Re:Unmasking Northrop Grumman's XRQ-72A
by 01100011 on Wednesday April 01, 2020 @12:36AM
(#22745729)
I wonder about the radar profile of those ducted fans. Why stick them on a stealthy airframe? Curious - what is the radar reflection of plastic? Is it feasible to use modern plastics along with a hydraulic drive system? Would avoiding metal(i.e. copper coils in electric motors, metal fan blades, etc) keep the external fans from producing a radar reflection?
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Fans are behind the body when ground radars are located in the front and below.
You can tell from the wiglets and fans that this drone is not intended to be as stealthy as B-2 or drones without those features. For this type use it's probably enough to have optical stealth. In other words, avoid being detected by monostatic radars in specular reflection wavelengths. If the corners, surfaces and edges are not perpendicular to the incoming signal they don't send signal back to the radar.
I doubt that they even tried to give this a particularly low radar cross section, it appears to be a project about being stealthy from human ears. There is no mention of radar at all in the article, by the way.
Re:Unmasking Northrop Grumman's XRQ-72A
by bencollier49 on Wednesday April 01, 2020 @06:44AM
(#22747376)
I came here to say the same thing. Why would you bother going to the trouble of designing a stealthy aircraft if you're going to plop a load of decidedly unstealthy motors on the top of it. Really bizarre decision.
What makes you think they’re unstealthy? I doubt there’s even a tiny bit of metal in them. If they’re made out of Teflon, PVC, and exotic composites, they’ll have barely any radar return.
They’re just propulsors. The motor is inside the airframe.
Re:Unmasking Northrop Grumman's XRQ-72A
by SomewhatLikely on Wednesday April 01, 2020 @12:51AM
(#22745814)
If it's flying extremely high wouldn't they be hidden behind the body?