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How much larger? I'm not convinced what we are seeing is "glare from an engine". Just like it's not glare from an engine in the chilean UFO video. I've rewatched it a couple of times and you can clearly see it flickering and in certain moments where the exposure is changed you can see the full...

We have concluded that the IR signature of a jet engine can obscure the aircraft when seen directly from the back but does not expand that much beyond that. So assuming it would loosely match the wingspan of the aircraft in size is reasonable. So we should search for trajectories: compatible...

In a two seater the WSO (once known as RIO=radar intercept officer) is tasked with sensors and weapons. The pilot drives and dogfights. WSO is responsible for ATFLIR and radar. It's his only job. He would need to be spectacularly incompetent to mess up this badly.

For the IR image to completely obscure an ordinary aircraft we would need to be looking at this mostly (or directly) from the back. We can calculate the maximum distance by using the wingspan of a 737 (around 35 meters) as the maximum size of a reasonable object. We can also calculate the...

A lot of interesting analysis. We are ignoring one of Lehto's points though: the size of the object can be calculated/approximated by looking at the apparent size of the IR picture. By intersecting this information with the line of sight calculations we can exclude many options. We can't be...

The sim is good. However, the pilots in that video are amateurs and the conditions are unrealistic. They are transforming the sim into a dogfighting game. The plane has basically infinite endurance: starting from the air (I assume with a lot of fuel) and they don't need to go back to the base...

However: that's an extraordinary dogfight and video. In the video the F-22 is dead at minute 2.34 and that is the end of the dogfight. This is an extreme engagement among air to air superiority fighters. It is therefore very long as it is pushing the boundaries between two extremely capable...

The "gimbal lock outside rotation in limited movements" hypothesis is only suggested by the patent? - how do we know the patent is related to ATFLIR? - how do we know that ATFLIR actually implements the patent? My understanding is that the inside mirrors are only used for fine tracking. Not for...

If you were standing a 100 meters behind a jet at full power you wouldn't see it in IR as the hot gasses (yes, a couple of stories high) would cover it almost entirely. As I said: each engine outputs several tons a second of air at 500-700 degress. Where do you think it goes? This is also...

Yes of course. What I meant is that the nearby engines appear as one single blob. We don't see this in Gimbal. So the only "airplane" source would be a fighter (single of two jets but close together). I think the Chilean video proves you are wrong here. The engine exhaust is a couple of tons...

Agree with Jarlrmai that it is strange how the target was acquired. They seem to get the target by manually slewing the pod and then using autotrack. This is unusual. If they had a clear radar track they would just press one button and ATFLIR would point towards it. This might push us toward...

He never flew with ATFLIRs as he wasn't an F-18 Pilot. I appears some "passive ranging" capability is available in the ATFLIR. It seems it may be very imprecise though.

I would expect the opposite. The material is not very elastic. So it would inflate by "pushing" towards the seams and filling them out fully until it would burst (if that makes sense). The result would be that the overall shape appears flatter. For sure you wouldn't have a complete "aspect...

What the ground does is irrelevant. Wind affects both objects equally. I don't think this an accurate method of measuring colour. You are letting photoshop's dehaze algorithm (what does it do exactly?) manipulate the pixels to increase contrast and colour. I would stick to the original raw...

The Chilean UFO is not defined. You can see two distinct heat sources flickering with poorly defined edges. What you would expect looking at the exhaust of a jet engine (airliners have engines wide apart). What you are seeing in the Chilean video is not just "glare". It's simply the hot gases...

The E is the single seat variant of the super hornet (you can tell from the air intakes). Super Hornet is E/F (single/double) Hornet is C/D (single/double). This is for sure a 2 seater (you can hear both pilot and WSO) and probably an F (two seater super hornet).

A lot of balloons that day :-) I don't think that would make them much larger though. Just thicker? Not altitude but attitude (angle of attack) Not relevant when you are in the air. Both objects would be affected equally. We only know min and max size. It depends on the F-18s speed. Did...

Just a flight animation right? You are not simulating the flight characteristics of the F-18. Why not just use a real sim like DCS or XPlane? It won't be easy to recreate a realistic flight path for the F-18 otherwise. You can't just put it on rails and make it follow a circumference. But...

If two things look the same it doesn't mean they are the same thing. I don't think those balloons are very elastic. So I don't think size would change much. Maybe. I still find it implausible an F-18 WSO was playing candy crush on a flight an was just lucky enough to take 3 pictures of...

Finally someone decided to try and simulate this on DCS! Love it. We need someone to download it here too. I don't own a PC unfortunately. I'm not sure how much the loadout would affect the test. But I doubt they were flying with a full load out (all missiles tanks etc.). I would set up the...