How does an airplane detect an incoming missile?
In: Engineering
Radar guided missile systems use to types of radar, one is a search radar that continuously scans the sky for airplanes. The other to is a guidance radar that continuously highlights an airplane to guide the missile to it’s target. Airplanes have sensors that detect when they are being got by radar waves, and generate a warning when they are continuously lit up by radar. (And intelligence works very hard to determine which specific frequencies enemy radar use, and the sensors will warm when a known frequency from a targeting radar hits it.)
There are also systems that will detect a missile itself: Doppler radar can detect the direction, range and approach speed of a missile the same way it can detect airplanes. Infrared systems can detect the engine exhaust from really long distances in clear conditions, and ultraviolet systems are used as well.
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