Why is antennae elevation so hard? Or is it something else?

[feeleyat]

I have a general grasp on radar elevation, pretty successful in f14/f18, but I am having a hard time with the viper.  I see bandits on datalink, but have a 5% success rate of turning them into STT locks and an even more dismal rate in TWS. What am I missing?  RF on, TWS selected, 40 nautical, colatitude, nose hot, cursor says angel 0-30, I'm at 500 knots, bandit at 500 knots, then wait and wait.  Hit stays red. Wont turn into solid yellow box.  Now I'm in visual or dead.   Any help would be greatly appreciated.   The training mission work a charm, but no luck in instant mission otherwise.

[pete_auau]

in the  fa 18  you need  to  scan  your  radar  up or  down  to match  the  bandits alt plane  before  you will get  a lock

[Frederf]

The numbers beside the FCR cursor show the altitude covered at that particular cursor position. This obviously changes based on the range so you can only be sure that range covers the target if cursor is placed over the DL contact. Otherwise the coverage numbers are essentially meaningless. You may successfully have the FOR of the radar including the target but the radar isn't displaying it.

Narrowing the scanned region and limiting look down geometry is about the best you can do. Spotlight scan (hold TMS forward) for a A1/B4 is excellent for when you know exactly where a contact should be. I don't know if it's currently simulated.

[Aquorys]

With the current version of the F-16, I have seen the altitude coverage jump to useless values when you go from RWS to TWS or vice-versa, so you should frequently check whether it still makes sense. I had it set to e.g. something like ~7k-45k in TWS, and when I reset the radar to RWS, it jumped to -99k to -45k at the same range, which obviously doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Seems to be a bug. Some change would be normal, as you'd typically use RWS set to B4 and TWS set to B3, so TWS covers a smaller vertical area.

[feeleyat]

Thanks guys. I will keep practicing.  

[falcon_120]

With the current version of the F-16, I have seen the altitude coverage jump to useless values when you go from RWS to TWS or vice-versa, so you should frequently check whether it still makes sense. I had it set to e.g. something like ~7k-45k in TWS, and when I reset the radar to RWS, it jumped to -99k to -45k at the same range, which obviously doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Seems to be a bug. Some change would be normal, as you'd typically use RWS set to B4 and TWS set to B3, so TWS covers a smaller vertical area.

As a previous poster explains, the numbers you see tdc (top and lower coverage) are only true at the distance your tdc is at.

So determining a bandit is within coverage of the radar is a 2 step process:

1-Place the tdc over the target DL or suspected target range
2-Review top and lower coverage limits and adjust as necessary.


Its like that in all western fighters, f18 and f15 included.

Enviado desde mi ELE-L29 mediante Tapatalk

[feeleyat]

I got the elevation range, but still tws wont work. I can get rws to work fine inside 50 mi but even that outside 50 doesn't seem to work. I shrink the azimuth and go 6 bars. And fiddle with less bars. Seems to work when it wants to rws past 50.

[Kilo]

Well, that's about the maximum range of the F-16C's radar

[feeleyat]

So how do m1.6 60 mi amram. Stt only?  Thanks guys. I will keep practicing.  Aug9 has spoiled me.

Edited November 4, 2021 by feeleyat

[Deano87]

18 hours ago, feeleyat said:

So how do m1.6 60 mi amram. Stt only?  Thanks guys. I will keep practicing.  Aug9 has spoiled me.

 

A big non-manoeuvring target that has lots of RCS.

[falcon_120]

So how do m1.6 60 mi amram. Stt only?  Thanks guys. I will keep practicing.  Aug9 has spoiled me.

IRL? Either you engaging a big target (mig 31, tu160...) or you are flying an F15c. The eagle is the true bvr machine for those scenarios .

Previous ranges of the Apg68 were too optimistic to say the least. They were like the ranges you would get from an Aesa equipped f16v nowadays.

Enviado desde mi ELE-L29 mediante Tapatalk

[Aquorys]

On 11/2/2021 at 11:34 PM, falcon_120 said:

As a previous poster explains, the numbers you see tdc (top and lower coverage) are only true at the distance your tdc is at.
 

Yes, but that wasn't my point. The problem is that the coverage suddenly went from e.g. 7k - 45k to -99k - -70k at the same distance when I switched from TWS to RWS or vice versa. What it should do is e.g. go from 7k - 45k to 3k - 57k or something like that, because RWS vertical coverage is larger than TWS vertical coverage (unless you intentionally changed it). That kind of change would be expected, but the antenna moving to a completely different attitude just because of the mode change every time doesn't make any sense. This seems to be a regression in the sim, older versions didn't do that.

[Machalot]

2 hours ago, Aquorys said:

Yes, but that wasn't my point. The problem is that the coverage suddenly went from e.g. 7k - 45k to -99k - -70k at the same distance when I switched from TWS to RWS or vice versa. What it should do is e.g. go from 7k - 45k to 3k - 57k or something like that, because RWS vertical coverage is larger than TWS vertical coverage (unless you intentionally changed it). That kind of change would be expected, but the antenna moving to a completely different attitude just because of the mode change every time doesn't make any sense. This seems to be a regression in the sim, older versions didn't do that.

Could it be that you had not touched the antenna elevation yet, so it was at default, and your control was out of sync?  Then when you switched to TWS it scanned your elevation control axis and updated it to match?  This assumes you have an axis mapped and it was at the extreme, or something.

[Frederf]

There might be some kind of bug or just unexpected behavior. Antenna is automatically controlled in several situations and manual in the others. I think there are also semi-auto (centered with manual bias). One can for example have a bugged and snapped TWS target which automatically controls antenna while rotating the antenna knob to any position. When switching away from that mode suddenly the antenna is manual again and could point in drastic directions just by a mode switch. There's a real purpose to the center detent in the antenna knob in the real airplane.

[QuiGon]

A track file of such a case where you can't pickup the target on your radar would be helpful @feeleyat

[Aquorys]

On 11/5/2021 at 6:09 AM, Machalot said:

Could it be that you had not touched the antenna elevation yet, so it was at default, and your control was out of sync?  Then when you switched to TWS it scanned your elevation control axis and updated it to match?  This assumes you have an axis mapped and it was at the extreme, or something.

I don't have it on an axis, I have antenna position up / down functions mapped to two positions of a hat switch on the throttle