Quote:
Originally Posted by gtomike1967
Quick question for you guys.
If Germany developed (and sort of flew) a stealth type plane in 1944? Then why did it take another 35 years for the US to start developing our own?
Didnt we think think it was something we might want to develope?
Just curious....
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"Stealth" as applied to this article is a pretty broad term; just like "speed". For instance, at one time a "fast" factory street car would run 16's, but now that is pretty tame. Sure, there may have been "stealth" attributes to this German wing, but it hardly compares to the performance of even the F-117, which itself is crude and outdated compared to current aircraft. Given all the possible technologies available to exploit to gain a combat advantage- speed, performance, range and weapons load were all ahead of stealth in the list of desired traits. Why, because developing and maintaining effective stealth in an ever evolving threat environment is hard, and it is expensive. We're into stealth these days because we've run out of the "easy" things to do to avoid a threat.