Device that can mimc anything and show it on screen.....?

Hey there, this might be in the wrong place, i dont know where to start, this could be useless information or it could be good, either way, i dont know much so either its news to you or you can shed some light on it for me...

A friend of mine works at BAE in the uk on certain projects, and we were talking about the Russian planes that keep coming over to the uk til we send out fighter jets then they go away.

anyway, he said the following, like it was common knowledge... (somethin like this anyway lol)

Oh they arent here to cause trouble, alot of countries' military have a device which when u place in a room, can pick up and mimic or show anything else in that room, a bit like a blank screen that u cud put down in a room, and then show a tv programme on from a tv 5 metres away... that kind of thing?

so what these russian jets are doing, is flying over here, flying around causing a nuisance knowing that we will send out our jets, then when our jets come up to see them, they use this device to just have a little nosey and see what technology we have got, then they fly off. So they dont want to cause trouble, they just want to see what were upto, what technology were using etc, then they go home....

has anyone got more info or know anythin about this?

Yeah I would say they would know what technology everyone has everyone knows what everyone has already these days it seems.Well almost to an extent.Its not the soviet union anymore russians come and go from UK if they want.
They do the show of force thing because of the star wars program.Kind of like a protest because they didn't get an important enough part in it.
Like they flew one of those old bear bombers over an aircraft carrier.

just seemed strange about this device they can use so they can see what technoogy we have in our planes? sounds complicated. saying that tho, hes also working on an unmanned plane that can fly out to the middle east... crazy!

You don't need a device like that. We've been able to tell the model of the aircraft simply by reading the electronic signature. You don't have to project anything, you don't even have to have active sensors to do it.

The Russians are measuring reaction times, and looking for new radars etc. We do the same thing with our RC-135s. They deliberately try to provoke a response so they can look for Surface to Air Missile radars, and identify any new SAM sites. It also gives a good indication if a certain radar is working or not.

no but i dont mean lookin at our models of planes etc, the guy i know at bae stated that we all have devices that can project other stuff onto blank screens, so they were looking at our technology that we have inside the planes. just sounded a bit odd, but he talked like it was just old technology.

Yeah, and the US has been able to identify individual aircraft just from what's coming from them. They've been able to tell if that particular Bear that's flying over has been here before, or not. Again, without even using active sensors. Aircraft transmit a lot of information without even knowing they're doing it sometimes.

I think Zaphod is closer to the truth than a "mimic" device. All airforces constantly probe other AF's for data, radar, tactics ect. It's all very useful info once things start to get "hot".

well like i said i dont know anything on this just what he said, but he said its an actual screen that they can use to display what is around it. so im leanin away from radar signals n such.

I'm sure the capability exists to pull the same info off a screen in a aircraft and display it on another aircraft, perhaps that is what your friend meant. The USAF supposedly can create a radar image of it's choosing on enemies radar displays. Basically overriding the actual data and showing the false images. Don't know if that is true or not.

I would think you could do the reverse of stealth with drones, ie have a UAV portray a much larger aircraft or group of aircrafts radar cross section-wise. That would be pretty ingenious.

[edit on 6-7-2008 by pavil]

They've been using decoys for years to do just that. You shoot a missle, and the decoy projects a much larger infrared and radar signature than you do. The new generation decoys use the carrier plane's electronics to create a jamming platform attached to the aircraft, and as a last resort will attempt to suck the missile into hitting it instead of the aircraft.

Cool but I was thinking more of the line of a fleet of Uavs simulating a whole attack force coming from a completely different direction than the real strike force. The enemy would fire AA missiles and scramble aircraft to an imaginary fleet.

wow that does sound clever. i will ask my friend for some more info as hes always up to speed on the new stuff. The new unmanned aircraft sounds interesting..