Message posted by Polemodel on July 12, 2009 at 18:30:48 PST:
I too suspect it has something to do with RCS measurements, but I don't see how it could be very usful as a target support. Making these pylons & other such devices work is a huge part of the RCS measurement problem, and I think anything truly innovative would likely appear in this neighborhood. But, this contraption seems to have lots & lots of structural members, like a giant truss tower. No matter what they're made of or how much RAM you cover it with, this type of construction causes all kinds of unwanted reflections. And the angles aren't really useful either, in terms of minimizing reflections back to the measurement antenna(s). And, at least the way 'ordinary' static RCS ranges work, you want to rotate/tilt your target while moving its tower as little as possible, ideally not at all. And the height is way more than you really need for a target support; you want to be at the right height to avoid ground bounce reflections or use them in your measurement, but this is much higher than that. Besides, if it's 155 ft tall, they must be stashing a ~200 ft crane somewhere. (I would NOT want to be the guy who has to send an email up the chain explaining how the new tower also makes a fantastic drop-test facility...been there done that.) Anyway, don't take this the wrong way--these are reasons I think the new tower is not the target end of an RCS range, but as I said, this is an area where a great deal of work is being done, and it's very sensitive. (Much more for competitive/business reasons than national security...) So, if someone has come up with a better mousetrap, what better place to set up the first one? My guess, since no one asked, is the tower supports a tall-skinny array of some kind of sensors on one of its 3 sides. Maybe passive... Maybe electronically steerable... Maybe part of some kind of bistatic measurement system, possibly tied to DYCOMS. Maybe operating down to lower frequencies than these sorts of things have been done at before... But too many maybes. I'd love to see something parked outside the New Hangar, but otherwise, for my money this is the interesting side of the base.
In Reply to: Triangular Tower posted by werD on July 12, 2009 at 15:23:55 PST:
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