Ight I have essentially no knowledge in planes. What makes a big triangle more stealthy than say a Pringles can with wings?
In: Technology
So you have a laser pointer in your hand. Imagine the bomber is as reflective as a mirror.
The laser pointer in your hand is the radar. You can only “see” the plane when the laser reflects back at you and your eyes.
That is almost quite literally how radar works. The laser pointer is just a shorter wavelength on the electromagnetic spectrum that we call “visible light.”
Now the name of the game for stealth is to design the shape of the bomber in such a way that as few angles as possible will ever reflect anything back the way it came from.
In theory a spherical object is the best shape to reflect minimally in all directions. However if you know the direction you want to avoid reflections, you’d end up making something that looks like the flying wing. From the front sides and back it’s as flat as can be.
It needs to carry lots of fuel and payloads while having the smallest “radar cross section” when viewed from a distance. That’s why you end up with the flying flat triangle (the entire plane is a wing so you don’t need a bulky fuselage that reflects radar).
Latest Answers