[?] Flying Below the radar?

[Marshmeloh]

A while back watching on of Phly's videos he mentioned flying below the radar on one of his ground striking videos.

Ever since hearing him mentioned that I'm curious if he was just "Roleplaying" or if flying below the radar is an actual thing?

Does flying low make your tag harder to detect or is it all just fun and games?

[will487]

Yes I do it all the time now. I am not sure if it is harder to spot but by all means I have been engaged less in a bomber flying at a lower altitude than a higher one.

[PyroPaul]

It is a tactic called 'Nap of the Earth' - by flying very close to the ground it makes you harder to engage or notice. during world war 2, aircraft actually practiced this, but they called it 'Hedge Hopping'.

While it doesn't actually prevent you from being detected - it makes you harder to notice as the average player will fly above 500 meters, which will place you visually at the bottem of his screen in arcade mode, or set your plane on a detailed backdrop (as opposed to a sky blue/white one) making it harder to visually identify planes in game modes where visual marking is turned off. It also has the added benefit of making you harder to engage, as if they give pursuit the tactic will force the opponent to also avoid ground terrain, or bounce (climb-attack dive/climb-attack dive) to properly engage you.

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I use it all the time when I need to get back to base for a repair or when I do CAS.

[Bacon Cheeseburger Apocalypse]

It's a great way to sneak up on enemy airfeilds. I even did it once in a B-17