MFD TWD symbols

[gordon2003]

The aircraft might able to determine when and in what mode (SP/EA) and how (ASQ239 antenna /MFA) to interfere by the pilot's setting of some TWD options,which may be related to the "OPER" symbol at the top of the TWD page (similar to the ECM PWR switch on the F16?) and the "SEP" symbol at the bottom (toggle EA/SP?). The "INIT" symbol displayed in the TWD thumbnail may represent a working state that interferes with the system (perhaps initiated? Similar to the green ECM ENBL light on F16?) As for the "COOL" symbol, I really don't know what it might mean...Appreciate for any advice

[ianh]

Firstly, just remember that these are public images of the public simulator which is used for PR/Press etc and the actual aircraft may/will look different than those public images depending on whats selected on the real aircraft.

Secondly, the top image is of the TWD in its "secondary" display which is the smaller display available at the bottom of the PCD (screen) and that, being smaller, it doesn't show all the same info that the 2nd image shows which is the main TWD portal, and then this main TWD portal can also be expanded in size even further both vertically and horizontally and with each change more info can be displayed.

So those images probably aren't the greatest to try and figure out things about the "real" F-35 displays or systems. That being said, what I can say is that all those things you are questioning are solely to do with switching the system on, nothing more exciting.

INIT means the system is Initialising once power gets applied (i.e. loading files & doing self test before being switched on etc)

OPER means it is now Operating/Operational.

So it just shows the on/off state of the EW system. Hope that helps.

[gordon2003]

Firstly, just remember that these are public images of the public simulator which is used for PR/Press etc and the actual aircraft may/will look different than those public images depending on whats selected on the real aircraft.

Secondly, the top image is of the TWD in its "secondary" display which is the smaller display available at the bottom of the PCD (screen) and that, being smaller, it doesn't show all the same info that the 2nd image shows which is the main TWD portal, and then this main TWD portal can also be expanded in size even further both vertically and horizontally and with each change more info can be displayed.

So those images probably aren't the greatest to try and figure out things about the "real" F-35 displays or systems. That being said, what I can say is that all those things you are questioning are solely to do with switching the system on, nothing more exciting.

INIT means the system is Initialising once power gets applied (i.e. loading files & doing self test before being switched on etc)

OPER means it is now Operating/Operational.

So it just shows the on/off state of the EW system. Hope that helps.

APPRECIATE FOR YOUR HELP, Dear Sir! I understand what you mean,Sir INIT stands for EW system BIT, and OPER means the same as the OPER of F16 ECM switch. Your help is very important to me. Based on the information you provided and the information I have already obtained, I have come to the following conclusion: F35's EW system is highly automated, and ASQ239 will automatically conduct electronic attack (ECM jamming) on the threat emitter information from the fusion engine. All the pilot has to do is turn on the EW system power (OPER) and set the required ECM working mode. For F35, the main way to perform ECM is targeted noise jamming and deception jamming, which can execute both OECM and DECM. In OECM, F35 can continuously transmit high-power noise/deception jamming signals through MFA, and in DECM, jamming signals are only emitted when needed.

[ianh]

Just remember that jamming generally tends to give away your approximate location or the area you're in.

So the F-35 may have other, more stealthy ways to avoid an enemies radar rather than letting the ECM decide when to send out large RF signals autonomously, as EMCON is still a highly prized tactic for "stealth" aircraft.

[ricnunes]

I don't know is this helps but I remember to have watched that the TWD (the F-35's equivalent to a RWR but can show other threats such as incoming non-radar guided missiles) seems to have at least a filter mode that will only show what radars are actually detecting or being able to detect the F-35 at the given moment.

Regarding Defensive ECM or DECM, I believe this is fully automatic (or can be set that way) but I'm skeptical that the Offensive ECM or OECM functions are fully automatic unless a radar is painting/detecting the F-35 which at this point would IMO fall into the category of Defensive ECM or DECM. I believe that OECM would be mostly a manual function.
I'm saying this because the OECM functions are done thru the radar array and like ianh said, using ECM such as attack ECM or OECM brings an increased risk of "helping" the enemy to counter-detect the F-35.
Of course if the F-35 is already being painted/detected the risk of counter-detecting isn't present since in this case the F-35 would already be detected if ECM wasn't present. There are also times where it is desired to jam certain radar sources in order to protect other friendly assets in which case the risk (small, I may add) of counter-detection would be well worth it. That's why I think that Offensive ECM or OECM functions are done manually by the pilot.

But note that these are my 2 cents, the first paragraph being based on what I have watched on one of the F-35 LM simulator videos while the second paragraph is only my own opinion a.k.a., my 2 cents...

[gordon2003]

Just remember that jamming generally tends to give away your approximate location or the area you're in.

So the F-35 may have other, more stealthy ways to avoid an enemies radar rather than letting the ECM decide when to send out large RF signals autonomously, as EMCON is still a highly prized tactic for "stealth" aircraft.

Thank you for your help, dear Sir! In this way, the ECM of the F35 is completely different from other non-stealth platforms: it needs to be controlled in RF emissions to maintain its stealth performance. I missed the most important point... The pilot has ultimate control over RF emissions. But if all of this needs to be done manually by the pilot, then it will be a very large amount of work: for example, when we need to do platoon jamming to cover other non-stealth platforms, in the face of multiple threat radiation sources in the air and on the ground, it is impossible to manually set them to jam. It must have a "jamming mode toggle switch ": This switch controls its RF emissions, it controls the different operating states of the aircraft when it needs ECM and maintains maximum stealth performance, and when the aircraft needs OECM for convoy jamming.It may have something to do with the SEP symbol in the bottom left corner of TWD (this is just a guess of course) to switch SP/EA. It could also be closed to the outside world because of its secrecy.

[gordon2003]

I don't know is this helps but I remember to have watched that the TWD (the F-35's equivalent to a RWR but can show other threats such as incoming non-radar guided missiles) seems to have at least a filter mode that will only show what radars are actually detecting or being able to detect the F-35 at the given moment.

Regarding Defensive ECM or DECM, I believe this is fully automatic (or can be set that way) but I'm skeptical that the Offensive ECM or OECM functions are fully automatic unless a radar is painting/detecting the F-35 which at this point would IMO fall into the category of Defensive ECM or DECM. I believe that OECM would be mostly a manual function.
I'm saying this because the OECM functions are done thru the radar array and like ianh said, using ECM such as attack ECM or OECM brings an increased risk of "helping" the enemy to counter-detect the F-35.
Of course if the F-35 is already being painted/detected the risk of counter-detecting isn't present since in this case the F-35 would already be detected if ECM wasn't present. There are also times where it is desired to jam certain radar sources in order to protect other friendly assets in which case the risk (small, I may add) of counter-detection would be well worth it. That's why I think that Offensive ECM or OECM functions are done manually by the pilot.

But note that these are my 2 cents, the first paragraph being based on what I have watched on one of the F-35 LM simulator videos while the second paragraph is only my own opinion a.k.a., my 2 cents...

Thank you very much for your help, dear Sir! Your help enabled me to derive the meaning of COOL in the TWD thumbnail. It all starts with your claim that the TWD can show incoming non-radar-guided missiles. Yes, the main sensor that detects the missile is DAS. So the COOL in the TWD thumbnail indicates that DAS is cooling. For a stealth platform like the F35,OECM is not very friendly to maintain maximum stealth performance, so my 2 cents is that if the F35 needs to maintain maximum stealth performance while turning on ECM, it should use the ASQ239 antenna and the MFA DECM mode to perform SP jamming, which will only be used when the stealth is about to burn through Open jamming.(This relies heavily on the F35's radar database, it needs to know the exact radar burn distance as much as possible, which is undoubtedly a core secret, as it relates to our knowledge of the performance of hostile radar), and when performing out-of-area jamming/convoy jamming with non-stealthy platforms, the F35 may need OECM, it can only go through MF A's OECM mode is executed, so it all needs to have a "toggle switch" that enables the pilot to control the desired interference mode. The toggle switch was probably never seen in public,Sir.

[hornetfinn]

Just remember that jamming generally tends to give away your approximate location or the area you're in.

So the F-35 may have other, more stealthy ways to avoid an enemies radar rather than letting the ECM decide when to send out large RF signals autonomously, as EMCON is still a highly prized tactic for "stealth" aircraft.

That's true with aircraft that are not VLO stealth as they need quite a lot of jamming power to overcome the radar returns from the large RCS of the aircraft. F-35 has far smaller RCS which means that it will need thousands of times less power against the same radar at the same range. This will make detecting the EW employed by the F-35 much more difficult.

F-35 could use much more sophisticated EW tactics because of this. For example they could very slowly increase the jamming power when they get closer to the target area. And since they could start doing that below the background RF noise floor, it would be very difficult to detect even when it rises over the original background noise floor. That's because the background noise levels fluctuate and change depending on weather, time of day, moisture etc.

Another thing is that one F-35 (or Growler) could quite easily quite far back and provide effective jamming to protect other F-35s a lot closer to enemy. That small RCS helps there as the jamming platform don't need to pump out huge amounts of power to effectively jam the enemy radars from far away.

F-35s can also very likely use MADL to cooperate their jamming efforts and it would make it much more difficult to determine and locate where the jamming signals are coming from. And again the fact that they need very small amount of power to be effective makes it even worse.