High Alt BVR Tactics

[USARStarkey]

Ok got some questions for anyone who really knows their stuff.

 

1. When cruising at 40-50k, I cant seem to ever see anyone on radar, even when I have the scan set to 0-20k or something. What am I doing wrong.

 

2. What is the optimum climb path for the F-15. I have found that if I just climb to 40 or 50k, I get slow enough that the required angle of attack necessary to maintain level flight causes so much induced drag that I cannot accelerate above 500-600mph TAS even with my burners lit and no drop tanks. I am assuming that I need to stay very fast as I climb and I am curious as to what the most efficient climb is.

 

3. Please keep your answers limited to the above questions! I am working on perfecting my high alt tactics, not adopting a lower altitude approach. Not saying this is the best way to do things, just experimenting and I want to make sure I am doing everything I can within the limits of my envelope.

[Ktulu2]

1- Even if you look down at that height, you won't map enemies as well as you would at 10k. Keep in mind that your radar bear is a cone, when you point your cone down at a very high angle, you will «efficiently» cover only a small area, and at limited height. Foe exemple, try to scan from 0 to 20k feets at a scale of 40, then zoom out to 80. What do you see? from 0 to 0, wich pretty much meens that you can't cover 40 miles at such an angle.

2-the F-15 has an operational roof of ~65000 feets, so it is normal to be harder to stay high. The higher you go, the harder it'll be to keep your speed, near 20k Kms (around 70 000feets) you can't keep your height whitout loosing a LOT of speed.

[Robin_Hood]

Good points, I'll add these:

 

1. Pulsed Doppler Radars are always worse in look-down than look up. That is, when you are looking down with your radar, you will have worse performance. Even if your signal processor filters ground clutter, you may not detect ennemies in the notch (90° aspect) because of the filtering. So generally speaking, you should expect degraded performance when looking down. This shouldn't prevent high-alt radar search, though, ony detection range may be slightly less, and some aircrafts may have trouble showing up.

 

2. First thing is, be sure to be supersonic when climbing above 30 000 ft. Mach 1.2 to Mach 1.6 is reasonable (when clean, at least). That should get you around 60 000 ft without too much trouble - if your aircraft is clean and you're at full A/B. Depending on your configuration, I suppose you might have trouble getting above 50 000 ft.