F22 Stealth Fighter - Avoiding Visual and Noise Detection

When looking at designing a fighter, many things havefrom a potential enemy placed on the tail. Fortunately,
to be arranged, specially when looking at the balancethe high cruise speed that the F22 Stealth Fighter is
between war power and stealth. What makes anable to reach without use of the afterburners (main
aircraft a real revolution is to find that exact balancereason that creates a smoke trail) makes it able to fly
where the both things are complementing each otherat high speed with no signal of its presence.
and this is exactly the case of the F22 Stealth Fighter.Together with this problem it comes also the effect of
Being the Raptor a powerful and lethal flying machine,Air Moisture trails. When an aircraft flies at high speed
it has been created with the purpose of being theacross the air, it disturbs it with the wings, causing the
most stealthy fighter ever made. And the question is:moisture to form trails. Some horizontal stabilizers have
What sort of things need to be developed in order tobeen located in the aft of the aircraft and help in the
create a stealth plane?reduction of the probability to form those trails.
In this article I will focus only in how the F22 StealthA way that was very much used some years ago to
Fighter deals with the visual and noise detection. Let'savoid showing your presence in enemy radars has
define stealth as a condition. This condition involves thenowadays become a bit obsolete. This strategy was
different possibilities in which an aircraft can bedangerous, and it consisted in flying very low following
detected.the shape of the terrain in a way that the enemy
One of the points, is that stealth has to make theradar couldn't detect the plane as they confused it with
aircraft difficult to detect with the naked eyes. Whenterrain features such as trees or buildings. Actually,
flying at low and mid altitudes, a stealth designed planeradar developments have overcome this defect, so it
that can be seen from the ground (something asis no longer a valid option, even if sometimes it is still
painting the lower part in red or any similar barbarism)used. In any case, this technique used with the F22
will of course end up with the dream. In order toStealth Fighter would not be recommended.
achieve visual stealth, the F22 Stealth Fighter has beenOn the other hand, some ground-to-ground missiles are
painted in a light gray color that makes it very easy toprogrammed to follow the shape of the terrain until
confuse it with the color of the sky. To protect it to bethey reach the target in a way that they are able to
seen also from fighters that could be flying above, afollow valleys and hide between mountains, and when
combination of grays, greens and browns is used, alsothe enemy is alerted they are already over their
depending on the kind of terrain where the plane hasheads.
to operate.Going from here, the next stealth condition that has to
In relation with the visual detection, there are twobe accomplished is that the plane can't make noise.
problems that also need to be solved. One of them isThat sounds like incredible. Two of the most powerful
the Smoke Contrails. Powerful engines like the onesengines that have been ever placed in a plane that
that this plane uses are supposed to producecan reach Mach 1.5 without afterburner... And you ask
quantities of smoke that will follow the route of theto make them noiseless? Yes. A great effort has
plane in the air. This does not only compromise thebeen placed in order to make the engines run
position of the plane, but it also gives indirectsmoothly while efficiently. Great exhaust engineer the
information on direction and even speed, and reducesone that worked with the F22 Stealth Fighter, I must
the difficulty to follow break maneuvers to escapeadmit!