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Originally Posted by sagarpadaki Was he not notified anything on his RWR that he has a missile lock from a F16 and did he use countermeasures /evasive maneuvers ? He fired the R73 Archer and turned around. He was hit approx 50 seconds after he fired at the F16.
Can anyone provide more information on this aspect? |
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Originally Posted by V.Narayan A RWR by definition is a Radar Warning Receiver - it will tell you if a radar guided air to air missile is painting your aircraft - it will usually indicate which quadrant it is coming from but not what kind of missile and may or may not be able to tell you the range. |
In addition to what Narayan sir has said, the RWR will only display threats if the threat aircraft has its radar on and if your aircraft has been "painted"(meaning you are being tracked by that radar). If you have an aircraft flying around you that has its radar switched off and if its is flying outside your radar scan range angles , you will not know about its presence on RWR, unless warned by GCI or AWACS radar.
RWR also has an audio component. Each time a new radar signal is detected, an audio warning played for the pilot. Because different radars "sound" different, pilots learn to recognize different airborne or surface threats by their distinctive tones (stored in the inbuilt RWR library). The sound is also an important cue to tell the pilot what the radar is doing: If the sound plays once, or intermittently, it means the radar is only painting our aircraft (in search mode). If a sound plays continuously, the radar has locked onto our aircraft and is in track mode, and thus the pilot's immediate attention is demanded. In some cases, the RWR can tell if the radar is in launch mode (sending radar data to a passive radar-guided missile), or if the radar is that of an active radar-guided missile. In either of these cases, a distinctive missile launch tone is played and the pilot is advised to immediately act to counter the threat. Note that the RWR has no way of knowing if a heat-seeking missile is on its way to our aircraft.
This player made in game video from the flight sim Falcon 4.0 (with BMS 4.33 patch) demonstrates how the RWR warns you about a missile launch from and aircraft( in this case another F-16). It will give you a fair idea about RWR functioning.
Both opposing aircrafts are in F-16s in human v/s human multiplayer mode. On the RWR, initially you see how the opposing F-16s's radar lock is shown on the player's RWR at 12'o clock position i.e the position at which the opposing F-16 is relative to the player's F-16 . You hear intermittent warnings as the opposing F-16 radar scans the player's F-16. Once the opposing F-16 launched an AIM-120, audio warnings start blaring and the symbol on the RWR starts flashing. These audio warnings and symbols on the RWR are always different for each ground based and aerial radar to help the pilot distinguish between threats. The player doesn't perform evasive manuevers and gets hit but the opposing player evades the player's AIM-120 missile.
In this RWR display shown below, the RWR has detected an F-15 (15 with a hat on top of it, indicating aircraft) at the 7'o clock position(relative to your aircraft). 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.
Also detected at the 12- to 1'o clock position are two SAM sites, an SA-5 "Gammon" and an SA-6 "Gainful".The RWR has determined the SA-6 to be the highest priority threat in the area, and thus has enclosed it with a diamond.
RWR displays installed on different aircraft are different in terms of how they look and their warning systems, but the way RWRs work is essentially the same. I have tried to show an RWR works in a an F-16, because I am somewhat familiar with how it works while flying an F-16 in the flight sim Falcon 4.0, where RWRs of various F-16 Blocks have been modelled.
When Infra red heat seeking missiles such as the R-60. R-73, AIM-9, Python etc are launched, you will never get a launch warning on the RWR because those IR missiles lock on to the target's heat signature, and is not dependant on a radar lock for guidance. The only way to evade IRMs, for that matter any missile, is to visually acquire them and try desperate evasive manuevers, at the same time dumping flares to confuse the seeker of the missile. Previously, the only way to know in advance of an IRM launch, was to keep a visual look out. But now modern fighters and helicopters have a system called MAWS( Missile Approach Warning Systems, which is not be confused with an RWR). The sensor of a MAWS detects attacking missiles. Its automatic warning cues the pilot to take evasive maneuvers and deploy the available countermeasures(chaff/flare/jammer) to disrupt missile tracking. MAWS are IR, UV Doppler based based MAWS can work against Radar guided as well as IR missiles.
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Originally Posted by Foxbat Ideally the RWR should have sounded although not sure if it would have been of any use as it was launched within its NEZ (No Escape Zone) of 20-30km.
NEZ is the range at which the chances of a missile missing its target is very small. |
Apart from the AMRAAM NEZ aspect, another theory no one seems to have considered is the AIM-120's
rumoured LOAL(Lock On After Launch) capability. It is not known if the AIM-120Cs supplied to the PAF have this capability or not.
Conventionally, most missiles are launched in LOBL mode(Lock on Before Launch). LOAL is the capability of a missile to lock-on to a target after being launched from its carrier (i.e no radar or IR lock is required for missile launch). LOAL depends on cuing from a helmet mounted sight or onboard radar or FLIR, and use a simple strapdown inertial guidance system to know where to look after launch.
If any one of you has played the helicopter sim "Enemy Engaged Apache v/s Havoc/Comanche v.s Hokum", you would know what LOAL mode is.The AGM-114 is a well known LOAL weapon, where you could first fire your weapon in the general area of a target and then lock onto a target using your FLIR, TGP or Longbow radar(depending on which helicopter you are flying) to guide that missile to a tank or an APC. Launches in LOAL mode are made when it is known that there are no friendly forces in the area.
In LOAL mode, the missile can lock on to a target on its own or through datalink from the launch aircraft. The target has no idea that an airborne missile is looking for it and by the time the target gets warned that the missile has locked on, its is almost too late for the target to evade the missile.
In theory if you launch an IR missile without a solid lock on to a target or if it misses its intended target, the missile is essentially flying in LOAL mode. Its seeker looks for IR sources to lock on to. That's what happened when a PAF-16 shot down another PAF F-16 during an engagement with Soviet MiG-23s on the Pak-Afghan border in the 80s. A PAF-16 launched an AIM-9 at a Soviet MiG-23 , but the MiG-23 managed to evade the missile, the now targetless AIM-9 re-acquired another PAF F-16 flying nearby as its new target and hit it.
This is how AIM-9s are launched after locking on to a target Close Combat. The famed IR missile growl changes in intensity depending on the strength of the lock the IR missile sensor gets on a target. You can hear and see RWR warnings of MiG-23s and MiG-25s nearby on the F-16's RWR display.