eli5: how is it possible to fly below radar (per movies)?
In: 3
Few ways.
Radar works by sending our electromagnetic waves, the waves bounce off the plane(or any object, which is important here) and are then received by an antenna that can use some math and electronics to figure out what’s out there.
Common analogy is like an invisible flashlight and only being able to see the light shines back with special lenses.
If the radar is from an earlier model and on a plane, it has a hard time to determine whether or not the object bellow it is the ground, or a plane.
If radar plane is above the target plane, all it would see is the ground since everything bounces off the ground.
This has been pretty much eliminated with modern radar with look down/ shoot down capabilities.
From ground based radar, there can be things in the way. [ Houses, the curve of the earth, mountains, trees, etc. ](https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-73c7e756a4ec9dcf64eb4384be7e5cc1)
these can all interfere with the radar’s ability to track a plane.
There’s also other minutiae about different search patterns and avoiding search radar vs tracking or guidance radar but that’s getting into the weeds a bit.
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