Questions about real life link 16
-
How does the business end of link 16 look like from the perspective of an rl f-16 pilot? Does he get friendly aircraft positions on his HSD like in the IDM? Does he send and get the position data from a node antenna or directly from any friendly the happens to be in range? If any of it is sensitive, feel free not to answer
-
MLU M1 & M3 tape pilots guides can be found on the net if you look a bit
There’s a big section on MIDS in there which can answer some of your questions I think. -
I bet it looks pretty awesome
-
Found the m3 in as an upload from blu3wolf:P The info in it for link 16 is amazing but i got lost:P! Thanks focaldesighn
-
ok from what i’ve read here is one thing i dont understand: With regards to friendly positions, are PPLI positions of ALL the aircraft in range(300nm for 200 watts) and in the net displayed, or just those of the 8 team members plus the 4 donors? I am asking about friendly positions not target sharing. That, i understand is limited between the 8 team members and the donors. (if you have an awacs as a donor though, i can imagine how many tracks you will get on HSD
)edit:
ok, nevermind, i read further, it is stated that flight team and donor symbols are bigger than other PPLI’s so i guess that all friendly aircraft in range are displayed. -
Well its designed to allow smart filtering of what is displayed. Apparently a lot of USAF pilots on upgrading to the CCIP jets with L16 just decluttered all the L16 data away so the screen was as blank as they were used to. Took a while before they started to get the benefit of the extra information - not surprising, any extra info runs the risk of sensor overload and detracting from SA rather than improving it.
But yeah, you can mess around with whats displayed and whats not on the HSD with the control page and for the FCR there is a hands on rotary for cycling through declutter options, short comm outboard presses instead of long ones.
-
Do note that you wont get all friendlies displayed. Just all friendlies on the same subnet. The frequency hopping characteristics of L16 mean that there is a bunch of different ‘channels’ defined by the way that they hop. You only can interact with other aircraft/ground stations in the same freq hopping ‘channel’. The net can be a widely used one, or a barely used one. In peacetime there are large nets used according to geographic area, but in wartime you could habe different nets for different purposes. The large net has the benefit that you can see more friendlies, but the drawback that your ownship numbers are tightly constrained so as to allow all other net users to operate. Whereas a net that is barely empty you probably wont have to worry about setting someone elses numbers by accident.
-
Thanks for the info and clarification blu3wolf, i read the entire link16 chapter by now and i think i have a better understanding, although i am still a bit confused. Question1: By subnet, do you mean all the aircraft participating in a specific fighter channel? question2: how possible is it in wartime to have everyone that operates within, say, 200nm form a specific point, participate in the same large subnet? With a net administrator managing participant id, you could avoid having 2 jets with conflicting id’s. Wrong/correct assumption?
Edit: Ok,page 157 of the m3 pretty much explains that you will never get more than 30 link 16 tracks on the mfd. No matter the subnet participants. It then goes on to explain the prioritization of the displayed tracks. (flight team first, wingmen bugged targets,donor bugged targets, surveillance tracks last.)
-
@Master:
Edit: Ok,page 157 of the m3 pretty much explains that you will never get more than 30 link 16 tracks on the mfd. No matter the subnet participants
M3 is a like ten year old non USAF tape though so that info could very well be incorrect nowadays…
-
M3 is a like ten year old non USAF tape though so that info could very well be incorrect nowadays…
possibly, the USAF version is the m3+, its not public.
-
@Master:
possibly, the USAF version is the
M7
-
Belgium is on M6, but still M3 info is better then no info at all and makes good comparison to current IDM/DL in BMS for who’s interested in the stuff.
-
Question 1 is gonna require I go back and reread this stuff XD
