What are the stealth bombers U-2 and F-117 like?
F-117 and Y-2. You probably know them: the first is a stealth superbomber, the second is ...
If you, dear reader, hope to meet here history about the legendary high-altitude reconnaissance U-2 "Dragon Lady", I have to disappoint you: that U-2, which will be discussed below, is just a percale biplane designed by N.N. Polikarpov.
"Stealth" and "Kukuruznik" - two legendary aircraft that have become popular favorites. Rolls of movies were made about them and libraries of books were written.
The ambitious American program for creating an invisible aircraft is a loud debut and simply a deafening finale, with footage of the shot down Invisible Radio running on TV screens. Ominous black plane, the quintessence of modern
The second hero of today is the anecdotal "rus-plywood", which soared for the first time in 1928. Simple as a sliver, a biplane with a 100-strong motor is reliable and easy to operate, capable of landing on any “patch” and released in 30 edition of thousands of copies.
However, on closer inspection, both cars, despite the half-century difference in age, have much more similarities than might have been supposed. “Nighthoek” and “Kukuruznik” are simply twin brothers. Do not rush to turn your finger to the temple ...
The Stealth technology is a set of measures to reduce the visibility of combat vehicles in the radar, infrared and other areas of the detection spectrum, which can drastically reduce the probability of detecting a combat vehicle and thereby increase its survival rate. The creators of the F-117 sought to reduce any and all of the aircraft’s unmasking factors: the ability to reflect radar radiation, emit electromagnetic waves, emit sound, leave smoke and inversion tracks.
The impulse lights on the stealth wings went out, retreated to the inside of the radio communication antenna body, the radio altimeter and the friend-foe transponder turned off - the pitch black F-117 dissolved in the black anthracite sky over the enemy's territory.
The enemy will find "Nighthoek" only when the opened bomber casements break the EPR of the super-bomber - the F-117 will shine in the night sky, like a star of the first magnitude. Too late! - bombs have already been dropped on the target. A flash of fire splits the night, snatching for a moment from the darkness the faceted profile of stealth racing above the lower edge of the clouds. F-117 quickly "covers the tracks", the laser illumination system of the target turns off and the black plane disappears again in the night sky.
The whole operation takes twenty seconds. The duration of the preparation mode of the C-200 anti-aircraft complex missiles (including electronics, gyro spin) - 1 minute. In the early 80s, the F-117 had good chances of escaping retribution.
As a result - 1 combat loss on 3000 combat missions. The main goals of the Nighthook are objects with the strongest defense. In this case we are talking about clunky subsonic aircraft, without defensive weapons and with minimal vitality! There wasn’t even a redundant mechanical control system on Nighthawk because if electronics failed, the person was still not able to control the Lame Dwarf.
F-117 "Nighthoek" disappeared somewhere among the stars, and in the night sky suddenly heard a quiet, almost weightless rustle ...
“Hans, have you heard nothing?”
- Heinz, relax, this is just Russian moonshine.
- No, there is something there. I clearly heard the sound - like the flap of a big bird's wing.
Heinz jumped to his feet and began to peer carefully into the starlit velvet sky, as if he felt the eyes of death staring at him from night heights. About a year ago, Heinz heard a chilling story - a gray-haired sergeant major, told how one night, lying in a trench near Vladikavkaz, one of his colleagues struck a match - and a second later a Russian fell into the trench aviation bomb crushing an unlucky smoker. Fortunately, it did not explode - and then they heard screams from the sky. Women's screams!
And here Heinz saw his invisible enemy - the stars of the “dipper” of the Big Bear blinked one after the other, after a moment, the bright orange Arcturus flashed and flashed again. "Shize ..." - Heinz turned pale and settled to the ground. A flash of fire cracked the night, snatching out for a moment from the darkness the profile of a "stack" rushing above the treetops. The fallen Hans and Heinz no longer heard the roaring motor start, carrying the Russian night bomber to the East. And from somewhere above, voiced girlish voices were heard: “Fritz! Get for Tanya Makarova and Vera Belik! ”.
The 46 th (Taman) Guards night bomber air regiment, better known as the “Dunkin Regiment”, performed thousands of combat missions during the years of the Great Patriotic War 23! "Night witches" brought down three million kilograms of bombs on the heads of the fascists !!!
Regimental casualties - 32 man. Given that the crew of the U-2 consists of two people, the Fritz managed to shoot down no more than two dozen Russian-Russian fans throughout the war! During the whole war the regiment never went to re-formation. And this despite the fact that:
Our training aircraft was not created for military operations. Wooden biplane with two open cabins, located one after the other, and dual controls - for the pilot and navigator. Without radio communications and armor-proofs able to protect the crew from bullets, with a low-powered motor that could reach a maximum speed of 120 km / h. There was no bomb bay on the plane, the bombs were hung in the bomb racks right under the plane of the plane. There were no sights, we created them ourselves and called them PPR (simpler than the soared turnip). The amount of bomb load varied from 100 to 300 kg. On average, we took 150 — 200 kg.
- Rakobolskaya I.V., Kravtsova N.F. - “We were called night witches”
- Rakobolskaya I.V., Kravtsova N.F. - “We were called night witches”
So here! Without armor, without radio, without sights and often without parachutes. The only defensive weapon is TT pistols. The intensity of the use of night bombers was so high that the girls sometimes performed 6-10 sorties overnight. Nevertheless, the Dunkin Regiment's U-2 had only one loss per thousand combat sorties! - The survival rate is ten times higher than that of an armored ground attack aircraft Il-2.
These girls know the answer to the epic verbiage "The place of women in the army"
Realizing that their main weapon is secrecy, pilots from all forces tried to reduce the likelihood of finding a plane - otherwise, the end! When bombing the German positions, they often used special tactics: the U-2 made a “hook” and, having muffled the engine, silently planned to target the enemy’s territory. Dropping bombs, the plane cut in the engine and, without turning around, left with a decrease in the direction of its airfield. Rather, rather, until the Germans came to their senses and opened heavy fire in all directions.
But occasionally there were tragedies - the beam of a German searchlight accidentally snatched the "bookcase" from the night darkness, and then the "heavenly slow-moving" was doomed. Pilots with a shudder in their voice recalled how on the approach to the goal, they saw a small airplane from their regiment floundering helplessly from searchlight rays. And from below, the predatory lines of tracer bullets stretched towards him ...
Properly chosen tactics mean a lot - “Stealth” and “Kukuruznik” acted great at night, but for both it was contraindicated to rise into the sky in broad daylight. However, the percale Y-2 still had a definite advantage in air combat — too low a speed. Too!
15 On April, X-NUMX, the American F-1953 interceptor, Starfire, spotted the North Korean U-94, which performed courier functions in the front-line area ... Do you think the American pilot received an easy target and a generous reward from his command? Now!
Starfire unsuccessfully cut circles around a slowly floating "shelf" until it finally dropped speed below 180 km / h, which caused it to lose control and crash. A curious loss is recognized by the American side.
During the Korean War, the Americans noted the considerable difficulty of intercepting "corncob" - even the appeared radar did not distinguish such specific designs with a minimum metal content. And an excessively low speed made a successful interception a very dubious event.
Miracles do not happen. The successful combat career of the U-2 is explained by two factors: the skill of the pilots and the fact that little was required of the combat aircraft at that time. The primitive U-2 fully corresponded to its status as a “night bomber”, eventually becoming one of the most effective night bombers of World War II.
The creators of the "stealth" had to be much more difficult - the coming era of radar and thermal imagers no longer allowed to design an effective stealth aircraft from improvised means. Now, after 30 years, some details of the history of the creation of the F-117 "Nighthoek" have become known - the numerous facets implemented in the architecture of the aircraft scatter the radiation of the radar in opposite directions - from which side do not irradiate "Nighthoek", this "curved mirror" will reflect the rays away from the radar antenna. The sawtooth shape of the edges of all joints, the electrically conductive coating of the cockpit canopy, cellular grids on the air intakes, ferromagnetic paint and radio absorbing coatings, special-shaped nozzles that form a “flat” jet for the rapid cooling of exhaust gases - as a result, when irradiated with radar, the reflected radiation F-117 It is difficult to distinguish from the background noise, and the “dangerous sectors” are so narrow that the radar cannot extract enough information from them.
Finally, the creators of the "stealth" were faced with the task of creating a modern combat aircraft with a powerful sighting and navigation complex, which is able to deliver tons of bombs at a transonic speed of 2 to 800 km distance.
Wonderful "grille" - nothing more than an air intake F-117
Because The main problem in creating the F-117 was to ensure the secrecy of the aircraft, the implementation of such modest flight characteristics did not cause any special difficulties: despite its fantastic appearance, the Nighkouk engines were borrowed from the conventional F / A-18 multipurpose fighter, control system elements - from the F-16 and the old T-33 training aircraft (created back in the late 40-s), and the elements of the aircraft’s electrical system from the Hercules C-130 transport. By the way, the stealth technologies themselves (ferromagnetic paints, cockpit covers, etc.) were borrowed from the well-known SR-71 and U-2 (which is a high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft).
"And I'm on corn, I, sober will not fly!"
- the laconic response of the pilot to all the perturbations of the airport chief
- the laconic response of the pilot to all the perturbations of the airport chief
Night piloting of the Y-2 and F-117 is similar to driving with eyes closed. The first, by virtue of its innate primitiveness, was deprived of any complex instrument-navigation equipment. The pilot U-2 had only five main aviation instruments: a compass, an artificial horizon (determines roll and pitch angles), a speedometer, an altimeter (gauge of barometric altitude) and a variometer (gauge of the vertical speed of the aircraft). The testimony of these simple devices give a complete picture of the position of the aircraft in space. With proper skill, the pilot, guided by these testimonies, can (and should!) Lead the plane blindly. Night sortie: taking off, flying along a given route, guided by the navigator's prompts and using scant landmarks, bombing, returning to your territory — you saw a searchlight looking up — that means your own aerodrome. Everything!
Slightly "upgraded" cockpit U-2
The original cabin navigator Y-2
Naturally, in conditions of extreme stress, in complete darkness and in the absence of radio communication, sooner or later it could not end well - on the night of 10 April 1943, the landing plane of Lida Svistunova and Polina Macagon collided with another bomber standing on the airfield. In a terrible accident, three female pilots died, the fourth, Hiuaz Dospanov, was saved by a miracle.
One can only wonder at the courage of the girls, who, on 10, once a night, during a thousand days of war, flew on their "shelves" into the black gloom over the front line.
The situation with the F-117 "Nighthoek" is even more curious - during the sorties the pilots were strictly forbidden to use radio communications: all operations, up to and including refueling in the air, were carried out in radio silence conditions. It was impossible to turn on the radio altimeter. Until the last moment Incredible, but the super-plane was initially absent ... radar! - it was pointless to use the radar, otherwise “Nighthoek” would lose its secrecy.
Despite the powerful set of passive information gathering tools, high-quality night-vision devices and the inertial RAARS system for returning to the home base in automatic mode, the F-117 night flights were associated with considerable risk: at least three "Night Hawks" crashed when confronted with natural obstacles. For example, the 10 of May 1995, an F-117 aircraft, operated by US Air Force captain Kenneth Levens, lost its orientation during a night flight and collided with a mountain in New Mexico. The pilot died.
Given the complexity of night missions, the rapid change in the situation and the specific conditions of local wars, F-117 had to make combat missions more than once during daylight hours. The main condition of such an operation is the complete domination of NATO in the air. In this case, the F-117 had a considerable chance to deceive enemy radar and get unnoticed to the target, and the high flight altitude provided an additional guarantee of protection against visual detection and destruction of anti-aircraft artillery fire.
Every joke has some truth. The concepts of creating an unobtrusive F-117 strike aircraft and a simplified training (multipurpose) biplane Y-2 were completely different, as well as their age and technological level. However, when viewed from the point of view of nighttime bomb strikes, we see almost 100% similarity in the use of these planes, separated by half a century.
A rather funny picture - retired colonels Zoltan Dani and Dale Zelko bake pancakes together (Dani is the commander of the C-125 anti-aircraft battery that shot down the Invisible over Yugoslavia, Zelko is the pilot of the F-117 itself). By the way, Zoltan Dani (standing on the right) in the main specialty - baker
Who said that the F-117 had poor handling?
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