Crank my Notch (up)

[coolts]

A quick N00b question on terminology here.

'Notching' is placing yourself at 90 degrees from the bandit and maintaining distance, (in effect, if you did this permanently, rotating round him at a fixed distance), in order that his Doppler radar loses you as you seem to be stationary from its perspective?

And 'Cranking' is moving away, (from head on), to place the target near the edge, (but not quite over), of your radar gimbal limits so that your radar is still able to provide telemetry data to your missile until it goes active, but, as you are not now heading straight towards the bandit, any missiles heading your way will have to travel further, lose energy, and be nearer your 3-9 o’clock line so you can evade when / if they get close.

I have read all the brevity codes, etc but haven’t read a detailed explanation of these terms, and don’t want to go any further until I have these concepts nailed in my head.:book:

[279KIAP-Snake]

Thats is also my understanding of these two terms. It is correct IMO.

[RedTiger]

That's correct except for one thing...notching involves being below the aircraft that is emitting the radar to track you.

 

Here's quick quote from wikipedia:

 

Stationary targets such as earth ground clutter (land, buildings, etc) will be dominant in the low doppler frequencies, while moving targets will produce much higher doppler shifts. The radar processor can be designed to mask out clutter by the use of doppler filters (digital or analogue) around the main spectral line (called the clutter-notch), which will result in the display of moving targets only (in relation to the radar). If the radar itself is moving, such as on a fighter aircraft, or a surveillance aircraft, then much more processing will be required, as the clutter in the filters will be based on platform speed, terrain under the radar, antenna depression angle, and antenna rotation/steered angle.

 

Basically, this is the price you pay for having look-down, shoot-down capability. You get to see targets that are below you, but not if they're moving perpendicular to you. There's a lot more to it than this. A modern FC radar's computer interpreting the data is just as important as the radar itself, maybe moreso. There's some pretty fancy stuff going on "under the hood" that make some aircraft like the F-15C less susceptible to being notched, none of which are really modeled in LOMAC AFAIK. What a modern AESA radar can do is pretty amazing, some of it seems like magic.

[Aeroscout]

Pretty Much. The radar sees closing speed, and if the target's closing speed is the same as the ground clutter, you can't pick him up. On the flip side, he can't see you with his radar as he is turned around!

 

That's correct except for one thing...notching involves being below the aircraft that is emitting the radar to track you.

 

Here's quick quote from wikipedia:

 

 

 

Basically, this is the price you pay for having look-down, shoot-down capability. You get to see targets that are below you, but not if they're moving perpendicular to you. There's a lot more to it than this. A modern FC radar's computer interpreting the data is just as important as the radar itself, maybe moreso. There's some pretty fancy stuff going on "under the hood" that make some aircraft like the F-15C less susceptible to being notched, none of which are really modeled in LOMAC AFAIK. What a modern AESA radar can do is pretty amazing, some of it seems like magic.

 

I understand modern radar is less susceptible to notching, but I think a lot of arguments could be diffused if we understood what we're dealing with. The problem is, we (or atleast I) don't know what era lockon is really trying to model. I personally believe this is more 80s-90s technology rather than the really modern stuff. In that case, the doppler effect thing in lockon might be more realistic than you think.

 

My 2 cents

 

Aero

[RedTiger]

I wasn't referring so much to how Lock On models the concept, more that all playable fighters are still using legacy code from Flanker. The radar on the F-15, MiG-29, and the Su-27 are using the same radar model, albeit with information displayed differently and tweaked for each plane. Unless I've missed some new info while I've been away from here...

[coolts]

Thanks guys. It still feels unnatural to go lower than a bandit. Too much time playing WW2 sims where height is everything. Hopefully, with FC2 using the DCS terrain, there will be much more opportunity for NOE tactics and evasion.

 

And the F-15 radar will be fixed.

[Pyroflash]

I wasn't aware that the F-15C was receiving any RADAR fixes. I thought the only fixes were to it's Mil thrust output, and it's IFF systems.

 

Though do feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. I often am.

[coolts]

Hopefully ED wil have had time to fix such old bugs.

[RedTiger]

I wasn't aware that the F-15C was receiving any RADAR fixes. I thought the only fixes were to it's Mil thrust output, and it's IFF systems.

 

Though do feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. I often am.

 

I don't think anyone in this thread said it was. However, I did assume that FC 2.0 would address the radar elevation problem that Yoda's server-side program fixed. The F-15's radar elevation should automatically move to keep a locked or bugged target in the scan area.