In radio electronics, especially radar terminology, slant range is the line-of-sight distance between two points which are not at the same level relative to a specific datum.
An example of slant range is the distance to an aircraft flying at high altitude with respect to that of the radar antenna. The slant range (1) is the hypotenuse of the triangle represented by the altitude of the aircraft and the distance between the radar antenna and the aircraft's ground track (point (3) on the earth directly below the aircraft). In the absence of altitude information, for example from a height finder, the aircraft location would be plotted farther (2) from the antenna than its actual ground track.
Famous quotes containing the words slant and/or range:
“There’s a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons—
That oppresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes—”
—Emily Dickinson (1830–1886)
“[F]or as Socrates says that a wise man is a citizen of the world, so I thought that a wise woman was equally at liberty to range through every station or degree of men, to fix her choice wherever she pleased.”
—Sarah Fielding (1710–1768)