Aircraft detection before radar - video and photo

[PJs]

It's always easy to over-anthropomorphize, but that first US radar sure looks a lot like the various pre-radar listening devices - but for gathering radio waves instead of sound waves. AFAIK, most modern radar does not follow that huge-ears-with-a-head-in-the-middle design.

This is similar to how some early aircraft were designed to look and function like birds.

In affect you are right they do follow the horn, cone & dish types with similar function at different frequencies, in that the antenna/receivers move with the transmitter to zero in on a spacial area, just like the head mounted and others with alt azimuth capability. Note the use of cones in the 4 petal hexagon flower one third pic from the last, creating an array on each petal to help dial in the direction, probably through some db level comparator system. Again the early radars used a comparator system kind of in the same way. Modern radars still use the basic transmit/receive system but with much more sophisticated antenna design, math, physics and electronics.

It is amazing how we use nature as a sounding board for our early developmental inventions. Even today's slower aircraft wing shapes (profiles) still resemble basic bird wing profiles and aileron feathers. Here is an interesting article I found while back searching for foil design for a VAWT I was kicking around. Note the paragraph "FLUID-STRUCTURE INTERACTION" and how that could be controlled internally by a fluid of unique properties.

Another example is modern tunneling machines and the similarity to how earthworms eat the dirt and excrete mucus to form the walls. Perhaps mimicry is the best form of flattery for our amazing world...hopefully it puts up with us till we figure it out.

Still giggled when I saw the 2 guys...ones grinning and the other doesn't want to be there. Priceless.

PJ