Soft covers reduced reflections inside the cockpit
A stealth aircraft’s outer shape and skin were not the whole radar problem. Some radar energy could pass through the canopy and reach the cockpit, where hard, irregularly arranged equipment might bounce it back out. From the radar’s point of view, those returns could make the aircraft easier to detect.
The beanbags offered a practical way to treat that clutter. Filled with radar-absorbing material, they could be draped over or tucked around cockpit gear, covering reflective surfaces without requiring each item to be reshaped or permanently altered. Their soft, flexible form was useful precisely because cockpit equipment does not present one neat, flat surface.
Absorbing energy rather than hiding everything
Radar-absorbing material works by taking in some of the incoming electromagnetic energy and dissipating it, rather than sending as much of it back toward the radar. It does not make a cockpit invisible, and it cannot eliminate every reflection. It reduces one set of returns that designers must manage alongside the aircraft’s shape, surface treatments, and canopy.
That makes the beanbags a revealing detail of stealth engineering: reducing a radar signature can depend on treating small, awkward interior surfaces as well as the aircraft’s dramatic exterior. A cover that looked like ordinary soft furnishing could help keep cockpit hardware from becoming an unexpected reflector.
