(F16) Avionics, Air2Air Combat, Setting BullsEye location

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by indigowarrior9 » 04 Apr 2018, 08:49

Hello All
On the April 9th, 2018 the annual NATO exercise "Frisian Flag" is starting at EHLW:
- http://www.luchtvaartnoordnederland.nl/frisian-flag-2018/
- http://prk-aviation.nl/frisianflag2018.htm
- https://twitter.com/hashtag/frisianflag2018?f=tweets&vertical=default&src=hash

In preparation to enjoy this event to the max I'm already listening to the live ATC-streams on Scannernet over here.
And follow the aircraft on their ADSB/radar scope on the same page
- http://www.scannernet.nl/luchtvaart/militaire-luchtvaart

On that ATC-stream one can hear the following stations:
- EHLW Ground and Tower
- RapCon North
- Dutchmil
- Bandbox
They are communicating with all planes in Dutch General Aviation Airspace (EHAA-FIR)
and the "Frisian Flag" Airspace and with the participants of the Frisian Flag exercise.

During this communication I often hear BRAA calls like
- <callsign>, Single Group, Bullseye 250, 25, 25 thousand, hostile
- <callsign>, Single Group, Bullseye 123, 40, 12 thousand, bogey, Snif Flanker

So far, I've already figured a lot (about that ABM and ATC-language) but I still have some questions:
Q1 - Who does assign the BullsEye location inside the Frisian Flag airspace?
Q2 - Does the BullsEye location have a fixed location or can it be put anywhere (in the airspace / world)?
Q3 - How do participating pilots enter this BullsEye location into to their avionics?

This year the following type-of-fighter-jets are participating in the exercise:
BLUE AIR:
- EuroFighter 2000 (Germany)
- F15 C/D (USA)
- F16 AM/BM C/D (NL, Poland)
- F18 (Spain)
- Mirage 2000D (France)
- Rafale B/C France)

RED AIR:
- AN4 Shyhawks (Discovery Air)
- Mig29 (Poland)
- Falcon20 (UK, Jammer)

Q4 - How can the pilots of all different type of aircraft use the same BullsEye (location)?
Must they all have the same avionics suite on board (like a LINK16 display of some sort)
- https://www.baesystems.com/en-us/product/link-16-terminals

Thanks for all your references, hints, tips and answers to my questions.


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by f4u7_corsair » 11 Apr 2018, 22:24

FIrst, a bulls isn't exactly the same thing as a BRA. The latter is a relative location from a specific group, flight or aircraft, while the former is a unique (and usually daily) reference point.

1. Certainly the tasking & planning folks. It would be issued in the daily documentation and tasking orders given to anyone involved in the ops.

2. As long as anyone has the same BE coordinates at a given time, it can be placed virtually anywhere. That's the purpose of the BE, i.e. having a dynamic reference point to avoid giving clear position info over radio channels. It also serves as a unique reference for everyone in the air, instead of giving specific BRAs to individual groups.

Lets say the interception control notices a pop up hostile group somewhere, and needs to advise two different friendly CAP flights. Instead of successively giving two different BRAs for both CAP, he just broadcasts the positbulls of the hostile group.

3. It depends on the aircraft of course, but usually via the data cartridge and other parameters cards that are loaded in the aircraft systems upon startup. I assume it could be broadcasted via L16 too.

4. I am not sure I understand your question? Since everyone will have the same BE on the same day, they will all be able to exploit positbulls readings.

How they do it comed to avionic details. Most modern combat aircraft will have the BE, their own positbulls, and any bugged target positbulls displayed on their radar, navigation screens, etc.


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by indigowarrior9 » 05 Apr 2019, 13:48

Hello f4u7_corsair
Sorry for :oops: the _little_ late reply :oops: since I only re-discovered my own question on this forum when googling.
when I was wondering about the Bull-Eye related question (again) when listening on the radio comm during the current
Frisian Flag 2019 exercise.

Thanks for your extensive answers and feedback on my questions! Much appreciated!



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