mattag08

Yeah, my unit has 20+ friendly aircraft and about as many enemy aircraft airborne during our missions. Not being able to reference bullseye is a big detriment for the F-14 guys like me when compared to our F/A-18 friends.

Not all BVR scenarios are a small flight vs. flight engagement against a known opponent with a known position. The chaos of combat can see multiple opponents coming from multiple vectors at unknown locations. Because modern BVR tactics specify a meld and sort inside of tactical range there is a much higher likelihood that an aircraft with a narrow scan pattern is closer to you and has melded, sorted, and is about to launch or has launched. An aircraft still in a wide search cannot do that (at least with the PD radars modeled in DCS atm). Knowing that information is useful. Knowing that an aircraft is TWS capable is also useful, but that doesn't make other SA enhancing information not useful. You're reading too much into it. I never said I'm "waiting" on the RWR. I have run missions in both PvP and PvE in Many v Many BVR scenarios over many years of combat flight simming and have seen situations where this information would have been useful. Just because you don't doesn't mean it isn't.

Not a radar expert, but... Q1: Yes, the "look-down, shoot-down" (I hate this marketing phrase so much) capabilities of the radar come from 4th generation fighters' pulse Doppler radar. By comparing the velocity of radar returns to the velocity of the aircraft, the radar filters out any returns that would be slow moving or stationary objects on the ground. Radar computer sophistication changed dramatically throughout the history of PD radar, so the filters are much better now than they were initially. But in theory there is no reason why a mountain, hill, city, or any other random ground clutter will matter. Because it is not moving the radar will filter it and only see the airplanes that are moving at a speed greater than the Doppler filter. Q2. It is possible, but the radar should be limited by line of sight. However, the actual radar is usually mounted on top of the ship a hundred or more feet (30m) above the water line. This is true for the Type 52's Band Stand radar as well. This means that the radar can see all the way to the water's surface for a decent distance away from the ship. It would be able to see up to 2-3m above sea level at a slightly longer distance. A quick check shows that the radar can see to the surface at about 20 kilometers. So it is possible.

This is still an issue. The signage at taxiway F shows E both at the runway and when travelling eastbound. Also the signs at the hold short line for A (westernmost threshold) are incorrectly displaced at the turn instead of aligned with the hold short line. Additionally, all the signs I checked do not have two sides to them. The signs should show your current location (yellow on black signs) on the opposite side even if the reason for the front of the sign (entering a taxiway, runway, etc.) is not relevant for that direction of travel. In particular this is very wrong for the signs where you exit the runway, which need to show a current location sign (yellow on black) for the taxiway you are entering as you exit the runway.

Agreed that the RWRs are too good. I disagree that the information wouldn't be useful though. If you have multiple threats and one is hitting you with a scan capable of tracking you versus another that isn't, that changes the way I would prioritize that threat. Whether or not the technology could exist is beyond my level of understanding of the relevant SIGINT/physics.

What happens if you lose lock? Does the 54 go active? Also, how do you know this given it's classified?

Solid advice! Hahaha!

Well I don't know how classified radar and RWR systems work for certain. If you do and are willing to share, I'm all ears! ;) But, the obvious answer here is that for an ARH missile like the AIM-120 or AIM-54, the radar would not need to switch into a launch PRF because the missile is not guiding in a semi-active mode. The missile is simply receiving datalink information from the aircraft FCR. This is useful because the enemy does not know they have been launched on until the missile goes active. If the FCR switches into a launch PRF for an ARH missile it would: 1) be pointless as it doesn't help the missile's guidance 2) needlessly alert the enemy to the launch when it has no benefit Thus, I would conclude the FCR does NOT switch to a SARH launch PRF when an ARH missile is launched from STT.

Could be also sorts of engineering limitations with the radar/WCS/electrical wiring/etc. Maybe it was just an afterthought as well. We would have to ask the fine folks who worked at Grumman.

Generally the RWR gives the pilot audio pitch that correlates to the frequency of the scan and the PRF of the radar (with increasing PRF represented by higher frequency tones and higher volume alerts) for instance: Search radar: low tone and infrequent chirps Radar lock (spike): higher pitch, steady warble Launch: very high pitch, loud rapid modulating alert Missile: highest pitch, highest volume, and highest frequency modulating alert This leads to my question. Would an RWR distinguish between a radar that is in a wide scan (say the F/A-18C's 6B/140° max scan pattern) and a narrower meld scan (say a 2B/60°) pattern? A max scan pattern takes approximately 13 seconds to finish, while the 2B/60° scan takes only about 1 second to finish. Each full scan would send radar energy over your jet at least once, so the RWR would detect the narrow scan 13 times more frequently than the wide scan. This information would be useful to the pilot since you would know that the enemy is possibly tracking you in a TWS mode or at least is focusing on the airspace that you are in and trying to detect you. To that end, it would make sense that RWRs would let pilots know this information. My first guess is that since the PRF is the same as a wide scan, the "nails" sound would just play at a more rapid rate and the clock/threat position would update more frequently on the RWR instrument. Does anyone have any insight how how the RWR decides to report radars in search mode and display the visual and audio cues? Is there a "timeout" built in so that the nails sound doesn't play too often? Or does it just ignore a higher frequency of search PRF energy? Or perhaps have sims just never modeled this feature?

The F-18 doesn't have TWS in DCS my guy.

If they are the ones I'm thinking of they are to tell Jester to use VS high/low, PAL. There is a switch for the RIO as well to use those modes. Not incredibly useful (I'm not sure when Jester would use them that you couldn't just do it yourself), but it is a thing that the RIO can manipulate.

Interesting, I must've misread or read into what the manual stated.

Just VID :^)

All of the ranges are too optimistic for the reasons IASGATG explains. ED's definitions of missile range cues are wrong (for U.S. built fighters anyway). This has the added effect of making them basically worthless, since the underlying assumptions behind them range from tactically inferior to illogical.

I linked you to a timestamp that explains the problem. ED simply doesn't understand what U.S. definitions of Raero, Rmax, Rne, Rmin, etc. mean so their range cues are wrong.

IRL, yes. The general understanding (since it's all classified) is that the missile has a datalink connection even after going active. If the datalink is sending is a valid track it will continue to home on that location and ignore a "bigger" target that the seeker might be seeing. In DCS, when ARH missiles go active, they no longer have any datalink input whatsoever and will guide on any target in the seeker's FOV (I don't know for certain, but behavior suggests it is the one with the strongest radar return, which would be a function of range and RCS). Because of this behavior, you cannot shoot Fox-3s at targets that are merged with friendlies (or will be merged by the time the missile arrives).

You said when the 18 launches you get an immediate warning. I only get a warning when the AIM-120 actually goes active. It has always been that way and should be the correct behavior. The missile PRF and radio signature is not the same as aircraft FCR.

Is it not true that the system is comparing the calculated/sensed heading to the detected magnetic heading and syncing the two during periods where the aircraft is stable?

Kinda weird behavior since entering aircraft heading is really only useful for a HS INS align. With the AHRS working you would think the INS would just calculate and sync the heading as always even if you entered a value there at any point.

Nope, this is not a bug. Go read up on how the fuel system works.

When would the engines be running and the generators not operating? This would be a secondary failure.

Sorry "in flight alignment" was the wrong terminology. I was referring to a updating the aircraft position via a fix of some sort. The ability to actually have Jester realign the INS on the ground would be very useful though for turn-and-burn sorties. Currently in MP, I have just given up and work around it by respawning in a new jet so I can have a properly aligned INS. In SP, you simply can't do missions like this at all.

Yup, known issue. I've asked for even a simple "cheater" Jester fix that perfectly recenters your position, but no word on when that would be implemented.

Devs, is there any update in the works for this? Currently MP night ops are basically impossible because your aircraft disappears at about 200' or so. The formation lights, nav lights, anti-cols, everything is extremely dim compared to real life (see the above video, or really any picture/video of an F-14 at night). We should be able to see the external lights from many *miles* away. Take note of how bright the lights are with sunlight still visible on the horizon. In pitch black night they are even brighter than that. Currently I'd estimate that the intensity of our external lights are about 10% of what's shown in the video for dusk lighting even in pitch black skies.