Special Forces Soldiers Could Be Zooming Into Combat Wearing Gryphon Stealth Wingsuits

Seriously, how awesome does that look. Imagine Special Forces soldiers zooming through the skies at 60 mph, covering distances of 30 miles or more without being picked up by radar. It could actually happen.

A group of German companies with expertise in parachute systems have joined forces to create the Gryphon Next Generation Parachute System. Designed for high altitude jumps, the Gryphon has a 6-foot wingspan and a glide ratio of 5:1, meaning that a solider can glide up to 30 miles in the air—60 if they go ahead with plans to add a small engine like the one used by Yves Rossy to cross the English Channel.

"All equipment is hidden in a lifting body optimized for stealth, the radar-signature is extremely low," says the Gryphon data sheet (PDF). "Detection of incoming Gryphon soldiers by airborne or ground radar will be extremely difficult."

Gryphon would also include a guidance system and heads up display navigation, which is all well and good, but it seems that the problem of landing still has to be worked out. Skydivers and daredevils using similar technology must deploy a traditional parachute in order to return to Earth in one piece. In order to get the most out of the stealth capability, it would be necessary to develop a way for soldiers to return safely to the ground using the wings alone. So far, there hasn't been any details on who might be interested in funding such a project, but this seems like too good of an idea to ignore.

Misty Stealth Satellite Hides Perfectly While Watching You

Misty. That's the codename for one of the most advanced spy satellites up there. Launched in a 1990 military mission of space shuttle Atlantis, Misty is hidden by something really weird: A balloon.

As you can see in the image, Misty uses a conical reflective balloon. Little is known about how it works but in theory this design—which is patented by Teledyne Industries, who did the design for the US government—can both deflect ground lasers, radar waves, and hide it from the plain eye.

Swedish Visby-Class Corvette Is First Operational Stealth Ship in the World

The future is here: This water-based Imperial Star Destroyer is really the spectacular Swedish Visby-Class corvette, the first operational stealth ship in the world, powered with silent waterjets and made with non-magnetic composite materials.

According to the experts, the corvettes are "electronically undetectable at more than eight miles in rough seas and at more than 13.5 miles in calm seas". Their creation was an answer to the incursion of foreign submarines in Swedish waters in the mid-eighties.

The corvettes are designed to travel at more than 35 knots in between the many beautiful islands that populate Sweden's shallow coast, thanks to waterjets-made by Rolls-Royce subsidiary Kamewa-that reduce their draft. Their mission will be to quickly patrol their territorial waters while hunting for enemy submarines and other ships.

While I prefer to travel the Swedish coast on a sailing ship, I wouldn't mind getting a quick surf on these things when they enter in service at the end of this year (as they are probably staffed with non-stealth blonde valkyries).