IFF interrogation

[SCPanda]

F-15E and IFF

I understand you use the Coolie switch on the throttle to iff interrogate, but I’m confused about whether it’s coolie left or right or what should I bind to my controls. 

In the IFF section of the manual, page 326, it says use coolie outboard (right) to iff. 

In the HOTAS section, page 73, it says coolie right is inboard and left is outboard. So the manual is contradicting itself. 

When I fly the jet, pressing coolie right in game doesn’t iff, but pressing coolie left does. 

So the iff section is wrong? You should be using coolie left instead of right? 

Also the left and right could be confusing, since the coolie is on the back of the throttle, so whether it’s left or right depends on how you are looking at it. So what is outboard and inboard? Is outboard moving the switch away from pilot and vice versa?

[draconus]

1 hour ago, SCPanda said:

So what is outboard and inboard? Is outboard moving the switch away from pilot and vice versa?

Yeah, from the pilot pov moving the coolie left is outboard (toward the left aircraft side). I bet page 326 is mistaken in "coolie outboard (right)" @baltic_dragon

[SCPanda]

1 hour ago, draconus said:

Yeah, from the pilot pov moving the coolie left is outboard (toward the left aircraft side). I bet page 326 is mistaken in "coolie outboard (right)" @baltic_dragon

Thank you sir

[Lymark]

Sorry for stealing OP's post, but I sorta have a related question....

How do you guys tell apart whether a contact is friendly or hostile? The manual states that a diamond indicates a low confidence AAI return and a circle means a high confidence return. But it doesn't explain whether the said return is friendly or foe. Am I supposed to ID them via other means(e.g. NTCR, F10 map, bogey dope) until certain feature(s) is implemented? Or, am I missing something about this AAI system?

[draconus]

Circle is friendly. Diamond would be possible friendly.

Edited June 23, 2023 by draconus

[Bossco82]

Does anyone know the control for the WSO to IFF targets??

[Moosemermaid]

Also IFF related, is there any documentation on whether or not there is a distance limit of being able to IFF a contact. I've noticed i cant really get a return until I'm near 40 miles. 

[draconus]

10 hours ago, Bossco82 said:

Does anyone know the control for the WSO to IFF targets??

That'd be AAI / NCTR / EWWS / EID Switch on Right Hand Controller.

Quote

In the rear cockpit, AAI switch should be pressed forward (>1 second).

IFF is WIP in F-15E.

[Scott-S6]

On 6/23/2023 at 4:03 PM, Lymark said:

Sorry for stealing OP's post, but I sorta have a related question....

How do you guys tell apart whether a contact is friendly or hostile? The manual states that a diamond indicates a low confidence AAI return and a circle means a high confidence return. But it doesn't explain whether the said return is friendly or foe. Am I supposed to ID them via other means(e.g. NTCR, F10 map, bogey dope) until certain feature(s) is implemented? Or, am I missing something about this AAI system?

The AAI system identifies friendlies. It can't identify hostiles (no responses implies that the aircraft is hostile but there are lots of reasons why a friendly aircraft might not respond or why their response might not be received by you).

This is why it marks friendlies (high and low confidence) and doesn't mark hostiles because in actuality everything not marked is unknown.

[EnzoF98]

43 minutes ago, Scott-S6 said:

no responses implies that the aircraft is hostile

Nitpicking a bit, but no response doesn't imply anything and definitely not that it's hostile. It only indicates no response.
It's just that in DCS, >95% of the time you have either friendlies or hostiles and nothing in between, so no response will typically mean hostile. (Unless it's a hornet driver who forgot to turn their IFF on)

[QuiGon]

1 hour ago, EnzoF98 said:

Nitpicking a bit, but no response doesn't imply anything and definitely not that it's hostile. It only indicates no response.
It's just that in DCS, >95% of the time you have either friendlies or hostiles and nothing in between, so no response will typically mean hostile. (Unless it's a hornet driver who forgot to turn their IFF on)

In DCS a non-response ALWAYS means it is hostile (100% of the time). The IFF system in DCS is very basic and works with magic, so it doesn't care if the Hornet driver forgot to turn on his IFF transponder. You can even successfully interrogate a BF-109 with your F-15.

[EnzoF98]

9 minutes ago, QuiGon said:

In DCS a non-response ALWAYS means it is hostile (100% of the time). The IFF system in DCS is very basic and works with magic, so it doesn't care if the Hornet driver forgot to turn on his IFF transponder. You can even successfully interrogate a BF-109 with your F-15.

Ah right, I forgot that was the case.

[LazyBoot]

12 minutes ago, QuiGon said:

In DCS a non-response ALWAYS means it is hostile (100% of the time). The IFF system in DCS is very basic and works with magic, so it doesn't care if the Hornet driver forgot to turn on his IFF transponder. You can even successfully interrogate a BF-109 with your F-15.

It's only 100% reliable if you ignore things like battle damage. We've seen several instances of teamkills on our servers because someone was trying to nurse a injured plane back to an airfield, and someone shot them due to no IFF response. Mostly seems to happen if DCS thinks the player is dead while they might still be flying (though usually not combat capable anymore)

[QuiGon]

3 minutes ago, LazyBoot said:

It's only 100% reliable if you ignore things like battle damage. We've seen several instances of teamkills on our servers because someone was trying to nurse a injured plane back to an airfield, and someone shot them due to no IFF response. Mostly seems to happen if DCS thinks the player is dead while they might still be flying (though usually not combat capable anymore)

Ok, this is indeed the only exception. If a player aircraft gets such severe damage that DCS treats it as dead (it will disappear from the F10 map and also from TacView recordings), then it will indeed not respond to IFF.

Edited June 28, 2023 by QuiGon

[Scott-S6]

4 hours ago, EnzoF98 said:

Nitpicking a bit, but no response doesn't imply anything and definitely not that it's hostile. It only indicates no response.
It's just that in DCS, >95% of the time you have either friendlies or hostiles and nothing in between, so no response will typically mean hostile. (Unless it's a hornet driver who forgot to turn their IFF on)

Exactly. You might say response=friendly therefore no response=hostile (this is the assumption typically made in DCS) but the reality is rather more complicated than that. Crucially, what the IFF transponder systems can never do is positively identify a hostile aircraft even though the name suggests that's what they do. Hence, there's no IFF symbology for hostiles.

I'm going to go and add some civilian traffic in a 3rd faction to some of my missions so that people have to ID targets before they shoot down a civilian C130.

Edited June 28, 2023 by Scott-S6

[baltic_dragon]

On 6/23/2023 at 3:12 PM, draconus said:

Yeah, from the pilot pov moving the coolie left is outboard (toward the left aircraft side). I bet page 326 is mistaken in "coolie outboard (right)" @baltic_dragon

Thanks. If you are on my Discord, could you add it to the feedback thread over there?

[draconus]

4 minutes ago, baltic_dragon said:

Thanks. If you are on my Discord, could you add it to the feedback thread over there?

I don't discord, sorry. Maybe someone else can do it?

[QuiGon]

1 hour ago, Scott-S6 said:

Exactly. You might say response=friendly therefore no response=hostile (this is the assumption typically made in DCS) but the reality is rather more complicated than that. Crucially, what the IFF transponder systems can never do is positively identify a hostile aircraft even though the name suggests that's what they do. Hence, there's no IFF symbology for hostiles.

I'm going to go and add some civilian traffic in a 3rd faction to some of my missions so that people have to ID targets before they shoot down a civilian C130.

Yeah, the poor IFF modelling (or even lack thereof) is one of my biggest gripes with DCS. It's great that ED added a neutral side a while ago, which would give IFF at least some depth, if it would actually get used by mission makers.

I've been trying for years to raise some awareness of how poorly modelled IFF in DCS is.

 

Edited June 28, 2023 by QuiGon

[Czar66]

On 6/28/2023 at 8:06 AM, QuiGon said:

In DCS a non-response ALWAYS means it is hostile (100% of the time). The IFF system in DCS is very basic and works with magic, so it doesn't care if the Hornet driver forgot to turn on his IFF transponder. You can even successfully interrogate a BF-109 with your F-15.

I had once interrogated a friendly F-15C with the M-2000C in TWS, reply successful and friendly confirmed. I knew there was a MiG-29 in the area and it did popped up on the radar while I had the 15C still tracked. The MiG came right between me and the friendly, and instead of letting go the friendly 15 I mistakenly pressed IFF again to interrogate and turned out my aircraft did NOT receive the reply from the friendly.

If I haven't interrogated the 15 before the 29 came into between us, I would assume there was two hostile aircraft in front.

I think there is a bit more on that front. It is not super sophisticated but....

[YoYo]

On 6/28/2023 at 12:02 AM, Moosemermaid said:

Also IFF related, is there any documentation on whether or not there is a distance limit of being able to IFF a contact. I've noticed i cant really get a return until I'm near 40 miles. 

And second condition, the other plane must be closing (flying towards you), this is what I noticed, but agree, works very poor here, sametimes work sametimes not.