(Wayne Allen) wrote in message ...
Radar scattering paint on the U2? I hope they got their money back
because it sure didn't work.


"Hobo" wrote in message
...
Robert Aren't recently made this claim:

"Laugh this off Tex. The US captured the DFS 228 rocket recon sailplane
in 1945 and took it back home. The aircraft was designed to fly at
(wait for this)... 80,000 ft and carry two Zeiss cameras (IR types
too).
So you think the U-2 came from US sources... uh, no. The funny thing
is the DFS even had a pressurized escape pod, something the U-2
to give maximum range.

The US Ironball paint was made to counter radars of that time period,
not the radars of 1944/45. The German paint was loaded with carbon and
equally applied to all vunerable areas of the aircraft. Ironball was
just what the description means- embedded little iron bbs in a carbon
based paint mixture. You're absolutely right, Ironball was applied
AFTER Powers was shot down and it WASN'T very effective against
post-WW2 radar.
The German type applied to the Go-229 was, however, highly effective
and even more so since the Go-229 was constructed of wood too with the
advantage of a flying wing configuration the U-2 didn't have.
The DFS 228 (had it flown) would not have needed any radar-absorbing
paint since it would be too high for anything in WW2 to shoot it down
and it was to be powered by a rocket motor.
What is so hard to understand about all this? The US got the DFS 228
and copied the idea for a high-flying sailplane. After Powers was shot
down they tried the German idea for the paint, but it failed in their
case due to the difference in technology of the time period.

Rob