I finally managed to fly a casual training sortie a couple of months after joining a UK-based group.
After a session, I always try to put together a short debriefing. Sometimes just a couple of points in a list, other times something more in-depth. In this case, a kind of rediscovered a series of basic points that were a normal day at the office in my DCS F-14 days, but not so much in the Phantom II. Feel free to skip to the ones that interest you.
Note that none of the following points are a critique of my pilot: they are a critique of myself. Remember: taking responsibility for your own actions and decisions, no matter the context, is the first step to improvement.
I. Roles and responsibilities
Joining a virtual group naturally creates a contrast between old habits, SOP, and contracts, and the organisation of the new environment. This is why I have always appreciated when roles and responsibilities were defined ante mission, ideally with appropriate contracts. This, in fact, put everyone on the same page right off the start. For example, who handles comms in which instance of the flight, who has the radar until a hands-off is called, et cetera. This is less important in an introductory training setting, but it is good practice nonetheless. It sounds intuitive, but when the situation becomes overwhelming, knowing already who does what can save our virtual life. This is a key point that I should remember to mention to my chauffeur before my next flight.
II. Radar and sensors management
Radar and sensors usage, intercept execution and conventions should be discussed beforehand. For instance, the usage of the antenna stabilisation, boresight, and other more niche modes. Back in my DCS F-14 days, for example, the oug-9 was my workplace and, usually, my pilots appreciated SA calls from me to keep them aware of our surroundings. However, the APQ-120 works very differently as the F-4E does. Given the less segregated roles, this is an essential dynamic to clarify. The simplicity of the Phantom II’s radar, in fact, is just appearance, and there is much more to it than Gain and Antenna Elevation. The scanned width, wide and narrow, improves the refresh of an area and, possibly, the detection range. Disabling the antenna nutation or adjusting the pulse length can provide advantages in terms of locating targets in the clutter, but there are drawbacks. Moreover, certain scenarios, more on those later, require flight parameters changes. So, if the pilot conducts the air-to-air side, like in the certain periods or branches of different militaries, the WSO’s role becomes somewhat limited in this regard. Vice versa, the WSO moves towards a more “F-14 RIO” role, and the pilot executes. The important bit is to clarify the modus operandi.
III. Radar and flight relation
This point is more on the technical side, AKA WSO’s bread and butter, and serves to further clarify the previous entry in the list: situations such as wide altitude differences cause several unexpected problems due to the behaviour of the radar and trigonometrical relations. Ergo, the backseater’s workload involves the front seater more than in other aircraft. This is an example that occurred during the training.
The APQ-120 can sometimes look down. However, to do it fairly reliably, the antenna must be looking over water when the weather is calm. Because, in case you are not aware, rough sea can cause a ton of clutter on the radar display. Considerable altitude differences are another concern. Old followers of FlyAndWire know exactly where I am going next: yep, maths. As we know, the antenna elevation angle increases inversely proportional to the range, exactly as the antenna train angle (ATA) does. So, first issue: if Δ Altitude is considerable, managing the angle becomes more and more challenging as the range decreases, especially since we have de facto 1 single bar. Not only that, even worse, we have to deal with the side lobes: if you look at the radar emission characteristic, you immediately spot the altitude line, which is located at a range coherent with the aeroplane’s altitude.
IV. Radar handoff
In certain situations, there is little benefit from a WSO glued onto his radar screen, and pilot-controller radar modes can become more effective. However, the radar and sensors handoffs should, again, be discussed beforehand. For instance, in the F-14, I often switched to VSL Low during the radar handoff, just to save a step to the pilot. At that point, I took responsibility for the rear quarter checks, with occasional verifications of speed and altitude. So, how the WSO should act after the handoff should be set beforehand. If the pilot is quite new, then perhaps the WSO should focus more on monitoring the flight parameters.
A valuable example is the first engagement: I did not monitor the speed, and this probably cost us the first fight, since my pilot ended up loosing too much energy. On the other hand, I was padlocked, and the pilot had no tally, so there is an argument for me to keep an eye on the hostile until tally is called. That’s why scenarios like this should be agreed. How do you folks handle these situations? Please let me know in the comments.
V. Maintaining flight parameters
Flight parameters are the pilot’s prerogative, and he should aim to maintain them if possible. The WSO can monitor, but he is usually busy with the radar and scanning behind. The problem is, if variables such as speed or altitude change, the WSO’s work can go out of the window. This is something that was a real issue when I played as a RIO, especially with new players who did not realise that even minor changes in speed can tangibly affect the intercept. For instance, let’s say the WSO is setting up CC based on the observed drift. From there, he can approximate parameters such as the target’s heading without locking, and thus alerting, the target. If any parameter changes, however, the drift observation becomes immediately unreliable. This is a borderline example, so here is another one more common: the antenna elevation angle. Unless modes such as TWSA are used, and there are none in the Phantom, the antenna moves relatively to either the horizon or the aircraft. If the aircraft dives or climbs, the angle necessary to illuminate a certain target changes. Since working with the APQ-120 is a game of observation and pattern recognition, if the pilot changes the flight parameters, the whole process may be thrashed right away.
VI. Engagement flow
Linked to the above, the WSO can use common calls and brevities, such as “Gimbals“, to alert the pilot of specific circumstances. However, it is his prerogative to monitor and avoid them. A possible modus operandi worth discussing, is to push the advantage and maintain a good firing position because both the APQ-120 and the early AIM-7s are somewhat easily foiled. In the first engagement, we lost lock probably due to a combination of lock, ground proximity, chaff, and bad geometry. Ideally, especially if rear-quarter-only AIM-9s are carried, the fighter should build some room to initiate a conversion, or at least position themselves for a better follow-up shot. Again, this should be subject to discussion pre-briefing.
VII. ECM usage
During the sortie, we had a bit of a discussion about the ECM. No matter how simplistic the ECM implementation is in DCS, in fact, the effects of switching on the music remain the same: everyone suddenly knows where the fighter is. Ergo, I would advise players to consider if it is really needed and when, and don’t just blindly activate it. For example, using the ECM between the FLO and burnthrough range of the expected adversary can be effective, whereas the employment from farther and within burnthrough can give away our position or improve the tracking capabilities of a missile.
Additional key points
Away from the mentioned points, there are other key things I forgot to put in place.
- In primis, information is fundamental. I expected an ATIS set up on the server, but it was not present. No big deal, of course, but next time I have to remember to grab details such as the active runway, date, QNH, wind, and so on.
- Next, the bullseye location. Even in an F-4 Phantom II, the bullseye is vastly more useful than generic bogey dope calls to build situational awareness. I did not prepare it, which is a silly oversight, especially when air-to-air employment is expected. Again, when in doubt, think about the good old British adage – the 7P rule: “Proper Planning and Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance”.
- Another detail worth remembering is the type of coordinate used by different aeroplanes, ergo, DMS vs DDM. There is an argument about ignoring their minor discrepancy, but I beg to differ. If the system employed is already prone to ambiguities, why increase them by feeding imprecise information to the avionic itself in the first place?
- Lastly, before taxing, pilot and WSO should check for controls conflicts. We egressed dry from our first Dive Toss run precisely because my antenna controls overlapped to similar inputs set by my pilot. This was not a huge issue given the circumstances, but it is worth adding a point in the checklists to avoid the repetition of the problem in the future.
Conclusions
And that’s it for this short debriefing. Actually, there is an additional sidenote: the debriefing itself. As you can see, even a short, 2-hour flight, can prompt several points I will have to address and fix for the flight to be more organised and a more effective team member. At the end of the day, this is a video game. Still, being prepared feels good and help to enjoy the virtual missions much more.
Once again, the considerations in this sort of debriefing are mostly personal: useful things I used to I lost the habit of doing them. Alas, 6 years is quite a long interval between flights.
FlyAndWire 