Stealth planes are so expensive these days, what’s a spy to do? You can’t just fly into enemy territory because now the enemies all have those damn radar devices that will go beep boop whenever you get too close, ruining your intricately planned diamond heist. Well for the low low price of an undisclosed amount that’s sure to be less than the price of a plane, you can (mostly) escape all those radar woes with a shiny new coat of paint.

Nanoflight, an Israel-based nanotech company, has just finished trials on a special paint that, when applied to your plane, missile, airship, or other method of espionage transport, makes it nearly undetectable by radar. Emphasis on the “nearly.” This will not make it impossible for your spy plane to be detected, but it will certainly make it much more difficult for those trying to pinpoint your location. And even if the radar does find you, the paint will make it appear that your vehicle is some benign glitch or perhaps a giant bird, not a hostile craft.

The paint works by changing how the coated object reacts with electromagnetic waves. Usually, radar sends out these ways and some “bounce back” from any object they collide with. As the waves return to the source, it registers how far away the object they bounced off of was, just like sonar. But a painted object won’t bounce the waves back, it will absorb them, and the waves will be released as heat. Even if a few waves still bounce back, they won’t be enough to register the object correctly on a radar screen.

The utility of this interaction with electromagnetism isn’t restricted to stealth. Nanotech claims that the paint way also help insulate buildings from radiation. But that’s just a side perk. The real benefit is that now any plane can be a spy plane. And there’s no image more wonderful in my mind than a stealth Whale King.

(Via YNet via PopSci)

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