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One of my best friends from college for the A-6E and took part in operation desert storm. Now he’s one of the top civilians for the Navy’s Pacific Fleet aerial command.
I have almost 3,000 hours in the A-6A and A-6E. That display was for the pilot. The B/N did not have that same display. We looked at raw radar returns. The Search Radar Terrain Clearance (SRTC) system used a sophisticated radar receiver to measure the azimuth, range and height of the highest terrain in each of about 200 boxes in a matrix and electronically smoothed out that presentation displayed to the pilot as a series of range bins; each reacting to terrain as the aircraft flew closer to it. Each range bin was coded for a different distance from the aircraft. The pilot would dial an offset impact bar on the desired range bin. The jet was then flown to keep the offset impact bar at the top of the selected range bin as it reacted to rising terrain. This provided desired altitude clearance above the terrain. The boxes of the matrix near the center of the aircraft nose in both range and azimuth were much smaller than in size and offered much more fidelity in terms of precision than boxes further away from the nose in both range and azimuth. So, between the pilots display and the B/N telling the pilot exactly what he should be reacting to in regards to the SRTC it was a great system. I've flown it many many times in really shitty weather down low at night. It was a lot of hard work, but flying low lever at night and bad weather and actually hitting targets with precision was the bread and butter mission of the A-6. It was a truly great jet.
@@williamdykes2750 Did the terrain following radar system on the A-6 allow for hands off flying down at low level or did it just provide visual cues for the pilot to manually fly the aircraft and avoid terrain obstacles?
There was no Automatic Terrain Following capability in the A-6. It was totally up to the skill of the crew to avoid terrain. The BN using the radar. The pilot using the SRTC (Search Radar Terrain Clearance) display on his main instrument display to avoid terrain. The SRTC display was derived from the same radar data the BN used. The SRTC used digitized data to present the terrain in a three dimensional display in a pretty small window ahead of the aircraft. The computer took height, range, and azimuth data from the highest terrain in each block of a 200 block matrix and then electronically smoothed the data for display to the pilot. The BN had a much larger view of the raw radar returns ahead. That’s why the BNs were constantly giving verbal updates about terrain ahead. It was a very good system.
@@williamdykes2750thanks, I have been wondering about that for years. I used to get all the Naval Aviation newsletters they sent to my school library, and I still remember one article that was about them updating the A-6 screens to a more modern standard. It showed the old screen and the new screen for comparison. I threw all those mags away later, now I really wish I had saved them. What I also want to know, and not just for the A-6, how does a radar see and identify a target? Clearly they are able to target things with the radar, but how does it know like a building from a large rock formation? How does it display that sort of information to the pilot, after raw data stopped being used. It's really hard to find detailed into like that. I find stuff about aerial scopes but not ground attack systems.
Just real quick about different radar returns of large boulders or buildings. In nature, for the most part, objects are not squared or have corner reflector properties as are common with most man made objects. So think about a building with wings perpendicular to the main part of the building. Of course a lot more goes into an answer, but you get the basics. Back in the raw radar days, being the radar operator (BN in an A-6) was part science, part math & physics, part art or almost magic (as in there was an art to being really good at identifying specific radar returns as the intended target versus radar returns not being the targets). It took hours and hours and hours of preparation before flying a mission. The operator had to know what the target would look like on the radar. Sometimes we drew radar predictions to aid us in predetermining target radar return properties and determine what the radar would look like prior to hitting the target. It took a lot of preflight work. We could also target things that were not radar significant meaning they lacked physical properties to return a radar signal. For example, if an intended target was located in an underground bunker, as long as the bunker geographical coordinates were known and a radar significant object, to use as an aim point, was within 16.5 nautical miles (this was an A-6 capability) then the Bombardier Navigator could determine the bearing and distance from the target to the aim point and input that data into the mission computer. So, in our case, let’s say a bridge of a river was with 16.5 miles from the bunker target, the BN could run an attack against the bridge while the pilot was getting steering and attack information to the actual target. This is called offset aim point bombing. There were other techniques involved and my examples are pretty simple ones, but hopefully you will get the idea. Today, modern strike aircraft use much higher capacity computers with much faster through put to syntheticly process radar returns and display them with much better fidelity than the raw radar returns of my time. I have about 50 hours in an F/A-18D which is not much at all. It was a long time ago too. The radar picture I was able to build was far better in many ways than what I was used to in an A-6. I can only imagine how much better the radar display is now compared to an F/A-18 from 30 years ago. I hope this scratches your itch about the subject. Thanks for asking about it.
I served on the Kennedy in 1972-1975. My squadron, VA-34 (Blue Blasters), aircraft was shown in small bits in this flick. The ready room scene is VA 35, the Panthers whom reported aboard the Kennedy after 1976 when VA-34 was transferred elsewhere. I worked on the A-6A through E aircraft as VA-34 transitioned from A-6A and B To the A-6E model in 1974. The A-6E didn't have the TRAM system on it at the time. A-6C was the FLIR reconnaissance model and the KA-6D was the refueling tanker. The EA-6B Prowler was a 4 seater ECM platform operated by another squadron.
Nice timing with DCS Intruder announcement.
"Lurch" doing the briefing! Ran into him at a 7-11 last year. A great man if there ever was one.
INCREDIBLY informative and easy to follow video, thank you so much for archiving this!
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The soundtrack was also used at the National Air and Space museum carrier aviation exhibit, circa 1970s. Thanks for the nostalgia!
I love this plane.
One of my best friends from college for the A-6E and took part in operation desert storm. Now he’s one of the top civilians for the Navy’s Pacific Fleet aerial command.
Getting some strong Robert Stack narration vibes. If it's not him narrating, this guy's a dead ringer.
Me too! Had to go find some other clips and check I wasn't crazy. And even then I'm still not sure!
That’s 100% Stack
@@willm.n2178 How is it not, right? It's gotta be Stack.
nice quality
This would have seemed like a space age plane in it's time👍✈️
man that terrain clearance system sreen looks like nothing Ive seen before , any other info
I have almost 3,000 hours in the A-6A and A-6E. That display was for the pilot. The B/N did not have that same display. We looked at raw radar returns. The Search Radar Terrain Clearance (SRTC) system used a sophisticated radar receiver to measure the azimuth, range and height of the highest terrain in each of about 200 boxes in a matrix and electronically smoothed out that presentation displayed to the pilot as a series of range bins; each reacting to terrain as the aircraft flew closer to it. Each range bin was coded for a different distance from the aircraft. The pilot would dial an offset impact bar on the desired range bin. The jet was then flown to keep the offset impact bar at the top of the selected range bin as it reacted to rising terrain. This provided desired altitude clearance above the terrain. The boxes of the matrix near the center of the aircraft nose in both range and azimuth were much smaller than in size and offered much more fidelity in terms of precision than boxes further away from the nose in both range and azimuth. So, between the pilots display and the B/N telling the pilot exactly what he should be reacting to in regards to the SRTC it was a great system. I've flown it many many times in really shitty weather down low at night. It was a lot of hard work, but flying low lever at night and bad weather and actually hitting targets with precision was the bread and butter mission of the A-6. It was a truly great jet.
@@williamdykes2750 Did the terrain following radar system on the A-6 allow for hands off flying down at low level or did it just provide visual cues for the pilot to manually fly the aircraft and avoid terrain obstacles?
There was no Automatic Terrain Following capability in the A-6. It was totally up to the skill of the crew to avoid terrain. The BN using the radar. The pilot using the SRTC (Search Radar Terrain Clearance) display on his main instrument display to avoid terrain. The SRTC display was derived from the same radar data the BN used. The SRTC used digitized data to present the terrain in a three dimensional display in a pretty small window ahead of the aircraft. The computer took height, range, and azimuth data from the highest terrain in each block of a 200 block matrix and then electronically smoothed the data for display to the pilot. The BN had a much larger view of the raw radar returns ahead. That’s why the BNs were constantly giving verbal updates about terrain ahead. It was a very good system.
@@williamdykes2750thanks, I have been wondering about that for years. I used to get all the Naval Aviation newsletters they sent to my school library, and I still remember one article that was about them updating the A-6 screens to a more modern standard. It showed the old screen and the new screen for comparison. I threw all those mags away later, now I really wish I had saved them.
What I also want to know, and not just for the A-6, how does a radar see and identify a target? Clearly they are able to target things with the radar, but how does it know like a building from a large rock formation? How does it display that sort of information to the pilot, after raw data stopped being used. It's really hard to find detailed into like that. I find stuff about aerial scopes but not ground attack systems.
Just real quick about different radar returns of large boulders or buildings. In nature, for the most part, objects are not squared or have corner reflector properties as are common with most man made objects. So think about a building with wings perpendicular to the main part of the building. Of course a lot more goes into an answer, but you get the basics.
Back in the raw radar days, being the radar operator (BN in an A-6) was part science, part math & physics, part art or almost magic (as in there was an art to being really good at identifying specific radar returns as the intended target versus radar returns not being the targets). It took hours and hours and hours of preparation before flying a mission. The operator had to know what the target would look like on the radar. Sometimes we drew radar predictions to aid us in predetermining target radar return properties and determine what the radar would look like prior to hitting the target. It took a lot of preflight work.
We could also target things that were not radar significant meaning they lacked physical properties to return a radar signal. For example, if an intended target was located in an underground bunker, as long as the bunker geographical coordinates were known and a radar significant object, to use as an aim point, was within 16.5 nautical miles (this was an A-6 capability) then the Bombardier Navigator could determine the bearing and distance from the target to the aim point and input that data into the mission computer. So, in our case, let’s say a bridge of a river was with 16.5 miles from the bunker target, the BN could run an attack against the bridge while the pilot was getting steering and attack information to the actual target. This is called offset aim point bombing.
There were other techniques involved and my examples are pretty simple ones, but hopefully you will get the idea.
Today, modern strike aircraft use much higher capacity computers with much faster through put to syntheticly process radar returns and display them with much better fidelity than the raw radar returns of my time. I have about 50 hours in an F/A-18D which is not much at all. It was a long time ago too. The radar picture I was able to build was far better in many ways than what I was used to in an A-6. I can only imagine how much better the radar display is now compared to an F/A-18 from 30 years ago.
I hope this scratches your itch about the subject. Thanks for asking about it.
I was with VA-95 on CVN-65 81-85💪
Get Some!
Rah!
My dad served on the Kennedy in the early 80's
I served on the Kennedy in 1972-1975. My squadron, VA-34 (Blue Blasters), aircraft was shown in small bits in this flick. The ready room scene is VA 35, the Panthers whom reported aboard the Kennedy after 1976 when VA-34 was transferred elsewhere. I worked on the A-6A through E aircraft as VA-34 transitioned from A-6A and B To the A-6E model in 1974. The A-6E didn't have the TRAM system on it at the time. A-6C was the FLIR reconnaissance model and the KA-6D was the refueling tanker. The EA-6B Prowler was a 4 seater ECM platform operated by another squadron.
Fascinating - but the radar terrain-avoidance feature rather stole the show.
"flyre"? I always said it the way it's spelled. Flir. Flur.