is there a general "radar floor" altitude?

[salsantana]

I'm frequently trying to determine if there's a lowest altitude of detection by ground-based radar? What I've seen over years in other sims, I can't recall whether it was 100' or 50'? Of course it may depend on the actively searching radar's elevation and flight altitude at each moment, but searches revealed nothing about "radar floor".

[draconus]

On 4/2/2022 at 8:37 PM, salsantana said:

Of course it may depend on the actively searching radar's elevation and flight altitude at each moment, but searches revealed nothing about "radar floor".

Afaik it's dynamic and depends on radar type, distance, elevation etc. What is more some parameter is added to simulate earth curvature for radar equations on the DCS flat maps.

[salsantana]

Ah..... I can see how elevation of the radar would determine the floor. Worst case for an aircraft would be a radar in a valley; located on a hill, an aircraft would have a chance of flying beneath the scan pattern.

I'm familiar only with the PAVEPAWS facilities of Eldorado, Texas and Bristol, Massachusetts; their scan pattern's bottom is at 0 degrees as they continuously watch the horizon for suspicious objects....... ICBM's, etc., and also tracking space junk.

(I wonder what we'll do with the facilities once Earth is literally encased in a shell of spent rocket stages and satellites?)
I'm presuming that ground-based radars generally have little need to scan below 0 degrees. Regardless, I've seen multiple cases of "radar floor" over the years in various packages; I suppose taking notes while watching the RWR's responses is best available method at the moment.

So DCS actually modeled Earth surface curvature into the radar detection comps? Buncha overachievers Talk about "bang-for-buck", huh?

 

[JB747]

Roughly 1.23*square root of the height in feet will give you distance to the horizon in NM.