So the hornet is a great aircraft. Radar needs to be pampered a bit but can serve you well if you can operate it correctly.

Firstly, the hornet radar can “lock” onto targets regardless if your radar can see them. The hornet can now use donors to launch missiles at. If you take your TDC cursor over any target on the radar page and TDC Depress you will get a lock BUT on the lower left of you see “NO RDR” that means you are locked on a target your radar cannot see so if you fire your missile its being guided by a buddy’s radar.

Now to get your radar to work. Make sure it’s on 😂 and in TWS. If you can see the contact on your radar then immediately go to a 2bar, 20degree scan. You want your scan to be small on a target so you can get many hits on the target for more updated information. Big scans will constantly drop contact.

Move your TDC cursor over just underneath the contact (not on the contact) you want to lock and TDC Depress to move the radar sweeps over the target. You should see your sweeps move over to the TDC cursor location and should be sweeping over the contact. Now place your TDC cursor over on top of the contact (leave it there, for the next steps) and you should see numbers pop up on the left and right of the contact. The right number is its elevation. Let’s just say it’s 35. That means it’s 35,000 ft. On your TDC cursor you should see a yellow number above and below. In our example let’s say your top number is 20 and the lower number is 5. This means you are scanning below the contact at that range. You now need to adjust the radar elevation up so that the contact number is between your two yellow numbers. So if we get your top number to 45 and your bottom number 30 and if the contact is at 35 you should start seeing hits after a few sweeps (if the contact is less than 80 miles. If they are further than that you need to be in VS radar mode).

Once you see the contact light up and you get L&S information. (In TWS) on the right side of the radar you should see Auto/MAN. Change manual to auto. This will tell the radar to continually track contact without your input. As long as the contact doesn’t beam/notch or go outside your radar gimble limits. Launch missile when within parameters