Hello, can someone explain to me the reason behind this:
If launched from below, notching vertically by going UPWARDS makes the missile seeker bite chaff quicker than notching downwards?
And when launched from above, notching vertically by going DOWNWARDS makes the missile seeker bite chaff quicker than notching upwards?
In horizontal notching, when a missile is coming at you head-on, it doesn’t matter which direction you crank into as both achieve similar results. This seems not to be the case for vertical notching. Thanks.
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There isn’t really a special “up vs down” rule.
A vertical notch works the same as a horizontal one: you’re trying to get your velocity as close to 90° to the missile’s line of sight as possible, reducing radial velocity.
If climbing or diving works faster in a specific situation, that’s mostly because the missile’s LOS is constantly changing, plus look-up/look-down clutter and chaff behaviour. The direction itself doesn’t have a hidden advantage.
:P
I don’t remember with great detail. Buuut if I recall correctly ARH will switch to IOG+DL and keep a PD search if the aircraft is flying lower than the mothership (so the missile goes down) and is being tracked using TWS/Hard Lock. If the aircraft, instead flies higher than the mothership (so the missile goes up) the ARH will switch to IOG+DL but also switch it’s seeker to normal Pulse which is very susceptible to chaff. (Ofc both happen if the aircraft goes on a notch) So the reason that an upward vertical notch works better is, like I said, because the missile will switch to a normal Pulse searching if it gets notched and will grab the first chaff it sees.
(Please correct me if I’m wrong. :P)