| Rich Ben. Skunk Works |
| 1 | Los Angeles, January 1994 1 A PROMISING START It's August 1979 on the scorching Nevada desert, where Marines armed with ground-to-air Hawk missiles are trying to score a "kill" against my new airplane, an experimental prototype code-named Have Blue. We in the Skunk Works have built the world's first pure stealth fighter, which is designed to evade the Hawk's powerful radar tracking. The Marines hope to find Have Blue from at least fifty miles away and push all the right buttons so that the deadly Hawks will lock on. |
| 2 | To help them, I've actually provided Have Blue's flight plan to the missile crew, which is like pointing my finger at a spot in the empty sky and saying, "Aim right here." All they've got to do is acquire the airplane on radar, and the homing system inside the Hawk missile will do the rest. Under combat conditions, that airplane would be blasted to pieces. If that defensive system locks on during this test, our experimental airplane flunks the course. |
| 3 | But I'm confident that our stealth technology will prove too elusive for even this Hawk missile's powerful tracking system (capable of detecting a live hawk riding on the thermals from thirty miles away). What makes this stealth airplane so revolutionary is that it will deflect radar beams like a bulletproof shield, and the missile battery will never electronically "see" it coming. On the Hawk's tracking system, our fighter's radar profile would show up as smaller than a hummingbird's. |
| 4 | At least, that's what I'm betting. If I'm wrong, I'm in a hell of a bind. Half the Pentagon's radar experts think we at the Skunk Works have achieved a stealth technology breakthrough that will revolutionize military aviation as profoundly as the first jets did. The other half thinks we are deluding ourselves and everyone else with our radar test claims. Those cynics insist that we are trying to pull a fast one—that we'll never be able to duplicate on a real airplane the spectacular low visibility we achieved on a forty-foot wooden model of Have Blue, sitting atop a pole on a radar test range. |
| 5 | Those results blew away most of the Air Force command staff. So this demonstration against the Hawk missile is the best way I know to shut up the nay-sayers definitively. This test is "In your face, buddy," to those bad-mouthing our technology and our integrity. My test pilot teased me that Vegas was giving three to two odds on the Hawk over Have Blue. "But what do those damned bookies know?" he added with a smirk, patting my back reassuringly. |
| 6 | Because our stealth test airplane has been under the tightest security, we've had to deceive the Marines into thinking that the only thing secret about our airplane is a black box it's supposed to be carrying in its nose that emits powerful beams to deflect incoming radar. Of course, that's all bogus. No such black box aboard, no beams involved. The invisibility comes entirely from the airplane's shape and its radar-absorbing composite materials. |
| 7 | The missile crew will monitor the test on their radar scope inside their windowless command van, but a young sergeant standing beside me will be able to verify that, despite the blank screen, an airplane indeed flew overhead. God knows what he will think seeing our airplane in the sky, a weird diamond-shaped UFO, looking as if it escaped from a trailer for a new George Lucas Star Wars epic. I check my watch. |
| 8 | Eight in the morning. The temperature already in the nineties, heading toward a predicted high of one-twenty F. Have Blue should be well inside the missile's radar track, heading for us. And in a few moments I spot a distant speck growing ever larger in the milky blue sky. I watch Have Blue through my binoculars as it flies at eight thousand feet. The T-38 chase plane, which usually flies on its wing in case Have Blue develops problems and needs talking down to a safe landing, is purposely following miles behind for this test. |
| 9 | The radar dish atop the van hasn't moved, as if the power has been turned off. The cluster of missiles, which normally would be swiveling in the launcher, locked on by radar to the approaching target, are instead pointing aimlessly (and blindly) toward distant mountains. The young sergeant stares in disbelief at the sightless missiles, then gapes as the diamond-shaped aircraft zips by directly above us. |
| 10 | "God almighty," he exclaims, "whatever that thing was, sir, it sure is carrying one hell of a powerful black box. You jammed us dead." "Looks that way." I say and grin. I head to the command van, and a cold blast of the air-conditioning greets me as I step inside. The Marine crew is still seated around their electronic gear with stolid determination. Their scope screen is empty. They're waiting. As far as they know, nothing has yet flown into their radar net. |
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