PL-5EII wont slave to Radar

[GiveMeHanzo]

I was chasing a F16C from behind, the distance was between 2km-0.5km. I was using DGFT mode with vertical scan, but the seeker head almost never lock on to that F16, even its afterburner was at the max, I only got radar lock so if I fired the missile, it wont track at all, and the F16 is well within the circle on my HUD. Is this intended or a glitch? Because I saw other people able to slave their seeker head to radar just fine.

 

 

Update: I just done a few more test with AI, the seeker head seems glitched, it almost never lock on when chasing enemy from behind, but when head on, it has much higher chance to get a lock.

Edited August 16, 2020 by GiveMeHanzo

[Blinky.ben]

I was chasing a F16C from behind, the distance was between 2km-0.5km. I was using DGFT mode with vertical scan, but the seeker head almost never lock on to that F16, even its afterburner was at the max, I only got radar lock so if I fired the missile, it wont track at all, and the F16 is well within the circle on my HUD. Is this intended or a glitch? Because I saw other people able to slave their seeker head to radar just fine.

 

 

Update: I just done a few more test with AI, the seeker head seems glitched, it almost never lock on when chasing enemy from behind, but when head on, it has much higher chance to get a lock.

 

You have to bind a control for it. I can’t remember what it’s called exactly but it’s something like Cage or seam. When you press that while the PLE5 Is selected the circle will move around your HUD. When The radar locks something the circle will move to the same area and Aquire the target for you but only if it can pickup a heat signature enough. I haven’t used it for a little while but has generally work really well for me, but I don’t know if it’s changed recently.

[GiveMeHanzo]

lol, thanks I just bind it, it now somewhat working. But still not reliable and takes a long time for the seeker to get a lock, when against AI with AIM-9M, they can always lock and fire their AIM9M about 2k further away before I can get a lock. I thought PL-5EII is suppose to be at least on par or even slightly better than the AIM-9M. Since JF17's gun is pretty much useless, those missiles really need to be effective.....

[AeriaGloria]

They are launching AIM-9M that far because you are probably in afterburners. Outside of afterburner it is not very all aspect or even that good a seeker, and there’s this odd behavior that I’ve seen explained online where it gets lock on best if your nose is within 20 degree of the target, it doesn’t seem to like locking at high off boresight angles.

 

If the enemy AI would stay in afterburners constantly, you would have no trouble I’m sure

[Chiron]

yea PL-5 most of the time a bit slow in detecting heat signature and yes in front u have better chance to get you lock faster its weird but that is how its now deal with it

[Chiron]

They are launching AIM-9M that far because you are probably in afterburners. Outside of afterburner it is not very all aspect or even that good a seeker, and there’s this odd behavior that I’ve seen explained online where it gets lock on best if your nose is within 20 degree of the target, it doesn’t seem to like locking at high off boresight angles.

 

If the enemy AI would stay in afterburners constantly, you would have no trouble I’m sure

 

in 1 km or 0.5 or more a bit if your target is cold its a bit harder to get a seeker lock even if your target is in after burner and i also found this on MP a lot PL-5 slow in detecting targets but anyway its not that good to use so most of the time i dont shoot PL-5 RTB and get 4 SD-10 again . i found PL-5 good for Tanker and awacs

Edited August 17, 2020 by Chiron

[AeriaGloria]

in 1 km or 0.5 or more a bit if your target is cold its a bit harder to get a seeker lock even if your target is in after burner and i also found this on MP a lot PL-5 slow in detecting targets but anyway its not that good to use so most of the time i dont shoot PL-5 RTB and get 4 SD-10 again . i found PL-5 good for Tanker and awacs

 

Yeah like a lot of stuff on this plane, it’s an evolution of a 50s design, and this one is not so good performing. It will fly really well when locked, low smoke, can actually do very high off boresight up to 40 degrees if you lock them in front of you first.

 

That being said, I have not used AIM-9M much in DCS, and don’t know how it’s seeker performs compared to PL-5EII, but I always assumed very similar performance

[Chiron]

Yeah like a lot of stuff on this plane, it’s an evolution of a 50s design, and this one is not so good performing. It will fly really well when locked, low smoke, can actually do very high off boresight up to 40 degrees if you lock them in front of you first.

 

That being said, I have not used AIM-9M much in DCS, and don’t know how it’s seeker performs compared to PL-5EII, but I always assumed very similar performance

 

i am not that sure but what i know is AIM-9M can fly longer than PL-5 i feel like PL-5 drop so fast even in 5nm it can't hit u need to be inside 3nm or 2nm to be sure

[AeriaGloria]

i am not that sure but what i know is AIM-9M can fly longer than PL-5 i feel like PL-5 drop so fast even in 5nm it can't hit u need to be inside 3nm or 2nm to be sure

 

Go against Tu-160 and have fun with 10nm shots. At high altitude and speed it can go pretty far

[Chiron]

Go against Tu-160 and have fun with 10nm shots. At high altitude and speed it can go pretty far

 

i think Fox-2 short range missile supposed to perform pretty well in low altitude

[GiveMeHanzo]

Yeah like a lot of stuff on this plane, it’s an evolution of a 50s design, and this one is not so good performing. It will fly really well when locked, low smoke, can actually do very high off boresight up to 40 degrees if you lock them in front of you first.

 

That being said, I have not used AIM-9M much in DCS, and don’t know how it’s seeker performs compared to PL-5EII, but I always assumed very similar performance

Although the original PL-5 was from 1960s, the PL-5EII is actually pretty new 21th century stuff, it even support off bore sight launch, if the aircraft have helment sight. Thats why Im a bit shocked by how it performed in DCS lol.

[L0op8ack]

LOS rate will be too high if very close to the target, pl5 seeker may lost track.

you can verify this behavior by brutal pedal kick to the oppsite side of direction target moving.

my personal suggestion: pull harder to lead target, stable the LOS rate to 0 if possible, wait tone, shoot.

Edited August 17, 2020 by L0op8ack

[AeriaGloria]

Although the original PL-5 was from 1960s, the PL-5EII is actually pretty new 21th century stuff, it even support off bore sight launch, if the aircraft have helment sight. Thats why Im a bit shocked by how it performed in DCS lol.

 

AIM-9M is also compatible with HMS up to 30 degrees.

 

While PL-5EII first appeared in 2008, it is not much farther evolved from AIM-9B then AIM-9M. PL-5B is visually nearly identical to PL-5EII, Look at specs in Jane publication here compared to PL-5E of 1997 and EII(2008), E is almost exactly the same as EII but with 1nm less range then EII. http://cdn.ihs.com/Janes/Sample-content-IHS-Janes-Weapons-Air-Launched.pdf

 

To me it is clear, PL-5EII is much closer to a slow paced evolution of original sidewinder design using L/M fins, with development being small iterative changes and not any large or very particularly more high tech changes.

 

I am not trying to say it is bad, it fulfills a role in China and as an export missile as widely available cheap to manufacture and sell missile, using the same training and infrastructure as all PL-5s before it. This is something it does because of its traditional non-radical design.

 

Sure it may be a 21st century built missile, but it is really a parallel evolution of AIM-9M, and only focuses on performing that much, not more.

 

If we were to open up a PL-5EII, I would not expect many differences from earlier PL-5 and Sidewinder variants.

Edited August 17, 2020 by AeriaGloria

[MAKhan]

I think its the end of the road for PL5EII, focus would be more on PL-10.

[GiveMeHanzo]

I think its the end of the road for PL5EII, focus would be more on PL-10.

There are reports that suggest PL10E is coming to JF17, maybe even for block1 and block2. If that ever happened, I wonder if Deka is going to make an update, that would be great lol.

[GGTharos]

LOS rate will be too high if very close to the target, pl5 seeker may lost track.

you can verify this behavior by brutal pedal kick to the oppsite side of direction target moving.

my personal suggestion: pull harder to lead target, stable the LOS rate to 0 if possible, wait tone, shoot.

 

It's great that you've simulated this behavior when the missile is not spawned yet. Are you also able to simulate it preferring to lock onto a hotter signature like a flare if it's told to look in a direction to get a lock and sees both the target an flares?

[J20Stronk]

It's great that you've simulated this behavior when the missile is not spawned yet. Are you also able to simulate it preferring to lock onto a hotter signature like a flare if it's told to look in a direction to get a lock and sees both the target an flares?

 

Yes they did. Sometimes the seeker will lock onto a flare before firing if the target dumps a lot of them.

 

Also, If you fire a PL-5 without getting tone in the direction that the enemy is flying, there is a chance the missile will detect the bandit's exhaust and home in on its own.

 

Mind you, the seeker has an extremely small detection FOV.

[GGTharos]

Yes they did. Sometimes the seeker will lock onto a flare before firing if the target dumps a lot of them.

 

This happens in other modules also, but it's a bit accidental. Without going into the nuances of it, with a flare in the FoV the seeker should almost always track the flare, not the other way around. I was just curious if they had modeled such a thing. This is for BEFORE the seeker locks on, though, after it's locked on flares are a bit less effective.

 

Also, If you fire a PL-5 without getting tone in the direction that the enemy is flying, there is a chance the missile will detect the bandit's exhaust and home in on its own.

 

Mind you, the seeker has an extremely small detection FOV.

 

This is actually true of all heat seekers in DCS :)

[L0op8ack]

It's great that you've simulated this behavior when the missile is not spawned yet. Are you also able to simulate it preferring to lock onto a hotter signature like a flare if it's told to look in a direction to get a lock and sees both the target an flares?

 

 

Flares are dispensed too quickly, it's hard to set up a proper mission to test.

In my test, IR seeker may lock wrong target if 2 or more targets are in close formation (radar locked 1#, while IR seeker lock 2# even it's slaved to radar).

Since we use 16-leaf rose scan pattern if uncaged(instead of dead on radar target), and IR seeker always lock the first hot thing, biting flares is very likely.

Edited August 17, 2020 by L0op8ack

[GGTharos]

Good job :)

I had asked ED to implement something similar for their missiles :)