From: stealthman@iglou.com   
      
   I Invented Stealth Shapes   
      
         In 1974 I filed a "Disclosure Document" in the US Patent   
   Office to attempt patent protection on an airfoil that makes   
   possible a very narrow lifting body, for low speed, medium   
   drag, high lift, aircraft, narrow enough to legally drive on   
   existing highways.   
      
        By early in 1976 I had filed a patent application for   
   that airfoil, and began to think of ways to make it more   
   useful and perhaps marketable.   
      
        It only took a couple of days to conceive of shaping   
   that would almost focus any radar returns into a very   
   narrow "beam", reasoning that if microwave tower   
   antenna could focus microwaves, then radar waves   
   could be focused too.   
      
        I had made a paraboloidal solar energy focusing   
   mirror out of segments of flat mirror, and noticed   
   that I could not see my eye in any of the small flat   
   mirrors unless my eye was at a certain spot in the   
   center.   
      
       So the first thought was to make the underside   
   of the craft shaped like a real long focal length   
   parabolic dish.   
      
        I was flying small unpowered gliders using the   
   airfoil design, and took it with me when traveling   
   to an electric motor shop in Johnstown, PA, where   
   an ex-Air Force guy worked.   
        I showed him the model, and how good it flew,   
   and mentioned making the bottom shaped like   
   a parabolic dish.   
      
        A few days later I saw him again and he said   
   the idea didn't work, and he said he had talked   
   about it to somebody in California working on   
   lowering radar cross section, and said they had   
   tried it.   
      
        I avoided mentioning it again, because I had   
   assumed what we talked about would be just   
   between us.   
        Then I thought more about what the shape   
   of the bottom should be, and remembering some   
   optical theory from making a couple of astronomical   
   telescopes, where a parabola is not much different   
   from a spherical curve if the focal length is long   
   enough.   
      
         Also, a parabolic dish mirror focuses parallel   
   rays from infinity to an image, but a mirror like   
   in a copy machine should not be parabolic, but   
   just cylindrical or spherical.   
      
         That meant the correct shape of a surface   
   that would be the most effective, is a concave   
   highly polished, metallic spherical surface.   
      
         But at very long focal lengths, there is little   
   difference between a parabolic dish and a   
   spherical surface, and very little difference   
   between a spherical surface and a flat surface.   
      
        Then it dawned on me, if the US could just   
   implement an aircraft using all external surfaces   
   being flat faceted surfaces, it could change the   
   balance of power in the world to favor the US.   
      
       While I joked about being able to make cars   
   and airplanes invisible to radar, I was afraid to   
   say how, or even write on paper the details of   
   the theory or the actual shapes.   
      
        It was not until the patent office decided my   
   airfoil invention was very useful in aero-space,   
   they asked for a statement that declared my   
   work history, and if I was under contract to   
   the government when I made the invention,   
   under the Space Act of 1958 that created   
   NASA, the government could take my patent.   
      
        In the statement, I wrote that only after   
   I filed the patent application for the airfoil,   
   I had realized that making all flat plane   
   surfaces would make it reflect radar in   
   a direction other than back to the radar   
   antenna.   
      
        This statement became paper # 11 in   
   US Patent 4,066,226 filed in May, 1977.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)