As a former 'scope dope,' I can tell you you're in for a treat. It was my privilege to serve in that capacity through much of my military career. To be sure, you don't get to yank and bank with the fast-movers, but you do get to direct their activity. You aren't the General, but you are one step closer to The Man in the hierarchy of things.

Yes, that's power, and a grave responsibility as well. When you commit any aircraft under your control to a specific task, that's when those men and their machines rely on you to keep them out of harms way, and harm out of their way! You've got the God's eye view, all too frequently known as the 'Big Picture.' This gives you the ability to see trouble coming from a good deal further out - your radar has a better than 200 nautical mile range.

Aboard the E-3A Sentry AWACS aircraft, you will be a member of a combat crew that consists of yourself, other WC's, Weapons Assignment Officers, a Senior Director and a Battle Commander (The Man). This group is augmented aboard the aircraft by an Air Surveillance Officer, whose section is tasked with maintenance of the radar 'picture.' There are numerous enlisted support personnel as well. AWACS manning is based on the same hierarchy of air battle management whose roots extend back to the earliest days of the Air Force and the use of radar to control the activity of air interception.

In my opinion, the most significant of the earlier forms of this hierarchy was the SAGE system, which stood for Semi-Automatic Ground Environment. This was the first use of computers to direct the air defense air combat environment. I was proud to have been one of the last WC's to control intercepts from the 21st NORAD region before it closed its doors in 1983.

The computer was an awesome, vacuum tube affair that took up one whole floor of the huge SAGE blockhouse. The PC you are using to view this article likely has more computational power than that big brute had. AWACS is an airborne version of that environment, applying the very best and very latest electronic battlefield management techniques to air to air offense and defense, as well as tactical operations.

When I first watched WARGEN adjust the air and ground order of battle for an EF2000 campaign scenario, advancing to my selected takeoff time, I was struck by its resemblance to the SAGE 'big picture.' All the missions going hither and yon, striking their targets, and, if lucky, returning to base, evoked a strong memory of SAGE, as well as the AWACS computerized environment.

With software code like this already in existence, it was a natural leap to give the flight sim enthusiast a more direct element of participation in the environment. Then it struck me that all you virtual fighter pilots might find some background on air operations from the WC side of the scope a bit enlightening, and considering the imminent release of F22: TAW, also timely!

Before we go too far, however, I know there are a lot of real world fighter pilots out there who know very well the capabilities of their systems. The F-15, for example, is as large as it is because of the power of its onboard radar, and that power equates to range. In most cases, a vector from a WC towards a bogey is followed in short order by a 'JUDY' call, meaning that the pilot sees his target, and is assuming control of the intercept. This can happen upwards of 40 to 50 miles from the target.

This isn't a bad thing, as it frees the WC to control numerous aircraft simultaneously and efficiently. Nevertheless, there are situations where a WC has to assume a much more closer management responsibility for the intercept, and that brings us to some fundamentals.

The first thing any WC learned back when I went to school at Tyndall AFB, Florida, was that your job, unlike those fine boys at Air Traffic Control, is to bring two or more aircraft together in the sky, as opposed to keeping them apart. More correctly defined, your mission is to provide vectors to the offensive aircraft under your control sufficient to bring said aircraft into close quarters with the hostile aircraft, or suspected hostile aircraft, so that the pilot can employ the air to air weapons at his disposal. There are two primary forms of intercept: the 'cutoff' and the 'stern.'

The cutoff intercept is defined as the combination of heading and speed that keeps the bearing to the target constant as range decreases. It is the most direct and rapid intercept, but can be applied practically only from a front aspect, usually well ahead of the 3 - 9 line. That's the imaginary line between the 3 o'clock and 9 o'clock positions relative to your aircraft. Think of it as the line that bisects your fuselage from wingtip to wingtip. Got it?

If you're familiar with EF2000, you already have a good mind set towards sitting in front of a radar scope. When you turn off the map function of the center MFD while in JTIDS/AWACS mode, you are seeing the same thing that an AWACS WC would see, the only difference being that in EF2000, the view is relative to your aircraft's position.

The AWACS presentation is not presented relative to the E-3A aircraft, rather, it remains as rock steady as a map hung on a wall. North is always 'up.' The presentation can be modified in the system's onboard computer to include geographical points of reference, navigational aids, cities and the like to help the WC further enhance his or her mental orientation to the local theater of operations.

Time for some fun. Let's spool up a little scenario here for illustration. I am projecting from a variety of experiences in various systems of weapons control, including the purely manual environment, the 407L tactical mobile system, as well as SAGE. I've monitored AWACS intercept training missions on numerous occasions and had the good fortune to fly with an AWACS crew on a Red Flag mission in 1981.

Imagine you're a WC in an AWACS orbiting lazily in the early morning sun off the coast of Norway. You arrived on station at 6am, which means you've been going through the mission pre-briefing and preflight with the rest of your fellow Combat Crew members since the well before dawn, not to mention your flight from a staging base in Great Britain, in this case RAF Lakenheath.

You've been tweaking your display, and drinking your share of black coffee, waiting for some action. The roar of four turbofans and the slipstream of air around the E-3A is muted by your headphones as you monitor a CAP of two F-22 Raptors also deployed to Lakenheath with your AWACS squadron.

These are some of the first active duty F-22's in the Air Force, normally based at Langley AFB, Virginia, designated by the subdued 'FF' on their angled twin vertical fins and the emblem of the First Tactical Fighter Squadron proudly displayed on the sides of the air intakes. This is Eddie Rickenbacher's former W.W.I unit - the famed 'Hat in the Ring' Squadron, first with the F-15, and now first with the F-22. The flight's callsign is 'Dagger.'

Your Raptors are orbiting at 40,000 feet off Orland and the coast of Norway at around .75 mach, sauntering to conserve fuel. Their 'gadgets' are strangled, which is pilotspeak for their radar is turned off. They are at their highest state of EMCON, or emissions control, so as to enhance their stealth posture. It doesn't make sense to have a stealthy airframe and then broadcast your presence to the world with your own radar emissions.

In fact, your AWACS search radar is having a bear of a time keeping your symbology for the flight updated due to the extremely small radar signature of the F-22's. The raw radar data from the E-3A's rotating dome is fed into the onboard computer, which then 'attaches' symbology and a descriptive text block to each airborne contact. This is done with the guidance of the Air Surveillance Officer's technicians.

The degree of accuracy of the symbology's association with the radar returns is important. It is what governs the accuracy of the vectors the computer guidance system will present you for communication to your F-22's. So you periodically 'update' that association, keeping your computer symbology right on top of the radar returns.

Shortly after 9:30, in the aft portion of the E-3, one of the Air Surveillance Officer's technicians has tagged a radar return that can't be matched with any known, filed flight plan, and it is not squawking an IFF transponder code. It is an 'unknown.' The Weapons Assignment Officer, your immediate boss, takes note of this, and directs you to engage the lone bogey, since it is in your area of responsibility. The bogey is in the general vicinity of Bodo, heading roughly towards Bergen. You key your mike....

AWACS: "Dagger 0-1 flight, vector 0-7-0, cutoff, descend angels 2-2, mach point 9-3. 1 bogey, 0-3-0, fifty, heading 2-1-0, 2-4 thousand, 445 knots. Select weapons safe, state fuel."

Let's translate this. First off, of course, you're telling the Raptors to break from their CAP orbit and turn to a heading of 050 degrees, descend to an altitude of 22,000 feet above mean sea level, and to fly at a speed just below the transonic zone where their aircraft are fast and dangerous and can make a rapid, safe intercept without excessive use of fuel. They might need it later.

You also try to stay out of the transonic speed zone between mach .93 and mach 1, because that is the regime where the shock wave, or compressed air that makes up the 'bow wake,' begins to get very close to the airflow immediately around the aircraft. This can cause control difficulty and is avoided for safety reasons. You've chosen to issue the command as a 'vector,' rather than as a turn to the left or right. This gives the leader of the element the choice to make the most efficient turn to the commanded direction. The descent will take the flight to a level two thousand feet below the altitude of the oncoming hostile. This tactic takes advantage of any look down deficiencies of the hostile's radar, enhancing an already stealthy approach, considering the low radar signature of the Raptor.

The statement 'cutoff' is, of course, to let the pilots know the intended type of intercept. You're starting to build a mental picture in their minds of the attack, more commonly known as 'situational awareness.'

After you've issued heading, altitude and speed direction for your attackers, the next thing the pilots need is 'bogey dope.' This is the flight size, bearing and range relative to due north, and heading, altitude and speed information.

Then you tell the flight that they can select weapons 'safe', indicating that this is an identification intercept. Just like a hand gun, you don't draw your weapon unless you intend to use it. You don't want your F-22's to bear down on a potentially friendly or non-hostile aircraft with their weaponry ready to launch.

The last bit of the initial communication is both a reminder to the pilots and verification for your own planning use. The pilots of such fuel thirsty beasts monitor their fuel state like a vulture over potential carrion - without JP-4 any fighter aircraft becomes a very expensive sailplane, and in aerial combat, a sitting duck. No kidding. In fact, there are two fuel state calls any controller listens for closely, and they are the two most misinterpreted calls I've seen abused by the folks from Hollywood.

The first is 'BINGO.' BINGO means that its time to go home, no questions asked, as the aircraft will arrive over home plate with minimal fuel. This is a dynamic amount determined by the weather at the departure / destination air field, and the flight time to the designated alternate base if said weather deteriorates.

A variety of factors can influence this figure up or down, the most prominent, of course, being the potential for aerial refueling. But it is a threshold, not the end of the go-juice, as EF2000 would have you believe when your Eurofighter uses up the last of its fumes, and the HUD flashes 'BINGO' as your EuroJets start to spool down.

The other pilots' fuel state call of significance is JOKER. This is an arbitrary amount above BINGO that is used to trigger consideration of ending the mission and finding an aerial gas station or returning to base. If a pilot finishes a task and is at or near JOKER, he's going to have to determine if the pad between JOKER and BINGO is sufficient to accomplish anything more of a mission effective nature. If the answer is no, there's nothing wrong with calling it a day and arriving over the runway threshold with a little extra gas. Far better to have too much than too little. "Vectors for home plate, please!"

That's a lot of information in one radio transmission, eh? That's the idea.

Ok, back to the chase. Your two Raptors are now heading north at the speed of queep, diving down to their combat approach altitude. (What's 'queep?' Damned if I know, but I hear it's very fast. Another one of those fighter pilot terms that you won't find in any of the manuals).

There are three things you'll be doing constantly. The first is evaluating your intercept vector. The AWACS computer is going to give you steering information for what it thinks is going to be a perfect cutoff intercept. Keep that symbology updated! But watch out. The bearing to the target should remain constant as long as the both fighter and target heading and speed remain the same. Since the second thing you're going to do is call out bearing and range to the target rather frequently, this is a good source of data for this evaluation. Excuse me...

AWACS: "Bogey 0-3-0, thirty-six."

The pilots' need to have constant bearing and range calls to keep their situation awareness up, especially if they're keeping their radar off to maintain EMCON. They'll also need current range and bearing once they do reach the point where they'll turn on their radar so they can start painting and lock up the target with a minimum of effort.

The third thing you'll be doing is watching the bogey for any change of flight parameters. If it starts to turn, not only will this change your vector to the intercept, it may indicate that the bogey is aware of your inbound fighters, two facts that your pilots need to be aware of immediately! The AWACS computer will usually note the change in bogey vector and give you steering instructions for a new cutoff point.

However, this is a dynamic situation now, so you may wish to anticipate the vector to give as the computer is likely to lag behind the bandit a beat, especially if the turn represents a jinking maneuver to avoid intercept. It is very important to keep your fighters updated with the latest heading altitude and speed. If this represents a continuing maneuver, state the fact succinctly. Brevity is the key.

AWACS: "Bogey 0-3-0, twenty-five."

But this particular bogey is a dufus, and hasn't got the faintest idea that two loaded for bear F-22A Raptors are closing in. The bearing to the bogey stabilized early and your flight has been able to maintain stealth.

Here's where you start to earn your pay.

AWACS: "Dagger 0-1 flight, individual control. Dagger 0-2, left, 2-5-0."

You're splitting the flight into two individual elements. You're intercepting a lone aircraft, so the tactic of mutual support can be put aside for the moment. Yes, I know the target could be multiple bogies in a very tight formation. I saw Top Gun too. Trust me. The bogey is a singleton.

What you're trying to do here is to be efficient. The lead Raptor is now your eyeball, and will confirm the identity of the bogey as either hostile or friendly. If the news is bad, you'll shortly have a second Raptor beaming in right behind the 'eyeball.' He's the shooter. Don't forget to turn Dagger 02 back towards the bogey. All he needs to do is develop a small amount of separation from Dagger 01.

You now have to give bearing and range to the bogey for both of the individual interceptors, by the way.

At ten miles to go for the 'eyeball' things start to happen fast. The closure rate for the two aircraft is easily over 1000 knots. The lead pilot will probably pick up the bogey on his IRST before his Mark I eyeballs can resolve the dot he may or may not see into something he can identify.

DAGGER 01: "BANDIT BANDIT BANDIT... Single ship MiG 2-3"

The call comes just before he passes the bogey beak to beak. You react:

AWACS: "Dagger 0-2, cleared hot. Bandit 0-5-0, eight"

DAGGER 02: "0-2 contact."

AWACS: "Contact BANDIT."

DAGGER 02: "Roger. Judy."

Dagger 02 then takes control of the intercept, turns his radar to active from stand-by, and proceeds to shoot the Flogger in the face with an AMRAAM.

DAGGER 02: "Splash one bandit."

Bergen has been spared yet again. Whew...(!)

Ok, so what's a 'stern' intercept, you ask?

Boy, you don't tire easily, do you?

A stern approach is an intercept wherein cutoff guidance is given to a turn point, at which the interceptor(s) can execute a turn into the stern quarter of the bogey. In the example above, the stern approach could be used to keep the two F-22's together if you were unsure of the bogey's actual flight size. They would remain together through the ID, thus maintaining mutual support should the intercept degrade into a dogfight.

The calculation of the turn point is agony in the manual Air Weapons controller's world. You have to take into account the airspeed and altitude of your interceptors as well as the bogey's airspeed. This is because each aircraft type has a turn radius that varies according to altitude and speed. Then you must apply this radius to a turning circle that has the bogey's flight path on one tangent and your interceptors' flight path on another.

Fortunately, the whole process is easily automated, and if you've kept your symbology updated accurately, the computer steering commands for the stern approach are a rapid cure for the headache. Suffice it to say that a treatment of the generation of a stern intercept would take far more space than we took with the cutoff. The only key difference in the 'sound' of the approach would be that bearing to the bogey would gradually wander away from a bearing directly off the nose of the interceptors towards the side the bogey was on.

The question remains in my mind... to what degree will DID model either of these two standard intercept approaches? It is a certainty that all of the intercepts created by WARGEN2 will have to use, at the very least, some form of intercept control. In EF2000, with WARGEN1, those intercepts were pure pursuit, in which the steering vector to the target is the bearing to the target.

This works, but is inefficient and is not, in fact, used with any frequency in the 'real world.' Will F-22:ADF give us the ability to work this out as a real WC must, or will we be more like a Weapons Assignment Officer, the WC's boss, merely delegating which group of fighters will intercept which target? Like you, I'm waiting eagerly to find out.