SPO-15

[AeriaGloria]

There are two things that keep me up at night about SPO-15 Let’s tell ED what we think! 
 

Most important, there are warning in manual and some pilot reports that radar can POSSIBLY overspill to RWR. But the manual doesn’t say it will happen only a warning that it might, and I have talked to pilots who said that they did not experience this. So it seems to me this is down to sync circuits being off, and possibly needing replacement or maintenance. Therefore, it should not be modeled as default this way in DCS MiG-29. 
 

second, there is supposition that it may not detect Fox 1 launch by F-14/15/18. The manual mentions being able to know when Nike Hercules has launched on it by its datalink signals, so that is the only one that can be confirmed. Some say F-14/15/18 don’t change illumination when firing Sparrow. But I was reading APG-65 manual the other day and there were lots of references to “PDI ( pulse Doppler illumination)” needing to be injected to both tune and guide the Sparrow. 
 

I am assuming perhaps that we may not be able to see Fox 1 launch on the “stock” ME setting but see it on the automatic one with the assumption that the details of this PDI have been loaded into it. 
 

But really, haven’t redfor suffered enough? Not even SPO-10 has RF overspill! The radar is only on 25% of the time! That should be no issue for sync circuits! 
 

Redfor has suffered and suffered. I would much prefer there were atleast options available for us to not have a RWR that can’t be used with radar or will not see Fox 1 launch (forcing us to rely on the estimated missile tag, that assumes they have fired on us at 3 bars signal strength and shows an approximate missile closure from that point, however useful that might be for longer range fox 3 shots). 
 

Interested if anyone has anything to add. And to show ED how much having a RWR that sees its own radar and can’t see missile launch would be ill received from a large portion of the player base expecting something that atleast does its job however imprecise! 
 

Su-27 manual also mentions possible interference from radar, but in addition to saying “POSSIBLE,” also says it can be solved by turning radar off and back on. I would be fine if this happens say every 10th radar cycle. But every time????

Edited Sunday at 09:36 AM by AeriaGloria

[quantum97]

Where do these assumptions come from? It seems to me that the only thing ED said was that the SPO-15 won't detect ARH missiles. I mean, it will only detect it a few seconds before impact. And as far as I know, a FOX-1 will not be detected only when, as you mentioned, it's launched via datalink and It might have something to do with range, because AIM-54 might be shoot that far away that signal is to weak for SPO-15 to detect and it will show up just as fighter and only when F-14 radar is doing PDI for AIM-54. The only other thing that comes to mind is that it will also not detect the R-27P/EP, which works similarly to the HARM on ground radars, but in the air. As for the interference of the SPO-15 by the radar, I don't think it is modeled because we have too little information.

Edited Sunday at 01:04 PM by quantum97

[okopanja]

10 minutes ago, quantum97 said:

Where do these assumptions come from? It seems to me that the only thing ED said was that the SPO-15 won't detect ARH missiles. I mean, it will only detect it a few seconds before impact. 

29 pilots IRL did get warnings and acted upon them(when SPO was operatuonal). There are some testemomies I alredy posted. I am preparing one with amraam miss at 5nm at the moment.

In addition the story of Nebojša Nikolić needs update, since I found later interview and he did not fly in the straight line, but dodged amraam, sparrow and got hit by second amraam at 1.5-2nm range. His description of flight pattern indicates agressive snake-like flight while pushing for the merge. 

[F-2]

Iraq liked SPO-15 because it could detect AWG-9. The others I’m less sure about.

[AeriaGloria]

9 hours ago, quantum97 said:

Where do these assumptions come from? It seems to me that the only thing ED said was that the SPO-15 won't detect ARH missiles. I mean, it will only detect it a few seconds before impact. And as far as I know, a FOX-1 will not be detected only when, as you mentioned, it's launched via datalink and It might have something to do with range, because AIM-54 might be shoot that far away that signal is to weak for SPO-15 to detect and it will show up just as fighter and only when F-14 radar is doing PDI for AIM-54. The only other thing that comes to mind is that it will also not detect the R-27P/EP, which works similarly to the HARM on ground radars, but in the air. As for the interference of the SPO-15 by the radar, I don't think it is modeled because we have too little information.

They come from flight manual which only lists referring missile launch from Nike Hercules, and warnings about overspill from radar. 
 

If western RWR can detect Sparrow launch, the SPO-15 with automatic setting should also!

Edited Sunday at 10:26 PM by AeriaGloria

[draconus]

On 9/7/2025 at 11:27 AM, AeriaGloria said:

But really, haven’t redfor suffered enough?

Are you accusing ED of some bias? Or you're afraid of too much realism?

[Dača]

19 minutes ago, draconus said:

Are you accusing ED of some bias? Or you're afraid of too much realism?

I could not catch all information. Everything mixed up in my head now. Is there anything not realistic or fuss is about something else?

[draconus]

1 minute ago, Dača said:

Is there anything not realistic or fuss is about something else?

All is based on either manual or some other RL info but sounds to me like this RWR is too "nerfed" for the OP. I suggest to wait and test before judging.

[Dača]

4 minutes ago, draconus said:

All is based on either manual or some other RL info but sounds to me like this RWR is too "nerfed" for the OP. I suggest to wait and test before judging.

I hope they did not do that. Hopefully ED will come at us and confirm if they nerfed it or not.

[AeriaGloria]

1 hour ago, draconus said:

Are you accusing ED of some bias? Or you're afraid of too much realism?

 No? It is clear from talking to many people that radar overspill onto the RWR was not “normal” but an issue. And DCS does not simulate bad maintenance or equipment issues. 
 

And if F-14/15/18 firing sparrow is truly indistinguishable, it is quite a difference that Western RWR can magically detect it. After all, can they detect pseudo faked CW waveform of N-019? 

Edited yesterday at 01:44 PM by AeriaGloria

[Drona]

1 minute ago, AeriaGloria said:

 No? It is clear from talking to many people that radar overspill onto the RWR was not “normal” but an issue. And DCS does not simulate bad maintenance or equipment issues. 

Since DCS does not simulate bad maintenance or equipment issues, I guess this should not be a problem in DCS. 

[AeriaGloria]

1 minute ago, Drona said:

Since DCS does not simulate bad maintenance or equipment issues, I guess this should not be a problem in DCS. 

You would think so, but a surprising number of people, of all origin believe it was normal for SPO-15 to be rendered useless by your own radar. 

[Drona]

Who are these people you mention?

[Dača]

1 hour ago, AeriaGloria said:

 No? It is clear from talking to many people that radar overspill onto the RWR was not “normal” but an issue. And DCS does not simulate bad maintenance or equipment issues. 
 

And if F-14/15/18 firing sparrow is truly indistinguishable, it is quite a difference that Western RWR can magically detect it. After all, can they detect pseudo faked CW waveform of N-019? 

What is this radar overspill onto RWR ? How it manifest?

[okopanja]

1 hour ago, AeriaGloria said:

 No? It is clear from talking to many people that radar overspill onto the RWR was not “normal” but an issue. And DCS does not simulate bad maintenance or equipment issues. 
 

And if F-14/15/18 firing sparrow is truly indistinguishable, it is quite a difference that Western RWR can magically detect it. After all, can they detect pseudo faked CW waveform of N-019? 

In case of the DL-ed shots being that SARH/ARH, the ability to detect the launch depends on information how the DL corrections are transmitted. Provided that such information is available, and that RWR is sensitive in the required band, it would be feasible to detect launch being that ARH or SARH missile, not to mention CW illumination in case of AIM-7, which may help not loose the missile, but would certainly wake up any RWR with the right self respect.
 

 

[AeriaGloria]

4 hours ago, Dača said:

What is this radar overspill onto RWR ? How it manifest?

The 50, 30, 10 lights all light up and you get signal strength of 8. So when you look at it all you see is your radar. 

[Dača]

1 hour ago, AeriaGloria said:

The 50, 30, 10 lights all light up and you get signal strength of 8. So when you look at it all you see is your radar. 

Thanks !

[AeriaGloria]

14 hours ago, Drona said:

Who are these people you mention?

Anyone? It’s not like SPO-15 is something that everyone knows everything about. Especially when some pilots have experienced the overspill and some haven’t. For example, it apparently happened to the German Air Force birds quite a bit. And of course many people will take anything from the GAF on MiG-29s as gospel. 
 

All I ask is the least charitable interpretation not be used

Edited 12 hours ago by AeriaGloria

[Drona]

6 hours ago, AeriaGloria said:

Anyone? It’s not like SPO-15 is something that everyone knows everything about. Especially when some pilots have experienced the overspill and some haven’t. For example, it apparently happened to the German Air Force birds quite a bit. And of course many people will take anything from the GAF on MiG-29s as gospel. 
 

All I ask is the least charitable interpretation not be used

If it is inherently not designed to overspill as you say, then I doubt ED would take the trouble to model such a thing. Time will give us the answers, though.

[draconus]

13 minutes ago, Drona said:

If it is inherently not designed to overspill as you say, then I doubt ED would take the trouble to model such a thing.

They'd probably mention such a thing in one of the answers:

https://flyandwire.com/2025/09/04/mig-29s-spo-15-rwr-qa-with-eagle-dynamics/

Edited 5 hours ago by draconus

[Temetre]

Am 7.9.2025 um 15:18 schrieb okopanja:

29 pilots IRL did get warnings and acted upon them(when SPO was operatuonal). There are some testemomies I alredy posted. I am preparing one with amraam miss at 5nm at the moment.

In addition the story of Nebojša Nikolić needs update, since I found later interview and he did not fly in the straight line, but dodged amraam, sparrow and got hit by second amraam at 1.5-2nm range. His description of flight pattern indicates agressive snake-like flight while pushing for the merge. 

Tbf the 120s might be fired in STT mode, which RWRs should be able to pick up afaik. Nor does this mean the RWR was the only reason they managed to dodge missiles; pilots IRL are much more aware when they are in dangerous zones and will often go defensive as a precaution.

Even with the F4s RWR, you get notified when the frequency of a detected radar changes. That way you can technically tell a lot of the time when a SAM or Fox 1 gets launched, if you were listening. Tho its pretty hard to be attentive enough to spot such a signal.

Otherwise the SPO-15 is still an analogue RWR, so might be less evolved than the ALR-45? Wouldnt get my hopes up for it. Personally I hope the strengths and shortcoming are simulated; its already pretty weird how soviet FC3 planes have IRST act like stealth radars, when they had lots of limitations in reality.

Am 7.9.2025 um 11:27 schrieb AeriaGloria:

But really, haven’t redfor suffered enough?

 

Imo the wrong logic, DCS is generally about being realistic. If you put an F4 vs a Mig-29, then 'blue suffers' too. Gotta put the planes in the fitting environment and it should be fine. Mig-29A would be 80s.

And anyway, 'Redfor' is a made up thing. F16 is one of the most used red planes on those servers, while older settings see lots of Mirage F1s.

Edited 4 hours ago by Temetre

[okopanja]

2 minutes ago, Temetre said:

Tbf the 120s might be fired in STT mode, which RWRs should be able to pick up afaik.

Even with the F4s RWR, you get notified when the frequency of a detected radar changes. That way you can technically tell a lot of the time when a SAM or Fox 1 gets launched, if you were listening. Tho its pretty hard to be attentive enough to spot such a signal.

Otherwise the SPO-15 is still an analogue RWR, so might be less evolved than the ALR-45? Wouldnt get my hopes up for it. Personally I hope the strengths and shortcoming are simulated; its already pretty weird how soviet FC3 planes have IRST act like stealth radars, when they had lots of limitations in reality.

Pilots did get SPO-15 screaming on them with active amraams. There is no doubt of that. It's just enough to read that if anybody is having doubts. 

In addition, see Mike Shower's interview, on 24.03.1999 he fired:

1. On Nikolic:
   1. AIM-120 at 14-15nm, missed
   2. Followed by AIM-7, missed, at about 5-6nm Nikolic went into the beam
   3. Another AIM-120, once he realized both missed, and that one hit Nikolic (he turned into the Shower) at about 1.5-2nm. 
2. On Kulacin ( I will publish this one in a day or 2 but you can hear it in the same interview)
   1. AIM-120 at 5nm, missed (on launch both were head to head) and they merged with Shower now in very close proximity to Kulačin

Other pilots with working SPOs also reported missiles going active. The only ones that got hit with no reaction were those with failed SPOs. Mainly Iljo Arizanov. See the stories I posted in the sub-forum topics (2nd page) of 29.

[Ironhand]

1 hour ago, draconus said:

They'd probably mention such a thing in one of the answers:

https://flyandwire.com/2025/09/04/mig-29s-spo-15-rwr-qa-with-eagle-dynamics/

Thanks! Very interesting read.

[Temetre]

vor einer Stunde schrieb okopanja:

Pilots did get SPO-15 screaming on them with active amraams. There is no doubt of that. It's just enough to read that if anybody is having doubts. 

In addition, see Mike Shower's interview, on 24.03.1999 he fired:

1. On Nikolic:
   1. AIM-120 at 14-15nm, missed
   2. Followed by AIM-7, missed, at about 5-6nm Nikolic went into the beam
   3. Another AIM-120, once he realized both missed, and that one hit Nikolic (he turned into the Shower) at about 1.5-2nm. 
2. On Kulacin ( I will publish this one in a day or 2 but you can hear it in the same interview)
   1. AIM-120 at 5nm, missed (on launch both were head to head) and they merged with Shower now in very close proximity to Kulačin

Other pilots with working SPOs also reported missiles going active. The only ones that got hit with no reaction were those with failed SPOs. Mainly Iljo Arizanov. See the stories I posted in the sub-forum topics (2nd page) of 29.

Hm idk. Have you seen the interview, ED talked specifically about the RWR and active missiles. The way they describe it makes it sound like the SPO-15 is hardly capable to detect active missiles, let alone have specific warnings:

https://flyandwire.com/2025/09/04/mig-29s-spo-15-rwr-qa-with-eagle-dynamics/

Zitat

The automatic threat program is built on top of the stock program (overwriting PW/PRF bins of the stock program as needed) to match enemy threats within the mission. This however does NOT include missiles, for a simple reason: the SPO-15 doesn’t have the resolving capability to distinguish ARH missiles from aircraft that carry them – therefore as long as the carrier aircraft is listed in the threat program (and it typically will be, as the entire HPRF range is filled in as type F by default as are some MPRF slots), the incoming ARH will be mis-identified as the carrier aircraft.
As for the case described in the book: this will always be the case, because the transmitters in older ARH missiles are typically quite weak (as the seeker is used for terminal guidance), and the SPO-15 is not sensitive enough to give advanced warning – typically the missile will only be detected 2-4s before impact depending on angle of arrival. And even then, it will not trigger a launch warning (in fact there’s no possible scenario in DCS that would trigger the launch warning in the MiG-29 currently), which means that in many scenarios it will be completely unnoticed, particularly if the aircraft is already locked on to by a higher priority threat than type F.

 

[Raven (Elysian Angel)]

3 minutes ago, Temetre said:

The way they describe it makes it sound like the SPO-15 is hardly capable to detect active missiles

That’s what I got from it as well. Not that it is a problem: it is a system designed to face the threats of that era. It would only need to be careful when facing F-14s (and DCS can’t replicate the Phoenix’s specific guidance anyway so who knows how it would behave).