Situational Awareness - bearing report from AWACS
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Lumper, okay so a “bearing” call in F4 BMS is a heading to turn toward and fly to intercept a target - in other words equivilent to AWACS saying “Fly Heading xxx” to intercept the target - am I understanding that correctly?
Yep!
Remember that AWACS does not necessarily know your heading. All they can see is your historical ground track on their radar screen. So if you have turned recently, they have no idea where your nose is pointing. So they cannot make any reference to your nose. They can certainly give the magnetic bearing from your dot to the enemy dot. That’s easy. And that’s what they do.
You can try this yourself. There is a ruler provided in the map screen options menu. Click it, and you’ll get two points on the map connected by a straight line, with bullseye locs for each point, the bearing from each point to the other, and the distance between the two points. If you practice you will be able to do it without using the ruler at all. You’ll just see it.
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The most important part of the AWACS controller is to know when to shut up.
Is the JUDY call used a lot?
I think some of us 87th might be using it, but I have not heard it much in virtual fighting… We should all learn to use it.Do you use the general hemisphere calls? Ie “New bandit group NE (miles, hot)”? This might not be precise, but working and quick when all parties have somewhat SA.
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It was used in Red Flag Korea.
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Is the JUDY call used a lot?
I think some of us 87th might be using it, but I have not heard it much in virtual fighting… We should all learn to use it.AFAIK, “JUDY” is mainly for Tanker (or any other a/c type) rejoin.
JUDY :
AD fighter has radar/ visual contact and is taking control of the intercept within a close control mission.
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It’s a nice way to tell Awacs to shut up, when your flight is fighting…
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Yes, that is correct bearing is the heading you would take to go straight to the bogey without taking movement into consideration. Usually the controller/intercept officer will give you a heading to fly to intercept a hostile on one of the types of intercept (stern, abeam, headon, etc). I have hardly ever received a “judy” call, but usually I get either “no joy” or “tally-ho” (Ok, I work with a European Squad, mostly Brits). And yes, you sometimes have to tell the AWACS to “shut up” as learning how to be quiet is a hard to learn lesson when you have the “bigeye” information.
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What does the Cardinal position mean for the 3 contacts mentioned in the BMS 4.34 Comms-Nav book on page 45?