: F-35 would have been picked up by British radars that came into use towards the end of World War II. So much for stealth. The funniest thing? Everybody who knows about radars has known it since day one. All stealth planes suffer from this problem. Once the wavelength approaches the facet size, the fact that the facet is smooth and "points elsewhere" doesn't matter. It produces what amounts to specular highlights.
Re:Might cause a re-thinking of the F-35 (Score:4, Informative)