Stealth fighters are widely seen as the pinnacle of modern tactical aviation technology. But in terms of both sheer performance and operating cost, they often fall short of older, more dated platforms like the F-15 Eagle, F-16 Fighting Falcon, and Su-35 Flanker-E.
While fighter design is an incredibly complex process, a fair portion of the blame for both underwhelming performance figures and seemingly untenable operating costs can actually be attributed to a single technology: Radar Absorbing Materials, or RAM. But that’s all about to change.
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Further Reading:
Adding stealth to 4th gen fighters: https://www.sandboxx.us/blog/how-much-stealth-can-you-add-to-a-4th-generation-fighter/
Radar Absorbing Materials: https://www.sandboxx.us/blog/what-are-radar-absorbent-materials
Why the F-35 is so expensive: https://www.sandboxx.us/blog/what-went-wrong-how-the-f-35-got-to-be-so-expensive/
Why stealth is so hard: https://www.sandboxx.us/blog/why-is-it-so-hard-to-develop-stealth-aircraft/
China’s real defense spending: https://www.sandboxx.us/blog/how-does-chinas-defense-spending-really-stack-up-against-the-us/
Citations:
“Introduction to Aerospace Materials” – https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/materials-science/radar-absorbing-material
Ram absorption rates: https://news.ncsu.edu/2021/05/tougher-skin-for-stealth-aircraft/
RAM maintenance: http://www.hill.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/2001886/maintainers-help-the-f-35a-remain-a-stealthy-beast/
F-35 sustainment costs: https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-21-439
RAM temperature limits: https://www.asminternational.org/web/tss/news/-/journal_content/56/10180/44584804/NEWS
F-35 Flutter Tests: https://www.defensenews.com/air/2019/06/12/supersonic-speeds-could-cause-big-problems-for-the-f-35s-stealth-coating
Cheryl Xu: https://www.mae.ncsu.edu/people/cxu-research/
Ceramic Ram paper: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsami.9b16475
Cheryl Xu quote: https://www.jeccomposites.com/about-jec-group/
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this seems to be so good, it should not have reached the public in any form. My guess: it became news because it was started at a civilian university? idk.
I wonder IF you can apply this new RAM to 4th gen craft. Take a F-15 from a 5m(2) to maybe a 1m(2) Radar blip.
I believe the future of stealth coatings will be graphene, though modern ceremics are truly amazing, in so many totally different fields.
I bet Cheryl Xu has already sent the classified information about the new coatings to China.
Cerâmic cover painting is the ultimate material, like grafen for computers or any other developmental materials for storing energy for instance. Keep its alloys and chemical components secret.
The Mach 1.2 limitation should work well when they are bugging out. 1.2 sounds fast but when the guy running you down is doing 1.8, do the math
Canadian quantum radar cancels all stealth. so these trillion $ fighters are rubbish and a total waste
ceRAMic…. am i right…
The FBI and CIA should be watching this NC State's Xu chick to make sure she doesn't give this RAM tech to China! When I see a name like that, I immediately think of how fast we're betrayed to China.
could you potentially look into sound dampening behind/around where you sit?
The echo picked up by your microphone really does make your audio quite ear-piercing.
And that's a shame as I really like listening in to what you have to say too
I loved it. You did great. Thank you.
REMEMBER….Whatever the US develops, other nations will soon follow suit! So what's the point!
One would think that Lockheed would have a good idea of how to make a stealthy aircraft coating. The SR-71 went Mach 3 – 3.3 and temperatures were 700 degrees F+.
F-35 have a flaw (the magnets for turbine are MADE IN CHINA and they are came in F-35 thru Honneycom company a company that is colaborating with Lokhead Martin,and Northroup Gruman and somehow China made Magnets are sliped thru inspaction.Now magnets are just a small thing but iff CHINA froze a suply off that magnets to Honeycom entire F-35 FLEAT WILL BE A GROUNDED AND THAT IS A BIG PROBLEM ESPECIALY FOR EXPORTET F-35)
Most comon mestake is that PEOPLE think that stealth means INVISIBLE and that is FALSE….It is all about DELAY of detectinon,my Country uses FESAULT RAPHALE 4.5 (Stealth multirole fighters that have a radar miroring orr crossection on radar about a size off tenis ball) But they also have radar Jaming and can turn off AESA radar and rely only on Infrared radar and by the time Ennemy detects DESAULT RAPHALE "the mision is allready done) and Fighters are allready returning to the BASE….And F-22 and F-35 are not deferent they will always have a RADAR crossection no mather how smal.And i canot imagine why the millitary dont use PORCULAN in shape off honeycom becose PORCULAN is THE HARDEST MATERIAL AND CAN SUSTAYN MASIVE TEMPERATURES (THE SPARKPLUG ON YOUR CAR IS FROM PORCULAN) and some of the most fastes MOTORBYKES have a PISTONS becouse they dont contract or brake on extremly high Compretion ratio and HEAT…
Ceramic is a much weaker material than a real Porculan,and for millitary bugget that will be a smal price to pay for something that dont need maitanence and is literaly BULETPROF and exelent radar apsorbing material iff structured corectly….
Time to come up with even more exciting tech that new blood will want to work with.
I imagine a 6th/7th gen LO fighter capable, not only of air-superiority, but also truly omni-role… and VTOL will be the norm….
A two-in-one aircraft, where both separate at the merge (if it actually comes down to it at all) ….
The manned "lead" is armed only with guns, some fuel… minimizing weight enabling superior super-maneuvering…
The unmanned "loyal wingman" carries the rest—fox missiles, bombs, external/conformal fuel tanks, aew sensors…. able to " quarterback" the battlespace…. able to re-arm & re-fuel the "lead"….
Both lead & wingman use twin engines, with F-35 like thrust vectoring nozzles, in tandem configuration, similar to what toy drones use, for VTOL….
Pre-armed Drone LW can be vectored to form up & join any "lead" while the bingo LW can RTB to refuel & re-arm….
Love the badass new music!
"I don't like sand…"
– Fat Amy
You mean money absorbing materials 🤣
Y'all flying this technology in Ukraine already. So not fake but definitely a disbalance of power means war death and distruction… 🤔💯
The problem with you is you don't understand if you have stealth you don't need speed
should paint my car with that stealth stuff so the police can't catch me speeding ; )
at 3500 would not have heat shield applications?
Could you Please create a Vid about The Gun Pods on The F-35B and C and how much it affects radar cross-section🙏
Clearly uncle Sam forgot to put a layer of krylon clear coat over the paint…..
Thank You.
I don’t know what is radar absorbing, but I do know what is cash absorbing! Military equipment, females, and hobbies.
This will be huge if it works out. At $40,000+ per hour of operation the F-35 is going to eat up a large part of any user's defense budget. If they can drop it by a quarter or more that will mean being able to afford more of them or investing in other areas. Along with the ability to use the platforms to their full potential.
I also wonder where A.I. will take this whole trend. Deep learning is also showing how powerful A.I. systems can become, when the human pilot is removed it makes the aircraft lighter, drop the RCS, less costly and allows for much high G-loading.
Thanks for the idea for my materials science report!!!
But According to this article does this mean china now knows of this new technology
The F-22’s performance is not “stifled”. It’s performance is superior to any 4th gen aircraft.
All this greatly intrigues me. Especi- ally that ceramic RAM also may facil- itate hypersonic capacity in front line fighters reassures me. Our key adver- saries lately have shown themselves as chillingly jingoistic.
An even more critical matter is that at 7:27, you state that "China actually spends a lot more on defense than these defense spending lists actually reflect. But that's a topic for another video on another day." This is an ex- pressly urgent concern in my mind, which I just recently had pondered. I urgently look forward to your address- ing it. I propose that you recap the issue with an overview of what you had provided in earlier videos; this would facilitate those who had not seen your previous work to catch up with you.
I'm surprised this discovery is being published in public journals.
The J-20 is not stealthy, and there's no reason to believe China's claim that ti is since they lie about everything.
Why stealth aircraft need to be nimble or acrobatics?
So, all China has to do is watch and subscribe to your channel to keep up with the USA stealth technology.
When a volcano erupted at night in asia it spew pyroclastic materials in the air that wasnt detected by an airliner's radar even weather radar that passes by. As for making any aircraft, just process an ultrafine pyroclastic dust thats now plenty in the Philippine, spray coat the aircrafts surface with top coat, , powder puff them with ultra fine pyroclastic dust, let it dry or oven dry it. With this youll be giving the ATC a headache trying to find you in the air
Great video. What I'd love to hear about is the current "Electronic Warfare Systems" that the USAF is employing in their S.E.A.D. jets.?? I used to be a Avionic Nav's & Comm's Specialist way back in the days of the old F- 4G Phantom II jet being used as a "Wild Weasel" platform. What I want to know is why has both the USAF & Navy gotten away from using tandem 2 seater jets like the F-4 and from what little info I know they both now use single seat F-16 & F/A-18 models to do the SEAD Wild Weasel missions ? Thanks again for everything you do , it is appreciated by many and more than you know. ~ ~ 🙂 TSS
“Literally eats radar waves for breakfast.” @ 3:58. Do you know what literally means and why that makes this statement incorrect?
Ceramic RAM will be great for aircraft. But also ships. Much of the superstructure of Ticonderoga, Arleigh Burke and Zumwalt warships is RAM. Maintenance reduction would be a time saver for the crew.