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Night Vision Goggles for Viggen


Burnhard

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As the Viggen was used until recent years i presume the pilots flew with NVG's?

 

Is there a mod for NVG for the Viggen?

Or do anyone want to make one?


Edited by Burnhard

Burnhard

Periferals - HP Reverb - Viper/Warthog grip on VPC WarBRD base - Virpil Mogoos T-50 Throttle - MFG Crosswind rudders - Gametrix KW 908 // HW - 7700k@4.8 - 32GB@3200 - RTX2080TI // DCS Favourites - AJS37 - SA342 - F-16C :thumbup:

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As the Viggen was used until recent years i presume the pilots flew with NVG's?

 

Is there a mod for NVG for the Viggen?

Or do anyone want to make one?

 

According to a friend of mine (who last flew the Viggen in the eighties though) trials were made with NV equipment. It was scrapped because of the risks of low level flying and near zero detectability of power lines etc with NV gear. Of course that was long ago, but he is pretty sure the Viggen crews never used NV.

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How (if any) was the night activity of the viggen?

Burnhard

Periferals - HP Reverb - Viper/Warthog grip on VPC WarBRD base - Virpil Mogoos T-50 Throttle - MFG Crosswind rudders - Gametrix KW 908 // HW - 7700k@4.8 - 32GB@3200 - RTX2080TI // DCS Favourites - AJS37 - SA342 - F-16C :thumbup:

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There's a reason it has illumination bombs, and it's not for supporting ground forces. Rb 04 strikes could of course be done in any visibility, but for the unguided munitions, you kicked it old school, that is to say in the exact same way as on the Lansen back in the day:

 

JyvcAA6.png

 

Flight of four aircraft, leader carries 8 illumination bombs, rest with bombs or rockets. En route leader and #2 separated by one wingspan, #3 two spans from #2 and #4 one span from #3. In peace time, #4 has nav beacons at full intensity as well as fuselage illumination on; in war conditions, everyone blacked out.

 

The flight approaches the target guided by radar. At 40 km out, the flight lead gives the order "begin right" (or left). Aircraft 2, 3, and 4 turn right and disappear into the darkness. The lead continues towards the target, arms weapons, and the nav officer in the back seat leads him to a point 500m to the left of the target. At 4 km out, the lead pulls up and pulls the trigger. Once the bombs are away, roll left 110 degrees, descending left turn, down on the deck, and return to base.

 

Meanwhile, when the rest of the group gets the order to begin, they start their chronometers, turn right 80 degrees and accelerate to M 0.65. After 60 seconds, turn left 60 degrees, level out, weapons armed. After slightly over two minutes, pull up just as the flares are lighting up and attack as in daylight. Avoid looking at the flares.

 

It may seem a bit crude to use a chrono and a compass for these things, but in two minutes there's not much time for things to go wrong. It worked well.

During the winter half of the year, there were night flights on tuesday and thursday evenings; first half of the day was off. There was plenty of illumination bombs to practice with; presumably they were trying to use up the old type (model year 1942 or so).

(Source, mandatory reading)

 

Tactics was exactly the same on the Viggen, just faster. One aircraft in the flight of four breaks off and uses the radar to toss the illumination bombs behind the target, the rest make a very precisely timed turn and arrive to deliver the actual strike just in time. It seems to have been a pretty spooky business.


Edited by renhanxue
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Flight of four aircraft, leader carries 8 illumination bombs, rest with bombs or rockets. En route leader and #2 separated by one wingspan, #3 two spans from #2 and #4 one span from #3. In peace time, #4 has nav beacons at full intensity as well as fuselage illumination on; in war conditions, everyone blacked out.

 

The flight approaches the target guided by radar. At 40 km out, the flight lead gives the order "begin right" (or left). Aircraft 2, 3, and 4 turn right and disappear into the darkness. The lead continues towards the target, arms weapons, and the nav officer in the back seat leads him to a point 500m to the left of the target. At 4 km out, the lead pulls up and pulls the trigger. Once the bombs are away, roll left 110 degrees, descending left turn, down on the deck, and return to base.

 

Meanwhile, when the rest of the group gets the order to begin, they start their chronometers, turn right 80 degrees and accelerate to M 0.65. After 60 seconds, turn left 60 degrees, level out, weapons armed. After slightly over two minutes, pull up just as the flares are lighting up and attack as in daylight. Avoid looking at the flares.

 

It may seem a bit crude to use a chrono and a compass for these things, but in two minutes there's not much time for things to go wrong. It worked well.

During the winter half of the year, there were night flights on tuesday and thursday evenings; first half of the day was off. There was plenty of illumination bombs to practice with; presumably they were trying to use up the old type (model year 1942 or so).

 

This looks like it could be a lot of fun to set up in a mission, but how could anybody pull this off in two minutes if you break off at 40km? Assuming 540kph (9km/min for easy calculation), a straight line is 4 minutes until the 4km flare release point. Doubling that to 1080kph puts you in transonic range to make the straight line time of 2 mins, the offset of the other three notwithstanding. Mach .65 is a non-starter for traveling 64km in 2 mins (assumption is a right triangle, which is close enough for the rough estimates).

 

Do you know the proper distances and times the Viggen used to employ this tactic? I would love to make a mission that does this.

 

EDIT: If you make the timing 4 minutes instead of 2, and use 550kph for the lead and Mach .8 for the strikers, the solution is feasible.


Edited by Home Fries
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It's written from memory by an old Lansen pilot at least 30 years after the last time he did it, and he did say he didn't remember the exact timings. :)

Thanks, rexhanxue. I didn't know that. A break at 22km for 2 mins would provide the same angular offset if the flares are released at 4km from the target, so this might be the distance to try first. 25km might be even better since were talking about 550kph instead of 540, and the timeline is "slightly more than 2 mins." Something to play with, anyway, using the 550kph and Mach .8 I detailed in the previous post.

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