Stealth : the secret contest to invent invisible aircraft To American planners and strategists at the outset of the Cold War the ultimate way to gain ascendance over the USSR was only a question. What if the United States could defend its airspace while at the same time send a plane through Soviet skies undetected A craft with such capacity would have to be essentially invisible to radar an apparently miraculous feat of physics and engineering. In Stealth Peter Westwick unveils the process by which the impossible was achieved. Stealth is a tale of two aerospace companies Lockheed and Northrop and their fierce competition with each other and with themselves to obtain what was estimated one of the largest procurement contracts in history. Westwicks book fully explores the individual and collective ingenuity and determination required to make these planes and in the process provides a fresh view of the period leading up to the end of the Soviet Union. Taking into account the role of technology as well as the art and science of physics and engineering Westwick offers an engaging narrative one that immerses readers in the race to produce a weapon that some thought might save the world and which certainly changed it.