To: devnull@onion.rain.com (Falcon3 Mailing list) From: devnull@onion.rain.com (Falcon3 Mailing list) Reply-To: devnull@onion.rain.com (Falcon3 Mailing list) Sender: devnull@onion.rain.com (Falcon3 Mailing list) Errors-To: postmaster@onion.rain.com Return-Path: devnull@onion.rain.com (Falcon3 Mailing list) Precedence: bulk Bcc: falcon3-outgoing Subject: Falcon3 Digest V6 : I7 Falcon3 Digest Volume 6 : Issue 7 Wed Apr 20 06:54:02 PDT 1994 Compilation copyright (C) 1994 Jeff Beadles Send submissions to "falcon3@onion.rain.com" Send add/drop requests to "majordomo@onion.rain.com" Archives are available via ftp from neon.rain.com [199.2.109.18] Today's Topics: Patches: Help, I'm out of date!! sean.kerns@sdrc.com (sean kerns) IS IFF FOR REALISTIC? vic.palermo@deepcove.com MiG 29 Kuriles ROE bruce@bnkl01.astro.ucla.edu (Bruce F3 upgrade locks up -- help?! Claude Noshpitz writes " is IFF for all realistic ? ...newsreports about two american helicopters that were shot down by american fighters in Irak. The initial explanation... 2) When I fly falcon and my radar locks ... I first use IFF. Beep ? ... According to the falcon manual, basically all airplanes are equipped with these IFF devices. How come the fighter pilots in this case didn't use the IFF ? Or, (if they did) why then did the chopper pilots NOT use IFF to broadcast their identity ? Anybody any clues ? " Rolf Basically, your procedure in Falcon is the correct one although somewhat simplified because of the limited AWACS role in the simulation. A combat intercept is usually directed by the airborne controller (in the AWACS or on the ground) to a bogie that does not respond to IFF. The controller may control the intercept (GCI for example) or just provide the information to the pilots; it is complicated. Depending on the Rules of Engagement,a fighter may be granted weapons free status to fire on the target or may be required to interogate the target for IFF as well before weapons release. In many situations, visual ID may be required before shooting. US pilots have usually been given the authority to shoot in a hostile zone if they felt that they were in danger (the Libyian shoot downs for example). In SE asia, fighters were required to make a visual ID on the target before firing; this was due to several cases of F4's shooting each other down (hence the reason for the TESIO camera development for the F-14's.. ie long range visual ID capability). The shootdown in Iraq of the two helocopters though, leaves a of questions that need to be answered given that there are ROE in effect over the no fly zone. It's my opinion that the expanation by the US Military is incomplete. You are correct that all aircraft and helo's in a combat zone are IFF equipt. These systems are complex and prone to breakdown so it is possible that the helo systems were broke but unlikely that both systems were down at the same time. I have problems believing that the helos would fly around a no fly zone knowing that all their IFF was down. There are other problems too. First of all, all aircraft flying, regardless of civil or military file a flight plan and contact/fly under some control, in this case, it should have been with Army aviation with links to the airborne control in the AWACS that was monitoring the area. Somebody in command is responsible and should have known that the helo's were up. Further, the helo's are equipt with radar detection systems so the warning lights should have gone on when locked on ( remember, an AMRAAM was used to down one). If the IFF were busted on both aircraft then it is unfortunate, but why didn't they yell on the radio when the warning recievers beeped? Radio frequencies are also monitored, and usually, the international 123.0 is one of the pre-set buttons, so it could be switched to quickly. I don't believe the statements that the f-15 pilots actually had the helo's visually for any length of time. I don't know how you could mistaken a hind with a blackhawk..they are really different.. and this is assuming that the 15's slowed down to take a look... but I doubt the 15's slowed below 450 kts. The second was shot down by a sidewinder.. so the 15 must have probably closed to 2-3 miles for the launch. I am not sure why the AMRAAM was shot if the targets were in visual range. None of what we have been told really makes sense. Here is my two cents worth on what I think may have led to this accident. I believe that the helo's were on some sort of intellegence or clandestine mission with indigenous Kurds and SF personel. They were either on an insertion or pickup mission, flying under radio silence and with the IFF off. This mode is used while flying NOE in helos to sneak into hostile places. This may also explain why the airborne controllers on the AWACS didn't appear to know about the flight; it could have been completely under Army control without the normal integrated link and flight plan to the AWACS. Under this senario it is possible that the AWACS picked up the helos, not from lift off, but in flight as they perhaps emerged from the Iraqi side of the no-fly line. The military says that it took off from some town to the north of the no-fly zone but we only have their word for it. I suspect that the AWACS was unable to ID the Helo's via IFF, had no flight plan and cleared in the 15's who probably lock on and were also unable to squawk IFF.. Under these conditions and ROE the 15's were free to fire. I suspect that the first shot came from 5-10 miles out and the second from 2-3 miles. I may be adding 2 and 2 and getting 5 but most people I have talked to agree that the whole incident is odd and it's current expanation suspect. I will be interested to see what the official accident report will contain.. If there are any classified sections.. you can bet your dollar that my scenario may not be too far off the mark. \ / Vic "Kingsnake" Palermo \ / Dept. Fisheries and Oceans (n) E-mail: Vic.palermo@deepcove.com X-----====(.o.)====-----X Work: (604) 666-6592 XX +++ XX palermov@pbs.dfo.ca "Sting of the Hornet" ___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.12 ------------------------------- From: bruce@bnkl01.astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Macintosh) Subject: MiG 29 Kuriles ROE What are the Rules of Engagement in the early Kuriles scenarios in MiG-29? Specifically, who are the enemy? I got the impression from the manual (and from common sense) that Russia is at war with the Japanese but not the US, so Japanese planes could be attacked with impunity but not American. However, while actually flying, US aircraft seem to consistently attack me and my wingment consistently shoot back with no ROE messages. On the other hand, I carefully snuck up on a pair of FSX's (even using ENEMY view to make sure they had red suns on their wings), and got a you-are-violating-ROE message when I shot one down. What's going on? Bruce Macintosh bruce@bnkl01.astro.ucla.edu P.S. Another MiG oddity (presumably well-known) I've noticed is that, if I have TAS displayed, whenever I switch from autopilot to manual my speed leaps up about 150 knots. If I go back to autopilot it doesn't leap down; switch in and out of autopilot rapidly a few times and the plane is at 1500 knots (just before it becomes totally uncontrollable, pitches up too fast and the wings fall off.) This only happens with TAS displayed; unfortunately TAS is what I usually have displayed when I'm in the sort of situation ( just trying to cover ground) where I'm likely to use the autopilot. ------------------------------- From: Claude Noshpitz Subject: F3 upgrade locks up -- help?! Hi all! I have been running F3.0a for ages, but the Mig29 upgrade locks my system up badly. Black screen at startup, power-cycle required. I have tried: reinstalling previous f3, installing Mig without smartdrive, removing .def (or whatever they are) files, using *no* autoexec and absolutely minimal config.sys, using emm386 instead of qemm7, and a couple of other things I can;t remember right now. *NONE* of these has had any effect. I'm running on an old Zenith 386/33, BIOS dated 3/89. Any other suggestions? Bad BIOS? Thanks!!!! --claude ....................... nothin left to do but :-) :-) :-) ................... Claude Noshpitz claude@cse.ucsc.edu Home: (408) 427-2424 225 Applied Science R 2 4 5420 Coast Road University of California ----- Santa Cruz, CA 95060 USA Santa Cruz, CA 95064 USA 1 3 5 ------------------------------- From: ENG_WWE@LUB001.LAMAR.EDU Subject: TFNG Hey all, its time for my two cents worth on the idea of a falcon3 newsgroup. Personally I have no preference, in fact the idea of a newsgroup seems more appealing because I could check it out when I get a chance (I feel obligated to read all E-Mail as soon as it arives:). The only problem I see with the Newsgroup idea is that not everybody gets every newsgroup. I know that here I get no rec.games.* newsgroups at all (I discovered this looking for info on corewar). Jeff, Is there anything I can do to help ease the strain on your system? I am disabled and thus spend all of my time at home (and most of that online). Later all Warren "Too Low" Eckstein GO-d+pc++++luu-e+m---s+/+n-h---f?!gw+try** eng_wwe@lub001.lamar.edu ------------------------------- From: Patrick MARA - Pat Subject: F3 3.04 crashes (yes more!) Having upgraded to 3.04 a month or so ago and having played this version a great deal since, I have noticed a few bugs and mysterious crashes that I don't think were in the previous versions (surprise, surprise, surprise!). The first strange event that I noticed was in the Kuriles campaign. I was ordered to attack the Russian fleet and so I prepared the mission accordingly. When it came time to actually fly I clicked the takeoff button and proceeded to my aircraft. The problem was that the aircraft was in the air already, not on the runway..... Of course my gear was damaged (the aircraft was already doing enough knots to make it inoperable) and this restricted my airspeed to the extent that I aborted to try again. The same problem happened. Eventually (after another try) I ended the mission without flying it. Recently this problem occured in Pakistan. Pakistan has been a sourse of constant bugs lately. It got to the extent that I had to end a campaign before I lost more "superior pilots" to a world where nothing seemed to work as it should. The first of these is the autopilots inability to takeoff from the forward airbase at the campaigns beginning. (It always crashes into the bunker) Next was the problem of hitting targets only to find that at the end of the mission the report says that you destroyed the primary target, whilst the mission summary says that you failed it because you didn't hit sh@t. This is also a problem with CAP type missions. On one particular occasion, "me and my squad of ultimate badasses" destroyed 13 enemy aircraft in one mission, only to find at the end of the mission we failed because "you failed to destroy a single enemy aircraft". Now for the crashes.... The first of these was your average "I'm just not going to work" usualy computer game crash thingy. I can handle this occasionally, it may be annoying, but lets face it, its gonna happen. Then was the really strange one. The screen just got covered with a green wave, from the top to the bottom and then it crashed. This happened twice in a row. Don't suppose that anybodys got any ideas about this one? Now F3 is a truly great game (and the only one I play - though Tornado is looking pretty good!) but I just hope SH get their bloody act together for F4..... (I mean how many times can you improve a game and it still the buggiest thing I've heard of?) ------------------------------- From: as@robots.oxford.ac.uk (Andrew Stevens) Subject: HORNET in Europe >And then: WHY can't we have Hornet to Europe? The story about correctness is >poop. Even when the things are as they are. Is it not economically suitable, >or is the Microprose distributor goofing up, or what is it? I know I'll have >to order it from overseas, if I have to, but I won't like it. >I hope this won't duplicate on other SH products. This is a very messy story. The real problem is that Spectrum Holobyte products have always been distributed by Microprose in Europe. However, even though Microprose are now a SH subsidiary the European end of Microprose decided it wasn't worth launching HORNET in Europe. Presumably, because of the obvious clash with F14 FD (I'm sure all the stuff about Bosnia is total hokum). HOWEVER: SH have gone ahead and distributed in Europe (the UK at least) direct from the USA. Needless to say this results in a price for HORNET that is salty to say the least: 35 pounds in the UK (a full-price game is 45, Mig-29 was 25). It also makes it almost impossible to get decent info on European availability as Microprose (Europe) don't have a clue and SH are all in the US. Sigh..... Andrew ------------------------------- From: Joerg Stenger Subject: Re: Records are meant to fall... Russ wrote: > The super-speed happens when I rapidly throttle down the thumbwheel > throttle on my CH Flightstick (this throttle has NOT seen much use so > it is unlikely to have anything wrong with it). Observing the > "throttle/thrust/power" meter on the right front instrument panel > while throttling down, I noticed that the hand WENT PAST ZERO when I > throttled down fast (Can we say negative power? Can we say really big > unsigned integer power? Can we say INSTANT SUPER-SPEED!?) I could reproduce the high-speed effect by slamming my WCS II analog thottle to the very back (zero power). I use the analog reading for Alt/Speed and after 1000 kts I got some wired characters. I guess that SH programmed the Speed-variable as unsigned, so an overflow occured and the screen display routine tried desperately to show the ''numbers''; this way I got the complete ASCII- table in the speed-ladder. Joerg "Dancer" Stenger ------------------------------- [[ End of digest Volume 6 : Issue 7 ]]