With the discovery of Srebrenica massacre in July 1995 and failure of peacekeeping forces to maintain peace in Yugoslavia, NATO could no longer pretend that everything is okay and that the conflict does not interest them. On August 1st 1995 NATO air force launched massive attacks against Serbian units in Bosnia & Herzegovina, destroying most of their armoured vehicles and killing as much as 40% of all Serbian forces in BiH. After two months of savage fights, the joined strike of NATO liberated Sarajevo, forcing the Serbs and their allies out of Bosnia. In October, NATO closed the boarder between Serbia and Bosnia. They also threatened Milosevic that any act of agression from Serbian side will result in NATO forces entering and occupying Serbia. Milosevic have been said that, upon reading the note, he tore it into pieces and said: "Let them try". At this point no one knew what does this mean for NATO.
Life slowly returned to normal in Bosnia. The war damages were being repaired and people returned to their homes. Everything seemed all right, and many NATO soldiers were counting days which remained till the end of their service in Bosnia.
That was until December 27th 1995.
On that day an armoured column of German soldiers was finishing its patrol near the Bosnian-Serbian border. The column consisted of four Marder IFV, protected by two Leopard tanks. Since no problems were expected with Serbian forces, Marders carried only 5 soldiers each instead of usual seven. The commander, sitting in a second Marder, was speaking with the base: - Camp 2, Camp 2, this is Bear, this is Bear, over. - Copy, Bear, what's your status? - We're about 10 kilometers from the border and head home for some warm lunch and cold beer. - [laugh] Copy that, Bear, I'll send orders to the cook. - Thanks, Camp 1, we'll be back by... [jet noise, explosion in the background] JESUS CHRIST! - Bear, Bear, what's going on? - Mein Gott! Camp 1, we're under attack! I repeat, we're under attack! - Casualties? - The first Marder was hit! It's burning, it's burning! Nobody bailed out, I repeat - nobody bailed out! [jet noise again] Jesus Christ, it's coming again! - Who's coming? Bear, do you copy?! [inaudible noises, then the link is severed]
The supports rushed from the base five kilometers from the place where the column was supposed to be. But when they arrived to the place, they witnessed a horryfing sight. Three Marders were completely destroyed. The fourth was hiding under the trees growing nearby. Two Leopards had scorched armour, though seemingly they were still able to move. The crew of one Leopard and the remaining Marder was helping those who escaped from the hell. Three of them were seriously injured and required medical help immediately. The rest of them could walk on their own. Of 32 soldiers carried inside Marders, 15 were killed - all eight in the leading Marder and 7 from the following (one of the soldiers escaped through the ramp before the attack). The tragedy was a great shock to the NATO forces in Bosnia. There was no doubt this was the work of Serbs. The question was not who - the question was, how?
The very next day Serbian TV emitted Milosevic's speech, which turned out to be response to that event: ...we proved that we can - and will - protect our home country from the NATO invasion. Yesterday, we conducted a ground attack mission against NATO armoured column which crossed the Serbian border. Our aircaft inflicted heavy damage upon the enemy and returned safely to base. I hope this event will show NATO that they won't attack us with inpunity. For each attack on Serbian citizens, we'll send dozens of our responses against any military target we want. I strongly recommend NATO's hotheads to cool down and see that we're being serious. This is our final warning (...)
The whole report was an obvious lie - the German units came nowhere close to the border. But there was a puzzling fact in that announcement. Our aircraft? Why was Milosevic speaking about single vehicle? Normally ground attack mission would be performed by at least four aircafts. Had Yugoslavia obtained a machine able to engage a whole armoured column and destroy most of its vehicles?
Before these questions could be answered, another mysterious aircraft struck the Bosnian military camp, where the volunteers were trained and prepared to serve the country. 28 Bosnian were killed - ironically, 7 of them were Bosnian Serbs who refused to fight for Milosevic's cause. One of the men managed to capture the agressor on the camera before it flew back to Serbia. The film presented a surprisingly small aircaft, way smaller than F/A-18 and just slightly smaller than MiG-29. The hull's shape was highly unusual - it reminded a tear, with pointed nose and heavy aft section. It also had canards. NATO leaders tried to cover the whole thing, but the video leaked into the media. Two days after the camp incident, NATO admitted: - Serbian forces are using completely new type of aircraft. We're still gathering informations about it.
But the worst was still to come.
With Serbian forces massing to launch another assault on Sarajevo, the U.S. Air Force decided to use their most advanced aircraft, the B-2 Spirit bomber. Sceptics asked if sending such an aircraft all the way to Europe and back is neccessary, if conventional bombers can do the same thing. President Clinton argued that "sending B-2 so close to the Serbian borders will be a clear message that we're serious about this whole case and we won't hesitate to use all our power to strike and defeat Serbia if needed". A B-2 Spirit of Kansas took off from the Whiteman Air Base and after in-flight refueling it headed towards Bosnia. Everything was normal and when the crew saw the first lights of Sarajevo they even jokingly complained that Serbians didn't prepare any welcome comittee. Then...
Without warning, a violent explosion rocked the Spirit's aft section. Emergency warnings started to sound in the cockpit. The crew could see fire erupting from the back of the vehicle. Within seconds, Spirit of Kansas' nose dropped and the stealth bomber started falling toward the city. The crew decided that the aircraft is beyond recovery and ejected to safety. The striken bomber crashed into Sarajevo suburbs. The impact and fire caused the payload - eighty Mk 82 500 lb bombs - to explode one after another. The disaster killed 137 Sarajevans and injured over six hundred.
The disaster had a large political impact and was called the largest shock to the Americans since the Pearl Harbour attack. In one moment, America had lost an aircraft worth 2,2 billion dollars and started to doubt if it really can call itself world's superpower if some small European country shoots it's most advanced vehicle without punishment?
The answer to that question came the next day during evening news program. Milosevic once again appeared on TV, declaring a victory over West and its technology and, to prove that his declarations are not empty words, provided a film from the onboard camera of one of two plane which took part in the attack. It was then when the world first heard the new aircraft's name - Y-22 Sokol. Allied pilots soon learned to fear this name.
For three years, nicknamed "The Dark Times" by NATO troops in Bosnia, they had nothing that could counter the Serb machine. Milosevic's Y-22 performed air raids over Bosnian territory with total impunity. Even the most advanced aircrafts, like the F-16 Fightin Falcon or F/A-18 Hornet could not match it in a dogfight. Even worse, Serbian engineers obtained a few AMRAAM missiles, and introduced their own version, able to shoot down any NATO aircraft.
The Sokol fighter forced the Western designers to double their efforts. In the United States, the prototype of a first stealth fighter, designated F-22, took off from Arizona air base. Several weeks later it was announced that 135 such aircafts were ordered to be constructed and at least 1/3 of them sent to Bosnia to protect NATO forces (the projected introduction time was March 2000). In Europe, a consortium of three great aviation works announced the plans to introduce new, excellent Eurofighter, which will also be introduced in B&H. France, too, announced the preparations to launch their generation 4,5 fighter, Dassault Rafale. However, all those projects needed time - and this was what NATO simply didn't have. By 1999, where at least one of these fighter would fly against Serbian targets, the ethnic cleansing would have been over. This led to unusual warming of international relations among countries which normally were cold, if not hostile, towards each other. The goal was to upgrade existing aircrafts - F-15, F-16 and F/A-18 - to be able to counter Serbian Sokols.
But Sokol had another, less positive effect on Serbia's politics. Milosevic didn't trust anyone outside Serbia, not even Bosnian Serbs. All people involved in creation of the Sokol - scientists, engineers, designers - had to be Serbians. Montenegrins, Croats, Slovenes and Bosnians were denied to take part in the project. This "ethnic cleansing" angered Montenegro, Serbia's ally. In December 1997, Montenegran government decided to cease supporting Milosevic's actions against Bosnia and Herzegovina. Milosevic threatened them that if they side with NATO, this will be a declaration of war. For some time he considered using Sokols to bomb military targets in Montenegro to prevent them from being used against Serbia. In the end, however, there were no further repercussions from Serbian side. However Milosevic knew that without this ally, the tide of war is turning against him.
The first Sokol fell into NATO hands in February 1998. On that thay three Sokols were flying from ground attack mission, when the radar dish in of them jammed. The pilot ignored it, relying on his colligues to warn him in case of danger. But when they were flying through thick clouds, the Y-22 with jammed radar lost sight of his comrades. It was then when he collided by chance with NATO F-16. The pilot, right upon seeing the Sokol, fired two AMRAAMs, of which one struck the plane's engine. The WSO ejected, while pilot struggled to reach Serb-controlled territory. He didn't manage to do so, but he landed his aircraft on the meadow. He started to initiate the self-destruction procedure, when he was found by NATO forces. After a brief shootout, the pilot was killed and the aircraft recovered by NATO. Two Sokols were sent to bomb the wreckage and prevent the NATO from obtaining Y-22s secrets, but it was too late. The aircraft was carried to Camp Zenica, and then shipped to the Italy. Though the aft section was destroyed by AMRAAM and could not be examined, the rest of the airframe provided crucial informations about the Y-22.
Since the recovery of "Zenica Sokol", as it came to be known in the West, NATO's chances of countering Yugoslav Air Force greatly grew. New tactics were gradually developed, and with informations in the onboard computer, they knew where the Sokols have flown and where they can expect them. Two months after this discovery, another Sokol was shot down while returning from bomb run over Sarajevo. The aircraft disintegrated in mid-air and could not be examined, but it was a great shock to the YAF that NATO now knows how to engage Sokols.
On June 28th 1998 a group of six Sokols were sent to destroy American aircraft carrier USS "George Washington" over Adriatic Sea. They were engaged by twelve F/A-18 Hornets with brand new, upgraded AMRAAMs able to catch up with the fast and agile fighter. None of the Serbian rockets reached the aircraft carrier, though one landed dangerously close to it and exploded in water. Third and fourth Sokols were destroyed and the rest retreated to the Serbian-controlled part of Bosnia. One of the wreckages floated long enough to be recovered and placed on USS "George Washington's" deck. While the victory was a great morale boost for the anti-Milosevic forces, experts knew that the road to peace was still long and curved. The most significant effect of the clash (sometimes called "Battle for Washington" by aircraft carrier's crew) was that Serbia ceased to sent Sokols over Bosnia, moving them to defensive positions over Serbia.
The largest single use of Sokol aircrafts was during the Battle of Belgrade, the largest one of the Yugoslav Wars. Hundreds of U.N. troops stormed the city, in an attempt to overthrow Slobodan Milosevic and finish the war. Named "The Yugoslav Battle of Berlin" the battle lasted from June 26th to July 1st 1999. NATO organised an operation of special forces, tasking them to assault the Parliment and capture Milosevic. They were carried by helicopters, and the NATO F-16s and F/A-18s provided cover.
At the same time, 48 remaining Sokols were sent into sky to protect the Serbian capitol against NATO air raids and support infantry. The last role, however, was greatly diminished, as NATO troops were too close to Serbian positions to risk attack. The Sokols carried maximum armament on their hardpoints and only one fuel tank each, limiting their range an manouverability to the point the NATO airplanes could engage them in a dogfight.
At 23 p.m. local time three helicopters carrying special forces landed near the Parliment and the assault began. Supported by Serbian paramilitaries, Milosevic attempted to escape in his own helicopter, but moments after he gave the command to start the engines, the machine was destroyed by one of the F/A-18s who happened to be nearby and noticed the Serbian vehicle standing on the Parliment's roof. The subsequent fire forced Milosevic and his men to evacuate to the other part of the building. Eventually, the special forces managed to kill most of his men and force Milosevic to surrender. The SF took him to the helicopter and took off. The battle lasted for another 4 hours before it was officialy announced that Milosevic was captured and taken to NATO base. Serbian forces have lost their fate in victory without their leader and surrended. On July 1st 1999, the Battle of Belgrade was over.
During the battle, 25 Sokols were destroyed, mostly when they depleted their weapons and were flying back to Belgrade airport, turned into temporary base. Three more were destroyed on the ground. NATO lost 6 F-16 and 4 F/A-18 Hornets - all of them were downed by Sokols AAMs. Additionaly, one F/A-18 was damaged by cannon fire from NATO F-16, fighting with Y-22. It was the only "friendly fire" incident of the whole operation. The ground crew of Belgrade airport attempted to destroy remaining 20 Sokols, but before they filled them with explosives, NATO forces captured the airfield.
One of the Sokols was taken to the USA for evaluations, which proved it is indeed superior to most of the Western aircrafts in terms of speed and manouverability, but, except for the jamming systems, lacks sophisticated equippment to counter aircrafts like F-22 (which was yet to enter service at that time). The shotdown of B-2 Spirit was claimed one-chance-per-million incident. The pilots of two Sokols were informed that the B-2 will approach Sarajevo and did the simplest thing they could do - prepared an old style ambush. Their aircrafts carried no guided missiles, since they would be useless against the stealth bomber. Rather, each Sokol carried 2x16 unguided missiles in rocket pods. They were circling over Sarajevo for 15 minutes before the Spirit arrived. They have flown behind it, approached it from the blind spot behind the crew's cockpit and opened fire, unleashing a hail of no less than 36 rockets, which struck the B-2's engine outlets and caused heavy damage to the machine. This was not some incredible feat, but Serbs were the first to perform it. As of the attack on the German armoured column, this was the first Sokol's mission and the Germans were chosen as guinea pigs for the new aircraft. The fact that their colligues died just to test YAF's new weapon enraged German citizens, to the point when unknown perpetrators have set the Serbian embassy in Berlin of fire. Many Serbs have left Germany back then, because of spreading hatred towards them. Only because of government's intervention the attacks stopped.
Slobodan Milosevic was taken to Hague and was charged with crimes against humanity and genocide. The court, however, did not manage to finish the case - on March 11th 2006, he died on heart attack in the prison. The rest of his men - Radovan Karadzic, Radko Mladic etc. - were all dragged to the court after several years of hiding and sentenced to life imprisonment.
Description Y-22 Sokol was a two-seat multirole fighter, which could also perform bombing or ground attack missions. It was built in 100% from Yugoslav-made elements. It had a modular structure - cockpit, hull, wings and engines were produced separately, and then assembled. An average production ratio was 5 aircrafts per week, though in some periods, when NATO bombs approached the hidden factory, the productian was halted for some time.
Sokol's main advantage over NATO aircraft was its excellent manouverability and speed. In a classic dogfight, with short range AAMs and cannons, it was superior to any Western fighter. However, it had inferior electronic systems. In long range missile fight, it could still pose a match for F-16 or F/A-18 Hornet, but its pilot had to be very careful not to underestimate the enemy.
Y-22's secret weapon was its jamming system. Other stealth aircrafts - F-117, B-2, Raptors, Sukhoi PAK FA etc. - use what's called "passive stealth". Their "invisibility" to radars is achieved by their shapes, coating and lowering the heat signature (i.e. exhaust gases from the engine's outlets). But Sokol's almost-straight wings and canard give one hell of a blip on a radar screen, and the aircraft is visible from miles away. So its constructors equipped it with what's called "active stealth". Sokol's anti-radar systems could interfere with enemy's radar, erasing Sokol's signs from the screens. It was surprisingly sophisticated, compared to the rest of Sokols electronics. Moreover, the Sokols were coated with special paint which partially absorbed the radar beams (so it used mixed "active/passive stealth"). In the end, Sokols were very hard to detect and fight. Only later the upgraded AMRAAMs could lock on the aircraft. On one occasion, when the Sokol was flying extremely low during bombing run, the concussion of its payload temporaily jammed its anti-radar systems, allowing the Bosnian soldiers to lock on it with captured AA-rocket. However as soon as the system reactivated, the rocket lost its contact and exploded in mid-air, loosing a chance to bring Sokol down several months before "Zenica Sokol".
Some aircrafts were prepared for conversion to single-seat version, with WSO seat replaced by another fuel tank, but none of them was finished when the war came to the end.
Specifications - Length: 13,53 m - Wingspan: - Mass: 7,750 kg empty, 11.000 kg fully loaded, 18.000 kg maximum takeoff mass - Powerplant: two S-20F engines with afterburner - Max. speed: 2,900 km/h - Min. speed: 556 km/h (for ground attack missions) - Stall speed: 276 km/h (est.) - Combat radius: 600 km - Max. ceiling: theoretically 19.000 m, but maximum reached was below 16.000 m
Armament Sokol's hardpoints were not built from scratch, but only upgraded from old Soviet-made ones. - two hardpoints on the belly (normally used to carry external fuel tanks) - four hardpoint on each wing (of which one double hardpoint per wing)
Armament: - for ground attack: 2x guided bombs, 2x unguided rocket pods (6-32 rockets), 4x guided missiles (may vary), 1x fuel tank (under hull) - for fighter missions: 2x fuel tanks (hull hardpoints), 8 AAMs (under wings) Initial plans to install hardpoints for ECM pods, but it was decided that Sokols are too valuable for such missions (NATO learned how to find the jamming's source)
Nicknames Despite its short service (1995-1999), Y-22 earned various nicknames from both NATO and Yugoslav troops. These include: - Sokol - Goshawk, the official name - Zmaj Milosevica - Milosevic's Dragon (Serbian) - Novu Nadu - The New Hope (Serbian) - Jugoslawischer Büchsenöffner (Juboff) - Yugoslav Can Opener (German) - Ubitsa Spirito - The Spirits Killer; it has double meaning, as an aircraft which destroyed B-2 bomber, and as a mean of breaking NATO troops' morale (Serbian) - Soko Millenium - The Millenium Falcon, because its hull, before assembly, slightly resembles Han Solo's ship; also because of the aircraft's speed (Serbian) - Crna Ruka - the Black Hand, after Serbian underground organisation which aimed toward uniting all Serbian-inhabited lands claimed by Austro-Hungary. - Gavrilo - after the member of said organisation, who assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand in the 1914, sparking the World War I (after which Austro-Hungary collapsed and State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs was created, eventually turning into Yugoslavia in 1929). - Zjadacz Czołgów - the Tank Eater (Polish)
Fate after the war 20 Sokols survived the war. They were sent to various institutes and museum all over the world. Like mentioned above, one was sent to the USA and used for evaluations. It was then placed in National Air and Space Museum. Four Sokols were taken to: France, Germany, Poland and England respectively. One has crashed during evaluation by Bosnian airman (who ejected safely). Only one was left in Serbia, stripped from the engines and cockpit's most crucial elements.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Oh boy... I've been thinking about several scratches throughout those three years of making models. R-XIII Polonez jet biplane, HS-105 7TP-based self-propelled gun, Bumar-2001 tank. None of them went any further than assembling some pieces together and abandoning the whole project. Then last Tuesday I started to cut and stitch my unfinished F-14 model and... it ended with rewriting the whole Yugoslav Wars for the sake of background story.
So, what have we here? Putty. A LOT OF PUTTY It was my first try with this infernal substance. Especially the aft section needed a lot of it. Despite my best efforts it still looks like a s...t in various places, especially already mentioned aft and air intakes I was already tired with scratching the putty off and putting it again, so it looks like it looks
As I mentioned, most of the pieces of Y-22 Sokol come from F-14 Tomcat. You can see totaly non-modified cockpit and nose and just slightly modified (cutten from main hull) wing roots. Vertical stabilizers are made from F-14's tail section. Inlets were only partially modified. The canards are from 1/144 Su-47, though initally I used F-14s vertical stabilizers (they were too big, so I replaced them). As you can see, I don't care much about aerodynamics. I believe that, if you strap engine powerful enough, you can make Empire State Building fly like a rocket
Another thing I gloriously ignored is the fact that every aircraft needs space for fuel tanks and landing gear. I don't know where would they fit all that On the other hand, the aircrafts is way bigger than Panavia Tornado and slightly smaller than MiG-29, so maybe they'd find a solution.
Some people may wonder if such an amount of weaponry is possible to install on such small airplane. I'd say: maybe, but I don't promise it'll fly then. My scratch is armed only with two AAMs. I simply had to make clear that for a time Sokol was a serious opponent of F-16s and F/A-18s. And aside from speed and manouverability, one of the most important thing in military aircrafts is how much armament they can take. After using all their weapons, the plane is vurnerable to pretty much everything. This was not included in the story, but despite copying the AMRAAM's design, Sokol's rockets were still inferior to the originals, so the Serbs went for "quantity over quality" mode.
For a long time I couldn't decide whether to make wings conventional or forward swept (like in Su-47). While forward-swept wing looked so badass , I decided it doesn't match the previous Yugoslav designs and that it would seem too futuristic to be placed 10-15 years in the past, during Yugoslav Wars.
Another thing I couldn't decide for was painting. Options were: black, panzergrau, Tomcat-white or F-15 grey. Finally I went for panzergrau. Light grey wouldn't look good on so bashed aircraft; and black again seemed too futuristic, especially since I only have shining black shade, not a matt black like for F-117 or PZL-230F Skorpion. In the story, initially there were three variants of camo: light grey for day units, dark grey for bad-weather and night fighters and with brown-green-blue camo (like Su-22 in Poland) for ground-attack missions. Later all were repainted dark grey, which worked perfectly while flying over ExYu countryside.
The decals were made from some spare sheet. I'm not even sure what it belonged to before. The markings here are of elite fighter group, known as "Flights Group Belgrade" - the one which protected the Serbia's capitol from NATO forces. The Flight Group was an equivalent of squadron, and FG "B" consisted of eight flights, each with 6 Sokols.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ As of the background history. I went into Yugoslav Wars only recently since I've found a BBC documentary "The Death of Yugoslavia". But moreover, I remember seeing news reports from Bosnia and Kosovo as a child. At that time I didn't quite understand what is going on. I couldn't even locate all those countries - ex-Yugoslavia, Serbia, B&H, Montenegro (called Czarnogóra here in Poland) on the map. Later when I came upon an article regarding Polish forces in Bosnia with brief reminder of Yugoslav Wars history I started to wonder why the country which remained united for 60 years suddenly tore itself apart from within. The history fo Yugoslavia proved what we all know - you cannot put several different ethnic groups in one country and expect no problems. Sooner or later, there will be a conflict.
There is no special reason for which the armoured column - the first victim of Sokol - was German. This idea simply came to my mind when I was writing the story and I saw no reason to change it. Surely I could make it American, British, French, Spainish, heck - I could even make Polish column of BRDM-2s obliterated by Sokol and see nothing wrong with it. It's just a fiction, after all.
Some may wonder why I introduced such dramatic event like downing a B-2 Spirit bomber. There surely will be those who agree with the sceptics mentioned above, who saw such a mission as an unnecessary whim of U.S. President. Even I had doubts if to employ this scene and almost replaced the Spirit with F-117, which would be a little nod toward a true incident (when Serbian SA-6 brought down American Nighthawk on a bomb run). But like I said, it was believed that using a high tech stealth bomber will be a great propaganda move. After all, Clinton could not have known that Serbs have a weapon to shot down such an aircraft. There is also another reason. In Marcin Gawęda's book, "Kaukaskie Epicentrum" (Caucassian Epicentre) a B-2 Spirit of Florida was sent in a manner similar to Spirit of Kansas (nota bene the only Spirit which was destroyed in real world - but by accident, not deliberate enemy action) over Southern Ossetia to destroy armoured column of Russian vehicles invading Georgia. B-2's mission was specifically to cause havoc, but avoid killing soldiers - it was ment to be a propaganda strike to show that USA is still able to protect itself and its allies. But there was something that spoiled this scene, at least for me. Moments before the attack, a Russian radar operator managed to recieve a weak anomaly and identify it as stealth aircraft, most likely B-2. He reported this to his superior, but before they called the column, it was already hit by the Spirit. What I disliked was that there were no further informations about B-2's whereabouts. I think the scene where the Spirit is intercepted by Su-27 or even MiG-29, or that NATO F-16 are sent to help the aircraft escape from Ossetia, would look great written in Gawęda's style. So I've written this scene to visualise what Gawęda did not.
Another, a bit more subtle nodd, is the plan to assault Belgrade and capture Milosevic in order to end the war. Similar event appeared in Vladimir Wolff's "Stalowa kurtyna" (Steel Courtain) about Belarussan invasion on Poland. SPOILERS: the climax of the book occured in war-torn Minsk, bombed by NATO aircrafts, while Polish special forces stormed Lukashenko's HQ. The Belarussan dictator (this is a proper word to describe him and I don't give a crap what his supporters think) tried to escape via helicopter, which was shot down, and he was brought to a court (with a broken spine).
Two alternative stories for the aircraft were: - a developement version of PZL-230F Skorpion, Polish ground attack airplane with limited stealth abilities. Only the mock-up was created in the 90s and no further developement followed, - a fighter constructed after savage conflict (no details specified) from the wreckage of F-14 which would allow its constructors to escape their war-ravaged country. In the end, however, the "Yugoslav super-advanced fighter" version prevailed.
I did a lot of research to make the history believable, but I still might have made some mistakes. Please mind that
That's an interesting design, and an interesting story.
Also, the concept behind the design of this aircraft is very similar to that of the American "Blitzfighter" proposal of the late 1970s. I've made a 3-view schematic of it, which I just uploaded to my gallery a few minutes ago; [link]
Good use of parts to make your own model! I'm impressed.
The description of it is a bit... presumptuous.
Jamming like that is already present- though it doesn't work quite like that. The only way to appear completely invisible is metamaterials, which actually bend light. Jamming technology instead makes it appear as though there are hundreds of targets, all changing constantly, so it's difficult to get a proper fix on your target - though, powerful enough RADAR, like on the E-2 or many state-of-the-art RADARs will just laugh at nearly any jamming effort. The best you can hope for with an active emission system is to make it appear as though one plane is many, and do a "which one is the real one?" game. Theoretically, if a system could emit radar waves at the same frequency, power, and wavelength, you could entirely cancel it out. However, your plane would, with modern technology, look more like a giant blimp and be prohibitively expensive even for America, unless you were only cancelling in the forward direction, in which case it'd still be rather larger.
Hmmmm, interesting. Putty is a pain to work with, I find use less putty as possible. Sucks having to spend a portion of your time having to sculpt and sand that crap.
Also, the concept behind the design of this aircraft is very similar to that of the American "Blitzfighter" proposal of the late 1970s. I've made a 3-view schematic of it, which I just uploaded to my gallery a few minutes ago;
[link]
The description of it is a bit... presumptuous.
Jamming like that is already present- though it doesn't work quite like that. The only way to appear completely invisible is metamaterials, which actually bend light. Jamming technology instead makes it appear as though there are hundreds of targets, all changing constantly, so it's difficult to get a proper fix on your target - though, powerful enough RADAR, like on the E-2 or many state-of-the-art RADARs will just laugh at nearly any jamming effort. The best you can hope for with an active emission system is to make it appear as though one plane is many, and do a "which one is the real one?" game.
Theoretically, if a system could emit radar waves at the same frequency, power, and wavelength, you could entirely cancel it out. However, your plane would, with modern technology, look more like a giant blimp and be prohibitively expensive even for America, unless you were only cancelling in the forward direction, in which case it'd still be rather larger.