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IronMike

By IronMike
in DCS: F-4 Phantom

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IronMike

IronMike

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On 1/27/2024 at 3:09 PM, Sealpup said:

Also, is it just me, or is there nothing in the manual about the HUD/Sight specifically?

You can find it here, but we plan on adding a chapter for it, too. You are right to think that it is a bit hidden.

https://f4.manuals.heatblur.se/stores/guns.html?highlight=LCOS#employment

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GrEaSeLiTeNiN

GrEaSeLiTeNiN

Posted
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Hi, I was wondering if the greying out of the photos in the manual (to highlight the part being taught) could be made less obvious (ie. make it a bit more transparent)? Maybe I am just not used to it but I find the greyed out photos a little strange on the eyes for learning and do prefer the traditional approach of numbering or boxing. I get what it is trying to do and it does negate the need for arrows and numbers/boxes. But I think the traditional approach helps the reader relate/reference the part being taught with the rest of the pit. Just a personal preference thing/feedback. 


Edited by GrEaSeLiTeNiN
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Ziggy123

Ziggy123

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This sounds counter intuitive. Please can you confirm its correct. You have to wait longer if Master arm is already on?

Before employing the AIM-7E Sparrow, a delay of four seconds should be given if the Master Arm switch is set in the ON position prior to radar lock on, or a delay of two seconds if the Master Arm switch is set to ON after radar lock on. This is due to the set-in period of the missile speed-gate. With the AIM-7F, this delay is reduced to two seconds with Master Arm switch On prior to lock, or immediately after selecting Master Arm switch to On if lock on was achieved first. Should these delays not be adhered to, the missile may fail to track because of improper target doppler injection.

4 Second delay.jpg


Edited by Ziggy123
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SgtPappy

SgtPappy

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Ziggy123 said:

This sounds counter intuitive. Please can you confirm its correct. You have to wait longer if Master arm is already on?

Before employing the AIM-7E Sparrow, a delay of four seconds should be given if the Master Arm switch is set in the ON position prior to radar lock on, or a delay of two seconds if the Master Arm switch is set to ON after radar lock on. This is due to the set-in period of the missile speed-gate. With the AIM-7F, this delay is reduced to two seconds with Master Arm switch On prior to lock, or immediately after selecting Master Arm switch to On if lock on was achieved first. Should these delays not be adhered to, the missile may fail to track because of improper target doppler injection.

 

 

I'm not sure how or if it can be modeled in DCS, but because the F-4 does not use coherent pulses needed for true pulse-Doppler tracking, the APQ-120 and its computers can calculate a simulated Doppler signal which the AIM-7 uses (in CW mode, not pulsed mode) in order to home in on a target that is moving per what the radar believes is the target. There is no range gating here so the AIM-7 just follows the Doppler return in the expected bandwidth.

This Simulated Doppler signal corresponds to target closure over time which is probably why it takes 4 seconds to calculate the signal then tune the AIM-7 accordingly. This is what the APQ-120 does with the Master Arm = ON. With the Master Arm = OFF, it uses a pseudo Doppler signal that - at least in other applications - estimates Doppler return from an antenna moving around a target or an array of antennas replacing the moving single one. I'm not sure how the F-4 applies this principle but at some point, the pseudo-Doppler technique was removed entirely from the APQ-120 and the simulated Doppler was used whether the Master Arm was ON or OFF per 1F-4E-34-1-1.

But maybe someone at HB can expand on this or correct anything I've said.

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Chaffee

Chaffee

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@IronMike Please check your DMs for an editing sample from a professional editor (me), which shouldn't be posted on an open forum.

Cheers, and keep up the great work!

If you have not produced an official manual, it's costing you sales. I'm a writer and editor of more than 40 books (and tens of thousands of pages of documentation), so if you are struggling to finish your manual, DM me.

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zarusoba10

zarusoba10

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This manual seems to be all about "procedures" and not much about the "mechanics" of the machine.

For example, in the explanation of the radar, it says that it can transmit both "pulse radar" and "continuous wave," but I would like to see a description of how they are different and why continuous wave is necessary for AIM-7.

Also, in the WSO radar console, there is a description of "AIM-7's rear antenna" in the explanation column for the switch that switches the direction of radio wave deflection, but there is no description of the rear antenna in this manual.
I would like to see this described as well.

In the description of the instruments, there is a detailed description of the internal mechanism. I would like to see this added for radar, weapons, and engines as well.

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SgtPappy

SgtPappy

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Posted (edited)
13 hours ago, zarusoba10 said:

This manual seems to be all about "procedures" and not much about the "mechanics" of the machine.

For example, in the explanation of the radar, it says that it can transmit both "pulse radar" and "continuous wave," but I would like to see a description of how they are different and why continuous wave is necessary for AIM-7.

Also, in the WSO radar console, there is a description of "AIM-7's rear antenna" in the explanation column for the switch that switches the direction of radio wave deflection, but there is no description of the rear antenna in this manual.
I would like to see this described as well.

In the description of the instruments, there is a detailed description of the internal mechanism. I would like to see this added for radar, weapons, and engines as well.

The manual is supposed to teach you how to operate the aircraft though, so detailed descriptions on how it all works internally might be out of scope if done for every component.

That said, some things can be explained as long as it is relevant to understanding how to employ a certain system. Additionally, a lot of the manual is taken from the real manuals so the content was more of a McD/USAF decision.

 

Now for a very high level answer to your questions: the pulsed radar transmission is used to determine range, by timing the receipt of the reflected signals. The CW signal reflection is used to determine the Doppler shift return of the target and the AIM-7 homes in on a reflection matching the expected bandwitdth of Doppler shifted returns. Range information isn't extracted from this signal so theoretically if another target flew into the beam within the expected Doppler gate but with a bigger RCS, the AIM-7 might go for that target instead.

The rear antenna is used to compare the reflected signal to the APQ-120 transmission directly behind the missile so that it can calculate the speed gate by comparing the two (since that is also red shifted as the missile moves away from the F-4).

The rear seat antenna polarization switch determines the polarization direction of the transmitted radar EM waves. I believe the reason for this switch is explained on the manual, if not the 1F-4E-34-1-1 which you can find online for free. Reflections are polarized more or less in either the vertical or horizontal direction depending on what they were reflected from (ground vs rain for example), so the switch is used to filter out some of this clutter return. Similarly, most sunglasses filter out horizontally polarized light due to the reflection of light (glare) from the ground.

My guess is that there was a hardware limitation or a reason to reserve CCW polarized reflections so the AIM-7 will only guide on the other 2 settings.

 


Edited by SgtPappy
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sparrow88

sparrow88

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Posted
17 hours ago, zarusoba10 said:

This manual seems to be all about "procedures" and not much about the "mechanics" of the machine.

For example, in the explanation of the radar, it says that it can transmit both "pulse radar" and "continuous wave," but I would like to see a description of how they are different and why continuous wave is necessary for AIM-7.

Manual is something I want to take a look at quickly during the mission to refresh clickology, not electronics handbook.

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zarusoba10

zarusoba10

Posted
Posted

Thank you, everyone.


I myself already understand the role of the CW illuminator and the guidance mechanism of AIM-7.
That's why when I read the F-4E manual, I thought, ``Don't we need a more in-depth explanation?''

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Bullant

Bullant

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3.1.1 Primary Flight Instruments - Altimeter first paragraph seems incorrect, it talks about an errors tolerance in knots for a device that reports altitude in feet.

I am guessing that it is supposed to say "+/- 3 feet below 80kts and +/- 5 feet above that airspeed"?

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Kirk66

Kirk66

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Posted
On 1/31/2024 at 11:27 AM, Ziggy123 said:

This sounds counter intuitive. Please can you confirm its correct. You have to wait longer if Master arm is already on?

Before employing the AIM-7E Sparrow, a delay of four seconds should be given if the Master Arm switch is set in the ON position prior to radar lock on, or a delay of two seconds if the Master Arm switch is set to ON after radar lock on. This is due to the set-in period of the missile speed-gate. With the AIM-7F, this delay is reduced to two seconds with Master Arm switch On prior to lock, or immediately after selecting Master Arm switch to On if lock on was achieved first. Should these delays not be adhered to, the missile may fail to track because of improper target doppler injection.

4 Second delay.jpg

 

Yes this is correct; pretty much a direct quote from the aircraft weapons TO. And since nobody would let themselves get as far as actually locking up a threat and THEN going MASTER ARM, the Phantom Four Second Count will be the way to go. Or, you lock up, squeeze trigger, nothing happens, and after a few seconds yell <profanity> and select ARM. Congrats, you are well past the 2 second minimum.

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SgtPappy

SgtPappy

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8 hours ago, Kirk66 said:

Yes this is correct; pretty much a direct quote from the aircraft weapons TO. And since nobody would let themselves get as far as actually locking up a threat and THEN going MASTER ARM, the Phantom Four Second Count will be the way to go. Or, you lock up, squeeze trigger, nothing happens, and after a few seconds yell <profanity> and select ARM. Congrats, you are well past the 2 second minimum.

Is there a reason why pseudo-Doppler was used if Master Arm was off vs simulated Doppler when Master Arm was on? I'm curious to know if there were disadvantages of one Doppler calculation over the other.

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Raven (Elysian Angel)

Raven (Elysian Angel)

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Whirley said:

could be gendered to something neutral

Please leave PC out of DCS, thanks.

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Rudel_chw

Rudel_chw

Posted
Posted
3 hours ago, Whirley said:

mentions "crewman" which could be gendered to something neutral like crew

 

why is this important enough to report? 🙄

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=475FG= Dawger

=475FG= Dawger

Posted
Posted
5 hours ago, Whirley said:

The section about "Anti-G suit control valve" mentions "crewman" which could be gendered to something neutral like crew.

https://f4.manuals.heatblur.se/cockpit/pilot/left_console/aft_section.html#anti-g-suit-control-valve

Crewman is already gender neutral. Crew refers to the entire group. Crewman is one member of the crew. 
 

Lets talk about cockpit next. 

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JayTSX

JayTSX

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Posted
15 hours ago, Whirley said:

The section about "Anti-G suit control valve" mentions "crewman" which could be gendered to something neutral like crew.

https://f4.manuals.heatblur.se/cockpit/pilot/left_console/aft_section.html#anti-g-suit-control-valve

Hm I get what you mean, but keep in mind, that most languages are actually gender neutral unless a gender is specifically mentioned. That's also the case if a gender pronoun is implied by the sound of a word. I think crewman is fine in this case. I guess "man" comes from mankind meaning the entirety of all humans? Also English is a bit more relaxed in that regard as with something like German you'd have stuff like gendered articles (der, die, das) implying a gender where there is none.

Hope we can come to an agreement in that regard 😃

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average_pilot

average_pilot

Posted
Posted (edited)
On 2/8/2024 at 1:53 AM, =475FG= Dawger said:

Lets talk about cockpit next. 

Since I learned the gruesome reason why they are called "cockpits" I'd rather use the word we use in Spanish, and I guess other romance languages, but of course, you can't go tell the speakers of a language how to use their own language. But it's funny, what was a cool foreign word before is such an unsettling one since then.

BTW, politics aside, isn't crew member the standard way of referring to a member of a crew? I don't think I've ever seen crewman before.


Edited by average_pilot
BTW
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=475FG= Dawger

=475FG= Dawger

Posted
Posted (edited)
3 hours ago, average_pilot said:

Since I learned the gruesome reason why they are called "cockpits" I'd rather use the word we use in Spanish, and I guess other romance languages, but of course, you can't go tell the speakers of a language how to use their own language. But it's funny, what was a cool foreign word before is such an unsettling one since then.

BTW, politics aside, isn't crew member the standard way of referring to a member of a crew? I don't think I've ever seen crewman before.

 

Crewmember is used but is by no means ubiquitous. 
 

Context is important in determining which is used. Titles and singular forms generally use crewman, especially military. Civilians use crewmember a bit more, although in most instances “crew” is used as in signs indicating “ Crew Only” or when referring to oneself as a member of the crew, such as a luggage tag. 
 

The US military commonly uses crewman in job titles, although I am sure there is an effort to alter that underway. 


Edited by =475FG= Dawger
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