A CAP question

[Sharkh]

Hello!

 

I am learning the F-14 doing simple missions in SP and I am not sure what should I expect from jester and from the radar of the tomcat.

 

 

I have been using WW2 and older planes mostly in the last year so my basic knowlege about BWR went even worse. But I remember with the F-15 and F/A-18 in the past doing simple things like circling in a spot and switching radar modes could do the trick and I could spot and lock enemy targets if there was any with its radar in BWR while I can't do this with the F-14 from the front seat.

 

So my question is do I have to learn being a RIO and find targets myself with the radar or which settings or maneuvers I should do with jester when doing CAP to search for possible threats consistently because it seems I am doing it wrong because jester almost never find anything until its already too late.

 

Thanks for the help in advance!

[draconus]

If you don't steal the radar and let him work Jester keeps wide RWS. Have him set the range and elevation if you need to. If PH selected and bandits show up he goes TWS. If Sparrow tell him who to lock or wait and use PAL. Doing CAP alone? No wingman? No AWACS? That's crazy.

[Sharkh]

If you don't steal the radar and let him work Jester keeps wide RWS. Have him set the range and elevation if you need to. If PH selected and bandits show up he goes TWS. If Sparrow tell him who to lock or wait and use PAL. Doing CAP alone? No wingman? No AWACS? That's crazy.

 

Thanks for the reply!

 

I am trying to practice how to find targets alone using jester and only the radar of the aircraft. I have found a tutorial at youtube about using jester in bwr.

 

For example I am doing a simple practice mission where there are at least 6 enemy arcraft circling around the area at caucasus within 70nm at about 15000feet. I can see them on the f10 map flying exactly towards them and jester sometimes does not find them even when they are within 20nm . I set my display to TID to see the radar picture and sometimes I see enemy aircrafts on it and jester also shout that he found them than I set him to STT lock on to the closest enemy and he does it but the lock is lost most of the time even though they are still in front of me far away so its not like they should disappear if jester would do his work right. What am I missing here?

 

It feels like jester always use some very narrow radar setting where small changes in the heading result a lost lock. I am not familiar with the radar of the F14 yet since I did not learn it due it should be handled by jester so maybe I am talking crap here but on other planes where I had to switch radar modes myself in the past I lost lock flying towards enemy only when I used a wrong radar setting or I was either too high or too low.

 

Sometimes I see enemy targets on the radar from about 40nm jester reports them . I did not change the heading I fly towards them and they disappear than yester don't do any action to find them again but stay in the same radar setting/modes while it should be obvious that they are still there in front. It seems the F-14 have a very good radar in theory so I don't get it what I do wrongly.

 

I am trying to play with labels off and it feels like I am blind. :D

Edited March 11, 2020 by Sharkh

[r4y30n]

A lot of the difficulty seems to be Jester being a work in progress rather than any issues with the radar itself. In my experience he consistently drops lock when entering visual range (probably part of the hand-off to the pilot but no reason lock should be lost).

[QuiGon]

Thanks for the reply!

 

I am trying to practice how to find targets alone using jester and only the radar of the aircraft. I have found a tutorial at youtube about using jester in bwr.

 

For example I am doing a simple practice mission where there are at least 6 enemy arcraft circling around the area at caucasus within 70nm at about 15000feet.

If you set those aircrafts to fly in circles then it is no suprise that Jester is constantly loosing them, because they are constantly

your radar. In short, this means your radar (in most modes) can only pick up targets that are either comming towards you or are flying away with you, but not if they are flying perpendicular to you.

Additionally if they are flying away from you they have to fly at least 100kts faster or slower than you, because your radar (in most modes) can't pick up targets that are flying away from you at the same speed (+/-100kts) as you.

 

Radar operation is complicated business, especially if there is not much automatization as it is the case with the Tomcat radar, which is the reason why there is a dedicated Radar Intercept Officer in the backseat :D

 

 

And btw, it's BVR (= Beyond Visual Range), not BWR ;)

Edited March 12, 2020 by QuiGon

[Sharkh]

If you set those aircrafts to fly in circles then it is no suprise that Jester is constantly loosing them, because they are constantly

your radar. In short, this means your radar (in most modes) can only pick up targets that are either comming towards you or are flying away with you, but not if they are flying perpendicular to you.

Additionally if they are flying away from you they have to fly at least 100kts faster or slower than you, because your radar (in most modes) can't pick up targets that are flying away from you at the same speed (+/-100kts) as you.

 

Radar operation is complicated business, especially if there is not much automatization as it is the case with the Tomcat radar, which is the reason why there is a dedicated Radar Intercept Officer in the backseat :D

 

And btw, it's BVR (= Beyond Visual Range), not BWR ;)

 

Thanks for the reply , than it might be it that their trajectory make it harder to track them it sounds perfectly logical but It makes the situations a bit harder than it seems jester did not try to change radar settings based on the situation after these lost lock like a real Rio would do(I guess) . Yes he is just an AI maybe I expecting too much. I love the F-14 much more than the F/A-18 (not to mention I really hate the feel of FBW) but my first impression about its radar using Jester is a bit of a letdown that in my first ten or so hour of practicing A2A combat I mostly had to rely on visual target finding even though I have an AI rio who handles a good radar (and supposed to be a pro :D). I hope its just my level of skills and I need a lot more practice and tips about how to use Jester more efficently.

 

I am still very unexperienced in using radar systems in DCS thats why I liked the idea that If I fly the F-14 I wouldn't have to do it but it seems that with my low skill of using radar systems I have had easier time in BVR handling radar systems myself with the F15 or with the F/A-18. Especially with the F/A-18 BVR felt like cheating compared to this but maybe Its radar is better?

 

Btw I know its meaning is beyond visual range I have no idea why I used "w" but thanks for the corrections. :D

Edited March 12, 2020 by Sharkh

[QuiGon]

Jester is indeed pretty limited in his radar usage. AFAIK he never uses Pulse Search mode, which is the mode that is immune against notching and same speed (but susceptible to ground clutter). He also never changes elevation and azimuth when searching for contacts. So yeah, a human RIO can do much better than Jester.

On the other hand the radar of the Tomcat is very difficult to use and there are many situations where it's very difficult to keep track of a contact, where more modern and more automated radars would do a much better job. So don't be too hard on Jester ;)