Ight I have essentially no knowledge in planes. What makes a big triangle more stealthy than say a Pringles can with wings?
In: Technology
Imagine you are in a completely dark room. You know there’s a wasp in there with you somewhere, but you don’t know where. You have a flashlight, and swing it around the room, looking for the wasp. You know you’ve found it when you see a bright yellow dot when the light from your flashlight reflects back off the wasp and into your eyes.
Radar is the same. The light they use is radio waves (fun fact: the microwave oven was developed based on the same technology that makes radar work), and the wasp is an airplane.
Stealth planes are shaped in such a way that the Radar is reflected away, instead of back at the tower- imagine if the wasp in our scenario above had mirrors all over that reflected all the light that hit it away from your eyes.
The materials the planes are made of also absorb radar waves- imagine the wasp were also painted flat black.
So in summary- radar is how we “see” airplanes from many miles away. The stealth plane absorbs much of the radar that hits it and reflects that which isn’t absorbed away, so the radar can’t “see” the plane.
Latest Answers