Solved Very strange Air-Ground Radar display
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@SoBad Dose the Saitek have a center detent for elevation control ?
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Things to consider with the AG FCR
The AG FCR scans in one BAR only in comparison to the AA FCR which can scan 4 BAR.
The AA FCR at 20nm and 1 BAR will scan a volume of airspace of 60 deg in azimuth and 10000ft in elevation. Its clear that the radar beam is quite small in elevation.
The AG FCR footprint will increase or decrease depending on the tilt angle of the antenna the altitude and the height above ground
Antenna tilt (elevation) and aircraft altitude determine the patch of ground illuminated by the beam.
The antenna tilt thumbwheel has a detent or center position that allows antenna tilt to be automatically centered at the A-G cursor position (equal to AUTO TILT) . With auto tilt, the antenna will ALWAYS tilt to bracket the cursor position.
Antenna tilt will be relative to the cursors range, and the aircrafts altitude.
The steeper the antenna tilt , the smaller the radar beam footprint .
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@Leech - That was an excellent explanation, with my appreciation. It’s just so disappointing to know that the A/G display from this point forward will be so limited in comparison to A/G displays in all earlier versions of Falcon BMS.
So, to be clear… you’re saying that it’s normal for the A/G radar in NORM mode to display very small limited segments of the ground at a time that take up only part of the MFD display? That flies in the face of every YouTube video of A/G radar displays I’ve ever seen.
Not trying to be argumentative. It just seems to be very strange that our most modern A/G radar display can’t show a full representation of the ground ahead, and videos I’ve seen back me up.
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@Leech So, we have to be in manpad country to get a bigger radar picture ?
Nice graph, thanks ! -
@SoBad Could you provide a link for the YT video please ?
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@MnMailman It will depend . You can get a full picture with you cursor at 20nm and altitude of 13K.
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@Leech Yeah I know, thanks, just joking.
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@MnMailman Oh… Silly me…
Cheers!! -
@Leech - ??? Leech, I have not made a YouTube video, and it will be at least next weekend before I have maybe a chance to do so. Sorry.
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@SoBad No worries.
I’m talking about the YT video with the AG FCR you have seen.
Is it this one ?
Have you seen other videos ?
Cheers!!! -
@SoBad Well first, we try to be realistic in what we do…
Second, talk with any F-16 pilots and they will tell you that AG is so unusable they prefer to switch to TGP when ever they can…
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@SoBad got to watch this one - it talks about building a radar “mosaic” image - it takes several minutes to compile as a radar scans a big area in this context.
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Ok, I’m going to make one thing clear. The following posted pictures with the fancy arrows, are not an attempt from my behalf to question your intellect. I just think that newcomers stumbling upon this thread, may benefit from the explanation, and If I come out as a smart-arse, trust me, I’m a dumb f***k, bu tat least, I’m not dumber than flat earthers.
Ok… lets begin.
The AA FCR doesn’t either display the entire picture on the MFD. Aircraft that are flying above or below you lower and upper scan limits, are not displayed.
To make things even worse, if you are flying at extremely high altitudes and are trying to detect very low flying aircraft, you radar footprint decreases dramatically when the antenna tilt angle is increased.
Looking at the YT video, the FCR is in 10 nm SP and cursors at 5nm.This means that the elevation T elevation symbol will not drift, unless the pilot pitches up or down .(assuming he has auto tilt).
I can also see l that the F-16 is flying fairly level ,and the antenna elevation is at a constant angle and slightly below 0 deg, so we don’t need to know the aircrafts altitude.
There seems to be a dark arched patch at the bottom of the FCR, but from 10nm and above, and I see clear ground mapping
I replicated it in BMS, put both screen shots together for easier comparison, and this is the result.
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@AWmk1
Here at 35:57 - ground mapping mode picture of modern commercial radar
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@MaxWaldorf
40:32 in that last video discusses a modern feature called a “zero blind range” which helps build a better composite radar picture.
I’m not drawing any conclusions about the f-16, just discussing radar concepts -
@AWmk1 We don’t work on concepts but real data and feedback from knowlegeable people…
You have info we don’t, happy to receive any documentation you have on F-16 AG radar mode… (unclassified or public of course)
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I experimented yesterday with the new AG radar on GM mode. The logic is sound and personally I find it a hell of a lot more realistic than a magic AG radar antenna that scans ahead of you and you can see the whole picture from the point of your nose up to 80nm. That never made sense to me being a newbie in BMS and compared to AA mode where you have to tilt the antenna to look for targets at various heights.
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What is lacking in the display is the smoothness in the shadows areas ,
IT is not Brutal in/off like we have now but unfortunatly that’s the best I could do with current display code .
Someday we will have a better display