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How fighter jets lock on, and how the targets know (2014)
- j4yav 5y agoReally interesting content, but its almost even more amazing how many ads they were able to squeeze in there at least on mobile.
- shoto_io 5y agoI run a newsletter. We swore to find the least ad spammed website when we cover current news and link out. It’s getting more difficult by the day.
- laegooose 5y agothere are adblocker apps for both iOS and Android. Highly recommended
- amelius 5y agoLooks like the ads have locked onto you. Perhaps try some evasive manoeuvres.
- fogetti 5y agoOn Android you can use a private DNS service, for example nextdns.io which will block all advertisement on the page for you. I wouldn't be surprised if iOS would have the same option.
- Ueland 5y agoI run PiHole (DNS-based ad-blocker) on my home network, as the DNS is given out trough DHCP all my devices gets less ads, including iOS.
- aleken 5y agoAnnoyed me as well. I changed to reading mode (icon on right side of Firefox mobile address line). Think that got rid of them.
- navbaker 5y agoThe thing that most irritates me about those sites is the video box about halfway down the page that becomes sticky for a bit after you pass it on mobile. I have to scroll down until it goes away, then slowly scroll back up until just before it appears again to continue reading. It’s absolutely maddening.
- the_gipsy 5y agoiOS to be specific. On android we have proper adblocking with uBlock origin. So much about apple and privacy.
- marderfarker2 5y agoI had this concern before I switched to iOS. Turns out you can install content blockers for Safari. Plus iOS supports DoH natively so ads are pretty much non existent on my iOS devices.
- Synaesthesia 5y agoIt's very helpful. Firefox on Android with ublock origin is still the best as blocker on mobile but it's nice to have eg wipr on Safari.
- the_gipsy 5y agoDid you not get ads on the article? I’m on iOS and every other paragraph had one. Checked on android with uBlock and there aren’t any. I installed “Firefox focus”, supposedly blocks ads, I guess on the network level. Which iOS adblocker do you use?
- avh02 5y agoHow does DoH help you avoid ads?
- FabHK 5y agoAnd furthermore, the content was from a guy (Tim Morgan) who answered a question on Quora (linked at the bottom of the article). So Gizmodo just copies it and puts lots of ads around it. I don't understand the modern internet. https://www.quora.com/How-does-a-fighter-jet-lock-onto-and-keep-track-of-an-enemy-aircraft-Can-an-aircraft-detect-that-it-has-been-locked-onto-or-is-it-just-a-convenient-plot-device-in-movies https://www.quora.com/How-does-a-fighter-jet-lock-onto-and-k...
- azalemeth 5y agoIf anything, I think it's worth asking Dang to change the link on the page to be this one – it's rather bad that this person's work appears to being just ripped off.
- nkurz 5y agoI sent email asking him to change it.
- dang 5y agoOk, we've changed the URL to that from https://gizmodo.com/how-fighter-jets-lock-on-and-how-the-targets-know-1644871272 https://gizmodo.com/how-fighter-jets-lock-on-and-how-the-tar.... Thanks all! Edit: changed back, explained here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27488965 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27488965
- gxs 5y agoI came to say the same thing - at one point only 10% of the screen was article text. What a god awful website.
- swebs 5y agoYeah, I always just go straight to an archive site when I see a Gizmodo link. https://archive.is/MGCOA https://archive.is/MGCOA
- StavrosK 5y agoThis is a very interesting article, but I was kind of turned off by the ease with which it described killing people. "To get a solid kill, just put the plane in the dot and squeeze the trigger, super simple!" I've seen detergent bottles that were more apprehensive about their process of use.
- tome 5y agoI believe in the vernacular "kill" refers to destruction of the enemy aircraft not ending the life of the crew (they are correlated, of course).
- StavrosK 5y agoI agree, but still...
- usrusr 5y agoWould it be better or worse if they stuck to an euphemistic verb like "down", as if it was a given that the occupant walked away? I don't know the answer.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- xyzelement 5y agoThis is a discussion of a military matter, which is all about life and death struggle in many levels. War is about killing. It's an ugly fact but fact nevertheless. It seems like the world kill offends you, but it is an accurate description of the severity of what's going on.
- throwanem 5y agoThis is the business that fighter pilots consider themselves to be in, and that shows through in the way they talk about it - I had a history teacher in high school who had previously flown fighters in the Marine Corps, and while he rarely entertained much discussion on that subject, his approach on those occasions was similarly matter-of-fact. I didn't check to see if the article referenced any sources, but it wouldn't surprise me to learn that a primary one was a conversation with an F-16 pilot.
- belter 5y agoIt is rumored the French OTH-Radar Nostradamus can clearly see all current stealth airplanes. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/1631867 https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/1631867 https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jp-Molinie/publication/4242754_A_general_presentation_about_the_OTH-Radar_NOSTRADAMUS/links/00b49526aedda98125000000/A-general-presentation-about-the-OTH-Radar-NOSTRADAMUS.pdf https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jp-Molinie/publication/...
- _kbh_ 5y agoI thought most OTH can see stealth planes because they usually aren’t optimised for being scanned from the top, but rather more front, back and bottom face scanning. I don’t know much about stealth though so I could be completely wrong.
- WJW 5y agoThere are many variables involved in radar target detection and usually "stealth" planes only have the possibility to optimize for a few of them. As a simple example, radar absorbing paints usually only work well in a few frequency bands so using a radar outside that band gives a much higher chance of detection. Using "blocky" designs reduces the chance of detection from one angle (typically the front, since that is where the target is) but at the cost of higher detectability from another angle. And finally you will almost always have problems with infrared visibility from some angles, for a jet airplane it is almost impossible to hide the exhaust plume when looking from the rear of the aircraft. In any case, you are right that OTH skywave radars like the Nostradamus usually have a pretty good chance to detect stealthy planes. However due to the frequency bands involved such detections are typically more of the "there is something in this cubic kilometre" type and not of fire-control quality. You need much more accurate systems to actually guide a missile. Still, it is pretty cool. There are also "passive" systems which use the reflections of waves from normal civilian radio stations and a phenomenal amount of signal processing to determine the position of thousands of targets simultaneously, although I'm not aware of any in active service yet. Like fusion power, this type of "multistatic" radar seems to be perpetually 30 years away from practical use. Source: Used to be a weapons engineer for the Dutch Navy, at one point specializing in advanced radar systems.
- Tycho 5y agoThe way the target can “hear” the radar lock seems very equitable. As if the nature of arial combat is the product of balanced gameplay mechanics.
- vmception 5y agoWould be interesting if computer games accurately did lock on and detection Right now it just seems like aiming reticule edge detection
- zokier 5y agoSimulators, DCS in the forefront, have somewhat reasonable radar modeling, both in terms of radar warning systems and target acquisition.
- scottLobster 5y agoThere are simulators that do that, but it does take away from the "Maverick/Top Gun" escapist fantasy most games with fighter jets strive for when you can't even see your target, so it's a much smaller market
- kortex 5y agoI played Descent in the 90's and there was missile lock. It would trigger when a homing missile had a line of sight to your ship, and the frequency of the beeps indicated proximity. It's not the aiming reticle, cause bots could get you around corners with homing missiles. The homing is probably done exactly like graphics, with ray tracing.
- LightG 5y agoMicroprose F-15 Strike Eagle in the early 80's did a decent lock on and detection!
- sitzkrieg 5y agofalcon 4.0 is unmatched. they actually had too much and were forced to redact and simplify some mechanics before release
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- frkloovb 5y agoWhat does "closure rate" mean?
- j4yav 5y agoHow fast they are approaching each other
- sokoloff 5y agoIndeed. The rate at which the gap between them is closing => closure rate.
- thrill 5y agoEven more fun, since closure rate was often written as Vc (Vee sub See), pilots often spoke in terms of "opening" Vc (getting further away) and "closing" Vc.
- bdefore 5y ago2014
- ilovwindows 5y agoI have always wondered, wouldn't it be pretty easy to create a missile that follows a radar wave to it's source? A fighter plane could use this very missile to shut down a fighter plane chasing it or a ground radar scanning it.
- belter 5y agoAlready exists. Meet the AGM-88: https://fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/smart/agm-88.htm https://fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/smart/agm-88.htm
- kevin_thibedeau 5y agoThe British ALARM is more interesting as it has a loiter mode where it can fly up, deploy a parachute, and wait for a radar site to turn on. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ALARM https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ALARM
- imtringued 5y agoIt's basically a flying naval mine with an active tracking mode.
- kop316 5y agoYep! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AGM-88_HARM https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AGM-88_HARM https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_Weasel https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_Weasel
- byteofbits 5y agoThis is essentially how HARM (Anti-Radiation) missiles work [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AGM-88_HARM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AGM-88_HARM]
- mardifoufs 5y agoIt already exists! Also works against ground radar. It's actually one of the best ways to clean up enemy air defenses before an invasion https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-radiation_missile https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-radiation_missile
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- sobriquet9 5y agoThis part looks rather dated: > A digital signal processor looks for recognizable radio "chirps" that correspond to known radars, and displays their azimuth on the scope. A chirp is a distinctive waveform that a radio uses. These days it should be pretty easy to use pseudorandom waveforms, unique each time. LPI radars existed for a while.
- angry_octet 5y agoYes it's a tech appreciation from the SLQ-32 era. But at the same time receiver memory and sensitivity has massively increased, and many properties can be analysed, including the response to deception signals (delayed repetition of various strategies, sidelobe injection). LPI doesn't work for tracking as well as for searching. In the past it would take months for new waveforms to be analysed and platform libraries updated, now it happens in hours.
- jFriedensreich 5y agowould have loved to have audio examples for the article. as it reads the audio feedback to pilots is not a database of warning tones but a direct translation of the received radar spectrum to something audible. if someone has a good link it would be appreciated.
- Jenda_ 5y agoI have recorded a weather radar and uploaded it to YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLz0ZYw4Hdw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLz0ZYw4Hdw
- norvvryo 5y agoThis demo of BSI's SGE does a pretty good job demonstrating the parameters that contribute to the sound of an emitter heard through a radar warning receiver. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-e3m5zGQjA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-e3m5zGQjA
- the__alchemist 5y agoThe info in this article mainly applies to mech-scan radars; many fighters from all over the world now use AESAs[1] (This includes 5th gen, and upgraded 4th gen). These don't have the distinction of "track" and "search" modes; the radar maintains high-quality tracks of multiple targets in the radar coverage, and the crew can select which ones to target. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_electronically_scanned_array https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_electronically_scanned_...
- dogma1138 5y agoAESA radars very much do have track and search mode, it’s just not mechanically controlled so they can track more targets however once you lock on a target(s) the beams are still focused on them which is why you still have a limit and that limit is dependent on the size of the target you track as well as it’s range and not just the radar itself. An AESA radar that can track up to 5 targets for example might still be limited to a single target with a low RCS because more of the array has to be focused on it.
- the__alchemist 5y agoAll valid points. In practice for non-stealth fighter-size targets, (Depending on the software/UI) you can park the radar in a general-purpose mode, and get decent-quality tracks for many contacts. Turning them into higher-quality "weapons-quality" tracks (eg for shooting) taxes the radar more. The more you ask of the radar (More wpns-quality tracks, SAR mapping etc), the poorer its performance.
- oehpr 5y agoIf you happen to have a VR headset and are looking to play around with the toys described in the article, I recommend VTOL VR. It has pretty low system requirements, and takes advantage of VR to create a virtual hotas (It is much more effective than you would expect). The physics simulation is, to my understanding, very good. And everything described in this article is present in the game to be played around with. VTOL VR taught me about "Radar Notching". The article briefly mentions how radar can actively detect the doppler shift of targets. If you think about it, the doppler shift of the ground would be neutral, right? Or roughly the speed of the aircraft. So lets say you've been locked on by a fighter at high altitude and they've fired a radar seeker at you. Your backdrop is the ground, it can pick you out because you're moving so fast. So what you do is bank your aircraft to fly at a 90 degree angle to the oncoming missile. Now your doppler shift is the same as the ground and you blend in, the radar filters out the ground because of it's expected speed, which is now the relative speed you are moving. You get "notched out", and the missile will lose track.
- t0mas88 5y agoRadar is also very good at distance measurement so I guess this won't work for a real life rocket fired at a fighter jet. Because it's so easy to defeat this trick in the software.
- oehpr 5y agoI'm to understand that tricks like this are much less effective against more modern A2A missiles, so you might be right.
- sandworm101 5y agoA missile will generally not care about distance. What matters is direction/angle. Distance is irrelevant. Just keep pointing at the target and eventually you will get there, assuming you are faster. So the direction to the strongest reflection, or greatest doppler shift, or combination of both, will suffice to get the missile to the target even without range data.
- 5y ago
- Saint_Genet 5y agoThis is largely off topic, but one of the most fascinating things I’ve ever learned about fighter jet HUDs is the reason they still look like early computing interfaces and avoid using color and graphics to signify important information is that human ability to detect color goes down when in high stress situations.
- wbc 5y agotime to start playing league of legends in black and white
- esaym 5y agoHow radar tracking worked in the good ol' days [0] [0]http://www.donhollway.com/foxtwo/crusader.mp4 http://www.donhollway.com/foxtwo/crusader.mp4
- everyone 5y agoI have ABP yet I saw ads on this page? Are they doing something dodgy?
- cs2733 5y agoAdblock PLus will let in some ads. Check https://adblockplus.org/acceptable-ads https://adblockplus.org/acceptable-ads
- opportune 5y agoMost adblockers rely on crowdsourced detection, there are ways you can report ads so the rest of the community can all block it. It's possible you ran into a new ad. Also ABP allows some ads it deems not intrusive. Ublock origin is stricter and better in my experience.
- everyone 5y agoTx for explaining! I switched.
- dang 5y agoDiscussed at the time: How does a fighter jet lock onto and keep track of an enemy aircraft? (2013) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8439560 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8439560 - Oct 2014 (85 comments) Also, we changed the url from https://gizmodo.com/how-fighter-jets-lock-on-and-how-the-targets-know-1644871272 https://gizmodo.com/how-fighter-jets-lock-on-and-how-the-tar... to the quora.com page it's copied from.
- dredmorbius 5y agoGiven quora is registrationwalled and Gizmodo is not, I'd support reinstating the submitted URL.
- dang 5y agoOk, since we're getting complaints that some people can't read the Quora URL, I've switched back to the Gizmodo one. There's an archive link at the top of this thread for those who want some ad relief.
- dredmorbius 5y agoThanks!
- avipars 5y agoThis is an old article and i'm sure electronic warfare has improved since then (the IDF invests a lot into this)... But it's really cool to read about!
- neonate 5y agohttps://archive.is/OHCwT https://archive.is/OHCwT
- sloshnmosh 5y agoMy father was a navigator and EWO officer in the C130 Hercules during the Vietnam war. He didn’t talk much about the war but one of things he told me was that while he was that their aircraft had several stubby antennae around the aircraft that monitored the radar from ground to air weapons. He said they had various jamming equipment and would send back radar signals out-of-phase so that ground radar would receive strong signals where they should be weak to throw off the targeting. He said at one point over Cambodia his equipment was overloaded by being locked on by multiple Chinese made weapons. Later analysis showed at least 3 different “Firecan” radar locked on. Luckily they were not fired upon. Edited to add that Wikipedia shows that Fire Can as Russian made. But my father did state he thought they were Chinese made
- varjag 5y agoIt was copied by China so your father could well be right.
- dylanrw 5y agoA good old read with some mildly outdated, but still interesting info. As a side note, if you dig aviation, check out my shop https://bvr.design https://bvr.design. =D
- uncoder0 5y agoIf you're interested in this kind of thing I highly recommend 'art of the kill' The book is more in depth but you can find the youtube version here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCFMX5z-ed4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCFMX5z-ed4
- mraza007 5y agoTech in Military has always been very interesting and I always wanted to learn how defense companies built advance fighter jets, advance weapons and etc Anyhow loved this article
- hatsunearu 5y ago> The strength of the radar is plotted as distance from the center — the closer to the center, the stronger the detected radar signal, and therefore possibly the closer the transmitting aircraft. I believe this is wrong, the computer actually determines what are most pertinent threats and puts it on the inner circle and puts the rest on the outer circle. . The inner band (critical) is generally missiles in flight . The middle band (lethal) is for radars actively tracking you . The outer band is classified as non-lethal since these are radars searching for you, not actively tracking you. > RWR also has an audio component. Each time a new radar signal is detected, it is converted into an audio wave and played for the pilot. Because different radars "sound" different, pilots learn to recognize different airborne or surface threats by their distinctive tones. Pretty sure this is wrong too, they all emit the same tones for tracking and another tone for searching tone... watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOLk_Je0NKg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOLk_Je0NKg
- failwhaleshark 5y agoAnd then the MiG-35S came along with an K-74M (or R-27ET) and the F-35 pilot wondered why they were drifting down in a parachute to the ocean. 13SM-1 FLIR FTW.