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However, success has a downside: your rivals begin to take stealth seriously and start the race to make the
invisible visible. For some time the answer was a technology that the West had discarded but the Soviets
had continued to develop and which was responsible for the headline downing of a supposedly invisible
F-117 in 1999 during the Kosovan conflict by the supposedly obsolete Serbian air defences.
"In reality, stealth planes are never completely invisible, as they will always generate a radar signature in
the end," Douglas Barrie, senior fellow for military aerospace at the International Institute for Strategic
Studies in London, says. "What you are trying to do is hold this moment off for as long as possible. If you
are seen five miles from your target, compared to be being spotted 100 miles away, then it will have done
its job.
"If there was a window when stealth fighters and bombers were undetectable, then it was when the F-117
had completely free rein with Iraq's poor old air defence; however, rivals such as Russia and China have
over the past 25 years started to develop countermeasures, including radar that can pick up stealth
planes."
Bill Sweetman, the editor-in-chief of Defense Technology International, part of the Aviation Week
Network, argues that these kind of countermeasures are now "proliferating". Whereas most radars
operate between 2GHz and 40GHz, a low-band equivalent such as VHF radar operates between 1MHz and
2MHz and is able to pick out most stealth planes that are known to be flying today. That's because the
scientists realised that while it can pick up "noise" such as clouds and rain, which was a reason why the
West abandoned it it does have basic physics on its side: its wavelength is the same magnitude as the
prominent features on many stealth planes, so that its signal bounces back. The US military was warned
about this then-theoretical vulnerability back in the 1980s.
"The Russians persevered with low-band radar due to their technological conservativism," Dr Igor
Sutyagin, senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, says. "And in the end they had
great success."
"The most visible piece of counter-stealth in the past couple of years has been the public display by both
Russia and China of VHF-Aesa radars," Sweetman says. Put simply, Aesa radars like those supposedly
on the Divine Eagle drone are made up of a large number of solid state, chip-like modules that each emit
an individual radio wave; these meet in front of the antenna to form a beam that can be easily aimed at a
very specific target and, combined with VHF, are an effective stealth-hunting tool.
stealth there is, according to Sweetman, another option: develop weapon systems like that of the
Dassault nEURon drone, which can be programmed to visually seek out large radar arrays.
Not yet, though, Sweetman says. "You can take stealth to the next level," he says, meaning a large, flat,
tailless subsonic flying wing and active stealth technology. "In theory, by transmitting a signal just half a
wavelength off the wavelength of the radar, your plane can disappear."
The US might have already reached the next level, even though the decision on its new stealth Long Range
Strike Bomber is still some way away. In the end, says Barrie, "The US isn't standing still and we are
continuing to spend significant amounts on classified programmes." Whether that is enough to keep
stealth alive, only time and war will tell.