If you watch YouTube replay simulations[0] with ATC (air traffic control) when pilots violate a TFR (temporary flight restriction) for something like The President it's comical how long it takes for the interception fighters to find the target. It turns out the F-* radar is terrible at these kinds of situations. They almost always end up getting vectored in by air traffic control with their much more powerful ground based radar.
Just one example of how this kind of stuff plays out in the real world.
Individual radar tracking on the F-* planes is kind an advantage as they are typically vectored in by airborne radar like AWACs in actual combat. There are advantages to this, with the most obvious is the opponent doesn't know where the attack is coming from since they are only being lit up by the AWACs. They can be vectored in from the most advantageous angle for the attacker in total passive mode.
That's a really good point - I'm certainly familiar with AWACS in concept but I didn't connect the dots here.
Thing is, in these scenarios they're the only armed aircraft around and their targets never have radar or any instrumentation/defense/even detection for it. So they could (and likely do) blast and paint all day and they still can't find bug smashers in dense urban environments like you most often see with TFRs.
I can understand the fighter radar is probably designed assuming assistance from AWACS but it still seems really strange to me.
It isn't - the fighter is not designed on the assumption it can rely on an AWACS, because they're very vulnerable aircraft. For many F-* jets, AWACS datalink was actually added later on.
The fighters can actually receive the radar information from AWACs, so the pilots see the radar image. However, just like not having total CAPs coverage over the US, there's not a lot of AWACs coverage either. I'd be shocked if there's any mechanism for them receiving civilian ATC radar. To that end, how much radar coverage is actually there? Isn't civilian traffic pretty much IDs broadcast from the planes?
Civilian air traffic control relies mainly on secondary surveillance radar including aircraft transponders, plus ADS-B. Primary radar coverage is limited to larger airports plus a few border and military areas. An aircraft can hide pretty effectively in most US airspace by just flying low with transponders switched off.
There are not going to be many situations where you need this advantage, have an AWACS but your opponent doesn't, and your AWACS is able to survive while being close enough to be helpful (both Russia and China have missiles that outrange an AWACS's radar, and the China and the US have stealthy planes and slightly lesser range missiles). It's a real limitation, it's problematic, and it has no upsides.
Which is why the regulations on passenger aircraft got tightened up, it's easier to get rid/impede the attack vector than to overcome the physical limitations of a radar antenna in a fighter jet's nose cone vs a many meters large ground radar antenna.
All of these TFR violations are early/inexperienced Cessna 172 pilots (or similar) who aren't up on TFRs, just lost, etc. They often can't even manage the radio and just go completely silent, blissfully unaware anything is happening until an F-16 shows up next to them hailing them saying things like "US military armed fighter aircraft. Acknowledge this by rocking your wings.", etc. Of course assuming the fighter eventually finds them in the first place...
What's really scary about ATC vectoring the fighters in is a bad actor could just as easily use that open comms to evade the fighter aircraft. Although they're obviously faster and more maneuverable it gets back to the first scenario I mentioned - the fighters can't find a target when they're not actively trying to evade them.
It would be pretty easy and straightforward for a bad actor to get a few hours of lessons, take up a Cessna loaded with improvised explosives of some type, and do a lot of damage. A lot of smaller air strips/fields don't even have a tower so they could get up there before anyone really has a clue.
> All of these TFR violations are early/inexperienced Cessna 172 pilots (or similar) who aren't up on TFRs, just lost, etc.
I'm (as a German) a drone pilot myself and looking to start ultralight next year, and the topic of TFRs/NOTAMs annoys me to no end even when just flying a drone. Tons of junk, hard to parse and keep track of, and hell I get that the primary glass of aircraft is supposed to be certified, but why on earth aren't there smartphone/tablet apps that keep up with TFRs and alert a pilot? Most of GA is low altitude anyway so in reach of cellphone towers.
> the topic of TFRs/NOTAMs annoys me to no end even when just flying a drone. Tons of junk, hard to parse and keep track of
Like many unusual situations there are usually at least two things that need to happen to cause the scenario I described:
1) Ignorance to TFRs/NOTAMS (Notice to Airman for those unfamiliar).
2) Loss of communication with the correct air traffic control.
When air traffic control notices these people violate airspace they always try to reach them via radio. In the event they're reachable it's "we have a phone number for you". When they go silent it's send up some fighters AND "here's a phone number for you".
> Most of GA is low altitude anyway so in reach of cellphone towers.
This is frowned upon. When airlines ask you to turn off your cell phones it is for two real reasons:
1) Pay attention to the safety briefing (no one does anyway, and no one turns their cell phones off).
2) The request of cell carriers. From what I understand cellular devices at altitude with significantly better line of sight are somewhat problematic to the towers as devices are able to attempt connection/association to many more than they usually would. Apparently combined with the faster speed the carriers don't appreciate this. Of course they deal with it with all kinds of means in terms of directional antennas, etc but like I said I've heard it's an issue.
I point out #2 because there's likely little industry support for the approach you describe. Additionally, you add an additional safety issue because users (pilots) will learn to depend on them and the variability of cell connectivity at altitude, weather, speed, geography, etc is uncertain. Aviation doesn't like that.
> Like many unusual situations there are usually at least two things that need to happen to cause the scenario I described:
> 1) Ignorance to TFRs/NOTAMS (Notice to Airman for those unfamiliar).
> 2) Loss of communication with the correct air traffic control.
Yeah, #1 is easy enough to happen because NOTAM (and, while we're ranting, METAR as well, or the fact that aviation still uses feet and knots despite everyone but the US and UK being on metric) is fundamentally broken, a relic of very old times that has never been updated (similar to the clusterfuck that is flight/staff planning and booking) because no one wants to invest money into upgrading all the legacy crap. So all it takes for a serious incident is a simple human error: forgetting to change a comms frequency, overlooking a NOTAM in all the spam, or accidentally using metric units.
> I point out #2 because there's likely little industry support for the approach you describe. Additionally, you add an additional safety issue because users (pilots) will learn to depend on them and the variability of cell connectivity at altitude, weather, speed, geography, etc is uncertain. Aviation doesn't like that.
I wasn't talking about commercial air flights, I was referring to the Cessna and other small-scale GA. They're barely faster than a high-speed train (an 172 manages 300 km/h, a German ICE 350 km/h, and I can use LTE in the latter), so for wide parts of any GA flight a pilot should have LTE access on their phone.
Anyway: yes, people will learn to depend on their phones/tablets to alert them if they enter a TFR zone or that they have to change their radio frequency. But ffs... the status quo leads to so many issues every year [1], because pilots have zero assistance if they're in an older plane with a classic, no-glass setup, or in a plane with a glass cockpit but no assistance. Adding a fallback option is the safer way, it avoids incidents.
And the truly safe way would be to upgrade all the legacy crap, or at least augment it in a backward-compatible way: a digital carrier in radios that can carry cryptographically signed messages for radios that signal new frequency and squawk codes, for example, that the pilot simply has to confirm and be done.
Check out foreflight. It's an app that does exactly what you are talking about. It will definitely show relevant NOTAMs and TFRs and update in flight. I don't know about europe, but its pretty rare for people to fly GA in North America without some sort of phone app running.
There is also FltPlanGo which is free, but it is less full featured than foreflight.
Just one example of how this kind of stuff plays out in the real world.
[0] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Onx46fLyncM