Though stealth's first practical applications were made a quarter century ago, the seeds of stealth are as old as military aviation. The concept had lain dormant, awaiting the circumstances that would finally transform it into an operational reality. This was brought about by the interplay of three factors — the changing nature of the threat facing the aircraft, what was needed to counter this, and, finally, what types of technology were available.[849]
When World War I began in August 1914, the few operational military aircraft were slow, mechanically unreliable, and fragile. Yet, within a year, the basic shape of the war in the air had taken form: reconnaissance planes spotted enemy positions, while fighter aircraft dueled. Over London and other English cities, German Zeppelins and bombers attempted to destroy factories and break British will to continue the war.
One factor that affected both offensive and defensive efforts was the lack of long-range detection and tracking systems. Although some work was done with sound detection equipment, this had only limited use. The threat facing the aircraft was visual detection and tracking. What was needed to counter the threat was a means to make the aircraft harder to see. The competing technologies to meet the need were the then relatively new concept of camouflage, and the more exotic one of the transparent covering.
The German Imperial Air Service's experiments with the first stealth aircraft ended in failure. Translated into modern terms, although the transparent covering made the planes harder to see in some threat environments, such as clear weather, in others it was ineffective or actually made the plane more detectable. The glint in bright sunlight, for instance, would have been detectable for tens of miles. The material itself was not suitable for the rigors of combat. Today, it would be said that it reduced the planes' operational readiness due to excessive maintenance downtime.
The technology that was finally selected to counter the threat of visual detection was to paint the aircraft in camouflage colors — blue underneath to blend into the sky, and multi-color patterns on upper surfaces — to make it harder for pilots of other planes to see them against the ground. Zeppelins and night-flying bombers had their undersurfaces painted black to merge with the dark skies. Such camouflage had limitations; an airplane silhouetted against a blue sky would be easily seen, while searchlights and even a moon-lit night sky could illuminate a black-painted aircraft. It did not have the technical and operational shortcomings of the transparent covering, however.
Ironically, today the German Imperial Air Service is best remembered for "unstealth" airplanes, such as those of Baron von Richthofen's Flying Circus. Man-fred was known as the "Red Baron" because his DRI triplane was painted red. His brother Lothar's was red and yellow, while the squadron's other planes wore similar bright colors. The goal was not invisibility, but to be seen. This built unit morale, allowed the pilots to keep track of each other in the swirl of combat, and to in-timidate. The flashy finishes announced this wasn't an ordinary squadron. If the British pilots went into battle, they did so on the psychological defensive. If they broke off, then the German pilots had won without fighting.
Among the lessons of the first World War was the importance of air power. Although the amount of damage done by the German Zeppelin and bomber raids was, in retrospect, minor, but they had a great psychological impact. Bomber fleets were seen as the weapon of the future. The bombers would always get through, deci-mating their targets with chemical weapon attacks. Some experts predicted that each air raid would kill tens of thousands of civilians, and within a few days there would be millions of casualties. The horrors of the Western Front would be inflicted on civilians, who would be left psychologically devastated. The appeasement of Hitler in the late 1930s was based, in part, on visions of this as the fate of London and Paris.
What this apocalyptic vision assumed was the continued lack of a long-range detection capability. As long as incoming raids could only be tracked visually, bombers held the advantage. Interceptors would have to hunt for the bombers, and the probability of successfully engaging them was low prior to striking the target.
The development of radar in the late 1930s changed the nature of the threat aircraft faced. Radar could provide early warning of incoming bombers. As the formations flew towards their targets, radar plotted their course, and fighter units ahead of them were alerted to take off. The controllers could then guide the fighters to intercept the bombers. It was the fighters which now held the advantage.
Because of radar, the air war over Europe was not the kind of devastating thun-derbolt envisioned before the war, but, rather, a grim war of attrition. Even as the Allied bomber force grew in size and experience, and new aircraft and technology were introduced, German air defenses expanded to keep up. New fighter squadrons were added, the radar network was enlarged, and more flak guns were deployed.
The price paid by Allied bomber crews was high — the loss rate among U.S. Army Air Forces bomber crews was higher than that of the infantry — while Royal Air Force's Bomber Command suffered losses higher that those of British Army ju-nior officers in World War I. At the same time, their attacks were a Second Front in the air, drawing off fighters, guns, fuel, and soldiers from the battle fields.
The need facing the offensive air forces was to develop a means to hide the bomber formation from radar. The technology selected was brute-force jamming of the radar echos, and dropping chaff to fill the screen with masses of false echos.
Air defenses attempted to counter these efforts with more sophisticated technology and experience. The countermeasures equipment aboard the aircraft was also improved, to meet the changes in air defenses. This on-going struggle between aircraft and air defenses became the pattern for the future.
Ironically, the ability of radar to detect aircraft at long range, and the attempts by the aircraft to drown out the echos, meant that visual camouflage lost its importance. From the latter part of 1944 onward, U.S. Army Air Forces bombers and fighters were no longer painted in camouflage colors, but, rather, flew in bare-metal finishes. The U.S. Air Force continued this practice through the Korean War, and into the early years of the Vietnam War. The planes often carried colorful unit markings. It was not until 1966/1967 that camouflage again became standard.
It was also during World War II that the modern concept of "Black Projects"
originated. This was a fundamentally different kind of security than that normally conducted by the military. It involved keeping secret, for example, the speed, altitude, range, and bomb load of a new aircraft. With the Allied efforts to break German and Japanese codes, or to develop an atomic bomb, however, the existence of these projects had to be kept hidden from all but a select few. The strategic advantages these technological breakthroughs gave the Allies would be lost if the Axis powers were to gain even a hint that they had been made. The result was a realization that, with some projects, it was not enough to hold a technological advantage over a potential enemy, it was also necessary to keep that advantage unknown to them.
The start of the Cold War brought the first stirrings of stealth. To gain intelligence on the USSR, it was necessary to undertake covert overflights of its territory and that of its allies. To be both effective and politically useful, these overflights would have to remain unknown to the Soviets. It was a violation of international treaties to fly a plane in another nation's airspace in peacetime. If the overflights were detected, the Soviets would make every effort to shoot the planes down. Even if this failed, the inevitable Soviet protest would cause political problems.
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This chapter is a revised version of a speech given at the 7th Annual Technical Symposium of the Eglin Chapter of the Association of Old Crows, October 16, 1996.1 wish to thank them for their interest, hospitality, and the chance to meet the people who made the history I write about.