How visible would a flying super be on radar?

[Proteus]

Just how visible would a flying human being be on typical radar systems, in a campaign that mixes cinematic supers with reasonable realism? I understand the answer may be different for aviation, weather, and military systems.

Note that I'm talking about a Supers-style unsupported human being using paranormal powers to fly in mid-air, not the Oregon man who lofted his lawn chair with an assortment of weather balloons. So far as my very limited knowledge goes, weather balloons are made to be radar-reflective, but regular human flesh may well absorb or be mostly transparent to some radar frequencies. (That said, we are made of water, which weather radar detects....)

So how worried should my Supers character be when she takes off near a small private airport, or a major municipal one, or a U.S. military base? Will she remain largely invisible to radar, or be written off as an ambiguous but unlikely bit of noise in the system, or cause scrambling of police and/or Air Force assets to investigate (depending on speed) an unauthorized drone aircraft / unknown missile?

Does it help much against radar if she flies low down ("nap-of-the-earth mode"?) instead of hundreds or thousands of feet in the air? Are there any realistic tricks involving special fabric for a costume, etc. which would help avoid detection?

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Proteus

Just how visible would a flying human being be on typical radar systems, in a campaign that mixes cinematic supers with reasonable realism? I understand the answer may be different for aviation, weather, and military systems.

Yes, radar can pick up a flying human (and flying birds). If it's slow moving then anti-clutter programming may filter it out. (Radar normally doesn't display birds, but only because the signal filters out such slow moving objects). The best way to avoid radar detection is to fly very low, at treetop levels or to fly very high, up at suborbital levels.

[Refplace]

Also note that some special effects may make you a lot more visible while others might allow you to confuse or obscure your echo.

[The Colonel]

IIRC Air traffic control radar won't pick him up at all because it relies on a transponder mounted in the aircraft.

Military radar might well pick him up ... and would probably take an interest if he wasn't behaving like something they expected to see.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Proteus

Just how visible would a flying human being be on typical radar systems, in a campaign that mixes cinematic supers with reasonable realism? ?

Radar depends on crossection and the materials reflectivity in the relevent frequencies.

Flesh reflects little radar energy and with no flapping wings a human's effective crossection is lower than a bird of equivalent weight (if there were any).

My best gues is that a flying super would be a little easier to detect than a single pigeon but a little harder than a Canadian Goose. That's quite hard to detect and in the speed/size range where software fliters stuff out.

An individual Super could reflect radar for some reason about his force field or something. Or his force field could absorb radar energy and he'd be even harder to detect.

Without a force field that produces a streamlined shape a Super's Flight speed will be realisitically limited. No breathing above 120-130 mph and nasty transonic issues above c. 4-500 mph even if he doesn't breath. These would effect control as well as speed. Humans just aren'ty an efficient shape for flying.

[shawnhcorey]

Radar returns are messy and full of noise. Those pristine images you see in movies is nowhere near reality. Nearly all radar is filtered, so if your super does not match any of the characteristics the radar enhances, they would be invisible to the radar.

[Phantasm]

IMO, a human-shaped and human-sized object would barely appear on radar; meaning he'd likely be ignored unless the radar operators in question were actively looking for such.

A creature normally 5 to 6 feet long, 3 feet wide, and a foot deep, flying at an airspeed similar to that of many single-engine propeller planes (roughly the same as a fast-moving car on the freeway, tops), and made of a material that is not very radio-wave-reflective... yeah, I don't see radar picking him up at any altitude someone can breathe at.

For that matter, do skydivers show up on radar?

Now, encase said super in a suit of radio-wave reflective material such as steel or a gold-titanium alloy, and radar starts picking him up. This makes battlesuit supers like Iron Man less stealthy than natural fliers like Superman.

[mhd]

Where would suited supers with semi-realistic (i.e. based on existing counter-measures, not advanced Reed Richards technobabble) anti-radar technology end up, below or above flying objects with a mostly human composition?

[Bruno]

How much of a factor is speed in the filters? For instance, if he's flying as fast as a commercial or military jet, rather than a goose or a propeller plane - is he going to be enhanced by the filters rather than rejected?

How likely is it that a fast super would be mistaken for a stealth aircraft?

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by mhd

Where would suited supers with semi-realistic (i.e. based on existing counter-measures, not advanced Reed Richards technobabble) anti-radar technology end up, below or above flying objects with a mostly human composition?

Encased in six to ten inches of radar absorbant heavy crunchy foam sculpted to funny angled shapes. It's not really practical for a squishy organic object.