RADAR MAN - A Personal History of Stealth by Edward Lovick, Jr.

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If you are interested in KEMPSTER, and the A-12's fuel additives, this is a must read:

http://www.amazon.com/Radar-Man-Personal-History-Stealth/dp/1450248020
accompanying site:
http://www.edtheradarman.com/

I am reading it now and just got through that section. It is very illuminating - Lovick was heavily involved in both efforts, and does go into more detail on some aspects than I have seen elsewhere.
 

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great! thanks, definitely worth to order
 
http://www.iuniverse.com/Bookstore/BookDetail.aspx?BookId=SKU-000181145 - just USD 9.99 for ebook (DRM-protected PDF)


Contents

Preface ... xi
Acknowledgments .................................................................................................xvii
Introduction ... xix
Curious Beginnings .............................................................................1
Airplanes—an Early Love ....................................................................7
First Flight in an Aircraft ........................................................................10
My First Rocket Experience ..................................................................10
Early Radio Experiments ...................................................................13
Formation of Young Engineers .........................................................17
Lockheed at Last! ...............................................................................25
Radio and Radar Installation ............................................................27
B-17 Bomber Aircraft ..............................................................................29
Electronic Test Equipment Group .....................................................31
Crash Investigation at NOTS ................................................................34
Naval Ordnance Test Station, Inyokern ............................................37
In the Navy .........................................................................................43
University of Illinois ..........................................................................47
Return to Lockheed ...........................................................................53
Antenna Testing .......................................................................................56
Antenna Radiation Patterns.................................................................61
Modern Antenna Laboratory ............................................................65
Scale Model Antenna Testing ..............................................................71
P-2V Antennas Field Testing ................................................................73
Dr. Tetsu Morita ........................................................................................75
The Bornholm Incident .........................................................................76
AWACS and Kelly Johnson ................................................................79
Into the Skunk Works—the U-2 ........................................................83
The Big Rumbling Cart ...........................................................................88
Small Scale Model Testing ....................................................................92
U-2 Infrared Sensor Calibration ..........................................................96
Early Anechoic Chamber Testing .......................................................98
The “Six String Hang” ............................................................................102
Security Breach .......................................................................................106
U-2 Low Frequency Design and Testing ........................................107
Testing U-2s at Daggett .......................................................................110
Pole Testing at Indian Springs AFB ..................................................111
The A-12—Competition Stealth and Speed ................................. 115
Kelly Johnson’s All-plastic Plane .......................................................118
Arrow Design Series RCS Testing .....................................................120
That Fateful Meeting ...................................................................... 125
A-12 RCS Full-scale Demonstration ............................................... 127
Visit to a German Laboratory ............................................................128
Building the Full-scale Mockup ........................................................128
Groom Lake Facility ..............................................................................132
RCS Testing...............................................................................................133
The A-12 OXCART ............................................................................ 137
Chines ...139
Magnetic Materials ...............................................................................141
Antennas ..................................................................................................145
Engine Inlets ............................................................................................146
Engine Exhaust Outlets .......................................................................152
Static RCS Tests .......................................................................................156
The A-12 Aircraft in Flight ...................................................................156
Anti-Radar Flight Tests .........................................................................157
A-12 Antennas Refi nement ................................................................158
Lightning Tests .......................................................................................162
LMSC Missile and Satellite Testing ................................................ 167
Anechoic Chamber Evolution ........................................................ 171
Derivatives and Developments ..................................................... 175
The D-21 “Little Whizzer” .....................................................................175
YF-12 ...177
R-12 Aircraft .............................................................................................177
SR-71 Aircraft ..........................................................................................177
SR-71 Flight Suits ...................................................................................178
Eglin AFB Over-water Tests ................................................................178
Active Cancellation ...............................................................................179
Gary Powers .............................................................................................180
Gaseous Radar Wave Attenuators ...................................................181
U-2s and the Jungle Environment ...................................................182
Early RCS Prediction Code Development .....................................183
The F-117—Doing It with Mirrors ................................................. 185
Have Blue RCS Test Competition ......................................................190
Alan Brown...............................................................................................197
Denys Overholser ..................................................................................198
James Reichert .......................................................................................199
Lightning Tests .......................................................................................199
Windshield Optical Tests .....................................................................200
Have Blue Prototype Flights ..............................................................200
Cancellation Tests at Grey Butte .......................................................201
Medical Classes ......................................................................................202
I Declined Management—Again .....................................................202
ADP Preliminary Design Group Activities .................................... 205
The Stealth Bomber ..............................................................................205
The Stealthy Submarine Boat ............................................................206
Helicopters ...............................................................................................209
The Sea Shadow .............................................................................. 211
Dr. Nicholas Damaskos ........................................................................212
Sherre Love and Windows ..................................................................212
Stellar Engineers Incognito and Infl uential People ..................... 221
Mike Ash ...................................................................................................221
Jim Herron ................................................................................................224
Dr. Allen Atkins .......................................................................................225
Dr. Robert Elliott .....................................................................................226
Dr. Thomas T. Taylor...............................................................................226
Afterword ........................................................................................ 227
Appendix A: Smith Charts and Z-Theta Charts ............................. 231
Appendix B: Analogies and Graphical Aids .................................. 235
Appendix C: EIC Antenna Directivity ............................................ 239
Appendix D: Military Radar Frequency Bands ............................. 243
Appendix E: Outside U-2 Historical Studies ................................. 245
Appendix F: Salisbury Screen Design ........................................... 247
Appendix G: Magic Tee ................................................................... 253
Appendix H: Resistivity Measurements ........................................ 257
Index ................................................................................................ 267
References ....................................................................................... 273

great reading for holidays!
 
Just finished it the other day - there is a lot in there that would be of interest to forum members. Parts of the book are more coherent than others, but that does not detract from the content.
 
Great! i am definitely buying a copy. I was wondering if you know whether the pdf has color pictures, since apparently the hard copies are in B/W. I'm not sure which option to go with and trying to find a discriminator...
Thanks!
 
No color photos in pdf. Just a few b&w photos and drawings.
 
AeroFranz said:
ok, simplifies things. Thanks!

In the print version, no color photos - in fact only a couple of photos period - but there are hand drawn diagrams throughout the text.
 
Scene with Alan Brown almost being shoot by security guards after promenade in Arabic thobes under Have Blue pole model worth buying whole book:)
 
A Dargons horde of treasure!
Comments about cohearance are fair however I'm sure national security concerns had a role to play in that outcome. Sometimes what isn't said is more revealing than what is.

Mr Lovick finishes his book...

The End*





*For now

:)
 
Catalytic said:
A Dargons horde of treasure!
Comments about cohearance are fair however I'm sure national security concerns had a role to play in that outcome. Sometimes what isn't said is more revealing than what is.

Mr Lovick finishes his book...

The End*





*For now

:)

Jeeze I'd give my right arm if you could post freely in this thread:
http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,11250.0.html

:)
 
In 1958, I supervised a series of studies to see how the size and shape of objects, and the length of radar waves, interacted to produce radar signatures. I had to design a new test chamber with a low radar signature so that we would to be able to perform these measurements. One of the object shapes I tested was an elongated triangle, like a Toblerone chocolate candy box, or the triangular boxes that some posters are shipped in. You can see what I call the ‘triangular cylinder’ end-on in the center of the patch; it is the gray triangle.

We bounced radar waves of various wavelengths off of the long sides of the cylinder as the cylinder was rotated. When the radar wavelength was only about 1/25th the length of the triangle’s side, we produced the radar signature shown in red on the patch. The radar signature was very low most of the time, spiking to a maximum when broadside to the triangular cylinder faces, and falling quickly to the lows as the cylinder turned. Longer radar wavelengths produced wider broadside spikes and higher off-normal returns, resulting in higher radar cross sections.

Using the very data represented on the patch, I told Kelly Johnson in 1959 during the Arrow series design process leading to the A-12 Oxcart, and Dick Scherrer in 1974 during the conceptual design of Have Blue, predecessor of the F-117 Nighthawk, that the secret to low radar signature aircraft was to shape them to have nearly flat surfaces that would be as much as twenty-five times larger than the enemy radar’s wavelength. This design guideline also was incorporated into Lockheed’s stealthy ship, the Sea Shadow, which was launched into radar signature testing at sea in 1985
.
 

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seruriermarshal said:
...was an elongated triangle, like a Toblerone chocolate candy box, or the triangular boxes that some posters are shipped in. You can see what I call the ‘triangular cylinder’ end-on in the center of the patch; it is the gray triangle.

Thanks for that. FWIW, I believe the term you are searching for is "prism," for your triangular cylinder.
 
DSE said:
seruriermarshal said:
...was an elongated triangle, like a Toblerone chocolate candy box, or the triangular boxes that some posters are shipped in. You can see what I call the ‘triangular cylinder’ end-on in the center of the patch; it is the gray triangle.

Thanks for that. FWIW, I believe the term you are searching for is "prism," for your triangular cylinder.

I don't think so. A prism is merely a transparent pyramid with four sides. The author here is talking about a long box with three sides and flat triangular ends.
 
Stargazer2006 said:
DSE said:
seruriermarshal said:
...was an elongated triangle, like a Toblerone chocolate candy box, or the triangular boxes that some posters are shipped in. You can see what I call the ‘triangular cylinder’ end-on in the center of the patch; it is the gray triangle.

Thanks for that. FWIW, I believe the term you are searching for is "prism," for your triangular cylinder.

I don't think so. A prism is merely a transparent pyramid with four sides. The author here is talking about a long box with three sides and flat triangular ends.

Like Sea Shadow
 
Stargazer2006 said:
DSE said:
seruriermarshal said:
...was an elongated triangle, like a Toblerone chocolate candy box, or the triangular boxes that some posters are shipped in. You can see what I call the ‘triangular cylinder’ end-on in the center of the patch; it is the gray triangle.

Thanks for that. FWIW, I believe the term you are searching for is "prism," for your triangular cylinder.

I don't think so. A prism is merely a transparent pyramid with four sides. The author here is talking about a long box with three sides and flat triangular ends.

Not so, in English standard usage.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prism_(optics)

The traditional geometrical shape is that of a triangular prism with a triangular base and rectangular sides, and in colloquial use "prism" usually refers to this type.
 
seruriermarshal said:
In 1958, I supervised a series of studies to see how the size and shape of objects, and the length of radar waves, interacted to produce radar signatures. I had to design a new test chamber with a low radar signature so that we would to be able to perform these measurements. One of the object shapes I tested was an elongated triangle, like a Toblerone chocolate candy box, or the triangular boxes that some posters are shipped in. You can see what I call the ‘triangular cylinder’ end-on in the center of the patch; it is the gray triangle.

We bounced radar waves of various wavelengths off of the long sides of the cylinder as the cylinder was rotated. When the radar wavelength was only about 1/25th the length of the triangle’s side, we produced the radar signature shown in red on the patch. The radar signature was very low most of the time, spiking to a maximum when broadside to the triangular cylinder faces, and falling quickly to the lows as the cylinder turned. Longer radar wavelengths produced wider broadside spikes and higher off-normal returns, resulting in higher radar cross sections.

Using the very data represented on the patch, I told Kelly Johnson in 1959 during the Arrow series design process leading to the A-12 Oxcart, and Dick Scherrer in 1974 during the conceptual design of Have Blue, predecessor of the F-117 Nighthawk, that the secret to low radar signature aircraft was to shape them to have nearly flat surfaces that would be as much as twenty-five times larger than the enemy radar’s wavelength. This design guideline also was incorporated into Lockheed’s stealthy ship, the Sea Shadow, which was launched into radar signature testing at sea in 1985
.

Rather basic experiment. Sounds a little simplistic a design guideline... even for a 1958 finding, let alone a 1985 design.
For example if you check that 1959 article (posted by Overscan a while ago)
http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,2575.0
you'll see that RCS of various shapes was already quite well understood at that time.

Probably the author has been involved in deeper r&d but is not allowed to tell much.
 
If it is OK to ask of those who have read the book, is there any reference made to the Hughes/MD 500 or OH-6 in the section relating to helicopters? If there is, I think I'll have to get a copy. Thanks.


500 Fan.
 
500 Fan said:
If it is OK to ask of those who have read the book, is there any reference made to the Hughes/MD 500 or OH-6 in the section relating to helicopters? If there is, I think I'll have to get a copy. Thanks.


500 Fan.

The helicopter information is about 1.5-2 pages, and while very illuminating, does not mention the Hughes 500 specifically. It talks about finding a way to get an even number of blades to cancel each other's return, reducing the signature of a rotorcraft. This was in the mid-80s according to Lovick.
 
One particular section of the book caught my interest - The Bornholm Incident (page 76 in my copy). Lovick gives an account (told to him by Elvin O. Richter) of a mysterious fog that appeared to have been created by Soviet aircraft off the coast of Bornholm in the mid-1950s. The fog seemed to attenuate electromagnetic radiation, thus blocking the radar station on Bornholm from picking up any radar echoes from western europe (not to mention blocking radio communication).

Lovick puts forward a few theories on what the 'fog' could have been (and also mentions that it may be what later became known as the "Marburg effect", but google searches on that term simply circle back to Lovick's book), but ends that brief section with:

I am not aware of any attempt to investigate these reports. They may have been considered to be deliberate "disinformation" - it was the Cold War era. They were interesting, nevertheless.

I haven't been able to find any information on this 'incident', but it seems like a radar absorbing smokescreen would be a highly desirable tactical capability. Given that this account is well over 50 years old, was it in fact disinformation, or was such a 'fog' indeed developed?
 

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