STEALTH THREAT: Whoops! Phone signals may unmask a $40 billion flying secret.

Popular Science ^ | current web edition | Bill Sweetman

[Apple Pan Dowdy]

Whoops! Phone signals may unmask a $40 billion flying secret.
Driving home from work, you suddenly remember that a few of the T-ball kids are supposed to come over after the game. Should you pick up a couple of pizzas on your way? You pull out your cellular phone and call home to check.

Eight miles above you, unseen and unheard, a B-2 stealth bomber is cruising along on a practice run. The pilot believes that even radar can't detect his plane, but he's wrong. That call you're making, along with thousands of other innocent cellphone conversations taking place all over town, has inadvertently unmasked the bomber-defeating stealth technology that cost $40 billion to develop.

At least, that is the claim recently made by Roke Manor Research, a small research institute housed in an 1850s manor house in a quiet English town. Roke Manor, a subsidiary of the German electronics industry giant Siemens, announced earlier this year that its engineers had "rendered stealth aircraft useless." By listening for the echoes of cellphone signals bouncing off a stealth plane, the engineers say, it's possible not only to detect the plane but also to determine its exact location.

Conventional radar works by pointing a powerful radio beam at the sky and listening for the reflections from flying objects. But today we live in a sea of radio waves that are continuously broadcast from cellphone towers, television transmitters, and other sources. With this wireless revolution has come a potential new spy tool: a radar system that exploits existing radio signals rather than generating its own.

The Roke engineers came up with the idea for their cellphone-based radar as something of a lark. "We were brainstorming blue-sky ideas," recalls managing director Paul Stine. Can the system that emerged from the brainstorming session prove better than traditional radar at detecting stealth planes? Possibly, but the researchers haven't yet built a working model, and some experts question the system's practical military value, since analyzing cellphone echoes accurately is a very tricky business.
read rest of the article here

[Apple Pan Dowdy]

I thought this was very interesting, especially to all you technology wizards.

[pikachu]

Yeah but who is going to be doing all the monitoring for all the radiation ranges to catch a very rare B-2. Kinda like complaining that a B2 can't be used during the day beacuse you can see 'em with the naked eye.

[Apple Pan Dowdy]

Yeah but who is going to be doing all the monitoring for all the radiation ranges to catch a very rare B-2. Kinda like complaining that a B2 can't be used during the day beacuse you can see 'em with the naked eye.

Probably no one will be moitoring on a random basis, but what about in a war arena situation, where a particualar area needs to be protected from fly-overs?

[vooch]

Ben Works said that the Yugoslavs used this technique during Clinton's 1999 bombing campaign

[r9etb]

Detection from cell phones requires a very extensive and integrateed infrastructure which can correlate this signal to a plane right there. That's not easy, and not too likely.

And even if it could be done, the counter -- jamming and anti-radiation strikes -- is simple in the extreme.

In addition, it doesn't address the real issue, and the real point of stealth -- trying to target one of these things with a missile or gun. Targeting radars still won't work.

[Khepera]

So how good do you think it worked then??

[Apple Pan Dowdy]

Most likely you are right....... in fact I hope so!

[Chad Fairbanks]

What if it was a Cell Phone-based targetting Radar???? ;0)

[tje]

Isn't this the basis of 'back scatter radar'? This is nothing new. While it might work to let someone know something is coming, it would be very difficult to be used as a targeting system.

Also, if you're aware of the techniques used by stealth pilots when making a penetration above unfriendly soil, they take measures to minimize this. When you're flying below the elevation of the cellular tower it's difficult for this affect to be exploited.

Stealth bombing runs are not the same as B52 bombing runs..

[SMEDLEYBUTLER]

The British successfully tracked F-117's from ships sailing in the Persian Gulf during Desert Storm using low band search radar. Both the F-117 and the B-2 have always been able to be tracked with low band search radar. Stealth technology reduces detection range but does not make a plane invisible to radar. The Air Force, contrary to their propaganda, and quite a few other people have always known this. Every B-2, flying over the Balkans and Afghanistan, was escorted by two Marine Corps or Navy EA-6Bs providing jamming protection. Something which arguably shouldn't have to be done for an airplane that costs $1 billion a copy and is touted as being invisible to radar. Every F-117 that flew over the Balkans, with one exception, was protected by an EA-6B. The one that wasn't was shot down.

The Myth of Stealth

[r9etb]

What if it was a Cell Phone-based targetting Radar????

Simple: Just get the Jew Jersey legislature to pass a law outlawing the use of cell phones while operating anti-aircraft weaponry.

[Chad Fairbanks]

Or maybe, a better idea would be to just pass a law creating 'Radio Wave Free Zones'... that would fix it... ;0)

[daviddennis]

An interesting article indeed - but wouldn't the lack of giant armies of cellphone-toting people foil the plan?

No cellphone traffic, no radar, eh?

D

[Tallguy]

Ben Works said that the Yugoslavs used this technique during Clinton's 1999 bombing campaign

That report is in dispute. I've also heard that that particular stealth fighter was knocked down because the bomb bay door momentarily stuck in the open position rendering the plane unstealthy enough for a missile lock. Who knows what the real story is...

[Tallguy]

You gotta admit that you have to have a lot of faith in your stealth technology when the aircraft cost $1 Billion a pop. EA-6 Prowlers are cheap insurance.

[SMEDLEYBUTLER]

The fact that they need to use Prowlers shows they don't have any faith in their product or their propaganda. Imagine the explaining that would have to be done to Congress, at the very least, if a B-2 was shot down with a SAM.

[PatrioticAmerican]

Not to mention that the AF is trying to sell us on the $2 billion cost per plane for the B-2. They claim that it doesn't need a full "package" of other aircraft to escort it. The B-2 does need escort, and receives escort. It can be detected, and is detected. I believe the B-2 and F-22 should not be produced.

[DoughtyOne]

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