ME-configured TACAN and bands

[Robin_Hood]

I know there was a discussion about that some time ago, and I might not be aware of the current status of that, but I just did some more testing on air-to-air TACAN (on tankers), with both bands, and here are my results, hopefully it may help understanding the problem (if there is indeed one).

 

This does not seem to be limited to one single aircraft, as I had the same results with both the F/A-18C and the Mirage (tracks included).

 

Here's the setup:

 

Three tankers on the map, on on 11X, one on 43Y, one on 112Y. For each channel, I tried all combinations of T/R, A/A, X and Y modes.

All three tanker TACANs did the same thing:

 

- in X, T/R: I get nothing

- in X, A/A: I get both distance and bearing (even when the tanker is supposed to be X)

- in Y: I get bearing only (regardless of T/R or A/A mode)

 

I included two tracks of the same mission (on PG, but I confirmed the same behaviour in Caucasus), one with the Hornet and one with the Mirage. Both tracks show the same procedure:

 

- engage autopilot and set navigation displays to TACAN

- tune TACAN channel number, on X band, in T/R mode

- verify no info received

- switch mode to A/A, verify distance and bearing

- back to T/R

- switch to Y band, verify bearing only

- switch to A/A mode, verify bearing only

- back to T/R, X band, switch next channel

- repeat

 

Notes

- I did take into account the MIDS filter in the F/A-18C, which is why I chose one supposedly filtered frequency and two that should be safe. Also, I checked with the Mirage which shouldn't have filters.

- I only tested with KC-135MPRS as tanker

TACAN_XY_Hornet.trk

TACAN_XY_Mirage.trk