Intercept
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Intercept
A short guide for the basics of intercepting flights, mostly for offensive operations such as visual identification, but also applicable for joins with friendly aircraft.
Basic principles:
- Vertical separation
- You need a vertical separation for an intercept which depends on altitude, airspeed and bank angle. A rule of thumb is 40 000 feet (12 km / 6.5 NM) for a head on situation. The turn radius is half this distance.
- Lag - pure - lead pursuit
- You start the intercept by lag pursuit and the target should pass your centerline for a lead pursuit just before half the turn for a head on intercept.
Animated intercepts
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