MrWolf

IMO we need a Dynamic Campaign topic in the forum. F35 already has it, but Dynamic Campaign still no luck. A FAQ would also be useful.

Alright didn't know the hornet had a separate antenna for the IFF transciever. Then the whole point is clear. The implementation is wrong because it's linked to the radar antenna. All my comments on this thread were because I thought the IFF system used the radar antenna. I don't know why this is not fixed then...

The antenna used by the IFF system is the forward array (most commonly known as the RADAR antenna). This means that the beam of the fwd array is what dictates what you are iluminating at the moment (RADAR signal, IFF signal or both). What we need to know if how the antenna array is distributed for each signal. An array with 3x3 aprertures could use the middle aperture for the IFF interrogation pulse and reply pulse TX/RX (respectively); the rest of the apertures for the RADAR signal. In that case (with simultaneous operation of RADAR and IFF) the IFF beam would be much more wider than the RADAR beam. A pretty standard microstrip aperture antenna has about ~120° Beamwidth (-3dB) E and H planes. The point is that it all matters on the antenna. The IFF signal it's not sent/received isotropically. So if the bogey aircraft is outside the beam of the IFF antenna then you shouldn't receive a reply. And the IFF antenna it's bound to the RADAR antenna (unless there's another array in the aircraft that I'm unaware). In civilian aviation it's called secondary radar because there's actually a second antenna (besides the one that belongs to the scanning radar, on the image the top one): In an aircraft there's only one main antenna ( not counting the comms, and navigation ones). You can convert one antenna in two either as explained above by subdividing the array or performing some kind of timing between the usage of the main antenna. Even in the civilian case, if the antenna is not moving and it isn't pointing at the aircraft neither the Primary Radar or the Secondary radar will get any return from the aircraft. So in conclusion this issue could be a bug or not. That depends on how the antenna works for the IFF in comparison to when it works as a RADAR. In either case this should be stated in the manual. For example: IFF has an effective beamwidth pointing at the LOS of the antenna dish of 120° (or 180° or 200°), at a given range.

+1

It's sad getting hyped by learning new aircraft procedures and tactics, etc. with new planes like the f-4. But after hours and hours with your new aircraft and procedures you come to a stale Simulated World. Where ATC, GCI or any radio communications do not exist. Where you are your own general. Where the closest interactive person is the crew chief by Heatblur. And you eventually fell like you learned stuff just for nothing. If this was just a trainer then we wouldn't need dynamic campaigns or AI radio comms. Because we would we training for real life. The objective would be just training procedures with respect to the aircraft, not the other humans around us when we fly. In a sense DCS needs to be more than a simulator. If you just want to simulate an aircraft, then DCS is already the sim. Humans need objectives in order to incentivate the learning of something. We need objectives, games are just that. Challenges in order to fulfill an objective. The objective in a trainer is training for real life. What should DCS be? A trainer? Or something else? It looks that DCS aims to be something else, no? Why would they want to create more maps for a trainer? If DCS wants to be that something else, we need a simulated environment. With a simulated environment a user no longer interacts with DCS as a trainer but as a real life virtual simulation. In order to simulate a virtual life environment we need a virtualization of what we have in life: - Objectives, goals, tasks, desires, sensation of uncontrolled events around yourself. That it's achieved with a dynamic campaign. - Sensation of existence, reciprocal interaction with the environment, environmental communication, individuality between other individuals. That is achieved with a set of radio comms and or other means of interacting with virtual thinking entities. For now we can fake with cardboard and rollers that indeed we have that kind of interactions in DCS world, by creating very complex scripted ( and well made) campaings. But once the campaigns are done or when we replay them, we start to notice the tape that is holding the cardboard together. We are then left again with the trainer. So many years have passed and a few more will pass until we get (if we ever get them) this features. Until then, DCS will be a trainer. A very good one. The thing is that I don't fly f-4 in real life. Once I train all that can be trained then I would be left again with the desires of more objectives which probably new cardboard temporary substitutes will satisfy. But until when?

Yes, that's the QoL development allocation for DCS. Like aircraft BIT, damages, component simulation, EM simulation, realistic Comms. You can drop all the weapons you like. Just try following NATOPS manual procedures, and you will suddenly find that some steps are just ignored in DCS because the aircraft does not care about most buttons. Have you ever tried doing all the BIT tests? F-4E looks like will change the standards of aircraft for DCS, we'll see if others adapt.

There's no dynamic campaign without this, that's for sure.

So hornet is out of EA.... But are the major bugs fixed? There was a bug as old as I can remember that made dropping bombs with the hornet without gps availability impossible. I've seen recent updates about the Viper INS, does the hornet have it fixed? Or we are obliged to fly with GPS in order to have the aircraft correctly working? Slant range drop calculation for bombs in ccip shouldn't depend on ins anyways, just radar range and mathematical computer calculations. The original bug threads were closed and I don't recall seeing the solution anywhere.

Simple question. I see this map adds only ground. So I guess the f-14 and f-18 won't be able to deploy from carrier? I mostly fly carrier based aircraft because I like all the stuff involved with it. Just evaluating if I want to buy this on pre-release or in a few years.

Yeah, Doppler filtering should help discard "floating chaff" from moving aircraft, very easily indeed in active missiles. For semi-active missiles it's more difficult, because the missile needs the reference signal (which for example could be taken from a backward looking antenna in the missile that gets the transmitted field by the radar antenna) in order to obtain the beating frequency and from that obtain the velocity. I guess chaff in modern days is similar to flares, meaning that momentarily (when it gets released) the chaff can distract the missile seeker until the speed of the chaff gets low enough to get discarded and thus the seeker points again to the aircraft. If the chaff cloud returns much more power than the aircraft scattering, then the chaff could mask the signal level scattered by the aircraft. Anyway, the point was to show that there are multiple ways to approach the SAM problem. But in DCS we have only 1.

Totally agree. I saw mover (real life f-18c pilot USN, has a podcast, etc.) talking about dropping bombs, and he said that even with earplugs, headset, helmet and the engine noise he could hear and feel the relief of tension when dropping bombs on the entire aircraft. Imagine dropping bombs from the wings with a +5g pull, the sudden change of tension would probably affect the wing integrity. Or even because of the g's applied the bombs could get stuck by friction to the bomb holders of the aircraft. Or the fuse wouldn't release correctly.

Probably another repeated post. Probably repeating myself. The thing is that I've found some 60-70's USAF-USN training videos about radar and countermeasures. With this information available, the implementation of these features can't be flagged as "TOP-SECRET" unimplementable features. I don't want to keep it very long because videos are self-explanatory. Anyway, just wanted to point out that in the chaff video they say that chaff can stay quite a long time in the air, generating false returns. This is not implemented in DCS, and I think it would be a great feature, because if chaff stays in the air it can disrupt both enemies and allies for the entire sortie duration. Blinding entire map spots for 2 hours, or maybe having special notes on the mission on not dropping chaff (because of the possible interference to allies). They even mention the super top secret ECM decoy drones on 60's.... Resources are there. The long video is about ECM basic principles, systems and radar targets. Basically showing up that adding that to DCS is not "TOP-SECRET" (unknown information, or whatever). It serves as a basis of principles for more modern techniques, too. Chaff1: Chaff2: ECM:

Very cool DCS an beyond! MIG-29 was ovbious it has been teased for so long in previous DCS videos, sharing screen time with other full fidelity modules in most of the recent ed videos. I've watched Nick recent interviews and I know that DCS Dynamic Campaign is still far from release. But what about ground crew and ATC? Is DCS and beyond a hint to that? If I remember correctly the video has some yellow shirts passing command to another one. A more realistic ATC (like X-Plane, even old ones), JTACS, air commands and ground/sea crew is something that it's not as shinny as a new aircraft but IMO it's much more immersive than anything else. I mean we have all kind of navigation systems, but for what? We are currently the Kings and Queens of the game, all NPCs just vow to us when we want to do any manouver or whatever. Since the Dynamic Campaign wants to achieve a lot of things I'm not sure if ed wants to release all in one version release or progresively. Getting ATC and the other things before Dynamic Campaign it's also a way of keeping us entertained while the big project comes out, heheh. Well anyways, great job ed!! Until next DCS an beyond!

Thanks, this is a good summary of what i've explained on the previous messages (more detailled). Just 2 comments: Mode 4 only replies a set pulses at a given delay from which the interrgator can know if the target is frendly or not (this is the only information that we are sure we can trust since it's the only one comming from military source https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/navy/nrtc/14308_ch8.pdf). No other information it's carried on the reception. Mode S really doesn't function the same as the previous ones. It's a digital design. There are no "Codes" as in the sense every aircraft tune to a given code. Digital information it's sent using Mode S. The S interrogation and replies are created by selecting fields of information and the values. This different than with the other Modes. Message are generated similar to a packaging aproach like TCP/IP. .

I've looked on how Deka implements IFF and it seems wrong. This is because: For Modes 1, 2, 3: You only need a code FOR REPLY (Deka sets codes for the interrogator too from what I understood from a youtube video, that doesn't make any sense) since interrogations doesn't contain any information of the interrogator. So you would only need to configure the transponder (the system that replies to interrogations) reply squawk codes for Modes 1, 2, 3/A. From what I've read from general aviation forums, the civilian transponders when set ON mode only reply to Mode A type interrogation, and when set to ALT it replies to Mode A and Mode C interrogations (providing squawk code and altitude, 2 interrogations needed). Other things to mention: Military aircraft should provide the same capabilities that civilian aircraft have with ON mode or ALT mode. In the case of F/A-18C DCS implementation, it shows that Mode 3 can be set to Mode 3/C (on the UFC). I guess that when the UFC shows Mode 3/C it's just plain Mode C. The ALT equivalent to military it's Mode 3 A/C: "Mode 3/C provides the aircraft's pressure altitude and is usually combined with Mode 3/A to provide a combination of a 4-digit octal code and altitude as Mode 3 A/C, often referred to as Mode A and C" (reference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_transponder_interrogation_modes). So it seems that DCS it's pretty much simulating it! Some aspects have to be polished, as I commented here. This is great because when we get the ATC improvement we would get the possibility to use them along the ATCs. And more importantly since DCS it's also implementing Mode 3 simulation we can have a simulation working between civilian and military, simulating air intercepts, hijacks with transponder emergency transponders, military aircraft working with civilian ATCs with Mode 3 settings, etc.

Oh, this information is gold (thanks for this, because you made me look for the Military Modes in order to understand and explain better), now I see that my course notes that my professors gave have incorrectly nomenclature (The pulse distances are correct, but they mixed terms). SO the deal is civilian Modes follow alphabetical order, A, B, C, D..., S. Military Modes follow numerical order 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.... Civilian use: Mode A: For aircraft identification. Mode B: For identification, it seems that it can transmit more responses (more than 4096) than A. Not sure 100%, but it makes sense. Mode C : For altitude interrogation. Responses have different meanings when decoded but are codified with 12 pulses as with Mode A. So they follow the same "Standard" Mode D : Never used. No information found Mode S : Stated on the previous message (long text). Military use: - Mode 1: For aircraft identification. The interrogation pulses are similar to the civilian ones, but shorter. The responses are codified only with 6 pulses, 2048 possible responses (2048 different identification for aircraft). Not compatible with civilian equipment. Use for identifying Mission Code. - Mode 2: For aircraft identification. The interrogation pulses are similar to the civilian ones, same size (4096 diferent ident.). Usually used for carrier controlled approaches during to ships during inclement weather. Use to Identify the aircraft itself, I guess it would be the tail number or some identification number inside the Carrier Strike Group (thinking of F/A-18C on carrier), because the US has more than 4096 aircraft. I guess that for inside friendly airspace, ATCs and other aircraft can fully identify Strike group and number plate just by asking for Mode 1 and Mode 2 ident. Mode 3: For aircraft identification AND altitude interrogation. Basically, this mode is "the interface" between legacy (not Mode S) civilian Modes and military. It asks and understands interrogations and messages compatible with Mode A and C standards. So you basically can use Mode 3/A and Mode 3/C in order to work with civilian airspace controllers. In DCS we can see with the F/A-18C, for example, which "submode" of Mode 3 we are using. - Mode 4: For IFF (NOT ONLY AIRCRAFT), ENCRYPTED. So I was curious of how this is works, I looked into the STANAG 4193 (listed as classified https://nso.nato.int/nso/nsdd/main/list-promulg , look for 4193) and AIMS DoD (https://studylib.net/doc/7683989/dod-international-aims-program-office---dod-aims) documentation public available, not very useful. Well, one thing that's clear is that there's a communications system which transmits the Mode 4 keys to all "allowed" Military NATO operators in the world. I suppose that in legacy times these Keys were broadcasted encrypted by radio stations and bases, for oceanic keys probably VLF bands. The first time entering the "community of devices that knew the keys" you probably needed a second party already inside it providing the current keys (since key are updated), and once you are in you can update your own keys. With the introduction of GPS those keys were probably transmitted inside navigation message carried Y-code (encrypted P code), and nowadays carried inside M-Codes (GPS) which they can carry more Military information and provide other capabilities related with DataLink, MIDS, etc. It seems that Keys change depending on Area of Operations (Local time) and change once a day. One of these keys or some other number (code) it's used as the code to be used for the challenge. Well imagine you know the keys (you are "inside the key community"), then the interrogation carries an encrypted challenge. In this case, for what I've collected for different wiki and public sources, the challenge consists of a known number (shared code) encrypted. If the interrogated aircraft posses the keys, it would decrypt the interrogation message correctly and check if the received code corresponds to the current shared code between friendlies. If the decrypted code (with the known key) matches the shared code between friendlies, the receiver would send a reply, otherwise it won't. By using this technique, the receiving aircraft ensures that he isn't responding (with a reply) to an enemy which could give your position and distance if the enemy triangulated your reply by receiving it from different locations, so it's verifying the authenticity of the interrogation. Once the interrogation it's tested as friendly, the reply message it's created. The replay it's sent with a delay related to the encrypted challenge that the interrogator sent (so the receiver is verifying that he is friendly with this delay, see notes). The reply, it's a 3 pulse reply (I think these 3 pulses are used to correctly and precisely obtain the delay of the reply). If the interrogation receives the replay at a correct delay time, then he knows that you are friendly (from this it knows, bearing and range, and that you are friendly, as commented previously). It's not clear if the reply message it's a standard 12 bit data codified on pulses encrypted or just 3 pulses at the specified delay, maybe both things. The first option would explain why the DCS F/A-18 contains an A on the mode 4 (stating Mode 4/A) and it would make sense because you also would obtain ID info from the aircraft. At the same time, the second option also makes sense. In the explanation, I have chosen option 2, but option 1 seems more useful. The thing is that on Wikipedia the information stated according to option 1 has 0 references. NEVERMIND (FOUND ON EDIT): Mode 4 only identifies if interrogated system is friendly or not (NO IDENTIFICATION, numbers). Public military paper: https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/navy/nrtc/14308_ch8.pdf. From this document it's worth noting : "When a transponder on another craft receives a valid interrogation, it transmits (on 1,090 MHz) a response that designates the craft as friendly and may, depending on the system, also identify the craft." also : "Mode 4 provides crypto-secure identification of friendlies. Mode 4 interrogations are computer-encoded pulse trains, which consist of four “sync” pulses and possibly an ISLS pulse (if it is not transmitted in the antenna’s main lobe) followed by as many as 32 information pulses. Upon receipt of a valid mode 4 interrogation, the transponder computer processes the information “word” and generates a corresponding time-encoded three-pulse reply. The interrogator subsystem, in turn, receives the reply, converts it to one pulse, and time-decodes it for presentation on the indicators." finally if there was any doubt: "Mode 4 is used only to verify friendly status." I may post a BUG thread, because DCS seems to implement Mode 4 as capable of transmiting Mode A (and posible Mode C too ) information. The A next to the Mode 4, means using Key A as interrogation encryption key (also implying using key B as reply encryption key). Notes: The Keys used are probably 2 long prime numbers (look to RSA cryptography if you want to know why prime numbers are important, basically prime numbers are very hard to factorize). Then the shared code, gets applied the key as exponent, creating the encrypted challenge. Then the reply delay could be constructed using the challenge encrypted (using the same technique as before) with the second key (remember there are 2 keys). This way transmitter, it's verifying that he is friendly because it's sending a shared code encrypted with one of the keys, without compromising the shared code or the key to enemies. At the same time the receiver after verifying tx is frnd, it sends a reply that verifies that he is friendly because it's transmitting the encrypted message from the interrogator encrypted (again) with the second key, without compromising the shared code of the keys. - Mode S: The same as for civilian aircraft. - Mode 5: Modernization of IFF(Not only aircraft) ENCRYPTED. It carries information digital information, using digital modulation. In this case it uses spread spectrum techniques in order to avoid spoofing, detection, etc. With Spread Spectrum, you ensure that the enemy cannot know if you are transmitting and or at which frequencies you are transmitting. This makes it difficult for the enemy to jam your signals, try to spoof it with false signals, trying to triangulate positions. Without knowing the codification applied to the spread spectrum you cannot decode the digital modulation, and because they are spread signals their signal power level may be below the noise level (or very close, if you don't know the coding) which makes it physically impossible to detect that there's even a signal being transmitted. So basically Mode 5 uses encrypted digital messaging, which allows performing more complex interrogation, transmit more data (payload info, fuel, etc.) and overall provide variable capabilities, like Mode S does, but military focused of course. The encryption it's much more complex than with Mode 4 and probably more similar to "PC encryption" tools using AES-256 or AES-512 for example. This kind of modes (Mode S or Mode 5) you have to imagine as transmitting data over your Ethernet, but using other protocols and link layer kind of designs. It also can ADS-B GPS position (as I said, data). I think in DCS it's not modeled and all information we get of friendlies (beyond that they are friendlies) it's obtained from Data Link or MIDS (MIDS is just Data Link NATO standard in order to standardize communication between different Data Links of every country as far as I know) References: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identification_friend_or_foe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_transponder_interrogation_modes http://tscm.com/iff.pdf https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/48050/what-is-mode-b-on-the-transponder https://military-history.fandom.com/wiki/Identification_friend_or_foe https://taskgroupwarrior.info/2020/iff-mode-1-and-mode-3/ https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/systems/mark-xii.htm https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/navy/nrtc/14308_ch8.pdf

As @Harker said, the range can be estimated from the response. This is because the "protocol" defines that the response start (pulse F1) has to be exactly 3 µs after the reception of the interrogation tail pulse P3. In practice, responses are transmitted 3µs +- 0.5µs tolerance (the time for processing the interrogation, detecting the interrogation). The interrogator would receive the response 3µs +- 0.5µs + (2*R) /c_0) ( this is the propagation delay, notice that it's accounting for the path from INTR. -> AIRCRFT and then RECV -> AIRCRFT. So R = (c*t_delay)/2. For long distances the tolerance doesn't matter much, for close distances it does. Basically by calculating the total time it took to receive the response and subtracting the predefined separation between response and interrogation you can obtain the t_delay which is physically related to the distance traveled by the EM wave (the distance at which the aircraft is present, relative to you). Also from my class notes, there are these modes: Mode 1: Spacing between P1 and P3 (inter. pulses) 3µs, used for Identification, Military use. Mode 2: Spacing between P1 and P3 (inter. pulses) 5µs, used for Identification, Military use. Mode 3 or A: Spacing between P1 and P3 (inter. pulses) 8µs, used for Identification, Civilian/Military use. Mode 4 or B: Spacing between P1 and P3 (inter. pulses) 17µs, not used (not explained why), Civilian use. Mode 5 or C: Spacing between P1 and P3 (inter. pulses) 21µs, used for altitude data, Civilian use. Mode 6 or D: Spacing between P1 and P3 (inter. pulses) 25µs, not used, Civilian use. Mode S or Selective (Select): It is a more complex interrogation, it is compatible with Mode A and C interrogations (which means that it can change the P1 and P3 distances accordingly), it's a flexible interrogation. It differentiates from the other interrogations because it transmits encoded digital data on the interrogation using DPSK digital modulation (it can transmit different sizes of data 56 bits or 112 bits, depending on the symbol period and constellation size...). By doing that, it's able to interrogate specific aircraft because it can indicate to whom it's sent the interrogation inside of it. The response data codification it's the same used on all the other ones (well, the response it has always the same field for all the types of interrogations, but those fields have different meanings depending on the interrogation) The response itself, it's codified by the presence or not of 12 pulses, this means 2^12 = 4096 different responses. It's a very primitive kind of digital modulation, even though it wasn't created as a digital encoding because IFF systems were created in WWII, and they didn't have digital transponders nor any ways of performing the modulations or Digital to analog conversions needed. So the response it's by nature analog, a set of 12 pulses which depending on their activations mean one message or another (with nowadays mind it can be seen as a digital encoding, but it's not intended). My course notes are a bit old, so I guess that nowadays the responses would also transmit the information using digital modulations like DPSK. And because our current digital transceivers can transmit information very fast, the embedded digital information could be introduced between original design pulse gaps without breaking compatibility with old IFF systems. Nowadays, IFF systems communicate information between them very similar to the way that your phone and your WIFI access point do. They use digital modulation to transmit digital data over the radio link very fast, very robust, with error correction (and detection), identification, tampering protection, etc. Mode S is like a Swiss Army solution, and it can be used for all kind of interrogations (probably military have their own, idk). This is because S mode transmits digital data both for the interrogation and the response, by doing that you can transmit ANYTHING you want because you are transmitting anything that you can encode into binary data. This makes S mode versatile. S mode is like a protocol for transmitting digital data like Ethernet IEEE 802.3, or WIFI 802.11. With S mode, you could even ask for GPS position, armament on board, aircraft systems log, etc. Mode S messages of 56 bits codify 2^56 = 7.205759404×10¹⁶ possible messages and 2^112 = 5.192296859×10³³ (notice that this isn't how it would be used because there aren't all those different messages defined, here i'm just using the representation like we did with legacy one. In reality, you send digital information separating data into headers, fields, etc. Take a look at the attached link.) You can also check, this link if you are interested. https://military-history.fandom.com/wiki/Secondary_surveillance_radar

You guys are confusing RADAR with antenna. While yes, the secondary RADAR is a different RADAR system from the primary one; because SSR transmits pulse encoded information the baseband system used for SSR it's different from a primary radar (and probably all the pass band processing is performed by the same system block that the PRI and SSR use); they both use the primary antenna. That's because SSR needs to know from which directions (which aircraft) are coming the "I'm friendly" responses (simplified). To do that you need an antenna with narrow beam width (well actually is more complex, the antenna has to be capable of transmitting a narrow beam for the P1 and P3 pulses of an interrogation, but also omnidirectional for the P2 pulse of interrogation, also called control. Doing so only aircraft inside the interrogation beam treat the interrogation message as for them, the rest of the aircraft treat the interrogation message as not for them). The only antenna, capable of doing that, is the same one that the PRI radar uses. Every slot (see radar image I attached) on the radar dish is an antenna. The use of all these small antennas, it's called an array of antennas. In order to modify the beam width, you can modify the phase of the EM waves that are transmitted or received from every small antenna, that is called phased array antenna. Doing that, you can also modify the electrical pointing of the antenna (the direction of the main lobe, simplified: the direction of the received and transmitted rays). So you could modify those phases in order to both scan the sky and also modify the beam of the array antenna. I legacy F/A-18 RADAR is PESA. So you may be wondering, hey PESA sounds like AESA, I know AESA. So what is the difference with PESA? Well the difference it's that in PESA antennas the all the antennas transmit the same signal. A better way to explaining it is that PESA antennas are "used like traditional antennas", with that i mean that once you have obtained the EM signal that you want to transmit or receive you connect it to the PESA antenna, but the system behind the antenna is the one that it's in charge of transmiting and receiving. On the other hand AESA systems use every single small antena (the slots on the RADAR dish) as a T/R system, EVERY SINGLE ONE, so basically an AESA system is a set of small antenna T/R (transmit/receive) systems that work together and lend a result. On the other hand, PESA antennas are antennas formed up by small antennas but that are not independent. At the end of the day, it means that AESA antennas can achieve narrower beam width than PESA antennas ( 1/2 narrower) , but most importantly AESA antennas (because each small antenna has its own RF frontend) have lower SNR constrains for detecting returns and overall are much more robust than PESA antennas (again with AESA antennas you have hundreds of receivers, one for every small antenna, VERY EXPENSIVE). AESA antennas also have a wider frequency range. Finally with AESA antennas you can perform electronically scanning much more easier than in PESA antennas (yes with PESA antennas you can electronically scan, moving the electrical pointing), but also perform much more complex beam forming than with PESA antennas. This means that AESA antennas should be able to perform much more complex tracking and guidance of targets, even with more than one target at a time. IN CONCLUSION: If you move your Primary Radar antenna (the Antenna dish of small antennas), you are moving also your Secondary Radar antenna. Case 1: You have turned off your Primary Radar (ONLY THE BASEBAND RELATED TO PRI RADAR, without turning off any component that may affect the use of the antenna dish) and you perform a IFF interrogation INSIDE THE SCANNING AREA OF YOUR ARRAY ANTENNA, you should receive an IFF response if there's a friendly aircraft even when you don't have a target track. Case 2: You have moved your array antenna dish (with the primary radar controls) in a way that there are no aircraft INSIDE THE SCANNING AREA OF YOUR ARRAY ANTENNA, then when you perform an IFF interrogation you SHOUDN'T RECEIVE ANY RESPONSE. If you are on Case 2, then it's well modeled. Any doubts, check: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secondary_surveillance_radar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phased_array https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_electronically_scanned_array https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Electronically_Scanned_Array

FHSS it's basically used in all types of systems, most commonly Bluetooth, some 802.11 standards, and military/nontrackable comms. It's noise/interfence resistant as other SS (Spread Spectrum) techniques, like DSSS (Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum) (i.e CDMA for DSSS) etc. FHSS doesn't provide security, it just makes the frequency use random so jamming systems cannot know which band to jamm, and to overall reduce the noise/interference. But if "enemy" know your hop pattern it can listen to the comms, maybe not jam it because the speed of the hops. FHSS still requires encryption for full security. Well let's go to the point: FHSS uses frequency hoping along time to create an spread spectrum modulation. This means that electronic systems designed to work with this transmision scheme need to jump their carrier frequencies every x times, and because real systems aren't ideal this takes some time to perform. This time that the electronic systems takes to jump between carriers it's translated on abrupt periodical noise pulses that can be heard on the received signal (for example audio). As far as i know this only applies to analog (audio for example) systems; and on digital systems if the "hop time" wasn't enough symbol periods of length ( enough symbol periods regarding the codeword set used and depending on the, forward error correction mechanism, etc.) to make the codeword that was being transmitted unrecoverable, the system should be capable of recovering the data lost and make it unnoticable by a human, or even approximate what the audio sounded like (like a phone call when because of bad channel condition you can hear someone talking for a moment with a robotic voice). This could be a good addition to our aircraft radios: old school (or modern aircraft using old comms) aircraft having analogic comms FHSS and having this "vintage" noise over the audio. And modern aircraft using digital systems should have more crisp, good quality sound, when using for example MIDS. Examples for FHSS, analog, or no "hop time" recovery: Example FHSS with "hop time" recovery, notice no periodic noise (the bad quality of audio it's because the mic): Thanks

I just wanted to point out that there's this bug posted by someone else but on DCS: F/A-18C Hornet and not in the Bugs subsection. Just to make sure devs see it. I think there's enough information on the thread itself. Thanks

I'm from Spain. No luck with that. Vivo en Cataluña, tu?

Thank you all, I'm getting a bit anxious . I'll wait until 10 days after purchase and then I'll email them if i haven't got an email yet. On their store at service part says: "If your order not shipped 10 working days after payment and no email from our company, most like your order have problem and we can not contact with you."

I ordered WingWin Orion on 26 december. They charged the price instantly and got a mail with the receipt, but i still have no notice about shipment. This usually takes this long?

Yes pleaaase can we get this fixed. I want to train without gps so i get more used to the aircraft avionics. With gps is just plug-and-play but without gps navigation becomes more fun and targeting too.

TACAN needs an array of antennas to perform some kind of spatial modulation that can reflect from which heading the receiving aircraft it's receiving the TACAN station signal. For distance no need of array because the distance it's obtained from the round trip time of an STATION broadcast interrogation pulse and a reply transmitted by the receiving transponder. https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/navy/nrtc/14090_ch2.pdf So as someone already said: Big aircraft may be capable of having an array of antennas to perform bearing measuring (Ground stations of course) and distance, figher aircraft only capable of performing the distance measuring of the TACAN system. But it's dependent on the manufacturer of the aircraft maybe all those big aircraft doesn't have an array to perform TACAN bearing measuring. One thing is clear. All aircraft are capable of distance measuring with TACAN if they have a TACAN transponder and an antenna installed.