Coming sooner than one thinks: invisible aircraft

Electroluminescence is key to invisibility
By Rob Coppinger

Flight has obtained these images of a 2m (6.55ft)-wingspan unmanned air vehicle fitted with an electroluminescent surface flying at an altitude of 1,000ft (305m). The left picture is with the electroluminesence system off, the right was taken with it on. “The current state of progress in the lab is far beyond this and involves other spectra. Still, the visual signature suppression is relatively spectacular…to the uninitiated,” says the University of Kansas aerospace engineering department’s associate professor Ron Barrett. Barrett collaborated with Joris Melkert of Delft University of Technology on the early work.