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Comment by danepowell | Hacker News Reader

Does anyone know how stealth fighter aircraft are able to incorporate radar hardware that doesn't act like a giant retro reflector? Putting a radar array on the front of a stealth fighter just seems like painting a giant bullseye on it, even if it's not emitting.

I wonder if something like this could already be in use, since it becomes invisible to radar as soon as the plasma generator is turned off?

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https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/25368/how-are-a...

I've never worked on stealth aircraft, but energy has to travel from the transmitter, through the aircraft's radar cover, off the array itself, then get back through the cover and back to the receiver.

There are probably ways to filter for specific RF frequencies on the cover so only those in specific bands can get through, then the array itself might absorb some portion of the energy that gets through. The array also might be at an angle so waves are reflected in a different direction, or there might be radar absorbing material placed in specific spots that helps minimize reflections. I think the arrangement of elements in the phased array itself could also lead to reduced RCS at certain angles. Again these are just educated guesses, I would imagine the details are classified.

I'm not exactly versed in the subject, but going off of a recent class on wireless transmissions, perhaps they instead use lots of small transmitters/receivers along the hull and rely on post processing to piece that together.

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