>No, you won't. First off, the primary source of heat in an aircraft is the aircraft's own power plant, not solar heating. Second, a mirror finish would be a be

>No, you won't. First off, the primary source of heat in an aircraft is the aircraft's own power plant, not solar heating. Second, a mirror finish would be a beautiful target for radar. It would be a blinding "KILL ME!" sign to even the most primitive systems. For that matter, so would a subsonic aircraft. Third, like I said, not modern air force is ignoring IRST. I just read few lengthy papers on that. Supersonic cruise causes so much skin friction that you can't gain in speed what you lose in detection distance. Future fighters are likely to be subsonic for this reason. The hot jet plume is surprisingly invisible, but hot engine parts do show from behind. Current detection relies mostly on skin friction and hot engine parts, but if you go even slower both drop to x^3. Then you need to worry about sun heating, etc, which some systems are already capable of detecting to pretty whopping ranges. Mirror finish with faceted plates is practically Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk, withouth its RAM paint. That paint gives only part of it's stealth, it's maintenance heavy and typically optimized for relatively narrow band. So if that goes out of the window, you get bigger RF signature but smaller IR signature. Which sounds pretty good idea.