ASAP

Interesting testing results. Thanks, I wouldn't have expected that. I suspect that is pretty unrealisticly modeled in DCS. In real life it's primarily used for moving targets and armor. Its only got a 300 lb warcranium that is designed to punch through armor. It is specifically not desgined to do a lot of splash damage like what DCS is demonstrating. It hits a small point target very percisely and very hard. It's not going to do anywhere near the same amount of blast or frag damage as a 500lb GP bomb (which is what you'd want to kill soft skinned vehicles or troops in the open), especially if the bomb is an air burst. Since the maverick is contact fuzed it'd probably hit the ground near infantry and most of the explosive, fragmentation force would go into the ground and downrange of the impact. You'd probably injure or kill a few unlucky guys close in, but nothing close to GP bombs.

Unfortunatley, you can't drop JDAMs in CCIP they are CCRP only. The only PGM you can drop CCIP is the GBU-10/12. The GBU-31/38/54 has to communicate with the jet, get good coordinates, verify good parameters with the jet and only then will the jet allow the weapon to release. If you're outside the launch acceptability region the bomb wont drop, and if you quick pickle like the OP was talking about the bomb cant complete that whole cycle and it wont release. It seems like a pretty big oversight on the part of the engineers that there isn't an option to drop it like a Mk-82/84, it would make the weapon a lot more flexible, but it is what it is.

What was your altitude? even at 15 degrees of dive depending on altitude it might not be able to compute. for the A-10, unless you are down low (<1000AGL) 15 degrees is a really shallow dive angle it could be the aircraft was unable to do its look-aside ranging properly if you were too high/shallow. Try pointing the nose 30-45 degrees nose low and you'll probably get a CCIP solution. If that doesn't work then I'd need to see a video or something to figure out what you're doing. CCIP doesn't care about your SPI, you should get accurate symbology even if your SPI is on the other side of the planet. One other thought: were you in GUNS mode in the HUD vs CCIP with some other weapon profile called up? Its possible have the gun pipper in the HUD while you have CCIP rockets or bombs selected at the same time. It could be the CCIP INVALID was for the rocket solution or something... I'm just spitballing ideas what could cause it really. Like I said, try getting lower/steeper with your guns passes and see if that helps. If it doesn't work then maybe theres some other switch error somewhere with EAC or LASTE.

Most likely a quick pickle. When you try to release the bomb make sure you hold the pickle button until the bomb leaves the jet. If you hit and release the button to quicly you'll get the release aborted WCN It might release if you immediatley hold the pickle down and the weapon is still in LAR but you've only got a couple of seconds. After that, like you said, the bomb is a paperweight along for the ride. You should get the pipper once you roll in and point your nose at the ground. The CCIP invalid means IFFCC can't calculate a solution based on where your nose is currently pointed (and a bunch of other parameters). Your SPI doesn't have anything to do with your CCIP solution, that only impacts CCRP deliveries (CCRP is always based on your SPI). If you are using CCRP to drop bombs the elevation of your SPI needs to be 0 ft AGL. if you drop steerpoint SPI and your steerpoint is at 12K MSL the only guarantee is that your bomb is going anywhere but the desired point of impact. In the rare instance when you are shooting at something on the side of a mountain and your target is above the actual horizon, you'd need to change your gun pipper to the 4k wind corrected because the IFFCC can't compute look up shots like that.

I'd go with what the thick line says. Best turn rate is at 320 ish knots. turn radius is pretty consistent through most of the flight envelope around.

Wow, thanks everyone! Looks like there are a couple of good examples of uses for IFFCC SPI. From what you guys shared and i've been able to find since I asked that question it looks lFFCC SPI just gives you another set of options to do stuff that you can already be done by other methods (i.e. mark Z to share what you shot with flight members, dropping steerpoint SPI instead of waypoint ID in the DSMS, etc). I haven't found anything that makes IFFCC SPI uniquely better or worse than the other methods, so it probably comes down to pilot preference. If there is a situation where IFFCC SPI is the only or best option please let me know. Like I said, I always want to learn better ways of doing things. I'm going to guess based on what my A-10 pilot friend said that IFFCC SPI is not a normal part of his habit patterns and probably just prefers to uses the other tools available on the jet. Based on the fact that IRL the A-10 hasn't been used for AI in a long time, and the dynamic nature of CAS, I'm curious how often the WAYPT ID on the JDAM profile gets used.

You've piqued my curiosity, like what? (< Not sarcasm, I'm legit curious)

If you're HUD SOI TMS aft short will make IFFCC SPI, and it will say IFFCC SPI on the bottom left of your HUD. From what I can tell, and what I've gathered from talking to the A-10 pilots IFFCC SPI is pretty much useless from a tactical/weapons delivery standpoint. It is only important to know how to recognize you accidently set IFFCC SPI so you can immediatley change it to something else.

In aviation winds are always expressed in the direction its coming from.

Maybe a better post for the wishlist, but it would be great if DCS actually had realistic instrument approach procedures created for each of the modeled airfields that mirrored real world procedures, but are actually guarunteed to work in DCS. If actual approach plates do exist somewhere for the in game runways please someone let me know.

What runway? How do you have the NMSP set up and is the the correct course for the runway dialed in on the HSI?

You're right, I just went back and tried it and coordinate ranging worked the way I'd expect. Im not sure what was going on the other day when I tried it. I might have missed a switch or something that was screwing that up. As far as the mission planning goes, I agree it can be done. And I get why its necessary to have altitudes for waypoints so the AI can follow it. To ammend exaclty what my wishlist request is: they should make the A-10 like the mirage is apparently is already and in the jet the steerpoints should be clamped to 0 feet AGL, regardless of what was put in the mission planning tool.

yeah I noticed that too. I wish their was an option to keep it visibile, it'd be more realistic. I think I read about them doing something like that with the AH-64.

The DMS Left Long HOTAS is realistic to the jet. It just turns the projection in the monocle on and off. It pretty much just puts it into standbye mode. That way it can be switched off if its a destraction and not a help.

My original post wasn't very well worded. ^ This is exactly the behaviour that I was saying the A-10 needs. In the jet there is no real reason to have the waypoint floating in the sky thousands of feet above the ground. If the player should be flying at 10 thousand feet, put that in the brief, or have the scripted ATC clear them to that altitude. I guess it gets into the debate of what makes sense for a simulator for the masses vs whats more realistic. Maybe there should be an option in the settings for the behaviour that Frederf was talking about. IRL the A-10C is not authorized terminal RNAV/VNAV procedures. They always have their waypoints at 0 AGL. Waypoints at altitude is more of a DCS thing (at least for the A-10). I get it for DCS, it makes things a lot simpler for people to follow flight plans since in game ATC and JTACS can't manage everyone's altitudes, and the AI obviously need it. IRL hawg pilots know what altitude to fly at either because they are being vectored or controlled, or its part of their mission planning/local procedures. The hud already provides a steering cue at the bottom of the HUD which is all you need to steer to it. Yes, they'd see the steering container at some point fly under their nose, but that doesn't really matter. The point being stabilized on the ground gives them an exact piece of terrain to fly over.

Thanks, I didn't think of using markpoints like that. I usually just pocket markpoints into steerpoints if I'm going to pickle step pickle. Might have give that a try.

When creating a steerpoint either on the mission planner, or by punching the coordinates into the CDU the steerpoint should default to 0 feet AGL. The real jet has DTED data and associates a coordinate with the MSL elevation automatically, and facilitates getting sensors into the target area faster. Yes I know you can manually input the elevation from the 9 line, but you shouldn't have to (unless its BOC CAS obvioulsy).

After taking a mark you can use the #? line select key in the WAYPOINT page to put the mark point into the next available steerpoint. In the real jet you can insert the number of an already existing waypoint in the scratch pad and hit the #? key and it will update that steerpoint. When you do it in DCS you get IFFCC input error. Additionally the TAD should have a #? function on OSB 17 that will take whatever you have hooked on the TAD and either put it into a new steerpoint, or put it into the number of the steerpoint you have in the scratch pad.

It is in fact a thing in the real jet. The blank key next to the BCK key should delete a markpoint that is currently displayed on the WAYPT page. Seems like it would be pretty simple to implement. just curious, anyone know why that feature would be particularly useful? I can't think of a reason I'd need to use it.

Thats just he way the A-10C HUD works. It happens when it can't compute a CCIP solution based on where your nose is pointed/radar altimeter, target MSL elevation. It happens a lot when you are shooting at a hillside that's level or even above you, or if you're just flying really high and your nose isn't pointed at the ground. I'd recommend switching to the 4K wind corrected gunsight in slightly look up situations. Otherwise 99% of the time I'd say disregard the invalid message because as soon as you roll in and point your gun at the target it will go away and you'll get a good solution.

The NMSP's behavior is correct. You can only get the needles and course info for one navigation source at a time. If you have the TACAN called up and you press ILS the needle will switch from showing you TACAN info to ILS info. However, a lot of ILS approaches still require the TACAN for DME information on the approach so you would want them both selected. If the DME source is paired with the localizer you'd still leave the TACAN selected and just dial in the paired DME channel in the TACAN.

It'll just fly ballistically to somewhere in the area around where your pipper was at the time of release. I wouldn't really bank on killing anything with it though unless it's lased in. Unguided rockets aren't very accurate, they are mostly used for suppression or marking targets in the real world.

The SPI can't really be cleared, there is always a SPI. You can just change it between sensors or just move it (i.e. when TGP LOS SPI your SPI is simply whatever is is dead center of the crosshairs). First question is what are you using as your SPI when you drop the bomb? Based on what you said about not being able to lock on the bridge, I'm making an assuming your talking about TGP LOS SPI. Which I'd recommend against if you are fighting clouds beneath you. If you are able to see the bridge through a gap in the clouds lase the target and take a mark (TMS right short) and then make last mark SPI (TMS RIGHT LONG). Doing that should give you an accurate set of coordinates to drop on. Just make sure it says MARK in the bottom left of the HUD indicating your markpoint SPI. Now it wont matter if your TGP can see the target or not. To "clear your SPI" to take another shot like you asked, you'd just give the jet a new target by changing your SPI. In clear air, that could mean slewing your TGP to something else. With the method above you could find another target, lase, take another mark, and make last mark SPI again which would be resetting your SPI to the new mark. Alternatively you could turn that mark into a steerpoint by hitting the button on the CDU next to the line that has ##? and you'll turn it into a steerpoint, then you can steer to it and drop with steerpoint SPI (TMS DOWN LONG). I find that easier if theres a chance I'd need to quickly get back to a previously struck target. Or you can turn the left rotary nob on the AAP to MARK and then you can cycle through your previously taken marks as steerpoints and still drop steerpoint SPI using the mark as a steerpoint. One other option, for something like a bridge which you know isn't going to go anywhere, punch in the coordinates and elevation that you get from the mission planner into the steerpoint and just drop on that. Just don't forget the elevation. In my experience when you create a steerpoint in the mission planner it sets the elevation to whatever altitude you are flying at instead of the actual MSL elevation of that spot on the ground (which you absolutley need if you're going to accurately place a bomb there). The jet gives you a ton of options, pick one that works for you based on time available and desire to mess around with your CDU.

According to the A-10 guys i've talked to it actually gets blurry and washed out while the gun is firing. They said video captured in the HUD camera is actually clearer than what the pilot can see because its better stabilized with the HUD. Not sure if its because of the vibration of the HUD or the pilots eyeballs though. I'd guess both.