How visible would a flying super be on radar?

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Bruno

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

More likely a missile, IMO.

[mhd]

Originally Posted by Bruno

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.

It's not my fault I stepped on a radioactive sponge.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by mhd

It's not my fault I stepped on a radioactive sponge.

Okay. But please explain why did your pants mutate too?

[mhd]

Pants? Wouldn't that increase my radar visibility?

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by mhd

Pants? Wouldn't that increase my radar visibility?

Only if square.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by 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.

Yes it rather depends on whether they are aware of flying people.

[Anaraxes]

made of a material that is not very radio-wave-reflective

Weather radar is designed to reflect from precipitation. Many supers would be made mostly of water. (Ben Grimm and the Human Torch present their own difficulties.) I don't know how much the actual flesh changes the properties. There's a gigahertz FM radar designed for medical purposes, which can among other things remotely measure cardiac and respiratory rates.

In a world with supers, militaries might find it worthwhile to design super-detecting radar, even though that's different from their aircraft-detecting systems.

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

Sort of. ATC has "primary" and "secondary" radar. Primary radar is the normal sort that can detect distance and direction of planes. This radar doesn't need a transponder. The secondary radar interrogates the transponder to get an ID code and altitude information ("squawked" on a different frequency than the interrogation pulse).

The US FAA has discussed replacing the transponder system with a design where the aircraft use GPS and continually transmit their position to ATC. Perhaps in a near-future world, they've actually gone through with this plan -- which would be a boon to all the non-cooperative supers and supervillains (and boring old drug smugglers) that choose not to announce their location. So they might well keep those primary radars around.

[Celjabba]

And in some world, a flying super may be required by law to wear a transponder, a radar reflector and safety gear.

Otherwise, the answer is 'it depend' of:
-the kind of radar
-the radar location (ground, air or space based)
-the software filter (speed and transponder existence being the 2 common filter)

A human sized flying target is certainly big enough to be detected/tracked by some radar, since birds or bats are.

Celjabba

[The Colonel]

Originally Posted by tbrock1031

For that matter, do skydivers show up on radar?

Generally not... this is part of the reason HALO insertion was developed.

[Gorkamorka]

Side question:
Can the flying super be targeted by a guided missile?