Stealth aircraft Earlier stealth aircraft (such as the F-117 and B-2) lack afterburners, because the hot exhaust would increase their infrared footprint, and flying faster than the speed of sound would produce an obvious sonic boom, as well as surface heating of the aircraft skin which also increases the infrared footprint. As a result, their performance in air combat maneuvering required in a dogfight would never match that of a dedicated fighter aircraft. This was unimportant in the case of these two aircraft since both were designed to be bombers. More recent design techniques allow for stealthy designs such as the F-22
Faster-than-light oscillator ticking too fast. In special relativity, it is impossible to accelerate an object the speed of light, or for a massive object to move the speed of light. However, it might be possible for an object to exist which moves faster than light. The hypothetical elementary particles with this property are called tachyonic particles. Attempts to quantize them failed to produce faster-than-light particles, and instead illustrated that their presence leads to an instability. Various theorists have suggested that the neutrino might have a tachyonic nature, while others have disputed the possibility. Mechanical equations to describe hypothetical exotic matter which