i remember reading in tom clancy’s “the bear and the dragon” about USAF recon drones that had light panels on the underside of make them impossible to spot from below in the daylight. the effect seemed to be called something like the “yehoudin” effect. i cant remember if the spelling is right. i tried a google search on it but i didnt spell the name properly so i wound up with nothing. can anyone tell me more about this technology ? is it real in the first place ?
Speaking as someone who worked on the Ryan BQM-34 Firebee series of recce drones in Viet Nam, this sounds like some of Clancy’s imagination. Mr Clancy does a lot of research for his novels and then takes the facts that he has amassed, distorts them just enough to appeal to the average “adventure reader” and puts it out to the public as fully factual. edit added: Mr Clancy’s minute details on everything from ships to aircraft to ICBMs to hand held weapons is usually hyper accurate, but he does, at times, digress from this level of accuracy.[2c]
The drone program operated under the code names, Bumble Bug, Buffalo Hunter and a couple of others that my fading memory has deleted. Most of them were painted overall gloss light gray and programmed to fly at 1,500 feet. Doing 400 knots at 1,500 feet gets a plane past any given point very quickly, with very little time for the AAA guys on the ground to react. Magic paint jobs and/or deceptive light shows were not part of our act. [alien]
You were very close. Try Googling something like: yehudi lighting effect 1943
I have to disagree with yardbirds above statement. Having read all Clancy’s novels regaurding to Jack Ryan and while the stories involved are all fictious, his writings concerned with Military Technology and Hardware are freekishly accurate. As for the lighting of drones, while I cant comment on drones I can comment from first hand knowledge using of using lighting for camoflauge In the late 80’s I personally witnessed the British Army using an array of high power lights to conceal a convoy of vehicles as they moved across a ridgeline during broad daylight and suprisingly it worked. The dark camo that hid the vehicles so well in the woodland surroundings stood out like a sore thumb on the ridge line. Add panels of intense light to the side and they fade away into the horizon. Strange as this violates two priniples I was taught from the start of my military career - Never sillouette yourself on a ridge line and obey light disipline. Im 99.9% sure this is something I’ll never try during my career nor thought to have tried had I not seen it done. I guess the concept is sound though and I can say I’ve seen it work. If I come across anything like this being done on drones I’ll post the sources here
i tried that, tailspinturtle and i got alot of junk about the composer
Reggie - I got more useful stuff upfront the first time I tried it but just now I got the same result that you did. This is a specific web site on the effect and it mentions the TBM trial in 1943 (you have to read down a bit):
http://www.mnq-nmq.org/english/vivez/impacts/camoufla.htm
There’s more but you have to refine the search. In the process, you’ll see stuff on the Philadephia Experiment that is a X-Files type silliness that has a very loose connection to the principle and one of the evaluations.
hmm, i also have been doing more googling, all i get is stuff on the naval trials, was it ever done on aircraft ?
Hmmm Mr. Clancy is hyper accurate?
Could be about stuff we have used, emphasis on USED.
But a few of his novels, emphasis on NOVELS do not get the basics right.
There hasn’t been a seaman first class in the US Navy for looong time, yet there they are in the novels. Senior Chief or Master Chiefs that deign to become “maverick” officers? Why would they give up all the authority they have to do that? Or the cut in pay! (“Mustang” is the term for a former enlisted who goes the OCS route).
Using night vision goggles in thunder storm is useless and may hurt your eyes, badly. The list is very long. . .
Whether Mr. Clancy knows of these and has done the “McGyver Effect” for the sake of getting his books to print or not will be debated for quite some time.
Don
I don’t know much about alot of the stuff being said in this topic…but one thing I do know is that I agree with the above statement about using night vision in a thunderstorm. I used night vision on a night flight that had a full moon. For those that don’t know…try looking at the sun at high noon…it is basically the same scenery.
Later on…