graveyard4DCS

Airport and NAVAIDS database for CombatFlite One of the nice features of CombatFlite is the ability to quickly identify and use airfields. When "Airfields" are selected in the Map Layers window, thay appear as an additional layer above the current map. These airfields can then be selected in order to view additional information, like ICAO name, elevation, runways, navigation aids and radio frequencies. But more importantly, they are the only points that can be selected as "take-off" and "alternate" waypoint types on a given flight plan. That's why they have an important role! On the same vein, CombatFlite can also display navigation aids when selecting "Beacons" on the Map Layers window. Very handy when it comes to IMC navigation, especially on older aircraft that have no INS systems, like the Mirage F1 CE. Hopefully, the airfield and NAVAIDS database is stored as a .xml file in the ...\CombatFlite\Data folder. For Persian Gulf theatre, the database is the persiangulf.xml file. When you open this file, you'll quickly notice that it has a basic structure, with 4 main categories: Navpoints (empty on all theatre, but we can assume that we can create some with their name and coordinates, to be confirmed); Beacons (with their type, like NDB, TACAN, VOR DME, ILS, etc...); Airfields (with all the data that were shown previousely); Towns (but it seems that they cannot be displayed at this point). Therfore, adding up details to this database is fairly straightforward. We just have to add the desired items in the correct category. While the question of the location/orientation of the various runways is not difficult, the choice of the NAVAIDs and airfield frequencies might be questioned. At this stage, I decided to use the data available in the official aeronautical documentation, like the latest AIP Part III (AD) for Afghanistan. I'm not totally convinced it's the right way to do, since for example, Nimroz airport (OANZ) did not exist back in the timeframe that's supposed to be represented by the Afghan theatre in DCS World (late 2000s, early 2010s). On the contrary, the Zaranj airstrip (OAZJ) has been announced in the SW Afghanistan airfield list. Another example: the former KAF TACAN (75X) has been replaced by the KDR VOR-DME (107X), and the ILS RWY 23 ceased to exist... My way ahead is to take the information directly from the game for the current state of the map, and include the data from former AIP, the difficulty being that in the late 2000s, AIP for Afghanistan was barely a thing (and it's indeed still very far from other countries' quality to this date). Still, I'm releasing here a first version of an updated persiangulf.xml file. To use it, create a backup file of the original persiangulf.xml file located in the ...\CombatFlite\Data folder (by renaming it persiangulf.xml.bak for example), place the attached .xml file and rename it as persiangulf.xml. Your updated Airport and NAVAIDS database for CombatFlite is now available, and you can start using it for planning! As you can see, I put in between brackets the airfields that have not been announced in the current release of the Afghan theatre. It's a good way to avoid planning a flight towards an airfield that's not available at this point. A few beacons have also been created, and this part of the database still needs some rework. As you have understood it, it's still work in progress, and I'll share better versions when available.

Terrain Elevation Map for CombatFlite This topic is the logical follow up of my previous post about Digital Elevation Model for CombatFlite. Now that we have the DEM (Digital Elevation Model) or DSM (Digital Surface Model) installed, it would be nice to be able to "view" the terrain more directly - and way more quickly - than by using the "terrain" or "slope" tools in CombatFlite. One of the solution has been to create theatre elevation maps for CombatFlite, like the ones already available for download in DCS user's files. So starting from our previous step, when we were able to retrieve the necessary SRTM tiles, the way ahead is fairly easy: Step 1: load the tiles in your favorite GIS software. You'll notice that the overal image is kind of pixelated. That's because the software automatically applied a color scale for each tile, with Black as the lowest altitude of the tile, and White as the highest altitude of the tile. The issue here is that each tile has a different minimum and maximum altitude; Step 2: in order to solve the previous problem, we have to set a single color rule for all tiles. This is fairly straightforward. Here is a quick first result. Step 3: once we've got this promising result, we notice that's is hardly possible to orient ourselves on that map. In particular, it's nearly impossible to determine the shore line for Pakistan. In Afghanistan itslef, it's going to be difficult to find out precise locations without switching regularly to other classic maps. In order to make orientation easier, it's possible to add additional overlays, like borders. Some of these data are freely accessible on websites like GADM or Natural Earth. We can also change the color scale, to make it more traditional, with blue color for oceans (altitude at 0 m) and green/brown colors for land. Step 4: generate the .mbtiles map with your favorite GIS software. Step 5: place the resulting .mbtile file in your ...\CombatFlite\Data\DCS Persian Gulf folder. Don't forget that CombatFlite will show you the maps in alphabetical order, so rename the file as you prefer to let it appear in the order you prefer! You'll be able to download the .mbtiles via my personal page. Enjoy!

Digital Elevation Model for CombatFlite One of the important features of CombatFlite is the ability to read ground altitude at any point of the map. But as you might have remarked already, the current elevation data is only available for a limited area around the Persian Gulf. If you try to go on the southern part of the DCS PG map, you'll even notice that there's no data by default. But hopefully, this is something that can be easily corrected! First of all, you have to know that the terrain elevation data are stored in .hgt files that cover 1°x1° each. These data have originally been retrieved during NASA's STS-99 shuttle mission in February 2000. They are also now known as SRTM, for "Shuttle Radar Topography Mission". There are three main categories of SRTM data: SRTM 1, with the highest resolution (1 arc second); SRTM 3, with an average resolution (3 arc seconds); SRTM 30, with the lowest resolution (20 arc seconds). Nowadays, these data are freely available. Normal access is trough the United States Geological Survey (USGS) web site. But if this web site is perfect in order to find a lot of interesting data, it's fairly uneasy to use if we want to download large areas of SRTM files. The easy way is to proceed through another website: https://dwtkns.com/srtm30m. But before using it, you'll ned to create a free user account on NASA's EarthData website (it takes 2 minutes). Once this is done, you just have to click and download the tile that interests you! Note: for those who want skip the difficulty to register, choose and download appropriate tiles, you will find on my personal page the links for direct download of the selected data for the Afghan AO (area of operations). You will notice that on the previous website the data is not available for the whole surface of the Earth: this is a physical limitation due to the space shuttle's orbit resulting from launch parameters. People interested in finding elevation data further north (like for the new Kola Map by Orbx) will have to look for other data sources. For example, both the Japanese Space Agency (JAXA) and the European Space Agency (ESA) offer free acess to these data. The website viewfinderpanoramas.org is also a good reference. Once you have taken the time to download all the data that are interesting you, you just have to unzip the files and place them in your ...\CombatFlite\SrtmDataFiles folder. You can check the type and validity of your data by checking the file sizes: SRTM 1 .hgt files must be 25327 KB large, while SRTM 3 .hgt files must be 2818 KB large. You can now see the altitude of any place on the map by placing your mouse cursor over it. You can also use all the tools that need elevation data to work: visualize terrain along your route or in a limited area; show vertical terrain profile along your route; and most importantly, use the intervisibility tool, that will let you choose the best attack axis against any ground threat! As you'll see later, there's no excuse not to use CombatFlite as a flight planning tool on the Afghan theatre!

In military aeronautics, a good flight planning accounts for almost 90% of mission success... And for that, we are fortunate to have a dedicated software for DCS World: that's CombatFlite. It has proved to be an essential tool for flight planning and mission creation, from the simplest to the most complex ones. Unfortunately, it seems that updates to this software have now been discontinued, and it is unlikely that a dedicated theater will be created any time soon. The only option we have is to modify an existing theater and manually integrate the data we need. This is the path I've taken, and I've decided to modify the “Persian Gulf” theater to include mapping of the Afghan theater, as well as the data required to use all the software's functionalities. In the coming weeks, I'll explain you how to do that, and I'll direct you to the necessary files to let you use CombatFlite on the Afghan theatre!