ASAP

From all the reading I’ve done and guys I’ve talked to the speeds an A-10 pilot cares about are: Rotate around: 145 knots. (That’s Single engine rate of climb speed or SERC) best climb: 160 gear and flap limit speed: 200 knots cruise: generally 250 is usually good but at higher altitudes it’s whatever you can get (usually with throttles in max, yes even with a wingman. Fighter pilots are smart and a wingman can figure it out or communicate with lead if they can’t and then he’ll crack the throttles back a bit) Vne: 450 knots or Mach 0.75 (whichever is lower) approach speed: 130 + 2x gas in thousands of pounds (so if I have 3,500 lbs of gas indicated I’d round up to 4 and fly final at 138) final turn airspeed: 145 + 2x gas in thousands of pounds

a picture is worth a thousand words... The simple answer to the original question is that the elevation of your current waypoint (Which is refered to a "Steerpoint") is on the steer info page next to EL (see the red box below). Here it says 33 because Steerpoint 1 is at 33 feet MSL (probably at Batumi). Get to steer info page by pressing Function 0 on the UFC or by rotating the rotary switch to Steer

That wouldn’t impact any of this stuff. Generally though the alignment is completed before the CICU/MFCDs gets turned on and before you do a LOAD ALL from your DTC. The bomb actually starts doing its BITs as soon as the station it’s mounted on powers on

I have a sneaking suspicion the arc-210 training is going to be a video by wags

That’s great. bingo means you have just enough gas to make it home +gas for another 20 minutes of flying. So the dumb AI hadn’t run out of gas either. If he was bingo he should just go home and land.

That is where you’d find it. Or on the TAD page if you hook the steerpoint. Or in DSMS if you have STRPT SPI. But It sounds like your jet thinks everything is at 33. Try re entering the coordinates in the waypoint page. It should force the jet to lookup the the elevation from the DTED database. Or when you use your laser to create a mark point and dump that in a steerpoint it should have an actual elevation. If that doesn’t work there may be a bug… or you are flying somewhere really flat and the elevation is 33 feet MSL.

Interesting. Did your FOM change from D5/B1 at any point while doing that test and did it correlate to the GBUs status change

I know not all the fleet has dual ARC-210. Pretty sure there is no A-10 with four radios (I’m not counting the LARS system). My understanding is it’s either the ARC-210 in the front and the old FM in the aft radio or front and aft are both ARC-210. If you have dual ARC-210s and the old FM radio how does one control all of them?

Is there any plans to program it so we can use RT2 as the aft radio using the same ARC-210 control head (like at least some of the real jets). Is there any plan to add the second ARC-210, RT2 (obviously using the one control head for both of them, to replace the aft radio like the real world jets?

Like Razor said, it looks like an elevation error. Try lasing the target and taking a mark. Then you can update that mark to a steerpoint and it should be accurate. Or you can lase the thing where your steerpoint should be, read the elevation off the TGP screen and manually punch that into the waypoint page. The most obvious indicator of an elevation error when looking at your targeting pod is the will look like the pod is wondering around the general area of the target when it's slaved to a steerpoint (or may wondering nowhere near it depending on how big the elevation error is)

Also in the real world checklists that panel is switched to standbye and ignored because all the actual functionality is on the comm page.

During the day lights are not used. If they are left on you wouldn't see them because of the ambient lighting. Those lights are designed to be bright enough for a pitch black night, not bright enough to be seen during the day.

The benefit of the engines is that unlike other jets they are not under the pilot or directly next to fuel tanks. If an A-10 engine is burning the pilot can use whatever thrust they are getting to GTF away from the area before they have to worry about shutting it down. In other airplanes a burning engine has a high likelyhood of exploding or melting through control lines/hydraulics, electronics. Most other jet aircraft's bold face have something that say "If your engine is confirmed to be on fire - Eject". Also the placement of the engine above the tail gives it some protection from things like old IR missiles or small arms fire from the surface. The engine itself is still fairly sensitive to things hitting it. There's just a lower chance of it getting hit and its not an immediate ejection scenario if it does.

This is a realistic problem. Sunlight on the hud at the right angle will make it unreadable.

The A-10s reputation for being so survivable is because of built in redundancy and engine placement which makes it less susceptible to fire and loss of control which is the primary killers of aircraft historically. That doesn’t mean it’s invincible. Just that you don’t necessarily have to eject when your engine catches fire. none of that means you can have bad tactics and make it home alive.

From talking to the pilots I know the bombs reverting back to ALN RDY is not real world behavior. I was told they never "fall asleep" from flying straight and level like the game simulates. Unless something is wrong with the bomb or the GPS on the jet it should just be RDY in flight. I'm curious what EDs A-10 SMEs say about this issue.

Glad you resolved your problem! Something I wanted to clear up based on what you said in the OP. I only bring this up because it is commonly misunderstood with this jet. For the record, you never “created a SPI”. The jet had a SPI the whole time, presumably your steerpoint. You switched the SPI from one sensors point, your steerpoint, to a different sensor point, the TGPs line of sight. I’m not sure what you mean by saying you visually verified the SPI location, it’s whatever is the center of your crosshairs in the TGP screen. If you slew your pod the SPI location shifts as well. Unless the target is moving there is no reason you’d need to put the pod in point track. And I highly recommend that if you are dropping a bomb with TGP SPI that you have the laser on when you hit the pickle. That gives the bomb the most accurate coordinates. After the bombs released you can turn the laser off of course. The bomb doesn't care about the laser

But as a pilot You should never see them on your jet. The crew chiefs job is to have all that stuff gone by the time you get to the plane… maybe cool for other jets parked on the ramp though.

IRL the trim functionality does not reverse. At least the pilot gets the same effect for trimming the aircraft. I’d heard somewhere that the trim tabs move in the opposite direction they normally would but that it’s transparent to the pilot and normal control inputs get normal response. Talking to the pilots I know, they said that wobbling is purely DCS and doesn’t happen in real life. Aerodynamic forces push the ailerons to a neutral position and holds it there with so much force that they are immovable by normal means. The manual reversion system is actually letting you fly the trim tabs to push the aileron around. The comparison I’ve heard is that flying in manual reversion feels like trying to fly a boat because the control responses are really sluggish and delayed. Large power inputs will also cause dramatic pitch changes.

Outside of operational testing, real A-10s don’t have it yet. I doubt we will get it any time soon

D/G is an IR sensor which is no where near as clear as an H/K model maverick so that’s not really surprising. BUT the crosshairs shouldn’t be gray that part is weird. They are black or white. also when you’re using a D put your TGP in WHOT that’s what your maverick is seeing so you’ll get a better comparison.

These videos from old IR mavericks that are not looking in the same IR range as the targeting pod. Not a great comparison point

I always use latch on and never use the auto laser function. I want direct control over when it turns on and off but I don’t want to hold the button down forever if I’m lasing something from high altitude or if I’m moving the jet. downside is DCS has a silly notion that the laser burns itself out and becomes inoperative after even a short time of continuous lasing and so you have to be disciplined about turning your laser off.

That looks like a bug. There is a limit to what the hud can project it’s a circular projection with something like 310 mils across. If the solution is below the bottom of the hud though you should get a dashed PBIL and the entire pipper should be projected onto the HUD (you might not be able to see it depending on seating height though, unless you are sitting as high as possible like you are there).

That does sound strange. As a workaround, Unless you are trying to hit a moving target there is no reason you need to leave the laser in LST after you find the target. the LSS/LST is a tool to get your sensors correlated onto the target after you have the target in the pod you can take it out of LST and put your pod in area track, take a mark, or put it into a steerpoint