interesting radar effect?

[91100 100 set]

A few weeks ago, we were cruising somewhere over NC and center tells us we have traffic, 12 o'clock, thousand feet above, opposite direction, an F-18. So we scale the TCAS out a bit, and sure enough, there he is, 20-30 miles away. We had the radar on, there was some weather on the climb-out, and we never got around to turning it off. I noticed almost immediately that the radar was spiking at the 12 o'clock position, but didn't make the connection right away. As the F-18 approached, our radar basically went haywire, painting a series of symetrical spikes, with the larget still being at the 12 o'clock position. As he went by, we were eyes outside to watch him whistle by (pretty neat stuff I guess), so I didn't see the radar right as he was on top of us. But, after he passed, the radar was clear and seemed to function normally.

Was this guy tracking us? I can only imagine that he did have his radar on, but I'm curious if military guys track airliners for proficiency?

 

[ex208driver]

Sometimes you will hear atc point you out to them and they will respond that they have you on radar, usually atc says back "I forgot that you can do that". You may or may not hear depending if they are using uhf or vhf.

 

[F16TJ]

A few weeks ago, we were cruising somewhere over NC and center tells us we have traffic, 12 o'clock, thousand feet above, opposite direction, an F-18. So we scale the TCAS out a bit, and sure enough, there he is, 20-30 miles away. We had the radar on, there was some weather on the climb-out, and we never got around to turning it off. I noticed almost immediately that the radar was spiking at the 12 o'clock position, but didn't make the connection right away. As the F-18 approached, our radar basically went haywire, painting a series of symetrical spikes, with the larget still being at the 12 o'clock position. As he went by, we were eyes outside to watch him whistle by (pretty neat stuff I guess), so I didn't see the radar right as he was on top of us. But, after he passed, the radar was clear and seemed to function normally.

Was this guy tracking us? I can only imagine that he did have his radar on, but I'm curious if military guys track airliners for proficiency?

He had you locked up. Remember, in a fighter you don't have TCAS, so the way one keeps track of traffic in front of you is to lock it up. Locking up a target is no big deal, helps with the tallyho. What you were seeing in your radar was mutual interference. Basically, both radars operating in the same part of the spectrum. Your radar was "seeing" lots of stuff in front of you on the same azimuth that the Hornet was on, thus reporting lots'o precip along that azimuth. Once you merged and passed, you were out of the scan pattern of the Hornet and your scope cleared up.

Like I said, tracking a target, or locking somebody up is no big deal. We don't do it for "proficiency", we do it for traffic SA.

Hope that helps.

 

[SuperFLUF]

I assume there's safeguards against accidentally letting a sidewinder go when you're locked on to an airliner.

 

[Axel]

Quite often there is an intermittent "spoke" on the airborne radar display that originates in the direction of ORF. I've seen it from several areas and it always points there.

 

[EagleRJ]

I assume there's safeguards against accidentally letting a sidewinder go when you're locked on to an airliner.

...or squeezing off a few rounds of 20MM (NJANG)!

I'm sure that nowdays, most fighters on training flights are carrying a few 'white' rounds. There are several steps to take before firing one, so hopefully the pilots are following procedure!

 

[Fury220]

Lest we forget that the sidewinder isn't a radar-guided missile...

 

[Swede]

Fighters track any targets airborne traveling cross country because they are bored $hitless, as well as for S.A.

Modern Pulsed-Doppler radars have filters which eliminate any return below a certain speed, IIRC it was about 90 knots in the F15. Over Germany (West Germany in those days), the cars on the autobahn cruised faster than the filter, and became targets on the display. It was easy to map the autobahn route based upon the string of targets displayed. Other entertaining tricks included tracking motorcycles with sidewinder seekers, as the pipes on the sides were plenty hot enough to track.