Radar Help

[CBenson89]

Does anyone have any advice about how best to use the radar at high altitude. I have had many experiences where I will be flying alone with jester I’ll get a radar lock at like 50 miles and then all of a sudden I’ll lose the lock and the target will disappear from my scope I’ll spend the next 90 seconds trying to acquire only to eventually get locked up by the bandit when it 15 or fewer miles away. Is there a recommended mode I should tell jester to use to find bandits that are 20000 feet lower than me when we are in collision? I’m sick of losing dogfights because I can’t get a radar lock on targets that are lower than me. Thank you!

 

 

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[WelshZeCorgi]

I am assuming this problem appears mostly in multiplayer, but of course can happen in sp.

 

Unfortunately, Jester is not designed to be intelligent enough to do what a competent human RIO in muticrew can do. Jester gives some feedback and minor automation when working the radar and performing startup, but someone familiar with the position and the pilot and the situation would be primed to give you flight instructions and use additional tools on the awg9 to greatly increase your chances of success.

 

For one, Jester does not elevate the radar on his own in any of the radar modes and the current model of the F-14 does not have a properly working TWS auto that performs centroid tracking.

 

This means that with Jester, your aircraft must be at relatively co-altitude if you hope to maintain a radar contact. This is not important when you are 50 or 80 miles away, as the 4bar search provides plenty of vertical coverage. But as you get closer, 30 and less, that cone narrows quickly to the point that co-altitude becomes an important factor.

So #1. Try to maintain co-altitude. This can be very tricky with a hard manuvering target. If the target suddenly pulls a 6g into pure nose low while travelling at a good clip, he can quickly descend out of the radar cone in seconds.

 

There are two main weaknessess with he awg9. One is the zero-doppler filter. This is when the target is traveling away from you between +/- 100kts your speed. If you are going 350kts and the target is travelling 400kts away from you, the radar will not pick him up.

 

One counter for this would be to get below the targets altitude, switch to pulse mode and for the RIO to stt him with the radar using the DDD. As far as I know, Jester cannot do this.

 

As the pilot, your best course would be to change your speed and/or direction. If you both are travelling at 200kts and you speed up to 350, he will start showing up on radar unless he did something like fly behind a mountain or started notching the radar. Direction is relevant too, if you are traveling 200kts and target is moving 350kts, it should appear on radar, but if it is travelling at an angle away from you so that the total speed he is moving is between 100-300kts relative to you, it will not be picked up by radar, so keep that in mind.

 

The second weakness is the notch filter. Basically by flying 90 perpendicular to the radar, he will not be picked up by the radar. The counter for this is for the 14 to get beneath the contact and for the RIO to turn off the main lobe clutter (MLC) filter off, preferably after launching a 54, to prevent guidance loss during TWS guidance. As far as I know, Jester cannot do this also.

 

The main reason why Jester looses stt seems to be because of notching and chaffing. Doing both practically guarantees a broken lock and human pilots with experience will always do this. The counter is to find and lock the target up in pulse stt instead of the pdstt where the lock is dependably strong unless the target flies dangerously close to the ground and confuses the range gates.

 

That is just to explain why this might be happening with Jester and basically why Jester can't help you in those situations. The better you understand, the more it might make sense and be easier to remember these advices.

 

Fly slighty lower than your target, i know that's not the answer you were looking for but you need a competent human RIO to work the radar automatically. You can order Jester to elevate the radar but at the rate of closure in a typical fight, the clunkyness of the menu and the "suddenness" that the radar settings are snapped to when Jester changes them, it will be difficult to pull it off consistently.

 

Try changing speed and/or direction to prevent cospeed to a target going cold on you,

 

Don't try the same thing twice. (if you ask him to lock up a target and he fails, don't ask him to try locking it up again, it's a waste of time because he will more than likely fail again)

 

Don't lock a target from 50 miles away. Even if you fire immediately after lock, a smart opponent will quickly move to the notch, and he will have more than a minute to do so as the missile will take plenty of time to cover 50nm. And because you can't A. switch to pulse stt easily at that range and B. can't guide 54s in pulse mode. He will break lock early and cause you to scramble to react to his moves.

 

Use other cues besides the radar as your SA declines. Datalink contacts, rwr, and just plain looking outside the cockpit needs to also be considered as the range closes to within visual range.

 

Use acm mode: that red switch to the left of the missile cooling and prep buttons. When flipped up, that launches 54s in active mode, basically the missile comes off the rail and immediately goes into pitbull, looking for their own targets immediately.

 

If you have an inkling of where the target was and where it was heading before you lost it, sending a 54 in that direction, (remember to give it a little lead, like with guns) can either put them on the defensive and give you time to find them, or get lucky and actually hit them.

 

This is a rather dangerous mode as 54s cannot tell the difference between friend and foe so DO NOT FIRE INTO A FURBALL in this mode or if you think there is a friendly in the path the missile will take. Do not even fire this in acm mode if there are friendlies behind the target because it can go past your target and hit them instead. This is a last ditch, shit hit the fan move so don't just default to this everytime you get bested. Quickest way to make enemies is to shoot down your friends.

Edited March 24, 2020 by WelshZeCorgi

[WelshZeCorgi]

I should mention that while I RIO often, consider myself intermediate. Not at all an expert by any means, but since no one else was answering, thought it wouldn't hurt to try.

[CBenson89]

Thank you so much!

 

 

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[WelshZeCorgi]

After playing the SP campaign, I thought of a few more helpful tips.

 

I found that using the 15sec ground stabilize Jester command is very helpful for knowing which targets to avoid and which to attack. When in aircraft stab, the velocity vectors are in relation to the aircraft, but the ground stab gives contact velocity vectors in relation to the ground. Combined with datalink contacts, in ground stab, you can pick out which contacts are near notching or are notching and which contacts might fall into the zero Doppler Filter.

 

Pick and choose your battles: it is tempting to blindly charge at the enemy, but having the smarts to see tactical situations where you'll die pointlessly and having the discipline to not charge into a losing situation is ultimately something that will give you more success than a powerful radar or longer range missiles. Your strength is in long range engagements, so avoid mountainous terrain, if you do need to be there, use the terrain to hide yourself and remain unpredictable. Giving your position away intentionally then leaving the area quietly through the valleys will often confuse and distract even experienced pilots, giving you time to go around and attack from a different direction or scaring them into staying away, allowing you the opportunity to launch on them while they're too scared to close in on you.

 

Learn and practice notching enemy radar. Against aggressive opponents, effectively defeating their missiles early in the fight will allow you to draw the enemy closer in for extremely high pk shots. At 50 miles, a 54 will take 2-4 minutes to reach the target, plenty of time to defend. But at 20 miles, your target has less than 30 seconds to react and at 10 miles, he has 10-15 seconds. If he doesn't accidently blackout and crash trying to notch that quickly, he will almost certainly get hit. Just remember to defend immediately after launching on him, in case the aircraft has fox-3s as well.

 

Also, have a visual pattern for keeping your SA up. Look at the radar, then the rwr, the airspace where the enemy is most likely to be and lastly your hud. Then cycle through those visual cues again. Focusing solely on the radar or the rwr or the hud will more often than not just further reduce your SA as you tunnel vision on one information display when clues about your enemy's intention or position might pop up in the others you are not looking at. I was told a good rule of thumb is no more than 2 seconds per display. As you get used to it, you can speed it up to 1 or half a second. It's a lot of work but you'll get better results than just staring at your hud in PAL waiting for it to find the enemy.

Edited March 24, 2020 by WelshZeCorgi