Up to the horizon (and actually slightly past due to lensing). The setting sun is a perfect example. Sure, it’s brighter than a single fighter aircraft, but as long as you have double digit individual photons to work with the game hasn’t changed theoretically, and light collection technology is right around perfect at this point.
Continuous cloud cover messes up that calculation pretty good, though. If this kind of system was seriously deployed today we might see pre-WWII tactics and strategies coming back to exploit that. In practice, sensor fusion in all kinds of bands is the name of the game, and what will probably make stealth aircraft obsolete eventually.
Sensor fusion is another F-35 feature. Elon seems to think visible spectrum cameras are all you need. Even if you could capture a couple dozen photos reflected off a fighter jet from miles away, how could you reasonably know it’s speed, distance, and location like you get with radar?
Up to the horizon (and actually slightly past due to lensing). The setting sun is a perfect example. Sure, it’s brighter than a single fighter aircraft, but as long as you have double digit individual photons to work with the game hasn’t changed theoretically, and light collection technology is right around perfect at this point.
Continuous cloud cover messes up that calculation pretty good, though. If this kind of system was seriously deployed today we might see pre-WWII tactics and strategies coming back to exploit that. In practice, sensor fusion in all kinds of bands is the name of the game, and what will probably make stealth aircraft obsolete eventually.
Sensor fusion is another F-35 feature. Elon seems to think visible spectrum cameras are all you need. Even if you could capture a couple dozen photos reflected off a fighter jet from miles away, how could you reasonably know it’s speed, distance, and location like you get with radar?