"Mirror plane": The US press suggested why a special reflective coating is being tested

The American company Scaled Composites is known for its original products that attract the attention of the military and intelligence specialists. Last week one of the creations of the company's engineers was seen over the Mojave Desert - a small jet Ares, which flew accompanied by Model 401 aircraft, called the "sons of Ares."

Tyler Rogoway writes about this in an article published yesterday by the American edition of The Drive.

So in the United States, a promising jet aircraft was tested. He was spotted near the Mojave Air Force Base, where the Scaled Composites are based. The plane attracted attention with its mirrored metal coating and an unusual antenna resembling a "barcode".

Presumably Ares and his "sons" are involved in testing reflective coatings. It is possible that the ability of air objects to reflect waves of certain lengths, primarily of the visible range, is being tested. But why? The version of the American press about the purpose of using a special reflective coating is that it is applied to a "mirror plane" to reflect the beams of combat lasers. It should be reminded that the RF Armed Forces are armed with the Peresvet laser combat complex. Similar complexes are being developed in the USA and China.

Scaled Composites' Ares was created about three decades ago as an experimental test platform.

Comments

[Insurgent]

"Mirror plane": The US press suggested why a special reflective coating is being tested

"Mirror", and there was also a "Transparent" plane, which is now perceived as a technical curiosity.

The head of the aircraft design department of the Air Force Academy S.G. Kozlov began working on reducing the visibility of aircraft in the late 1920s.
Until 1934, its activities were limited to theoretical research and primitive experiments that could be carried out without any appropriations.
The lack of an order allowed Kozlov, without haste, to thoroughly think over ways to minimize the visibility of the aircraft and the direction of bypassing all the obstacles that stood in this way. The designer divided the problem that arose into three tasks: reducing the visibility of the skin, airframe and engine frame, crew, weapons, etc.

To solve the first problem, Kozlov chose a transparent coating. Having studied several, the most suitable materials, he settled on cellone (cellon is cellulose acetate, obtained by the action of glacial acid and acetic anhydride on cellulose in the presence of a catalyst. In terms of mechanical properties, it is somewhat inferior to celluloid, but, unlike it, non-combustible, more resistant to action light, acids, alkalis and organic solvents A significant drawback of cellon is its hygroscopicity, which is twice that of celluloid). With further improvement, it was cellon that had the greatest chances of becoming a full-fledged material for transparent cladding.

[Kuroneko]

If this is an attempt to protect the aircraft from lasers, then a DSLR is the way to nowhere. Ablative coverage will be much more effective. And cheaper and MUCH less labor intensive both in production and especially in service. You get bogged down to polish-clean.

[Reviews]

Quote: Insurgent

"Mirror", and there was also a "Transparent" plane, which is now perceived as a technical curiosity.

Before the era of radar, this is not a curiosity. It would be non-opaque material, it could find application on scouts and spotters, for example.

[Insurgent]

Quote: Avis

Before the era of radar, this is not a curiosity.

And what was written?

Quote: Insurgent

now perceived as a technical curiosity

[Reviews]

Quote: Insurgent

Quote: Avis

Before the era of radar, this is not a curiosity.

And what was written?

Quote: Insurgent

now perceived as a technical curiosity

Is the sailing battleship of the XNUMXth century also a curiosity? Like a technical curiosity now the aviation multiply charged DRP is perceived - because we are armed with a message and we understand that Kurchevsky had no chances, so, indeed, a curiosity. A transparent plane was quite adequate to its time, as well as combat sailing ships - to theirs. And it can be a curiosity only when you try to revive it now. But no one is making this attempt and will not do it.

[Bad_gr]

Quote: Insurgent

"Mirror", and there was also a "Transparent" plane, ......

"..... The unusual began as soon as the engine started. It was expected: the rumor that it was necessary to wait for the start of the engine had already passed through the base, so the audience remembered all the details. It came, as expected, weakened by the distance" From the screw! " and "There is from the propeller!", then blue jets of the first exhausts burst out of the pipes on the sides of the hood, and immediately, simultaneously with the increase in speed, the plane began to disappear from view.

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That it scatters, gains height, it was possible to determine already only by the movement of sound to the forest and above the forest. Following immediately both fighters rose: one began to catch up with the "invisible", and it was removed from the "twin". The survey was carried out from the ground, simultaneously from several points.

The pursuit did not work. The fighters have lost their "invisibility". And the audience lost it. That is, several times over the field, over the town, in a completely empty sky, the close sound of its engine slowly rolled, and the fighters at that time rushed in a completely different direction. Maybe for security reasons ... This went on for about thirty minutes, and everyone became convinced of the futility of the "chase." The fighters sat down and taxied off the runway. The pilots came up with reports to the base commander ...

As it became known, shooting from the ground did not give anything. The operators aimed their lenses at the sound, they rummaged the whole sky, but, in no frame then nothing was found except the clouds. Not even the shadow of that plane appeared.

Soon he sat down too. You could hear him rolling on the concrete, how he stopped not far from the command group and turned around. Behind the concrete, grass lay under the air stream from an invisible propeller. Then the revs dropped, the engine began to die down, and the plane again "thickened" on the runway, like a genie from an Arab fairy tale ........... "

[Victor_B]

I always thought that a radio-transparent "stealth" plane (and in fact always stealth emphasizes that the skin is radio-transparent) is nonsense!
Imagine that a completely transparent (glass) plane is flying across the sky, and you see the pilot, a bunch of boxes with instruments and a hefty piece of iron from the engine.
And here is a perfectly mirrored surface, well, bunnies, sometimes, and so the sky and earth are reflected in it ... Beauty!

[ender]

the cladding is not radio-transparent, from the word - at all.

[Reviews]

Quote: Victor_B

an ideal mirror surface, well, bunnies let in, sometimes, and so the sky and earth are reflected in it ... Beauty!

There were also such projects in the 1920s and 30s. in the USSR. The author of the idea stated that at night the plane can be made invisible to the air defense searchlight if its bottom and side surfaces are smooth and mirrored - it was expected that the searchlight beam would be reflected from the mirror and, according to the rule "angle of incidence = angle of reflection", the beam would go into the distance without giving any light spot towards the spotlights. Were worked out several aircraft suitable for "mirroring", but in practice, nothing was done - experiments on the "stands" showed that the inventor's expectations were not met - the plane will be visible.

[Avior]

and after all, stealth always emphasizes that the sheathing is radio-transparent

by no means.
there is a lot of things under the skin, engines and so on, it will still reflect

[Lycan]

Apparently, it was about the fact that "a completely transparent flying object", which at first glance has only mass, influence on air currents and some sound.

[nznz]

all radar works not on transmitting a signal but on reflecting it, along the way, using the Doppler effect, and the speed is estimated. so the coverage is like a black hole to absorb the radar signal-cho loya just and will mean that there is no target once there is no reflected one.

[Reviews]

I wonder if I didn't know Ares was still on the wing.

[gridasov]

Within the framework of the theory of ionization of the surface of the outflow in mobile and elastic media, it is possible to select for practically any flight speed the effect of such an ionization level when a cold plasma of any energy level appears in its radiation. In other words, the plane flies flies and suddenly disappeared not only in the range of perception, but also visual. But there is also another way corresponding to the modern level of people's perception. Create a fiber optic screen from any object. But this is primitive.

[Reviews]

Ares by Scaled Composites was created about three decades ago as an experimental test platform.

What nonsense? It was created for the light attack aircraft competition.

[pytar]

Such an interesting thing this Ares ...



Mirror coating test tezza not confirmed. It is quite possible that they simply made a more effective design painting. Only the glider on the upper side and part of the tail are painted "mirror-like".

[Reviews]

Quote: pytar

Only the glider on the upper side and part of the tail are painted "mirror-like".

"Glider" in the narrow sense is a combination of the fuselage, wing, tail.

[pytar]

"Glider" in the narrow sense is a combination of the fuselage, wing, tail.

I accept the note, it is! The photo shows what they painted there "mirror-like". It is hardly possible to draw far-reaching conclusions on this.

[nznz]

the problem is not so much to create an absorbing material - look through the patents - there are materials that absorb 99,99% and I read it in 83-86 .. when the device was developed just for measuring the reflection of absorbing coatings. Only in the court industry, there is the same problem, especially after the Falklands events. Argentina's planes easily loaded and fired missiles at British ships.

So the main problem is to create such a coverage that would work in a wide frequency band.
And today it is easy to bypass the invisibility as well, it is invisible at some narrow frequency band, if the signal is broadband, then in some range of a pip from the target will appear.