Help with interpreting a F-18 ATFLIR video

[TheCholla]

Hello,

I'm not a DCS user, but I have a question about an ATFLIR video from a F-18. This famous video is from the Navy, captured in 2015 off Jacksonville, Florida. it shows an unidentified target locked by the ATFLIR pod.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKHg-vnTFsM

The F-18 is at 25000ft. Me and others are trying to reconstruct the 3D trajectory from the target, and we find two solutions : it could be at 10 Nautical miles, at ~23000ft and climbing by 500 feet, or in a straight-leveled trajectory at 30Nm, 6000 feet below the F-18 (19000 ft).

We are in Air-to-air mode here, in Zoom2 Narrow field of view, which I believe is 0.35deg FOV. My specific question is about the Situation Awareness (SA) cue dot. it moves from left to center as the F-18 is closing onto the target, and the azimuth decreases. But it also moves up, and it is at the very top of the screen in the last section of the video. However, the elevation (relative to horizon) stays at -2 deg. The DCS F-18 manual says that the vertical displacement of the SA cue dot indicates where the pod is looking, relative to the F-18 boresight, along the vertical.

From your experience, is the SA cue dot consistent with an object at 23000ft climbing by ~500ft, or with a target staying at constant altitude at 19000ft ?

Thanks in advance for any useful input on this.

[Napa]

Have a look at this analysis. Very thorough and scientific.