Military Technology
Israel Seeks U.S. Technology To Turn Decoy into "Stealth Missile"
By Tim Kennedy
A pending request for a military technology transfer of radar-evading
paint from a U.S. to an Israeli manufacturer would turn an Israeli
pilotless aircraft into a deadly missile that could evade "all radars
the U.S. has sold" to the Middle East, according to the U.S. inventor.
The quantity of the stealth aircraft coating, called Signaflux,
ordered by Israel also raises questions about Israeli intentions.
The coating has been ordered by Israel Military Industries for its
pilotless "Delilah," which is capable of delivering a 1,000-lb.
warhead to targets within 240 miles of the point of launch, according
to Aviation Week & Space Technology.
The original Delilah, first fielded in the late 1980s, was a cheap,
ground-launched decoy aircraft whose sole mission was to attract anti-
aircraft fire and, thus, enable aircraft or other missiles to fly to
their targets in relative safety.
Today's upgraded version of the Delilah has an offensive capability.
Resembling a U.S. Air Force AGM-86 Air-Launched "Cruise" Missile in
both configuration and capability, the ramjet-powered Delilah measures
nine feet long, travels at nearly the speed of sound and can be
launched from the ground, aircraft or ****ps.
The Israeli manufacturer of Delilah is hoping to give it the ability
to fly undetected to its targets by painting the unmanned aircraft
with Signaflux. This, said one Air Force colonel, "would make the
Delilah a sort of poor man's stealth missile."
Wa****ngton Re****t's Pentagon source, and David A. Fulghum, a military
technology correspondent at Aviation Week, also revealed that the
Israeli Delilah is a copy of the American-made Northrop MGM-74 Chukar
unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV).
The Chukar is an aerial target which the U.S. Navy has used since the
early 1960s to simulate subsonic threats. Northrop has ****pped over
1,000 Chukars to overseas clients.
Northrop spokesman Loye Miller acknowledges that Israel took delivery
of several of his company's Chukar UAVs in the late 1970s. Miller said
that Northrop does not officially consider the Delilah to be a re-
engineered version of the Chukar, and that what the Israelis do with
the Delilah "is of no concern to Northrop."
Signaflux inventor David Keen told the Wa****ngton Re****t that his
company, Signature Products of Huntsville, AL, has arranged ****pment
of the secret paint to Israel. The technology transfer still is
awaiting approval, however, from the Departments of State, Commerce
and Defense.
Keen says the optically transparent Signaflux is a blend of
polyaniline, a high molecular-weight polymer, and carbon-based
filaments called "cyanate whiskers." The cyanate whiskers are the "key
to getting good radar absorption. "
"Cyanate whiskers are comprised of microscopically thin strands of
carbon-60 fiber whose electrical conductivity has been modified by a
series of acid washes in a strong, electrically polarized field, says
Keen.
"When Signaflux is suspended in polyurethane or some other polymer, it
can be sprayed, applied or laminated onto an aircraft's surface-even
on a cockpit window, " says Keen. "In flight, the cyanate whiskers
break up incoming radar signals and absorb them."
"Put simply," said Keen, "when Signaflux is combined with metal, it
makes the metal appear to be a non-metal."
Keen says his coating can be mixed with most traditional and non-
traditional aircraft paints, including the DuPont-manufactured Viton
paint used on such supersonic American-made fighter planes as the F-
15 "Eagle" and the F-16 "Fighting Falcon. "
Keen speculates that approval of the Signaflux sale to IMI is being
held up because U.S. government officials are worried that "once the
secrets of the radar-evading paint are ex****ted to the Mideast, it
will nullify all radars the U.S - has sold to other countries in the
area."
The U.S. inventor says that IMI's order for Signaflux paint is
unusually large. Keen says his business arrangement with Israel
prevents him from revealing the details, but "they want far more paint
than they'll ever need for their Delilah missiles. "
Keen says, however, that the Israeli engineers who negotiated the
purchase "were very specific about the wavelength of the radio signals
the paint had to absorb, the kinds of mil spec [U.S. military
specification] coatings it had to be blended with, and so on ... It's
a whole lot of paint. I can tell you that much."
Keen says that during business meetings with IMI representatives, he
was told that the stealth version of Delilah was to be targeted
against Tripoli, Libya.
"They also said Delilah had to be able to circle over the Tripoli area
for at least one hour," Keen adds.
Keen says he learned of Israeli intentions for the stealth UAV during
a meeting at IMI's ultra-secure offices in Bethesda ' MD. He says his
main point of contact at IMI is Yoval Sharony, the company's director
of marketing.
Keen describes himself as an honest American businessman who seeks to
ex****t a product that could enhance the military capability of a
country he considers a strong U.S. ally. He says he understands the
need for the U.S. government to impose controls on the ex****t of
militarily sensitive technologies, but expresses frustration with the
time-consuming bureaucratic process associated with obtaining an
ex****t license.
Keen says Signature Products is using legitimate means to ex****t
Signaflux to Israel. The inventor adds, however, that if he had wanted
to bypass U. S. ex****t regulations, he could have misrepresented the
radar-absorbing characteristics of Signaflux on his ex****t
application.
"If I were a dishonest businessman," says Keen, "I could have told
customs I was ****pping an 'erosion deterring coating,' and the
Israelis could have had their Signaflux a long time ago."
Dennis Benjamin, manager of the Outbound Enforcement Program at the
U.S. Customs Service, acknowledges that if a ****pper misrepresents the
characteristics of a technology in an ex****t license, it is possible
for an unapproved ****pment of radar-absorbing paint to slip past his
inspection and control officers.
"But just because somebody thinks up a cute name for something on the
State Department's Munitions Control List doesn't mean they won't go
to jail for violating the Arms Ex****t Control Act," Benjamin
cautions.
He said maximum criminal penalties for illegally attempting to ex****t
military related materials can include a 10-year jail sentence, a $1
million fine, or both When the Wa****ngton Re****t first contacted Yoval
Sharony at IMI's Bethesda office to confirm the facts in this story,
Sharony insisted, "The story in Aviation Week is totally false. It's
about some other UAV, not ours."
During this first telephone interview Sharony also said that his
activities for IMI are limited to "marketing at trade shows like AUSA
[an annual exhibition of military equipment sponsored by the
Association of the United States Army], and trying to interest the
[U.S.] Navy and AirForce in buying the Delilah. " Sharony said he does
"not do acquisition business for the company."
During the Wa****ngton Re****t's firstconversation with Sharony, the IMI
official denied ever having met David Keen, and said that Keen has
never visited IMI's offices in suburban Maryland.
In a second interview, Sharony acknowledged that IMI had some dealing
with Keen, but said "I was possibly out of the country" when Keen met
with IMI officials in Bethesda. During this second telephone
conversation, Sharony dismissed as ridiculous" Keen's claim that he
had been told by IMI officials that Delilah would be targeted against
Libya.
During a third conversation, Sharony admitted he had been introduced
to Keen, but said he had "only one" encounter with Keen while visiting
the cor****ate headquarters of Signature Products in Huntsville.
Contradicting his claim that he served "only as IMI's marketing
director," Sharony said the reason for his meeting with Keen in
Alabama was to see if Signaflux was something we'd be interested in.
"
Tim Kennedy, an analyst based in Wa****ngton, DC, writes about defense
technology and foreign affairs.
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