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>> Both the missile and the debris produce very large radar signatures which would be easily visible to both military vessels and air traffic authorities. I do

>> Both the missile and the debris produce very large radar signatures which would be easily visible to both military vessels and air traffic authorities. I don't know enough about weapon systems and radar but I really want to call bullshit. This whole article reeks of spam. AFAIK large radar cross section require large metal objects and a plane blowing up at several hundred miles per hour is going to disperse into many tiny pieces, everywhere. Any catastrophic event could do it. The only other stuff I know about debris and radar has to do with tornados (seen on giant weather radar arrays) and the hunt for space debris (and that's not going too well).

dalke 13y ago
There's no need for a large metal object to get a good echo. The presence of many small metal objects - ie, chaff - can cause lots of radar echos. Look sometime at a tug or other small ship. They'll have a small corner-cube radar reflector to enhance their radar cross section. These only need to be about 30 cm across to give a strong response signal.
kjs3 13y ago
Radar cross section is a function of the signal backscatter density in the direction of the radar receiver. That is, it's all about how much signal is bounced back. Small things that bounce a lot of the signal back (see: radar reflector) have very large cross sections. Similarly, if an object is designed to absorb or reflect in a direction away from the receiver can have a small cross section. The F-117 is "radar stealthy" because all of those funky, flat facets all over it reflect small parts of the radar signal in odd directions so that very little is reflected directly back in the direction of the emitter (which is one reason why they aren't in service any more...air defense folks figured out that multiple receivers spaced out plus a little signal processing could tell you where an F-117 is).

dalke 13y ago

There's no need for a large metal object to get a good echo. The presence of many small metal objects - ie, chaff - can cause lots of radar echos. Look sometime at a tug or other small ship. They'll have a small corner-cube radar reflector to enhance their radar cross section. These only need to be about 30 cm across to give a strong response signal.

kjs3 13y ago

Radar cross section is a function of the signal backscatter density in the direction of the radar receiver. That is, it's all about how much signal is bounced back. Small things that bounce a lot of the signal back (see: radar reflector) have very large cross sections. Similarly, if an object is designed to absorb or reflect in a direction away from the receiver can have a small cross section. The F-117 is "radar stealthy" because all of those funky, flat facets all over it reflect small parts of the radar signal in odd directions so that very little is reflected directly back in the direction of the emitter (which is one reason why they aren't in service any more...air defense folks figured out that multiple receivers spaced out plus a little signal processing could tell you where an F-117 is).