Q: Aircraft visual detection

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Q: Aircraft visual detection - contrails

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Q: Aircraft visual detection - contrails - 7/20/2014 6:26:15 PM

#Grumble

Posts: 111
Joined: 8/15/2013
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While I was trying some fighter radars vs. stealth I came across an F/A-18C first detecting an F-35 visually at 8.5nm (before it's radar could pick her up) by spotting it's contrails, great!

Can someone share the rules on this visual detection?
- How high do you get contrails? Band 4?
- How far are contrails visible from?
- Do high cruising missiles have contrails too? AAMs?

thanks

Post #: 1

RE: Q: Aircraft visual detection - contrails - 7/21/2014 7:51:37 PM

ComDev

Posts: 5735
Joined: 5/12/2006
Status: offline

From memory...

Contrails will only form at altitudes greater than 8000m, and at temperatures below -40 deg C. The simulator has a 'standard atmosphere' model that checks if the temperature is lower than 233 deg Kelvin at the aircraft's current altitude.

The simulator uses the aircraft's 'Visual Size Class' to determine the size of the contrail, and thus detection range. The detection range also depends on time-of-day and cloud cover.
- Very Large: 50nm
- Large: 30nm
- Medium: 20nm
- Small: 10nm

Both aircraft and air-breathing missiles produce contrails.

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Developer "Command: Modern Air/Naval Operations" project!

(in reply to #Grumble)

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RE: Q: Aircraft visual detection - contrails - 7/24/2014 11:14:15 AM

#Grumble

Posts: 111
Joined: 8/15/2013
Status: offline

Thanks!
Is the "Visual size class" same as "Aircraft size" in the DB viewer (that's the closest I can find) or is it an internal only DB field?

All this leads me to a feature request: Show/hide contrails visual option.

(in reply to ComDev)

Post #: 3

RE: Q: Aircraft visual detection - contrails - 7/25/2014 8:10:15 AM

ComDev

Posts: 5735
Joined: 5/12/2006
Status: offline

Reported your request and set it related to the earlier 'track history' request, thanks!

No promises on ETA or even if this is possible to implement. Suspect it will be a rather CPU-intensive thingie hehe.

Visual size class and physical aircraft size were two different properties in the code initially. But they got merged some time ago and I think that also included the contrail code. Will have to check to be sure but we're on our summer break so will have to wait until we get back

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Developer "Command: Modern Air/Naval Operations" project!

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RE: Q: Aircraft visual detection - contrails - 8/9/2014 1:22:28 PM

#Grumble

Posts: 111
Joined: 8/15/2013
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quote:

ORIGINAL: emsoy

Reported your request and set it related to the earlier 'track history' request, thanks! No promises on ETA or even if this is possible to implement. Suspect it will be a rather CPU-intensive thingie hehe.

:) No hurry.
How about a lighter solution though?
Contrail is for airplanes what Cavitation is for ships (well, you get the drift).
So add a "CTL" tag for a/c pulling a contrail, same as "CAV" for ships/subs.

(in reply to ComDev)

Post #: 5

RE: Q: Aircraft visual detection - contrails - 8/12/2014 2:27:07 PM

ComDev

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Joined: 5/12/2006
Status: offline

Interesting suggestion, thanks!

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Developer "Command: Modern Air/Naval Operations" project!

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