So I've heard some of you mention how flying without radar on can help hide your position. I play F4AF on rookie and was wondering if the AI even cares and if it does then the proper technique would be appreciated. From what I can gather it seems like a great way to get ambushed.

I can understand the concern of snoozing your radar while in flight with fear of an ambush. But dont forget you usually have AWACs around. Just call in a vector to nearest threat or Request picture to get an idea of what lies ahead.
Also, set you radar range to 160nm and periodically turn it on for about 15secs. This will give you a full scan so you can quickly see whats out there, then return it to snooze.
The MAIN reason we snooze our radar is so we DON'T give away our location.

Heres an example.
Lets say your heading out for a bombing run. You got wing tanks, your heavy and your in 'CAT III'
You are flying a heading of 360. Bandits are heading 090, 25nm, bearing 360 (right off your nose, ya?)
At those locations you'll be outside of the bandits scan azimuth, so you shouldn't be showing on his radar, but if you had YOUR radar scanning then you'll blip up on his RWR giving away your position relative to his. By putting your radar to standby you wouldn't of shown up on his RWR, and you would of cruised clean through to target. If the bandits spotted your flight you might of been put in a position to go defensive, drop stores, go 'CAT I' and RTB. All in all, a big mission failure there. See the idea here?

Even with your radar to standby you still have your RWR (Radar Warning Receiver). That says it all right there. When your pinged by radar it'll show the position of the transmitter relative to the receiver. In the above example you would of eluded that group of bogeys. But lets say they turn heading 180 (straight towards you). You would see them on the RWR pinging you. Continued pings may become a threat. As soon as they soft lock on you then maybe its time to prepare for an engagement. There have been plenty of times when I was in that situation and I stared at the RWR. Ping after ping, never a soft or hard lock on me, & all of a sudden they start to turn away. Just because they are pinging you doesn't mean they are after you.
Who cares if there are bandits out there...if they don't see you then they don't exist

I think I'm starting to ramble some. Hope you can see what I've been trying to drive at here.

You rock! So I should be snoozing during the campaign then? No wonder I kept getting shot out of the air.

If you want to come into target area with as low profile as possible, then fly over water, low altitude (500ft) with radar off till near target IP .
Make sure AI in your flight fly low too (keep them close up formation) .
These things will limit the amount of time the red side will have to get radar or visual sighting on you from search, sam, AB and vehicle radars plus visual (try and set waypoints not over ground troops/vehicles) .

You won't get a true stealth affect but will help a lot to when you get found, it will be much later point in time if all goes right .

What about for offensive A-A? Isn't it better to be higher than the target?

same thing for air-to-air or did you mean AAA/sams ?.
Your still going to have to pop up at IP (depending on weapons released).
whether you go high or low altitude depends on mission, aircraft around IP/target point and what weapons you have (stand-off ranges ) .

Well how about for an interdiction/sweep? Its hard to do A2A and successfully nail a mig 29 when its 20k+ higher than you...at least I think.

As I said it depends on mission , if there is a lot of red aircraft and your on A/G type mission then maybe you need to add escort flight.
If its a sweep or barcap type well high altitude would be proper as you don't want a to be lower altitude and trying to lock/fire on bandits .

Every mission can have a different needs to waypoint altitudes during flight .

Yes altitude does play a big part in A/A engagements. You can even deny WEZ by being higher than the bandit. At equal speed and altitude the R-77 has more legs than the 120 so higher is better. Plus energy management dictates altitude needed to defend against impeding shots. The object should be to get the first shot; if you can't, don't press the situation. Reset and re-engage from neutral or better positions. As you increase the difficulty level you will notice that the bandits will start to zoom and deny you WEZ. It is a climbing match better to be high to begin with!!!!!

Thanks guys, since posting this I've been playing with radars off until hostile contact (turning it on occassionally) and flying at 30k ft for OCA-style missions and I must say there's been a big improvement. For A-G missions ill drop to the basement the second I get pinged by hostiles...but I'm still dying left and right (balkans 2012 balance of power, aka f-16 massacre 2k10). Its nice being able to sneak up on the other guys for once...if only I could survive a mission. Korea wasn't this difficult!

ashoob,

You mentioned Balkans 2012... Are you flying the Skunkworks Campaign?

If so, the AI has been ramped up and is definitely harder to overcome.

Try and survive the first 2 days with DCA's and be defensive until the

Red side has suffered some losses in the air. You may also have noticed

that if you wait till night there may be less enemy A-A activity which may

give you an opprotunity to knock out their Airbases while they sleep.

Don't try and win the Campaign on the first day and you'll be surprised

the outcome after day 3!

Whoopsie...I meant balkans 2010. Still though, I'm playing on rookie and they are smoking me bad. I've yet to finish more than a couple missions without becoming a smudge on the ground. I guess I need more practice.

It all comes with time, it took me well over a year to grasp a good understanding of all things Falcon. I think you should swing on over the UKFalconeers. We'll get you up to speed quickly. Don't get the wrong idea though. Were not a wing, squadron or anything of the sort. Just a community that likes to fly. There are plenty of guys, including myself, who wouldn't mind getting up in the air with you and showing you a few things. You can be my wingman anytime
Come say hi sometimes, there is usually someone flying.
http://www.ukfalconeers.com/

I totally agree.

The best way to learn quicker than at home is to fly with others that have the knowledge you seek.

UKF is an excellent community of pilots from all over the world and surely you'll get all the

answers you need in 1/20th the time it would take to read and study at home.

Thanks guys, I think ill be hitting up that site soon once I figure out why my right twist rudder control seems to be developing a mind of its own. I normally don't do online play but I think I can make an exception for this