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t1_jabeprl wrote

Reply to comment by in ELI5: What is Radar Cross Section in stealth fighters? by

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.

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t1_jabh9n8 wrote

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.

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t1_jabhxca wrote

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.

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