WW2 Stealth - DH Mosquito??

[mhuxt]

Doug Richardson's book 'Stealth' notes that the stealth characteristics of the Mosquito were "almost nil because the radar waves that passed through the wood outer structure would reflect off internal structures, such as the skeleton, wing spars, bomb racks, the cockpit, and the engines.

*sigh*

I actually agree that claims for Mosquito stealthiness are overdone / inaccurate, but Doug Richardson would build a stronger argument if he'd actually looked across a Mosquito drawing or two - there's no metal "skeleton", the spars were wood, yadda yadda.

 

[Erich]

radar blips on LW radar sets did have size ratios so yes a 4 engine could be seen compared to a smaller twin and S/E A/c. no matter by late 44 the LW NF's knew the Mossies were about above the BC 4-engines as well aqs a possible jump on them over their home bases................. I still go by sound direction equipment would pick up allied A/C on their airfields as they were warming up their engines and accordi9ng to former LW vets both day and night the info was related to larger radio communique centers such as Döberitz with the amount of Allied bombers and fighters taking off, and by late 44-45 how depressing for the Lw pilots/crews.

 

[Shortround6]

Radar reflections can vary enormously depending on the frequency and shape of the object. Things like the reflectors on old style car head lights were great radar reflectors. Cars with "retractable" lights could show up hundreds of feet different on police radar depending on if the lights were up or down. But they are directional, make no difference from the side.

Metal propellers are great radar reflectors. Between the shape of the blades and movement it means that almost from any aspect one or more blades are going to give a good return at any given instant.

Lots of things can happen by accident or coincidence. To truly "design" something for "stealth" from radar requires knowing the frequencies used or likely to be used, and the radar "signature" from a large number of aspects (directions).

B-52s were flying radar reflectors with their large flat sides and tail fin, maybe not so bad from the front but once they got the fan engines they might as well have fired off the equivalent of radar "flares" every few seconds.

It doesn't do a whole lot of good to hide the front of the engine if something like a cockpit canopy frame is the proper multiple of the searching radars frequency. Everything has to work together and just because a WW II aircraft exhibits a similar shape or characteristic of a modern "stealth" aircraft doesn't mean the WW II aircraft was designed with stealth in mind or that it would have worked.

 

[razor1uk]

The term 'Stealth' is largely over used (like awe-some is..), becoming almost a 'must have' sales gimick; against others who cannot think or carry-out interlinking a group of radars together to reveal the trick of fooling a perspective -
If say 3 or more radars were interlinked to scan as one large unit (akin to the celestial watching 'large parabolics' or large/wide area observatories), then the composite of those could be able to spot a stealth A/C, mind-due thats assuming there's some complex software and hardware connections and codings to watch for travelling at a directional speed with ajoining random directional strength returns from the unmoving at speed background clutter.
Best pretend to be a flock of birds then as software interpretation goes then eh....
As for ww2 stealth, well as others have said, it wasn't a done on purpose thing, or intended, nor I gather, is the rcs of those planes (Ho.9 Mossie) possible so much less than 'wholey metal' birds to deserve a modern tech term.

 

[razor1uk]

Whoops, double post, please delete this one if possible Mods, thanks

Funny one there Flyboy, that is indeed one bird on a pole (no inuendo intentionally intended, well, perhaps...)

 

[Elmas]

Ben Rich in his book tells a very amusing story about F117...
They built up a scale model of what was to be the F117, put up it on a pole in a desert range and then they fired all possible radars on it......the results were amazing: practically the radar signature was that of the pole alone.
After a few days they did repeat the measures: the signature had worsened a lot.
What happened? The crows had found the model very convenient as their convenience......
So probably wasn't the Mossie a stealth aeroplane, in the modern sense of the term.....

 

[razor1uk]

While there is some truth to that the pole had a near constant stable return during its tests, and the crow poo might have affected the ferrule based paints electrostatics I don't think unless the crows (via laxatives,) shat themselves to death over most of the test plane that the resulting reflections would be much different usual from surface skin bumps, dents, imperections and chipped and worn paints etc..
I think that snippet could hide something else possibly more serious.
Then again, due to that, and secrecy, all 'stealths' are kept in over pressured enviromentally controlled hangers, so no weather, birds, cameramen, or kinky crew chiefs G/F's can cause such wear and tear and hence leave the satin blackish kites pooped upon.

The marketing and spin dept are at hand in many books, certainly when it comes to possesing something culturally akin to a 'sword of damocles', such as stealth now is for the USA - like the A-Bomb, the B29, B36 B-58 and Skybolt Trident was/were before.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

Actually, a bird perched itself on top of the model mounted on a pole at the radar range.

 

[Erich]

funny stuff guys

back to topic the Mossie indeed was not stealth consider why the LW Ju 88G-6 was equipped with two variations of Rückswart (rear-facing radar) as standard equipment.........yes the Mossie, Beau and P-61 were picked up easily enough, but for some LW crews a lazy Funker caused the demise of many experienced and not so experienced NJG crews. only in 1945 did the Bf 110G-4 and He 219A-7's were coming out with a similar single angled rear radar array.