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 ships.

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."

Washington Report'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 shipped 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 Washington Report that his company, Signature Products of Huntsville, AL, has arranged shipment 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 exported 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 export 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 export of militarily sensitive technologies, but expresses frustration with the time-consuming bureaucratic process associated with obtaining an export license.

Keen says Signature Products is using legitimate means to export Signaflux to Israel. The inventor adds, however, that if he had wanted to bypass U. S. export regulations, he could have misrepresented the radar-absorbing characteristics of Signaflux on his export application.

"If I were a dishonest businessman," says Keen, "I could have told customs I was shipping 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 shipper misrepresents the characteristics of a technology in an export license, it is possible for an unapproved shipment 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 Export Control Act," Benjamin cautions.

He said maximum criminal penalties for illegally attempting to export military related materials can include a 10-year jail sentence, a $1 million fine, or both When the Washington Report 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 Washington Report'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 corporate 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 Washington, DC, writes about defense technology and foreign affairs.