Flares F-15 & Su-27

[JulienBlanc]

Tried to do a little research on the matter but no specific information popped up on my key-words.

 

So the F-15 pops flares downwards, meaning when you pull on the stick you pull away from the flares. It's purpose being to create displacement in the interception calculations of the emitting detecting system or ideally even fooling it to be the "actual" target.

 

The Su-27 on the other hand flares from the top. In a pulling motion the flares follow a flight path much much closer to yours than when they exit downwards. My question being; doesn't this cause the potential miscalculations to be much smaller? And is this significant enough to adopt a completely different and specific set of manoeuvres that would place the flares in a more effective way?

[pepin1234]

Well I don't know what is your aircraft. If you are a Su-27 pilot, you should do the main maneuver. Is basicly make a dive 45 grades right or left doing snaking. So here you can see you go down and the flare go up direction. That way the RU flare is made thinking in the tactic of RU combat. Much better...

[Tombstone]

Dispensers placement deals with complex problem and there probably isn't one right answer. But IR seekers have narrow FOV so having flares quickly leaving airplane area and thus FOV of tracking missile may not necessary be the best thing.

[JulienBlanc]

 

Yes my paint skills are off the charts.

 

Hope this clarifies a little what I'm trying to figure out!

 

The first being the F-15, creating maximum distance between the flare and it's own flight path for maximum miscalculation IF the tracking system is fooled.

 

The Su-27 from a rear aspect pulling up presents the flare between the tracking system and it'self creating maximum confusion but low displacement.

 

From the front aspect however the flare seems useless and is just some glowing clutter appearing behind the tracked target almost invisible due to the tracking's 2 dimensional nature.

 

Pushing on the nose in the Su-27 would create the distance, but then again... it's very unstable to do so. Seems to me like a huge flaw unless there's a specific approach I'm missing?

[GGTharos]

Ok, first, the game:

 

In the game, right now the Su-27 has the advantage in flare use in a 'standard' evasive maneuver because the game considers flares between the target and missile to be more effective. Other factors are look-down, AB use, etc.

 

Now, a fairly high-level, non-detailed view of reality:

 

There are studies out there that the USAF did a long time ago (And I'm sure others did also, but the results are not published) that indicate the direction of flare ejection (up/down) has a negligible effect on the probability of decoying the missile seeker.

 

Some missiles will use kinematic filtering to help reject flares, so flares 'travelling with you' actually help decoy the missile in this case. There are specially designed self-propelled flares that separate from the aircraft slower.

 

Reticle seekers cannot reject a large number of flares, period. It's just not possible - and this has to do with the way a target is sensed and resolved by the seeker. It's all about signal-to-noise ratio :)

 

On the other hand, very modern FPA-based seekers will just flat out ignore flares (think MICA IR, AIM-9X, IRIS-T, ASRAAM etc) so we won't talk about those :)

 

Regarding the geometry you are asking about: This is a trade-off. Inside a certain distance flares are leaving the missile FoV so fast that they may have negligible effect. On the other hand, there might be important effects against MANPADS. Again, trade-off.

More importantly, decoys must be used with maneuver to be effective. If your aircraft is slow, your maneuvers - and your decoys - probably won't be effective no matter what you do.

 

Tried to do a little research on the matter but no specific information popped up on my key-words.

 

So the F-15 pops flares downwards, meaning when you pull on the stick you pull away from the flares. It's purpose being to create displacement in the interception calculations of the emitting detecting system or ideally even fooling it to be the "actual" target.

 

The Su-27 on the other hand flares from the top. In a pulling motion the flares follow a flight path much much closer to yours than when they exit downwards. My question being; doesn't this cause the potential miscalculations to be much smaller? And is this significant enough to adopt a completely different and specific set of manoeuvres that would place the flares in a more effective way?

Edited May 5, 2015 by GGTharos

[pepin1234]

 

Yes my paint skills are off the charts.

 

Hope this clarifies a little what I'm trying to figure out!

 

The first being the F-15, creating maximum distance between the flare and it's own flight path for maximum miscalculation IF the tracking system is fooled.

 

The Su-27 from a rear aspect pulling up presents the flare between the tracking system and it'self creating maximum confusion but low displacement.

 

From the front aspect however the flare seems useless and is just some glowing clutter appearing behind the tracked target almost invisible due to the tracking's 2 dimensional nature.

 

Pushing on the nose in the Su-27 would create the distance, but then again... it's very unstable to do so. Seems to me like a huge flaw unless there's a specific approach I'm missing?

 

I don't understand very well your paint. The first reaction every pilot do when evade a missile is dive and banking right or left. So I don't figure out any maneuver for a fighter pulling up like in your paint. When you dive, your outtake engine have a transversal upper direction, also all the hot rests of the engine is leaving up. So the engineer logic is make a countermeasure dispenser up direction. The head seeker fallow the warmer, so the warmer side of the aircraft is the outtake of your engine, so if you dive the flare should be dispense up, because there are the warmer gas while you continue snaking.

 

At the other hand the Russian canister chaff/flare are bigger than the American one. So that means you dispense more bigger and powerful countermeasure per every time you do. Of course this is not implemented into DCS.

[blkspade]

I don't understand very well your paint. The first reaction every pilot do when evade a missile is dive and banking right or left. So I don't figure out any maneuver for a fighter pulling up like in your paint. When you dive, your outtake engine have a transversal upper direction, also all the hot rests of the engine is leaving up. So the engineer logic is make a countermeasure dispenser up direction. The head seeker fallow the warmer, so the warmer side of the aircraft is the outtake of your engine, so if you dive the flare should be dispense up, because there are the warmer gas while you continue snaking.

 

At the other hand the Russian canister chaff/flare are bigger than the American one. So that means you dispense more bigger and powerful countermeasure per every time you do. Of course this is not implemented into DCS.

 

I think the idea is that even if you're instinct is to dive, its not usually with negative G. You'd roll and pull positive Gs. Doing so still puts you in the plane of travel of the flare in the case of the Su27, since its not "up" but from the top of the aircraft.

[pepin1234]

I think the idea is that even if you're instinct is to dive, its not usually with negative G. You'd roll and pull positive Gs. Doing so still puts you in the plane of travel of the flare in the case of the Su27, since its not "up" but from the top of the aircraft.

 

Yes this is a pretty good maneuver into DCS for F-15.

 

By the way this thread was moved to Military and Aviation forum... :lol: