Can Jester track fighters?

[SharpeXB]

I would think he can but in any quick missions so far he never finds them on radar. I’m not in look-down either. I guess these instant action BVR scenarios all have you in a merge where there are only seconds to find them. So not very likely I suppose. 

Edited yesterday at 01:04 AM by SharpeXB

[Ivandrov]

Yes.

He will scan mostly co-altitude and may steer the antenna up and down a little bit. If there's a significant altitude difference you'll have to tell him the expected altitude. So he can actually point the antenna that far up or down.

[Zabuzard]

1 hour ago, Ivandrov said:

He will scan mostly co-altitude and may steer the antenna up and down a little bit.

His default scan behavior covers 10k ft up and down, he will usually cover everything relevant without you having to tell him. The Jester Wheel allows you to focus on the expected area but it will not really allow you to reach a spot that you wouldnt have reached with the default scan already.

The antenna symbol looks like it only changes a bit but his ~3° up/down cause already a change of ~10k ft at 30nm.

Edited yesterday at 06:36 AM by Zabuzard

[Zabuzard]

5 hours ago, SharpeXB said:

I would think he can but in any quick missions so far he never finds them on radar.

He can. The tldr would be "git gud". Its most likely a mix of expectations and improving aircraft positioning. A few things to consider:

* dont go look-down
* dont approach a fighter head-on, go sideways to improve RCS significantly
* dont place them at a distance equal to your altitude or they vanish in the altitude line
* dont place them next to clutter in terms of distance to increase the contrast
* make sure there are no mountains or other terrain next to them or right behind them from your perspective
* (if they are hugging the ground, forget about it, you wont get them on screen)
* if all things go well, expect to get a fighter on screen at about 15-25nm, that gives you time to shoot maybe one missile before you are in heater range (for larger targets its rather 25nm-40nm)

[speed-of-heat]

46 minutes ago, Zabuzard said:

dont approach a fighter head-on, go sideways to improve RCS significantly

in the real world that is certainly true, however as i understand it, in DCS alas the RCS is mainly modelled as a sphere ... what will change sideways is relative motion which means the PRF neds to be appropriate  

[Zabuzard]

21 minutes ago, speed-of-heat said:

however as i understand it, in DCS alas the RCS is mainly modelled as a sphere

We do model RCS in more detail than maybe other aircraft do. I cant really comment on how others may do it but aspect in all 3 dimensions and other things definitely have a very heavy influence on our RCS simulation for our radars.

There are also some YouTube videos and similar where users experimented a bit and made graphs to visualize things a bit.

Edited yesterday at 08:26 AM by Zabuzard

[speed-of-heat]

good to know!

[SharpeXB]

5 hours ago, Zabuzard said:

dont go look-down
* dont approach a fighter head-on, go sideways to improve RCS significantly
* dont place them at a distance equal to your altitude or they vanish in the altitude line
* dont place them next to clutter in terms of distance to increase the contrast
* make sure there are no mountains or other terrain next to them or right behind them from your perspective

Oh yeah that’s all understood. Again I think those instant action missions all start with the bandits head-on.

[Ivandrov]

9 hours ago, Zabuzard said:

His default scan behavior covers 10k ft up and down, he will usually cover everything relevant without you having to tell him. The Jester Wheel allows you to focus on the expected area but it will not really allow you to reach a spot that you wouldnt have reached with the default scan already.

The antenna symbol looks like it only changes a bit but his ~3° up/down cause already a change of ~10k ft at 30nm.

That's at 30 nm. It's not at all sufficient for closer distances.

 

Even at 30 nm I find he doesn't scan fast enough through elevation for the default behavior to be useful for anything but co-altitude, much better success telling him to scan an altitude. 

Edited 23 hours ago by Ivandrov

[Zabuzard]

That's at 30 nm. It's not at all sufficient for closer distances.
 
Even at 30 nm I find he doesn't scan fast enough through elevation for the default behavior to be useful for anything but co-altitude, much better success telling him to scan an altitude. 

Im not saying it isnt btw, its there for a reason after all.
The default scan behavior is, as the name implies, a default scan behavior. Its meant for when you dont have any idea of where the bandits might be.
If you have extra knowledge just point him at the right altitude (in the future he will learn expected target positions by himself ofc).

At close ranges you are likely better off using Boresight (regular) or even CAGE/Boresight or CAGE/CAA