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How does a fighter jet lock onto and keep track of an enemy aircraft? (2013)

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Re: How does a fighter jet lock onto and keep track of an enemy aircraft? (2013)

#31

Post by clogston »

krat0sprakhar wrote: post #6

Off Topic: Man! Reading this answer so makes me want to play those FlightSim games of the yesteryears like Apache Havoc, Commanche, Jane's F/A 18 Hornet etc etc. Does anyone have any suggestions for a modern Flight Sim game? Thanks!

There are two main options at the moment, with many simmers enjoying both:

1) DCS World (https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/world/) is the "framework" and comes with some free aircraft. There are paid aircraft options both 1st and 3rd party; DCS A-10C being the most popular.

2) Falcon BMS (http://www.benchmarksims.org/forum/content.php) which is the successor to Falcon 4.0

Re: How does a fighter jet lock onto and keep track of an enemy aircraft? (2013)

#32

Post by aragot »

click170 wrote: post #7
Someone1234 wrote: post #2

Good response, worth the read. Heck the response alone could justify their own article. As an aside: I hate quora' site design so much I have blacklisted it using Google Personal Blocklist. Somehow I dislike it more than Experts Exchange (which is also blacklisted), it is just super cluttered with nonsense, rolls into the comments section without warning and rarely offers good content (see Experts Exchange again). Th…

I remember you used to see experts exchange or the like come up in search results and you could block it right there, in your search results without having to go to a separate page. Since they've hidden it, I honestly thought they'd removed the ability to block websites. Thanks for letting me know I just have to hunt for it. I wonder why they removed that option from search results?

Same problem here. To dodge w3schools I resorted to writing an /etc/hosts local dns entry, so I would never open it even by mistake.

Re: How does a fighter jet lock onto and keep track of an enemy aircraft? (2013)

#33

Post by sp332 »

Someone1234 wrote: post #2

Good response, worth the read. Heck the response alone could justify their own article. As an aside: I hate quora' site design so much I have blacklisted it using Google Personal Blocklist. Somehow I dislike it more than Experts Exchange (which is also blacklisted), it is just super cluttered with nonsense, rolls into the comments section without warning and rarely offers good content (see Experts Exchange again). Th…

This one got reposted to Gizmodo, with a saner interface. http://gizmodo.com/how-fighter-jets-lock-on-and-how-the-targ...

Re: How does a fighter jet lock onto and keep track of an enemy aircraft? (2013)

#34

Post by nether »

Someone1234 wrote: post #2

Good response, worth the read. Heck the response alone could justify their own article. As an aside: I hate quora' site design so much I have blacklisted it using Google Personal Blocklist. Somehow I dislike it more than Experts Exchange (which is also blacklisted), it is just super cluttered with nonsense, rolls into the comments section without warning and rarely offers good content (see Experts Exchange again). Th…

Holy shit, without fail the top comment on a Quora story is a rant about their design. Get over it. Don't click if you don't like it.

Re: How does a fighter jet lock onto and keep track of an enemy aircraft? (2013)

#35

Post by IgorPartola »

_djo_ wrote: post #29
IgorPartola wrote: post #17

So why don't they include two radars, one for sweeps and one for tracking? I know, I know, weight, power, etc. At the same time, isn't that the obvious answer?

No space. Take a look at this image, it's the standard AN/APG-63 on an F-15C fighter aircraft: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:APG-63_radar_of_F-15_... Note how the radar's processing units and dish take up the entirety of the aircraft's nose and how large the system is compared to the technician working on it. There simply isn't enough space to add another radar. Nor would it make sense to split that into two…

Still reading your reply but the image is 403'ing for me.

Re: How does a fighter jet lock onto and keep track of an enemy aircraft? (2013)

#36

Post by AceJohnny2 »

ufmace wrote: post #30

Related anecdote - I worked with a coder a while back who was a naval aviator before he went back to school, flying carrier-based transports. I asked him once about whether he would have wanted to fly fighters instead, and he said that just flying transports was already a huge amount of work, as far as flight plans, training, practice, and such. Flying fighters apparently involved doing all of that same work, plus a…

> Apparently, flying fighters wasn't nearly as fun as it sounds.

Hm. I figure the glory you get from being a fighter pilot is one of the perks, so they might as well milk that for all it's worth.

My point is that it's interesting to note the professions that seem more glorious than they actually are, and beware those who sell themselves or the job based on that glory: it's an illusion.

Re: How does a fighter jet lock onto and keep track of an enemy aircraft? (2013)

#37

Post by genericone »

IgorPartola wrote: post #35
_djo_ wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No space. Take a look at this image, it's the standard AN/APG-63 on an F-15C fighter aircraft: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:APG-63_radar_of_F-15_... Note how the radar's processing units and dish take up the entirety of the aircraft's nose and how large the system is compared to the technician working on it. There simply isn't enough space to add another radar. Nor would it make sense to split that into two…

Still reading your reply but the image is 403'ing for me.

Click through to the image link, then in the url bar, highlight and hit enter. It's an anti-hotlinking error.

Re: How does a fighter jet lock onto and keep track of an enemy aircraft? (2013)

#38

Post by jameshart »

krat0sprakhar wrote: post #6

Off Topic: Man! Reading this answer so makes me want to play those FlightSim games of the yesteryears like Apache Havoc, Commanche, Jane's F/A 18 Hornet etc etc. Does anyone have any suggestions for a modern Flight Sim game? Thanks!

Fully expecting flightsims to make a glorious comeback with Oculus' full availability. It is too well suited to games which require you to sit still, and have your hands on controls.

Time to buy shares in joystick manufacturers.

Re: How does a fighter jet lock onto and keep track of an enemy aircraft? (2013)

#39

Post by existencebox »

hueving wrote: post #28

Is there any way to view the rest of the answer hidden behind the "more" link without signing up for an account?

I would also appreciate this. I was finding the article very interesting but the wall killed it for me.

Re: How does a fighter jet lock onto and keep track of an enemy aircraft? (2013)

#40

Post by OldSchool »

Hmmm, I was kind of hoping for an explanation of how the control system determines how to modify the highly directional antenna's orientation to continue to maximally "illuminate" the target once it's been selected from a general scan.

Can anyone describe the solution to this?

Example idea: Once selected for "lock," the antenna scans in small circles and migrates its central point toward the point on the scanned circle that provides the strongest return, allowing for variation due to noise sources.

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