DESCRIPTION

A team of NATO experts is developing new technology that will
make military aircraft less detectable. Most forms of aircraft need
actuators (vertical and horizontal flaps) to enable flight and control.
The technology being developed leaves these flaps redundant in
certain phases of flight, replacing them with an active flow control
system using air to help manoeuvre the aircraft.

The research into innovative control effectors, or ICE, is being
carried out by a NATO task group under NATO’s Science and
Technology Organization, which includes representatives from the
US Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the US Air Force Academy
in Colorado, the Illinois Institute of Technology and Lockheed
Martin.

The first model of the ICE aircraft was made in 2015, measuring just
28 centimetres in wingspan. It has since undergone numerous
rounds of testing in a wind tunnel at the US Air Force Academy in
Colorado.