@LEG What evidence would you accept that the A-12 ATA has the RCS of a barn door?
I don't think it comes to that. Because I don't believe that the actual airframe which was the intended outcome from the ATA program, even if only as a monetary bluff to drive the Soviets to bankruptcy, was necessarily the same exact shape.
Though I stand by my statement that the jets which have been photographed are not B-2s but much closer to the A-12 in appearance and either tested something unrelated to VLO or operated within its rules in an non-conformist fashion, which ignores the 'as we know it' definition of how stealth works, today.
The nature of the ATA, due to its all-composite airframe materials and 'outside->in' construction condition, may well have supported deep RAS structures which were the structural equivalent of the SR-71 composite wedges. Only several generations more (active cancellation) advanced. We have rumors of this on the B-2, with its ZSR-2, for instance and it's presence, as the so called 'wormhole generator' would do much to explain how the entirely conventional, protuberance festooned, F-35 is, in fact, both more stealthy and less so, than the F-22 with its optimized shaping.
Depth of airframe, from a relatively low edge-scatter straight LE/TE, to insert these active cancellation systems, along with the structural robustness required of a naval landing airframe in general, could then explain the geometry choices without necessarily invalidating the shape.
As a serving F-35 pilot once put it to me: 'On any given day, I can go out to the flightline and my jet will have exactly the same signature performance as a NATO, RAAF, JASDF or IDFAF ones.' Even though all of those jets are regionally specific according to their 'Mission Data Files'.'
This is because he doesn't fly training missions with the WHG turned on. That is a separate, Go To War button which requires hyper accurate (to the serial number) thumbprint verifications of the radars in those theaters.
If this is the case, and if the ATA began this process (meaning much of the ado in the _The Five Billion Dollar Misunderstanding_ is not just wrong but completely out of step with what the ATA active cancellation pioneered) we may never be able to see it from just a visual inspection.
Which also lines up with what several industry experts have publicly said as 'RCS cannot be guestimated by eye'. Likely meaning shape-shape-shape-and-materials is a lie based on other systems performing the majority of the stealth role. Or, at best a way to simplify dealing with some fairly fragile, non-load bearing or aspect dependent RAM/RAS.
Here, it must be further stated that the ATA, had it flown as a navalized A-12, has the same operational problem as the F-35 and it's 'baked right in' RAM potential to degrade with oxidization to obscenely 'rusty' streaks, down the fuselage and spine.
So anything that explains why The Wing design itself was considered operationally suitable for a naval attacker could be useful as an explanation for the actual approach the USN used, since it's highly unlikely (galvanic cell) that it used period equivalent techniques to the narrow band 'linoleum over aluminum' on the F-117.
(And yes, it was VLO. See the first page of this thread: 'With heavy, some consider too much, emphasis on stealth'. Of course, I no longer have access to 40 year old Aviation Week articles which showed advertisements much like the B-21 'under cover' ones. All, denoting ATA as the best/most secret of the VLO trio being worked on...)
As for the A-12 (not the ATA umbrella program) itself, here is what I would like to know:
1. What exactly characterized the primary shortcoming of the inlet. Was it the sidewall, or the devices or not enough serpentine or perhaps something related to the mass flow enhancer VG doors, like those of the Eurofighter, which 'broke the envelope' of the stealth? If you are running an active loaded, 180` polarized phase, _surface wave jammer_, right along or under the skin; having few or no mechanically articulated edge breaks could be important.
As indeed the 'panel surrounds' on the Stealths we know all seem to indicate, to me, a design goal to establish a separate, RF isolated zone around those few areas which ARE routinely accessed or gapped. Like the DAS/ELS/Ladder on the F-35 nose and the large, seemingly dialectric, panel insert which literally changes the shape of the DSI behind them.
2. What was the solution, specifically, deriving from the initial Skunk Works assistance that caused a credible increase the RCS model reaching a verified signature threshold such that it caused Ben Rich to toot his own horn as having radically improved the model's RCS? Not it's fidelity for measurement, but it's _phsyical_ Radar Cross Section.
Anything else, on a VLO platform, is ridiculous, just on the assumption that you would be using a non-VLO pole to model a VLO object.
Did this initial solution involve multiple gross-silhouette changes to the airframe (fat/skinny wing) itself or only to the inlets themselves as a signature hotspot within it? Knowing will dictate at what point signature became a primary driver on development, before or after FSED. As well as what coming or going threat bands and emitters were considered important.
3. What was the function of the 'second pass' approach of the Stealth Bra? And did it also radically alter the airframe shape beyond the aforementioned sectional changes?
4. What was the purpose of the A/X technology recovery process and did it or did it not involve a wing restart as part of a new airframe? Again, we're looking to delineate what early-mid-late-followon design criterion and whether the airframe itself became more or less stealthy as it flowed through design.
As an adjunct to this, why were gentlemen associated with that effort, seen openly wearing a flying wing set of cuff links which marked their secret-decoder-ring affiliation (natsec violation) and why did those cuff links show a cranked arrow wing with outboard panel spans of lesser sweep (similar to the X-47B) yet still having a straight trailing edge?
If the VLO itself was a key issue and this is a serious flaw in conventional stealth engineeering, something is truly Funk And Wagnel as a function of carry over of a poor design feature into a cleansheet approach.
5. Politically and litigatively, what was the purpose of hiding the stealth progress made within the program, while using a bean counter approach to determine whether milestone payments had been correctly made, that would have required opening up secure compartments to expose payment levels. It is normally the contractual party making the payments responsibility to determine if those payments are deserved within the framework of a well defined goals and program timeline (milestone) OVERSIGHT of the effort. Typically through sub-leaders who have access to multiple related compartments while still not having global view of the intended, real world, application.
Not once has anyone said there was no ATA contract. Only that the MENS/COEA was not properly done. We know that said contract included weight, speed, SEROC, and radius numbers, so it likely included RCS. From the very start. Did the RCS requirement become more demanding, remain the same or slip? What were the ameliorating solutions sought to bring it up to standard and from what date in the program?
If no progress had been made, to render default of contract a valid conclusion, why was the secondary RCS cleanup effort deemed too hush-hush not to revealed in a public document due to its effects on national security? If nothing was going to save that airframe then revealing that 'attempts had been made' would at least remove the doubt that the DOJ was too ignorant to know if program failure, _for signature_ was a valid excuse.
Assuming a program which is not VLO by nature but only of reduced observables quantification, the 'cannot become stealthy' issue seems to be logical, within the openly source available data on the subject.
The F/A-18E/F does not become <.001m2 by the addition of cuffs on the sway braces and more RAM treatments on the pylon noses and inlet lips. Though it should be noted that it has less RAM (by several hundred pounds) and better signature management than the Lot-17 onwards F/A-18C which also was so-treated. So underlying structural issues may still be in-play.
It is the difference between baseline and still too high values that matter here, not necessarily what the actual mandated number needed to be.
Legally, the fact remains, that the A-12 airframe was cancelled and then the ATA program shut down, separately, based on an assessment that it was not meeting its progress payment milestones and signature was one of those characteristics, only for those characteristics to be later determined 'unknown' due to a lack of access by the forensic accountant to the CSAR RCS reduction effort.
Again, not because the KPP wasn't known, but because he didn't have access to that compartment.
As such, his analysis as a means to determine validity of cancellation could not be honestly certified as a basis of a legitimate OSD issuance of the termination notification. Since, CLEARLY, the accountant, at a fundamental, explainable, non-classified, level _did not even have access to the full program expenditures_ with which to make the 'accounts payable/receivable' analytics decision!
And again, if it was this 'stealth bra' redesign which was so critical to NatSec that revealing the nature of those improvements, as a KPP delineated contract specification (there was one, after the 1988 FSED transition, newly implemented DFARs mandated it). Then it stands to reason that a considerable effort as financial expenditures were made, effecting his assessement. If nothing else, this would have required additional pole modeling, on an instrumented range, which is expensive to schedule, on the fly.
And/or computer simulated RF mapping of a more complex IADS/ADGE network. The latter being a USAF/Rome specific specialty. Indicating that the 'USAF won't share' problem, really wasn't one.
In turn this should tell us whether or not the ATA, as delineated by CF/CD/DemVal was really different from the A-12 FSED.
I don't believe they were, for much the same reason as the total lack of a dedicated MDF lab for doing whatever the ASQ-239 _actually achieves_ mattered when outside forces said 'Don't worry about it, we'll handle it...' determining if the F-35 was ready to exit IOT&E and enter IOC workup as precondition to full rate production.
If they like the program, they will pencil whip. If they are looking for excuses, nothing will save you from their sabotage.
IMO, this active malfeasance also has a secondary the genuine deception/misdirection intent in that it masks ultimate question of 'what is Very Low Observables?' in general and the ATA programs 'don't worry, we'll get you the stealth, you just get the weight out...' specific source condition.
The Stealth is not coming from within the Navy and maybe not even from within the USAF/Northrop/Lockheed technologies complex on the other two stealth-centric platforms. It is brought in, as GFE, from an outside supplier.
And that source must always remain securely masked (LOCLOEXCOM) so as to minimize espionage penetration vulnerabilities. Maybe the Space Aliens are just shy.
Either way, with respectful apologies to Quellish for an unintended insult, I do not trust strangers on the Internet to have all the data or to reveal it, honestly, as potential minder/gate keeper illusionists, specifically assigned to sites like this one.
Contrary to the meme, 'those who know', will often say things that are deliberately misinformative. And only by treating it like a game of Go, blocking off sections of the lies within lies, on a multi-front campaign to clear away the smoke and mirrors, can we narrow down the open spaces through which the actual truth can be visible, in pieces, and thus tied together, into a coherent whole.
Tell me why they lied, either from an engineering or political perspective, and maybe we can get somewhere. As presented, none of what they say passes the syncretic smell test.
