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Is the paint used on the F-22 Raptor what causes it's stealth? Because the F-22 has a similar colour of paint to the F-35 and there both said to have stealth. Just a thought but i would really like to know.

Cheers

Parkeran

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Nope, it's the bad a$$ wizards us folks in the US have. They cast one hell of a spell.

Active Member Joined: Nov 22, 2004 Posts: 134

Parkeran wrote:

Is the paint used on the F-22 Raptor what causes it's stealth?

The coatings are one aspect of its stealth capability, but not nearly all of it, otherwise any fighter could become a stealth fighter by getting a new paint job, which is obviously not true. A single uncoated F-22 should still be able to defeat four or more F-15s BVR without breaking a sweat.

Elite 1K Joined: Apr 26, 2004 Posts: 1215 Status: Offline

akruse21 wrote:

Nope, it's the bad a$$ wizards us folks in the US have. They cast one hell of a spell.

That's a good one, but I think the Brits have the best wizards since the new Harry Potter book will be released tonight.

Hi,

Purplehaze wrote:
That's a good one, but I think the Brits have the best wizards since the new Harry Potter book will be released tonight.

Man that is a good one but I have to say GO AUSSIE!
I think it is amazing how the F-22 has its stealth capibility.
Keep Soaring High
Parkeran2 Cool

Most military planes use radar absorbing paint. But it has limitations in reducing whats beneath them.

Elite 1K Joined: Jul 20, 2005 Posts: 1035 Status: Offline

Pilotasso wrote:

Most military planes use radar absorbing paint. But it has limitations in reducing whats beneath them.

Wow...thats news to me...

Enthusiast Joined: Mar 13, 2007 Posts: 98 Status: Offline

Parkeran wrote:

Is the paint used on the F-22 Raptor what causes it's stealth? Because the F-22 has a similar colour of paint to the F-35 and there both said to have stealth. Just a thought but i would really like to know.

Cheers

Parkeran

It's because above (something like) mach 1.63 the paint begins to take on an electrical charge caused by atmospheric static electricity and the paint therefore becomes akin to "plasma stealth" and the airframe is invisible to all wavelenths of em radiation. Want to buy some swamp land from me?

This is just an awful post... an awful question... Where's our moderator at on these posts? This thread get's an "F".

You can paint those things day glow pink and look like a fruit and it wouldn't matter to the "radar stealth" aspects of those planes.

fox100 wrote:

Parkeran wrote:

Is the paint used on the F-22 Raptor what causes it's stealth? Because the F-22 has a similar colour of paint to the F-35 and there both said to have stealth. Just a thought but i would really like to know.

Cheers

Parkeran

It's because above (something like) mach 1.63 the paint begins to take on an electrical charge caused by atmospheric static electricity and the paint therefore becomes akin to "plasma stealth" and the airframe is invisible to all wavelenths of em radiation. Want to buy some swamp land from me?

This is just an awful post... an awful question... Where's our moderator at on these posts? This thread get's an "F".

You can paint those things day glow pink and look like a fruit and it wouldn't matter to the "radar stealth" aspects of those planes.

Pakeran may not know much about this, but I bet you can't get a single person in the know to say RAM has nothing to do with reducing RCS. There is a post in the F-16 boards about the effects and RAM reduces RCS by about 15%. So, yes, RAM by itself does not make an A/C stealthy, but it does help. And if it didn't, why is the Air Force spending time and money on it?

Ok, stealth isn't achieved (i mean not that much) from paint.. the shape (of '22) is known by everyone (unlike the '117 on early service's years), so can't be that the magic secret.. than what make the '22 so stealth? just materials, and built tolerances ??

Remember that the designers used supercomputers to do the shape. It isn't just any old stealth shape, that's for sure. There have been other planes built before anyone knew about shaping stealth that were accidentally stealthy - it's all in the overall combination of shapes. Remember too, that the F-117 was revolutionary in terms of shaping (indeed it was considered a miracle that it could even fly), while the F-22 is an evolutionary result of the SR-71, F-117 and B-2.

Active Member Joined: Nov 22, 2004 Posts: 134

Neno wrote:

Ok, stealth isn't achieved (i mean not that much) from paint..

Exactly, although in some specific areas, such as the intake ducts, it is critical. In this case, the ducts are shaped so that multiple reflections occur onto RAM (and maybe some radar-absorbing structure [RAS] underneath), bringing the return signal down to VLO levels. Obviously, a single reflection from paint on the exterior does not make an airplane VLO or anything close.

Neno wrote:

the shape (of '22) is known by everyone (unlike the '117 on early service's years), so can't be that the magic secret..

For stealth to be effective, the shape of an airplane's exterior is crucial because it will reflect at least part of the radar signal. I say "part" because much of the F-22's exterior material will pass some of the signal into its interior, but the bottom line is that the F-22's external shape has to be stealthy, even if such a shape is no longer a huge secret.

Neno wrote:

than what make the '22 so stealth? just materials, and built tolerances ??

I've found that most people--even intelligent, highly technically-minded people--tend to view stealth in a simplistic manner for some reason. Some believe it's mostly about the materials either absorbing or being transparent to radar signals. One engineer I know actually told me that the composite materials in the B-2 allow radar to pass straight through the whole airplane! Shocked

Huh? What about the engines and bombs and stuff? Confused

Basically, the point of stealth is to drastically reduce the intensity of reflected radar signals--in general if possible, and at least in the direction of the radar if nothing else. To achieve anything of this nature, you'd need to account for everything in a very complex machine--it's like a chain, where a single broken link would mean that the chain as a whole is broken. This is what makes stealth so difficult to achieve.

Imagine a radar signal encountering the F-22. The first thing that happens is that whatever RAM might be there absorbs a portion of the signal (which really means turning it into a small amount of heat). The airplane's skin then reflects some (in the case of some materials) or all (in the case of other materials like metals) of the remaining signal, which implies that the shape of the skin must itself be stealthy, returning only an extremely small portion of the signal in the direction from which it came. Any portion of the signal that passes through the skin must then be dealt with appropriately, which could be accomplished by using either a thin radar-reflective layer (e.g. the film on the inside of the canopy) or RAS (internal stuff you can't see), depending on the specific needs of that area. Once you've got all of that taken care of, then you'll have to address the observability of sensors, and suffice to say that this is a critical aspect of stealth that is neither trivial to implement nor highly visible to the public. As for tolerances, I imagine that the exterior shape of the airplane's skin must be fairly precise (albeit not microscopically so), which means that you cannot effectively copy it just by looking at pictures.

By the way, these are just some educated guesses from a layman. I'm sure that there are many issues and solutions to those issues that I haven't even thought of. And obviously, stealth is not only about having a puny RCS, but being discreet enough in every way to gain a dominating tactical advantage over your competitors (and in addition the F-22 has more than just stealth).

Ok so it's not the paint is it like a radar jammer or something?

Stealth is nothing new, it's a combination of a lot of things, and it doesn't take a super computer to figure it out. Check this website and see for yourself.
http://www.ctie.monash.edu.au/hargrave/horten.html

Even the English WWII Mosquito was stealthy because of its wood/fabric airframe.

Enthusiast Joined: Jun 01, 2004 Posts: 53

Quote:

Ok so it's not the paint is it like a radar jammer or something?

it's also not radar jamming. but i believe f-22 has that capability. radar jamming is done by emitting powerful radar signals to "drown" the radio signals of the tracking radar you wish to jam. if the f-22 will do this, it is negating its stealth capability by broadcasting its presence with those powerful jamming signals. f-22's stealth relies on RAM, RAS, computed over-all shaping and best of all flight tactics. remember that one f-117 is downed in serbia due to poor flight tactics.

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Stealthy paint?