Super Grover

No exact date on the threat ring order change. However, the critical outside for the F-14 was still in the documentation at the end of the '90s.

Hehe, and I didn't want to sound like I thought you were questioning . I can try explaining a little bit more. This is the gain pattern for four antennas (as in the F-14) in the horizontal plane, assuming that the airframe doesn't interact with the signal. I created it today from the model we use. Each antenna is represented by a different colour. As you can see, there are some overlapping regions, but they are not huge. Let's take a look at two extreme situations. 1. The signal is coming from the straight ahead. Let's look at the point marked as A). The red antenna and the blue antenna are the same sensitive to that direction, and the gain value is good. The other two antennas, point B), are almost completely blind to that direction. Effectively, we can use only two signals - red and blue. 2. The signal from 45°. Now, three antennas can see the signal. The blue antenna is at its maximum. The red and the green - C) - are of the same magnitude, although much lower than the blue (the plots are in db, so log scale... the red and green are ~50 times lower than the blue). The fourth antenna is completely useless in that direction. It could be possible to use the blue, and both the red and the green for the grey area. However the area is small and adding another signal of such small strength, and thus low signal to noise ratio, may not necessarily improve the precision significantly. On the other hand, as mentioned above, it would require more CPU power. Concluding, the result may be not worth the effort. Radar warning receivers aren't sophisticated ELINT devices. They are to warn the crew that there's a threat that can kill them, and inform about where the crew should roughly look to find a bandit or incoming missile. There is a trade-off between the precision and a set of factors as costs, weight, structural demands, etc. We may question the choices of the engineers and the customers (NAVY), but we have to live with what we have . Side note: The world isn't 2d, each antenna has a similar pattern to the patterns from the included graphics in its vertical axis (both in real life and in our model).

If a better accuracy were required, the engineers probably would use more antennas, six or eight. Regarding using two antennas to reconstruct the signal, please, take a look at the pattern diagram from this post: https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=2636058&postcount=1 . You will see that the antenna is almost "blind" in the rear half. Plus, as you mentioned, the airframe may obstruct the view. I'm not saying that in all cases only two antennas register signal from an electromagnetic pulse, but I doubt that using the additional two antennas would improve direction reconstruction accuracy. Finally, I haven't seen the code of the actual ALR-67 (if anybody reading it did see the code and want to share some knowledge with me, please don't hesitate :) ), so I can't guarantee that there is no third, or fourth antenna correction applied. But I can assure you that even without that knowledge, we did our best to gather all available resource to build a device as real as it is possible in this virtual environment.

Radar warning receivers of this type are simple devices regarding direction finding. There are four antennas. For each radar pulse received, the amplitude of the signal received by each antenna is measured. Then the results are compared, and the two strongest signals are used to reconstruct the direction. Effectively, out of that, you can only reconstruct the total signal strength and one angle - you can't even tell if the pulse came from above or from below. That is also why applying stabiliser position correction doesn't even make any sense, because instead of improving direction reconstruction accuracy, you can make it worse under certain conditions. Finally, even with fixed antennas, a typical error in direction finding for this type of RWR is 5-10° root mean square. Hence for most of the time, the stabiliser-induced error is much less significant than the other types of errors. We simulate different effects leading to those errors. Nevertheless, the impact of the moving stabiliser was the easiest to show and the most spectacular one . Regarding the performance - the RWR computations aren't CPU heavy. Of course, we are monitoring the impact of each system on the overall performance. However, optimisation and profiling is a vast topic, so this topic is not a right place to discuss it .

Hi! Thank you for your report. We're aware of the issue, and we're working on it. Alghorimts simulating rocket ballistics used to compute the aim point require precise values of aircraft parameters such as altitude above the target, pitch and velocity. Even a small error in the measurement of these parameters can result in rockets hitting significantly long or short respect to where the pilot aimed. Our Viggen utilises pressure sensors to calculate altitude, velocity and vertical velocity, just like a real aircraft does. And like in a real aircraft, we have to calibrate the system, and the calibration process assumes a set of conditions and an atmospheric model. Thus, when there's any change to DCS atmospheric model, we have to recalibrate. We've realised that the DCS atmosphere has changed again and our current pressure sensors calibration doesn't fit it any longer, so we're recalibrating. An improved model is being tested now, and the first results are that the rockets are back accurate. We're hoping to deliver the recalibrated sensors to you soon.

We're doing our best to fully recreate all CVA alignment methods, including data-link, cable and handset. From the cockpit, data-link and cable look the same - the system switches to cable automatically upon cable hookup. At this stage, details, like the radio menus, are still subject to change, so it's difficult to say precisely how the final interface is going to look. Also, I wanted to say thank you to everyone for warm words and support. It's really motivating to see such great response.

Initially, the F-14B had AN/ASN-92, so this topic - the update on the INS for Heatblur F-14 - stands for both A and B. The EGI was a part of the "F-14B Upgrade" which entered into service in the late '90s. An update procedure is initiated manually, although the updated position is calculated automatically. For example, in case of a TACAN update it looks as follows: Tune a TACAN in range. Hook a point (waypoint, Fix, Home Base, etc.) which is located where the TACAN station is. If you don't have the TACAN assigned to a point, you have to store the coordinates of the TACAN in one of the points first, and then use this point for the update. Select NAV category on CAP. Press TACAN FIX. On the TID, read and verify the position delta (position shift to be applied). Press FIX ENABLE to apply the delta.

GPS navigation came to F-14B as a part of the F-14B Upgrade program, when the AN/ASN-92 were replaced by the new EGI (Embedded GPS/INS) units from Honeywell as a part of a deep avionics change. Updating AN/ASN-92 and the whole set of the routines to include GPS abilities was probably much more complicated than replacing the entire system. A not-so-official upgrade allowing for GPS navigation was to get a personal Garmin 95XL. But as far as I know, it was impossible to inject GPS data from the pod to the INS.

If you don't like your RIO (Jester or human using SRS) , you can always use the volume knob on the intercom panel. Or in contrary, if hearing your RIO is the top priority, you can use the "RADIO OVERRIDE" function to attenuate all other noncritical radios. However, I advise keeping a good relationship with your RIO at all times as he can save your life in many critical situations.