blackheart2502

Those are my experiences from Iraq, not a passage from the book I mentioned. blackheart2502

Hi everyone. I just finnished reading a great book called A Nightmare's Prayer. I picked it up on Amazon for the Kindle. The author was a USMC Harrier pilot flying CAS in Afghanistan in 2002 and 2003. He discusses working with JTAC's and using the Litening pod in a ton of detail. You can really feel the emotion of the mission for the pilots. There was a JDAM dropped on friendlies at the beggining of the war but it was a crystal clear day. It was a case of a JTAC giving his GPS grid to the attack pilot in an F-18 who dropped on the grid he was given. There is footage of the attack on the internet. It happened while Special Forces and 10th Mountain Divsion soldiers were trying to retake the fortress in Mazar-i-Sharif that was being used to house all the Taliban and Al Queda fighters. The prisoners over powered the guards and a massive fight ensued. I was a private in the 101st Airborne in Iraq in '05 and this incident was specifically mentioned to us. They taught us basic procedures for calling CAS in case we were in a fight and all the NCO's and officers were killed or wounded. The most important thing they stressed was to never ever give your grid location to a pilot. We were always told to give an approximate grid to get him in the ballpark and then talk his eyes on to your location. If you had a good solid grid for the bad guys by all means let him have that one! Most CAS pilots are flying single seat, have been airborne for HOURS, and now they are juiced on adrenaline to help you. They are probably listening to at least 3 radios and may be talking to multiple units on the ground. There is only so much one pilot can handle and when the time comes to drop the bomb he may be looking at a list of grids he has written on his kneeboard and input the wrong one into to the JDAM. There are only two circumstances that I would feel comfortable calling in a JDAM through clouds. The enemy is inside my perimiter and we're all going to die anyway and I need a diversion to try and break contact and push him back or, the target is preplanned and way the hell away from me, and the pilot either has it positively identified with radar or a pod with IR. The radars in airplanes like the B-1B, B-2, F-15E, F-18 etc. can produce images of a target that are almost photographic in detail. Anyway in a real war you're going to have SEAD assets to pop all the major sam threats. Whatever is left you should be able to get down in the mud with them and get eyes on before you have to do something dubious like dropping a big bomb through the clouds in response to a request for CAS from the ground. blackheart2502

What are joystick pots? If they are sticking how do you fix it? Thanks blackheart2502

Hello Everyone. Is anyone else out there pulling the wings off of the airplane on a regular basis? I've experimented with control axis tuning until I'm blue in the face. I'm not doing any radical flying just simple 3-4 G pulls off the target on strafe and bomb passes. The problem I can't solve is that after about three quarters stick throw I get a spike in elevator deflection and the wings come off. This isn't a bug. The real wings would come off the real airplane at the gross weights I'm flying if I went from 4 to 7 G's instantly. It's the curve in the axis tuner. In a real airplane the stick is supposed to get harder to pull the further you pull preventing you from tearing off the wings. The problem is that sitting here at my desk at one G with a simple spring loaded joystick with no aerodynamic forces acting on it through SAS, hydraulics and liknages I have to work backwards. So if anyone out there has discovered the perfect curve that gives them both excellent precise pitch control and helps keep the wings on I'd appreciate the info. Thanks ED for the axis tune. It's a blast to play with even if I am struggling with it. Kinda like being a test pilot!!! Blackheart2502

Thanks bmbpdk!!! That got the job done! Now the commie killin can continue unabated!!!!

I've been trying to learn how to re-arm after landing. I know I need to use the DTS page on the left MFD to load the new inventory into the DSMS. How do I get to the DTS page without shutting off the EGI, CDU, and CICU? I don't want to shut the airplane down. I want to hot pit refuel and rearm and head back out immediately. I have been digging through the manual for hours and can't find the button presses to get to the DTS page. HELP!!! :-) Blackheart2502