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Achieving stealth means minimizing all the ways that an enemy
can detect a plane, whether by sight, noise, heat, or radar
waves. Avoiding radar detection in particular demands a great
deal of sophisticated engineering and manufacturing savvy, and
the results sometimes seem just short of miraculous: In the
late 1980s in an experimental stealth project, a plane sitting
on the tarmac prior to take-off was completely invisible to
personnel looking through a radarscope. The only reason they
detected the plane was because a bird had landed on top and
appeared to be floating in midair. In this interactive, take a
closer look at Boeing's ultra-stealthy Bird of Prey fighter
plane and learn some of the ways that aircraft designers can
achieve stealth. To launch the
interactive, click on
the image at left.
This interactive originally appeared on NOVA's
Battle of the X-Planes Web
site.
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