Pioneers Of Stealth - The YF-118G is not a popular stealth aircraft like the F-22, F-35 or the new B-21 bomber. However, it made history in very clear and obvious ways: in the 1990s, a group of engineers at the McDonnell Douglas Phantom Enterprises developed and tested a unique stealth fighter, hidden in the secret of Area 51, which is known to all is
. Unlike most stealth programs, the Wild Bird, developed under the code name "YF-118G," was not intended for operational use, but elements of the design and production process still find their way into Uncle Sam's hangars today.
Pioneers Of Stealth
But perhaps the most lasting contribution of this strange and exotic aircraft to the American defense apparatus
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In October 1983, the Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk secretly entered the US Air Force, the world's first operational stealth aircraft. While the Nighthawk carried the prefix "F" for hunters and was even colloquially known as the "invisible hunter", Nighthawk was not really a hunter. With no radar, no weapons, and a payload limited to two 2,000-pound bombs, the F-117 Nighthawk was an attack aircraft that masqueraded as a fighter, but make no mistake: it was an attack aircraft like no other. the world has seen.
After decades of focusing on the use of faster, higher-flying aircraft as a means of defeating enemy air defenses, the Nighthawk served as the focal point of aviation technology and air warfare doctrine among the world's most powerful nations. The Nighthawk was slow and sluggish in Air Force hangars compared to the F-15 and F-16, but in a world where America's smallest fighter had a radar section
Less than a decade later, Lockheed's YF-22 competed with Northrop's YF-23 for the Advanced Tactical Airlift contract, resulting in the world's first
Stealth hunter, McDonnell Douglas's Phantom Works team had their own hidden targets, and they had just the man to chase them down.
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Unlike Lockheed and Northrop's high-performance stealth fighters, which benefited from direct tax funding, McDonnell Douglas footed the bill to develop its new stealth aircraft. To make sure all that money didn't go to waste, they tapped Alan Wichman to lead the effort.
Wichman cut his stealth teeth at Lockheed's Skunk Works, where he worked on the Have Blue program and its operational successor, the F-117 Nighthawk, before helping develop Lockheed's Sea Shadow, a stealth fighter program for the US Navy. After the Air Force rejected McDonnell Douglas' proposal for the Advanced Tactical Fighter program in favor of the Lockheed YF-22 and Northrop YF-23, McDonnell Douglas hired Wichman to complete their low-flying efforts and help find their Phantom. Division of work.
In the annals of aviation history, Wichman's name does not appear as often as other legendary engineers of the time, such as Clarence "Kelly" Johnson. In fact, Aviation Week ranked him as the "lowest engineer" on its list of "Secret Pioneers of Stealth Aviation." However, widespread recognition is not always a good measure of achievement, and in fact Wichmann's contribution to stealth aviation is so great that he received the National Defense Industry Association (NDIA) Technical Achievement Award for his work in the design of rare aircraft.
"Thanks to Wichman's work, the United States gained a 15-year advantage over potential adversaries that has not been relinquished, and the effectiveness of its designs and products in combat operations has been thoroughly demonstrated," the award states.
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Work began in 1992 under the innocuous enough name YF-118G. Wiechman's team at Phantom Works had to control the budget, so when they went to design their new stealth aircraft, they used the latest rapid prototyping approach. Instead of building physical prototypes, testing them, modifying them, and setting up new prototypes for further testing, the Phantom Works team used computers to help design them and simulate performance according to the best computing capabilities of the era. As a result, they were able to produce prototype components that were closer to the final product than previous approaches.
But that wasn't the only way the YF-118G team was creative in their approach to building this new aircraft. They also used superior one-piece composite designs, which eliminated many of the body shapes that could spoil the plane's stealthy profile. Building aircraft without visible or small gaps between the body panels attached to the aircraft remains one of the more difficult aspects of stealth aircraft construction. In fact, some argue that this is what Russia's covert militant programs struggle with to this day.
Bike, so they also used as many off-the-shelf components as possible to keep costs down and speed up their design process. The Pratt & Whitney JT15D-5C turbofan engine, which produced only 3,190 pounds of thrust, would have been more at home in a Cessna business jet. The ejection seat is from an AV-8B Harrier, the control stick and throttle are from an F/A-18 Hornet, and the rudder pedals are from an A-4 Skyhawk.
Air Force test pilot Colonel Doug Benjamin once joked that "the clock was from Wal-Mart and the climate control system was basically a hair dryer."
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By 1996, four years after the program began, Wiechman's team had a flying prototype to demonstrate the effectiveness of their approach. The single-engine, single-seat technology demonstrator they built was about 47 feet long, slightly longer than the F-16 Fighting Falcon. Its angled, rosette-shaped wings differed greatly from other fighter designs, sloping up and down for a total span of just 23 feet, or ten feet shorter than the F-16. But the most notable departure from traditional fighter design was its composite fuselage and complete absence of a tail section.
The design took a comprehensive approach to stealth by reducing radar, infrared, visual and acoustic signatures through its shape, using flexible or movable flaps to hide the hatches, and by burying the engine in the fuselage behind the intake duct. before infrared and acoustic exhaust gas exhaust.
When completed, the aircraft's unusual shape and aggressive stance evoked thoughts of a menacing battleship piloted by a Star Trek fighter race.
On September 11, 1996, the Bird of Prey took to the skies for the first time over Groom Lake (also known as Area 51) with Air Force Col. Doug Benjamin at the helm. Like your wild bird, that would be
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To hide from enemy starships, Boeing's Wildbird relied on stealth rather than impressive performance to get the job done.
Colonel Benjamin lifted the plane off the ground and extended the landing gear, revealing the first of many problems. The platform performed well during wind tunnel testing, but all tests were conducted with the landing gear retracted. Benjamin soon discovered that the resistance created by the equipment was at least three times greater than expected. The plane also had stability problems, which were slowly and accurately corrected in subsequent flights.
Over the next three years, the team worked with a single prototype of a bird of prey, piloted by Benjamin and two Boeing test pilots, Rudy Hogue and Joseph W. Feloc III will be built, will make 37 successful flights.
Despite its tailless and fuselage design, the aircraft was considered aerodynamically stable until its final flight in 1999 without the kind of computer adjustments that modern fighters rely on.
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Than the C-130 Hercules and a ceiling of 20,000 feet meant it could fly lower than
Like the World War II P-51 Mustang, but like the F-117 Nighthawk that Wichmann had worked on before, the Wild Bird was not intended to
Not only did the Phantom Works team prove they could build a stealth plane, they managed to do it all for less than $67 million. Adjusted for inflation in today's currency, this means that Wiechman's Phantom Works successfully designed, prototyped and flew a stealth platform for about $111 million, or less than the purchase price.
Jim Albaugh, president and CEO of Boeing Integrated Defense Systems, said in 2002: "Early investment in technology demonstration projects like Bird of Prey positioned Boeing to help transform our industry."
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In 1999, the Boeing bird of prey flew for the last time, but that was not the end of its story. The advances and learnings gained through the program soon led to another platform that made its first flight a few months before it was introduced to the public in 2002; X-45A combat drone.
Like the Wildcat, the X-45A was a product of Boeing's Phantom Works, but unlike its Klingon cousin, the X-45A was designed to fly autonomously. According to Boeing, the X-45A's design is largely derived from the Bird of Prey program, and the UCAV inherits elements of its predecessor's radar-defying angular design and unusual rear entry. Boeing also recognized some of the design techniques used for the Wildbird when developing the X-32, which ultimately lost out to Lockheed Martin for the fighter missile contract by just one year.
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