Endangered

19.10.2005 12:10 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 12:10 MSK, 20 hours 34 minutes ago

MosNews

The Russian aircraft industry has developed and will soon start producing stealth aircraft which will radically differ from existing U.S. models. The Russian version uses plasma screens to cushion and disperse radar waves, the Novye Izvestia daily reports.

The newspaper quoted Anatoly Koroteyev, the head of the Keddysh Research Center as saying that the plasma screen technology can be used on any vehicle — from automobiles to combat aircraft. However, it is most effective at high altitudes and thus is best used by the air force.

Koroteyev said that the new technology employs a different physical principle than the one currently used by existing U.S. stealth aircraft — the F-117 and B-2. Instead of reflecting the radar wave the Russian technology completely disperses it by means of a plasma screen created by a mobile plasma generator.

The generator is small and light. The device emits powerful electron beams that ionize the air around the aircraft effectively creating a plasma cloud around it.

The head of the Russian research institute said that initially the plasma generator disrupted the work of on-board electronic systems and prevented radio communication with ground control, but the problems have been solved and the system has already passed tests set by a Russian governmental commission.

Koroteyev added that the new technology can be used on any aircraft, including older models and that it is radically cheaper than the technology employed by U.S. stealth planes while being just as effective, if not more so. He said that the aircraft equipped with the Russian system will also be far superior to U.S. models in their flight and combat capabilities — as the use of the plasma screen makes it unnecessary to alter the shape of the aircraft.

The newspaper writes that similar research is being conducted in the U.S., but the Russian version is so far the only plasma screen technology in the world.

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lurker

There is a link: http://www.mosnews.com/news/2005/10/19/stealth.shtml

Well... rumors about this stuff has been around for a while. I hope they will show it, or produce some more information.

Until then it's just rumors.

JG73

Here is some more about Plasma Stealth.

http://www.aeronautics.ru/archive/plasma/index.htm

ajaybhutani

looks like a nice step. I wonder how easily can this be fitted into current russian fighters.....
This might be the beginning of an all new stealth machines even much much more stealthy than F22/B2..
I wonder how it effects the PAK_FA project.

ajaybhutani

now things are getting quite clearer why russia preferred the berkut kind of design instead of mig1.44 .. As they dont need to compromise on agility etc with plasma stealth. and so berkut is a better model for PAK-FA tech..

lemontree

Can the plasma screen be made to act like a bullet/laser/missile deflector, as in the space war movies?

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JG73

No but it could heat up some chickenwings in case of the pilot gets hungry.

All in all it sounds very interesting and quite rational. The question is what the russians understand under "The Russian aircraft industry has developed and will soon start producing stealth aircraft"?
Maybe passiv radar will become more effectiv until then and stealth is a technologie of yesterday. Who knows.

canoe

Is there any mention of this being fielded from offical Russian government or military sources? I've heard stuff like this coming outta the Russian press before, I'm not knocking it but would simply like to confirm its authenticy.

The American press is almost as bad with the rods from god and hypersonic bomber crap.

The_Burning_Kid

You know what is funny, the Russian keep saying that they will produce a prototype aircraft with plasma stealth, but in fact they haven't to this day. Funny isn't it.

I think this is bogus, if you ask me. For one thing, their just trying to get attention to their project and get interest. That means cash that Russians love right now.

I already have stated this before, any Russian aircraft that uses a plasma shield is going to mopped by instead of radar missiles but IR-Seeking missiles. No way to avoid the huge IR signature that will be put out by it.

If it does materialize I would like to see them overcome that problem and a few others. We'll see with time.

canoe

I'm not knocking it if it works but I seriously don't think its feasible right now, I don't think any country or group of countries can get a reliable working model on a fighter aircraft. Theres alot of variables involved and this acticle is over simplifying it alot. Its not a plug and play module you can just drop into anything. If you did design a device it would have to be custom tailered to each thing it was installed on, and this nonsense about installing on ground vehicles is BS, way to much stuff that would interfere given it would specificly be designed to block or deflect EM from radars. Power lines, ground metals, rain, dust, the ground in general not to mention people. The Keldysh Research Center claims to have the smallest plasma reactor I know of, its 100 kilograms and consumes a *huge* amount of power and only works in a carefully controlled enviroment. I'm assuming they'd be looking an ionizing the air around the aircraft rather then trying to carrying some kind of gas to ionize onboard. This type of thing has been looked at before as a type of electromagnetic propulsion (see link below), problems arise however with low powered fields (I'm assuming its low powered for safety reasons) which can be f*%$% up by interference from nearly anything with a charge nearby. And a higher power field (I'm talking like the power needed for a major city) wouldn't be possible on a small aircraft.

(Link mentioned above)
http://www.aeronautics.ru/mach50.htm

Insomniac

Burning Kid, don't you think that it might be possible for them not to be joking and actually have plasma stealth? I think it's possible and the screens are cold so there is not much heat coming from it.

Plasma stealth doesn't look impossible to make.

lurker

It doesn't. And it worked almost from the beginning. It was just shutting down all the electronics in ... the missile.

canoe

I don't think its impossible to make either, its already been done in a lab countless times. I just don't think its possible to have a plasma field working on a fighter. It would have to be really low powered to have mounted on a fighter which means it would be very weak to start with an very easily disrupted. What happens if it flys through rain or clouds, how does the field compensate instantly for changes in speed, direction, air pressure and if its got vector thrusting it becomes even more complicated because of all the possibilities for airflow. What happens to the field if theres lightning(a form of plasma itself) nearby? The plasma field would also be detectable I'd imagine if someone had the specs on it. Probably even leave a weak trail behind the fighter.

lurker

Just lift above the couds.

canoe

Great if the enemy your chasing decides to avoid the clouds too. Point is plasma stealth works by wrapping the airframe in ionized gas, in order for this to work the airflow around the aircraft needs to be predictable and uniform around the airframe radar cross section. It also means the magnet fields acting on the aircraft need to remain static.

What you end up with if it does work is an aircraft with a very limited ability to maneuver in any direction that needs very specific altitudes and atmopsheric conditions to remain 'stealthed' thats being tailed be a long stream of ionized gas which is in theory possible to detect and track.

Anyway this is all I'm going to say on the topic, if they got it working great. If not alot of people are going to be buying bogus stealth field generators and the people buying Russian military hardware are going to be pissed when the system doesn't work as advertised and they need to replace their planes.