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Phone masts unmask Stealth jetsIAN BRUCEBRITISH scientists are working on a system which can detect supposedly "radar invisible" stealth aircraft and could render them obsolete overnight. It would wipe out hundreds of billions of pounds' worth of investment in the top-secret technology. The system uses mobile phone base stations as "transmitters of opportunity" to send out energy pulses. A stealth bomber flying through the screen shows up by disrupting the phase pattern of the signals between stations. Existing global positioning equipment linked to special receivers no bigger than a briefcase then allows the location of an incoming aircraft or cruise missile to be calculated accurately enough to shoot it down. According to Peter Lloyd, head of sensor projects at the Siemens Group's Roke Manor research facility in England, techniques are already in the early stages of development and can be "piggy-backed" on to existing commercial mobile phone networks "with or without the knowledge of its operator". Military sources have told The Herald that interest in the project was triggered by the downing of a US F117 stealth aircraft over Serbia in March last year during the Kosovo campaign. It is now believed that the Serbs may have used a rough version of the technique to detect the presence of the bat-like intruder. A salvo of missiles fitted with proximity-fused warheads designed to explode within 30ft of any solid object was then launched into the area. The scatter-gun approach worked and the first stealth bomber ever shot down in combat crashed 40 miles west of Belgrade. The pilot was rescued by a US special forces "Talon Claw" team which flew in by helicopter from Bosnia to lift him to safety. One source said: "This could revolutionise air defence worldwide. Almost every country, even in the Third World, has a functioning mobile telephone network. Almost everything needed is already available commercially at a relatively cheap price. "The other advantages are that an enemy would have to take out the entire network to blind the defences. In any decent-sized country that would be next to impossible. Jamming would be equally difficult. "Unlike conventional military radar, which has to be aimed in a specified direction, mobile energy pulses are multidirectional. Knocking out a few base stations would not reduce coverage, since the signals from surviving locations would bridge the gap by continuing to broadcast to all points of the compass." Major "black" programmes to develop stealth technology have been going on for decades at Lockheed's "Skunk Works" in Burbank, California, and at the McDonnell Douglas "Phantom Works" in Michigan. The United States is the biggest player in the stealth stakes, fielding two squadrons of F117s, 91 B1 and 21 B2 bombers. Research costs are classified, but each of the B2s cost £1.4bn. The stealth concept revolves around revolutionary composite building materials and paint which does not reflect radar waves. It does not make the aircraft invisible, but it does reduce their radar signature to the equivalent of a seagull in flight. US F117s spearheaded the assault on Baghdad at the start of the aerial campaign against Iraq in 1991 and both they and the larger B2s carried out strikes against targets in Yugoslavia in 1999. Until now, they have managed to penetrate hostile radar systems with relative ease, but are limited to bombing by night. The Ministry of Defence has invested more than £100m in the UK's own stealth warfare project at British Aerospace Systems' top security test airfield at Warton in Lancashire since 1990. Research there, carried out in what is known locally as "the black hangar", is aimed at gaining lucrative work on the next generation Anglo-American Joint Strike Fighter project. The new Eurofighter Typhoon, the first squadron of which is due to enter RAF service in 2003, is to be based "on attachment" at Warton for the first 18 months to allow inclusion of stealth features. -Nov 27th
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