Jump to content

RIO Collision Steering


AvroLanc

Recommended Posts

The F14 was light years ahead of the systems that everyone learned on. Everyone could simply look at the geometry and effect an intercept. RIOs learned to do the math in their heads, and during training, the RIO sim instructors demanded that the student RIO's calculate the geometry in their heads, even though the AWG9 was displaying the same information using the same data. Always seemed a bit silly to me.

 

Pilots would look at the velocity vector and speed of the target, then use their own aircraft's velocity and geometry to complete the intercept without using the collision feature. I don't recall RIO's using collision very often.

 

Karon brings up a good point about lateral separation for a canned, school house rear quarter conversion. In practice, a pilot could generally deal with turn radius using the vertical, unless in bad weather or other altitude restrictions based on threats or terrain. It was good practice, but tactically rarely used, unless to effect a rendezvous on a forward quarter tanker, etc. For instance, on a forward quarter intercept, at a certain range, the pilot could put the TGT diamond on the corner of his HUD to assure sufficient lateral sep to make a rear quarter conversion.

 

We also used rules of thumb to complete efficient tanker rendezvous, peaking at velocity vectors to help visualize aspect and so forth. Believe it or not, a lock, or even a radar wasn't required to rendezvous on a tanker or playmate, especially if holding at any sort of known fix. I bet you guys do it all the time without a whole lot of thought. 


Edited by Victory205

Viewpoints are my own.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

School house indeed, but unfortunately the declassified documentation I found covers IQT-level stuff, not really much more (the exception is a paper for the F-8 crusader describing.. beam intercepts). Robert Shaw describes some more advanced intercept but at a level quite high, so I'm trying to fill the gaps starting with basics.
It is also interesting how the things have changed: the more modern stuff (2017) uses gameplans to get to 40k ft of LS then counterturn, the same docs but from the early 2000 focus on collision into displacement pre-counterturn, and the displacement range was much shorter than the modern.

About the geometry, I love the maths behind it, it's a blast and helps to understand a lot of things. On the other hand, I guess we can all agree that when this is your job you want things done effectively and quickly, but as a profane playing a videogame and looking forward to the F-4, damn I love it 🙂

 

 

Back to the collision, if I remember correctly, in the video of the second Sidra Gulf incident the collision is mentioned, but I don't recall whether the RIO used the TID function or he was instructing the pilot.

full_tiny.pngfull_tiny.png
full_tiny.png

"Cogito, ergo RIO"
Virtual Backseaters Volume I: F-14 Radar Intercept Officer - Fifth Public Draft
Virtual Backseaters Volume II: F-4E Weapon Systems Officer - Internal Draft WIP

Phantom Phamiliarisation Video Series | F-4E/F-14 Kneeboard Pack

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Regarding this collision feature, I'm not sure why there's such a push back from the SME's against getting it implemented? For a faithful simulation that seems a bit odd.

 

I have a massive amount of respect for the contribution the various SME's make. They've lived the life that many can only aspire to and I understand where you're coming from. I don't however agree with the argument that we're all geeky sim pilots who just love pressing buttons but have no real understanding of what or why we're doing it. 'Children of the magenta line' in airline speak. Yes, collision function isn't critical, and yes it's very possible and even preferable to calculate and execute an intercept manually. I understand the principle and do so, with some success, in sim. I also understand and accept I haven't had x years of experience doing this for real. Which I'm fine with and honestly don't need to be reminded of.

 

But isn't this supposed to be a simulation of the F-14 with most of it's features faithfully recreated? This one Collision Steering feature clearly isn't a priority, which is fine, but it's been nearly 2 years and no indication that a useful tool may get looked at eventually? We do however get endless tweaks to flow flows and drag values, important though they are.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As Victory said, it was not used often, so probably it is not a priority right now. There are quite a few things that either do not work completely or need tuning (from some missing keybinds to missiles, to the tuning of the aircraft characteristics, plus other missing features) so HB is working on those, I guess.

 

As a total noob of the F-14 and aviation, I see where you are coming from, on the other hand, in this specific case, it really takes no more than a couple of seconds to eyeball the CB (collision bearing), you just need a glance at the TID AS. You can also the sheer geometry (there a few formulas and tricks you can use, especially when co-speed) or the intercept drift from the DDD. Again, I see where you are coming from, everything I mentioned is not as easy as pressing a button, but it is not complex or a blocker either (especially the TID AS).

 

Personally, in the grand scheme of things, as a virtual RIO only I'm happy that HB is working on more important things. Heck, even something as a working button for the TACAN owner would be more welcomed than the Collision button imo (perhaps they fixed it, I ended up using DCS-BIOS to make it work and did not touch it since).

That being said, at some point we'll get that button working. In the meantime I'm sure there's plenty of people happy to show you some workarounds. If no one else does, give me shout 🙂

full_tiny.pngfull_tiny.png
full_tiny.png

"Cogito, ergo RIO"
Virtual Backseaters Volume I: F-14 Radar Intercept Officer - Fifth Public Draft
Virtual Backseaters Volume II: F-4E Weapon Systems Officer - Internal Draft WIP

Phantom Phamiliarisation Video Series | F-4E/F-14 Kneeboard Pack

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We had a RIO in 41 we called Biff Biow The RIO. His name was Biow and he just dripped of “Biff”. 

Former USN Avionics Tech

VF-41 86-90, 93-95

VF-101 90-93

 

Heatblur Tomcat SME

 

I9-9900K | Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Ultra | 32GB DDR4 3200 | Samsung 970 EVO Plus NVMe | RTX 2070 Super | TM Throttle | VPC Warbird Base TM F-18 Stick

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...