SPO15 feedback

[Кош]

Radar cuts off even itself, not just SPO. It cuts off itself. And then this signal is just copied to SPO too. Othervise radar would have shown only a white wall at all times instead of contacts and clutter. So yes when radar is emitting, SPO is "closed". Indeed. You just have to understand this "disabling" lasts for 3 microseconds every next 3 microsecons. This is HPRF duty cicle, MPRF is much much easier. 

Edited 23 hours ago by Кош

[Harlikwin]

6 hours ago, AeriaGloria said:

I mean I have a 9.12-9.13 manual that doesn’t even mention it. We have a maintenance manual talking about how to fix it. Su-27SK manual uses the word “it’s possible.” We have pilots that said it never happened to them. I mean if it was really designed that way, why go to the trouble of putting in blanking circuits for radar, SPU, SOD, IFF? 

Whats the most likely? Maybe it’s functional in some aircraft and not in others……

Precisely. The only mystery is why ED modeled it as non functional in the first place. I guess exchange pilot accounts. Which seems at odds with the overall level of modeling. 

At least it should be like 2 lines of code to fix. 

Edited 21 hours ago by Harlikwin

[AeriaGloria]

3 hours ago, BIGNEWY said:

Folks please do not post documents without sharing a public link that shows it is 100% for the public. 

Please read our 1.16 rule 

thank you 

If this 9.12B document is an issue, I suggest you remove the upload from your server. Being on ED user files makes it seem 100% approved 

[AeriaGloria]

2 hours ago, Flyout said:

5 hours ago, Flyout said:

I have a Su-27 combat manual. It says you can't trust the SPO indication when the radar is on. Yes, it shows something, but the number of false treats makes it impossible to understand the real situation.

 

The specific wording of the Su-27 manual is this sentence 

“When the RLPK and LOO6 operate simultaneously, false information may be displayed on the L006LM indicator (displaying bearing marks 10, 30, 50, 90 from the left and right, type X, power gradation up to 8, marks B, NI CAPTURE).”

Emphasis on the word “may.” Other translators will translate it as “it is possible for false information to be displayed.” 
 

Far from conclusive “this happens 100% of the time” 

[Harlikwin]

39 minutes ago, AeriaGloria said:

If this 9.12B document is an issue, I suggest you remove the upload from your server. Being on ED user files makes it seem 100% approved 

Its only been hosted for a decade or so. 

[Harlikwin]

1 hour ago, AeriaGloria said:

The specific wording of the Su-27 manual is this sentence 

“When the RLPK and LOO6 operate simultaneously, false information may be displayed on the L006LM indicator (displaying bearing marks 10, 30, 50, 90 from the left and right, type X, power gradation up to 8, marks B, NI CAPTURE).”

Emphasis on the word “may.” Other translators will translate it as “it is possible for false information to be displayed.” 
 

Far from conclusive “this happens 100% of the time” 

 

My take on it is this. 

It works fine on a freshly tuned and well maintained set. As the set gradually goes out of tune, you get some weirdness. And if its totally out of whack it just turns off as a failsafe. 

That basically correlates with all the stories we hear about it. And makes total sense from a technical standpoint.

Solution is easy too, have a checkbox for "Shiny new working SPO15" or "old n busted spo15" in the options. Just like with the program options. 

[Dragon1-1]

7 hours ago, Flyout said:

The combat manual for 9-12 does not state anywhere that the SPO-15 can be operated with the radar turned on.

Does it state otherwise? Because just because it doesn't explicitly state that it can't doesn't mean much. It'd be worth mentioning if it didn't work. So far, I've seen it mentioned either in other countries' manuals or in uncertain terms.

[okopanja]

22 hours ago, marmor said:

I remembered this thread 4 years ago by the pilot. SPO doing its SPO things and a technician showing it could be fixed if it helps clear things out

 

And there you have the RWR being blinded by the radars, and the N019 itself too...

Is it fine to quote this document as a reference in my historic 29 flights?

Is it still confidential, and how do I make sure I do not breach the British laws?

The reason I ask is: Eastern German and Yugoslav 29s are roughly the same age. It appears the degradation of electronics did proceed in similar tempo in both air forces.

Asking since this document proves British were aware already in 1997 that the aged fulcrums had serious problems. E.g. first signs that war imminent were mid-1997, with Autumn 1998 being marked with huge NATO demonstrative actions over Albania.

[F-2]

20 minutes ago, okopanja said:

Is it fine to quote this document as a reference in my historic 29 flights?

Is it still confidential, and how do I make sure I do not breach the British laws?

The reason I ask is: Eastern German and Yugoslav 29s are roughly the same age. It appears the degradation of electronics did proceed in similar tempo in both air forces.

Asking since this document proves British were aware already in 1997 that the aged fulcrums had serious problems. E.g. first signs that war imminent were mid-1997, with Autumn 1998 being marked with huge NATO demonstrative actions over Albania.

The reference number on the top could be used to look it up in the UK national archives. This sort of thing is pretty universally released after 25 years. As a note they don’t edit the documents and don’t cross off things like confidential or secret like in the US.

just based on age the archives would release something with just a confidential rating but the archivist would not allow access if there was an exception.

 

[AeriaGloria]

3 hours ago, Harlikwin said:

 

My take on it is this. 

It works fine on a freshly tuned and well maintained set. As the set gradually goes out of tune, you get some weirdness. And if its totally out of whack it just turns off as a failsafe. 

That basically correlates with all the stories we hear about it. And makes total sense from a technical standpoint.

Solution is easy too, have a checkbox for "Shiny new working SPO15" or "old n busted spo15" in the options. Just like with the program options. 

Agreed. If turning radar off then on really helps, maybe even every 10th radar cycle. 

[MickV]

On 9/20/2025 at 3:21 PM, CrazyGman said:

I personally am loving the challenge and am having a blast. Playing on contention It requires you to keep your head a bit more out of the cockpit. and check with EWR for where contacts are, but then I'm also used to playing the MiG-21 and the F1CE a lot, where you can't rely heavily on the RWR. Regardless I still feel that it's doing decent right now in contention server, and that's even with both IFF and coop mode between the radar and IRST not working right now. I've certainly been able to get kills in it with both the R27R's and the R73 and they feel pretty satisfying. I feel not having a M2000 or F/A-18 level of RWR is not a deal breaker, and even if the front aspect portion of it was working with the radar on, I feel looking down all the time at it in the heat of combat is not the way to go. 

I'm still setting up controls and getting a feel for the systems, but test BVR fights against the AI (admittedly all-seeing/all-knowing with perfect SA) equipped with AIM-7F's and M's have been pretty brutal. Contention at least offers the EWR script, with which I feel like I'd have a fighting chance at notching to the merge against human opponents with fallible SA. But I despair of trying it against more than 1 AI in a SP mission/campaign.

My thought is that without a GCI/EWR system in SP, I'd personally prefer the slider of RWR fidelity>>>fun gameplay be adjusted in favour of cutting players a break. (And assuming the posters suggesting ED has modelled the SPO-15 incorrectly will be ignored)

People's mileage in this regard will vary, of course. I very much WANT this module to be a best seller, and I'm not sure it will be. I take no joy in saying that, and hope to be proven wrong.

It is insanely fun to fly and an absolute monster in WVR fights, I wholeheartedly concur.

[MickV]

On 9/21/2025 at 8:42 AM, Flyout said:

Sorry, but DСS is a realistic simulator, not a flight game with balanced forces.

Not to rehash a very old, very tired debate, but DCS lacks too many features and tools to use the word 'realistic', without it asking it to do an awful lot of heavy lifting.

[CrazyGman]

1 hour ago, MickV said:

I'm still setting up controls and getting a feel for the systems, but test BVR fights against the AI (admittedly all-seeing/all-knowing with perfect SA) equipped with AIM-7F's and M's have been pretty brutal. Contention at least offers the EWR script, with which I feel like I'd have a fighting chance at notching to the merge against human opponents with fallible SA. But I despair of trying it against more than 1 AI in a SP mission/campaign.

My thought is that without a GCI/EWR system in SP, I'd personally prefer the slider of RWR fidelity>>>fun gameplay be adjusted in favour of cutting players a break. (And assuming the posters suggesting ED has modelled the SPO-15 incorrectly will be ignored)

People's mileage in this regard will vary, of course. I very much WANT this module to be a best seller, and I'm not sure it will be. I take no joy in saying that, and hope to be proven wrong.

It is insanely fun to fly and an absolute monster in WVR fights, I wholeheartedly concur.

I feel you are grossly under estimating the MiG-29s BVR ability in it's current state. Against veteran ai it's been pretty easy for me to win the joust against SARH oppenents even with just the vanilla R27R's. It's ability to get high and fast very quickly, and to even stay perched there for a half decent amount of time is not to be underestimated. 

Yeah if your fighting Fox 3 equipped oppenents your going to struggle, but that's not really the fight this first generation of MiG-29 was ever designed to fight against. Same if your going to try to take on 2-4 other 4rth gen oppenents all by yourself (although I don't see how you could really have a much better time trying to do this any more with any of the teen series fighters either)

You can by the way setup ground search radars and sams and do radio calls for picture to help build your SA, like we used to do on alpenwolfs cold war server back in the day, but this also works for single player missions 

I can think of a lot of interesting missions that you could set up right now in SP. Like scrambling with an AI wingman from a roadside based as a group of 4 Phantoms go to make a ground attack. And you ambush them from below while a ERW radar site gives you vectors from picture calls.

Or patrolling perched high above friendly SAMs protecting an airbase as a group of Hornets with HARM's and Sparrows try to perform SEAD to soften up the air defense and your there to swat them out of the sky from high altitude, while the friendly SAMs keep them at standoff distance

Or some daring nap of the earth ground attack missions using quick pop up rocket or bomb attacks like in the viggen. (Wait till your see the Viggens RWR)

I can think of loads of missions. The Module the MiG-29 mostly resembles for me is the M-2000C. Both have quirky radars you need to learn to get used to, and both are set up to do similar roles.

 

 

 

Edited 9 hours ago by CrazyGman

[marmor]

 

You can use it, it was released by them. Though I dont know if there are more pages, I'm sorry.

13 hours ago, okopanja said:

Asking since this document proves British were aware already in 1997 that the aged fulcrums had serious problems. E.g. first signs that war imminent were mid-1997, with Autumn 1998 being marked with huge NATO demonstrative actions over Albania.

British were well aware of issues and limitations on the SPO15-RADAR-JAMMER interference and bunch of other stuff well before the fall of the USSR. They really knew the opponent once you read the whole section, how the spo15 looked and showed, radar worked, frequencies, jammer, IRSTS etc.

To quote the very nicely detailed 1987  F3 TACMAN which has been declassified

Quote

14.(s) limitations.

Although fulcrum and flanker appear to have an impressive avionics suite, it is probable that the systems will not have been integrated efficiently and limitations will be present in each device. In particular, a self-protection jammer will need to be inhibited in the AI frequency band, as will the rwr if false-alarms from the AI/CW or jammer are to be avoided. putting an opponent and his missile at 90° will only be possible to within 20-30° with sp0-15. the jammer operates only ±30° off the nose and tail, restricting f-pole manoeuvring....

Edited 2 hours ago by marmor

[marmor]

On 9/22/2025 at 2:42 AM, F-2 said:

That part about Skyflash vs R-27 is neat. They actually have very similar sealer designs.

Yeah, and they released a whole document too which holds multiple documents regarding the seeker itself from early development stages(why they chose this and that) to late production(tests). Along with meetings with americans throughout these, from comparing to the sparrow E and to the F in clutter, noise, MLC rejections, seeker ranges etc and mentions of the M but sadly nothing as the M was still in early development but they knew it was a slotted array antenna with 4channels for monopulse tracking.

 

[Кош]

@NineLineThis is not a wishlist. Repair the RWR please.

[okopanja]

49 minutes ago, marmor said:

British were well aware of issues and limitations on the SPO15-RADAR-JAMMER interference and bunch of other stuff well before the fall of the USSR. They really knew the opponent once you read the whole section, how the spo15 looked and showed, radar worked, frequencies, jammer, IRSTS etc.

To quote the very nicely detailed 1987  F3 TACMAN which has been declassified

Too me it looks like this is actually a misinterpretation of genuine exploitation problem for non-overhauled aircrafts (true for both GDR and YU Fulcrums) vs original design and state of aircrafts.

Modeling the exploitation fault as design flaw is wrong and is not supported with the actual technical documentation. 

Instead the electronics aging effects should be modeled as a fault which can be ticked in mission editor for those who want to really feel how it feels to fly and fight in broken aircraft. E.g. this includes other failures, like radar range degradation, which in case of L-18 was 20-30km in 1999 (I have a direct statement of a pilot comparing the state of aircraft when they were in good condition and later when the electronics started to break down). 

Some of us prefer historic context, in which you fly the aircraft with such failures, but the majority of the player base actually want the aircrafts that behave according to the specs when they were new.

 

 

[Кош]

nullThere really should be no debate. ED modeled an unserviced system.

[Flyout]

25 minutes ago, Кош said:

nullThere really should be no debate. ED modeled an unserviced system.

This SPO-15 manual isn't specific to any particular aircraft. It describes the equipment's capabilities in general. However, specific implementations of the station varied across both design bureaus and aircraft types.
What's written here doesn't directly apply to the MiG-29.

[BIGNEWY]

please let us know what book  / manual you are taking this information from. 

thank you 

threads merged, title adjusted. 

thank you 

[AeriaGloria]

I have found atleast 4 sources that attest to MiG-29 having blanking circuits for its radar to RWR, as was standard for any Soviet radar equipped fighter with RWR. It’s basically undeniable it had one at this point. 
 

And I’m probably forgetting one! 

Edited 1 hour ago by AeriaGloria