F-4E Intercept Advice – Best Practice After a GCI BOGEY Call (AI Jester)

[Zev]

Hi all,

I’m looking for some advice on intercept procedures in the F-4E Phantom.

Situation: I’m in the pilot seat, using AI Jester as my WSO. GCI gives a BOGEY call (bearing, range, altitude). From there, I want to get the bogey on radar as quickly as possible so we can move to the next phase of the intercept.

I’m curious how other players approach this. Do you have a set routine or “workflow” you follow once GCI calls a bogey? How do you best coordinate with AI Jester to get the radar looking in the right place without wasting time?

Basically:

• After a GCI call, what’s your go-to sequence as a pilot?
• Any tricks to getting Jester scanning to get a radar contact faster?
• More tips and tricks ?

I’d really appreciate hearing how the community tackles this — I’m still experimenting and would like to learn from others’ experience.

Thanks!

[OmasRachE]

Hey Zev,

 

what you have to do next, depends on the situation. In best case you are at least a 2 ship. If you are allready on cap you should be flying in line abreast and be setup to air-to-air. If not, you should switch A/A and go line abreast. In the F4 it is better to fly slightly below the bogey because the radar is not very good in finding targets against a background ground clutter. You then turn to the bearing provided in the BRAA call. You want to be as fast as possible, without using burner, so set mill-power (but first maintain line abreast on the new heading). Next is to identify the bogey as bandit. Without specific ROE normally you need two indications for a bogey to be declared hostile. First would be Jester calling no IFF. The second could be a call from awacs, or a visual ID. That was the big problem during vietnams Operation Rolling Thunder. But in DCS you can aply other ROEs, so if you like engage as Jester calls him a bandit. When engaging you want to be faster, higher and full hot on the bandit. Meaning you put in full burner until you get supersonic and then make a smooth climb maintaing your mach at 1.0x. 

 

You can tell jester to lock a specific bandit (helpfull if its a group of at least two bandits) by selecting it in the Jester Wheel or you can snap Jester Context Button short and he will lock the next available Bandit. If you have problems finding the bogey on radar you can manipulate the radar search by either using the Jester Wheel or switch to boresight mode by pressing the cage button. Jester focuses the radar emissions straigth ahead whichs means you have a nearly instantanious refresh rate but also lose SA on everything whats not in your boresight. 

After getting a solid lock you have to wait until in range and also wait for jester to count the potatos. When you get your shoot indication you hold the trigger until the sparrow fires. After that you perform a cranking manouver and put the bandit on the edge of your radar beam and guide your missile in. Sending some countermessures is a good idea because the bandit will likely be firing at you as well. Given that you are not facing an enemy with Fox 3 missiles you should be in an advantage because you are faster and higher than your enemy, so your sparrow should reach him first. 

Hope that helps. 

[Raven (Elysian Angel)]

1 hour ago, Zev said:

How do you best coordinate with AI Jester to get the radar looking in the right place without wasting time?

As far as I understand, there is a feature in development for Jester 2.0 that allows Jester to "listen to" AEW callouts so he'll point the radar in the appropriate azimuth/elevation himself.

[Zabuzard]

Thats right.

Jester is supposed to tune his search for expected target areas, including inputs from AWACS, RWR, mission-relevant data or also the pilot pointing in the sky or at a specific part of the radar screen.

Im not sure when this feature will be available as it is quite complex. But this is the next essential step for Jester-Radar.

Currently he runs a "default search pattern" that pretty much covers the entire relevant airspace ahead (from roughly 10k ft down to 10k ft up at 30nm). The Jester Wheel offers some extra entries to tune this search, getting him to focus on a specific setting instead (for example +7k ft at 30nm) and similar.

Once the contact appears on the radar screen, Jester will be able to work with the contact. He will automatically check IFF and you can for example focus or also lock the bandit through the use of the Jester Context Action (V) or by using the entries in the Wheel.

[Zev]

4 hours ago, OmasRachE said:

Hey Zev,

 

what you have to do next, depends on the situation. In best case you are at least a 2 ship. If you are allready on cap you should be flying in line abreast and be setup to air-to-air. If not, you should switch A/A and go line abreast. In the F4 it is better to fly slightly below the bogey because the radar is not very good in finding targets against a background ground clutter. You then turn to the bearing provided in the BRAA call. You want to be as fast as possible, without using burner, so set mill-power (but first maintain line abreast on the new heading). Next is to identify the bogey as bandit. Without specific ROE normally you need two indications for a bogey to be declared hostile. First would be Jester calling no IFF. The second could be a call from awacs, or a visual ID. That was the big problem during vietnams Operation Rolling Thunder. But in DCS you can aply other ROEs, so if you like engage as Jester calls him a bandit. When engaging you want to be faster, higher and full hot on the bandit. Meaning you put in full burner until you get supersonic and then make a smooth climb maintaing your mach at 1.0x. 

 

You can tell jester to lock a specific bandit (helpfull if its a group of at least two bandits) by selecting it in the Jester Wheel or you can snap Jester Context Button short and he will lock the next available Bandit. If you have problems finding the bogey on radar you can manipulate the radar search by either using the Jester Wheel or switch to boresight mode by pressing the cage button. Jester focuses the radar emissions straigth ahead whichs means you have a nearly instantanious refresh rate but also lose SA on everything whats not in your boresight. 

After getting a solid lock you have to wait until in range and also wait for jester to count the potatos. When you get your shoot indication you hold the trigger until the sparrow fires. After that you perform a cranking manouver and put the bandit on the edge of your radar beam and guide your missile in. Sending some countermessures is a good idea because the bandit will likely be firing at you as well. Given that you are not facing an enemy with Fox 3 missiles you should be in an advantage because you are faster and higher than your enemy, so your sparrow should reach him first. 

Hope that helps. 

Hey OmasRachE,

Thanks a lot for your detailed reply — that’s super helpful and definitely something I can use!

One follow-up question: when you mention flying slightly below the bogey to help the radar against ground clutter, how much lower are we talking here? A few thousand feet, or just enough to keep some separation?

And in that case, should I also be telling Jester to scan higher with the radar, or is he smart enough to compensate once I’m below the target?

Appreciate the insights — this really helps me get a clearer picture of how to set up the intercept properly.

Cheers,

Zev

3 hours ago, Raven (Elysian Angel) said:

As far as I understand, there is a feature in development for Jester 2.0 that allows Jester to "listen to" AEW callouts so he'll point the radar in the appropriate azimuth/elevation himself.

That would be really great

Edited September 15 by Zev

[Zev]

1 hour ago, Zabuzard said:

Thats right.

Jester is supposed to tune his search for expected target areas, including inputs from AWACS, RWR, mission-relevant data or also the pilot pointing in the sky or at a specific part of the radar screen.

Im not sure when this feature will be available as it is quite complex. But this is the next essential step for Jester-Radar.

Currently he runs a "default search pattern" that pretty much covers the entire relevant airspace ahead (from roughly 10k ft down to 10k ft up at 30nm). The Jester Wheel offers some extra entries to tune this search, getting him to focus on a specific setting instead (for example +7k ft at 30nm) and similar.

Once the contact appears on the radar screen, Jester will be able to work with the contact. He will automatically check IFF and you can for example focus or also lock the bandit through the use of the Jester Context Action (V) or by using the entries in the Wheel.

Hey Zabuzard,

Thanks a lot for clarifying how Jester currently handles the radar search — that makes things much clearer. Good to know that his default pattern already covers a big chunk of the sky, and that there are options in the Wheel to fine-tune it if needed.

Do you happen to have any specific tips or tricks for getting Jester to pick up a radar contact faster in practice? For example, are there particular search settings or habits that make a noticeable difference?

Appreciate the insight!

Cheers,

Zev

[OmasRachE]

vor einer Stunde schrieb Zev:

Hey OmasRachE,

Thanks a lot for your detailed reply — that’s super helpful and definitely something I can use!

One follow-up question: when you mention flying slightly below the bogey to help the radar against ground clutter, how much lower are we talking here? A few thousand feet, or just enough to keep some separation?

And in that case, should I also be telling Jester to scan higher with the radar, or is he smart enough to compensate once I’m below the target?

Appreciate the insights — this really helps me get a clearer picture of how to set up the intercept properly.

Cheers,

Zev

That would be really great

Glad to hear. Honestly I don´t know how exact that is simulated in the Heatblur Phantom but in real life it would depend on the actual altitude of the bogey and the surrounding landscape. When the bogey is on angels 25 it should be more than sufficiant to be at the same altitude or even a little bit above. Whilest a bogey on angels 10 with mountains in the back could be a problem if you are not 1000 feet or even more below.

As Zabuzard just mentioned Jester looks up 10,000 feet above and below your altitude in a range of 30nm. So there is no need to give him further orders. If you switch to boresight radar mode you have to point your nose in the direction of the bogey but this is used primarily within visual range. 

[Zev]

3 hours ago, OmasRachE said:

Glad to hear. Honestly I don´t know how exact that is simulated in the Heatblur Phantom but in real life it would depend on the actual altitude of the bogey and the surrounding landscape. When the bogey is on angels 25 it should be more than sufficiant to be at the same altitude or even a little bit above. Whilest a bogey on angels 10 with mountains in the back could be a problem if you are not 1000 feet or even more below.

As Zabuzard just mentioned Jester looks up 10,000 feet above and below your altitude in a range of 30nm. So there is no need to give him further orders. If you switch to boresight radar mode you have to point your nose in the direction of the bogey but this is used primarily within visual range. 

Thanks again for the clarification — that really helps to put things into perspective. Makes sense that it depends so much on the bogey’s altitude and the terrain background. The example with a target at angels 25 vs. angels 10 with mountains really illustrates the difference well.

 

Good to know that Jester already scans ±10,000 ft by default (Zabuzard) , so I don’t need to micromanage him there. That simplifies things a lot. I’ll definitely keep boresight mode in mind for closer visual-range situations.

 

Appreciate you taking the time to explain this

[OmasRachE]

vor 13 Stunden schrieb Zev:

Thanks again for the clarification — that really helps to put things into perspective. Makes sense that it depends so much on the bogey’s altitude and the terrain background. The example with a target at angels 25 vs. angels 10 with mountains really illustrates the difference well.

 

Good to know that Jester already scans ±10,000 ft by default (Zabuzard) , so I don’t need to micromanage him there. That simplifies things a lot. I’ll definitely keep boresight mode in mind for closer visual-range situations.

 

Appreciate you taking the time to explain this

No big deal, someone took the time to tell me. If you like to learn more about BVR engagements or other fighter tactics I can highly recomend joining a virtual squadron. There are many out there from the most casual bunch of sim pilots up to hardcore milsim dudes. And every one I got to know till now is very kind and supportive. It will boost your learning process like hell.

Edited September 16 by OmasRachE

[LG_Barons]

First, as a pilot, you should not rely on Jester. What you need to do if you get a GCI call, do a mental Bullseye Breakdown. Basically getting the position of the bogey relative to your position.
If it is a BRAA call, the process is easier. If the call is a Bullseye, you should practice gaining a comprehensive perspective in your mind. 
Then, you initially turn to a basic intercept heading, and after that, direct Jester where to point the radar. Or jump in the backseat and do it yourself.

https://flyandwire.com/procedures-and-operations-air-to-air/#geometry

Also, all information by Karon is, in my opinion, a "must" read.

Also, you can use a "bullseye" trainer. https://jasta712.de/bullseye_rechner/bullseye_t.html and/or use the incorporated APQ-120 sim(button is on top right)

Edited yesterday at 09:25 AM by LG_Barons
addition

[Temetre]

You probably want to figure out a very basic intercept course at first, depending on the targets bearing and heading+speed. Doesnt have to be overly precise, but its useful to get there to give Jester the best ability to lock. I wouldnt purely rely on the lock to get an intercept course; sometimes the call is more than enough and you can just use the Boresight mode for a good and easy lock.

 

Against AI I find Jester gets locks reliably enough tho. A lot of people seem to make mistakes not considering altitude; if you dont wanna play with radar elevation, it helps to be slightly lower than your target. Thats best for the default scan volume and the radar likes the lack of clutter anyway. If you are somewhat certain about the targets direction, you can switch radar to 30 degree scan, that can speed up acquisition.

Against low flying human players, things can get a lot more complicated. You often cant really guarantee to get a useful lock, especially at ranges where Aim-7s are effective, due to the 4 second delay. Again, getting your own intercept course, having SA and spotting enemies yourself is quite valuable.