notme wrote:
wrote:
AOPA is working on this issue. Specifically on using cell phones or PCS
in general aviation aircraft while airborne. What is interesting with
cell phones is, that they can be used in variety of ways on tracking,
locating, etc. If you remember an accident that one of our F-117's was
shot down over former Yugoslavia during the Balkan war.....they plotted
its position using cell phones and the cell phone towers and the rest
was just history. Ground to air missile accepted the coordinates from
the PCS network and found its target. Pilot safely bailed out though.

Yeah, I ain't buying that one. First off, there's no way a radar guided
missile could be easily reconfigured to simply go based on PCS network
location.

You're right: the previous poster got it wrong. Cell phones had nothing
to do with it.

The Serbian system used conventional radar transmitters to illuminate
the airspace and a separate set of passive receiver dishes plus a LOT of
computer power to analyze the very weak diffuse reflections, i.e. to
spot an anomaly in the expected RF background where an F117's anti-radar
coating was affecting it. That showed them when one was coming and where
to aim. They knew where to site the missiles because this system had
analyzed the last three day's ops and showed them that the mission
planners had got sloppy and always used the same exit corridor.

They used optically sighted missiles, which weren't bothered by the
stealth system, to bring down one F-117 and damage a second.

This information was in New Scientist (04 December 1999).


--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. |
org | Zappa fan & glider pilot