I'm enthralled (not!) to read about the latest brainwave in civil aviation.
It seems some experts want to use active camouflage technology on civil airliners to make them less intrusive in the lives of people living near airports.
Visual stealth is a well-known concept in the world of defence aviation with active camouflage technologies using light to illuminate fluorescent panels on the aircraft exterior.
Another optical camouflage technique could see electro-chromic polymer materials being applied, coating the aircraft with liquid crystal displays.
Photosensitive receptors then scan the aircraft before displaying an image on the surface - such as the sky - making the aircraft virtually invisible as it blends in with its surrounding.
That's all fine and dandy. However, I suspect the experts have forgotten one minor detail.
Airports tend to have a lot of aircraft wandering around the surrounding sky.
How are they to avoid crashing into each other if they can't see each other???
Just a thought, O Experts.
With apologies to William Hughes Mearns:
As I was flying through the air
An unseen plane got in my hair.
It did it yet again today -
I wish that it would go away!
Peter
5 comments:
very good point. The question needs a anwser.
It seems as if the noise of the aircrafts would be a bit more of a concern...
Kinda depends on where and how the camo is applied. Commercial aviation (the jumbos) are always transmitting their heading and position, and are always in somones radio and radar coverage, from wheels up to wheels down.
This is how they avoid each other now.
And we are working on the noise. You would not believe how many resources my company dedicates to noise abatment.
Uh, one of the basic tenets of General Aviation is 'See and Avoid'. It's in the FARs... how do they propose to get around that?
PeterT
I live right under the approach to 36C at KMEM and have most of my life, and still look up to watch the planes fly over. They can keep their camouflage!
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