I would hope that any military radar could track a uncooperative target. I mean... I wouldn’t expect a bomber to present itself willingly, unless it was flying the normal routes, and it’s sponsor thought it could get away with presenting a friendly IFF.
It’s funny that it is called “transponder” nowadays. It used to be called the IFF. Which is more common, I wonder, in the aero industrial complex?
I suspect at least with US military radar, we have very high accuracy even at crazy distances. A function of our well developed IT infrastructure. After all, accuracy is really more down to the mathematical signal analysis, not so much the radar analog section in the corner (though the cleaner the radio receiver, the better the computer results). The faster the computer, the more complex the filtering algo can be, since they will still complete in near real time. We probably have some amazing stuff that can re-analyze digitally recorded radar signals in non-real time to look over events of some question.
I’ve also wondered how much space based radar we have around the planet as well.
IFF is short for Identify Friend or Foe and is used exclusively by the military for incoming threats.
We have the best radar in the world, especially at sea. The eastern Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bengal has not been a theater offering threats beyond what Diego Garcia can monitor.
Flight 370 was just too far away for us to track.
“It’s funny that it is called “transponder” nowadays. It used to be called the IFF. Which is more common, I wonder, in the aero industrial complex?”
The transponder and IFF are two different things.