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Make Skycar invisible to ATC?  added 2/15/01

I foresee a possible problem in the future with having so many Skycars that the Air Traffic Controllers would be overwhelmed.  It would be useful if the Skycar could reduce it's radar cross section so much as to make the Skycars invisible to the ATC controllers.  The following page from a book on Radar indicates that serrated conductive foils added on top of conducting foam to flight surfaces will reduce the Radar cross section (reflectivity).  Corner reflectors can be mounted on the Skycars at the time of manufacturer to keep them visible until the time comes that
1) the ATC is overwhelmed AND
2) we have proven that the Skycars have 100% safe flights without any ATC interaction. 
     Then the corner reflectors could be removed.  Henry Lahore

Control of a target's constitutive parameters is the primary means of reducing RCS. Additional reduction in the low RCS levels due to multiple reflections and diffraction may be possible by the geometric control of discontinuities. For example, scattering from a knife edge can increase the RCS in the plane transverse to the edge. A serrated edge causes diffractions to be dispersed in all directions, thereby reducing the RCS in the transverse plane, as depicted in Fig. 7.14.

Fig. 7.14 Serrated (jagged) vs. straight edge.

The first use of geometric absorbers was to reduce reflections in anechoic chambers. The pyramidal shape breaks up the incident wave front, partially transmitting the energy and partially scattering it. The transmitted signal is attenuated by the carbon particles embedded in the foam. The reflected signal is directed toward adjacent pyramids, where further reflection and attenuation occur. Reflection from conductor-backed absorbers is typically in the range of 20-40 dB down from the incident intensity.

Serration is a geometric treatment (not an absorber per se) that can be applied to the leading and trailing edges of wings. Obvious examples are the B-2 and F-117A, where the trailing-edge zig zags are clearly visible. In other applications, such as the SR-71 Blackbird, illustrated in Fig. 7.15, conducting foils cover composite structures, and the type of surface treatment employed is not obvious from the wing's physical shape.