Phaeton Group Boards the Navy's Radar-Invisble Stealth Vessel
SAN DIEGO, Sept. 2003--The U.S. Naval Sea Systems Command in Washington, D.C., afforded a Phaeton team special access to the Sea Shadow, a sea-going counterpart to the F-117A Stealth Fighter. Both vehicles were conceived by the famous Skunk Works at Lockheed. Their common stealth surface geometry design principles make both look very similar, with triangular chines and flat surfaces. The F-117A has been a dramatic success story in the Air Force, but Sea Shadow remains a unique prototype with only indirect descendants in the Navy. Phaeton photographer Alex Ivanov took part in the mission and produced a complete set of images documenting the Sea Shadow inside and out, including its extraordinary gigantic floating hangar. The Navy has kindly given us clearance to publish the accompanying photographs.
A Floating Hangar
The Sea Shadow was constructed in secret in a floating hangar, which is still used today as the vessel's docking bay. The hangar is actually the Hughes Mining Barge, or HMB-1, which was built in the early 1970s by Howard Hughes for a CIA project to recover a sunken Soviet nuclear submarine ("Project Jennifer"). On completion of that project, the enormous purpose-built barge lay dormant for years, until Lockheed engineers took advantage of its unique characteristics to conceal the construction of the Sea Shadow in the 1980s. The HMB-1 can be towed into position, hiding the Sea Shadow until it is isolated or after dark when it can be deployed without observation.
Bond--But For Real
The Phaeton team was nearly as impressed by the HMB-1 as by the Sea Shadow itself. The barge is gigantic, resembling a building more than a vessel, which makes it all the more remarkable that the HMB-1 is actually a submarine in and of itself. Submersible to several hundred feet, the HMB-1 rivals in capability and magnitude the submersible operations platform "Atlantis" used by shipping magnate Carl Stromberg in the 1977 James Bond movie The Spy Who Loved Me. When one of the team observed this correspondence to the Chief Engineer of the Sea Shadow, the engineer only smiled and pointed up to the helicopter pad atop the HMB-1. "We've got the helipad, too," he said. "But this is all for real." We boarded the HMB-1 by a very long set of stairs stretching up one side of the barge, leading to an access platform near the top.
Designed Like An Aircraft
The first impression that the Sea Shadow made was of its large size. The smooth skin of the unorthodox craft gives the eye very little in the way of scale cues, and its simple lines can reduce its apparent size. The Navy representative pointed out the hull's lack of special paints or delicate surface treatments. "I get 100% radar invisibility with geometry alone," he said. The F-117A stealth fighter had to make a number of compromises in its geometry in order that the plane be able to fly. In contrast, nearly any shape can float on catamarans, so the Sea Shadow can take exactly the shape it needs to for maximum radar evasion. Catamaran design minimizes wake to reduce visual footprint, and dispersal of exhaust gases reduces infrared signature. Overall the Sea Shadow has very effectively lived up to Lockheed's promises as an experimental concept-proving prototype.
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Inside the ship, it struck us that with its emphasis on minimum personnel and maximum automation support, the Sea Shadow clearly had conceptual roots in aircraft design. Star Trek's Lieutenant Uhura would feel comfortable at the engineer's station, which looks suspiciously like the consoles of Captain Kirk's U.S.S. Enterprise. (When dealing with a vessel as exotic as the Sea Shadow, science fiction references are somewhat hard to avoid.) The small command and control area, at any rate, felt to us much more like a cockpit than a bridge.
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Lockheed engineers confirmed that they had experimented with an aircraft-style approach to the design of Sea Shadow in these respects, a strong contrast to the Naval traditions of much larger crews and expansive bridge decks. Lockheed's concept was to reduce personnel expenses with this approach.
Abstract Experiment or Lost Opportunity?
The stealth concept developed by Lockheed was adopted with enthusiasm by the Air Force, and is flying today in the forms of the F-117A Nighthawk fighter and the B-2 Spirit bomber. Yet for all its remarkable success at its design intent, the Sea Shadow has not led to the adoption of similar or closely related vessels by the Navy. Critics have complained that this reflects excessive Navy traditionalism--a failure to take advantage of a surprise technology development. This critical position was argued vehemently in the 1996 book Skunk Works by Ben R. Rich, a former director (1975-1990) of the famed Lockheed design division. The Navy has countered that it simply does not have a requirement for a ship like Sea Shadow, and that "we don't build ships that way"--that is, the Navy does not invent ship requirements based on the development of new technology. Naval traditions have evolved over centuries, and while they are indeed slow to change, the wisdom of many of these traditions has been amply proven in the field. Whether or not the lack of Sea Shadow progeny reflects negatively on Navy judgment is a very difficult matter to evaluate without an in-depth knowledge of the situation.
Phaeton's own ex-Navy engineer Steve Whitcomb observed, for example, that the Sea Shadow's extremely small crew (8-10 typical) might present serious problems in combat situations at sea, where the high personnel loads of Navy ships are drawn upon heavily in damage control and combat operations. But again, the Sea Shadow represents a design concept experiment, not a proposal for a combat vessel. It was meant to prove out its design claims, and it has done that handsomely, presently serving again, as it has been reactivated after several years in mothballs for ongoing periods of research at sea.
An informed and objective opinion on whether or not the Sea Shadow represents a lost opportunity would require more research and in-depth study than Phaeton's current mission allows. For now, we can certainly say that we are impressed with the obvious success that the design represents in achieving negative radar observability at sea. It is another testament to the originality and engineering brilliance of the Lockheed Skunk Works. What will come of the Sea Shadow concept, directly or indirectly? The high standard of vision and capabiltiy embodied in a project such as this represents a worthy challenge to present and future engineers. They have a tough act to follow. We hope that whatever comes next will maintain the U.S. military's reputation for technological innovation and solid engineering.
