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#3371695 - 08/21/11 02:54 PM Sea Harrier & Gr3 Nav / Attack  
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Adam106 Offline
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I've been following the development of Jet Thunder for a couple of years now. I'm pleased to see the effort being made with the Harrier Nav / attack system, it looks like a fair number of HUD modes etc are being modeled.
I’m particularly interested in the navigation and attack capabilities of the early Harriers, however research on the net has only led to a partial understanding of this subject. It’s the same story with published works.
I’m aware that some members of the dev group (Dante-JT?) have access to Sea Harrier manuals and I wonder if you or anyone else could fill some of the gaps in my knowledge? Hopefully none of the answers will breach any security concerns etc….

If we start with the Sea Harrier:
The SHAR used the Ferranti 1010? navigation system and Smiths HUDWAC – not a pure inertial system due to ship board use, my questions are;
1) Did the SHAR have CCIP / CCIL modes for bombing? The HUDWAC software provided weapon-aiming cues for Air to Air, but what was available Air to Ground? Both Ward’s and Morgan’s books make reference to depressed sightline attacks (DSL) with pre calculated depression angles for manual bombing. No mention is made of CCIP, which leads you to think it wasn’t available. The question is why? The aircraft had a pretty accurate nav system with Doppler, which could provide data like wind vectors etc needed for CCIP.
2) If it had CCIP, did the system have a Planned Attack / Laydown mode? – Designating a waypoint as the target then carrying out a computer-assisted attack. Ward mentions in his book that 801 sqn SHARs performed laydown attacks at high altitude using a manual pre calculated release distance from the current waypoint – very much an ad hoc technique. So did the SHAR not have a computed planned attack mode?
3) The SHAR defiantly had a LOFT / TOSS capability – mention is made of this in numerous sources. This would have needed a radar lock on, of a surface ship for example, with the HUDWAC providing the required pull up and release cues. This capability was no doubt originally intended for its nuclear strike role – lobbing WE177s at ships. Can anyone confirm this and provide more detail? What did the pull up symbology look like? – Was it similar to the Tornado’s?
4) Other sources I have mention 3 Air to Surface bombing (ASB) modes; ASB1, ASB2 and ASB3;
ASB1 – basic manual bombing with depressed sightline – fine understood
ASB2 – computer assisted bombing, ‘which accounts for height, speed, altitude and wind speed’ – Is this referring to CCIP? This source comes from the mid nineties- was CCIP an upgrade that took place after 1982 maybe– a possible reason for no mention in Wards book????
ASB3 – Computer assisted bombing with radar ranging – using the Blue Fox to radar range the target to provide a more accurate calculated release point. Good, I understand the concept – can anyone confirm and provide details of HUD symbology etc?
I don't imagine there were buttons for ASB1, ASB2 etc in the cockpit - these merely being configurations of the system that required setting up. There were no doubt other reversion modes as well.

Now for the Harrier GR3:
The GR3 used the Ferranti FE 541 inertial attack system – an early (analog?) INS system, which was ahead of its time in 1969 but often said to be too complicated for the aircraft it was put into…. I know CCIP / Planned attack etc is irrelevant for a Falklands sim since it wasn’t available due to problems aligning the FE 541 on board ship.

However the GR3 had a sophisticated system for both planned and target of opportunity attacks. Some of the HUD symbology can be seen here:
http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1971/1971%20-%200108.html

Clearly the GR3 was capable of computer assisted planned attacks on known locations, but again, was there a CCIP mode? I ask because there seems to be no ‘release cue’ present on the bomb fall line. This was a short little line that would rise up to meet the ‘target bar’ (the one aligned over the target), when the two lines met the bombs would release automatically. The little ‘release cue’ represented I think a CCIP solution – at least it does on the Jaguar for which I have a NAV / ATTACK Brochure produced by British Aerospace. Now the HUD symbology for both the Harrier and Jaguar look very similar (both made by Smiths), so without the ‘release cue’ I ask the question did the Gr3 have CCIP for bombs? Again there seems to be no specific mention of it in my research.
(Since you’ve modeled the GR3 cockpit – can you tell me the labels on the weapons panel to the left of the pylon select switches – this may provide insight)

Does anyone own or has seen this manual:
http://www.flight-manuals-on-cd.com/AV8.html - CD 2 ‘Manufacturers Pilot's Notes for the Harrier GR.Mk.1, HSA Publication No 25 dated 2-12-71 with approx 196 pages.’
Does it contain any further information on the navigation / weapons system?

Sorry, it’s been a longer post then intended but for some reason I’m intrigued by this stuff. Maybe someone can help fill in the gaps……

Adam.

Last edited by Adam106; 08/21/11 02:56 PM.
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#3371868 - 08/21/11 08:24 PM Re: Sea Harrier & Gr3 Nav / Attack [Re: Adam106]  
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SC/JG_Oesau Offline
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I'll bring this to one of the team helping with the sim as they have done a lot of work investigating this area. Note, if you look at the jaguar you'll see some similar items in use.


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#3371888 - 08/21/11 09:00 PM Re: Sea Harrier & Gr3 Nav / Attack [Re: SC/JG_Oesau]  
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Adam106 Offline
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Originally Posted By: SC/JG_Oesau
I'll bring this to one of the team helping with the sim as they have done a lot of work investigating this area. Note, if you look at the jaguar you'll see some similar items in use.


Thank you, look forward to hearing more...

The Jaguar certainly has a lot of similarities in its HUD symbology and operating modes, as does the Tornado to an extent. There are differences however, especially compared to Sea Harrier, and these are what I'm stumped on...

#3378658 - 08/31/11 06:56 AM Re: Sea Harrier & Gr3 Nav / Attack [Re: Adam106]  
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IvanK Offline
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I did a lot of the Harrier weapons system research for JT. Its been a while since I got into the books so I will need to re read before stating definitive things here.

The Sea Harrier info (FRs1 and for that matter FA2) is readily available as the team have complete copies of all the FRs1 manuals including the weapons stuff (other than the classified bits of course smile. Both the GR3 and FRs1 weapon systems are nightmares to come to grips with as the mechanisation is truly archaic compared to aircraft like the A7 and the F18(which I am familiar with) etc. A classic example is that in the FRs1 wypts are only 2D ... i.e. no altitude component. CCIP type delivery is available with various ranging methods, Typically the pilot pre set the depression of the radar and a cue was displayed in the HUD. Then in the pass the position of this was manually slewed. The pilot then had to make as I recall 3 presses (Phase change) of the hand controller to step through specific phases until eventually release symbology was displayed. Work load in the dive seems quire horrendous.

The GR3 info was harder to come across but we got access to the GR3 weapons manual courtesy of the RAF museum Hendon and copied most of it. Needless to say that the GR3 is more complex than the FRs1. The Jaguar brochure is a pretty good but rough guide summary to the the GR3 system though being earlier generation its more hands on whith much button pushing. We do know that all deliveries in the Falkands (except for one or 2 missions launched from Sheathbill) were in manual Reversion modes ... i.e. depressed sight-line deliveries.

The GR3 does have a CCIP sort of system.

Give us a couple of days and I will try and step through and answer each of the questions in your Post.

Last edited by IvanK; 08/31/11 08:24 AM.
#3378772 - 08/31/11 01:26 PM Re: Sea Harrier & Gr3 Nav / Attack [Re: IvanK]  
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Adam106 Offline
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Originally Posted By: IvanK
I did a lot of the Harrier weapons system research for JT. Its been a while since I got into the books so I will need to re read before stating definitive things here.

The Sea Harrier info (FRs1 and for that matter FA2) is readily available as the team have complete copies of all the FRs1 manuals including the weapons stuff (other than the classified bits of course smile. Both the GR3 and FRs1 weapon systems are nightmares to come to grips with as the mechanisation is truly archaic compared to aircraft like the A7 and the F18(which I am familiar with) etc. A classic example is that in the FRs1 wypts are only 2D ... i.e. no altitude component. CCIP type delivery is available with various ranging methods, Typically the pilot pre set the depression of the radar and a cue was displayed in the HUD. Then in the pass the position of this was manually slewed. The pilot then had to make as I recall 3 presses (Phase change) of the hand controller to step through specific phases until eventually release symbology was displayed. Work load in the dive seems quire horrendous.

The GR3 info was harder to come across but we got access to the GR3 weapons manual courtesy of the RAF museum Hendon and copied most of it. Needless to say that the GR3 is more complex than the FRs1. The Jaguar brochure is a pretty good but rough guide summary to the the GR3 system though being earlier generation its more hands on whith much button pushing. We do know that all deliveries in the Falkands (except for one or 2 missions launched from Sheathbill) were in manual Reversion modes ... i.e. depressed sight-line deliveries.

The GR3 does have a CCIP sort of system.

Give us a couple of days and I will try and step through and answer each of the questions in your Post.



Thanks for your response. I look forward to reading about a few more details if you can.

I'm interested in the switchology and indeed symbology of the various attack modes - I'm not sure why it fascinates so much but I'm sure years of simming is partly responsible, as well as an interest in that particular generation of cold war aircraft. You'll have to forgive some of my rather anal questions...

You mention the GR3 has a 'CCIP sort of system' - looking at the 3 or so references I've got, I've come to the same conclusion. The first flight global link in my first post has a few diagrams of HUD symbology:

The 'CCIP sort of system' is I believe the strike manual mode. I think this was a depressed reticle as shown, but with the depression automatically calculated by the computer. This way it compensated for wind velocity, aircraft speed, weight and attitude - but not altitude it seems and it was up to the pilot to estimate correct 'pass distance' i.e height above the target. I've kinda guessed this from the above source and a limited description in Jerry Pook's RAF Harrier Ground Attack Falklands.
You might be able to confirm if this is correct. What is the switchology needed to enter this mode - who knows?
I've also seen a similar reticle but with a fixed vertical line extending above and below it for the length of the HUD. Was this a reversionary mode?
Were there other reversionary modes? Does one such mode merely display a short (depressible?) horizontal line on the vertical one?

Planned automatic attacks and use of the FRS.1 radar opens up a whole load more questions of specifics....

Interesting what you say about RAF museum Hendon - was this a personal connection or did you arrange access by explaining why you wanted the manuals? I don't live a million miles from Hendon myself....

By the way, how much of your research are you planning to implement in Jet Thunder? A detailed sim of a British fast jet is something I've wanted ever since the days of DI's Tornado. I wish all the best in getting it finished.


Last edited by Adam106; 08/31/11 02:40 PM.
#3381785 - 09/04/11 01:03 AM Re: Sea Harrier & Gr3 Nav / Attack [Re: Adam106]  
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IvanK Offline
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Rather than answer each question here are the relevant FRS1 HUD displays with accompanying text. As you can see ASB1 through ASB3 just refer to Phase changes in a single attack.

CCIP


LOFT/CCRP/AUTO



GR3 WEAPONS INFO
The RAF museum are exceptional. All you need to do is send an Email to the Historical section and arrange an appointment.
Ask if you can view the manual shown (AP 101B-0603 & 4-15B Harrier GR3 Aircrew Manual Weapon System) in the JPG below. They will have it ready for you on arrival. The Historical section entrance is immediately to the left of the Museum shop. Just go to the counter they will sign you in and send you upstairs.They can also copy stuff for you (Horrendous cost though). Take a good digital camera and just copy what you need to.




Last edited by IvanK; 09/04/11 01:04 AM.
#3384842 - 09/07/11 06:49 PM Re: Sea Harrier & Gr3 Nav / Attack [Re: Adam106]  
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Adam106 Offline
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Adam106  Offline
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IvanK, Cheers

A picture speaks a thousand words - there's alot of info there to answer many of my questions. You'be been very helpful, air to air and reversion modes are another topic for another time maybe...

Thanks again


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