[Milsurplus] Re: lifeboat radar reflectors

[J. Forster]

Interesting. It may be that the radar cross section of the boat was already pretty large, so the increase in cross section due to the reflector would not add much. OTOH, the cross section of a life raft was likely tiny, so the reflectors were useful.

-John


BOEING377 at aol.com wrote:

> These reflectors don't work very well, at least with post 1960 boat radars. They were used a lot on commercial fishing boats in the old days as they were dirt cheap and very easy to rig on a forestay, but they really were not very good reflectors. You don't see them used any longer because they just were not that useful in enhancing target relectivity. The small solid faced ones seem to work a lot better. The 90 degree corner cube geometry is very important and perhaps the wire mesh liferaft relectors didnt maintain a perfect right angle relationship between all the reflector faces. My Dad had a dozen of them on his fishing boat, one rigged and 11 spares. Total cost in 1961, 10 dollars.