I would love to know how a SARH missile chose to seek an unlocked target going the opposite direction of a locked target.
Yeah the 7F’s behavior is very weird sometimes, but you saw the missile going for your ally but didnt release lock?
You couldve avoided that tk
Perhaps, but I took a look into the replay and while it clearly switched targets mid-flight as they converged, it chose the further away target then continued to track it outside my radar cone.
It was like watching a train wreck in slow motion - you know what’s about to happen, but you’re just too flabbergasted to do anything or even look away.
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OH!!! Your radar went into normal TRK mode!!! You lose PD lock @ 0:02 almost immediately after you launched the missile! That probably explains part of the situation too.
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Ok, so not making excuses, buuuuut what it looks like to me is that the enemy’s speed in relation to you dropped dramatically, “notching” your missile. But the friendly’s relative speed increased HUGELY and the missile went “ZOMG SQUIRREL!” and the rest is history.
I honestly don’t think it should have been enough of a relative speed decrease from the enemy, his speed indicated on your radar lock didn’t go below 250m/s, but it was probably something like 50% different speeds between the enemy and friendly.
Anyway, that’s what it looks like to me. Even with pulse dopplar radar, they really don’t like the lower relative speeds in PD mode.
What would cause it to change modes like that? Everything remained largely in one place directly ahead of me, so I’m not sure why it would switch if that’s the issue. Still, the purely SARH missile homed in on a target that (at least according to the replay) wasn’t in the radar cone anymore.
If anything, I’d have expected it to just fly straight, not basically bulldog itself into a Phantom flying further outside the cone.
Its based upon what the target is doing, and not what you are doing.
PD modes require the target to be moving towards you or away from you (if you have an all-aspect PD radar, some only work when the target is moving towards you)
PD modes though dont work if the target is moving parralel to you, at which point the radar auto-swaps to TRK mode to attempt to maintain the lock.
(this is how notching works. PD modes are generally not affected by chaff, but SRC/TRK modes are)
Its a bit beyond me, but its something like the target in front providing a stronger radar return or something. I think its a common issue with teh Aim-7s though. Ive never really had such issues with the Skyflash
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The relative speed between you and the target! That is what PD radars use to maintain a lock, and why they are able to exclude the background radar reflections. It is because the target is moving at a different speed than all the other returns that the radar is “seeing”. Thus, it throws away all return data that is the same speed (ground/hills/trees etc) and ONLY feeds the “moving” data into its targeting/missile (no data link, but I think it does “talk” to the missile before firing).
I am not very well versed on the newer types of radar outside of the Phantom J/S’s, but they DO switch between PD mode and normal TRK mode when the target’s speed is low relative to your plane. You can even lose lock fully if they are close to the ground, and the radar can “sort of” start behaving as if it is the cruddy F-4E radar (not exactly, but kinda similar situation).
You can also change your radar mode manually between PD and normal TRK/Search yourself. I do this when I am behind an enemy who is very close to my speed (low or 0 relative speed difference between us). Firing missiles under these types of locks is very poor, and very often fails and/or the missile can go after another target.
All of these reasons are why the F-4S/J work so well with head on locks in PD mode, but terribly if the target does not have a high relative speed difference with your plane.
Head on targeting gives a HUGE relative speed difference, making it extremely easy for the PD radar to maintain the lock and ignore pretty much anything else in its field of view.
And all of what @Morvran said too 🙂
AH! So, the AIM-7F does NOT have a data link. It does not “know” who’s radar is giving it a return. It does NOT have to be your radar. A friendly radar or an enemy radar coming from the correct direction can allow the AIM-7F’s to continue tracking.
This effect can be so pronounced that you are sometimes able to let loose 3 or 4 AIM-7F’s to different targets and they will all continue after their own initial target. I have semi often gotten 4 separate kills with 4 sparrows in a single head on engagement.
Especially during this event when you have HORDES of friendlies behind you painting your targets with the same/similar radars.
I am not sure if this is what happened in your clip, but if there was any other radar’s in the area, then it is totally possible that this is what happened.
And possibly SPAA’s too. I do see your RWR going absolutely ballistic, lit up like a Christmas tree 😂 So there was very possibly plenty of radar signals bouncing off the friendly for the AIM-7F to home-in on.
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This happens a lot to my R-40RDs on the MiG-25. Ive gotten like 3 kills in the event on random targets i wasnt aiming for. Ive just been lucky so far and its always tracked enemies