All weather / zero visibility capabilities

Hi all,

can the Viggen be considered an all weather strike fighter?

I have read everything that can be found on the internet about it (the AJS37-Variant), but it is never descripted as an all weather aircraft, although it has ground radar and TILS.

In my mind the swedish airforce would never send their Viggens on a interdiction-type strike mission, if visibility is zero (pitch black night, extreme fog), because the Viggen needs line of sight to deliver its weapons.

Or am i wrong?

Also i have tried several missions at night and in zero visibility and it is nearly impossible to hit your intended target - although a very precise waypoint on the target can help tremendously.

Radar, toss and NAV delivery modes do not require visually spotting the target. Neither do the RB-04, or the RB-15 and BK-90 (although those were introduced much later), so in that sense yes, the Viggen most definitely has all-weather capability. It may not be as good as, say, a Tornado or A-6, or anything dropping JDAM, but it's still very capable for its era.

Having said that yes, not identifying the target visually doesn't help of course. That goes for pretty much anything that isn't delivered at standoff range though.

What TLTeo said. Even the true All weather strike fighters that have been in service before the rise of JDAMs (e.g. Tornado, F-111) have not much more capabilities in this regard than the Viggen. Most important difference is probably the TFR that the Tornado and the F-111 have, but the Viggen has a gorund avoidance radar mode, which can be seen as a poor man's TFR, and the landscape of eastern Sweden is rather flat anyways, making a true TFR less necessary. TFR doesn't work very well in heavy rain anyways.

thanks, sounds reasonable to me!

Is there something like a tutorial for ground avoidance mode?

It is very hard to fly e.g. thick fog and only looking at the radar.

I'm sure there are plenty around Youtube, but I don't have any I would recommend particularly.

What I found works best in terrain avoidance mode is to use it exclusively in mode A2 and keep the range at 15 kilometers. If you're navigating to a target you don't necessarily care much about far details. I have also noticed that if you are extremely low to the ground (say, below 100 meters) you hardly get any returns (probably because it's too noisy and everything somehow gets filtered out?), so instead I tend to fly at around 300ish meters where the radar picture looks cleaner.

I'm sure there are plenty around Youtube, but I don't have any I would recommend particularly.

 

 

 

What I found works best in terrain avoidance mode is to use it exclusively in mode A2 and keep the range at 15 kilometers. If you're navigating to a target you don't necessarily care much about far details. I have also noticed that if you are extremely low to the ground (say, below 100 meters) you hardly get any returns (probably because it's too noisy and everything somehow gets filtered out?), so instead I tend to fly at around 300ish meters where the radar picture looks cleaner.

ok, thanks.

will try that

I'm sure there are plenty around Youtube, but I don't have any I would recommend particularly.

I've been working on one that encompases all the Radar features,

What I found works best in terrain avoidance mode is to use it exclusively in mode A2 and keep the range at 15 kilometers. If you're navigating to a target you don't necessarily care much about far details. I have also noticed that if you are extremely low to the ground (say, below 100 meters) you hardly get any returns (probably because it's too noisy and everything somehow gets filtered out?), so instead I tend to fly at around 300ish meters where the radar picture looks cleaner.

The TA radar is primarily designed to be used in the 15k range though the A Scope view of the plot is the intended and most "useful" means, which of course depends on the pilot grasping how to comfortably read the A Scope plot. This is because the A Scope doesn't condense the returns nearest the aircraft - in the TA mode, the most critical area of all.

It is very hard to fly e.g. thick fog and only looking at the radar.

It's no different than an instrument flight?

 

It's no different than an instrument flight?

Yes, you are right.

My description was inaccurat.

I meant flying in thick, low hanging clouds in the caucasus - star wars trench run style.

Im talking about a situation where flying a mirage, hog, harrier would be impossible.

I love the idea of flying an attack run when most of other aircraft are unusable.

Not only real life, but DCS too.

When finished, will hornet and viper be better at such a sortie with their ground radar?

When finished, will hornet and viper be better at such a sortie with their ground radar?

No, as they both lack the most important instrument for this type of flying: The TFR. Some Viper variants do have a TFR and hence would be better at that task than the Viggen, but our Viper variant won't have a TFR and not even a TA mode like the Viggen does. This type of flying was very popular in the 80s at the ehight of the cold war (hence all the all weather interdictors of that time like the Tornado, F-111, Su-24, ...), but nowadays A2G warfare has shifted to precision bombing from medium to high altitudes and the art of operating at low level under various conditions has pretty much vanished, both skill wise and equipment wise. That was because the threat environment in the recent 10-20 years was different, when fighting terrorists, but now operating in high threat environments becomes more important again, but instead of reviving low level operations, it is all about stand off weapons now.

That was because the threat environment in the recent 10-20 years was different, when fighting terrorists, but now operating in high threat environments becomes more important again, but instead of reviving low level operations, it is all about stand off weapons now.

Also low level flight resulted in far more losses than medium level during Desert Storm; that kind of showed that even ~30 years ago, the low level tactics weren't survivable enough. Between that and modern air defenses you are right that there's no reason to go low level when you can just chuck Storm Shadow, JSOW and the like far away from the most dangerous areas.

Also low level flight resulted in far more losses than medium level during Desert Storm; that kind of showed that even ~30 years ago, the low level tactics weren't survivable enough. Between that and modern air defenses you are right that there's no reason to go low level when you can just chuck Storm Shadow, JSOW and the like far away from the most dangerous areas.

Well, the environment in Desert Storm was different than the one NATO forces has trained for beforehand (central europe). In a flat and empty desert low level flying is much less effective than in hilly and vegetaded areas as can be found in central europe (Fulda Gap!). Also in desert storm there was just a very limited high altitude threat environment, as this has been largly taken out in the first few hours of the operation. That can not be expected in a conflict against a peer adversary.

i discovered using terrain avoidance mode in linear mode will make obstacles way more clear.

I managed to fly several missions low level through the caucasus with zero visibility without crashing into something.

When you know how to read the radar the viggen can fly when other birds need to stay home.

i discovered using terrain avoidance mode in linear mode will make obstacles way more clear.

I managed to fly several missions low level through the caucasus with zero visibility without crashing into something.

When you know how to read the radar the viggen can fly when other birds need to stay home.

Did you use B-Scope (A2) or A1?

I have it in LIN instead of LOG as well, gives a better contrast.

I find it rather hard to follow the valleys, I guess I need to train more...

Does pulse lenght make difference?

Interesting, I never thought of that. When looking for features on the ground and/or targets I use log mode, and I switch to lin mode for air to air and/or air to sea. I never thought of trying lin with ground avoidance.

Lin while using ground avoidance mode is what's recomended in the manual.