Harlikwin

Yeah It was a hybrid AFAIK. Pretty typical electronically of that era where engineers knew how to do some stuff better analog, and other stuff could be done digitally. A/D sampling was the major issue back then, which wasn't really solved "well" till the mid/late 70's.

9G still had some tubes, 9H was the first fully solid state navy winder.

There is nothing official about it being cancelled. And actually that line between "soviet" and "russian" is actually pretty interesting and could actually be good news in many ways. Well I guess not if you want a modern flanker or something tho.

So just had a weird failure for my Jetseat/simshaker. Its no longer being recognized as a USB device. I can plug it in but it then fails (Device Descriptor Request Failed). Is there a fix for this? Honestly I think its happened before to me a year or two back.

The time sequence is already in the thread. And we are talking about the 9B not the 9D/G/H (which don't even exist in DCS currently). Though the D doesn't uncage either. For navy missiles that started with the 9G, and for the AF the 9E was the first one with uncage while still on the plane. I don't recall off the top of my head buy I'm pretty sure there is a launch limit for the 9B and the derived R3S (seeker on that one should also work like the mirage F1 9B as well if other devs wanna follow along). Though that missile should have a longer lifetime and different/better motor.

Thats good to know and not really that surprising. On the upside it should have the expanded SEAM search pattern. So the only radar slaveable IR missile should be the 530IR in that case.

Why would the sunlit side of the building be the same temp as the non sunlit side?

Yeah I mean honestly you also have reflection as a major component of things in MWIR as well. Esp from water and other IR reflective surfaces which may be stuff you conventionally think about or maybe not. Remember in IR world what you see is a combination of emissivity and reflectivity. And also from a seekers perspective it mainly cares if it has enough contrast to actually "see" something. The hand and the ring are the same temp, yet...

Yeah same issue with this on ECW MP. He says the fire command, but doesn't actually fire. Its new with the last patch as well. Also he will sometimes later randomly yeet off the AT6 at nothing.

There are plenty of commercial simulators specifically for this sort of thing. Though how difficult it would be to implement that is another story. Like its very easy to "understand" like a hot engine... But most people don't realize like a rooftop in IR is gonna give you very similar signature. Or in the case of these sorts of primitive seekers imagine if you have a nice cool plot of forest with some small clearings and rocks that are "warm" thats also gonna give the seeker what its looking for. And since stuff like "buildings" don't really "exist" in DCS the same way as units do IDK how they might approach it.

Yeah I'm not arguing that point at all, its well documented that it was done. Though I really wonder how you guys are gonna model that. I guess you have heat values for vehicles for your FLIR model, but it doesn't really seem like there is anything for actual background objects, and honestly I haven't seen alot of studies on how effective targeting ground vehicles really was with different types of missiles, everything I've seen is highly anecdotal. 9X ground targeting is a whole other can of worms since it actually has an imaging seeker where nothing this old did. Also found your missile in that photo, looks to be an AGM-87 FOCUS missile developed during VN at china lake. It was a sidewinder derivative but both the seeker section and guidance section were modified so it could better be used against ground targets. Very likely the spatial filtering was modified. Here it is on a Huey

There were multiple techniques and filters to do just that actually depending on which specific missile you are talking about. By the time you get to the 9L/M even more sophisticated processing was being used. For example, the R60M contains two sets of optical filters in addition to the primary seeker dome material that also acts as filter. And its reticle design looks interesting as well, though thats more for spatial filtering.

Broadly speaking I think we are in agreement. But, it all depends on your understanding of "hot" and where in the IR spectrum you are looking, in fact germanium elements were used in the optical design precisely to cut out "hot" stuff spectrally speaking to reduce clutter and ultimately flare rejection as well. For the R60M in Afghanistan case and I believe the Vietnam and Angola uses cases as well, they were used at night where you basically didn't have any reflective clutter on the ground, so when you locked something "blindly" you could be reasonable certain it was an actual target.

Yeah that would be the button. It should work as uncage for the 9J/P/JULI (JULI is likely more complicated since its a 9L-Li upgraded seeker head/logic that can do fancy stuff if the weapons computer is up for it) And for the 550 (which defaults to a wide SEAM like autolock pattern) that same button commands a "narow" search instead of the wide one. So like instead of uncage, its more like return to cage. Currently the whole autolock thing is a major pain on MP servers as the missile will often lock the wrong target in furballs. Which was why IRL you had either the narow seeker FOV and the uncage button. Or in the case of the magic the lock whatever is on the boresight button, though the expanded seeker search by default could also be a big advantage.

Not pick nits, but something in that caption is wrong as the aim-9L program didn't exist in 71, or that is not a 9L (doesn't really look like one with that nose). And yeah I'll take it up with the museum. But at any rate, there was a ton of effort invested in the early years of most IR seeking missile programs not having them lock "warm" things on the ground, rather what they were supposed to lock (warm things in the air). So most early IR missiles should have this "feature" even if it was considered a "bug" back then.

Well #1 the aim9B got fixed really nicely (Awesome and thank you), with that null in there it actually works super well (and now has the distinction of being the only entirely working 9b in all of DCS) #2 When I briefly tested it the 9J/P still did the autolock. Basically should work like the 9B but can be uncaged with the (300/600 button) so that they will track within the gimbal limits before firing, allowing you to pull lead for the missile in close combat. And also the seeker IFOV on the 9J is 2.5deg instead of the 4 deg of the 9b. (basically how the 9P works on the F5E) #3 The 9J/JULI, Honestly IDK if the JULI on the F1 can autolock or not, if it can, then that would be plane side weapons computer integration much like radar pointing. The 9L seeker is theoretically capable of both being cued by radar, and autolocking, but I don't know if it was ever integrated onto the mirage F1 that way. Given how basic the F1CE weapons computer is at a guess probably not. Also #4 The 550 should autolock in a wide search pattern, but then when the 300/600 button is depressed it should run a narrow pattern at the boresight. (This is to make sure you lock the right guy in a furball) At any rate if Aerges fixes 1 missile a month I'm a happy camper. Esp if its done well like the 9B was.

Yeah this would be a major boon if it got fixed for MP servers.

Yeah its a real thing and actually what causes the "snake" behavior of the earlier missiles. The optical system is an inverted cassegrain system so the dead center of it has a small dead spot between the secondary and the focus where the "reticle" is (not pictured). That's why there is a null. When the missile guides is basically steering the target lets say left/right through this null which is why it snakes back and forth as you can see in some actual videos. ED doesn't model that but you can see it clearly in the vids. And at any rate thats an ED issue not a Aerges issue, and honestly not a major one, though it does reduce the Aero range slightly for the missile which may be accounted for anyway. Next steps are to fix the Aim9J/P behavior as those should not autolock as they do now (look at the F5E for correct behavior). They would use the (uncage button on the throttle to do it) Also fixing the 550 behavior (which does autolock) but the uncage switch in that case returns it to boresight. And of course fixing the 550 seeker to be rear aspect (PbS seeker), and the 530IR (InSb) to be limited all aspect.

Yeah its pretty common on many missiles to do this as power source since you can also generate gas for pneumatic control of flight surfaces at the same time.

IIRC its 60 secs for the R-24, so not unreasonable. No idea on the ER/ET tho, I'd imagine it might be more, but depends on how its powered.

Yeah so currently its still broken. It should be a limited all-aspect seeker head (useful for head on shots vs supersonic targets). Currently its working like a rear aspect only missile. Seeker range and missile range in that regime is very short unfortunately. Its already been reported (basically looks like the 550 got the all aspect seeker and the 530 got the rear aspect, when it should be the other way around). So hopefully since they just fixed the 9B, the 550/530 thing will be next along with fixes to the 9J.

Awesome work on the aim9b, it works as it should now. The seeker null is a super nice touch as well! Thanks! And I look forward to updates to the other missiles.

I just tested the new patch, and basically the Aerges F1 implementation is correct and how it should work on the F86, F5, Mig19, etc. They even added that seeker null which is a nice touch on their part.

So how it should work for all planes because the 9B wasn't a fancy missile (as detailed in the links) missile has 4 degree IFOV, when in range at rear of target it gets tone within this 4 degree IFOV. Pilot then depress firing trigger, seeker uncages, missile fires .8sec later (as detailed in the additional chart in the F86 bug report). How it currently works on various planes in DCS So on the F86 it auto uncages, i.e. it sees the heat source in the 4degree IFOV, then without firing the seeker tracks it within the gimbal limits of +/- 25 or 30 whichever you have it set to. For the F5E, it actually works correctly aside from the fact you can hit the "uncage" button which uncages it like the 9P/P5 which is incorrect (yes I know what the -34 says, but its wrong since every other tac manual about the 9b says it cannot be uncaged) For the Mirage F1, same as the F86 For the Mig19 same as the the F86 (While the rest of the R3S was modified, the only information I can find in Russian sources indicates the seeker worked like the 9B and the firing sequence was the same) Works correctly on the Viggen pre-launch (Rb24), however post launch the missile doesn't track correctly (same as earlier bug on the 9b that was fixed, I assume since the rb24 is a separate missile it didn't get fixed) As the sources say the 9E was the first USAF missile capable of uncaging (and 9G with SEAM for the navy). ETA Heh just read the change log, looks like Aerges has fixed the 9b to work as it should.

Speaking of missiles and priorities, can you guys take a look at the aim9b, I know its not exactly a sexy missile, but its broken across several modules right now to include 2 of ED's. Basically you guys have it autolock and uncage. Where IRL it only uncaged once the firing sequence started for 9B and for the very early 9A after it was only after it was fired. This behavior is also broken on the F1, and mig19 but I know those aren't your modules.