Radar Return

jhugz

jhugz

Well-Known Member
@MikeD @///AMG

Flying back from Aruba yesterday and got a report of two unidentified targets blacked out and not talking to Curaçao Center. Then we started getting weird radar returns with no WX in the area. Was flying with an ex-Hornet FO and he said those returns were probably radar from a two ship of Hornets (the unidentified targets) doing a CAP mission for the Ford. Ever hear of fighter radar showing up on WX radar? Or was he pulling my leg.
 
not sure if from another aircraft or a vessel but seen it fairly frequently on the NG in the western pacific
 
jhugz said:
@MikeD @///AMG

Flying back from Aruba yesterday and got a report of two unidentified targets blacked out and not talking to Curaçao Center. Then we started getting weird radar returns with no WX in the area. Was flying with an ex-Hornet FO and he said those returns were probably radar from a two ship of Hornets (the unidentified targets) doing a CAP mission for the Ford. Ever hear of fighter radar showing up on WX radar? Or was he pulling my leg.
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Not really my wheelhouse, but I worked with a dude who would paint airplanes we could see on ADS-B with the wx radar in the Pilatus. He would get very excited if he could see an airplane with it, "LOOK! Check it out! That's that airplane!" He was a former mil guy. I am not entirely sure if I believed him at the time (or really cared), but I was likely wrong? I have definitely seen boat masts painted on the weather radar going into PADU. There's this paper about using Doppler radar to paint airplanes from almost 20 years ago:


Granted, that's not the same kind of radar you're talking about really (at least I don't think you guys have doppler?) - but hypothetically, over relatively calm water, with the right amount of messing with the tilt and doing mental arithmetic I bet you could do it? I don't know, kind of a cool experience.
 
i mean yeah theyre not stealth itll paint a dense object, its not really good enough resolution to track anything unless the range selected is maybe around 60 miles. you can play with it next time youre following someone along an airway

the airplane/vessel i was speaking about returns a strong narrow “spike” from the source that appears almost all red from the same bearing
most recently saw it going back to base at night, deviating for weather the “spike” (incorrect term probably but thats what it looks like) kept emanating from the same location with our changes in heading. next day the CODs landed and carrier was in port later
 
jhugz said:
@MikeD @///AMG

Flying back from Aruba yesterday and got a report of two unidentified targets blacked out and not talking to Curaçao Center. Then we started getting weird radar returns with no WX in the area. Was flying with an ex-Hornet FO and he said those returns were probably radar from a two ship of Hornets (the unidentified targets) doing a CAP mission for the Ford. Ever hear of fighter radar showing up on WX radar? Or was he pulling my leg.
Click to expand...
Out of curiosity, when were you flying back from Aruba? I worked a flight out of there that left around 6 pm local...nothing unusual though I was on the lookout until we got into DR airspace given the NOTAM and some of the recent activities around there.
 
jhugz said:
@MikeD @///AMG

Flying back from Aruba yesterday and got a report of two unidentified targets blacked out and not talking to Curaçao Center. Then we started getting weird radar returns with no WX in the area. Was flying with an ex-Hornet FO and he said those returns were probably radar from a two ship of Hornets (the unidentified targets) doing a CAP mission for the Ford. Ever hear of fighter radar showing up on WX radar? Or was he pulling my leg.
Click to expand...

Not specific to WX radar, but we experience basic EMI just from other fighter radars sometimes (ie fighter pointing at other fighter). Off the top of my head, i dont know what freq range the wx radar operates in, but it wouldn’t surprise me if his guess was true. Navy aircraft certainly would not be squawking any code they code interrogate in international waters, and would be operating due regard. I never once talked to any oceanic agency or foreign ATC while over the open ocean. Occasionally we would be bothered on guard by someone, usually the Iranians, but you just deselected guard and ignored them. It normally became a safety of flight issue if you didn’t.
 
All airliner WX radars show up as rackets in the I/J band on the ESM. Which also happens to be the same radar band as antiship missile emitters and commercial furuno surface radars used by civil merchant ships. The I/j band is 7-17 GHz. And I think the weather radar and commercial furuno radars is around 9 GHz.

But the 3 types of radars are have different characteristics so it’s distinguishable between radar emitter types. Like we can tell when one airliner is using a different weather radar manufacturer from another airliner.

Fighter radar operates in a different frequency band from the civilian airliner weather radar.

But until I became an airline pilot I never used radar to find weather, I always tuned weather out so that I could see surface and air tracks.
 
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Tried to edit.

I doubt that you’d see return from the fighter radar show up as your radar return on your display as your radar isn’t looking for returns from a fighter radar emitter You’d probably see interference maybe. Or more likely you get actual paint off another aircraft return from your own radar on your screen.
 
If it's a long, narrow spike on the wx radar that's all red, it was probably a fighter or sea based destroyer that was scanning. At least this is what my fighter buddies tell me we when fly and see it.
 
I’m a responsible aviator and would never take a picture on the flight deck and if I did I would never post it to the intrawebs. 😏

However, the returns looked very similar to this picture I found on Reddit.

IMG_0178.jpeg
 
89-LX said:
If it's a long, narrow spike on the wx radar that's all red, it was probably a fighter or sea based destroyer that was scanning. At least this is what my fighter buddies tell me we when fly and see it.
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What you describe there is very common for us when we are flying over Norfolk, VA on a clear weather day and suddenly the base lights up on the Wx radar like a rain cell. Sometimes it’s a blob instead of a spike, but not like when the Wx radar reads NYC.
 
if you hit a fire control illuminator directly it will bloom on your scope as it’s what we call boresighted.

It’s reflecting all of the radar energy you sent at it right back to you.

From a SAM shooter point of view we try not to boresight / illuminate someone because it blows up our RCS and we are just a big “I’m here”

In the old days the old Talos terrier (i.e. the Little Rock cruiser museum in Buffalo) and SM-1 days. we had to boresight someone before you put a bird in the air, but now you can put a SM-2 / SM-3 / SM-6 in the air and only light someone up just before missile intercept.

IMG_0018.jpeg
 
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