Curious then that PTD existed in aircraft research for the A-12 and U-2, both aircraft that predate Pyotr’s works by years, heck, the U-2 was testing RAM systems as early as 1958, a full 4 years before Pyotr even first published his work.
That does not line up with the statements of Denys Overholser who has been quoted at length by modern authors as only being able to make the F-117 due to Pyotr’s work, which is not only false but a twisting of his own words.
To quote Denys himself -
“Ufimtsev has shown us how to create computer software to accurately calculate the radar cross section of a given configuration, as long as it’s in two dimensions,”
“We can break down an airplane into thousands of flat triangular shapes, add up their individual radar signatures, and get a precise total of the radar cross section.”
Pyotr’s influence on Denys’s work was solely the ability to create a digital means to calculate RCS per his own memoirs, however, modern authors have been twisting and spreading the belief that said above statements from Denys mean all of the F-117’s abilities hail from Pyotr’s works, which is factually false.
The primary driving source of design and stealth technology, per Denys, came from the D-21 project, the parasite drone for the M-21, from which the skunk works staff had already been using RAM and the concepts of PTD on in normal service, unlike the A-12 or subsequent SR-71.
In practice, the D-21 program was the true progenitor of modern stealth aircraft as it was the first to employ both RAM and PTD, and the man that made that come to be was Kelly Johnson, whom had never interacted with the works of Pyotr Ufimtsev.
In the end, Pyotr Ufimtsev created the baseline for computerized RCS calculations, not stealth, if you want a person who invented modern stealth, its either Kelly Johnson or Denys Overholser, or if you want to go wayyyy far back to even the concept of radar returns and how they interact with angles, H.M. MacDonald.
