FCR Freeze Mode
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A question about the Freeze Mode. I have found an earlier post but dating back to 2014 so this post won’t apply to 4.33 U1. According to the Manual…
OSB #7 is FZ for Freeze. When pressed the A-G FCR image is frozen and the coordinates of the ground stabilized point are displayed in the top right part of the MFD. The azimuth and distances are displayed in the bottom left part of the MFD. FZ mnemonic remains highlighted as long as FREEZE mode is active. It is particularly useful for zooming in and creating an accurate lock on a specific target easily recognizable on the radar. To unfreeze it press OSB #7 again and the FCR will radiate again. Changing FOV will also cancel freeze mode.
In the Normal (un-expanded) Mode the Radar picture is frozen and you are able to move the cursor around on the screen and get Distance, heading, time and LAT LON information to the cursor position. You are also able to turn away from the target and continue in the Freeze mode which to me is a very important feature. Rather than closing distance to a target with Threats I can Freeze the Radar, turn away or orbit, get target coordinates and information that can be used for an attack etc…
However in the Normal Mode this doesn’t provide a FOV or Resolution good enough to single out targets. Now according to the manual it says that Freeze is particularly useful for zooming in and creating a an accurate lock on a specific target easily recognizable on the Radar.
The problem is the second you go to expand the display you loose the Freeze Mode. You CAN Freeze the display in the expanded modes but once you turn away from the target and place it outside of the RADAR Sweep area you loose the Freeze Mode. This does not happen in the Normal Mode only in Expanded Modes. Also in the Expanded modes the cursor does not move around although the LAT LON and other data change you have no idea where the cursor is on the screen.
Does anyone know if this is operating as advertised or is this something that needs to be fixed? If it needs to be fixed is this on the todo list?
Bill
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I thought that the purpose of freeze mode was that it shutdown the radar but leaves the picture there. With DBS then that does change the mode of the radar, so it would make sense for the picture to be removed. Not sure about EXP.
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I always found it it more useful for ground mapping to freeze the expanded image so you have a little more time to target sort. That’s just how I USE it though. Not sure about real operations.
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Last I checked one of the issues with BMS’s freeze is that the cursor was invisible which rendered it practically useless from that alone. I just checked and it’s changed but still with a problem. With the exception of the unexpanded normal view while the cursor is visible it certainly isn’t reflecting the true cursor motions done in freeze, so again useless for the purposes of refining cursor placement relative to the image when in any expanded view.
The FZ is supposed to kick off on any expansion setting change so the correct procedure is to get into the desired expansion mode and then go freeze.
So with the exception of the ability to put the cursors over different parts of the radar image in expanded (EXP/DBS1/DBS2) more things appear to be correct with regard to freeze.
EDIT: And a small bug report found while looking. If the radar is displaying an expanded image and the airplane is turned away so as to leave the gimbal limits the radar kicks back to unexpanded. However when the airplane is again turned back so the spot is within gimbal limits the cursors behave as if it is still expanded while the position of the cursors on the scope reflects the unexpanded view. There is a great deal of relative motion of the fixed geographic location cursors and the radar image because they are in different geometries. Pressing the pinky switch once synchronizes them back together again.
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Seems this problem of the radar cursor not moving (though the coordinates change) whilst frozen in DBS1 & DBS2 still exists in 4.34. Is this a bug or actually how the system is designed to work?