Everyone’s talking about how the F-35 Lightning II has a RCS the size of a Golfball but I don’t know what it means or how significant it is.
In: 5
Hi I am a radar technician.
ELI5: If a golf ball were at the same position and traveling at the same speed and direction as an F-35 then they would be essentially identical targets to a radar.
This is important because different radars have different wavelengths, moving target filters, noise floors, etc. Your average ATC radar would probably never see a golf ball sized object as a valid target no matter how fast it was going. That isnt their purpose, they want to see a cessna or a 737, not birds and golf balls. Military radars are more specialized and have shorter wavelengths longer dwell times and higher power. This means that they can see returns from smaller objects and at greater distances.
That is sort of the idea of stealth technology, as you improve your own stealth tech you have to improve your stealth detection because if you can’t see your own stealth tech and an adversary is able to make a comparable stealth aircraft then they can strike you without your air defense shooting them down. So as we build more stealthy aircraft we are also working on better ways to detect them.
Somewhat more in depth answer to your question: A radar cross section is the amount of reflective surface on an object that will direct energy back to the radar. Obviously an F-35 has more than a golf ball worth of surface area. At an ideal angle of attack, for the F-35, to a known radar source apparently only a golf ball’s worth of surface area that isn’t radar absorbing material will be reflecting RF energy back to the radar. If your radar is designed to see a target that small it doesn’t matter, the F-35 will still be detected, however most radars would see nothing or ignore the target because it is trying to filter out false targets and thinks somthing that small isn’t an actual target.
Latest Answers