why sound waves can not be used in actual to find the distance of an aircraft in flight from earth's surface

Answer 1

Cause:
a) sound diffracts
b) interference from other soundsources
c) sound waves fade quickly compared to other rays such as radio waves
d) sound waves reflects off almsot anything solid or slightly solid (i.e. clouds)
e) other objects in air that we cannot account for slows/speeds sound up (i.e. sound travels faster in metal that in air)
f) sound travels at different velocity at different pressure (i.e. higher altitude = lower pressure)
g) can't think of much else.

Answer 2

Sound waves are affected by too many factors to be accurate. Altitude, air density, humidity, air temperature, and other factors make it too inconsistent, plus the fact that sound waves dissipate over great distances. Not so with radar, which is radio waves.They carry over massive distances, and are not nearly as affected by atmospheric conditions. Laser rangefinding is even more accurate.

Answer 3

The aircraft is moving too fast to be detected in an exact spot using sound waves.

Answer 4

It's possible in theory but you would need a very loud sound to reflect off the plane. But because of the time taken for the sound to get to the plane and back it would be miles away from where your return echo places it. That's why we use radar (1080 million Kph against about 950 - 1050 Kph for sound)

Answer 5

I really don't know if this true or not, but I imagine different planes would produce noise differently from one another and as the waves spead out and eventually reached the ground they would be sigificantly different in volume, tone and ground area affected. You would have to know what kind of plane it was and the plane's altitude, and if you can do that you probably have radar.