The Fighter with the Least Reflectivity

Overview

Objectives/Goals It is believed that fighter shape reduces its appearence to radar. An F-22 Raptor will be the least detectable because of all of it's sharp edges. Methods/Materials # 32#x25#x22# cardboard box # 7# to 6# diameter reducer # 6# x 6# diameter connector # 6# to 4# diameter reducer # 6# x 4# diameter connecter # 4# to 3# diameter reducer # 400,000 candlepower spotlight # 12 V Solar Panel 18# x 20# # Volt meter # 1/72 scale fighter replicas of: o F-22 Raptor o F-14 Tomcat o F-15 Eagle # Black and White Poster boards. Large testbox is used to test aircraft at 3 different views and gather results. A specially situated solar panel recieves incoming light and detects results in volts. Results F-22 wasn't any less detectable than the other fighters. Fighters with camo coating was 61% to 73% less detectable than the fighters with white coating. The 3-D shape was found on average to deflect about half of the light that hits it. The F-14 with retracted wings was the least detectable fighter. Conclusions/Discussion The Hypothesis stating that the F-22 would be the least detectable because of its shape was not supported by the data. F-14 Tomcat proved most efficient at scattering light, most likely because of its rough and uneven surfaces. The data had shown that the front views had been the least detectable because more of the light passes by the plane at this view. Standard deviation was consistent usually sticking at around 3%. The outliers never ranged over 12% deviation.

Competition history

• CSEF 2010 Applied Mechanics & Structures · Entry S0207

Resources

• CSEF project summary ↗

Related projects

Closest projects by meaning, across every fair and year in the corpus.

Browse more like this

• All Engineering projects
• CSEF Engineering projects
• Every CSEF 2010 project