How low...

Considering there is a such thing as "ground surveillance radar," the answer would seem to be pretty damn low, depending on where you are.
 
N659HB said:
Guess the drug smugglers don't have it so easy after all.
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A few sites with these "mini" blimps equipped w/ "look down" radar to pick up moving targets over the Gulf. They're anchored by a cable and can be up to 15,000'. Marked on sectionals.

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It depends on where you're at. Not too far west of me anywhere below 5,000 feet you're operating in a nonradar environment. Up by where my parents live there are places that radar coverage starts at closer to 7,000 feet. Then there are places in Canada that don't even have weather radar let alone radar to see airplanes.
 
N659HB said:
Good thing I'm a law-abiding citizen. How do the poor criminals survive?
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They still beat the system and find ways. Once during a storm, might've been a hurricane, damaged one of those blimps at Cape Canaveral. They have a stand-by blimp so they put the backup in the air as the damaged one was publicized in the newspapers. Guess they thought they might catch someone thinking the blimp was down.
 
I have had the local controller show me that they can see traffic on the free way if the set they filtering (or turn it off) correctly for it.

Brian
 
When my transponder failed ATC had a hard time seeing my little Lancair at 10,000 with me telling them exactly where I was.
 
Really no way of accurately answering the question. ATC radar, from a single source without fusion? Well generally based on the tower height, you're looking at around 8 miles out for a low altitude aircraft. We used to do ASR approaches to a local field 6 miles out and could easily work them down to the MDA of 440ft. I have friends in ATC who can pick up trucks on a highway a couple miles away. A lot depends on the type aircraft. Size, shape, composition all matters.

In the military, they just train you to fly as low as possible (terrain flight) and hope you don't get painted. No way of truly knowing if you're gonna get painted or not until your RWR chirps "SA-8, Lock!" Then you're screwed! :)
 
Depends on the area, weather, type of aircraft, lots of stuff, I've also heard of you fly a course in a arch around the stations you won't be seen.

So depends.

I don't think the serious smugglers are doing low level under the radar ops.
 
I could pick up cars and trucks on the highway maybe 3-5 from the base using the PAR antenna.
 
We had a trainee on the PAR one day and an ARNG Huey was shooting a few. They set the trainee up by getting the pilot to fly down about a 2 mile final and then start tracking outbound. Took a mile or two before the trainee realized what the Huey was doing, and it just ****ed him up, "stammering, what, what what's it doing".... everyone had a good laugh.
 
I have been at 12,000 msl over Arizona several times and have gotten the words.... radar contact lost...in ten miles change to XXX.XX and try them every few minutes...

I have had radar contact as low as 3000 msl over northwest Alaska.
 
This low:
LowDown123.jpg


Nauga,
with tadpoles and cow plops.
 
Just outside the DTW 30nm ring of death (flat terrain in between) at about 1000 AGL no transponder - they couldn't pick me up.
 
I fly into a number of airports on the East coast where you are off the radar when you are at pattern altitude.
 
Depends on the radar. Newer radar on yachts can pick up a piece of floating wood. Satellites can see things small as, well, REALLY, REALLY small. I mean SMALL!
 
mscard88 said:
I could pick up cars and trucks on the highway maybe 3-5 from the base using the PAR antenna.
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I seem to recall at an ATC visit that they have a filter for things moving below a certain speed so they don't pick up vehicles on the surface.
 
jkaduk said:
I seem to recall at an ATC visit that they have a filter for things moving below a certain speed so they don't pick up vehicles on the surface.
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Moving Target Indication along with Sensitivity Time Control switches will cancel out MOST stationary targets on a PAR. This reduces clutter such as trees and slow moving targets such as precip. It also allows certain high reflectivity objects to come through such as aircraft and the small reflectors used in scope alignment.
 
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jkaduk said:
I seem to recall at an ATC visit that they have a filter for things moving below a certain speed so they don't pick up vehicles on the surface.
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Like Velocity said, but I dropped the antenna as low as it would go and nothing between the approach end of the runway and highway so it was easy to paint the vehicles. PARs are an amazing piece of equipment. You can actually work a plane all the way to the runway, but the pilot has a 100' DH so it's their call. We kept giving glide path and course guidance all the way to the pavement though. Quite a few planes have been "saved" by a PAR approach, meaning they were, as an example, say emergency fuel and had to get in. We once had 5 F-5s (Aggressor Sqdn) go MA on their first attempt, declare emergency fuel, so the controller turn them in about a 4-5 mile final and they got in. I was actually in the tower and between the 5 jets they landed on all 3 runways at CBM, a couple here, one there etc. Quite a site.
 
mscard88 said:
Like Velocity said, but I dropped the antenna as low as it would go and nothing between the approach end of the runway and highway so it was easy to paint the vehicles. PARs are an amazing piece of equipment. You can actually work a plane all the way to the runway, but the pilot has a 100' DH so it's their call. We kept giving glide path and course guidance all the way to the pavement though. Quite a few planes have been "saved" by a PAR approach, meaning they were, as an example, say emergency fuel and had to get in. We once had 5 F-5s (Aggressor Sqdn) go MA on their first attempt, declare emergency fuel, so the controller turn them in about a 4-5 mile final and they got in. I was actually in the tower and between the 5 jets they landed on all 3 runways at CBM, a couple here, one there etc. Quite a site.
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Lol! We had something similar happen with F-15s. Think it was 5 as well. All were GA ANG (Peach) and were trying to get into SAV. All went missed, declared emergency fuel and diverted to us (NBC). I was on arrival and took this **** sandwich from SAV. A mix of primarys and squawks. Some were already in my airspace without a handoff. I "unscrewed" their mess and got them in line for the PAR. Actually had a couple go missed off the PAR as well. One went missed off 23, saw a hole in the clouds for 32 and just turned on his own and landed. Had aircraft landing everywhere that day.

Went downstairs later to see the pilots and they're all soaked with sweat, smoking cigs and retelling their stories with hand gestures on how they all almost balled up 5 F-15s. :D
 
Velocity173 said:
Lol! We had something similar happen with F-15s. Think it was 5 as well. All were GA ANG (Peach) and were trying to get into SAV. All went missed, declared emergency fuel and diverted to us (NBC). I was on arrival and took this **** sandwich from SAV. A mix of primarys and squawks. Some were already in my airspace without a handoff. I "unscrewed" their mess and got them in line for the PAR. Actually had a couple go missed off the PAR as well. One went missed off 23, saw a hole in the clouds for 32 and just turned on his own and landed. Had aircraft landing everywhere that day.

Went downstairs later to see the pilots and they're all soaked with sweat, smoking cigs and retelling their stories with hand gestures on how they all almost balled up 5 F-15s. :D
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I'm not saying they don't exist but I have never met a fighter pilot that could talk without using their hands.
 
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