Radar elevation procedures?

[Robert31178]

Hi!!

 

A friend and I were talking about how our biggest problem when getting a BRA call is that it is difficult to get the antennae elevation in the right spot to see the bandit being called out to us. this is more when the bandit is inside of 15nm or so, outside of that we seem to do alright. This happens to us flying both Eagle and Bug.....I would LOVE to have this solved before the Tomcat drops.

 

I was wondering if there is a tried and true method of getting your gear oriented correctly, like a math formula or since you would have at least one constant. Is there anything like this around?

 

~Rob

[Pheonix0869]

If you are getting a bra call then you know the general vicinity of the bandit and it's altitude. What I used to do is turn the plane and dramatically sweep the radar up and down. However, if you put your TDC at the right range from your aircraft... Say the bra call is 210 for 20 at 7,000 ft... correct your orientation to the bandit and move your cursor to the approximate range. If your radar scale is at 40 nm and the call is for 20 then park your TDC half the distance from the bottom of your radar display to the top. Now, to the right of your cursor there will be a high number and a low number. These are Max and min altitudes being scanned, make sure the low number is lower than the bandits alt and the top is higher. So for our example, 4 low and 8 high would be acceptable. After a full sweep the bandit should be apparent. The closer the bandit, the quicker his/her orientation will change and depending on your own altitude it may be hard to find. One tactic would be to dive to coaltitude, however you are sacrificing an advantage when you do that. With your wingman, you can leave a high guy and let the low guy find the bandit. Have the high cover keep track of the situation on data link (in the future), with eyeballs or track the low guy with his own radar. The low guy can then describe better where the bandit is to the high guy, or engage , etc.

 

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[Dino Might]

Hi!!

 

A friend and I were talking about how our biggest problem when getting a BRA call is that it is difficult to get the antennae elevation in the right spot to see the bandit being called out to us. this is more when the bandit is inside of 15nm or so, outside of that we seem to do alright. This happens to us flying both Eagle and Bug.....I would LOVE to have this solved before the Tomcat drops.

 

I was wondering if there is a tried and true method of getting your gear oriented correctly, like a math formula or since you would have at least one constant. Is there anything like this around?

 

~Rob

 

If you want to do the trig, in the modern jets you would need to do the inverse both ways because the system does it for you already. As stated before, BRA gives range and altitude, so put TDC at correct range and set high/low altitude of radar scan to bracket the reported altitude. No need to do the trig stuff. So I'm thinking the real question is, what are the scan zone indications, and how is scan zone adjusted on the fly? Twisty knob? Hotas control? Does the fishbowl show altitude bracket at the TDC, like in the m2k and F15 VSD?

 

Now with the Su27, it is marginally different. Set the ezpected range to reported range, take reported alt, subtract your alt, and move the scan zone up or down based on the difference divided by 1000 (e.g., you are 5km alt, target at 7km alt, 20km away. Set expected range to 20, and set scan elevation to +2).

[Robert31178]

Thank you both for the help!! I'll pass this along and hopefully we can start seeing some stuff!!

 

~Rob

[WHOGX5]

When you get close to 10nm it's best to use the WVR modes like boresight and vertical bore, and then do a sweep of the general vicinity of the BRA call. In the Hornet you have wide aquisition mode as well which is very good for scanning large areas when you don't know where the target is. And while your radar does all the work, try to find them visually simultaneously.