AEW Helos

[DWReese]

What is the best altitude to fly an AEW helo at? Most of the scenarios generally place them at about 1500-2000 feet, so I assume that there is a reason for that. It would seem that you could "see" father with your radar if you were up higher. Do the helos lose "radar sight" of the things on the surface the higher that they go? Or, do they tend to stay low because it is safer?

Finally, the helos (as do other platforms) have surface radars. Is a missile a 30 feet above the surface best searched for using an Surface Radar, or a Air Search Radar? How about at 60 feet? In other words, where is cut off between what's considered to be "on the surface" and what is considered to be "in the air?"

Doug

[Lunex]

afaik, like you said, you want your AEW as high up as possible...

[Cik]

not necessarily. if you stay relatively low to the ground it's hard for ships to detect you as you are over their radar horizon, and the higher you are the easier you are to see by planes with last-gen radar sensors.

you still want to be high enough to be sitting above the altitude of a ship though, to circumvent the problem of sitting directly on the earth. AEW helos are pretty pointless if you hang <100 feet because then they have the same LOS as the ships and they will fail to detect missiles until too late.

assuming that's why they are in the air of course. that's what i use them for. but the same thing applies to helos, or low-flying aircraft (usually equipped with ASMs themselves)

default height is a good compromise as far as i'm concerned. high but not too high.

[mikmykWS]

Yeah helicopters are kind of limited in terms of operating altitudes and its really about being able to see over the horizon and seeing sea skimming threats.

I've always wondered why the US always took the high fixed wing approach and the UK and USSR low AEW. Hope to chase the answer one day but guessing its offensive vs. defensive requirements.

Mike

[Gunner98]

Someone posted a nifty spreadsheet horizon calculator a couple weeks back. I would think that if you applied the effective radar range and worked backwards you could find the ideal altitude for your AEW Helo based on height to achieve effective radar range + maybe 5%.

B

[HalfLifeExpert]

ORIGINAL: mikmyk

Yeah helicopters are kind of limited in terms of operating altitudes and its really about being able to see over the horizon and seeing sea skimming threats.

I've always wondered why the US always took the high fixed wing approach and the UK and USSR low AEW. Hope to chase the answer one day but guessing its offensive vs. defensive requirements.

Mike

My guess is US dominance is Carrier Air Power, and USSR needing to be careful with their assets, and perhaps UK just having budget problems?

[Filitch]

ORIGINAL: mikmyk
I've always wondered why the US always took the high fixed wing approach and the UK and USSR low AEW. Hope to chase the answer one day but guessing its offensive vs. defensive requirements.
Mike

The Soviet VMF had no experience in the employment and construction of aircraft carriers, such as the experience of the US Navy. Imposes budgetary constraints - a very expensive aircraft carriers ships. A more simple and cheap solution was to create a VTOL aircraft. And use them to the ships without catapults from the flight deck of a small size. In these circumstances, the only aircraft that could perform the function of AWACS is the helicopter.
Soviet aircraft carriers have evolved - VTOL, ski-ramp and finally catapult takeoff. Catapults were provided on project 1143.7 Ulyanovsk. He was not completed. It was dismantled on the shipyard in 1992.
For this ship was designed Yak-44 http://militaryrussia.ru/blog/index-864.html. Only the mock-up model was built.

[HalfLifeExpert]

That's true, I think only US and France have built CATOBAR Carriers, so far.

[Dysta]

It's the limit of carrier and launching platform, but some supplemental aircraft like Helo/VTOL AEW can be useful for a smaller fleet, like escorting LHD.

Maybe in the future the VTOL UAV can be practical for AEW? It's both smaller, and fixed winged for more distance and speed:

http://www.navaldrones.com/TERN.html
http://www.navaldrones.com/V-247.html
http://www.navaldrones.com/VD200.html

[Rory Noonan]

http://members.home.nl/7seas/radcalc.htm - Here's a horizon calculator.

I use this often in CMANO scenarios

[SeaQueen]

There's a book that might have the answer called AWACs and Hawkeyes: The Complete History of Airborn Early Warning Aircraft. It's pretty dry, but goes into the details of how they arrived at the family of overlapping capabilities they have today. It's also interesting because it goes into how the USAF and the USN originally had very different requirements for their aircraft that today perform similar roles.

ORIGINAL: mikmyk

Yeah helicopters are kind of limited in terms of operating altitudes and its really about being able to see over the horizon and seeing sea skimming threats.

I've always wondered why the US always took the high fixed wing approach and the UK and USSR low AEW. Hope to chase the answer one day but guessing its offensive vs. defensive requirements.

Mike

[Filitch]

About Yak-44. I explored the books. When his design was provided an opportunity to take-off from ski-ramp.

[Lowlaner2012]

Hey I was playing operation folgar last night and I had a EAW helo in a small loop about 15 to 20nm from the main formation at 12,000 feet, the helo detected incoming sea skimmers at about 50nm, giving the ships the time they needed to launch there SAMs and knock all the enemy missiles out of the air before they hit any ships...

So I think EAW helos are worth using to give you that extra couple of crucial seconds warning...

Cheers

[mikmykWS]

Yeah its the ability to see over the horizon as well as some look down stuff.

Mike