Av-8b Harrier Ii Combined Manual

Transcript

15th MEU Realism Unit VMA-513 “Flying Nightmares” AV-8B Harrier II Combined Manual Edition: 3rd Date: August 8, 2010 1stLt T. “Wildfire” Morgan Introduction to this manual This manual serves as an introduction to powered flight, an introduction to combat flight, and a simple pilot’s operating handbook for the McDonnellDouglas AV-8B Harrier II as simulated in . This book is written to take someone with zero knowledge of Harrier flying in , or flying in general, to a competent Harrier pilot for the VMA513 “Flying Nightmares.” A lot of the material in this book is specifically written for flying in . As an example, stalls and spins manifest completely differently in other video games (and in real life), and this book is not a suitable reference for stall handling in any situation except in the Harrier in . This book should be studied progressively as you move through your student pilot program. The order of chapters corresponds to the order of the lessons you will receive. If at any point a term or acronym is referenced that you do not understand, consult the Index of Terms on page 156. You should have received an additional document along with this manual containing printable quick-reference cards for use while flying. This book references these cards periodically, so it’s good to keep them handy. Some material in the cards is not covered in the book. i ii List of changes As new editions of this manual are released, this table will be updated with the changes in each new revision. Edition Date 1st May 29, 2010 2nd June 4, 2010 rd 3 August 8, 2010 Changes Initial revision Expanded air-to-ground and vertical Escort and dumb-bomb procedures iii iv Contents 1 Aircraft Overview The four forces of flight Control surfaces . . . . . Additional components . Basic maneuvers . . . . Jet engine theory . . . . The Harrier’s jet engine Avionics . . . . . . . . . 2 Normal Procedures Walk-around . . . . . Before taxi and taxi . Takeoff . . . . . . . . . Visual navigation . . . Instrument navigation Basic maneuvers . . . Hover mode and thrust Landing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1 6 7 8 9 11 12 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vectoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 19 19 20 22 22 25 27 29 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 37 38 39 39 40 40 41 . . . . . . . 3 Emergency Procedures Engine failure in flight . . Engine failure after takeoff Fuel leak . . . . . . . . . . Landing gear failure . . . Stall . . . . . . . . . . . . Bailout procedures . . . . Survival and rescue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v vi CONTENTS 4 Formation Flying Formation briefing . . . . . . . . . Formation taxi . . . . . . . . . . . Formation takeoffs . . . . . . . . . Formation departure . . . . . . . . Formation flight (station-keeping) . Formation approaches and landings Formation emergencies . . . . . . . Other procedures . . . . . . . . . . 5 Air-to-Air Combat Basic fighter maneuvers . Air combat maneuvering . Beyond-visual-range fights Threat avoidance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 43 44 44 46 46 50 52 54 . . . . 57 57 91 109 110 6 Air-to-Ground Combat 113 Attack geometries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 Guided and unguided bombs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114 Non-precision delivery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 7 Combat Procedures 119 Combat air patrols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119 Escort procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122 8 LHD Operations Taxiing . . . . . . Takeoff . . . . . . . Approaches . . . . Landings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Communications and Procedures Non-combat procedures . . . . . . . . Combat procedures: Ingress and egress Combat procedures: Air-to-ground . . Combat procedures: Air-to-air . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 135 136 136 137 . . . . . . . . . . . . 141 . 141 . 150 . 151 . 152 CONTENTS vii 10 Appendices 155 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155 Index of Terms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156 viii CONTENTS List of Figures 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 1.14 1.15 1.16 1.17 1.18 Schematic 3-view of a Harrier II. . . . . . . . The four forces of flight. . . . . . . . . . . . . Laminar flow about a sphere. . . . . . . . . . Measuring angle of attack. . . . . . . . . . . . A stall. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lift-induced drag. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The drag curve. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The three axes of rotation. . . . . . . . . . . . A turbofan jet engine. . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Rolls-Royce Pegasus. . . . . . . . . . . . Major elements of the Harrier cockpit. . . . . The elements of the HUD. . . . . . . . . . . . The artificial horizon on the left MFD. . . . . The horizontal situation indicator on the right The upper left overlay panel. . . . . . . . . . Key to radar symbology. . . . . . . . . . . . . The effect of bank on radar’s field of view. . . Acquiring and locking a target. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MFD. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 2 3 3 4 5 6 6 10 11 12 13 15 16 17 17 18 18 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 An example HUD-only scan. . . . . . . . Turns about a point, 1 NMi radius. . . . Rectangular course with wind correction. A left-hand traffic pattern. . . . . . . . . The ideal landing glide slope. . . . . . . Guide to PAPI symbols. . . . . . . . . . ILS steering cues on the HUD. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 25 26 30 32 33 34 4.1 Four-ship overhead break pattern entry. . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 ix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . x LIST OF FIGURES 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 5.7 5.8 5.9 5.10 5.11 5.12 5.13 5.14 5.15 5.16 5.17 5.18 5.19 5.20 5.21 5.22 5.23 5.24 5.25 5.26 5.27 5.28 5.29 5.30 5.31 5.32 5.33 5.34 5.35 5.36 5.37 5.38 Angle-off. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Aspect angle. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The three pursuit courses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The problem with pure pursuit. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lift vector. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Out-of-plane maneuvering and pursuit types. . . . . . . . . . . Aspect and angle-off problems created by a bandit’s turn. . . The problem with an immediate BFM turn. . . . . . . . . . . Radial g. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The tactical egg. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Inside and outside the turn circle. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A bandit denying his opponent turning room. . . . . . . . . . The problem with yielding turning room in the vertical plane. Entry window for the first BFM turn. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The high-speed yo-yo. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Yielding turning room by maneuvering out-of-plane. . . . . . . Converting a defensive BFM into a head-on BFM. . . . . . . . Taking advantage of an attacker’s vertical BFM entry. . . . . The flat scissors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Two flight path overshoots and a 3/9 line overshoot. . . . . . A loaded reversal to force an overshoot. . . . . . . . . . . . . . An offensive fight with no escape window. . . . . . . . . . . . An offensive fight with an escape window. . . . . . . . . . . . An luffberry. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A proper lead turn. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A lead turn begun too early. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nose-high lead turn against a nose-low adversary. . . . . . . . Nose-low slice into the bandit after head-on. . . . . . . . . . . Vertical BFM entry after head-on pass. . . . . . . . . . . . . . Oblique and pure vertical turns. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A pirouette. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A one-circle fight. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A two-circle fight. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The problem with turning away after the pass. . . . . . . . . . Check turn offensive ACM entry. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Straight-ahead extension. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Forming the bracket. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The early switch. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 59 60 60 61 62 63 63 67 67 68 69 69 71 72 75 75 76 77 77 78 81 82 82 84 84 85 86 87 88 88 89 90 90 98 98 99 104 LIST OF FIGURES xi 5.39 5.40 5.41 5.42 5.43 5.44 The late switch. . . . . . . . . . The same-side break. . . . . . . The cross turn. . . . . . . . . . Asymmetric bandit, shown with AAA employing aimed fire. . . AAA employing barrage fire. . . 6.1 Dive-bombing run using FPM to aim bombs. . . . . . . . . . . 116 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 7.6 Two-element counterrotating CAP. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Two-element counteropposing CAPs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . Single-element beam CAP. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Corridor escort of slow-moving aircraft. . . . . . . . . . . . . HAVCAP escort of slow-moving aircraft. . . . . . . . . . . . The ready position and escort position for a four-ship flight in finger. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2-ship escort of a single aircraft. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2-ship escort of a 2-ship flight in echelon right. . . . . . . . . 2-ship escort of a 2-ship flight in trail. . . . . . . . . . . . . 2-ship escort of a 2-ship flight line abreast. . . . . . . . . . . 4-ship escort of a 2-ship flight in echelon right. . . . . . . . . 4-ship escort of a 4-ship flight in trail. . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-ship escort of a 2-ship flight line abreast. . . . . . . . . . . 4-ship escort of a 4-ship flight in finger. . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-ship escort of a 4-ship flight in echelon right. . . . . . . . . 4-ship escort of a 4-ship flight in trail. . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-ship escort of a 4-ship flight line abreast. . . . . . . . . . . 7.7 7.8 7.9 7.10 7.11 7.12 7.13 7.14 7.15 7.16 7.17 . . . a . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . same-side break. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 106 107 108 111 111 . . . . . 120 120 121 124 125 . . . . . . . . . . . . 126 128 129 129 129 130 130 132 132 132 133 133 Chapter 1 Aircraft Overview Figure 1.1: Schematic 3-view of a Harrier II. The four forces of flight Flight is accomplished by balancing the four forces of flight (fig. 1.2). Each of the four forces acts in opposition to another force. 1 2 CHAPTER 1. AIRCRAFT OVERVIEW Lift Drag Thrust Weight Figure 1.2: The four forces of flight. Lift is produced when the airplane’s wings redirect air downwards, creating an equal and opposite force that pushes upwards. Weight is the force created by gravity, which seeks to pull the airplane back down towards the earth. It operates opposite lift. Thrust is generated by the aircraft’s engines, and propels the airplane forward. Drag is generated by air molecules striking the forward surfaces of the aircraft, and seeks to slow the aircraft down. It operates opposite thrust. When the amount of lift produced is exactly equal to the aircraft’s weight, the aircraft will neither gain nor lose altitude, but remain at whatever altitude it is currently at. Likewise, when the amount of thrust produced is exactly equal to the amount of drag, the aircraft will neither gain nor lose speed, but remain at whatever velocity it is currently at. Lift Lift is generated when air moves over an airfoil. An airfoil is any surface whose shape redirects wind downward. If you were to stick your hand out a moving car’s window, and place it at a 45° angle, it would become an airfoil, pushing oncoming air downward. And sure enough, you would feel an upward force of lift on your hand. Aside from an airfoil, lift depends on only one other phenomenon to occur: laminar flow. Laminar flow occurs when the molecules of air moving across the airfoil’s surface follow its contours (fig. 1.3). If these molecules “detach” from the contours of the airfoil, the air becomes turbulent, creating eddies and vortices that destroy lift. This phenomenon is called flow separation. To understand why flow separation occurs, it’s important to understand angle of attack. Imagine that a line is drawn from the middle of the leading edge of the wing, to the very back of the wing where it tapers to a point. This THE FOUR FORCES OF FLIGHT 3 Fd Fg Figure 1.3: Laminar flow about a sphere. line is called the chord line. It can generally be described as the direction the wing is pointing. What’s important to understand is that this is not always the same as the angle of the relative wind. The difference between the two is the angle of attack (fig. 1.4). If we return to the hand-out-of-thecar-window example, your hand is tilted about 45° down, but the relative wind is head-on, at 0°. Thus, your hand “wing” has an angle of attack of 45°. α Figure 1.4: Measuring angle of attack. Angle of attack is a very important number, because it describes when flow separation will occur. Every wing has a critical angle of attack. If the wing is angled any further than this angle of attack, the amount that the air is deflected is too much for laminar flow. After this point air can no longer “cling” to the shape of the wing, and flow separation begins to occur. Flow separation will start at the most inboard surface of the wing, and progress outward as angle of attack is further increased beyond the critical 4 CHAPTER 1. AIRCRAFT OVERVIEW angle. Eventually, enough of the flow across the wing will be separated, and the wing will no longer generate lift. When this happens, the wing stalls and begins to fall (fig. 1.5). 6°, steady flow 15°, stall point, maximum lift separation point 25° relative wind separated flow Figure 1.5: The mechanics of a stall. Weight Weight is the force created by gravity’s effect on your airplane’s mass. As the mass of the airplane decreases, its weight decreases. Weight is constant in : Aircraft do not lose weight after consuming fuel or expending ordnance. Therefore, your aircraft will have the same lift and vertical thrust performance at the end of your mission as it did upon takeoff. Thrust Thrust is generated by the engine and pushes the aircraft forward. In , the throttle controls thrust in one of two modes: analog or keyboard. Analog thrust provides smooth power control from idle to maximum military power through the use of an analog axis. Keyboard control provides three thrust levels: decelerating, maintaining airspeed, and accelerating. The computer manages the amount of thrust necessary to produce these three accelerations for you. If you choose to use analog throttle, you will be burdened with having to constantly re-adjust your thrust to achieve a desired airspeed, but rewarded with finer control over your aircraft’s movements. Analog throttle is very important during close formation flying. THE FOUR FORCES OF FLIGHT 5 Drag Drag counteracts thrust, requiring engines to continuously generate power to maintain a speed. You may note that when driving on the freeway, you need to press the gas pedal down some to maintain your speed: This is because drag is sapping some of your engine’s thrust. Likewise, some idle power is necessary in order for your aircraft to maintain its airspeed. Drag comes in two forms: parasite drag and lift-induced drag. Parasite drag is caused by many phenomena, notably the friction between the aircraft’s skin and air (skin friction drag) and the pressure of air molecules that build up on the leading surfaces of the aircraft (form drag). Lift-induced drag is caused because a wing is not always perfectly level, meaning the lift it generates is not always straight up: There’s a rearward component to the force of lift that works against thrust (fig. 1.6). Induced Drag Lift Figure 1.6: Lift-induced drag. Lift-induced drag is high at low speeds, where the higher angle of attack creates a larger rearward component of lift. Parasite drag increases at higher speeds, where the amount of air moving over the wing increases. Thus, there is a medium between the two extremes where drag is minimized (fig. 1.7). CHAPTER 1. AIRCRAFT OVERVIEW dra g ag g dr ra To t a l d ra si du ce d te in ftLi Drag 6 Pa Velocity Figure 1.7: The drag curve shows the competing effects of the two kinds of drag. Control surfaces You control your airplane through the use of control surfaces, which deflect in the airstream to redirect air in different directions. The airplane has three control surfaces that let it rotate in three dimensions (fig. 1.8). Pitch Yaw Roll Figure 1.8: The three axes of rotation. ADDITIONAL COMPONENTS 7 Ailerons Ailerons are small movable surfaces on the outboard edge of each of the airplane’s wings. They deflect in opposite directions: When one is up, the other one is down. They serve to roll the aircraft, rotating it about its longitudinal axis. Ailerons are deflected by moving the aircraft’s stick to the left or right. Elevators Elevators are a pair of movable surfaces on the aircraft’s horizontal tail. They move in tandem: Both are up, or both are down. They serve to pitch the aircraft, rotating it about its lateral axis. Elevators are deflected by pushing or pulling the stick forward or back. Rudder The rudder is a single movable surface on the aircraft’s vertical tail. It serves to yaw the aircraft, rotating it about its vertical axis. The rudder is deflected by pushing on either the left or the right foot pedal. Additional components Flaps The Harrier has flaps on the inboard part of each wing. Flaps are extensions that, when lowered, increase the surface area of the wing, providing additional lift at the expense of additional drag. They are used to maintain lift at slow airspeeds, primarily during takeoff and landing. The Harrier’s flaps can be extended to either 10° or 40°. The 10° setting should be used for takeoff and slow flight (like when in the landing pattern). It should not be used above 300 KPH. The 40° setting should be used during VTOL flight and on final approach to land. It should not be used above 200 KPH. 8 CHAPTER 1. AIRCRAFT OVERVIEW Speed brakes The Harrier has aerodynamic speed brakes that, when deployed, increase drag and serve to slow the aircraft down. Landing gear The Harrier has a tricycle gear configuration with a single, steerable nose wheel and two main wheels further down the fuselage. In addition, two smaller outrigger wheels can be found at the end of each wing. The mains are the primary load-bearing landing gear and serve to support the weight of the aircraft. The nose gear’s purpose is to provide directional steering on the ground. The outrigger wheels prevent wingtip strikes when maneuvering in very low VTOL flight. Basic maneuvers With the use of the three control surfaces, and power via the throttle, the pilot can accomplish any maneuver a conventional aircraft is capable of. The most basic maneuvers are described below. Changing direction Changing direction is accomplished by banking the aircraft with the use of ailerons and rudder. If you were to bank your aircraft using only ailerons, you would find your pitch changes as well: As you bank left or right, your nose would pitch up unexpectedly. You would be performing an uncoordinated turn. Uncoordinated turns are dangerous at low airspeeds, as they lead to unintentional stalls. Ideally, a bank would not have any element of pitch: The nose would remain in the same place relative to the horizon as the airplane rotated. To accomplish this, pilots use aileron and rudder in concert, performing a coordinated turn. As left aileron is applied, an amount of left rudder is also applied to keep the nose in the same location. Likewise, right aileron is always accompanied by right rudder. pilot such as yourself, the simulator sports a feaFortunately for an ture called auto-coordination. If you switch to external view and watch the empennage (tail portion of your aircraft) as you perform a turn, you will JET ENGINE THEORY 9 notice the rudder moving even if you didn’t command rudder. That’s the game ensuring your turns are coordinated. This leaves you only to worry about the rudder in other situations, such as lining up gun shots or performing advanced aerobatic maneuvers. Changing altitude A change of altitude is a two-step process in the Harrier: a change of power, and a change of pitch. If you want to increase your altitude, you would pitch the nose up to begin a climb. However, the climb will reduce your airspeed, so to compensate, you increase power to maintain your desired airspeed. When you have reached your desired altitude, you return the nose to the horizon and decrease power to maintain airspeed. Likewise, a descent is initiated by reducing power and letting the nose fall (adding some forward pitch if necessary) while maintaining airspeed. When the desired altitude is reached, the nose is returned to the horizon and power is increased to maintain airspeed. One of the marks of a professional pilot is a conscious control of airspeed and altitude. The professional pilot does not merely accept whatever altitude, airspeed, and heading his airplane chooses to give him: He decides upon a desired airspeed, altitude, and heading beforehand, and works to attain and maintain those parameters. It’s an important concept: You are the pilot; you are flying the plane — not the other way around. You should be the one choosing where the plane goes and how it gets there. Jet engine theory The AV-8B Harrier II is powered by a turbofan jet engine, which sets it apart from older fighter jets, typically employing turbojets. To understand the difference, let’s begin with an overview of how jet engines work. Jet engines, like car engines, employ a four-stage power cycle: intake, compression, ignition, and exhaust. The primary difference is that in a jet engine, this is all performed in one long tube. Air flows into the front of the tube (intake), is compressed by fast-spinning compressor blades (compression), mixed with fuel and ignited (ignition), and ejected out the back of the tube (exhaust). 10 CHAPTER 1. AIRCRAFT OVERVIEW Figure 1.9: The mechanics of a turbofan jet engine. Some of the power generated in the ignition stage is used to power the compressor. The compressor fan spins at an extremely high speed. The fuel is ignited by a continuous flame, protected from the fast flow of air by a flame eddy. In real life, unusual airflow across the intake can extinguish the flame, called a flameout, which results in a complete loss of power, requiring a relight. Fortunately, in ,this does not occur, and only an unfortunate missile or gun hit or a very negligent pilot can result in engine failure. Now that the basic theory of jet engines is out of the way, on to turbojets and turbofans. Turbojets are older, simpler jet engines; there is only one direction for air to flow and that is through each of the four stages. Turbojets are simpler, noisier, and less fuel efficient (except at supersonic airspeeds). To build a turbofan engine, take a turbojet and wrap a shroud around it, such that some of the air passes through the jet portion (called the core), and some of it passes through the shroud (called the bypass). Add another, larger compressor that fills both the core and the bypass (called the fan). Now you need two shafts connected to the ignition stage: one to drive the high-pressure compressor and one to drive the low-pressure compressor (fig. 1.9). Turbofans are more efficient, because the low-pressure air passing through the bypass works with the high-pressure air moving through the core to generate thrust more efficiently. This also reduces exhaust speed, which reduces engine noise. Turbofans are most efficient in subsonic flight (and the Harrier is not capable of supersonic flight). THE HARRIER’S JET ENGINE 11 The Harrier’s jet engine Most jet engines are straight tubes, such that air never changes direction between the intake and exhaust. The Harrier is one of few aircraft that can change the direction the air is flowing, called thrust vectoring. The terminus of the engine can be rotated anywhere between 0° (straight back) and 98.5° (slightly forward of vertical) to produce both horizontal and vertical thrust. By being able to produce its own vertical thrust, the Harrier does not necessarily need lift from its wings to stay aloft. Thus, the Harrier can remain in the air at speeds that would normally cause it to stall. Figure 1.10: The Harrier’s jet engine, a Rolls-Royce F402-RR-408 Mk. 105 Pegasus. Flying using vertical thrust is called hovering, and taking off or landing under vertical thrust is called vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL). We’ll get into the procedures of VTOL flight in a later section. In the real Harrier, a second lever next to the throttle is used to control the direction of the thrust. The pilot must move it carefully to manage his speed and lifting force as he transitions between vertical and forward flight. , this transition is managed for you. There is no manual control of In the thrust vector, only a two-way toggle between vertical and forward flight. The details of this will be covered in a later section. 12 CHAPTER 1. AIRCRAFT OVERVIEW Avionics Cockpit overview While the real Harrier’s cockpit might seem an imposing wall of switches and dials, in there are only a few functional elements. Figure 1.11 shows the Harrier cockpit and highlights which areas are worth your attention. Heads-up display Horizontal situation indicator Attitude indicator Standby instruments Figure 1.11: Major elements of the Harrier cockpit. The Harrier’s two multi-function displays (MFDs) in real life can display a wide variety of information. In , the left display always shows an artificial horizon, and the right display always a horizontal situation indicator (HSI). Between and below the two multifunction displays are the analog instruments, including an airspeed indicator (ASI) and another artificial horizon. Below the artificial horizon is an analog altimeter, but it is unfortunately obscured by the control stick, and generally useless. Above the instrument panel is the heads-up display (HUD), consolidating crucial information directly in line-of-sight of the pilot. Heads-up display The purpose of the HUD is two-fold: Firstly, it places critical information in line-of-sight of the pilot, freeing him from looking down at his instrument AVIONICS 13 panel during critical portions of flight, such as landing or combat. Secondly, it uses visual symbology to augment the pilot’s view out the windshield: Boxes drawn over targets, projected bullet trajectories, and other such information represented visually and superimposed over the appropriate point in space. The HUD uses holographic projection to ensure its symbols appear at the same point in space regardless of the pilot’s head position. is a simplified version of the its real-life counterpart, but The HUD in it still contains many useful elements. The following picture shows the location and appearance of these interface elements. Each of these is explained in figure 1.12. Heading indicator Vertical speed indicator Pitch ladder Flight path marker Waterline Altitude indicator Airspeed indicator Gun cross Currently selected weapon Gear position indicator Weapon rounds remaining Flaps position indicator Figure 1.12: The elements of the HUD. The flight path marker (FPM) is a small circle with three spokes that projects the direction your airplane is going. It essentially says, “If nothing changes, this is where you will end up.” This crucial data can help you derive a lot of important information about what your aircraft is doing. As a basic example, the FPM can be compared against the horizon line: If it rests below the horizon line, against the ground, then your plane must be losing altitude (and would eventually impact the ground without a control change). If it rests above the horizon line, in the 14 CHAPTER 1. AIRCRAFT OVERVIEW sky, then your plane is climbing. The FPM is very useful when landing. Normally pilots must estimate their approach path visually; with the FPM the job becomes almost trivial. Simply adjust your throttle to place the FPM “right on the numbers,” where you want the airplane to touch down, and you’ll hit the spot every time. (We’ll get into landing more in a later section.) The FPM becomes much less useful during VTOL flight, where the airplane’s trajectory is not straight ahead, so the FPM cannot be displayed within the confines of the HUD. In this situation it will slip off-screen and become invisible. The waterline is a “W” shape along a horizontal line. It remains stationary in your HUD, and shows you where your airplane’s nose is pointed. This is, of course, not always the same as the direction your aircraft is going, hence why it’s not the same as the FPM. The vertical difference between the waterline and the FPM is a good estimation of your angle of attack. Example: If there are two pitch ladder rungs between your waterline and flight path marker, your angle of attack is around 10°. The pitch ladder is a series of horizontal lines running up and down the HUD. The lines are placed in 5° increments above and below the horizon line (labeled as 0°). If your waterline is aligned with the 10° ladder rung, then you know your airplane is pitched 10° up. Each of the pitch ladder “rungs” has two ticks on either edge that point in the direction of the horizon. If you find yourself disoriented in an unusual attitude, all you have to do is push or pull the stick in the direction of the ticks to find the horizon. In addition, the rungs below the horizon are dashed, so you can immediately determine if you are pointed towards the ground. The airspeed tape is a tape on the right side of the HUD indicating your current airspeed. The caret points to your airspeed in kilometers per hour along the tape. The caret remains stationary; the tape will wind upward as speed increases and downward as speed decreases. The altitude tape is a tape along the left side of the HUD. It works like the airspeed tape, but indicates altitude in meters above mean sea level (MSL). This is the altitude according to air pressure, not according to your distance from the ground. The altitude tape winds in the opposite direction as the airspeed tape. Above the altitude tape is the vertical speed indicator (VSI), which indicates a climb or descent numerically in meters per minute divided by ten. Thus, if descending at 120 meters per minute, the number “12” will AVIONICS 15 appear. The heading tape is a tape along the top of the HUD indicating true heading. (The true heading is relative to true north, as opposed to magnetic north.) The caret indicates the current heading. The word GEAR will appear in the bottom-right of the HUD if your landing gear is extended. The word FLAPS will appear if you have at least one notch of flaps selected. Along with these non-combat indicators, the HUD will include additional symbology depending on the weapon you have chosen. Most of these symbols are stylized gun crosses that let you estimate where your weapons will be delivered, and are loosely based on the symbology of each weapon found in the real Harrier’s HUD. A later section will cover weapons delivery procedures. Artificial horizon The left MFD displays the artificial horizon (fig. 1.13), used to orient the pilot when flying without visual references. The artificial horizon is split into two sections, a blue section representing the sky, and a brown one representing the ground. These sections are split by a horizon line. This helps the pilot easily visualize what the view out the window looks like. Figure 1.13: The artificial horizon on the left MFD. The artificial horizon has a pitch ladder like the HUD. The large, labeled lines represent 10° increments and the smaller intermediate lines 5° increments. To read your pitch, find the line nearest the small black dot in the center of the screen (representing your aircraft’s nose). The artificial horizon also has a non-functional bank indicator and glide slope indicator, both of which should be ignored. 16 CHAPTER 1. AIRCRAFT OVERVIEW Horizontal situation indicator The right MFD displays a basic HSI (fig. 1.14), with a compass rose and a caret indicating the aircraft’s current heading. The compass rose can be useful to visualize different headings and their relationships to your aircraft. Figure 1.14: The horizontal situation indicator on the right MFD. The HSI also has a nonfunctional course deviation indicator and glide slope indicator, both of which should be ignored. Overlay In addition to the information in the cockpit, has an overlay that augments your display. In the upper left-hand corner of the screen (fig. 1.15) is your aircraft’s airspeed in kilometers per hour and altitude in meters above ground level (AGL), displayed numerically. The speed will turn red when the aircraft is approaching a stall. Below that are visual indications of your aircraft’s damage and fuel quantity. The upper-center display is a compass heading tape (depicting true heading) and below that is a visual depiction of the aircraft’s radar, which is important enough that it deserves its own section (below). The upper right-hand display shows the currently selected weapon and the number of rounds or stores remaining. AVIONICS 17 Figure 1.15: The upper left overlay panel. Radar display simplifies what are generally complicated radar displays, distilling a bunch of functionality down into a little box in the upper-center of the screen. The radar display is peppered with dots indicating radar contacts. A light green box is drawn to indicate the current field of view; if a dot appears at the upper-right-hand corner of the box, then look at the upper-right-hand corner of your screen to see your contact. Figure 1.16: Key to radar symbology. The radar always points the same direction your head is facing: To scan for targets to the left, look left. This isn’t always necessary, as the long strip corresponds to a 360° field of view. The only time it is necessary is if your aircraft is sharply banked: Your radar banks with your aircraft, so your 360° field of view is now scanning a slice of the sky and ground (fig. 1.17). In this situation, you should “keep your head on a swivel” and look around for enemy contacts. As new radar contacts appear in the distance, they will slowly fade in on your radar display. They will be gray at first, and then turn to green 18 CHAPTER 1. AIRCRAFT OVERVIEW Figure 1.17: The effect of bank on radar’s field of view. if identified as friendly or red if identified as enemy. Neutral contacts (or unmanned vehicles) will remain gray. As in real life, radar beams do not penetrate terrain, so if a mountain stands between you and an enemy fighter plane, it will not appear on your radar display. This can be used to your advantage, however, as the enemy will not detect you until it crosses that mountain where you are presumably lying in wait for the pounce. Depending on which weapon you have selected, you may be able to target certain radar contacts when they are close to the front of your aircraft. A targeted contact will have a box around it. When you acquire a target, a box will appear around it in both in the radar and in the world, called the target designator box (TD box). This box is drawn as part of your overlay. In addition, you will get distance information and the target’s identity. Which targets you can acquire depends on which weapon you have selected; for example, air-to-ground weapons will not target aircraft. Figure 1.18: Acquiring and locking a target. Infantry on the ground can use a laser target designator to make new contacts appear on your radar. For more information, see Guided and unguided bombs, page 114. Chapter 2 Normal Procedures Walk-around In , Harriers don’t generally suffer from the types of mechanical issues that can crop up amongst their real-life counterparts when subjected to the effects of weathering and combat. Even so, it’s important to perform a very basic walk-around to make sure your airplane is airworthy. • Check for damage. Damage is visually represented in oddly as cratering on the airplane’s skin. rather • Check for a full weapons loadout. Verify your Harrier has the correct loadout and a full complement of all weapons for its loadout. See the included booklet for more information on Harrier loadouts. • Check the area around the Harrier for obstacles. Ensure that you have a taxi route clear of personnel or equipment. Before taxi and taxi Before beginning your taxi, you should perform a few basic pre-taxi procedures. 1. Ensure your weapons are safed. doesn’t have a master-arm switch, so to compensate we expect pilots to keep their finger off the trigger when their airplane is on the ground. Additionally, you should 19 20 CHAPTER 2. NORMAL PROCEDURES have your cannon selected, as it will do a lot less damage than a 2,000pounder if accidentally fired. 2. Start the engine. Add forward throttle to begin the engine auto-start procedure. 3. Clean up the airplane. Ensure your speed brakes are closed and your flaps are up. Set auto-hover appropriately. Auto-hover is useful for maneuvering in tight spaces, but should be turned off for normal taxiing. 4. Ensure your lights are on. At nighttime, all aircraft must have their lights on when operating on or near friendly airbases. 5. Ensure you have clearance to taxi. See Non-combat procedures, page 141, for more information on airbase procedures. Taxiing is accomplished on the ground by use of the rudder pedals, which control a rotating nose wheel through a process known as nose-wheel steering (NWS). To begin moving forward, add a touch of power, then reduce power to maintain a taxi speed. Like birds, aircraft on the ground are awkward creatures. The Harrier should be taxied with diligence and care, because it is not very maneuverable on the ground. Be careful not to build up excess speed, as braking power is very limited. Taxi slowly and smoothly from your parking spot to the runway hold-short line. If you need to maneuver in close quarters, turn auto-hover on. Your aircraft will be able to turn almost on a point, though you will need about an additional five to ten feet of clearance from your wings, nose, and tail to complete a tight turn. Takeoff Takeoffs are normally performed into the wind, as the additional wind speed generates more lift and gets the airplane off the ground more quickly. TAKEOFF 21 Normal takeoff After having received clearance to take the runway, select 10° of flap and position your aircraft along the runway centerline. Smoothly apply full power and use rudder to maintain the centerline. At about 150 KPH, rotate: Apply some back pressure to the stick to attain a 10° nose up attitude. Hold it there and let the airplane fly itself off the runway. (It will do so at around 190 KPH.) Do not apply too much back pressure or try to force the airplane off the ground, or the tail will strike the asphalt (a tail strike). Once you have verified you have a positive rate of climb (in other words, your aircraft isn’t coming back to the ground), raise the landing gear. Raise the flaps after passing 200 KPH. Short-field takeoff This takeoff procedure should be used when operating at short airstrips (less than 2,000 feet). Auto-hover should be turned on when taking the runway, and 40° of flaps should be used. After turning on auto-hover, apply full power. The airplane will begin to accelerate. At 60 KPH, apply back pressure to attain a 10° nose up attitude. Hold it there and let the airplane begin lifting vertically. Once clear of obstacles, pitch forward to attain level flight, turn off auto-hover, and raise the landing gear. The airplane will begin accelerating. Raise one notch of flaps at 100 KPH, and the other notch at 200 KPH. The airplane will transition to normal flight around 175 KPH. Unimproved field takeoff When taking off at unimproved airfields, care should be used not to bump the aircraft at high speeds, which will cause damage. A variation on the shortfield takeoff procedure is used to get the aircraft off the ground as quickly as possible. Apply full flaps but do not turn on auto-hover. Choose a takeoff direction that is free of obstacles, on flat land, and pointed at least reasonably into the wind. Apply full power and watch your airspeed. At around 50 KPH, engage auto-hover and smoothly apply back pressure until the airplane leaves the ground, being sure not to exceed 10° nose-up. Once airborne, push the nose forward to establish a normal takeoff attitude. When the airplane is 22 CHAPTER 2. NORMAL PROCEDURES safely off the ground and clear of obstacles, disengage auto-hover and raise the gear. Raise one notch of flaps at 100 KPH, and the other notch at 200 KPH. Visual navigation In day, during clear weather, and at night with the use of night-vision goggles (NVGs), pilots can use visual navigation (also known as pilotage) to proceed enroute. Pilotage is navigation by use of local landmarks and terrain features. To use pilotage, the pilot must either have a map handy (which we is available in-game, and which you may even have available to you in printed format), or must have a familiarity with the local area. The trick to effective pilotage is recognizing when you’re lost. A pilot who is navigating by pilotage and not lost is one who is finding prominent landmarks on his map, then verifying by locating them out his window. The lost pilot performs these steps in the reverse order: He is noticing landmarks out his window then struggling to locate them on his map. Instrument navigation In cloudy or foggy weather, with low visibilities, or at night without the use of NVGs, instrument navigation techniques must be used. In real life, instrument navigation is performed under the complex and strenuous tenets of instrument flight rules, using a variety of different techniques to fly and navigate. In , this situation is a whole lot simpler. Instrument flying involves two main components, knowing what your aircraft is doing, and knowing where your aircraft is going. The Scan: Knowing what your aircraft is doing The core of instrument flying is the scan. The human brain is excellent at taking a complete picture and using it to figure out individual parts: For example, if I showed you a picture of an airplane against the horizon, you could figure out its attitude information (pitch and bank) easily. The reverse of this, taking individual parts and combining them to form a complete picture, is more difficult for humans. INSTRUMENT NAVIGATION 23 Thus we have the scan. When flying under instrument conditions, pilots are always moving their eyes, jumping from instrument to instrument, collecting individual bits of data. They use this information to form a complete picture of what their aircraft is doing. Fortunately, the Harrier II is blessed with a modern avionics suite including a HUD and artificial horizon, making forming that picture very easy. Most of the time your eyes will never need to leave the HUD. But diligence is still required on the part of the pilot. The key to a good scan is choosing what instruments to visit with your eyes, and how often to glance at them. Every scan visits the FPM, and typically you do this in between every other instrument, because it is so crucial to forming a picture of what the airplane is doing. Glance at either the FPM on the HUD or the artificial horizon on the MFD in between every other eye movement. You should choose the other instruments of your scan based on what’s important to you at your current phase of flight. During landing, for instance, you should incorporate the airspeed and altitude tapes frequently, whereas during cruise flight you should only check those tapes occasionally, instead checking your radar for threats more frequently. Define a rhythm and stick to it, remembering to visit the FPM in between each other instrument. Figure 2.1: An example HUD-only scan. Each time you visit an instrument, make sure it looks normal. If you don’t like what you see, make a control surface deflection that works towards 24 CHAPTER 2. NORMAL PROCEDURES fixing the problem, then move on to the next instrument. You shouldn’t fixate on a single instrument while trying to correct a problem. For example, let’s say you’re performing your scan and you notice your airspeed is falling way too low. You should add power, and move on to the next instrument in your scan. You can verify that your airspeed is increasing once you’ve finished your scan and come back to the airspeed indicator. If you instead fixate on the ASI, and stare at it as your airspeed increases back to normal, you will miss important cues from other instruments, and may lose control of your airplane without even knowing it. Knowing where your aircraft is going An important rule of aviation is as follows: Your first priority should be to always fly the airplane. No single responsibility is more important to you than maintaining positive control of your aircraft. If it takes all of your concentration to fly the plane at some point in time, then you should be doing nothing else. With that in mind, you should move on to this next part of instrument navigation only after you’ve mastered the previous section. If it’s taking all your mental energy to continue keeping the aircraft under control, then do not worry about navigating until things settle down. If you have some energy to spare, though, you can implement techniques of instrument navigation. In the real world there are a few, but in there’s really just the map, compass, and GPS. As on the ground, the key is to first locate yourself using the GPS, then take a bearing to your desired destination, and then finally fly that bearing using the heading indicator. Dead reckoning is the use of mathematical extrapolation to navigate from point to point. Simply put, it involves a) knowing where you are right now, b) choosing a ground speed and calculating how long it would take to reach a certain point at that speed, and c) flying the correct heading for that length of time. Dead reckoning is the oldest way to navigate on instruments. The universe is small, so properly calculating transit times is easy since the entirety of Chernarus can be transited in a matter of minutes. BASIC MANEUVERS 25 Basic maneuvers Pilots learn and practice some simple maneuvers that are often used in avi. ation. Proficiency in these maneuvers will help you be a better pilot in Turns about a point This maneuver stresses making nice, round circles about a ground reference point, in calm weather or strong winds. It comes up in practice in a variety of situations: RESCAPs, holding patterns, battle damage assessment, etc. First, locate your ground reference point then pick a distance that will be the radius of your circle. Start your circle by picking a point on the ground about that distance from the circle’s center, and fly to that point, placing the circle’s center off your left or right wing. Next, look at the ground and find a point 90° off from the center of the circle, the same distance away. Estimate the distance using your own judgment. Fly a round arc to that point, keeping the reference point off your wing. Repeat these steps to “map out” your circle on the ground. (approx. 1 NMi) Ground reference 90° (approx. 1 NMi) Figure 2.2: Turns about a point, 1 NMi radius. If you perform this maneuver in strong wind, you may notice you are naturally increasing and decreasing your level of bank as you track about the circle, compensating for the wind without having to think about it. 26 CHAPTER 2. NORMAL PROCEDURES Rectangular course This maneuver practices making square or rectangular boxes above the ground, even when the wind would otherwise have you making parallelograms. This maneuver is most obvious as the traffic pattern. To make geometric rectangles accounting for wind, you will need to first determine the direction the wind is coming from and its approximate speed. You can do this on the ground before your flight. With that in mind, estimate appropriate wind correction angles (WCAs) for each leg of the rectangle. The wind correction angle is the angle off of course you need to point your nose to keep your ground track in the correct direction. If you find for one leg the wind is coming strongly from your left, perhaps almost perpendicular, you will need to point your nose far to the left of course to maintain a straight track across the ground. WIND Figure 2.3: Rectangular course with wind correction. As you fly each leg of the rectangle, look out the window to judge your ground track. Make corrections to your WCA as necessary to maintain a straight ground track. Take note of these new WCAs to maintain your rectangle, but be ready to adapt for changing wind conditions. In addition to a WCA, you will also need to adjust the time you spend on each leg. If the wind is behind you for a particular leg, you will be going HOVER MODE AND THRUST VECTORING 27 faster during that leg and should therefore spend less time flying that leg. Two more turns later will find you on the opposing leg, which, because it’s an upwind leg, will take longer. Slow flight A final important maneuver to practice is minimum controllable airspeed (MCA), otherwise known as slow flight. Your airplane will handle very differently in slow flight, and it’s important that you be familiar with this flight regime, so that you are not surprised by your airplane’s responses should you inadvertently become slow in combat. After attaining a safe altitude, reduce your airspeed until you can no longer maintain altitude. Increase power slowly until you have just enough thrust to maintain altitude. You should have a very nose-high attitude for level flight. You are now in the MCA regime. You can become comfortable in this regime by performing slow, shallow banks, turning 90° left and right. Increase power slightly to maintain altitude and airspeed, then use very shallow 10° banks for your turns. Make sure you do not inadvertently fly out of slow flight — keep your airspeed just above stalling speed. Become familiar with your aircraft’s handling in slow flight, then practice recovery. Increase power, and slowly lower the nose as airspeed increases until you have achieved level flight at cruise speed. Hover mode and thrust vectoring The Harrier’s most unique feature is, of course, its thrust vectoring. The thrust vectoring nozzles can be placed anywhere between 0° (aligned with the horizon pointing rearward) through 98.5° (pointing downward and slightly forward). In the real Harrier, the 98.5° position can be used to fly the plane backwards while level should anyone desire to do so, but in game this scenario is not possible. (You can still fly backwards by pitching back.) Why is this not possible? Because manual control of the thrust vectors is not allowed. implements thrust vectoring by means of an “auto-hover” feature which, when engaged, controls the thrust vectors for you. There are five different flight conditions that correspond to four different possible nozzle positions: 28 CHAPTER 2. NORMAL PROCEDURES Auto-hover off, on the ground: The nozzles will be at 0° for a normal takeoff. Auto-hover on, on the ground: The nozzles will be at the 55° position to aid with a short takeoff. Auto-hover off, airborne, below 150 KPH: The nozzles will continue to be in the 55° position until 150 KPH, when they begin rotating back to the 0° position for cruise flight. You will notice this transition as a sharp increase in acceleration passing 150 KPH. Auto-hover off, airborne, above 150 KPH: This is considered “cruise flight” and the nozzles will be at 0°. Auto-hover on, airborne, above 150 KPH: The nozzles will be at 98.5° to assist with deceleration. You will find that full power quite unexpectedly produces a small deceleration, not acceleration. Auto-hover on, airborne, below 150 KPH, approach: The nozzles will be at the 90° position to prepare for a vertical landing. Whether or not auto-hover is selected, the nozzles will rotate downward during low-speed flight. There are some subtle implications to this system — namely, contrary to intuition, having auto-hover off does not guarantee that your nozzles will be flush with the fuselage. As you can see, when under 150 KPH, the nozzles will rotate to the takeoff position regardless of your auto-hover setting. If you fail to notice your airspeed drop below the Harrier’s stalling speed, this automatic feature will help delay the onset of the stall by providing you with extra lift. The real-life Harrier can take off vertically under light or no loads, but alas, does not simulate a drop in weight as stores are released. Thus, all Harriers in weigh as much as a fully loaded Harrier. This is why the nozzles are auto-rotated to the 55° position when on the ground: You wouldn’t be able to perform a vertical takeoff anyway, so the short takeoff is the only option, and in a Harrier, that is performed with a 55° nozzle position. Harrier can The other implication of this weight limitation is that an never gain altitude in a hover. Harriers lose altitude in a full-power hover at a rate of approximately one meter per second. To gain altitude, you must LANDING 29 gain airspeed until your wings produce lift again. At about 50 KPH, your wings will generate enough lift to maintain altitude; thus, this is the slowest that a Harrier can fly in level flight in . Pitching or banking will increase the minimum necessary speed for maintaining altitude. To enter a hover, reduce speed to around 200 KPH and drop a notch of flaps. Engage auto-hover and continue reducing speed. At speeds below about 100 KPH, drop the second notch of flaps. The Harrier will slowly cease handling like an airplane and begin handling more akin to a helicopter. Proper training requires time with this flight regime to produce familiarity and comfort with hovering flight. When in a hover, the stick controls the aircraft’s motion: Push the stick forward to tilt the aircraft forward, generating forward motion. Likewise, tilt it backwards to slow down and eventually generate reverse motion. Left and right stick deflections generate left and right bank, creating left and right motion. The rudder pedals are used to control the heading: Applying left and right rudder will rotate the Harrier to a new heading. Power is used to control altitude. Reducing power increases the sink rate; increasing power reduces it. When pitching or banking, power should be increased slightly to avoid an increase in sink rate caused by directing what was once purely downward thrust towards the side. To exit a hover, disengage auto-hover and raise flaps to 10°. Maintain your attitude as your airspeed increases — you may lose some altitude, but do not pitch to the sky in a fruitless attempt to regain it. Be patient and wait until you have enough airspeed for the climb. Passing 200 KPH, raise the remaining flaps and resume normal flight. You may be wondering how the elevators, rudder, and ailerons work in a hover, as these control surfaces require air flowing over them to be effective. The Harrier has small nozzles near each of these control surfaces that redirect high-speed air from the engine over these control surfaces during hover mode. This artificial airstream provides control authority at low airspeed. Landing Landing is often the most difficult part of flying, in the Harrier even more so because of its vertical landing capability. Vertical landings are covered in Short-field and vertical landings (page 35); in this section we will learn 30 CHAPTER 2. NORMAL PROCEDURES normal landings. The traffic pattern Airplanes around an airport are sequenced using the traffic pattern (fig. 2.4). Each runway has its own traffic pattern. Traffic patterns are either left-hand or right-hand depending on which direction you make the turns in. Different runways use different pattern altitudes (the altitude pilots are expected to fly at when in that runway’s pattern) to ensure traffic does not conflict when multiple runways are in use. 45° ENTRY DOWNWIND 45° DEPARTURE BASE CROSSWIND STRAIGHT-OUT DEPARTURE RUNWAY FINAL UPWIND Figure 2.4: A left-hand traffic pattern. Most of the time pilots enter either on the downwind leg, or on a 45° entry as depicted in the previous figure. The upwind and crosswind legs are usually only involved if a go-around is made. Airports are the busiest places in the sky. It’s important to keep an eye out for traffic at all times. Most of the time they will (hopefully) be acting predictably, but it’s a combat environment and you should be prepared for anything. There’s a simple trick to detecting if traffic is a potential conflict: Watch its motion across your field-of-view. If it is moving across your canopy glass, it’s not a collision hazard. If it remains stationary in your field of view, it’s time to start changing direction. Normal landings All landings begin with the pre-landing check. You should plan your descent early, especially if flying at high altitude. Choose a comfortable descent LANDING 31 rate and plan it so that you will be at pattern altitude when you reach the airport’s airspace. The mark of an experienced pilot is one who flies “by the numbers,” using mathematics and experience to perform his climbs and descents, rather than just pointing the nose up or down and accepting whatever climb or descent he receives. During or after the descent, you should begin decelerating, reducing power and using airbrakes if necessary. Reduce your airspeed to around 250 KPH, add 10° of flaps, lower the landing gear, and enter the traffic pattern. Fly the downwind leg of the pattern at 250 KPH. Give yourself a good margin before beginning the base leg; the Harrier lands at a fast airspeed and you’ll appreciate the extra time to set up your landing. Most pilots are taught to begin descending when the runway numbers are abeam and to turn base when they are 45° aft. For the Harrier I’d recommend turning base when the runway is two kilometers out and holding off on the descent until final approach. Turn final to align with the runway and slow to 200 KPH. Drop your remaining flaps. To make a good approach to the airport, you should “switch your thinking” about your controls. Here’s the secret: Use pitch to control airspeed. If you are too slow, pitch up. If you are too fast, pitch down. You should fly the approach initially at 200 KPH, letting airspeed slowly decrease as you approach the airport, but never reaching stall speed. Use power to control sink rate. If the ground is coming up too quickly, add power. If the airport is disappearing below you, reduce power. This is typically opposite of what you’d expect, and you may find it difficult at first, but with time and practice you will find that this is the key to the perfect approach. To ensure you land with as much runway ahead of you as possible, use the FPM to aim your aircraft. Increase or decrease power to raise or lower the FPM. Try to place it just short of the runway. (You will cover some distance during the flare, discussed later, so you don’t have to place it square on the numbers.) Don’t fixate on the FPM though — you also need to manage your airspeed and glide slope. The ideal approach is flown at a glide slope of 3.5° — you should be losing about 60 meters of altitude for every kilometer of ground you cover (fig. 2.5). Understanding whether you are too high or too low on approach is a matter of familiarity with the sight picture, the view over the nose. In time you will get a sense for how “squished” the runway should seem when 32 CHAPTER 2. NORMAL PROCEDURES you are on a good approach. In the meantime, you can use some basic math to calculate the ideal rate of descent: A glide slope of 3.5° means that at 200 KPH, you should be losing about 204 meters of altitude each minute, or 3.4 meters each second. Pilots who fly by the numbers use the descent rate as an indicator of their glide slope, and aim for the perfect glide slope. 1 kilometer 90° glideslope 61 meters Figure 2.5: The ideal landing glide slope. The most crucial portion of landing is the flare. Because the Harrier’s mains support the weight of the aircraft, they must be the landing gear that touches the ground first. This is accomplished by transitioning from the descent attitude (nose slightly low) to the landing attitude (nose up about 10°). When your aircraft is only a few feet above the surface, pull back on the stick to assume the landing attitude. (Do not pull back so far as to cause a tail strike.) Reduce power to prevent from ballooning (climbing back into the sky), and your aircraft should begin to sink in a nose-up attitude. Apply a touch of power to prevent your aircraft from coming down too hard. It will eventually settle on its mains. Apply full airbrakes and reduce power to idle, and allow the nose wheel to come down as the airplane slows. Because there are no wheel brakes in , you will need a significant length of runway to slow the airplane down. (I hope you touched down towards the start of the runway — there’s nothing more useless than runway that’s behind you.) After all three wheels are on the ground, engage auto-hover. Your thrust nozzles will rotate forward to assist in deceleration. If your aircraft begins to balloon, you have two options: try to salvage the landing, or go around. Because of the long lengths of runway required to land in , you almost always want to go around, as even if you do salvage the landing, you may no longer have enough runway to stop. If you still want to salvage your landing, pitch forward slightly to arrest your climb, re-assume the landing attitude, reduce power, and allow the LANDING 33 aircraft to settle again. If your aircraft begins to sink too rapidly, add a touch of power to slow your descent. If you are wise and choose to go around, immediately apply full power while pitching the nose downward to assume a cruise attitude. When you’re climbing and you’re sure you won’t hit the ground, raise your landing gear. Watch your airspeed and control your climb. Raise your flaps as you pass 100 KPH and 200 KPH, then re-enter the traffic pattern and try again. Assuming you’re on the ground and you managed to stop, hopefully with some runway in front of you, taxi clear of the runway and obtain clearance to taxi to parking. Taxi to your parking spot and perform the shutdown checklist. The PAPI Larger airports will be equipped with a precision approach path indicator (PAPI) to help ensure you are on the correct glide slope. The PAPI is a horizontal line of four red or white lights. The color combination tells you whether you are on glide slope. Two white and two red means you are on glide slope. If there are more red lights, you are too low; more white lights, and you are too high (fig. 2.6). TOO LOW SLIGHTLY LOW CORRECT APPROACH ANGLE SLIGHTLY HIGH TOO HIGH Figure 2.6: Guide to PAPI symbols. Instrument landing system The Harrier is equipped with an instrument landing system (ILS) that provides steering cues to help you land the plane. This is most useful in instrument conditions when you cannot see the runway, but can also help you maintain the perfect glide slope even when flying visually. The ILS is made up of three components: an airborne receiver (onboard your Harrier), a ground-based transmitter (placed at certain runways), and the steering cues on the HUD. In order to receive ILS steering cues, you 34 CHAPTER 2. NORMAL PROCEDURES must be approaching a runway with an ILS transmitter, and your landing gear must be down. In addition, ILS systems are one-directional only, so approaching the opposite runway will not get you steering cues. As an example, Utes Airport runway 09 has an ILS transmitter, but runway 27 does not. Figure 2.7 shows you the HUD symbology displayed during an ILS approach. Two bars appear on your HUD, one horizontal, one vertical. These bars show you your deviation from the ILS glide slope. Figure 2.7: ILS steering cues on the HUD. The vertical bar is used to adjust your lineup. It will appear in the center of the HUD (crossing through the watermark) if you are aligned with the runway. If the bar is to the right of center, the runway is to your right, and you should turn right to recapture the centerline. If the bar is to the left of center, turn left to recapture the centerline. Once you have the centerline, ensure your heading matches that of the runway (90° for runway 09, but be sure to include a WCA) so that the bar will not drift away from center. The horizontal bar is used to adjust your rate of descent. It will appear in the middle of the HUD if you are descending on a 3.5° glide slope. If the bar is below the middle, the glide slope is below you, and you should decrease power to increase your rate of descent. If the bar is above the middle, the glide slope is above you and you should increase power to decrease your rate LANDING 35 of descent. If the bar is way above you, then you’re very low and could be in danger of hitting the ground. Consider going around. During the daytime the ILS is a handy for perfecting your approach, but in low visibility (or at night without NVGs) you will rely on it to get you safely on the ground. Use the ILS as a part of your scan like any other. The ILS is very sensitive — if one of your steering bars drifts away from center, small corrections should be used to bring it back. Over-correcting will cause your steering bars to swing back and forth across your HUD. Practice using the ILS in no-viz conditions. You will find it’s easier to land with instruments if you start approach from a great distance, giving you ample time to settle into the perfect approach path. With experience you should be able to maintain a reasonable ILS approach using gentle corrections. Short-field and vertical landings The Harrier’s vectored thrust makes vertical landings possible; namely, an experienced Harrier pilot can land a Harrier exactly where he wants it parked. In other words, the minimum runway length for a Harrier is 46 feet, 4 inches (the length of a Harrier jet). To begin, the pilot should slow the airplane down to around 200 KPH. At this point, lower the landing gear and one notch of flaps, and engage autohover. The nozzles will be in the fully forward position, 98.5°, helping to further slow the airplane down. As airspeed decreases to around 100 KPH, drop full flaps. The airplane will be transitioning into hover mode. In hover mode, the Harrier cannot maintain altitude. You will notice that it is always sinking at a minimum of about one meter per second (full throttle and perfectly level). Pitching the airplane or reducing throttle can drastically increase sink rates. This creates some interesting implications for vertical landings: You need enough altitude to make it to the landing spot. If you’re losing about a meter of altitude per second, and you’re traveling forward at thirty kilometers per hour (8.3 meters per second) towards a landing spot 600 meters away, you need at least 72 meters of altitude to make the landing spot (and you’ll certainly need more than that as a safety margin). The proficient pilot will “do the math” to ensure he has enough altitude to make his landing spot plus a safety margin; the amateur pilot should carry excess altitude in abundance, as it is very easy in the Harrier to dump copious amounts of 36 CHAPTER 2. NORMAL PROCEDURES altitude quickly should you find yourself far too high. Go-arounds should be performed very early. In between the time at which you decide to go around and the time that level cruise flight is obtained, your aircraft could lose up to 50 meters of altitude. Because of this it’s very important to “stay ahead of the airplane” — think about not just what the airplane is doing now, but what it will be doing five minutes from now. If you have reason to believe your approach could turn sour now or in the future, begin a go-around while you still have altitude to spare. Vertical landings in the Harrier involve coming to a hover nearby the landing target, then slowly letting the Harrier descend until it is about 10-20 meters above the ground. At this point the Harrier slides into the airspace just above the landing spot, then settles onto the ground. You should cut engine power to idle the moment your wheels touch the ground to ensure your Harrier does not roll off into other vehicles or obstacles. (Remember the nozzles rotate to the 55° position the moment you touch down.) Accurate vertical landings require practice to obtain and more practice to maintain, and should be part of your regimen. Like with all else in flying, gentle corrections are key. If you need to go around, immediately disengage auto-hover and reduce flaps to 10°. You will begin accelerating forward. Resist the urge to pitch towards the sky: Keep your nose pointed forward and ensure your airspeed is increasing. Your sink rate will decrease and you will eventually begin a climb. When that happens, raise the landing gear. Passing 200 KPH, raise the remaining flaps and resume normal flight. You will need some clearance above the ground in order to perform a go-around. If you are too low for a go-around, eject. Chapter 3 Emergency Procedures does not have a sophisticated damage modeling system. There’s a limited number of things that can go wrong with your jet — most of the time, it will simply explode, and you’ll be dead. So, consider yourself lucky if you find yourself needing these procedures. Engine failure in flight There’s not a whole lot in that can cause an engine to fail; exploding missiles will generally kill the pilot. Guns can damage or destroy your engine, and there’s always fuel starvation, but there isn’t much else to blame when your engine fails (except maybe a USB driver issue). Dealing with any engine failure is a three-step process, best remembered as “A-B-C.” The mnemonic will help ensure you perform the most important steps first, before doing anything else. 1. A is for Airspeed. The very first thing you must always do is attain VG , the best-glide speed. In the Harrier this is 220 KPH. Reach this speed by either pitching up or down. This speed will allow you to glide the longest distance before reaching the ground, giving you the greatest number of options for landing spots and the longest time to plan your landing. 2. B is for Best Field. Once you’ve attained VG , begin searching the ground below you for suitable landing spots. If an airport is within gliding distance, excellent. Otherwise, find an open field large enough 37 38 CHAPTER 3. EMERGENCY PROCEDURES to land on. Some considerations include a) wind direction — you always want to land into the wind, as it will shorten your landing distance, b) terrain type — rougher terrain is more likely to damage or destroy your aircraft, c) proximity to the enemy — obviously getting captured is a real buzz kill after a successful emergency landing, and d) distance — never stretch a glide for a more distant landing spot when there is a suitable one right underneath you. It’s better to accept a less-thanperfect landing spot you know you can reach, than to try to stretch a glide to a better spot and end up hitting the trees. 3. C is for Checklist. This is last for a reason — only once you’re at VG and gliding towards your landing spot is it time to start the emergency checklist. In real life there’s a number of reasons why an engine could fail and therefore the checklist can get long, but in there’s only so much you can do. Verify that your throttle is forward, your speed brakes are closed, and auto-hover is off. When performing an emergency landing without power, it’s important to watch your airspeed. The only way you can gain airspeed in a glider is to trade in altitude, so if you’re low and slow, you’re out of options. Keep your airspeed at VG for the descent, then Vref (landing airspeed, 200 KPH) when you are near the ground. Lowering flaps before landing will help, but don’t lower gear or flaps too early — they will increase your descent rate and may spoil your chance of making a good emergency landing. Only lower gear and flaps when “landing is assured” — when you know you’re going to be touching down. If at any point you feel like a hard impact or an impact with trees or other structures is likely, eject. Engine failure after takeoff An engine failure immediately or shortly after takeoff is a very critical emergency. You do not have enough time to refer to a checklist, so you must commit the steps to memory. There are only two things to do if your engine fails on takeoff. 1. Attain best-glide speed. Like with any other engine failure, capturing VG is your first priority. You may have to lower the nose to reach VG . FUEL LEAK 39 2. Land straight ahead. Do not attempt to turn around and land on the airport. If you’re high enough or fast enough that you could make a 180° successfully without striking the ground first, then you’re out of the takeoff and into the climb phase anyway, and you’re reading the wrong section. Find a spot no more than 30° off from the center of your nose and prepare to land. The ideal emergency landing may be impossible. If there is no suitable terrain for an emergency landing straight ahead, eject. Fuel leak Aside from bursting into flames, a fuel leak is about the only other damage your aircraft can sustain from battle. For this reason, the pre- and postcombat checks involve checking your fuel state for leaks. If you discover you do have a fuel leak, it’s a simple checklist. 1. Assess the severity of the leak. Take some time to determine how fast you are leaking fuel, and estimate how much time you have remaining before you need to land. 2. Based on the severity, choose a landing point. If you’re sure you can make it back to home plate, return to base normally. If your fuel leak is more severe, get as close to friendly territory as you can, then either perform an emergency landing or eject. Remember that maneuvering in auto-hover burns through fuel, so you may not be able to make a short-field landing. Landing gear failure Landing too hard or over-speeding the landing gear can cause it to fail to retract. Fortunately, the structural integrity of the gear can never be compromised, so as long as it’s stuck in the down position, you can still land. You should land as soon as practical if you experience a stuck landing gear. 40 CHAPTER 3. EMERGENCY PROCEDURES Stall The proficient pilot pays attention to his airspeed and never unwittingly approaches a stall. We all make mistakes, however, and should you find yourself at the cusp of a stall, a simple recovery procedure should return you to normal flight. 1. Full throttle. Increase to maximum military power. 2. Level the wings. You should still have enough control authority to level your wings. If you do not, engage auto-hover to force airflow over your ailerons, then roll the airplane level. 3. Pitch down. Push the nose forward below the horizon and begin gaining airspeed. 4. Resume normal flight. Watch your airspeed. Once you’ve regained cruising speed, resume normal flight. You will lose some altitude during the stall recovery. This is why it’s an excellent idea to be very mindful of your airspeed when flying low to the ground (especially when you are turning final approach, flying at low speed and low altitude). Bailout procedures In vanilla , the pilot can egress the aircraft during flight. A parachute will automatically deploy and the pilot can float to the ground. You must have sufficient altitude to perform the bailout. A.C.E. 2 improves realism by providing the pilot with a zero-zero ejection seat, that can extricate the pilot from his airplane safely even at zero knots airspeed and zero feet of altitude. The first step to successful ejection is making the decision to eject. An ejection should be performed if a) salvaging the airplane is no longer possible, or b) attempting to salvage the airplane creates undue risk for the pilot. Another way to put this: Airplanes are expensive, so save it if you can, but pilots are more valuable, so egress the plane if you need to. As an example, you should in general attempt an emergency landing if you suffer an engine failure. If, however, attempting to land the plane creates SURVIVAL AND RESCUE 41 excess risk to you, the pilot (say there are trees or cows or buildings in the way), then hit the silk. After ejecting, it’s important to assess your surroundings and choose a landing site. If you packed a steerable parachute, you can steer it with the mouse and keyboard just like an airborne infantryman. The four things you want to avoid when choosing a landing site are power lines, water, trees, and the enemy. Try to determine the wind direction and land into the wind if possible. If you can, turn 90° away from your direction of travel just before landing. Upon touching the ground your parachute will be automatically disconnected. Survival and rescue Whether you bailed out or successfully landed your aircraft, the threat isn’t over yet. You need to survive long enough to be rescued. Remember that you will be carrying the standard pilot loadout (see the included booklet), so get your rifle out. The first thing you will want to do is secure the area and ensure there are no hostiles nearby. Once you’re sure you’re not in any danger, move away from the aircraft or its wreckage. Aircraft are a beacon for enemy troops looking to capture you. Communicate with your detachment commander and relay your approximate position if allowed. In real life, outgoing communications can compromise your location and are strictly disallowed after bailing out, though your teammates may contact you. This may be simulated in some missions — be sure you know whether you should be exercising outgoing comm silence. Try to generally move towards friendly territory, but your first priority is to stay hidden. If you are making it easy for friendlies to spot you, then you are making it easy for enemies to spot you too. If you suspect that the enemy is hunting you, keep moving. You will have smoke at your disposal to relay your position, but do not be too eager to deploy it. When you sight a friendly vehicle, ensure that it and you are free of potential threats before deploying smoke. It is better to remain hidden and delay your rescue for a safer time, than to give up your position early and get shot. In real life, a pilot rescue is not friendly. Rescue personnel want to ensure they are not taking back an enemy who killed the downed pilot and stole his clothes, so he will be treated as potentially hostile until his identity is 42 CHAPTER 3. EMERGENCY PROCEDURES confirmed. This may be simulated in some of your missions. If so, expect to be approached at gunpoint, handcuffed, and forced to lie prone until you are proven to be an American soldier. Chapter 4 Formation Flying Formation briefing A formation flight begins with the preflight briefing. A formation lead is responsible for ensuring that all members of the formation are completely briefed on the flight. The lead should cover the following elements: Who is in what position, what type of takeoff will be performed, what formations will be used for each phase of the flight, where the marshal point is (discussed later), what the “bingo” state is, the step-down (discussed later), and any other pertinent information. Bingo fuel is a pre-briefed amount of fuel after which the flight should return home. The lead should choose a fuel state that allows each aircraft enough time to safely return to base with enough fuel remaining to deal with emergencies, runway closures, etc. If at some point during the flight one of your wingmen has to pipe up over the radio and ask a question, it means you didn’t adequately pre-brief your flight. A flight is four aircraft, split up into two elements of two aircraft each. Aircraft #1 is the flight lead and lead of the first element. Number two is his wingman. Number three is the lead of the second element, and #4 is his wingman. A flight is usually tasked with one goal, and having two elements means they can each deal with two different situations while leaving every pilot with a wingman. 43 44 CHAPTER 4. FORMATION FLYING Formation taxi It may seem odd that there is a chapter dedicated to taxiing in formation, since lining up jets along a taxiway is something we do every day, formation flight or not. But there is a saying among formation pilots: You are in formation from startup to shutdown. What this means is that you should have the “formation mentality” from before you step into your aircraft until after you’ve shut down your engines. What is the “formation mentality?” It’s thinking like a cohesive unit. If you are a flight lead, formation mentality means thinking for the group, taking responsibility for your wingmen, and guiding and controlling the flight. If you are a wingman, formation mentality means understanding that you are not a lone hotshot pilot, and taking all your cues from your flight lead. A good wingman doesn’t blink his eyes unless his flight lead does so first. So where does this come in for the taxi? Remember that a formation flight begins before entering the airplane. The team should be looking to the flight lead and enter their aircraft when he does. When in the cockpit, they should maintain eye contact with the lead and look for the cue to start their engines. In real life, hand signals are preferred over radio communication because a quiet formation helps the lead deal with radio communication. In , the cockpit canopy closes when the engine is started, so that will suffice as a cue to spool up your engines. Wingmen should not enter the taxiway until the lead has done so, and they should do so smoothly and evenly in the correct order. Keep a firm foot on your rudders and drive sharp like an airshow crowd is watching. It may seem silly to focus on this ballet on the ground, but these exercises sharpen your mind for the formation flight, where the techniques practiced here really do matter. Also, it makes you look good to the ground-pounders. Formation takeoffs A formation takeoff is very similar to a normal takeoff with only a few additions. Entire flights may take off in formation in fancy demonstration teams, but here in the Marines, formation takeoffs are generally limited to two aircraft at a time, a lead and his wingman. The formation takeoff begins with the flight lead at the hold-short line FORMATION TAKEOFFS 45 and his wingman behind him. After the lead requests and receives clearance for a formation takeoff, he takes the runway on the right side of the centerline, moving forward one airplane length. The wingman should follow behind and take the runway on the left side and to the rear of the flight lead. The lead may opt to take the left side of the runway to place the wingman downwind (in a crosswind takeoff) or to keep the sun out of the wingman’s eyes. After the aircraft are positioned on the runway, both pilots perform checks of their own aircraft and crosschecks of the other aircraft. The wingman will start by first performing his pre-takeoff check, then conducting a visual inspection of the lead’s aircraft to ensure a) the flaps are at 10°, and b) the nozzle position is correct for the type of takeoff to be performed. In real life a “thumbs-up” signal indicates that the wingman is ready to go, but in you’ll have to say that you’re ready over Vent. Since formation flights are all about brevity, you won’t be filling up airwaves by blathering on your full callsign like “Nightmare 103.” If you are the second ship of the flight, preface your call with “2.” So when you’re ready, simply say, “2’s ready.” When the lead hears that, and once he has finished his pre-takeoff checklist and his crosscheck, he will announce, “1’s ready, go buster” and then begin his takeoff. Lead should use slightly less than full power to allow wing to maintain his formation position during the takeoff roll. The wingman will smoothly apply full power and perform his takeoff alongside and behind lead. If the wingman should inadvertently blow past the lead during takeoff, lead should announce, “2, take lead” and the wingman should lead the takeoff roll. Once the flight is clear of hazards, lead should be returned. If you need to abort your takeoff, remember to fly the plane first. Begin braking, get control of your aircraft, and only then announce “aborting” over the radio (of course, prefacing it with your position number; e.g., “2, aborting”). If you are wing and you see your lead begin braking, continue with your takeoff and enter the traffic pattern to await further orders from your lead. This is the one time you should not do exactly as your flight lead does. If you are lead and you need to abort your entire section, call “abort, abort, abort.” Both lead and wingman should begin braking, with wingman careful not to pass lead, and both aircraft careful to remain on either side of the runway. 46 CHAPTER 4. FORMATION FLYING Formation departure Flight lead (“1”) and his wingman (“2”) will depart first. If it is a four-ship flight, the element lead (“3”) and his wingman (“4”) should receive formation takeoff clearance next. Meanwhile, the lead element should proceed to a prebriefed marshal point where the lead will enter a gentle turn and await the second element, or along a pre-briefed heading at a slow speed to await a rejoin from the second element. The second element’s lead should visually locate the lead element and maneuver his element into formation. Once that’s accomplished, the second element lead need only announce, “3’s saddled.” (Remember that formation communication is very brief.) With that communication, the flight lead should then proceed en route. Formation flight (station-keeping) It’s said there is only one thing a flight lead wants to hear from his wingman, and that’s his number. If you are a wingman, you can acknowledge your lead’s commands by simply stating your position: “2, go trail.” “2.” The flight lead will handle all communications for the flight; the only thing the wingman needs to say are acknowledgements like those above, unless of course he is having some kind of emergency, or notices enemy aircraft slipping into the six-o’clock position. All formation flights should be conducted at staggered altitudes, what is called step-down. The flight and section leads should be at the pre-briefed altitude, and their wingman should be a set number of meters below them. This distance should be pre-briefed, and should typically be between five and ten meters. Responsibilities of the wingman Though flying wing is the most technically challenging, the wingman has the least to worry about. A wingman need only concern himself with the following: FORMATION FLIGHT (STATION-KEEPING) 47 • Find and maintain your position relative to the lead. Professional formation pilots memorize a sight picture that, when accomplished, indicates they are in the correct formation position. For example, you may find that when in the correct #2 position in a finger four formation, the left wing Sidewinder rail lines up exactly with the engine air inlet. You should use this as a guide to maintaining formation position. • Be constantly applying corrective movements. If you are not nudging at least one of your controls (stick, pedals, throttle), you are slipping out of formation. You should be constantly moving your controls to maintain formation. Nudging your controls (even when you don’t need to) also helps prevent pilot-induced oscillation (PIO), the unintentional bobbing up and down that sometimes ruins formation flying. • Be master of your aircraft. You are still pilot-in-command of your aircraft, if not of the flight. You should be mindful of your aircraft and its position and be prepared to deal with any in-flight condition or emergency that might occur. Your flight lead does not see your dials, only you do, so it’s your job to watch them. • Never pass the lead. Inexperienced formation fliers will shoot past the lead occasionally, then retard the throttle and look back over their shoulder, trying to fall back into formation. This should never happen in an experienced formation flight. If you find yourself about to pass the lead, break away and exit formation. First turn, dive, or climb away from the formation flight in the safest possible direction, then announce, (e.g.) “2, breaking off to rejoin,” then await further instructions from lead while maintaining a safe distance. Lead should eventually help you regain sight (at which point you say, “2, visual”), and clear you to rejoin formation, at which point you can do so. • Be mindful of your fuel state. Lead will periodically initiate fuel checks but you are pilot-in-command of your aircraft. Regularly glance at your fuel gauge and announce to lead if you reach bingo fuel. • Be a “thinking” wingman. A good wingman does nothing unless his lead does it first, and a great wingman thinks ahead, predicting in 48 CHAPTER 4. FORMATION FLYING advance what his lead is likely to do. Don’t just fixate on your sight picture; keep up some situational awareness (SA) so you know about the state of the flight. You should know when your flight is getting close to the airport, and be prepared to transition to an echelon right formation. As few as possible of your lead’s commands should come as a surprise. • Don’t speak unless necessary. Lead needs clear comms to perform flight duties. • Clear lead’s six. Keep your eye out for enemy aircraft sneaking up on lead. Responsibilities of the flight lead The flight lead is responsible for both his aircraft and all the others of the flight. He performs all the normal duties of the flight: navigation, communication, planning, etc. He is also the tactical master, which we will get into in Air combat maneuvering, page 91. • Be mindful of and responsible for the flight. Keep occasional watch on your wingman to maintain a picture of what they are doing. Handle all the tasks of the flight Look for traffic, communicate over the radio, navigate the flight, watch for the enemy, etc. • Fly smoothly and predictably. Make small and smooth corrections. Hold pre-briefed airspeeds, altitudes, and headings. Never accept a parameter arbitrarily. • Announce your intentions. Inform your wingmen of the speeds, altitudes, and headings you assume. If you are planning to perform a maneuver such as a turn or climb, announce your intention and give your wingmen time to prepare. Say, (e.g.) “2 flow two five zero,” wait a second or two, then begin a turn to 250°. • Always use the right formation. Never choose a formation arbitrarily. Each formation has its own tactical advantages, and you should choose the correct formation for the tactical situation. FORMATION FLIGHT (STATION-KEEPING) 49 • Allow “sucked” wingmen the opportunity to rejoin formation. A wingman is sucked if he is falling behind or drifting away from the lead. (If he is inching too close, he is acute.) If the wingman’s aircraft cannot generate sufficient power to rejoin the formation, the lead should slow the formation flight down and allow the sucked wingman to drift back into position. • Make periodic fuel checks. To begin a fuel check, say “fuel check.” Each airplane will then check its fuel in sequence. An example: “Nightmares, fuel check.” “2, sixty percent.” “3, seventy percent.” “4, forty percent.” The flight lead should initiate fuel checks before each major phase of the flight (cruise, fence, descent, landing) and whenever else he deems necessary. Lead change If the lead wishes to give up flight leadership to his wingman, he should indicate over the radio, (e.g.) “2, take lead.” The wingman should acknowledge with, “2, taking lead” (one of the rare times that just “2” would not suffice, as a lead change is important and should be confirmed). Then, the wingman should perform the following steps: 1. Bank outward to establish lateral distance between himself and the lead, then stabilize. 2. Throttle back and pitch down to establish vertical distance between himself and the lead, then stabilize without increasing throttle. 3. Allow the airplane to sink behind the lead, then increase power and stabilize. 4. Initiate a cross-under maneuver. Gently bank and assume a position on the opposite side of the lead, then stabilize. 50 CHAPTER 4. FORMATION FLYING 5. Climb and accelerate to assume the lead’s position relative to the new number-two aircraft. 6. The moment the wingman moves ahead of flight lead, he should say, “2 has lead,” and commence the duties of the flight lead. To prevent confusion, the callsign numbers will be the same. (The flight lead is still called “2.”) In order to ensure that the flight is not leaderless at any point, the original flight lead will remain flight lead until the very moment that the wingman has passed in front of flight lead. Until that point, authority and responsibility for the flight remains with the original lead. Formation approaches and landings Airplanes are never landed in formation like a formation takeoff, but they can be landed in very quick succession to effect rapid recovery of a large flight without tying up an airport. You have learned the standard rectangular traffic pattern as part of your contact-stage flight training. Formation landings use a different pattern, known as the overhead break. The overhead break begins with the initial, which is an approach to the airport at an altitude above pattern altitude (typically about 100 meters above). The initial can be flown from any direction to the airport. During the initial the flight lead is visually scanning and analyzing the traffic pattern to prepare for his entry. He is also in contact with the tower (or the other traffic, for uncontrolled airports) to coordinate his entry. The initial is flown at cruise speed; no deceleration is made. The initial is always flown in the echelon right formation (for reasons that will become obvious to those paying attention in a bit). It is the responsibility of the flight lead to transition the flight to an echelon right formation during or before the initial. The initial completes when the lead takes the flight to a position directly above the runway on which the flight will be landing, 100 meters above pattern altitude (or at any other pre-briefed altitude), and heading in the downwind direction. At this point the flight begins the break. The break starts with the lead announcing, “1, kissing off.” After saying this he will commence a sharp 180° turn in a direction that takes him away FORMATION APPROACHES AND LANDINGS 51 from the rest of the flight, losing both airspeed and altitude during the turn. A correctly performed break will result in the aircraft on the downwind leg, at the correct position and altitude, at suitable pattern airspeed. While lead is performing his break, the number-two aircraft exits the “formation scan” and begins a quick traffic scan, preparing for his break. After three seconds (or five seconds in reduced visibility or nighttime), the wingman will say, “2, kissing off” and begin his own break, identical to that of the lead’s. Number three and number four follow in sequence, the end result being the four aircraft sequenced into the flow of traffic in the correct order. Figure 4.1: Four-ship overhead break pattern entry. At night time or in conditions of reduced visibility, the time between breaks is increased. Typically in these scenarios, five seconds is given between each flight member’s break. Once you have completed your break and are established on the downwind, perform your pre-landing checks and prepare to land. The flight lead should land either to the left or the right of the centerline, and each aircraft thereafter should alternate which side of the runway to land on. This helps avoid pileups if one aircraft suffers a problem on landing. After landing, the flight lead should taxi past the hold-short line and give sufficient room for the rest of the flight to do the same. Once the flight is on the ground and off the runway, they should formationtaxi to their parking spot. 52 CHAPTER 4. FORMATION FLYING Formation emergencies The first rule of formation emergencies is that the bleeder is the leader. This means that if you have an emergency while in formation, you should request (and should be given) the lead position. If your emergency makes it impractical to continue formation flying (e.g., engine failure, massive fuel leak), exit the formation safely and deal with the emergency solo. If you have a less critical emergency (slow fuel leak, lots of damage, etc.), request lead. Lead changes in an emergency should be performed such that the “bleeder” has to do the least maneuvering. If the #2 aircraft is to the right of the leader, the easiest solution is to just make the right side the lead side. “1, 2 has heavy damage, request lead on the right.” “2, you have lead on the right.” “2 has lead on the right.” At this point the #1 aircraft only has to decelerate to be in the correct position for the new lead, and the #2 aircraft does no maneuvering. After the damaged aircraft has lead, the remaining aircraft should assume the chase position. This is an imprecise position, roughly well behind, below, and to the side of the leader. The best chase position accomplishes the following: • Allows the leader a wide berth. Don’t get in the way of the leader in case he needs to maneuver abruptly (or accidentally). Stay far enough way to avoid being a distraction to the leader. • Allows the wing a clear view of the path ahead. The wing should assist the leader by looking for traffic and keeping up situational awareness. Responsibilities of the lead “bleeder” The responsibilities of the lead during an emergency formation are as follows: • Fly the airplane. Keep the airplane under control at all times. • Address the problem. Plan a course of action to address the problem or get on the ground. FORMATION EMERGENCIES 53 • Delegate to the wingman. Your wingman is an asset that can help you in many ways: reading checklists, navigating, looking for traffic, communicating with personnel, etc. Save energy and prevent fatigue by delegating non-critical tasks to him. Responsibilities of the wingman There is only one responsibility for the wingman during an emergency, and it is as follows: • Shut up. A good wingman, in an emergency, will not speak unless spoken to. The “over-helpful” wingman that volunteers his help vocally will only serve to distract the lead. Each pilot in the unit is competent and can be trusted to manage the problem without you volunteering your help. Do not speak unless absolutely necessary for safety reasons. The best wingman flies a solid chase pattern, keeps an eye out for flight safety issues (clouds, traffic, the enemy) and ensures the lead is executing a smart game plan. If there’s a safety issue, speak up, but otherwise hang back, keep quiet, and give lead a chance to use his training to deal with the problem. Emergency formation landing Landing an emergency formation is done identically to that of a normal formation landing with only a few variations. A normal formation approach is used with a standard initial. The lead will begin his break when he is comfortable, but rather than waiting, the wingman will continue to maintain the chase position during the lead’s break, and will follow in that position for the turn to final. (If there is a second element, the second element will remain clear of the traffic pattern until lead and his wing are safely on the ground.) The wingman should be available during the approach to assist the lead with airspeeds, altitudes, etc. (but should not speak up unless spoken to). It is important to match the lead’s parameters as closely as is safe so you can provide a second pair of eyes to ensure the lead is not entering an unsafe situation (airspeed dropping, etc.). During short final, when the lead aircraft is comfortable that he will safely make it onto the runway, he can wave off the wingman, at which point the 54 CHAPTER 4. FORMATION FLYING wingman commences a go-around safely away from the lead’s glide slope. If the lead is too distracted to issue the wave-off order, you should wave off when reaching 100 meters AGL. During the wave-off, wing should keep an eye out for traffic and execute a good go-around procedure. He should then re-enter the standard traffic pattern and land at his discretion, along with the second element. Other procedures Lost-sight/instrument procedures A formation flight should never intentionally enter instrument meteorological conditions, weather where flight must be done on instruments without visual reference. If done so unintentionally, these procedures should be followed. If lead enters instrument conditions but wing can still maintain sight of lead, lead should: 1. Begin an instrument scan. 2. Fly straight and level. 3. Determine if a turn can be made to exit IMC in short time. If so, announce and then execute the turn using not more than 15° of bank. If not, clear wing to exit formation and then deal with the situation accordingly. If wing loses sight of lead within IMC, wing should: 1. Begin an instrument scan. 2. Announce “2 is blind.” 3. If straight and level, turn 30° away from lead. If in a turn, see below. 4. Stop any climb or descent. 5. Await further instructions from lead. OTHER PROCEDURES 55 Lead should determine if it is practical to exit IMC and regroup the formation, or otherwise cancel the formation and deal with the situation accordingly. If sight is lost during a formation turn, the outside aircraft (whether wing or lead) should roll wings level and continue straight, and the inside aircraft should continue the turn for another 30° of heading change, then roll wings level and continue straight. Blind procedures If the wingman should lose sight of the leader during visual conditions, he should immediately call, “2 is blind.” At this point the leader should attempt to regain visual contact with the wingman. If the leader sees the wingman, he should call out a clock position that the wingman can use to locate the leader. (“2, 1, I’m at your 2 o’clock.”) The wingman should not rejoin at this point, but announce when he has regained visual contact with the lead. (“2 visual.”) Wing should then wait for further instructions from the leader to begin the rejoin. If wing cannot regain visual contact with the lead, then lead should call, “1 blind” and each aircraft should do the following: Lead: Clear the area (ensure there is no traffic nearby), then climb 50 meters above the current altitude. Proceed to the pre-briefed marshal point (or provide a different marshal point) where the formation can be reestablished. Wing: Clear the area, then descend 50 meters below the current altitude. Proceed to the pre-briefed marshal point (or another point provided by the flight lead) and await instructions to rejoin formation. 56 CHAPTER 4. FORMATION FLYING Chapter 5 Air-to-Air Combat Basic fighter maneuvers A lesson in air-to-air combat begins with basic fighter maneuvers (BFM), where pilots learn the maneuvers they can perform to place their aircraft where they want it relative to their enemy. It’s important to understand that dogfighting is not a game of chess, where each pilot chooses maneuvers from a catalog and implements them. It is more fluid and organic; you are not thinking about what maneuvers to perform, you are thinking about the relationship between you and your opponent and how you can exploit it to your advantage. However, studying these maneuvers will help make you comfortable with operating your aircraft in a three-dimensional battle arena. To put it another way, pilots do not think about using these maneuvers when dogfighting; these maneuvers emerge naturally as pilots improvise to place themselves in a position to fire. Positional geometry There are three things a pilot must understand in order to interpret and describe the positional relationship between himself and his enemy. Angle-off is the difference in degrees between your heading and the bandit’s (fig. 5.1). This angle provides information about the relative fuselage alignment between the pilot’s jet and the bandit’s. For example, if the angleoff between you and a bandit were 0°, you would be on a parallel heading with the bandit, and the two fuselages would be aligned. If the angle-off were 90°, your fuselage would be perpendicular to the bandit’s. 57 58 CHAPTER 5. AIR-TO-AIR COMBAT Bandit Bandit Angle-off = 0° Angle-off = 90° 90° Figure 5.1: Angle-off. Angle-off is a measure of how much further a bandit has to go until he’s “saddled” in your six o-clock. If his angle-off is 0°, he’s dead on your six and you have a problem. If his angle-off is 90°, he’s got 90° of angles to close before he’s on your six. The goal in a turning fight is to “close angles” and reduce angle-off until you’re on your enemy’s six. Range is the distance between your jet and the bandit. Range is displayed on your overlay in meters, except in A.C.E. 2. Aspect is the number of degrees measured from the tail of a target to your aircraft. In other words, it’s the direction a target is facing relative to your jet. It does not depend on the direction you are facing. Note that the aspect stays the same regardless of which way your aircraft is heading (fig. 5.2). Aspect angle is important because it describes whether your opponent is capable of shooting you or not. If your target has an aspect angle of 0° (cold aspect), his nose is pointed directly away from you and he is not a threat. If his aspect is 180° (hot aspect), his nose is pointed directly at you and can shoot you. A target with an aspect between 0° and 90° (left or right) is said to be beaming. (“My target is beaming left.”) These targets are generally heading away from you and to a side. A target with an aspect angle between 0° and 90° is said to be flanking. These targets are generally heading towards you and to a side. Angle-off is a problem we try to solve in air combat (closing angles), but aspect is something to be aware of. You can’t change your enemy’s aspect — BASIC FIGHTER MANEUVERS 59 180° R 90° L 45° Right aspect 0° R 90° R 45° Right aspect Same aspect, different headings Figure 5.2: Aspect angle. if he’s pointed at you there’s not a lot you can do to force him to point away from you — but you need to know when your enemy is hot aspect because that’s when you start defensive maneuvers. On the other hand, angle-off is something you can have control over, and having control over it wins air battles. Attack geometry Attack geometry describes the path that the offensive fighter takes as he converges on the bandit. When you start an attack on the bandit, there are three distinct paths or pursuit courses you can follow (fig. 5.3). Lag pursuit has your nose behind the bandit’s tail and is used primarily on the approach to the bandit. It’s used to increase range between you and the bandit, and stay on his tail if he maneuvers in different directions. What you cannot do in lag pursuit is fire guns or missiles — your nose is behind the enemy, so your bullets will never hit him. To fire guns, you must move up to a different pursuit, which means you must be able to out-turn your enemy. If your enemy can out-turn you, he can force you stay in lag pursuit, never allowing you get your shot off. Pure pursuit has your nose pointed directly at the enemy. Most inexperienced pilots fly pure pursuits because it feels natural to point the nose at the thing you want to blow up. Unfortunately, maintaining a pure pursuit course will lead to an overshoot (fig. 5.4), which we will get into later. 60 CHAPTER 5. AIR-TO-AIR COMBAT Lag Pure Lead Figure 5.3: The three pursuit courses. For this reason, the only time you should fly a pure pursuit course is to fire missiles at your enemy. rse it cou ursu re p u P Figure 5.4: The problem with pure pursuit. Lead pursuit has your nose leading the enemy and is as important as lag pursuit in combat maneuvering. A lead pursuit closes distance between you and the enemy (you “cut the corners” of the turn), and as any good rifleman knows, you must lead a moving target to hit it, so it’s used for gunshots. Knowing when to switch from lag to lead to make the kill is critical — too early and you will overshoot; too late and you delay the kill, giving him more time to find a weakness in your offense. The FPM on your HUD (see Heads-up display, page 12) can help you BASIC FIGHTER MANEUVERS 61 Lift Vector maintain the correct pursuit course. Treat it as your nose for the sake of discussion — if you want to lead your target, place the FPM ahead of it; to lag it, let the FPM slip behind. This only works if you and your target are turning in the same plane. The plane is the surface that you “draw a circle on” when you turn. If you and your attacker are in the same plane, you can stay on his tail and choose your pursuit type. If the two of you are in different planes (say, he’s maneuvering parallel to the horizon and you’re making vertical turns) you will only meet briefly as your turns intersect. Out-of-plane maneuvering complicates things for the attacker, making it harder to get guns shots. If your opponent is maneuvering out of plane, confounding your ability to follow him, you can still determine what pursuit type you are using with your lift vector. Your lift vector is an imaginary line extending upward from your aircraft perpendicular to the wings (fig. 5.5). It’s significant because it’s the direction in which the airplane can most rapidly change its heading. There’s no faster way to change heading in an aircraft than by pulling back on the stick. Li ft Ve c to r Figure 5.5: Lift vector. If an attacker pulls out of plane from a bandit, his pursuit course is then determined by where his lift vector is taking him. When the attacker pulls out of plane, he is, by definition, flying a lag pursuit. As he pulls back into the bandit, he may be flying lag, pure, or lead pursuit, depending on the fight’s geometry. In figure 5.6 we see an attacker pull out-of-plane to change the attack geometry of the fight. When the attacker first rolls to make the out-ofplane maneuver (position A), he is in lag pursuit. He continues to be in lag pursuit as he remains out of plane in position B. At position C, the top of the maneuver, he places his lift vector on the opponent and initiates a pull back down into the defender. Since his lift vector is directly on the opponent, 62 CHAPTER 5. AIR-TO-AIR COMBAT he is flying a pure pursuit. In position D he is lining up for the kill, back in plane and with his nose on the enemy: a pure pursuit. C B B A A D D C Figure 5.6: Out-of-plane maneuvering and pursuit types. Where to position the nose is very important when a pilot attacks an enemy. The use of attack geometry will be explained later in detail, and we will talk in specific terms about where to place the jet in relationship to the bandit. For now, just make sure you understand how to interpret and describe your relationship to your opponent and the geometry of your pursuit. Offensive BFM The ultimate goal of offensive BFM is to kill the bandit in the minimum amount of time. In order to accomplish this goal, the fighter pilot must understand basic offensive maneuvering. It is helpful to think of offensive BFM as a series of fluid rolls, turns, and accelerations. Some of the maneuvers in offensive BFM have names, but this is not an airshow with a routine. The modern day fighter pilot thinks in terms of driving his jet into the control position from an offensive setup, rather than executing a series of moves and counters like a game of chess. It may seem obvious, but the primary reason that you need offensive BFM techniques is to counter a bandit’s turn. When you are behind a bandit who is flying straight and level, it’s a simple matter to control your airspeed with the throttle and fly behind him. When the bandit turns, however, things change dramatically. A turning bandit will immediately create BFM problems. BASIC FIGHTER MANEUVERS 63 In order to stay in weapons parameters and in control of the bandit, you must stay at his 6-o’clock. To do this, you must maintain control of angleoff, range, and aspect. Figure 5.7 shows how a bandit’s turn will change the angular relationship between the offensive and defensive fighter. To control the “angles” and stay at his six, the offensive fighter must also turn his jet. Figure 5.8 shows why an immediate turn by the offensive fighter will not work. If the offensive fighter goes into a turn to match the defensive fighter, he will just end up right in the enemy’s gunsights, because the centers of the two turn circles are offset. Figure 5.7: Aspect and angle-off problems created by a bandit’s turn. Figure 5.8: The problem with an immediate BFM turn. Driving straight will obviously not work either — a turn of some sort is the solution to these BFM problems of angle-off, aspect, and range caused 64 CHAPTER 5. AIR-TO-AIR COMBAT by the bandit’s defensive turn. The problem is two-fold: how to turn and when to turn. Let’s first look at the mechanics of turns. BFM has a lot to do with turns. It is important to understand several concepts about turns in order to be successful at BFM. These include concepts of energy, turn radius, turn rate, corner velocity, and vertical turns. When you turn a jet, you feel an additional force pushing you in your seat, called g-force. The more g in your turn, the faster your nose goes around the turn. Understanding the implications of g-forces is an important part of BFM. Energy is also an integral part of BFM. Fighters have two kinds of energy: kinetic and potential. Kinetic energy is simply the speed your jet is traveling. Potential energy is “stored” energy that can be converted into airspeed. Aircraft store potential energy as altitude: If you are at high altitude, you can always dive down and trade that altitude for more airspeed, so you have high potential energy. Remember that if you have altitude, you can always trade it for speed, and if you have speed, you can always trade it for altitude, storing it away as potential energy. You can also spend your energy on nose position. Any time you maneuver or turn a fighter, it “costs” energy. Unlike climbing and accelerating, when you turn a jet at high g, you lose that energy for good. That’s the bad news. The good news is that your opponent is also spending energy to turn and defend himself. The other good news is you’re not dogfighting in gliders: You have a very powerful jet engine that can create additional energy for you to spend on airspeed, altitude, or turning. The two most important characteristics of turns are radius and rate. Turn radius is simply a measure of how tight your jet is turning: If your jet could paint a circle on the ground as it turns, the radius of that circle (the distance from the edge to the center) is the turn radius. If you happen to remember some high school physics, you’ll know that turn radius grows exponentially with velocity. What this means is that if you double your velocity, your turn radius will increase by four times. Turn radius is important, but only as a stepping-stone to understanding turn rate. Turn rate is how fast your airplane moves around that circle you’re drawing in the sky (think revolutions per minute). To put it in terms more applicable to dogfighting, turn rate is how fast you can drag your nose across the horizon to get it on your enemy. As you will see later, it’s rate, not radius, that decides battles. BASIC FIGHTER MANEUVERS 65 Turn rate increases with increasing g. The harder you pull, the faster you can rate your nose around the sky. However, you can only increase g to a certain point — either you will black out or your wings will fall off. If you’re pulling at maximum g, further increasing velocity will only serve to decrease your turn rate (since your radius will go up). However, if you slow down too much, you will no longer be able to pull maximum g, and your turn rate will go down again. Your wings need more air to generate more lift and more g, so slowing down too much won’t work. What I’m getting at here is there’s a “sweet spot” — not so fast that your turn radius grows, and not so slow that you can’t pull at maximum g. Every aircraft has an optimum speed for maximizing turn rate, called the corner speed. In the Harrier, it’s about 420 KPH. If you fly this speed and pull as many gs as you and the airplane can manage, you can know for sure you are rating your nose around as fast as you possibly can. As I said before, pulling too much g will result in damage to your aircraft, but before that happens, you will succumb to gravity-induced loss of consciousness (GLOC). As you pull more g, your heart cannot pump as much blood to your brain and eyes. This results in tunnel vision which narrows as g increases, restricting your field of view. Eventually, you will pass out due to lack of oxygen to your brain. While GLOCed, you will be unable to control your jet. Assuming your jet doesn’t hit the earth during GLOC, you will eventually regain consciousness. GLOC will not occur in unless you are turning with at least 500 KPH of airspeed. As this is well above corner speed, turning at corner speed assures you that (among its other advantages) you will never GLOC. You can manage your airspeed in a fight with four tools: your throttle, drag devices such as flaps and airbrakes, your pitch attitude (how high or low you are pointing; in other words, how you are using the force of gravity), and g-forces (as increasing gs bleeds off airspeed). No modern fighter can remain level with the horizon and remain at corner velocity while pulling maximum g. Your high-g turn will bleed off speed and your turn rate will start to decrease. You’ll need to use the tools above to manage your airspeed. It’s also very important to start your fight at or near corner speed, because your first turn is almost always the most important. Fighter pilots should think in terms of both turn rate and radius. A fighter with a superior rate can outmaneuver a fighter with a slower rate but a tighter radius. Fighter pilots have a simple, two-word saying: Rate kills. The ability to rate your nose is the primary means of employing weapons 66 CHAPTER 5. AIR-TO-AIR COMBAT (guns and missiles). A bandit may be able to turn on a quarter, but if you can rate your nose around faster and get him in your gun sights first, the fight is over. Remember that the goal is to point your gun at the enemy, not put on an airshow at his 12-o’clock. In battle pilots must padlock on an enemy, stare at him to make sure they don’t lose visual contact. You move your head and eyes to track the bandit at all times. Lose sight, lose fight. You may choose to glance briefly at your six or at your instruments to keep up SA, but if you look back and see only sky, you’re as good as dead. Many pilots fly as if the enemy is their only point of reference. All turns, climbs, maneuvers, etc. are judged in terms of the enemy. He is the horizon, so to speak, the center of the world about which you rotate. This is a good strategy that helps free you from thinking about the battle two-dimensionally, but it suffers one major flaw: Gravity is a tool to be used for or against you. If you pull your nose level across the horizon in a boring horizontal plane dogfight, it is neither working for nor against you. If, however, you switch things up and pull the nose above or below the horizon, gravity becomes a player. The force of g on your aircraft during one of these non-horizontal turns is now made up of two components: the normal force of gravity, pulling you earthward, and radial g. Radial g is the centripetal force that acts like gravity in any turn. If you pull a 5-g turn level on the horizon, you will feel five gs pushing you into your seat. If, however, you pull a constant 5-g vertical turn, your aircraft must generate different amounts of g in each part of the turn. At the top of the turn, upside down, your aircraft must be pulling six gs in order for you to feel five, as one of those gs simply cancels out the downward force of gravity. Likewise, at the bottom of the turn, right-side up, your airplane need only pull four gs, as gravity is providing the extra g for you (fig. 5.9). Radial g does not describe what you “feel” in the cockpit, since you feel a constant 5-g pull throughout the maneuver. It describes what the airplane is pulling, and more importantly: It describes the g forces that matter when it comes to turn rate. Think about it: At the top of that arc, the airplane is pulling six radial gs, yet you’re only feeling five. You essentially get an extra g “for free” that you can use to tighten up the turn and increase turn rate. Thus, the top of a vertical loop is where you can rate your nose the fastest — assuming you still have enough energy to reach corner speed when you get there. BASIC FIGHTER MANEUVERS 67 6.0 GR 5.7 GR 5.7 GR 5.0 GR 4.3 GR 4.0 GR 4.0 GR Figure 5.9: Radial g. Each turning plane is differently affected by the force of gravity, which gives each plane its own shape. If you were to imagine the circles (or ellipses) generated by a turn in each plane, stacked together, it would form an egg shape, what’s called the “tactical egg” (fig. 5.10). The shell of the egg is a max-rate turn in a certain plane. Figure 5.10: The tactical egg. When a bandit turns his jet, he creates BFM problems for you. To solve these problems, you need to turn your jet. In order to turn your jet and solve these problems, you need turning room. Turning room is the offset or distance from the bandit. There are three basic types of turning room: lateral 68 CHAPTER 5. AIR-TO-AIR COMBAT (or horizontal) turning room, vertical turning room, and a combination of these two. In order to understand the concept of turning room, you must first understand turn circles. Turn circles are simply the paths that a fighter cuts through the sky when it turns. The concept of turn circles is critical because, in order to turn and solve BFM problems created by the bandit, you must first drive your jet inside the bandit’s turn circle (fig. 5.11). Inside turn circle Outside turn circle Figure 5.11: Inside and outside the turn circle. Here’s how turn circles and turning room are related: A bandit turns his jet to defend against your attack. You need to get displacement from the bandit in the horizontal or vertical, so you can stay behind him, turn with him, and not overshoot. If you try to get displacement while you are still outside his turn circle, the bandit can get around the turn and meet you nearly head-on. This means the bandit can turn and take away your turning room. Look at figure 5.12 — at the first position we have the bandit on a right 45° aspect. He begins a turn to the right, and we’re outside his turn circle. We also begin a turn to the right in an attempt to gain lateral displacement. He is able to completely reverse direction and meet us head on, all before we ever even join the turning fight. He has denied us our turning room. This situation is even worse in the vertical. In figure 5.13 we are performing a classic maneuver, the high yo-yo. The high yo-yo is great for getting displacement from your enemy without sacrificing your precious energy, but it’s a lethal mistake when performed outside the enemy’s turning circle. We change planes and gain altitude, then reverse to attack on the BASIC FIGHTER MANEUVERS 69 Figure 5.12: A bandit denying his opponent turning room. descent. Meanwhile the enemy, who has his entire turn circle at his disposal, is able to reverse direction and point his nose at us without passing us. Now we’re at a huge disadvantage: We’re gaining speed so our turn rate is going to be lower; he’s at the top of his climb with his best turn rate at his disposal. Figure 5.13: The problem with yielding turning room in the vertical plane. Any maneuvering you do outside the bandit’s turn circle will only delay you from getting inside his turn circle. You must be inside his turn circle in order to turn and solve BFM problems. 70 CHAPTER 5. AIR-TO-AIR COMBAT The whole reason you are burning jet fuel is simple: to get into weapons parameters and take the shot. The problem is that you will only be in missile parameters for very short periods of time, usually during the merge — missiles can’t deal with the high rates of a turning fight, and will miss their targets. If you both survive the merge, the last step of a good offensive BFM will always be a guns kill. So the fight is on, and the bandit turns. The first question you need to answer is, “am I inside our outside his turn circle?” To know the answer, watch the bandit’s turn, and more specifically — watch his nose. If the bandit’s turn rate is revealing more and more of his nose, such that eventually he will be pointed at you, you are outside his turn circle. If you can turn with him before he gets his nose around and pointed at you, you’re on the inside and ready to fight. If you are outside your opponent’s turn circle at the start of the fight, you are not in an offensive BFM fight. You are in a head on BFM fight and should be reading a different section. (Not that you should be reading this while dogfighting…) Once your opponent starts his turn, he starts creating BFM problems for you. Assuming you’re inside his circle, you need to solve them with your own turn. Don’t turn to early (remember figure 5.8?) — remember that the best pursuit to use when chasing a bandit is a lag pursuit. The best way to begin a lag pursuit is to fly to where your enemy was when he started his turn. This is your entry window and where you should start your turn. It gets you behind the enemy and sets you up for a lag pursuit (which, as you remember, is the best pursuit for preparing for the kill). In figure 5.14, the friendly pilot drove to the entry window and began a lag pursuit. This gave him horizontal turning room that his enemy can’t take away. You will have to estimate where the bandit was when he started his turn, in order to guess your entry window. You’re usually ready to start your turn when the bandit is 30° off your nose. You want to be at corner velocity when you reach your entry window. Too fast or too slow and you won’t be able to rate your nose as fast as your opponent, and you’ll be stuck in lag pursuit, unable to take a shot. Once both of you are established in the turn, start pulling for all you’re worth. Hold corner velocity and pull as many gs as your Harrier will allow. As you come around the corner, keep your nose in lag. If you see your nose drifting forward towards pure pursuit, ease up on the g a bit. You want to BASIC FIGHTER MANEUVERS 71 Entry window Figure 5.14: Entry window for the first BFM turn. wait for the right moment to take the kill. Close distance, get within a few hundred meters of your enemy, and then switch to lead pursuit and take the shot. When you’ve switched to lead pursuit for your guns shot, your throttle controls your overtake. If you’re in close with the bandit, with your angle-off less than 45° and your nose in lead, the position of your throttle controls your closure. Use it to match your target’s speed once you’re “saddled in for the kill.” In most cases, this will require constant throttle adjustments to prevent an overshoot. In addition to banging your throttle against both stops, you can maneuver out-of-plane to control your airspeed. If a throttle reduction and speed brakes aren’t slowing you down fast enough, roll out to a different plane of motion and pull. Hold this lag pursuit for a few seconds, then ease off the g and watch your enemy. When he starts to move forward on your canopy, pull back into him. Pull your lift vector out in front of him (a lead pursuit) as you pull down. You will have performed the high-speed yo-yo (fig. 5.15), temporarily trading speed for altitude to increase range and prevent the overshoot. In order to take a successful tracking guns shot, you must meet all of the following conditions: • You must be in range. The Harrier’s cannon is not normally effective outside of 500 meters, and even outside of 200 meters is very difficult to aim perfectly. 72 CHAPTER 5. AIR-TO-AIR COMBAT Figure 5.15: The high-speed yo-yo. • You must be in lead pursuit. Every rifleman knows you must lead a moving target to hit it; the same is true in the air. For most gunshots, bullet time-of-flight is one-half to 1.5 seconds. If you fire directly at the aircraft, he will be far ahead of your bullets by the time they reach him. • You must be in plane. If you are maneuvering out-of-plane with your bandit, you will not be able to lead him — to lead him is to turn slightly ahead of him, which necessitates being in plane. Shots taken out-of-plane are snapshots, quick, one-off shots taken with the hope that some lucky bullet will find its mark. The overlay has a helpful feature to assist you in properly leading your shots: If you have your target acquired, the TD box will change to the “locked” symbol (box plus circle) when you are properly leading (review figure 1.18). You may have to lead or lag a bit to “sniff out” the locked symbol, but once you got it, you know you’ve got the proper amount of lead. Light ’em up. Your Harrier’s GAU-12 is boresighted for a very tight pattern. You can have either a highly concentrated burst that completely misses the target or a very lethal burst that vaporizes it. It just depends on the quality of your aim. Air-to-air situations are dynamic, and targets under attack will normally jink violently to stay alive. A jink is a short, random, and unpredictable out-ofplane turn. It’s the last defense against a guns kill. Targets under fire will BASIC FIGHTER MANEUVERS 73 jink in every direction, making it difficult to track them perfectly. The only way to overcome this problem is to strive for an inaccurate hit. You can do this by opening fire while tracking the gun cross across an area of the sky ahead of the bandit, such that the bullets land in multiple spots around him, anywhere the enemy might jink. Rather than aiming directly at him only to have him jink out of the way of your stream of lead, he will jink directly into it (if luck is on your side). Defensive BFM The sad secret of dogfighting is this: If you fly the perfect defensive BFM, and your opponent flies the perfect offensive BFM, you’re still going to die. There is no defensive strategy that can get you on the offensive. The best you can do in flying defensively is to prolong your death. The trick is, if you prolong it enough, eventually your enemy will make a mistake. Once he does, you have a chance to capitalize on it and turn the tables. Defensive BFM is characterized by difficult, high-g combat, flown while looking out the back of the jet to keep eyes on the enemy. Since most pilots don’t do their best creative thinking while looking over their shoulder under high gs, it’s best to have a game plan in mind before discovering a bandit at your six. The fundamentals of defensive BFM are simple: Create BFM problems for the bandit, and when he maneuvers, try to counter to buy time and survive a little longer. The longer you live, the more likely he’ll make a mistake you can exploit. If he doesn’t make a mistake, he will drive into gun parameters, and it’s time to use your guns defense. The first step to a successful defensive BFM is detecting that you are, or are about to be, under attack. The vast, vast majority of air-to-air kills had no idea what hit them. In you have your radar and your eyes, and if you use those to detect the enemy before he opens fire, you have secured your greatest chance of surviving the battle. Whether or not you see your attacker, you must adhere to a fundamental rule of air combat: Fight the most immediate threat. This will help with confusing situations where you do not have the complete tactical picture. Fight the threat that is in the best position to kill you. If there’s an enemy at your six and he fires a missile, the enemy is no longer the biggest threat in the arena. The missile is now the primary threat, so you (and must fight the missile. And there is no threat warning system in 74 CHAPTER 5. AIR-TO-AIR COMBAT only a very basic one in A.C.E. 2), so the only way you’ll know if there’s a missile is if you see it — yet another good reason to keep your eyes on your enemy. In vanilla (no A.C.E. 2) there are no chaff or flares, so your defense against the missile is terrain. If you can put a tree or a mountain or anything between you and that missile before it reaches you, you can defeat the missile. Your other option is to create turning problems for the missile by putting it on your 3/9 line (the line going from your 3-o’clock to your 9-o’clock). This forces the missile to do the most turning to hit you, and may cause it to overextend and miss its target. It’s not likely, but it’s not like you have much else at your disposal. You can tell if a missile will miss you using the same techniques as traffic avoidance taught earlier: If you see the missile moving across your field of view, it’s going to miss you. If it’s remaining stationary against your cockpit glass, you’ve got a problem. The best defense against missiles in is to simply never let them be fired. If you see your enemy first, you can have first-missile advantage, and you can blow it out of the sky before it gets one off the rail. Barring that, the other good strategy is to pounce on your opponents inside guns range. Stay low and mask yourself with terrain, and by the time the enemy sees you it will be too late for missiles. So let’s say there’s no missile to fight — you can fight the bandit now. You are still defensive, however, so you must be creating BFM problems for him. The defensive turn should be the quickest, tightest turn you can make. There are obvious BFM reasons for doing a high-g turn, but in multiplayer there are psychological reasons as well. An 8-g turn into a bandit tells him he’s going to have to fight you to kill you — dogfighting is grueling work, even for the attacker. A 4-g turn into him tells him that you are Little Bo Peep who has somehow managed to find and take off in an attack jet. As you know, you need to be at corner speed to make your quickest, tightest turn. As you start a defensive turn into the bandit, you should place your lift vector directly on him. This will give the bandit the most angle-off and aspect problems to solve. You will also deny him turning room by keeping your lift vector directly on his jet. It’s easy to see why turning with your lift vector off-bandit gives him turning room. In figure 5.16, the defender places his lift vector below the horizon and away from the bandit while doing his defensive turn. The attacker stays level and gains turning room above the defender without having to work for it. BASIC FIGHTER MANEUVERS 75 Turning room Figure 5.16: A defender yielding turning room to his attacker by maneuvering out-of-plane. Next you must determine if your defensive turn is working. If the bandit is being forced forward from the 6-o’clock position to your 3/9 line, then the turn is working. A bandit that starts outside your turn circle will be forced in front of your 3/9 line if you perform the turn correctly. In figure 5.17, the defender turns with his lift vector on the bandit and forces the bandit in front of his 3/9 line. Figure 5.17: A defensive turn outside the turning circle can force a head-on. Your turn is working if your enemy is being forced forward towards your nose. Keep in mind that he can still shoot you — if he puts his nose in 76 CHAPTER 5. AIR-TO-AIR COMBAT lead as you drive him forward with your defensive turn, be ready to start jinking. Always watch your bandit’s nose and look for the lead pursuit. If he sets up for the shot, defend by breaking out-of-plane. You can force him to overshoot, a tactically advantageous situation that will be discussed later. Your strategy should be the same inside and outside the turn circle. Pull your best defensive turn, then wait and see what he does. If the bandit starts to close your turn circle, he is a serious threat, and your best defensive turn may not force him forward. If the bandit is serious about staying in the fight and killing you, he must fly a lag pursuit to get to the entry window you created with your turn. If you see your bandit start inside your circle and begin his lag, you are in for the long turning fight. The best course of action is to continue your corner-speed turn and try to force him to remain in lag as long as possible. If you cannot out-turn him and he switches to lead for the kill, get ready for guns defense. The bandit may choose to initiate the fight in the vertical, gaining vertical turning room. This is a poor offensive strategy because it also affords you plenty of turning room, so you can take advantage of the situation. Keep the hard turn coming with your lift vector directly above him, and watch him. If he pulls back down for the lag position, he’s realized his mistake and fixed it, and you’re back to the grueling turning fight. If he keeps his nose high, you can neutralize his advantage. Figure 5.18 shows a defender turning the corner and taking the vertical to pass the bandit at high angles, with opportunity for a guns shot. Figure 5.18: Taking advantage of an attacker’s vertical BFM entry. When the position is neutralized, with both of you able to put your lift vector on your opponent, you will end up in a scissors (fig. 5.19). The scissors occurs when two fighters are line-abreast with neither holding an angles or energy advantage. They both pull for each other’s 6-o’clock position and as they pass, roll around and pull again. If they unload (temporarily stop BASIC FIGHTER MANEUVERS 77 pulling) to make the reversal, it’s a flat scissors. If they keep the g on the jet throughout the maneuver, it’s a rolling scissors. In either case, the scissors is usually won by the fighter than can slow down most quickly. Figure 5.19: The flat scissors. Now, let’s talk about overshoots. An overshoot occurs when the enemy misjudges his speed and crosses your flight path. There are two types of overshoots, the flight path ovrshoot and the 3/9 line overshoot. A 3/9 line overshoot is always tactically significant, while a flight path overshoot may or may not be. Figure 5.20 shows a 3/9 line overshoot (C) and two flight path overshoots (A and B). Aircraft A slightly overshoots the friendly’s flight path; this is not tactically significant as attempting to exploit this advantage will most likely leave you vulnerable. Aircraft B, on the other hand, overshoots the friendly’s flight path with a wide enough range that he may end up line-abreast or out in front of the friendly if he tries to reverse. Aircraft C is obviously in big trouble because he has blundered past the friendly’s 3/9 line. All overshoots are not created equal. A B A C C B Figure 5.20: Two flight path overshoots and a 3/9 line overshoot. When you predict a bandit may overshoot, note the range, angle-off, and the line-of-sight rate of the bandit (how fast he is moving relative to your 78 CHAPTER 5. AIR-TO-AIR COMBAT cockpit glass). As a rule of thumb, the greater the range when he overshoots and the slower the line-of-sight rate, the less chance you have of forcing him out in front of your 3/9 line with a reversal. When a bandit overshoots, there are basically two ways to reverse your turn and take advantage of it. If you see the bandit is going to overshoot with a high line-of-sight rate, you should perform an unloaded reversal. Release the g (stop pulling), roll the aircraft to position your lift vector directly on the bandit, and resume pulling maximum g directly at him. You should only use this reversal when you are sure the bandit will overshoot. This reversal does not “force” the bandit out in front of you; it gets the nose on the bandit quickly when he does overshoot. The other type of reversal, a loaded reversal, should be used with caution. To execute a loaded reversal, keep the gs on the jet as you roll toward the bandit. You use this reversal to “force” a bandit that is about to overshoot into the overshoot (fig. 5.21). Figure 5.21: A loaded reversal to force an overshoot. The reason for caution is: If you execute the loaded reversal and the bandit doesn’t overshoot, you now have a bad guy in your chili at close range, and you lost all the maneuvering airspeed you had. Look at figure 5.21: A loaded reversal essentially “stops your aircraft in the sky” so your partner can overshoot, and if it doesn’t work, you’re in trouble. For this reason, let’s go over a the overshoot rule of thumb: BASIC FIGHTER MANEUVERS 79 When in doubt about a bandit’s overshoot, don’t reverse. It’s best to reverse when a bandit is overshooting your flight path close in with a high line-of-sight rate. If he’s further out, it’s best not to reverse. The bandit has too much room to correct his overshoot and maintain a 3/9 advantage on you. So you’ve flown the perfect defense, and your enemy has flown the perfect offense. You know what this means, right? It means he’s lining up for the guns kill. (Ain’t it a shame?) There are two types of gun shots: The high line-of-sight rate snapshot and the stabilized tracking shot. When a bandit is closing with a high line-of-sight rate on your jet with his nose in lead, think snapshot. Snapshots are “luck shots” that are not usually the result of perfect offensive BFM, but they can still kill you. To defend against a snapshot, break out of plane. The only tough part is judging when to make your move. It is better to be too soon rather than too late. If you go early, the bandit can correct, but you can always jink out of plane again. If you jink too late, you’re going to be kissing bullets. Defending against tracking shots is harder because the bandit is not passing quickly through your plane as he does in a snapshot. In a tracking shot, the bandit is in a stable position on your six holding his nose in the proper alignment for the shot. He will take multiple bursts at you. For this reason, you will have to make multiple out-of-plane jinks to keep from getting shot. The key to guns defense is to make sudden jinks at least 70° out of plane. Keep your eyes on the bandit, and before he gets established in this new plane, jink again. The snake is a kind of jinking maneuver. When you see the bandit pulling his nose into lead, you unload rapidly, roll 180°, and reverse your turn. Hold this course and make the bandit pull his nose back into lead. If the bandit reduces power to stay behind you, he will lose turning rate and may end up getting stuck in lag. If his nose gets stuck in leg, keep turning with your lift vector above the horizon. If the bandit has the energy to move his nose back into lead, unload again and roll 180° to reverse your turn again. This time, reduce power to bait him into an overshoot. As the bandit repositions into lead pursuit, unload and roll 180° again and reduce power further. If you have lived this long, you should be forcing and overshoot. Any time you see that the bandit is going to overshoot, command full power, set your wings level, and pull maximum g. This will help him fly out in front of your 3/9 line. This isn’t a magic defense — there are no magic defenses. If your bandit 80 CHAPTER 5. AIR-TO-AIR COMBAT knows what he’s doing, he’ll still be able to gun you, snake or no snake. It might work against a “plumber” though, and every trick counts at this stage of the fight. Head-on BFM A head-on BFM fight requires more maneuvering than any other fight discussed thus far. As you approach an enemy head-on, you have two options: You can separate, or you can stay and fight. The biggest decision you must make when in the head-on pass is fight or flight: Whether to get anchored in a turning fight or bug out. If you enter a fight with a bandit from head-on, you will use up both energy and time. Energy is needed to maneuver, and time can be used against you by yet another bandit who may find your fight and get in on you for a shot. If you take too much time, you may be winning the fight you started with one bandit, but losing a fight with a second bandit you don’t see. There are plenty of reasons to blow through the bandit and separate. There are also plenty of times when you have to turn and fight. Before plunging into head-on BFM, you need to understand the concept of the escape window. The fighter pilot enters a fight to shoot down the enemy and survive long enough for the next fight. As you enter a fight, you must be aware of your position in regards to your escape window. The escape window represents your safe path out of the fight. The window expands and contracts based on both the geometry of the fight and your energy. If you jump a single bandit that doesn’t see you, your escape window is huge. You can leave the fight any time. If, however, the bandit picks up a tally on you and starts a defensive turn, the window starts to shrink. As it shrinks, the probability of getting out of the fight safely goes down. At some point in a tight turning fight, the window closes completely. Refer to figure 5.22: The left side shows an offensive BFM setup with the attacking fighter inside the bandit’s turn circle at low angle-off. In this engagement, the attacker’s escape window is closed. If you were to attempt an escape, you’d be in the situation shown on the right side: At low angle-off, inside the bandit’s turn circle, the attacker cannot get out of the fight. If he tries to leave, the bandit just reverses his turn and enjoys a prime shooting position. Likewise, the escape window for the enemy is definitely closed too. Don’t BASIC FIGHTER MANEUVERS 81 Figure 5.22: An offensive fight with no escape window. try to dive out of a fight with a closed window; you’ll only get hosed in the attempt. Let’s look at another offensive BFM setup (fig. 5.23). The attacker on the left diagram has an open escape window. If he takes that window, the situation on the right side develops. When you are outside the bandit’s turn circle, you can get your nose into lead pursuit early enough in the fight to pass the bandit with high angle-off and high speed. You also force the bandit to turn back 180° to put his nose on you after already turning 180° to meet you with high angles. Since the bandit is now slow, your escape window will be open throughout the engagement. If, however, the attacker chose to drive into lag pursuit and then turned aggressively to put his nose on the bandit, his escape window would close, as he is now well within the bandit’s turn circle. He has made the conscious choice to commit to this battle until someone’s jet explodes. Figure 5.24 shows what pilots call a “luffberry,” a gritty turning fight where no fighter can escape, and one of the two aircraft must be shot down before it ends. If you leave this fight, you die. The only way to exit is to win. Do not conclude from this lesson that the purpose of air combat is to fly around and keep your escape window open. If you really want to be safe, you should stay on the ground, holding hands with sweet Marie. If you are going 82 CHAPTER 5. AIR-TO-AIR COMBAT E A B D C C E } Out of range for missile shot D B A Figure 5.23: An offensive fight with an escape window. Figure 5.24: An luffberry. BASIC FIGHTER MANEUVERS 83 to strap on a Harrier, you will have to hang it out at some point in order to kill the enemy. As you enter the fight, however, you should be aware of what your escape window is doing, so you know when you have the option to disengage, and more importantly, when you don’t. So what affects your escape window? Assuming everyone in the fight can see the other guy (an assumption that is seldom correct), the following factors drive the position of your escape window: • Your range from the bandit. The greater the range, the more “open” the window. • Your energy relative to the bandit. The greater your energy, the more “open” your escape window. • Your combined angle-off and aspect with the bandit. A head-on pass gives you the best chance for an open escape window. As you enter a head-on fight, your escape window is usually open. Think carefully before you turn and slam it shut. Another important component to a head-on pass is the lead turn. A lead turn is an attempt to decrease angle-off prior to passing the bandit’s 3/9 line. Lead turns can be used anywhere, but they are most important in head-on BFM. They are the most energy-efficient way to BFM. Stated more directly: If one fighter lead turns and the other fighter does not, the lead-turning fighter will win. As you approach a bandit head-on, watch his line-of-sight rate. In a headon approach, it will be relatively stationary in your canopy. As you get closer, the bandit will start to move aft on your canopy. There is a place in space and time, just as you pass the bandit, where your closure speed (the speed at which the two of you are coming together) will swap from high positive to high negative numbers. It is at this point that the bandit is starting to get behind you, and it is at this point that you start your lead turn. The best way to judge when to start the turn is to watch the bandit’s line-of-sight rate. When it starts to increase rapidly, begin your turn. This spot is usually around 30° off your nose. Figure 5.25 shows a friendly beginning his lead turn against a head-on attacker. Lead turns are usually done at maximum g. When you lead turn, you are closing your escape window and committing yourself to the fight. Lead turns can be initiated from all aspects and angles-off, but you need to 84 CHAPTER 5. AIR-TO-AIR COMBAT predict the flight path of the bandit and take care not to fly out in front of him while doing your turn. If you initiate your turn too soon, you’ll get a situation like figure 5.26. A B B A Figure 5.25: A proper lead turn. Figure 5.26: A lead turn begun too early. There is a situation where a lead turn can be used to dominate an enemy: The nose-high-to-nose-low pass. “Nose-high” and “nose-low” refer to the position of the aircraft’s nose relative to the horizon. When you are nose-high and passing a nose-low bandit, it’s time to do a big lead turn at maximum g. You will have the benefit of using the extra radial g in the vertical turn, and the bandit will be fighting gravity. Whether you blunder into this situation accidentally or cleverly maneuver to obtain it, you should be able to use a lead turn to gain an immediate 3/9 line advantage. In figure 5.27 the enemy is nose-high and uses his smaller turning radius to his advantage, with a lead turn that puts him right on our tail. The lead turn is such a potent maneuver you can bet it will be used against you as well. The best way to negate the effects of a bandit’s lead turn is with a lead turn of your own. If you and your identical twin are both BASIC FIGHTER MANEUVERS 85 B A B A Lead turn begun at A Figure 5.27: Nose-high lead turn against a nose-low adversary. flying identical Harriers and you each perform a lead turn into the other, you cancel each other’s turns out and enter a luffberry. If, however, you are in a Harrier and your adversary is in a Su-27 Flanker, and you both begin lead turns, you’re going to come out on the enemy’s six. Your Harrier can out-turn the Flanker. As you approach the bandit head-on, your first thought should be, “How can I get this over with quickly?” No one likes a prolonged dogfight. Shoot a missile if you can, and don’t forget your guns. In most head-ons, you will have to sacrifice a good BFM position to get your guns in position for the pass, so it’s not advisable to line up for a guns shot. If you’ve decided to separate and not engage, however, you have the option of the head-on guns pass. Consider that he might have also made the same decision, leading to a game of chicken and a high collision potential. But let’s say you’re committed to killing him, not separating, so you forgo the guns shot and prepare yourself for BFM turning. Your options are to turn level, to turn nose-low, and to go into the vertical. (You could do a few fancier things, like a pitch-back or a split-S, but if you see these types of moves after a head-on pass, it normally indicates your opponent is an airshow pilot who accidentally flew into a dogfight.) Before deciding which maneuver to execute, keep in mind this rule: Headon fights are never won, they are only lost. Head-on fights require a lot of maneuvering, so the odds are high that one of you will make a mistake and “lose.” The biggest mistake (and easiest) you can make during head-on BFM is to lose sight of the bandit. You can’t fight what you can’t see, so 86 CHAPTER 5. AIR-TO-AIR COMBAT take a quick second to make sure you remember where that ejection handle is. Some other common mistakes are insufficient g during the turn, poor airspeed control, bad lift vector control, and a failure to properly lead the turn. Now let’s talk about each of the entry options I listed below. The nose-low turn: The quickest way to get your nose around on the bandit is by initiating a lead turn slice into the bandit (fig. 5.28). Start an immediate 8-g lead turn into the bandit with your nose about 10° below the horizon when the line-of-sight rate starts to increase. By pulling around with your nose low, you gain the use of gravity, which will preserve your corner speed and increase your turn rate. Figure 5.28: Nose-low slice into the bandit after head-on. Your Harrier can out-turn most of the opponents you will meet in , so a big lead turn with a nose-low attitude will easily get you angles on the enemy with plenty of energy remaining for the next turn. The disadvantage of the slice is it places the bandit at your deep six and out of sight momentarily. This isn’t a huge disadvantage if you’re watching his track and know where to look for him out the other side of your ejection seat. He should be slightly above the horizon and approaching your 12-o’clock as you complete 180° of turn. The level turn: Another good option after the pass is the level turn. It doesn’t get your nose around as fast as the slice, but it gives you the advantage of maintaining visual contact with your enemy through the entire turn. You perform the level turn the same way as you do the slice, except you drag your nose straight across the horizon. Along with slowing down your turn rate, the level turn will slow your airspeed more than the slice BASIC FIGHTER MANEUVERS 87 does. Don’t forget to lead the turn when you execute this maneuver. The vertical: The remaining option is to pull straight up into the vertical (fig. 5.29). This is a special case move since the Harrier doesn’t perform as well in a vertical fight as it does in a turning fight. You may want to use the vertical if the sun is directly overhead and you want to use it to force your enemy to lose sight of you momentarily. (Note that this only works for human opponents.) You can usually tell when he loses sight because he begins doing turns and banks trying to find you again. His lift vector will probably not be pointing at you as he flails around looking for you. Figure 5.29: Vertical BFM entry after head-on pass. There is another advantage to forcing the vertical fight: You will have the widest part of the canopy to look through, so it’s easiest to maintain visual lock. The big disadvantage is your poor turn rate as you fight gravity on the pull-up. At the top, of course, you have gravity helping to tighten your turn rate, but by then the bandit will have used your slower turn to gain angles on you and will be in a good position for a missile shot. As a general rule, you probably don’t want to go into the vertical as your first move. If you do choose the vertical, though, you should start a wings-level pull 100 KPH above corner speed immediately after the pass. As you start your pull, you will bleed off speed like sweat off a pig. If you level your wings and pull pure vertical, you will gain huge vertical displacement from your enemy, as opposed to an oblique vertical pull (fig. 5.30). Once you get your pitch at 90°, rotate your lift vector using bank until it is pointing right at him (pirouetting, fig. 5.31). Once you have your lift vector on him, resume pulling. If he sees you, he will pull up into you. At this point you will be on the receiving end of the nose-high-to-nose-low lead 88 CHAPTER 5. AIR-TO-AIR COMBAT Pure vertical turn Oblique turn Figure 5.30: Oblique and pure vertical turns. turn. Counter by starting a lead turn of your own, then continue around in a level turn to put your lift vector on the bandit. Figure 5.31: A pirouette. The above strategy gives you a vertical entry to what becomes a horizontal turning fight. If, however, you want to force a continued vertical fight, turn straight up again instead and do not wait until you get past corner speed. When you have cruise speed and are passing the bandit, pull into the vertical. If you delay your pull, the bandit will gain angles on you. Once you get to the vertical, repeat the pirouette and pull. You know the tables are turning when the bandit no longer pulls his nose up into you. It’s a sign he is out of BASIC FIGHTER MANEUVERS 89 energy. You now own the turning room above the bandit and can use it to convert on him. Remember, if you are committed to going vertical, roll wings-level and make your initial pull straight up. Then roll to find the bandit and pull to him. Do not go into the oblique, or you will give the bandit turning room. Vietnam fighter pilots said, “you meet a better class of people in the vertical.” It requires skill, but if you can’t win the horizontal fight, the vertical can make you a lethal adversary. All of these options can result in either a one- or two-circle fight. If both fighters start a lead turn, the fight will go two-circle (fig. 5.33). If one of the fighters turns away, the fight goes one-circle (fig. 5.32). Figure 5.32: A one-circle fight. Keep in mind that both you and the bandit can force a one- or two-circle fight. A pilot should understand the characteristics of both of these fights. Most head-on passes result in two-circle fights, for a simple reason: Usually, fighters lead turns into each other to use the turning room available in an attempt to reduce angle-off. If you are offset from the bandit and turn away, you are not using the turning room available, and worse, you are letting him use it (fig. 5.34). Two-circle fights have another advantage for an aircraft with a high turn rate and an all-aspect heat missile like the Sidewinder: You can get your nose around fast enough to get a missile shot at the bandit. A one-circle fight is far too tight for a heater shot after the pass; in fact, that’s the principle reason for choosing a one-circle fight. If you are worried about kissing an 90 CHAPTER 5. AIR-TO-AIR COMBAT Figure 5.33: A two-circle fight. Turning room yielded Figure 5.34: The problem with turning away after the pass. AIR COMBAT MANEUVERING 91 enemy’s missile, you should deny him that opportunity by taking the fight one-circle. Once you have chosen which fight you want, don’t reverse it. If you wanted a two-circle fight but the bandit turns away from you, opting for the one-circle fight, just keep turning. Unloading to reverse your turn just gives him a bunch of angles to use against you. Air combat maneuvering Our next lesson is in air combat maneuvering (ACM), which is the study of how to employ teams of aircraft to gain tactical advantages in air combat. You know all about how to maneuver in a one-on-one situation, but what happens to all this great BFM when you have your buddy on your wing at the merge? Is he going to accurately predict every maneuver you’ll make? Probably not. That’s what ACM is all about. The objective of ACM is threefold: know how to maneuver as the supporting fighter, learn the roles of the engaged and supporting fighters in a visual fight, and develop enhanced situational awareness for the element. Communications The key to coordinating with your wingman is effective communication. There are two types of communications you will use in a fight: directive and descriptive. Each has its place in a fight. Directive calls are orders. There are times your buddy will see a threat you don’t, and vice versa. Things happen pretty quickly in a mach-0.8 jet with mach-3 missiles in the air. If you see a missile on your wingman, you want to call (for example) “break right” immediately, and save the “missile inbound at your 5-o’clock” for later. Directive calls are prefaced with the receiver’s call sign: “102, jink now.” Keep your eye on the receiver to make sure he’s doing as ordered; if not, retransmit your order. You can give directives in a battle regardless of rank. If you tell your squadron lead to “break right,” he should break right. Conversely, never think you’re too good to be told when to jink. Descriptive calls tell the flight what’s going on with you or your area. Most descriptive calls are informing your flight of new bandits in the area. 92 CHAPTER 5. AIR-TO-AIR COMBAT They are given in the bearing-range-altitude-aspect (BRAA) format. Example: “Nightmares, Frogfoots 2 o’clock, 3 klicks, high, hot.” That call tells you there are an unknown number of Su-25’s to your right and above you, heading straight for you, and you’ve got a matter of seconds before the merge. Sometimes you will find the word “continue” appended to a BRAA call. It simply means “what you’re doing right now is fine” — you use it if you notice your wingman’s current BFM happens to be appropriate for the new situation. Directive and descriptive calls can be combined: “101, break right [pause to ensure he does] bandit at your deep six, danger close.” Some of the BRAA data is left out of this call because it’s not necessary (you can assume a dangerous bandit at your six is pointing right at you, no need to say “hot”). More information, including the types of radio calls you will see and use in combat, can be found in Combat procedures: air-to-air, page 152. A complete list of brevity codes can be found in the included booklet. The Contract The contract between you and your wing is signed and paid in blood before you even step into the jet. The key here is to know exactly what your job is at any point in the fight. If lead is engaged with a bandit, you are not free to hunt for ground targets. You in fact are bound to assist him. Formation integrity and flight discipline are the keys to surviving the modern air fight. Formation integrity allows the flight to maneuver synergistically to defeat a bandit’s attack or prosecute the kill. The engaged fighter does his best BFM to kill the bandit while the supporting fighter maneuvers for the kill shot or supports the engaged fighter based on pre-briefed criteria. This is why it is key to have a flight lead/wingman relationship before the flight. Lead makes the tactical decisions before the fight starts, but he knows what the contract was before he took off. That means he knows what you’re going to do. Lead may have an air-to-ground (A/G) loadout and may have pre-briefed that if the flight is jumped, wing automatically volunteers to be the engaged fighter while lead supports. It all depends on the strategic situation of each battle. In offensive BFM against one bandit, there can be only one engaged fighter that the bandit is maneuvering against at a time. When defensive, the bandit picks who the engaged fighter is, and he can only pick one. You AIR COMBAT MANEUVERING 93 can’t effectively track two targets at a time, and you can’t maneuver your jet against two targets and be effective against both. The engaged fighter is the guy the bandit has chosen to maneuver against. You can try to bait him into choosing the fighter you want, but he has the ultimate choice. The engaged fighter has the following duties: • Show off his best BFM. The engaged fighter should use all his BFM training to fly offense when possible, and negate the enemy’s offense when not. He should strive to make the battle as short as possible. • Get out of the way when his wingman can shoot. He should clear the supporting fighter to engage if the supporting fighter is in a better position to shoot. This requires communication, as the engaged fighter cannot tally both the bandit and his wingman constantly. • Keep his buddy informed. He should be communicative while in combat so his buddy can assist him with tactical decision-making. The supporting fighter has multiple roles to play in a dogfight. You have to divide your attention between a lot of different duties while your wing is in the thick of it. The supporting fighter should: • Maintain as much visual as possible. The supporting fighter should not padlock like the engaged fighter, but should try to keep a good eye on where his wing and the enemy are, without sacrificing his situational awareness. • Maintain deconfliction. A mid-air collision is an excellent way to make your enemy very happy. You should be communicative of your position and work to deconflict your flight path with your wingman’s and the enemy’s. • Sanitize the area. While your wingman is padlocked, he’s going to lose SA. The supporting fighter should be scanning for new players in the battle. He should also be checking his own six periodically. • Stay clear of the fight, but stay available. A good supporting fighter both stays out of his wingman’s way (and lets him conduct the BFM), but also keeps a good entry window open in case he needs to dive in and join the furball. 94 CHAPTER 5. AIR-TO-AIR COMBAT • Employ weapons when he can safely. If by pure luck the bandit stumbles into your weapons engagement zone (WEZ) and your wingman is safely clear, by all means take the shot. This is not a situation you should be trying to set up (you have more important responsibilities above), but don’t deny yourself an opportunity to end the fight early if you can. Some battles may have more specific rules of engagement (ROEs) specified by the flight lead that may restrict you from employing ordnance as a supporting fighter. You should pre-brief these scenarios in advance. • Engage other bandits if they appear. No one flies alone; if your wingman gets sucked into a defensive fight, you can almost be sure there’s another one out there for you. Be communicative and keep your wingman informed; don’t just disappear off the face of the earth to chase some sweet Frogfoot tail. • Keep an eye out for escape windows and fuel states. Your wingman should be watching for his own escape windows but another pair of eyes doesn’t hurt. In addition, he may get so busy he forgets to watch his fuel state. If you are flying close to bingo, make sure he’s ready to leave when he needs to. The supporting fighter in many ways has a harder job than the engaged fighter. The only thing the engaged fighter needs to do is turn to save his life; the supporting fighter manages all other aspects of the battle. Note that there is no mention of “flight lead” in the previous discussion. When the battle’s on, who’s lead doesn’t matter as much as who’s engaged and who’s supporting. The engaged fighter gets first say as to how the battle proceeds because he’s in the thick of it. You can’t call your enemy over the radio and explain that you’re flight lead and therefore you should be the one to be engaged. If the bandit has the first move, he’ll get to choose whom to engage and you have to live with his choice. If, however, you’re lucky enough to have first tally, your element can pick who gets to engage. Normally, element lead will choose the man with better angles, though it may be based on other pre-briefed factors, like differing loadouts. As I just said, in a defensive fight, the bandit chooses his target. But if the fight is offensive, but the engaged fighter cannot convert his BFM to a kill, the element has the option of a positive exchange of role, where the AIR COMBAT MANEUVERING 95 engaged and supporting fighters switch jobs. The engaged fighter should call for the exchange when • he feels he can no longer achieve the kill in good time, • he loses sight of the bandit, • he cannot convert his energy state to a killing shot, or • the supporting fighter tells him he has a perfect shot. Be careful with that last bullet point: We all saw Top Gun, and Maverick always “had the shot.” You’re not Maverick. If you tell the engaged fighter you have the shot, you better be able to turn the bandit into smoke and flames the moment the engaged fighter rolls out of the turn. If the engaged fighter is lucky enough to have a skilled supporting fighter with him, he’ll know that the supporting fighter is keeping a window open for himself and can enter the fight on favorable terms when he’s needed. Over comms, you may hear something like this: “104 is engaged, bandit 2-o’clock, 2 miles, low.” Nightmare 104 is letting his buddy know where he managed to get into a fight. “103 has tally, visual, out east.” Nightmare 103 is letting 104 know that he sees the enemy (“tally”), he sees 104 (“visual”), and is maneuvering away from the battle (“out”) eastward to hang back and provide support. “104 is neutral.” 104 is letting 103 know he’s in a stagnated luffberry fight. “103 is committing, 15 seconds.” 103 is telling 104 he’s going to enter the fight in about 15 seconds. Roles have not switched yet — 104 hasn’t cleared 103 to take the engaged fighter role from him. “103 is in from the southeast, high, tally, visual.” 103 has entered the battle (“in”) above and to the southeast of the bandit, and can see both the enemy (“tally”) and 104 (“visual”). “104 is blind, continue.” 104 doesn’t see 103 (“blind”), but doesn’t want to give up his engaged fighter role yet. He tells 103 to keep maneuvering for the shot (“continue”) but remain in the supporting fighter role. “103 has the shot, 4-o’clock high, come-off left.” 103 has the target in his WEZ, coming in from 104’s back right and above (“4-o’clock high”) and wants 103 to break left and clear the area for his shot (“come-off left”). 96 CHAPTER 5. AIR-TO-AIR COMBAT (Usually “has the shot” is replaced with a pre-briefed code word in the real world; in this will probably not be the case.) “103, 104, continue.” 104’s telling 103, “stay in position for the kill but give me a chance to kill him first,” or in other words, “tough luck, this guy is mine.” “103 has the shot, 4-o’clock level, come-off left.” In other words, “let me at ’im!” “104 blind, off left, press.” Finally, 104 gives the go-ahead (“press”). 104 follows 103’s deconfliction instructions (“off left”) and reminds 103 that he doesn’t see 104 (“blind”). “103 is engaged.” The role switch is complete. 103 is now free to take the shot. “104 has visual, out north.” Free of padlocking the bandit, 104 can now keep eyes on 103 (“visual”) and is egressing the battle to the north to provide support (“out north”). “103, fox two.” 103 fires an AIM-9 Sidewinder. “103, splash.” The bandit is a smoking hole in the sky. “104, 103, rejoin, egress northwest.” The fight is over. Nightmare 103 tells 104 to rejoin him on his wing and head northwest away from the battle. Nightmare 103 is in command of the element. “103, 104, visual.” 103 sees 104 and is moving to rejoin formation. It should be clear how important clear, unambiguous communication is during a role-switch in offensive combat. Offensive ACM A great deal of offensive ACM is what the supporting fighter does as opposed to the engaged fighter. Naturally the engaged fighter is going to be BFMing for all he’s worth, so it’s the supporting fighter that has to work in concert to make the plan successful. As the saying goes, “no matter how many kills you got, if you come home without your wingman, you’ve lost.” It’s imperative that roles in the fight get established immediately. Flight lead should say his intentions and get the ball rolling right away. “101, engaged, nose, 3 miles.” Nightmare 101 spotted a target three miles dead ahead and has chosen to be the engaged fighter. Or, alternatively: “102, 101, cleared to engage, nose 3 miles, press.” Nightmare 101 tells 102 he is cleared to engage a target three miles ahead, and that he should be the engaged fighter (“press”). AIR COMBAT MANEUVERING 97 Now the engaged fighter needs to plan his merge and begin BFMing, while keeping the supporting fighter appraised of his tactical situation (offensive, neutral, defensive). The supporting fighter, however, has a lot of new responsibilities on his plate. He should blow through the merge and extend as quickly as possible, as it will help him sanitize the area right at the beginning of the fight. If you are the supporting fighter, never place yourself in a position where the bandit could get a shot off at you, even a snapshot. It’s more difficult than you might think to keep it this way. Some other areas to avoid as supporting fighter are directly above the fight, directly below the fight, or within missile WEZ of the enemy. Why? If you’re above or below the flight, you have to keep your attention on the fight and can’t sanitize and do all the other duties you need to. If you are within missile range, all the bandit has to do is lob a missile at you and force you to fight the missile. Your role as support fighter has effectively been negated. So, let’s say you’re in an offensive ACM situation: It’s you and your wingman, and you’re on an unsuspecting bandit’s six. You give him the engaged fighter role and you take support. Before you get off your shot, the bandit breaks and begins the BFM dance. What do you do now, as support? That depends on which direction the bandit breaks. If he breaks away from you, it’s easy. Just check off him a bit (turn away from him 30° or so), then begin a maximum-g turn back towards the fight. Your buddy will have started his lag pursuit turn by now and you’ll be away from the furball but in a good position to enter if you need to (fig. 5.35). If the bandit breaks towards you, you have three choices you should choose from depending on the situation and the plan. You can extend straight ahead, lag the fight, or pull the bracket. Extending straight ahead means aiming for the head-on pass. Maneuver to pass the bandit with very high aspect, then after the pass, extend until you reach a position of advantage (fig. 5.36). While your bandit is spending all his energy turning with your wingman, you’ve unloaded and are building knots during the extend, waiting to turn at the right moment. You’ll be turning in the opposite direction of the fight, though, making an entry challenging. Lagging the fight is more difficult but gives you different advantages. It’s easily countered and so should only be used on an unskilled opponent. Essentially you watch what your wingman does, and copy him, repeating his 98 CHAPTER 5. AIR-TO-AIR COMBAT 3 1 2 2 3 2 3 1 1 Figure 5.35: Offensive ACM after the bandit breaks away from the supporting fighter. Figure 5.36: Straight-ahead extension. AIR COMBAT MANEUVERING 99 turn starting from the same entry point behind him. Once you’re established in a “lag pursuit” of your wingman, you split plane the fight in the opposite direction. You’ll end up turning in the same direction as the fight (ready for a co-flow entry, discussed later), and you’ll clear your wing’s six visually as you turn. Resist the temptation to stay with the turn and “be a part of the fight.” Your job is to get on the outside and provide support. To bracket the fight, you perform the same maneuver as if the bandit had broken away from you. Check turn away from the fight, and reverse, but this time, you’ll also want to go vertical to get your separation. As the bandit’s nose rotates through you (you’ll see his apparent turn rate get a lot faster), you are on the outside and and ready to be support (fig. 5.37). You’ll be in a good place for an opportunity shot or a role exchange if necessary. You must add the vertical element to the check turn. If you roll away level, then as the bandit comes around the turn and puts his nose on you, you’ll be in-plane and he can take the shot. 3 1 2 2 3 3 2 1 1 Figure 5.37: Forming the bracket. Keep in mind that these breaks only cover the first turn of the fight. Whatever you do, remember that you are responsible for deconfliction (in other words, don’t run into your engaged fighter). The best place to put the fight is at your 10- or 2-o’clock, depending on the direction of the break. Keep your speed around corner and keep sight of the whole fight. You can do this by turning to keep the fight visual, 100 CHAPTER 5. AIR-TO-AIR COMBAT then leveling for a bit, and so on. Always keep your energy up (watch your airspeed!), and keep your eye on entry and exit routes so you’re ready if your wingman calls for you. As you make circles around the fight, remember to keep the area sanitized; stay frosty and scan for additional enemies. You want to be out of missile range of the fight horizontally and about 500 meters above or below the fight. This way you claim plenty of turning room for yourself should you need it and you have an ideal position to keep the battlefield sanitary. You should never let the bandit’s 3/9 line get behind you. This should be easy since he’s not turning for you, he’s worrying about your wingman. It could happen inadvertently without you noticing, however. If necessary, however, break turn into the fight to hold your advantageous entry position. Whether by desperation, confusion, or (in the case of the computer) quirky artificial intelligence, the bandit may occasionally abandon his pursuit of the engaged fighter and go after you. If you’re watching his nose you’ll know this well in advance; you’ll see him lagging you and preparing to lead his shot. This would be a very poor move on his part tactically, because you’ve kept your speed up and kept your turning room, giving you all the options in the world to pick your engagement. Begin BFMing to deny him his WEZ and let your wingman take the shot. Eventually as support fighter you will be called in to make the shot. Perhaps the engaged fighter can’t get better than neutral BFM, or worse, he’s hopelessly defensive. Time to enter the fight and take care of the source of his problems. There are two kinds of entries, a move in the vertical or a move outside the bandit’s turn circle. If you choose to enter from outside the turn circle, you will enter either with the flow of the flight (co-flow) or in the opposite direction of their turns (counter-flow). Vertical entries are easy; just point your lift vector at the bandit and pull yourself into him, then take the shot (once you’re cleared), or just be ready to switch roles. You’ll be coming down on him from the vertical with more energy than your enemy, so don’t squander your advantage. If you’re unfortunately below the furball when you enter, it’s more difficult since your buddy and his opponent are probably already turning each other down to the earth and that’s denying you turning room. Vertical entries are quick and must be timed accurately to work. If you choose a turn circle entry, you will have several options to make your co-planar entry. If you’re turning with the fight (co-flow), you will be AIR COMBAT MANEUVERING 101 able to keep the bandit ahead of your 3/9 line and be prepared to line up for the shot. If you’re making a counter-flow entry, the bandit will cross through your WEZ periodically, but it will be quick. In a co-flow entry you can use your energy advantage (you kept the energy advantage, right?) to get closure on the bandit and get him in your WEZ quickly. No matter the entry, stay in lag. The only reason to go to lead is to take the shot, and you’re not the engaged fighter yet. Wait until you’re cleared before you switch to lead. As you hunt for entries, remember to sanitize and check your six, all the way up to the moment you’re called in and cleared in. Be thinking about your WEZ and fight geometry, but let the engaged fighter have the fight up till he clears you in. Once cleared, convert your entry to an offensive BFM engagement as discussed earlier. A counter-flow entry is a lot like a two-circle BFM fight: You need a lot of energy to turn it into a kill. You also have a lot more shot opportunities as you and the bandit repeatedly cross paths; don’t waste them. Aside from being cleared to switch roles, the only other time you should be firing as supporting fighter should be to take opportunity shots. There are two times you are allowed to take the opportunity shot: if the engaged fighter requests it, or if his survival depends on it. Survival could mean either the engaged fighter has gone defensive and it’s a race against time, or it could mean the overall tactical situation just changed. (For example, four new bandits showed up, so you have to take this guy out now and get out before they arrive. In that case, staying clear and letting your wingman do his job is less important than getting the enemy blown up before his buddies arrive.) You need four things in order to take the opportunity shot: • You must have the bandit in your WEZ. • Your wingman must not be in the path of your missile or guns. • Your wingman is not so close to the bandit as to create a collision hazard after weapons impact. • You will not enter your wingman’s control zone (CZ) to shoot. The control zone is the space between his nose and the bandit’s tail; it’s airspace he has complete control over. 102 CHAPTER 5. AIR-TO-AIR COMBAT Remember, when deciding to take an opportunity shot, you have to make sure the engaged fighter is clear of your fire, and you have to make sure you’re cleared to take the shot. With the bandit in flames, the pilot with the highest SA should direct the egress. This is normally the supporting fighter but it could be the engaged fighter if the supporting fighter got the kill shot as an opportunity. Egress the area in the safest possible direction and start rebuilding your SA. Both pilots should regain visual of each other and the flight lead should redress the formation (paying attention to the possibility that his wing might have lost a lot of speed in the fight) and continue the egress with a healthy dose of check-six. If you need to leave the fight before the bandit dies (say, a fuel emergency or a higher priority tactical issue), the engaged fighter decides when to end the fight. He chooses his escape window, and the supporting fighter follows suit once the engaged fighter disengages. If your enemy is human, a lot of times he will bug out too (better to live and fight another day), but if he is computer-controlled or bloodthirsty he may pursue. The supporting fighter should present himself as easy prey, while the engaged fighter prepares for the opportunity shot. If the engaged fighter misses his shot, the bandit may engage the supporting fighter (forcing a role switch), and the BFMing may begin anew. It’s impossible to disengage a sufficiently determined bandit; you may have to simply kill him. Defensive ACM Now we’ll deal with the reverse situation: You and your wingman are in formation when one of you notices a bandit on your six. Noticing your enemy before he fires is the first and most important step, and an appropriate formation can help with that. (Obviously, if all your guys are in trail, all the responsibility falls to the one poor bloke in the back.) Each formation will have different areas of coverage for each pilot where he should keep his eyes. An appropriate visual scan will help prevent your formation from getting pounced from any direction. There are four things to think about in a defensive ACM situation: bandit detection, threat negation, flight integrity and mutual support, and weapons employment. When a flight is defensive the obvious concern is survival, negating the bandit’s initial attack. The flight should have pre-rehearsed contact drills that will be discussed next. These maneuvers are by nature AIR COMBAT MANEUVERING 103 defensive BFM turns. Once the initial attack is negated with these turns, the flight must then concern itself with either killing the bandit or separating. The engaged fighter must determine that he is engaged and begin defensive BFM. If separation and egress cannot be achieved, the bandit needs to be sandwiched and killed. Here is where role definition is critical: The bandit of course determines who is engaged and who is support, but if bullets start flying at your six and neither of you sees the enemy, it’s impossible to tell who’s targeted. The lead will have to act quickly and establish roles and tactics. Deconfliction is accomplished through practice: You know how these maneuvers work and you know what to do. Once the bandit is located, it’s time to split the element either laterally or vertically. Increase airspeed and perform either a break turn or hard turn into the bandit. Use a break turn if the bandit is inside your WEZ; otherwise use a hard turn to maintain your energy. If you’re flight lead and you’re unsure, call a break turn; it’s better to be safe than sorry and creates the most BFM problems for the bandit. The key here is to defend yourself and not give the bandit an easy shot on your wingman. Use your best BFM and know that your buddy is out there, but don’t count on him to save the day (he may be fighting a missile). The initial move in defensive ACM is the key to survival. These moves need to be part of the contract that both flight members know by heart — practice. The goal is to keep your cone of vulnerability (a.k.a. your tail) away from the bandit. The main principles are easy: • Use split-pane maneuvers; never maneuver in the same plane as your wingman. • The pilot who is engaged should simultaneously do his best break turn into the bandit and direct the flight to turn left or right. • The supporting fighter should perform the break turn as called, attempt to acquire tally and visual (enemy and friendly contact), and be ready to employ ordnance if an opportunity shot is available. Remember that by definition the engaged fighter is defensive, so you’re free to fire opportunity shots if the situation warrants. (Remember the rules of opportunity shots, however.) 104 CHAPTER 5. AIR-TO-AIR COMBAT Depending on where your bandit shows up, there are maneuvers you can use to maintain your two-ship advantage against him. These maneuvers depend on when and where you detect the bandit. There is no hard rule or formula (as in all of air combat) that tells you when to do what. These maneuvers should be practiced and used when the time is “right.” If a bandit shows up in your six and presses his initial attack against the newly crowned engaged fighter, the sandwich may become possible. This is almost always limited to those times when the bandit is unaware of the supporting fighter or simply not reacting to him. As the engaged fighter does his break turn, the supporter can delay a moment to let the bandit commit to his own turn, and then begin his turn. The engaged fighter pulls the bandit into his WEZ and the supporting fighter is placed outside the turn but ready to employ weapons with the element of surprise. The switch comes in two varieties, early and late. It’s available when the enemy is aware of both Harriers in your flight. Switching must be communicated as soon as possible so that roles can be established. Both switches accomplish the same thing; the only difference is the location of the bandit. If he’s in the engaged fighter’s turn circle, then it’s a late switch (fig. 5.39). Outside the turn circle, an early switch is possible (fig. 5.38). 2 2 2 1 1 1 Figure 5.38: The early switch. An early switch allows the engaged fighter to start a constant-rate turn AIR COMBAT MANEUVERING 105 3 2 2 2 1 1 3 3 1 Figure 5.39: The late switch. defense or an extension, depending on the bandit’s BFM. This allows him to back off that turn to preserve energy and keep a tally on the bandit all while keeping his tail rotated away from the bandit. All the while, the supporting fighter is maneuvering for an entry into the fight or the opportunity shot. A late switch gives the supporting fighter the chance for a high-aspect pass at the bandit and may even give the flight an opportunity to extend, again, depending on the bandit’s BFM. If the extension opportunity is there, the supporting fighter needs to communicate that fact to the engaged fighter so he can make a tactical decision. This decision will be based on the ordnance carried by the bandit — whether being chased down by a missile is a possibility. When the bandit’s intentions cannot clearly be judged, the same-side break and cross turn become options. The idea behind these maneuvers is to deny the bandit a shot, create BFM problems, force the bandit to pick a fighter, and maximize your offensive potential. The same-side break (fig. 5.40) is preferred if the bandit is outside your WEZ or outside your turn-circle. (“Your” means either you or your wingman.) Its advantages are: • Aircraft #1 maintains tally throughout the turn. 106 CHAPTER 5. AIR-TO-AIR COMBAT • The bandit must either pick one fighter or blow through. • He no longer enjoys the same offensive potential against both fighters. • Each fighter has isolated the threat on the same side of their aircraft. • There are no deconfliction issues. • The supporting fighter can keep rotating his nose back into the bandit while the engaged fighter does his BFM. Figure 5.40: The same-side break. There are disadvantages though: Airplane #2 may lose tally as the bandit gets pulled through his deep six, and the bandit has a snapshot opportunity at airplane #2 as he starts his turn. The cross turn (fig. 5.41) is not the best maneuver but is effective if the bandit is detected inside your turn circle where he can maximize his offensive capability on his fighter of choice. This maneuver has many disadvantages but can be used to “fluster” the bandit into committing himself to a turning engagement with one Harrier. Your flight’s abilities here are minimized, but if you have superior equipment or superior ROE, it can be used. The advantages are: • Each fighter maximizes the BFM problem for the bandit. • Neither fighter has his tail to the bandit. AIR COMBAT MANEUVERING Figure 5.41: The cross turn. 107 108 CHAPTER 5. AIR-TO-AIR COMBAT • Both fighters can easily maintain a tally during the turn. The drawbacks, however, are numerous: • The bandit isn’t forced to commit against either fighter; his commit decision can be delayed until he is deeper in the turn circle. • He can meet one fighter at high aspect. • Who is engaged/support is not clear until the bandit commits, which can be late in the fight. • If all three aircraft maneuver in the same plane, collision risk is high. • Mutual support is difficult to achieve after the maneuver is over. • Communication is more difficult because the bandit is on opposite sides of each aircraft. (“My right or your right?!”) All of these maneuvers assume the bandit was deep six to your flight at detection. If the bandit is asymmetric (fig. 5.42), the solutions remain the same, but the identification of who is engaged is easier to realize; typically the fighter more close to the bandit’s nose is the engaged. If the bandit foolishly chooses the aircraft with more angle-off, your BFM problems become much easier, and the kill is soon to come. Figure 5.42: Asymmetric bandit, shown with a same-side break. BEYOND-VISUAL-RANGE FIGHTS 109 Re-entry into the fight is the responsibility of the supporting fighter. As in the offensive ACM, the support has maintained visual on the fight and is maneuvering all the time for an entry. When defensive, the need to clear the engaged fighter’s six is gone, because he’s defensive. Because of that, the supporting fighter can loiter closer to the fight. As support, keep an eye on the fight and see how it develops. If it drags into a scissors, be prepared to enter the scissors, but don’t get dragged down to the same slow speeds as your wingman. Your goal is to be available to employ weapons and to keep your eyes open for an escape window. If you see an open window, inform your wingman, but let him choose not to take it if he doesn’t want to. As support there is no difference in entry strategy in a defensive ACM situation: You are always offensive as support, even in defensive fights. Pick a co-flow, counter-flow, or vertical entry and maneuver as practiced. Beyond-visual-range fights The beyond-visual-range (BVR) fight is the missiles fight. In the real world, missiles can be employed against an enemy dozens, even hundreds of miles away, completely changing the battlefield. In , for better or worse, pilots are only provided short-range Sidewinders. These missiles can still be used before the enemy is seen, though, so we’ll go over a little strategy. If you need, review the Defensive BFM section on page 73. There’s a paragraph on how to defeat an incoming missile. A fighter that is trying to defeat a missile is generally incapable of firing his own missiles. Therefore, in BVR combat, the airplane that gets off the first missile has a huge advantage. Even missiles with a low hope of hitting their target can be effective: If your enemy sees a trail of white smoke coming his way, chances are he will maneuver to fight it, so even if you can’t fire a missile to hit your enemy, you can fire one to deny him his missile shots. As discussed earlier, the best way to avoid being hit by a missile is to never allow the enemy to fire one: Hide behind terrain, pounce from behind, or fire your missile first. The Harrier’s CAS loadout includes only two Sidewinders, so use your missiles sparingly. If you and your wingman both have missiles, it is imperative that the flight lead coordinate the use of missiles so that they are not wasted. He should designate a shooter and a cover. The shooter is responsible for firing missiles against the target, and the cover watches the engagement and prepares for the merge. The cover should not fire missiles 110 CHAPTER 5. AIR-TO-AIR COMBAT unless the shooter wants to switch roles. Threat avoidance There are three threats to aircraft in : enemy aircraft, surface-to-air missiles and anti-aircraft artillery. How to deal with enemy aircraft was discussed for the last million pages or so, so we won’t go over that here. Instead, we’ll talk about ground-based threats. Surface-to-air missiles Surface-to-air missiles come in a variety of shapes and sizes in real life, but about the only ones you will encounter in are also among the most deadly: man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS). MANPADS are shoulder-launched, heat-seeking missiles that can be carried and fired by a single soldier. They are critically lethal because aircraft flying high above the battlefield cannot spot or track a single man, or even a fireteam. MANPADS have two major handicaps: Their range and terrain. MANPADS cannot fly very far, so you can usually stay high enough or far enough from suspected enemy troops that they will not pose a problem. And if you must stray into MANPADS territory, the fact that they are ground based makes it easy to place terrain between you and a missile. Even still, you should be cautious and alert for MANPADS launches during and after any ground attack run you make. Turn sharply after making your attack and try to put terrain between you and the target. Anti-aircraft artillery Anti-aircraft artillery (AAA) is wheeled or tracked guns designed to fire rounds upward into the air. AAA can employ one of two basic firing strategies. If there are only one or a few targets, AAA will generally employ an aimed-fire strategy (fig. 5.43). Each AAA emplacement will be precisely aimed at its target with the intent to hit that target. This is the only strategy that the AI in employs. It’s effective against a few targets, but with multiple aircraft in the sky the AAA can be overwhelmed and incapable of firing against all of them. THREAT AVOIDANCE 111 Figure 5.43: AAA employing aimed fire. If there are multiple targets in the sky, or there is a high-value block of airspace the AAA needs to protect, they may choose a barrage-fire strategy (fig. 5.44). In this strategy, AAA fills a certain part of the sky with continuous fire. Aircraft flying into that area risk being raked with gunfire. It’s effective at denying aircraft the use of airspace but leaves other parts of the sky completely undefended and available for aircraft to use when attacking or circumventing the AAA. Figure 5.44: AAA employing barrage fire. 112 CHAPTER 5. AIR-TO-AIR COMBAT Chapter 6 Air-to-Ground Combat Attack geometries When a pilot rolls in for an air-to-ground kill, he has a number of different attack geometries available at his disposal, depending on the ordnance he is employing. These tactics are especially suitable for guns and missiles, but are applicable to bombs as well. If there is a significant air threat above him, or if there is the threat of surface-based missiles (MANPADS), the pilot can opt for a low-profile attack. This attack is flown near to the surface and at high speed. The pilot follows terrain until he has a tally on his target, opens fire, and passes, returning into the protection of terrain. Low-profile attacks enjoy protection afforded by terrain, but suffer from low visibility and high concentration. You generally won’t be able to see your target until your clear that last ridge, which is often very close. You’ll only have a few seconds to line up your shot and take it. Finally, profiles that are “in the weeds” low are wholly unsuitable for bombs, as the unlucky pilot will discover his Mk. 82 does not discriminate between himself and his enemy. A high-profile attack employs a lot of vertical room. The inbound leg of the attack begins at a high altitude with the nose deep below the horizon. The pilot picks up airspeed quickly as he lines up his shot, then pulls away for another go. High-profile attacks afford the pilot much more time to set up his shot, meaning fewer passes before the target is destroyed. Of course, the flip side is the enemy can see you longer, and if he has air defenses, he has more time to employ them. In addition, the high-profile attack is more 113 114 CHAPTER 6. AIR-TO-GROUND COMBAT prone to pilot error. You have to be willing to break off your attack and start your pull early; you’re carrying a lot of momentum and you need time to get your velocity vector above the ground. Too many virtual pilots have cratered themselves because they thought they could hold out for “just a second longer” to get off that perfect guns shot. In practice you will choose an appropriate profile somewhere between the two extremes, balancing target visibility with your own visibility. In addition, your attacks should never be in the same plane. You can always tell a rookie because he pulls straight up after he attacks, rolls level for a half Cuban-8, and goes again. These painfully predictable attack profiles make him easy prey for anti-air. You should be rolling in for your attack on different planes each time, to force the AAA gunners to set up their sights each time. After your attack, you should roll out on an oblique plane, never pure vertical. You always have to steady your nose to take the shot, so you’re a sitting duck for part of the attack. Make yourself a difficult target to hit for the rest of it. If you are dropping bombs, you have another option: the loft attack. Lofting a bomb is a “pop-up” maneuver; you start low, then pitch back and release the bomb. The vertical element you gave it will increase its range. Real-life attack jets have very helpful symbology to assist the pilot in timing his loft perfectly, but here in you’ll use a little guesswork. With practice you should be able to loft bombs reasonably well for an area effect. Lofting is a standoff maneuver: The bomb goes further than it would have in a flat run, meaning you can stay further out of harm’s way. In addition, the low-high-low profile of the attack keeps you in the bushes and away from harm longer. Guided and unguided bombs The Harrier carries two kinds of bombs, unguided Mk. 82 500-pounders, and guided GBU-12 2,000-pounders. The simplistic weapons modeling of does not distinguish from them terribly well, but there are still a few key differences. Both bombs can “lock” and track a target in . To release a bomb onto a specific target, switch to your bombs, lock it up, wait until you see the release cue (the circumscribed circle), and then pickle. Unless you are out of the bomb’s WEZ (defined by how far it can glide from the moment of NON-PRECISION DELIVERY 115 release until it hits the earth), you should hit the target. You know you’re in the WEZ when you see the release cue; even the “unguided” bombs will guide to a target in as long as it’s within the WEZ. Because of this, the higher you are, the further you can be when you drop your bomb. At very high altitudes the bombs become excellent standoff weapons, keeping you far out of harm’s way. Once the bomb is off the rails, you are free to maneuver as you please. There is only one succinct difference that separates the GBU-12 from the Mk. 82 (other than their yields): laser target designation. Ground targets can use a laser-marker to designate targets, which are then transmitted to your aircraft. You are then able to launch bombs against targets you cannot lock on radar. When a teammate laser-designates a target, it will appear on your HUD as a red dot. If you’re in a “target-rich environment” there will already be plenty of red dots, so you’ll have to make sure you select the right one. Laser targets tend to be bright red radar returns that appear all of a sudden around the time the FAC calls “target lazed.” Generally the forward air controller will provide a bearing or grid reference to help you verify you have the right target acquired. In addition, the TD box will be labeled with the words “Laser target” if target identification is enabled on the server. Make sure you have your GBUs selected, then acquire the laser target. Fly until you see the circle, then release and head back. All bombs in are fire-and-forget. Non-precision delivery You may occasionally be asked to deliver unguided bombs onto a target you cannot lock on radar. Though the HUD symbology for a Mk. 82 may look like CCIP, it is not. A non-precision bomb delivery in requires classic, World War II-style guesswork. You will need to practice non-precision deliveries to get a feel for how the bombs glide at different airspeeds and altitudes to time your release. Non-precision deliveries are almost always done as low-level, straight (non-loft) profiles to simplify the pilot’s estimation and improve accuracy. Bear in mind that at 400 KPH, you must be at least 100 meters above the ground to avoid fragmentary damage from your own bomb in a straight-andlevel delivery. This puts a lower limit on the delivery altitude. 116 CHAPTER 6. AIR-TO-GROUND COMBAT If you have access to the airspace above the target area, you can improve your accuracy with a dive bombing attack. Dive bombing is only an effective strategy when there aren’t a significant number of air defenses; if there are many MANPADs around the target area, popping up and exposing your hot jet engine against the sky provides a perfect opportunity for a surface-to-air missile. Assuming, however, it’s safe to make a pop-up dive-bombing attack, you can place bombs accurately on target using the following procedure (diagrammed in fig. 6.1): Figure 6.1: Dive-bombing run using FPM to aim bombs. Approach the target level at the altitude of your choice and an airspeed around corner. When your slant range (the distance between you and the target diagonally, not over the ground) is about one to two kilometers, begin a high-g pullup maneuver to a 40° to 60° angle of pitch. Once you are pitched towards the sky, roll 180°. Locate your target out the top of your canopy. Continue climbing and moving towards the target until it’s about 20° off your lift vector. At that point, begin a high-g pull over the top into your target. Pull through inverted and continue to pull your nose into your target until it’s pointed straight down. If you timed it right, you should be directly over the target when your nose is pure vertical. When established in the dive, reduce throttle and maneuver your FPM until it’s directly on the target. When the FPM is stable, pickle your bomb. After your bombs are away, rotate the aircraft to point the lift vector in your NON-PRECISION DELIVERY desired egress direction, then pull to wings level and egress. 117 118 CHAPTER 6. AIR-TO-GROUND COMBAT Chapter 7 Combat Procedures Combat air patrols Combat air patrols are rotating flight paths flown to sanitize an area of enemy aircraft. Aircraft in a combat air patrol are responsible for detecting and engaging enemy aircraft and protecting other aircraft or ground forces from air attacks. Combat air patrols can be both offensive or defensive in nature. An offensive combat air patrol might be a CAP over the target area to clear the airspace of enemy aircraft prior to a strike. A defensive CAP might be one over the LHD when an inbound attack on the LHD is likely or imminent. Because aircraft orbit a point when CAPping, each CAP has its hot and cold legs. Aircraft on the hot leg have their nose pointed towards the known or likely direction of the threat, and aircraft on the cold leg are vulnerable. To mitigate this, CAPs are often set up to be counterrotating or counteropposing. A counterrotating CAP has two elements positioned such that when one is hot, the other is cold, and vice versa. Typically this is accomplished with a four-ship flight, with the two elements on opposite sides of each other in the CAP at all times (fig. 7.1). Counteropposing CAPs are two separate CAPs whose aircraft are timed such that one is on the hot leg when the other is on the cold leg (fig. 7.2). Note that both counterrotating and counteropposing CAPs need at least a four-ship flight, unless flight lead feels like leaving an aircraft out on his own in a CAP with no wingman. 119 120 CHAPTER 7. COMBAT PROCEDURES Figure 7.1: Two-element counterrotating CAP. Figure 7.2: Two-element counteropposing CAPs. COMBAT AIR PATROLS 121 Counteropposing CAPs spread friendly aircraft over a larger area, decreasing mutual support but also decreasing response time for threats that are spread over a large airspace. If the mission only has two aircraft, or flight lead doesn’t want the risk of a cold leg, there is always the beam CAP. A beam CAP is oriented perpendicular to the direction of the threat, such that neither leg is hot nor cold (fig. 7.3). The disadvantage of course is that the enemy will likely not appear head-on, so pilots must always be looking out the left or right side of their aircraft for threats. Figure 7.3: Single-element beam CAP. Although CAPs can be set up around friendly vehicles, CAPs differ from escorts in a few key areas: CAP aircraft are given greater discretion in prosecuting enemy targets. CAP aircraft are free to leave the CAP for enemy threats, either with intent to engage or merely to posture in an attempt to ward them off. Escort aircraft are a last line of defense, and must remain with their friendlies if at all possible: If the escorts break off to engage a threat, then the friendlies are left unescorted. CAPs have different names depending on the purpose of the CAP: TARCAP: Short for “target combat air patrol.” TARCAPs are flown over or near a target area to prevent enemy aircraft from interfering with a strike or ground operation in the area. In high-threat situations 122 CHAPTER 7. COMBAT PROCEDURES TARCAPs are usually short; aircraft remain in the CAP only as long as necessary to ensure the safety of friendly troops or vehicles. BARCAP: Short for “barrier combat air patrol.” BARCAPs are flown adjacent to a tactically significant barrier or line, such as a forward line of troops. As another example, an airbase might be directly next to a tall ridge line that enemy aircraft could use to mask their approach. A TARCAP would be set up below the level of the ridge line so that if enemy aircraft did breach the ridge, friendly CAP aircraft could pounce on them before the strike. RESCAP: Short for “rescue combat air patrol.” RESCAPs are set up after a friendly pilot ejects from, or crash-lands, his aircraft. Unlike other CAPs, RESCAPs are not planned in advance, but set up ad-hoc purely in reaction to a friendly bailout. The RESCAP protects the downed pilot and his SAR team from enemy fighters. HAVCAP: Short for “high asset value combat air patrol.” HAVCAPs are flown in defense of high-value aircraft that are not able to defend themselves against enemy fighters. CAP/Strike A CAP mission with secondary strike objectives; aircraft in such missions are free to engage enemy air as flight lead sees fit. Strike/CAP A strike mission with secondary CAP objectives; aircraft in such missions may only engage enemy aircraft if threatened. Typically such missions involve the striking aircraft providing their own egress CAP after ordnance has been delivered. Escort procedures Some missions will have us escorting unarmed transport or utility aircraft in hostile airspace. In order to ensure firstly that we do not interfere with the operations of these aircraft, and secondly that we provide good tactical visual coverage of their formation, there are an established, standard set of escort procedures. Escort procedures are broadly different depending on whether the flight is escorting slow-movers (helicopters, piston aircraft) or fast-movers (other jets). ESCORT PROCEDURES 123 Escorting Slow-movers Because it is both dangerous and tactically unwise to fly the Harrier continuously at slower airspeeds, escorts of slow-moving aircraft (such as the UH-1Y Venom) are done like CAPs. These escort CAPs are always done well above the slow-movers to maintain airspace superiority above the other flight and to improve the effectiveness of radar and visual coverage. There are two different CAPs used when escorting slow-movers, and the decision between them depends on the tactical needs of the mission. The corridor escort The corridor escort is used when airspace superiority is established for much of the flight path of the slow-movers. It’s a wide CAP that covers most or all of the flight path (fig. 7.4), allowing the CAP to maintain airspace superiority along the entire flight path. The CAP should be flown such that the slowmovers are given wide berth but you can still maintain visual with them (1,000 to 3,000 meters lateral spacing from their flight path). The previous figure shows a counterrotating corridor escort covering the entire flight path of the Sea Knights. The corridor CAP can sometimes be modified to suit the tactical situation. For example, if the target area poses a high threat for fighter aircraft (e.g., lots of SAM sites), the CAP may not extend all the way to the AO. Likewise, the CAP may not extend all the way to the LHD/FOB if there is no need for escort in friendly territory. The HAVCAP escort If airspace superiority is not established, or if it is necessary to maintain visual contact with the other flight for the entirety of the mission, flight lead may opt to use a HAVCAP escort instead (fig. 7.5). The CAP continues to maintain a one- to three-kilometer distance from the target at all times, following them into and out of the AO. This minimizes exposure for the escort flight, and can ward off attacks in the airspace around the helicopters without requiring total air superiority. It’s also more effective for smaller escort flights which would otherwise be spread out too thin. 124 CHAPTER 7. COMBAT PROCEDURES 1 - 3 km Figure 7.4: Corridor escort of slow-moving aircraft. ESCORT PROCEDURES Figure 7.5: HAVCAP escort of slow-moving aircraft. 125 126 CHAPTER 7. COMBAT PROCEDURES Escorting fast-movers With fast-moving aircraft such as the MV-22 Osprey we have the ability to fly in formation with our friendlies. In order to safely fly in formation with dissimilar aircraft, it is important to establish procedures that reduce the risk of collision while maximizing mutual support. The first step when approaching the escortee is to take the ready position. The ready position is a position far behind and to the left of the escortee flight (fig. 7.6). The escort flight establishes themselves in the ready position, and then the escort flight lead contacts the escortee flight lead: “Red Dragons, Nightmares are ready to take escort position.” “Nightmares, Red Dragons, cleared to take escort position.” “Nightmares taking escort position.” With clearance obtained, the flight moves from the ready position to the escort position. The transition from ready position to escort position is done such that no aircraft crosses in front an escortee aircraft, no aircraft crosses between two escortee aircraft, and no wingman overtakes his lead. (See fig. 7.6). 1 Ready position 2 Escort position 1 2 3 4 Figure 7.6: The ready position and escort position for a four-ship flight in finger. Note that in the transition from ready to escort position, each wingman continues to fly formation with his lead. #2 continues to fly on the left of #1 throughout the maneuver, and #4 on the right of #3. Wingmen do not fly in formation with the escortees — they fly in formation with their lead. Only the flight and element leads fly in formation with the escortees. Escort aircraft maintain a comfortably wide margin from the escortees. The goal is not to fly in “airshow formation” with your friendly pals — ESCORT PROCEDURES 127 you want to give them a wide berth to conduct their own mission with your support but not interference. Stay at least 500 meters away from the escorted aircraft. All of the escort positions detailed below are derived from the same basic principles. These principles are as follows: • No aircraft are placed in the “no-fly zones.” There are two places that no escort aircraft should be in front an escortee, or in between two escortees. If an aircraft is in front of an escortee, he can’t clear his escortee’s six, nor remain out of his escortee’s way. If an aircraft is between two escortees, he is interfering with their formation flying. • The formation provides 360° security. Aircraft are outside the formation in each direction, leaving no part of the sky unscanned. • Escorts choose escortees symmetrically. If a four-ship flight of Harriers is escorting a four-ship flight of Ospreys, the #1 Harrier escorts the #1 Osprey, the #2 Harrier the #2 Osprey, and so on. If a fourship flight of Harriers escorts a 2-ship flight of Ospreys, the #1 escorts the lead Osprey and #2 the wingman, leaving the second element in tactical trail. If a two-ship flight of Harriers escorts a four-ship flight of Ospreys, #1 escorts the first element and #2 escorts the second element. This helps avoid confusion if one of the escortee elements needs to strip in response to an emergency. • Wingmen can still check their lead’s six. Wingmen are placed such that they can clear both their lead’s six and their escortee’s six. • Aircraft are on alternate sides to maximize coverage. For the purpose of consistency, we generally put the first element to the left of the escortees and the second element to the right. Some typical escort formations are demonstrated in the following pages. Note that in some of the procedures, the #2 or #4 wingman will have to shackle (switch sides) with his lead in order to be in the correct position. In these situations, the wingman should perform a normal cross-under maneuver in the process of transitioning to escort position. Remember that scales in these diagrams are compressed; the escort flight should be maintaining around 500 meters distance from the escortees. 128 CHAPTER 7. COMBAT PROCEDURES 2-ship escort of a 1-ship, 3-ship, or 4-ship flight 1 2 Figure 7.7: 2-ship escort of a single aircraft. When two aircraft escort either one aircraft or more than two, the simplest strategy is to fly behind and to the left of the escortee flight, with wing on the right of lead. Lead is responsible for scanning the airspace ahead to the right, and wing is responsible for scanning behind and to the left (fig. 7.7). 2-ship escort of 2-ship flight In two-ship escorts of two-ship flights, lead is responsible for maintaining position relative to the escortee flight, and scanning the airspace ahead and to the right of the flight visually. The wingman is responsible for checking the formation’s six and scanning the airspace to the left. 4-ship escort of a 2-ship flight You may notice that the four-ship escorts of two-ship flights look exactly the same as the two-ship escorts of two-ship flights, save for only one difference: the second element, far behind and to the right of the escort flight. Whenever there are more elements in the escort flight than in the escortee flight, the additional elements hang back about one to two kilometers and provide tactical overwatch. #4 should fly a nice formation with element lead, but element lead is free to fall back to a good overwatch distance. ESCORT PROCEDURES 129 1 2 Figure 7.8: 2-ship escort of a 2-ship flight in echelon right. 1 2 Figure 7.9: 2-ship escort of a 2-ship flight in trail. 1 2 Figure 7.10: 2-ship escort of a 2-ship flight line abreast. 130 CHAPTER 7. COMBAT PROCEDURES 1 2 3 4 Figure 7.11: 4-ship escort of a 2-ship flight in echelon right. 1 2 3 4 Figure 7.12: 4-ship escort of a 4-ship flight in trail. ESCORT PROCEDURES 131 It is important for element lead to remember that in an escort flight (as opposed to a CAP flight) he is not free to engage targets at will. Even though he is far separated from his escortees, he is still bound to those aircraft except as a final measure of defense. 4-ship escort of 4-ship flight With four escort aircraft the focus for these flights is mutual support. Leads are scanning to the front and often to either side; wingmen often get lateral scanning duties and clear their leads’, and the formation’s six o’clock. In the event that there are only three escort aircraft instead of four, these formations can be adapted by dropping the #3 position. You should never drop the #4 position, as this position is often responsible for clearing the formation’s six. (Note that if flight lead drops the #3 position from the line-abreast formation, fig. 7.17, he will need to ensure that the aircraft in the #4 position additionally picks up the lateral-right scanning duties.) In the event that there are only three aircraft to escort, formation positions remain unchanged. Remember that wingmen fly in formation with their lead, not with the escortee aircraft, so no wingman should be confused as to his formation position. 132 CHAPTER 7. COMBAT PROCEDURES 1 2 3 4 Figure 7.13: 4-ship escort of a 2-ship flight line abreast. 1 2 3 4 Figure 7.14: 4-ship escort of a 4-ship flight in finger. 1 3 2 4 Figure 7.15: 4-ship escort of a 4-ship flight in echelon right. ESCORT PROCEDURES 133 1 3 2 4 Figure 7.16: 4-ship escort of a 4-ship flight in trail. 1 2 4 3 Figure 7.17: 4-ship escort of a 4-ship flight line abreast. 134 CHAPTER 7. COMBAT PROCEDURES Chapter 8 LHD Operations The 15th MEU operates off of the U.S.S. Fallujah, LHD-9, a Wasp-class amphibious assault ship (landing helicopter dock type). Unless the MEU has managed to secure an airbase, you can expect all of your takeoffs and landings to be from this ship, so it’s important to get comfortable with it. Taxiing The LHD is the very definition of confined space. Along with (typically four to six) Harriers, you will be sharing the deck with a handful of helicopters and a few giant V-22’s. And until we get a separate boat for the ground combat element (GCE), expect them to be scurrying about the deck too. It’s critical that you do not move an inch unless cleared to do so. You’ve got a nice, long space to takeoff on the LHD but many other aircraft, vehicles, and people are using it too. The air combat element commanding officer (ACE CO) will be in charge of managing the deck. If the deck is “green,” it means people have been cleared out of the way for your takeoff. If it’s “red,” it means there are people or obstructions in the takeoff path and you should not be taking off. Remember to use auto-hover to maneuver in close quarters on the LHD, but don’t try to “bite off more than you can chew.” If you can’t get your ass completely out of the way, don’t worry too much about it. There’s tow vehicles if it’s a problem; just let your CO know and he’ll call for a tow. Fortunately, when you are cleared to taxi, it will usually just be a matter of pulling your jet out past the flight line (the yellow and white line that is 135 136 CHAPTER 8. LHD OPERATIONS used to segregate departing and landing aircraft from the things they could hit or suck into an intake). Once cleared to taxi, position and hold past the flight line and prepare for your takeoff. Takeoff Contrary to what you might believe, takeoffs on the LHD are usually not short-field. Unless specifically instructed otherwise, do not use auto-hover for the takeoff, as it increases the collision risk to other aircraft and people on the deck if something goes wrong. Don’t worry about takeoff distance; you don’t have to have your tail feathers hanging off the back of the deck in order to take off. Generally, if you are aft of the giant “9,” you’ve got enough room for your takeoff. Simply apply 10° of flap and full throttle like a normal takeoff. By the time your wheels slip off the end of the deck, you should have enough speed to raise both gear and flaps and begin your on-course turn. The one thing you can’t do on an LHD is abort your takeoff. Aircraft in can accelerate like a bat out of Hell but they brake like it’s Fighter Jets on Ice. If you need to abort a takeoff, there’s only one simple rule: don’t. You will end up in the drink, guaranteed. Take off, re-enter the pattern, and land; or, if that’s not a possibility, eject. The LHD’s airspace extends for about 1 klick in any direction from the boat. If you are within that airspace you are under the direction of “PriFly” (fancy LHD term for the control tower) and should do as he says until you’re clear of his area of operations. If there is no controller for this particular LHD, however, it should be treated as an uncontrolled airfield in accordance with the procedures in Taxi and takeoff: Uncontrolled airfields, page 144. Approaches Flights approach the LHD through a procedure called marshaling. A flight marshals at a briefed location, where they orbit and await clearance to approach the LHD. Flights marshal in a stack, with each airplane 500 meters above the previous. The #4 aircraft is at the lowest altitude, #3 above him, and so on, with #1 at the highest altitude. Number four is the first to be cleared into the LHD. When an aircraft LANDINGS 137 is cleared to approach the LHD, he is released from formation and free to perform his LHD approach solo. When he does so, each airplane still in the stack vacates his assigned altitude and drops 500 meters, in a procedure called “popping the stack.” Thus, if a flight marshals at 500 meters (with the #1 aircraft at 2,000 meters), and #4 is cleared in, #3 will take #4’s altitude, and #1 will now be at 1,500 meters. If the LHD is uncontrolled, the flight leader will conduct the marshaling. He will specify a location for the flight to orbit and an altitude to orbit at. The altitude he specifies is the base altitude, the one #4 orbits at. He will also clear each member of the flight out of the stack, giving them permission to exit formation and approach the LHD. At that point flight members should begin announcing intentions over the aviation net. If the LHD is controlled, PriFly will specify the marshal point and will clear each airplane out of the stack. Landings So we’ve got our normal rectangular traffic pattern, our overhead break for formation approaches, and now we’ve got the LHD, and you can bet it has its own traffic pattern. In the real world pilots use the so-called “delta pattern” to fly to their spots (or the “alpha pattern” if they’re still carrying live ordnance), but here in we keep it a little simpler. The landing pattern is a two-break (two-turn) pattern designed to keep you clear of helicopters and departing traffic. In order to keep you clear of helicopters, you’ll be flying the pattern at a different altitude and airspeed. What altitude and airspeed the jets and the choppers should use will be briefed to you, but in the absence of other information, assume you’re to fly the pattern at 300 meters. The pattern is flown using right turns (a right-hand traffic pattern). The first break is the overhead break. This is a 180° turn from the upwind to the downwind. You start your initial overhead the LHD, above pattern altitude, and perform your overhead break to the right. The break should see you losing airspeed and altitude until you end up on downwind, off the starboard side of the LHD. Drop your gear and 10° of flaps, fly past the LHD for approximately 400500 meters, then commence your landing break. This is a level 180° turn that has you at the same altitude, on final approach, and at an airspeed slow 138 CHAPTER 8. LHD OPERATIONS enough to drop your remaining flaps and engage auto-hover. A perfect final approach will have you heading to the ocean just over the port side of the LHD (you’ll swing in over the deck later). Now is a crucial moment — you need to determine when to engage autohover. Remember that a Harrier can never gain altitude in a climb. If you engage auto-hover too early you may not have enough altitude to make it back to the deck. You will need enough altitude to make it to the deck (some 20 meters above the ocean) plus an extra 15 or so meters for maneuvering (which we’ll get into later). Experienced pilots should be able to gently descend their way to the deck like they were rolling down a hill. Novices should play it safe and come in too high; you can dump altitude like an old girlfriend in the Harrier. So you’ve engaged auto-hover and you’re heading to the ocean off port. Excellent. You should be gradually losing both altitude and airspeed as you approach the deck. If you time it right, you should be moving about 30 KPH when you’re 100-200 meters from the edge of the deck, and about 40 meters above the ocean. Keep sliding on in. Begin a stationary hover once you’re parallel with the flight deck, abaft the superstructure — don’t slip too far forward, you only get the back third of the deck to land on. Stabilize your aircraft in the hover, and then add the smallest touch of bank to slide it over above the deck. You delay your hover over the deck until the last minute in case something goes wrong — better that you just fall into the ocean than hit the flight deck and turn an emergency into a catastrophe. Once you’re over the deck and lined up with the centerline, stop your lateral motion with another slight bank, and hold full throttle. You want to come down on the deck lightly, so unless you’re hanging a hundred meters above it, just keep the throttle in and let the jet inch its way down to the surface. The touchdown’s the other tricky part. Remember that those nozzles are going to rotate the moment your tires kiss the asphalt, so you need to cut your engines fast. Snap the throttle back to idle before your airplane careens forward into some poor Huey or something. Safely on the ground, you are now free to (attempt) to taxi to your spot (or just ask for a tow). LANDINGS 139 Rearm and refuel To rearm and refuel your Harrier, pull forward until you are abeam the “9” or so. There’s a rearm/refuel script trigger there, and you should see your damage and fuel bars start replenishing. After that’s complete you still have enough deck ahead of you to take off and rejoin the fight. Go-arounds As mentioned in the vertical landing overview, go-arounds are tricky beasts in a hovering Harrier. The key is to stay at least 10 seconds ahead of the airplane. That means don’t just think about what the plane is doing now, look ahead and predict 10 seconds into the future. Once you start the go-around, it can take 10 seconds (or even more) before the airplane is gaining altitude again. If you discover you need to go around by the time you need to go around, it’s already 10 seconds too late. You must predict in advance when it’s likely or even possible that you may need to go around. If you suspect you will need to, don’t risk it. It’s a busy flight deck so there’s no tolerance for error; go around. Assuming you perform the go-around procedure with no mistakes, you will lose at least 40 meters of altitude before your aircraft begins climbing again. Thus, if you decide you cannot land with less than 40 meters of altitude above the deck, your only option is to bank away from the LHD and eject. The go-around procedure from a hover is the same as that from a conventional landing, as printed in your checklist. But there’s one more thing to worry about when going around for an LHD landing. The moment you have enough airspeed to safely do so, bank away from the LHD. All of this section is about preserving the safety of those on the deck. If there were a way to land airplanes on the LHD without actually getting them near the boat, that’d be great, but for now we just try to minimize the risk window. Get your 23,000-pound, bomb-carrying, gas-guzzling machine the hell away from the LHD the moment you can. 140 CHAPTER 8. LHD OPERATIONS Chapter 9 Communications and Procedures The phraseology and procedures discussed in this channel apply to single aircraft or to flight leads of formation flights. For procedures and phraseology applicable to wingmen, see Formation Flying, page 43. Non-combat procedures Airports come in two varieties: controlled and uncontrolled. Controlled airfields are airfields in controlled airspace, airspace under the control of a controlling agency (a control tower or air liaison officer). Aircraft must request and receive clearance before performing actions within controlled airspace. Uncontrolled airfields are airfields in uncontrolled airspace. Pilots do not need clearance to operate in this airspace, but are expected to regularly announce their intentions to assist other pilots in avoiding a collision. They are also expected to be vigilant in listening for and looking for other pilots. Pilots are not required to follow the instructions of a controlling agency until they confirm those instructions. Pilots always have the option of saying “unable” to any instruction, but once they read back an instruction, they are required to abide by it unless a safety condition exists. Remember that in formation flights, only the flight lead will be communicating with the controlling agency. The lead should announce the number of people in the flight the first time he contacts the controlling agency or the first time he announces at uncontrolled airspace: “Tower, Nightmare 101, 141 142 CHAPTER 9. COMMUNICATIONS AND PROCEDURES flight of 2, …” Taxi and takeoff: Controlled airfields When operating at a controlled airfield, you will be dealing with the controlling agency. You must have clearance from the controlling agency before you can move your jet in any way. Note that the control tower is only concerned with aircraft movement: Things like starting your jet do not require clearance from tower. The first clearance you must obtain is a clearance to taxi to your runway. The controlling agency will generally assign you a runway, although you can typically request one: “Phoenix tower, Nightmare 102, taxi runway 15.” Nightmare 102 is requesting taxi permission, and is additionally asking for runway 15 if he can get it. “Nightmare 102, Phoenix tower, runway 15 inactive, taxi runway 33.” Tower gives 102 permission to taxi to runway 33. Permission is not given to taxi to runway 15. Tower is not obligated to give you any reason as to why you don’t get to taxi to runway 15. They could just say “Nightmare 102, Phoenix tower, taxi runway 33,” so you have to listen carefully; don’t just assume that once you hear the word “taxi” you are cleared to taxi to whatever runway you asked for. “102, taxi 15.” You should always restate orders given to you for confirmation. If you are given permission to taxi to a runway, you do not have permission to enter that runway. You must taxi to the hold-short line, or if there is no such line, just short of the runway. No part of your aircraft should ever enter the runway until you are cleared. Once you are waiting at the hold short line, the controlling agency may issue your next clearance. If not, you can gently remind them: “Tower, 102, ready for takeoff.” At this point, you will receive one of three instructions: • “102, tower, hold short.” You are not cleared to enter the runway. Remain at the hold-short line and wait for further instructions. • “102, tower, position and hold, 33.” You are cleared to enter the runway but not take off. You should position your aircraft on the runway centerline, ready to depart, and perform your pre-takeoff checklist. Don’t take off until you hear: NON-COMBAT PROCEDURES 143 • “102, tower, cleared for takeoff, 33.” You are cleared for takeoff. Note that the runway is given as an extra measure of assurance that you are taking off on the correct runway. Remember to readback tower’s instructions: “102, cleared for takeoff, 33.” Note that your readback includes the exact words cleared for takeoff and the runway number. This helps tower ensure you didn’t mishear them and are going to plow your jet into traffic. Tower may occasionally want to know what kind of departure you would like, or may assign a departure to you. Departure types can be a simple heading (“depart heading 250”) or one of the following: • Straight-out departure: Depart in the same heading as the runway. • (Left or right) crosswind departure: Make a 90° turn left or right after takeoff, and then depart. • (Left or right) downwind departure: Make a 180° turn left or right after takeoff, and then depart. • High-performance departure: A nearly vertical full-power climb to an altitude above the airport’s airspace, followed by an on-course turn of your choosing. Great for demonstrating to the other pilots why we fly Harriers. • Remain in the pattern: Continue flying the traffic pattern. Only used for pilots practicing patternwork. You may request one of these departures before you get your takeoff clearance: “Tower, 102, ready for takeoff, straight-out departure.” Tower may or may not approve it, so listen for your takeoff clearance: “102, tower, cleared for takeoff, 33, straight-out departure approved.” Tower may also assign you a departure for traffic avoidance: “102, tower, cleared for takeoff, 33, make left downwind departure, remain east of Vybor.” Note that this takeoff clearance includes both a departure type and some additional instructions. You should read back all of these instructions. Once you’ve completed your departure, the only thing remaining is to inform the controlling agency once you’ve left their airspace: “Phoenix Tower, 102, leaving your airspace.” “102, roger.” 144 CHAPTER 9. COMMUNICATIONS AND PROCEDURES Taxi and takeoff: Uncontrolled airfields All communications at uncontrolled airfields start and end with the airport name. This is to ensure everyone listening in is aware of what airport you are referring to. At uncontrolled airfields it is the pilot’s responsibility to ensure he will not conflict with other traffic when taxiing and taking off. For this reason you should be both talking and listening. You should announce your intentions when beginning your taxi and when beginning your takeoff: “Utes traffic, Nightmare 102 taxiing runway 27, Utes.” You only have to announce where you’re taxiing; after that it’s up to you to make sure you don’t taxi your aircraft into anyone else. Given that you fly a plane capable of attaining 400 miles per hour, it shouldn’t be hard for you to keep from hitting someone on the ground when taxiing at 10 miles per hour, right? Once you get to your runway, you should first look and listen for other traffic. Make a 360-degree visual sweep of the airport, and check the final approach path, to make sure it is clear. When you are sure you can take the runway: “Utes traffic, Nightmare 102 taking runway 27, left downwind departure, Utes.” Announce the runway again, and tell people how you will be departing. Then take the runway and make your takeoff. Traffic notifications: Controlled airspace In controlled airspace you may be given traffic notifications. This is a courtesy service that the controlling agency can provide to you, workload permitting. If you receive a traffic notification, it will contain some or all of the following information, typically in this order: clock direction, range, altitude, type, and additional information. Additional information is usually its heading (so you know where it’s trending in your line of sight), but it could also be other information (such as “has you in sight” when the other traffic knows about you). Example callouts: “102, traffic 2-o’clock, 500 meters, Huey, moving westbound.” “102, traffic 12-o’clock, 800 meters, unknown type, high performance aerobatics.” You are expected to search for the traffic (though not to the exclusion of critical duties such as flying the plane) and report when you have it in sight: “102, traffic in sight.” NON-COMBAT PROCEDURES 145 If you do not immediately see the traffic, at least tell them you heard them and are looking for it: “102, looking for traffic.” If you cannot find the traffic and it gets close to you, you may be issued a traffic alert. It’s very similar to a traffic callout, except includes the words “traffic alert” and also has a suggested deconfliction maneuver: “102, traffic alert, traffic 12-o’clock, suggest 20° left turn.” Tower may also opt to make it an order. “102, traffic alert, traffic 12-o’clock, check left 20°.” If they do this, you must read back the order and comply. “102, check left 20°.” Finally, they may issue a conditional order and give you one more chance to sight the target: “102, traffic alert, traffic 12-o’clock, if not in sight turn left 20°.” In this case you should inform them if you opt to make the 20° turn (“turning left 20°”), or immediately respond “traffic in sight” if you can gain visual quickly. Landing: Controlled airfields The first thing you say to an airport’s controlling agency is your intention to land: “inbound to land.” You should also provide your altitude and a cardinal direction that you’re coming from or a landmark that you’re over that you’re coming from to help them sequence traffic. You cannot enter the airspace of a controlled airport until you have established two-way communications with its controlling agency. In other words, you must contact them, and they must respond to you by name. Example: “Phoenix tower, Nightmare 102, inbound to land from the northwest, 300.” “Nightmare 102, Phoenix tower, roger, climb to 400, continue inbound.” Because you were referred to by name, you are cleared to enter the tower’s airspace. You were also given additional instructions telling you to climb and continue inbound. Here’s another example: “Phoenix tower, Nightmare 102, over Kamislovo 500, inbound to land.” “Nightmare 102, standby.” You weren’t given any specific instructions but you were referred to by name, so you can still enter the airspace. Just continue your present course and expect instructions shortly. So if tower doesn’t want you to enter their airspace, how will they refer to you? Generally as “aircraft calling tower” or “last aircraft calling” or 146 CHAPTER 9. COMMUNICATIONS AND PROCEDURES something like that. Example: “Phoenix tower, Nightmare 102, inbound from the southwest, 1000.” “Aircraft calling tower, standby.” You were not referred to by name, so you should begin turning away from the airspace. Orbit an area away from the airspace and try again later. (Perhaps they’re too busy for you at the moment.) As you approach the airport, you may be given additional instructions before you hear “cleared to land.” You should always read back these instructions. You may be told to take specific headings, speeds, or altitudes: • “102, tower, turn left 150.” • “102, tower, descend to 200.” • “102, tower, do not exceed 200 KPH.” You may also be told to report when at certain locations, to help tower keep track of your position. Generally tower will ask you to report when you’re at a critical location; for example, they may ask you to report when on downwind midfield (halfway across the runway), so they can issue you your landing clearance. Examples: • “102, tower, report downwind midfield.” • “102, tower, report when over Vybor.” • “102, tower, report turning base.” Tower can clear you to land as early as they want, and if it’s not a busy day, you may have your landing clearance before you even see the airport. If it is busy, you may not get it until you’re making your base turn. You should make your base and final turns even if you don’t have landing clearance. If you’re on final without clearance, don’t land! Remind the tower you’re on final: “Tower, 102, on final.” Hopefully they’ll give it to you, and if they don’t, just go around: “Tower, 102, going around.” You must hear the words cleared to land before you have your landing clearance. The clearance will be for a runway; you may not land on any other runway. You can receive a clearance for multiple runways in an emergency: “Tower, 102, declaring an emergency, on fumes.” “102, cleared to land, any runway.” NON-COMBAT PROCEDURES 147 If there are multiple aircraft landing, you may be cleared to land in sequence: “102, tower, cleared to land, 33, number 2 after the Osprey.” You should treat this as both a landing clearance and a traffic notification. So, first, confirm your landing clearance (again, make sure you say “cleared to land” and include the runway): “102, cleared to land, 33, number 2.” Then, begin searching for the Osprey traffic and report when in sight. Obviously, your landing clearance is not available until the Osprey has landed and cleared the runway. If the aircraft ahead of you is a slow mover, you may be asked to “extend your downwind.” This simply means to fly further on downwind than usual. It’s to give you spacing from the guy ahead of you and give him time to clear the runway before your rocket ship comes barreling back to earth. Tower may also tell you “I’ll call your base.” You should continue on downwind until tower tells you to turn base. When you say, “inbound for landing,” it’s assumed you want a full-stop landing. You are expected to taxi off the runway after you land. You can request another kind of landing if you want by asking for it any time afterwards. If approved, you can perform the landing. Some other kinds of landings: • Touch-and-go: Touch wheels to the runway, then depart. • Stop-and-go: Come to a complete stop on the runway, then depart. Probably difficult for a Harrier. • Low approach: Descend to, but do not land on, the runway, then go around. • Short approach: A landing made directly from the downwind, without a base and final turn. Typically used in training when simulating an engine failure during the downwind leg. Tower may sometimes request that you make a short approach if there is another aircraft on long final waiting for you to land. • Multiples: Multiple landings on one runway before departing. Typically done on alternating sides of the centerline. Also probably difficult for a Harrier. 148 CHAPTER 9. COMMUNICATIONS AND PROCEDURES Tower will then give you your approval: “Tower, 102, request low approach 15.” “102, cleared low approach 15.” “102, cleared low approach 15.” If you ask for a touch-and-go or stop-and-go, you may receive “cleared for the option.” The “option” in this case is the option to do any of the following: full-stop landing, stop-and-go, or touch-and-go. No matter what type of landing you are cleared to make, you always have the option to go around for safety reasons. If you do go around, you should first fly the plane and then, when you can, inform tower of your decision to go around: “Tower, 102 going around.” “Roger 102.” Landing: Uncontrolled airfields Approaching an uncontrolled airfield safely requires frequent callouts of your position and intentions. You should make first contact when you are within 1 klick or so of the airfield, or when you are out of controlled airspace. You should announce your callsign, position, altitude, and intentions. You can also ask for “traffic advisories,” which will let other pilots at the airport know you’re interested in pertinent information: “Utes traffic, Nightmare 101, 1 klick southeast, 1,000, inbound to land, traffic advisories, Utes.” If you are operating at the airport and hear a request for traffic advisories, you can give the pilot any information you feel is pertinent: current weather, active runway, traffic pattern direction (left or right), etc.: “Nightmare 101, Utes is using right traffic runway 27.” “101, roger, thanks.” A typical approach to an uncontrolled airfield is performed as follows: 1. Approach the airport at 300 meters above pattern altitude. 2. When directly over the airport, call out your position, altitude, intended direction of flight (for step 3), and intended runway and landing type: “Utes traffic, Nightmare 101 over the airfield, 800, heading southbound to enter a left 45 for runway 27, full-stop, Utes.” NON-COMBAT PROCEDURES 149 3. Head away from the field in the direction of the downwind leg of the runway. For instance, if using left traffic for runway 27, you would want to head south. 4. Once you’re a comfortable distance away, begin a descending turn away from the base leg to enter a 45° pattern entry (fig. 2.4, “45° entry”). You should be at pattern altitude when the turn completes. 5. Merge into downwind traffic, being careful not to cut anyone off. Announce when you are on the downwind: “Utes traffic, Nightmare 101, left downwind 27, Utes.” 6. Make your base and final turns, announcing each turn: “Utes traffic, Nightmare 101, final 27, touch-and-go, Utes.” As a courtesy, remind everyone what kind of landing you’re going to make when you announce on final. Note that you should announce every turn you make in the traffic pattern, unless the frequency is busy, in which case only announce the important turns (always final, and any time you are worried about other traffic). It’s advisable to announce your turns just before you make the turn; that way, if anyone else is looking for you, they have the broad side of your turning aircraft to look for, not its slender profile. Remember to be listening and looking for other traffic. It’s important not to be a chatterbox, but to also parse and understand what other pilots are saying. After you’ve completed your landing and taxied clear of the runway, announce that the runway is clear for the next person: “Utes traffic, Nightmare 101 clear of 27, Utes.” If you are making a touch-and-go or otherwise continuing to fly after the landing, announce your upwind leg after you takeoff: “Utes traffic, Nightmare 101, upwind 27, Utes.” You should also announce any go-arounds. You should vary the number of radio calls you make depending on how busy the airwaves are. At a minimum, however, you should always announce when on final, when taking a runway for takeoff, and when going around. Unlike at controlled airfields, where all comms revolve around aircraft movement, all comms at and around uncontrolled airfields revolve around a runway; the primary purpose of these announcements is to keep two planes from being on the runway at the same time (unless they’re in formation). 150 CHAPTER 9. COMMUNICATIONS AND PROCEDURES It’s not necessary to announce your taxi to your parking destination, just say when the runway is clear. Combat procedures: Ingress and egress When establishing new headings, altitudes, or airspeeds, the lead pilot should announce the new parameters: “Nightmares, reference 270, 800 meters, 350 KPH.” (Lead should then hear each member of the flight call out in sequence as they confirm: “2” — “3” — “4.”) You may also hear the word flow used if just a heading is specified: “Nightmare 102, flow 150.” — “2.” In addition, a check is a non-high-performance turn to a new heading, typically relative to the current heading: “102, 101, check 20 left.” — “2.” At this point Nightmare 102 would make a 30°-bank turn to 20° left of his current heading. (If you wanted Nightmare 102 to make a high-performance turn, you’d say “break,” discussed below.) You can also say just “check right” if you want your wing to make a right turn without specifying any new heading: “101, 102, acute right.” Nightmare 102 is telling 101 that he is overtaking him on the right side and will pass him (a formation no-no). “102, 101, check right.” Nightmare 101 wants 102 to turn right and break off formation. “2.” When the flight is rejoining formation, its members can call “tied” when they have the lead on radar, “visual” when they have visual on the lead, and “saddled” when they are in position in formation: “Nightmares, rejoin, echelon left.” “2, tied.” — “2, visual, saddled.” The fence is pilot slang for the forward line of troops (FLOT), the line demarcating friendly from enemy territory. When “crossing the fence” lead should call a fence check: “Nightmares, fence in.” After receiving this command all flight elements should perform their fence-in checklist, ensuring their aircraft is ready for combat. COMBAT PROCEDURES: AIR-TO-GROUND 151 The lead pilot should also periodically initiate ops checks before and after contact with the enemy: “102, ops check.” Nightmare 102 would now run his ops checklist, ensuring he has enough fuel and weapons for another enemy encounter. He could respond with just “2” if he’s good to go, “2, winchester” if he’s out of ammo, or “2, bingo” if he’s hit the pre-briefed low fuel state. Combat procedures: Air-to-ground When initiating your air-to-ground attacks, you should call “in.” In general flight members will know what you’re attacking, since it should be part of the tasked mission, but if you’re taking a target-of-opportunity you should call it out: “102, in, Shilka northwest of the airport.” If you’re not flight lead and you make this call, you should not release until you have weapons clearance. If you don’t have clearance, lead should, after hearing this call, call either “cleared hot” or “skip it” depending on whether he wants you to release your weapons. If you don’t hear anything, you can remind him that you are looking for permission to fire: “101, 102, hound dog.” You’re requesting weapons free, to which lead might respond: “102, 101, weapons free.” You’re now free to fire at will. Lead may also specify different ROEs, such as weapons tight (do not fire unless fired upon), and weapons hold (do not fire, period). If your attack profile mimics a traffic pattern (which they often do), use the same terminology. When making your turns, you can call “base” and “final:” “101, on left base for baker” (where “baker” is a target code name). Typically you only call “base” and “final,” as the other legs are unnecessary in an attack run. When you release a weapon you can call out the release if there are any interested parties. (For instance, the air liaison officer may want to know when you are weapons away.) If dropping Mk. 82’s, call “bombs away.” If firing rockets, call “rockets.” If firing your cannon, call “guns.” And if dropping a laser-guided bomb, call “Paveway.” After you’ve completed your attack, you should call “off” and the direction you’re making your egress. You should also indicate whether or not you 152 CHAPTER 9. COMMUNICATIONS AND PROCEDURES actually released any ordnance. (You might have opted not to release due to bad geometry, potential friendlies, etc.) Example: “102 off hot to the south.” Nightmare 102 has released ordnance and is turning southbound away from the target. “101 off dry northeast.” Nightmare 101 did not release ordnance and is turning northeast from the target. He would then call “in” again after he’s ready for his next attack run. If you need to make visual confirmation of your ground targets, you should call “tally” when you’ve visually confirmed your target. Combat procedures: Air-to-air Much of air combat procedures was covered in Air combat maneuvering, page 91, and in Formation Flying on page 43. This section focuses primarily on the phraseology you should use when coordinating air attacks. If you make radar contact on an enemy, call “contact” and provide information in BRAA format (as much information as you know): “101, contact braa 270 2 klicks, level.” A bogie is an unknown aircraft. A bandit is a known threat, and a friendly is a known ally. Lead can instruct a flight element to “engage” a bandit, which implies clearance to shoot. Lead could also instruct a flight element to “ID” a bogie. Once you have visual contact with the enemy, you can call “tally:” “101, tally bandit, Frogfoot.” 101 is also providing visual identification confirmation. If, however, you did not have visual contact with an enemy, you can call “no joy:” “102, 101, engage Frogfoot 2-o’clock low.” “2, no joy.” The words “visual” and “blind” are used to indicate when you do or do not have visual contact with a flight member: “2, in, visual, tally.” Wing sees both lead and his bandit and is moving to engage. If lead wanted to bracket the merge, he might say: “102, 101, check 30 right, bracket.” Wing would then turn 30° right and bracket the incoming enemy target. COMBAT PROCEDURES: AIR-TO-AIR 153 If you are turning towards an air target (presumably with intention to attack), call “in” and provide a bearing: “102, in from the northwest.” Likewise, if you’re turning away from a target, call “out.” If you find yourself on the defensive, call “defending.” Lead may be able to coordinate some assistance. “102 defending, Flanker 2 klicks northwest.” At this range it can be assumed that 102 is defending against a missile threat. If you spot an enemy on your wingman’s tail, you can call a break turn, an immediate high-performance turn away from a threat. Any flight member can call a break turn in an emergency: “101, break right! Bandit at your 7-o’clock!” Note that the break order comes first, then a pause, then the information that 101 needs to find the threat. If you fire an AIM-9 Sidewinder missile, you should call “Fox two.” If you spot a missile inbound, definitely call it out. At least say “Missile inbound” and try to determine its target if you can: “102, missile inbound, break right!” If you spot a SAM launch, you can call that out as well: “101, SAM launch bearing 225, defending.” This call is augmented by the phrase “defending,” indicating that Nightmare 101 knows the missile is headed for him. There are many colorful ways to indicate that you are hit and/or ejecting; if nothing else, you can keep it simple: “102 ejecting, grid 150-95.” The grid reference will help the air liaison officer coordinate RESCAP and rescue. 154 CHAPTER 9. COMMUNICATIONS AND PROCEDURES Chapter 10 Appendices This reference should have come with a booklet containing printable quickreference of important facts referenced throughout this manual. References Pete “Boomer” Bonnani Air National Guard pilot and BFM instructor, from his contributions to the Falcon 3.0 and 4.0 manual and official strategy guide. NATOPS A1-AV8BB-NFM-000 NATOPS Flight Manual, AV-8B Harrier II NATOPS A1-AV8BB-NFM-400 NATOPS Flight Manual and Performance Charts, AV-8B Harrier II NAVAIR 00-80T-106 NATOPS LHA/LHD Procedures JP 3-09.3 Joint Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures for Close Air Support CNATRA P-357 Flight Training Instruction, Primary Formation, T-34C; Naval Air Training Command, NAS Corpus Christi, TX 155 156 CHAPTER 10. APPENDICES Index of Terms VG , 37 Vref , 38 g-force, 64 3/9 line, 74 AAA, 110 above ground level, 16 ACM, 91 acute, 49 AGL, 16 aileron, 7 air combat maneuvering, 91 airspeed indicator, 12 airspeed tape, 14 altimeter, 12 altitude tape, 14 amphibious assault ship, 135 angle of attack, 2 angle-off, 57 anti-aircraft artillery, 110 artificial horizon, 12 ASI, 12 aspect, 58 balloon, 32 bandit, 152 basic fighter maneuvers, 57 beam CAP, 121 beaming, 58 best-glide speed, 37 beyond-visual-range, 109 BFM, 57 bingo, 43 bogie, 152 BRAA, 92 break (landing pattern), 50 BVR, 109 CAP, 119 chase position, 52 chord line, 3 closure speed, 83 co-flow, 100 cold aspect, 58 combat air patrol, 119 control surface, 6 control zone, 101 controlled airfield, 141 controlling agency, 141 coordinated turn, 8 corner speed, 65 corridor escort, 123 counter-flow, 100 counteropposing, 119 counterrotating, 119 cover, 109 critical angle of attack, 3 cross-under, 49 crosswind departure, 143 dead reckoning, 24 deconflict, 93 downwind departure, 143 drag, 2 element, 43 elevator, 7 empennage, 8 energy, 64 engaged fighter, 93 entry window, 70 INDEX OF TERMS 157 escape window, 80 jink, 72 fence, 150 fence check, 150 flanking, 58 flaps, 7 flare, 32 flight, 43 flight line, 135 flight path marker, 13 FLOT, 150 flow separation, 2 forward line of troops, 150 FPM, 13 friendly, 152 full-stop landing, 147 lag pursuit, 59 laminar flow, 2 lead pursuit, 60 lead turn, 83 lift, 2 lift vector, 61 lift-induced drag, 5 line-of-sight rate, 77 loaded reversal, 78 low approach, 147 glide slope, 31 GLOC, 65 go-around, 32 gravity-induced loss of consciousness, 65 HAVCAP escort, 123 heading tape, 15 heads-up display, 12 high-performance departure, 143 hold-short line, 142 horizontal situation indicator, 12 hot aspect, 58 HSI, 12 HUD, 12 ILS, 33 IMC, 54 initial, 50 instrument landing system, 33 instrument meteorological conditions, 54 MADPADS, 110 mains, 8 man-portable air defense system, 110 marshal point, 46 marshaling, 136 MCA, 27 mean sea level, 14 MFD, 12 military power, 4 minimum controllable airspeed, 27 MSL, 14 multi-function display, 12 multiples, 147 nose-wheel steering, 20 NWS, 20 opportunity shot, 101 ops check, 151 overhead break, 50 overshoot, 77 padlock, 66 PAPI, 33 parasite drag, 5 pattern altitude, 30 158 pilot-induced oscillation, 47 pilotage, 22 PIO, 47 pirouette, 87 pitch ladder, 14 plane (BFM), 61 positive exchange of role, 94 precision approach path indicator, 33 pure pursuit, 59 radial g, 66 range, 58 rate of descent, 32 ready position, 126 relative wind, 3 remain in the pattern, 143 rotate, 21 rudder, 7 SA, 48 SAM, 110 scissors, 76 shooter, 109 short approach, 147 sight picture, 31 situational awareness, 48 slant range, 116 snake, the, 79 snapshot, 72 speed brakes, 8 stall, 4 step-down, 46 stop-and-go, 147 straight-out departure, 143 sucked, 49 supporting fighter, 93 surface-to-air missile, 110 CHAPTER 10. APPENDICES tail strike, 21 target designator box, 18 TD box, 18 the scan, 22 thrust, 2 touch-and-go, 147 tracking shot, 79 traffic pattern, 30 true heading, 15 turbofan, 9 turn circle, 68 turn radius, 64 turn rate, 64 turning room, 67 uncontrolled airfield, 141 uncontrolled airspace, 141 uncoordinated turn, 8 unload, 76 unloaded reversal, 78 vertical speed indicator, 14 vertical takeoff and landing, 11 VSI, 14 VTOL, 11 waterline, 14 wave off, 53 WCA, 26 weapons engagement zone, 94 weight, 2 WEZ, 94 wind correction angle, 26 yo-yo, 71