All Black 777

[Netpackrat]

Engineers tend to be fairly conservative in their work and I don't think the state of 1970s/1980s composite technology and experience with that technology was at the level where engineers would be putting it into aircraft for structural parts.

Especially Northrop. It's my understanding, that aluminum stressed-skin monocoque structure used to be referred to as, "Northrop style construction" in the aircraft industry.

[Rich]

Chris: Oh and just for the record, and in my personal opinion:

the F117 is one of the biggest fakeouts in history, and a total piece of shit that only a moron would willingly fly if they weren't under orders.

The B2 on the other hand, other than it's various maintenance and electrics issues, is an INCREDIBLE airplane.

Wasn't the F-117 nicknamed The Wobbling Goblin by the flight test people?

[esa5444]

Wasn't the F-117 nicknamed The Wobbling Goblin by the flight test people?

Yes. But it wasn't from it's structure. It was from it's shape.

The radar stealthiness of an aircraft comes mainly from the external shape. In the late 60s/early 70s, a Soviet physicist developed the theory that would allow you to mathematically predict the radar cross section of an aircraft. He published this work in the USSR. The US Air Force translated it into English, and some engineers at Lockheed figured out how to apply this theory to make a stealth aircraft.

Now, to actually predict the radar cross section involves a very large number of calculations that can't be done by hand, they must be done by a computer. Unfortunately, in the 1970s, computers were not very powerful and as such, they could only really model the RCS from an aircraft that was made entirely of flat surfaces. A curved surface required more computing power than probably existed in the 70s. This is why the F-117 looks like it was hobbled together from sheets of plywood and why the B-2 and F-22 (designed more than a decade later) look curvy.

Unfortunately, making a plane entirely out of sheets of plywood violates most rules of making "planes that fly well" and the F-117 is aerodynamically unstable, hence the name you mentioned. If it wasn't for the computer controls and fly by wire, it's likely that the plane would never appear on enemy radar not from being stealthy, but from having crashed on it's way there.

[SoupOrMan]

Umm, just to play devil's advocate--what about the F117 and B2 stealth aircraft? They're black, and composite... That's not paint covering them though, is it?

I think it's paint and a putty like crap. The putty goes between any panel gaps, etc to smooth out the surface (bumps and edges, like rivets, are anti-stealth). Both the paint and the putty absorb radio waves of the frequency used by radars.

As for composites, I have my doubts that those two plans are composite. I am sure there are composites on them, but the fact of the matter is that the F-117 is 1970s technology and the B-2 is 1980s technology. Engineers tend to be fairly conservative in their work and I don't think the state of 1970s/1980s composite technology and experience with that technology was at the level where engineers would be putting it into aircraft for structural parts. Especially aircraft that already had so many potential technological issues as the F-117 and B-2.

Your thoughts are somewhat close in some ways.

Neither aircraft uses anything approaching "conventional" construction; either in the sense of conventional stressed skin monocoque or semi-monocoque, or conventional composite construction.

If you think of the Saturn car, or the Ferrari f40... you're about halfway there.

Two of the 7-levels who attached themselves to me in our squadron were part of the test & development team for the F-117. One was sheet metal, the other A-shop. Neither of them ever saw each other in Nevada during the repair and inspection phases of maintenance.

[308Mike]

After reading the book Yeager, I'd really be interested in his opinion of how the F-117 flies. Although I'm sure he'd be far too diplomatic to really say what he thought or how he felt about the aircraft considering how much money the Air Force poured into the project.

Read the book. Talk about being at the right place and right time!! Even he admits he was a victim of circumstances of things coming together to put him where he was to do what he did, when MANY other people could have done the same thing at that same time. Yet it was his turn in the spotlight (which he absolutely HATED at the time). Read the book.

[workinwifdakids]

As did I, Chris. He has the resume to be a cocky sonafabitch, doesn't he. The only thing I hold against him is that he appeared to reference my best friend's father's death in that book (the circumstances are fairly unique), and dismissed out of hand that the man's actions in the air that directly led to his death were heroic. Yeager simply didn't have the facts of the case, yet was mercifully vague in the reference, so it doesn't erase him being one of my personal heroes.

[Aglifter]

I'm extrapolating, but from the attitude among racers is mostly, "Eh, F-up and die... or don't f-up, and die anyway." Some professions/activities simply inure people to certain actions and consequences. (EG, just about every racer I've ever heard of, will head into the wall/trees to avoid a spectator, no matter how much the dumb SOB deserves to die, instead of a racer who's doing what he's supposed to.)