Originally Posted by
Mooncrest
I don't mean popular as in well-loved but rather the one everyone goes for, for some indeterminate reason. What's the problem with the ASR10, compared to the Watchman and the S511 ?
Holes.
Whereas the Watchman has Adaptive MTI and thus 'cancels' just non-moving objects and slow moving weather returns, the ASR 10 we had at Farnborough relied not only on cancelling non-moving objects but also on designating areas of the radar where the threshold speed was adjusted to cancel out unwanted moving objects too. A prime example is the Hogs Back upon which the A31 road runs. With Watchman and its predecessors you could see road traffic on it and you got used to it; they were only tiny 'blips' anyway, but the ASR10 displays a much larger processed symbol and has this whole area cancelled by a threshold speed of supposedly 50kts rather than the 30kts around the rest of the picture; all I know is anyone flying a slow moving aircraft or doing training or aeros in this area doesn't show at all on primary radar. A similar effect occurs in several other places, plus of course the setting up PEs have to be in an area where the threshold speed is set to zero.
Unless you had worked with the AR1 and Watchman at Farnborough, you wouldn't realise there are holes, but they are definitely there.
Never seen an S511 picture so I don't know what it would be like.