ASAP

Heard this from directly A-10 pilots. It’s a single seat fighter so people can do what they want but the general vibe I’ve heard is that they avoid HUD SOI. One pilots justification (slightly paraphrased to be more PC: “HUD SOI is like talking to a woke General officer. Every second your a part of that conversation is another chance to say something that will get you in trouble. Say what you need to say and end the conversation ASAP”. They don’t want to be HUD SOI because it’s way too easy to try to zoom in your TGP or manipulate the TAD and change your steerpoint or switch off of the correct weapons profile without realizing it. Then you roll in and you don’t have the right weapon called up or your bomb goes to the wrong steerpoint. It’s just as easy and harder to screw up to if you reach up with your left hand and change steerpoint/profiles with the UFCP. HUD SOI isn’t wrong. It’s just considered best practice to use the UFCP. And keep TAD SOI unless you need it to be something else because that’s the SOI where you’ll do the least damage if with HOTAS errors. obviously in DCS I’m going to guess nearly everyone is HUD SOI all the time because we don’t have a UFCP and the TAD is almost worthless compared to the real jet, and HOTAS errors aren’t going to get you killed or put bombs on friendlies. For what it’s worth after talking to that guy I mapped the steer and select rockers to the arrow keys on my keyboard. Works like a charm

“HUD SOI to employ” is the mantra for AIM-9s. I think it’s generally the only time A-10 guys fly around HUD SOI from what I’ve heard. Otherwise you can’t uncage recharge the aim-9 seeker. The gun funnel should show up as long as you master/ gun arm. from everything I’ve read the TGP isn’t used much for air to air because unlike other platforms you can’t use a radar to slew it to the aircraft. They rely on visually acquiring the bandit. If you get a hostile track over the data link you could slew it that way I assume. For a helo I would just spot it visually and shoot an Aim-9 at it.

Ha! Fair enough

Alternatively, if max alt is 18K just fly over it and drop a bomb on it.

Real world, they wouldn’t. real world they start the egi and cdu right after the APU. By the time they get both engines started, check flaps, speed brakes, flight controls, SAS, trim, wheel brakes, pitot heat, chop check, get ATIS, and set up their radios the alignment is complete only THEN do they turn on the cicu, iffcc, displays, etc. that’s the way the TO is written and doing other stuff just invites a ton of issues. if the jet was on alert it would be cocked and ready to go. When they got the scramble order the crew chief would start the APU and the alignment would be done by the time the pilot was done strapping in. The pilot could start taxiing before the alignment was complete, but the jet would still stop in arming long enough for the alignment to finish up while they are getting armed. It just doesn’t make sense to deliberately do something that will degrade your GPS like skipping the alignment or not letting it finish. In flight alignment is more of an emergency procedure and a fast alignment is a maintenance function They do train for GPS degraded ops, but that’s so they can be ready for when <profanity> breaks or gets jammed. It’s not something they do to save an extra 30 seconds of ground ops.

on your CDU hit SYS and then the LSK for GPS and then send a picture of that

Hopefully not insulting your intelligence, but are you getting a good EGI alignment on the ground before you takeoff? Are you waiting for the flashing INS NAV RDY after a 4 minute alignment before hitting NAV on the CDU? You should have a FOM of D5/B1 on takeoff.

My guess would be you are getting all of them, but not realizing it. If you are flying straight and level you will only see the two static ones because the CCIP gun reticle and cross will be below the bottom of the HUD field of view. You can't move the reticles around the HUD, doing so would invalidate the information they are providing you as a gun reticle. You can change the mil depression of the HARS pipper or standby pipper, but that's different. The CCIP gun cross and reticle will move around in your HUD based on the triginometry the IFFCC is doing to calculate an impact point.

Good point, you are correct, I got turned around with the CAT 1 vs 3. They are only capable of doing the basic ILS which is what I meant to say. I only brought up CAT D because of the minimum weather requirements, not the equipment. I could have written that clearer.

Not sure what any of that is based on... "Blind landings" to the best of my knowledge isn't a thing, and no US fighter does them. If you mean they can't do instrument approaches down to ILS CAT I mins, you're correct no US fighter can. The A-10 specifically flies approaches to category D minimums. A landing without NAVAIDS in an A-10 is either a PAR/ASR or a VFR landing. VFR is the way all fighters land unless weather or training requirements dictate otherwise. Bomb on coordinate CAS is a thing... There are tactics techniques and procedures for CAS with crap weather. A-10s are probably going to want to fly low altitude under the weather. It is not necessary to be visual friendlies in every single circumstance, they have to have high SA on friendly postions which doesn't necessarily require seeing them. Here's a story that shows how the hawg can do CAS better than any other fighter in absolutly horrible weather. https://taskandpurpose.com/community/unsung-heroes-10-pilots-intentionally-drew-enemy-fire-protect-trapped-marines/

Unless you are doing delayed lasing just LSS on their spot and drop CCRP with TGP LOS SPI.

Agreed! This is a game, do what you want and push it up. I was just throwing out real world data for those who prefer to try and fly as realistically as possible. Some people don't care about realism and want to just have fun. There's no wrong way to play DCS.

There are definitely training rules that fly straight out the window. And all flying regs say that pilots can deviate if necessary for safety of flight. This isn't that though. Building your own approach like this would get guys killed, and the jet is not authorized to do this because the jet isn't capable of doing it safely in real life. It works more or less in the game I guess, but the jet can't provide the required level of accuracy and precision. Talking to the A-10 guys I know they say that have never the 3d nav in this way. Also to do this you'd have to have all of your systems working perfectly, in which case there's no reason not to fly the published approaches. Also it would require the pilots to have practiced doing it. They don't practice it, because its not allowed. Military planning accounts for things like weather diverts and where you're going if the jet has issues or navaids go down. They do all their extraordinary planning on the ground so they don't have to rely on extraordinary piloting abilities to get home.

You're not wrong. But that's purely a Gameism. The A-10 is not authorized to do that in real life.

pretty sure the main reason for the refueling lights is so the tanker can see the receiving aircraft better. In the A-10 at least you are authorized to be on NVGs through the entirety of the refueling process.

You can't. I mean, technically you could pick coordinate somewhere out in front and drop on that, but good luck being accurate. If you have to use CBU on a mover, you'd likely have better success doing a CCIP delivery and leading the target with your pipper. You'd have to do some math to figure out TOF of the weapon and figure out how many seconds to lead the target by. The lead required will be much less in CCIP than CCRP, you'll have to guestimate where the target will be in 3-4 seconds vs 20-30 seconds for a medium alt CCRP delivery. Its CBU so you have some slop due to the dispersion of the bomblets, but you want to try and be accurate with where you are dropping it. Its a point weapon with area effects, or in other words: aim small, miss small.

The CBU-97 is more accurate with a CCIP drop because it doesn't have the WCMD tailkits helping it steer to the desired point of function (at least in real life). In game I think you can get "good enough" with CCRP but you could still be more accurate with CCIP and I like to do it because I think its more realistic. Also if you ripple 2 you'll get much better target effects because of higher bomblet density (but that's beside the point). The trick with these like Yurgon said is that because they have so much more drag and the weapon functions above the ground the CCIP solution will be closer to the bottom of the HUD, and you might have to drop it consent to release. That means when you roll out on final you will have a much higher aim off angle and a further aim off distance from the target. That requires you to adjust your base parameters from where you would normally want to roll in with dumb bombs. I find that adjusting your base position in like a half mile closer to the target before rolling in helps alleviate a lot of those problems and helps keep the dive angle reasonable.

5 miles is actually a very long shot for a maverick IRL... try pushing it in to more like 2-3nm and see what you can get

One potato, two potato. Then look over your shoulder. There is a bobweight on the speed brake, when the stick is neutral the bobweight will be half way between the top of the speed brake and the wing. That is the no kidding 40% position (or close enough). In reality the 1 potato 2 potato method is pretty much good enough

Or you could just save yourself a bunch of time and just use your right index finger to toggle the weapons mode to CCRP and use your pinky to turn the laser on.

Pile on to my previous post >> That's why fighter pilots don't fly alone. You have a wingman/flight lead for a reason. If your jet is broken somehow you can let the good jet navigate and the bad jet can stay on their wing to follow him home. You can even do the entire penetration, approach, and landing in fingertip if weather sucks.

The A-10 cant use a VOR at all. VORTACS yes. You can get vectors to intercept an ILS approach course without needing a TACAN. As long as you have a functioning radio you can get vectors to get to the airfield. As far as the approach, hopefully there is a close enough airport that can do a PAR or an ASR approach. Basically the radar operator talks you down through the weather. They are not very common in the states though. I think Europe still uses them a lot. In reality these are all things the military would think about before sending an A-10 into harms way, and they'd make sure there are available navaids to get you home.

It would be sweet if the gun gas actually builds up on the windscreen too. They'd have to model the window wash feature to go along with it.

LOL I had a similar experience doing my GA training. Like most things, fighters do it different than most. Sure, when doing an approach down to mins through the weather they stay on glidepath and aim for the aimpoint as well. During the day-time VFR conditions all that gets you is 1000 feet less runway to stop in. In UPT if your wheels are not on the ground by the time you pass over the captains bars, it's time to go around. They are graded on their ability to land in the first 1000 feet of the runway. I found a few cool videos that illustrate what I'm talking about if you're a nerd like me and like watching that kind of thing. (None of this is intended to throw spears at SmilingBandit. He absolutley correct about backing up straight in approaches with the ILS. I'm diverging into irrelevant but cool military flight-isms at this point.) Here's a good video of a T-38 doing an overhead pattern you can see his aim point on final at the 1 min 45 sec mark. The second video is how they do it in T-6's at UPT. Its a video of a guy doing a visual straight in and the landing is around 4 min 45 sec. Best of my knowledge there's not an ILS at Kegelmen aux field in Oklahoma. At UPT bases though they are also starting their the straight in at 500 A because they are staying beneath the overhead pattern at 1000, so they are also probably too low to get much use out of the glide slope anyway.

Yup totally agree, at night especially I always back up the visual with the ILS. During the day, maybe, maybe not, the ILS guides you on a 3 degree glide path to the captains bars on the runway which is long of where fighters are normally going to land. Fighters typically aim for the runway threshold on final and flare to touch down short of the captains bars when they are flying in visual conditions which would give you slightly below glideslope indications and three red one white on the PAPI. In real life, you'd get the ATIS and be talking to approach and tower and it would be abundantly clear what the runway in use would be and if any of the navaids are not working/turned on there would be a notam for it, and it would probably be mentioned in the ATIS. Even if the winds favor the opposite direction, I'd still expect the ILS to be operating for a given runway unless it's notam'd out. Fighters occasionally do have to make landings opposite the normal traffic flow for abnormal situations like hung ordinance. All I meant was that the pilot having to guess what approach to use based on winds and what navaids are turned off and on in calm wind situations is purely a game-ism from DCS.