its-a-throw-away_ t1_jabccwg wrote on February 28, 2023 at 4:56 AM

Radio waves bounce off stuff. Radars send out radio waves, then measure how much bounces back, and from where. Stealth lets an airplane redirect or absorb most of these radio waves so what bounces back resembles something more like a goose than a fighter jet.

BurnOutBrighter6 t1_jabeprl wrote on February 28, 2023 at 5:19 AM

You haven't answered what radar cross section is though. It's the apparent size something appears to be based on how much radar signal it does bounce back.

So a stealth bomber with a radar cross section of 10 square feet bounces back as much radar signal as a non-stealth blunt object with a surface size of 10 square feet facing the radar station. So it appears as a tiny object on the radar, if it appears at all, despite actually being big.

krisalyssa t1_jabh9n8 wrote on February 28, 2023 at 5:46 AM

I don’t know that I’d call 10 square feet “tiny”, but it is a lot smaller than the spatial cross section of a stealth fighter along any axis.

BurnOutBrighter6 t1_jabhxca wrote on February 28, 2023 at 5:53 AM

Also my "10 square feet" number was made up, it's just an example of what a "radar cross section" of [x] square feet means. Modern stealth fighters could well have radar cross sections the size of a pidgeon, sub 1 square foot, I'm not sure what "tiny" is these days.