Originally Posted By: Lieste
0.001m^2? for F117... 1/10th that of a 'typical bird'. Seems at odds with the actual observed shoot downs.

(*And* even with this revised value, I still get 34-40km detection range, for 300km at 6-3m^2 resp.)


The 0.001 square meter RCS value for the F-177 isn't probably that far as you might think.
I don't have concrete RCS values for the F-117 but I have read that the F-35 RCS is the same of a golf ball, so considering that the area of a golf ball is 9.3 square inches and that converted to square meters gives us a value of 0.006, which again isn't far off from the F-117 value of 0.001, specially considering that the F-35 is considered to be a little bit less stealthier than the F-117.

Besides as I previously said the RCS will in fact vary depending on the angle that the aircraft is facing the radar source. For example if a stealth aircraft such as the F-117 is heading towards the radar (frontal arc facing the radar) this same aircraft will be less detectable (or detectable at a shorter range) than if the aircraft would be flying in a perpendicular path relative to the radar.
Also, those RCS values that we have are average values or resuming it's the average of the frontal arc RCS, with side arc RCR, with rear arc RCS and so on. This means that the RCS from the frontal arc or any aircraft, specially stealth aircraft (since they are designed this way) is lower than the RCS values that we see in public sources (which again are average values).

Using the examples above, some of you came with the calculation that a SA-5 will detect a F-117 at 30km, others say 40km, others even say 100km but independently who's right, the value will be lower if the F-117 is flying towards the radar source (exposing its frontal arc).

Saying this, I would like to ask if SAM Simulator models diferent RCS for the same aircraft, depending on its angle towards the radar or not (RCS is the same for every angle)?