In movies and video games, fighter jets and other similar vehicles need to chase their opponent and have them in target long enough to get a lock on, but why can’t they just be in range if radar works in all directions? Do they need to chase opponents like this in real life?
In: Technology
Fighter aircraft do not have omnidirectional radar. Instead, they have a radar aperture in their nose, and only have a field of view that is forward of their nose.
imagine radar is a flashlight, when you turn on the flashlight, it will light a wide area, but the area near the center of the flashlight will be brighter than on the edge. radar works the same. to get the best signal, you need to point the dish towards the enemy. you need the best radar reflection when you want to launch a radar guided missile.
They don’t really. Today’s missiles get locks waaaay outside the point the pilot can visually see the target airplane. In some cases they can even shoot without a lock and have another airplane guide the missile to target. Older missiles depended heavily on the airplane’s radar which wasn’t that capable to guide it to the target so they had to keep chasing the target airplane even after they released the missiles.
I definitely do not know all the details here, but a factor that doesn’t seem to be accounted for is shared knowledge. Each aircraft has it’s own radar system, but I would guess rarely are they flying alone. Having multiple radar sources allows significantly better triangulation capability.
Again, I don’t know all the details, but suffice to say, if there are multiple sources that can communicate with each other, there is a pronounced strategic advantage through improved radar visibility.
Aircraft missiles have different ranges that affect how well they can track and hit a target.
Some are guided by radar, and depending on the type, can hit targets beyond visual range. However, because of the distance, the target aircraft has more time to counter the weapon, using chaff, jamming, or maneuvering.
As the aircraft get closer, the pilot will switch to IR (infrared) heat seekers missiles, which have less range than radar guided, but can be countered with flares and maneuvers.
Once they converge into a hairball, they will switch to guns, which as the previous two weapon systems, has an even shorter range.
So ideally, you want to be on the target’s six (behind them), which is the blind spot for most aircraft.
Bigger heat signatures, less target reaction to threats, and better flight management for the weapons.
However,
Radar will warn the target – and it shows the enemy where you are at.
IR is pretty good, but you need to get relatively close to ensure a kill.
Guns are last to use, knife fight close.
Newer gen aircraft can defend from all these attacks, and have sensors to help fight the aircraft.
Most modern dog fights are a combo of radar first, at range, then as they converge, switch to IR. Rare to see one use guns.
Radar doesnt look everywhere all at once. It sweeps side to side then changes vertically a little then sweeps side to side again, slowly scanning a relatively small cone of airspace in front of the plane. Once it sees something in the cone the pilot or an automated system may decide to focus more on that radar return, making the cone slightly tighter around that object to increase the frequency of radar returns and getting a more accurate picture of speed, heading etc.
Then the pilot may decide to ‘lock’ onto the object, focusing most of the radar at that object alone before deciding to fire at it.
As the radar is in the nose cone of the aircraft, and as typically looks approximately forwards, you need to be sort of pointed at what you want to see.
Now you can push the radar to look more to the sides or up/down if you want too, depending on what you are doing, but that’s a bit more situation dependent.
Lastly, with data links in modern aircraft you might not need to lock on at all. Your buddy might have done that already and you can use his aircraft’s data instead.
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In reality, current advanced air superiority fighters fire missiles from miles away before you can even see a target visually. It just wouldn’t make for very good entertainment.
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