Originally Posted by
Jetex Jim
A wooden aircraft does seem to hold the promise of a stealth capability, especially against the comparatively low frequencies of the 1940’s German radar.
There is a certain irony here, given much of Britain’s later efforts, which seem to indicate, if not an ignorance of radar cross section, at least a cheerful disregard for it. - I think mainly of such slab sided marvels as the Lightning, the TSR2 and the Tornado.
Actually a slab sided aircraft does not necessarily have a high RCS. Most of the incident radiation will reflect away when it strikes a flat plate. What is not stealthy are the rough bits like intakes and slots like undercarriage fairings.
In the 60s RRE was certainly working on RCS reduction. I remembe seeing a Morris Traveller van covered in rubberised horse hair with two arcs in the windscreen for the wipers. This RAM coating was designed to produce an radar invisbile vehicle. It was then covered with small radar reflectors on rods. Presumably to give a moving target without other reflectors.
Only a 50 MPH speed improvement, for the removal of turrets? That’s not too shabby when your top speed is only 280mph, and there’d be an increase in altitude, it would be another 20 years before the strategic bomber stopped seeking safety by flying as high as possible.
In level flight of course. We did 250 knots quite comfortably at 1500 feet once. In Charlwood's book, No Moon Tonight, they did 400 mph in a dive evading a fighter.
Monica, the rearward looking radar, ostensibly to warn of night fighters , but it couldn’t distinguish between them and the rest of the bomber stream
This was also a problem with Red Steer in the V-force when in a high level stream. The difference though was that the following bombers would be relatively static with the interceptors slipping in behind and overtaking.