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Composite materials are all the rage today with Russia’s fifth-generation T-50 fighters and, Ka-52 and Ka-62 helicopters making extensive use of polymeric carbon plastics and other high-strength materials, rendering them virtually invisible to enemy radar. Sputnik looked at the way composites can help planes fly better and dodge enemy radar.
T-50 strike aircraft at the MAKS-2013 Aviation and Space Salon in Zhukovsky
The use of carbon-plastic composites, which are lighter than duralumin, titanal and other alloys used in aviation construction, enabled Russian engineers to make the T-50just as undetectable by radar as the US F-22 Raptor stealth fighter.
With 70 percent of the T-50’s airframe consisting of composite materials, its developers say that the effective area of the plane’s reflecting surface is just 0.5 square meters. For comparison, in the heavy "metal" SU-30MKI fighter this indicator is 40 times higher and is equal to 20 square meters.
Figuratively speaking, the T-50 is seen on a radar screen as a tiny 50 cm x 100 cm “spot.”
The T-50’s designer, Alexander Davidenko, told Zvezda TV that due to the use of composites the aircraft has four times fewer parts compared to the Su-27, weighs less and is easier to mass produce.
Composite and radio-absorbing materials will also find extensive use in Russia’s new PAK DA strategic bomber. Designed as a “flying wing,” just like the US B2 Spirit strategic bomber, the PAK DA will be much less visible to radar than its American counterpart.
Ka-62
Meanwhile, the aircraft factory in Ulan-Ude in eastern Russia has completed flight tests of the new regional TVS-2-DTS plane, almost entirely built from composite materials.
The use of composite materials dramatically reduces a plane’s visibility, as electromagnetic signals are not reflected from carbon fiber surfaces and passing through them or getting absorbed.
As a result all a radar operator sees on his screen is blank space.
Ka-52
The reduction in visibility is also ensured by the irregular geometrical shape of the plane’s surface, which is simpler to “mold” from carbon plastic than from metal.
sputniknews
T-50 strike aircraft at the MAKS-2013 Aviation and Space Salon in Zhukovsky
The use of carbon-plastic composites, which are lighter than duralumin, titanal and other alloys used in aviation construction, enabled Russian engineers to make the T-50just as undetectable by radar as the US F-22 Raptor stealth fighter.
With 70 percent of the T-50’s airframe consisting of composite materials, its developers say that the effective area of the plane’s reflecting surface is just 0.5 square meters. For comparison, in the heavy "metal" SU-30MKI fighter this indicator is 40 times higher and is equal to 20 square meters.
Figuratively speaking, the T-50 is seen on a radar screen as a tiny 50 cm x 100 cm “spot.”
The T-50’s designer, Alexander Davidenko, told Zvezda TV that due to the use of composites the aircraft has four times fewer parts compared to the Su-27, weighs less and is easier to mass produce.
Composite and radio-absorbing materials will also find extensive use in Russia’s new PAK DA strategic bomber. Designed as a “flying wing,” just like the US B2 Spirit strategic bomber, the PAK DA will be much less visible to radar than its American counterpart.
Ka-62
Meanwhile, the aircraft factory in Ulan-Ude in eastern Russia has completed flight tests of the new regional TVS-2-DTS plane, almost entirely built from composite materials.
The use of composite materials dramatically reduces a plane’s visibility, as electromagnetic signals are not reflected from carbon fiber surfaces and passing through them or getting absorbed.
As a result all a radar operator sees on his screen is blank space.
Ka-52
The reduction in visibility is also ensured by the irregular geometrical shape of the plane’s surface, which is simpler to “mold” from carbon plastic than from metal.
sputniknews
