Originally posted by GeneralProtectionFault:
Depends. NCTR usually identifies aircraft designs used by NATO immediately. So in actual use it's another inductive way of identifying an enemy, and it's faster than waiting for "buddy spike" or asking AWACS to declare. So I usually lock a bogey in STT, and if it DOESN'T say that it's an airplane type used by NATO, then I drop back to SAM and take additional measures to identify the target. In my opinion, no amount of air to air kills is worth killing a friendly by accident.
That's fine, but the aircraft designs used by NATO aren't the ones that are normally a concern in terms of a threat
I have, ever since it became available in F4 and including AF, found it completely useless to identify unknown a/c; takes to long, regardless of the circumstances, aspect, etc.
And I can't recall the last time I shot a friendly down
