Biggus

I believe the 15 JDAM loadout was not actually intended for employment but rather transport to forward bases.

So, I've found an E that has been scanned by the Cockpit360 guys. Unfortunately it's only on FB, and there's no zoom. I'm working on the fuel panel at the moment, and I've run into a bit of confusion that I'm hoping one of the Heatblur guys could maybe answer or drop some hints about. Last night on discord, I was asking for some good reference pictures for that panel, and one of the very helpful users promptly uploaded a better scan from the manual than I had. It is an exact match for the Cockpit360 G here. However, upon looking more closely at the scanned E, I can see that the panel is laid out differently. Like a mash-up with the flares/normal switch from the G, but with the switches of the C (here, for example) and D. What I'd like to confirm is whether the DSCG fuel panel follows the layout as given in the manual, or whether it's closer to the earlier panel in that linked E cockpit above (ie, no flares/normal switch)? I'm 90% sure that that linked F-4E has a pre-DSCG fuel panel. @IronMike could you see if you are able to shed any light on this?

This upsets me in so many different ways.

Correct. I'm hopeful Jester will be able manage it.

I suspect that you'd need to hit the tanker before you made it to the perimeter fence.

I'm probably missing a step or two, but from memory it goes like this: Pipper depressed to 35 mils, pilot aims at the ground at or near the target. WSO boresights the radar, locks onto the ground return and plays with gain until there's a reasonable picture. Pilot with pipper on target (or upwind if compensating compensating for wind) then presses and holds pickle (which commands a range measurement and starts the release timers). ADI now shows pilot where to fly in order to release the bombs for impact at the desired point. Bombs come off at the computed time and the pickle button can be released. The manual suggests that this form of delivery requires 20% more time on the run in.

I'm inclined to suspect that adequate physical clearance at 1G alone is not enough to make it a safe loadout, and/or possibly the left and right maverick positions may damage the sidewinder's seeker head when they launch. Those bombs are likely to be M117s. In the HB discord, somebody much wiser than I pointed out that museum images can be misleading, as they can often be loaded with invalid configurations. In hindsight, I feel silly for not realising that earlier.

I guess the question could be asked about having a single sidewinder and a second maverick on the side where there isn't a sidewinder loaded. I'm sure someone will be able to fill that blank in, because to me it's an interesting possibility.

Regarding Sparrows, there's no limitation on the rear pair that I'm aware of. The front wells can have Sparrows, but these cannot be launched with a C/L tank loaded without popping a circuit breaker or dropping the tank. With other stores on that C/L station, my recollection is that generally the forward Sparrows would work but there were some caveats. IIRC, Phantoms on mud-moving missions in Vietnam nearly always had at least a pair of Sparrows loaded in the rear wells, so you aren't alone in considering them a better option if you have bandits pop up suddenly. I've seen a couple of accounts of Navy guys popping the breaker inhibiting launch on the front pair and actually launching with the C/L tank still onboard, and the fins of the Sparrow caused quite a bit of damage to the tank. With Mavericks, the 1990 -1 shows them mounted singly on the launchers in the bottom position when Sidewinders are carried.

Regarding GBU-12s, it depends on the variant of GBU-12. For the GBU-12B/B, -12C/B and -12D/B, six is the quantity given in the 1990 -1. One each on the outboards, two on TERs on the inboards. It may be physically possible to mount a TER and a pair on the outers, but it is not listed in the TO. For other variants of GBU-12, the total is four. One on each pylon, no TER or MER. The C/L pylon does not appear to be used for carrying any GBU-12 variant, TER or otherwise.

I asked a question about Jester workflow in the discord a few hours ago, but it probably isn't the ideal place to ask questions when the HB guys don't have eyes on the stream of messages, so I'll ask it again here. There are a few air to ground weapon delivery modes like dive toss where the WSO needs to attain a lock on the ground before the pilot cues the impact point for the WRCS with the pickle button. Is there going to be an easy way to ask Jester to attain lock whilst the aircraft is in a dive? The current radial menu seems a little less than ideal for that kind of situation, and I know Jester is getting a rework, so I'm pretty curious what the air to ground workflow will be like for single human pilots.

I'll add my voice to this request too. Very important for the late Cold War era modules and scenarios. Excellent work has been done on adding AAA, but SA-7s and Redeyes would be extremely welcome.

Don't let that stop you. You don't really need to use it at all outside of calibration or changing an axis to a button configuration. I've had my Orion for a couple of years now and I can literally count with the fingers on one hand how often I've used the software.

I'd completely overlooked ACL, you're right. I was very much just thinking about the vector mode.

VR Optician have done two prescriptions for me. No complaints, they're excellent and very fast at shipping them.

The closest we have in DCS today is the Mirage 2000's TAF datalink, which is a bit more informative to the crew due to the TID-like presentation. It's still steering information on a single contact to plot an intercept. You'll only gain SA on that single contact. The real place that SA was gained with the Link 4A system was in the E-2, especially when visual ID was required for IFF. And in the days of early AWG-10s where they'd often break during the sortie, being able to steer a fighter into a firing solution with their fox-2s was probably well worth the effort. The utility of the system within DCS is questionable without a better AI controller scheme and without player controller tools, though. The datalink in the F-14 was capable of steering the aircraft remotely just like the Phantom. It's not modelled within DCS. I'm hopeful that at some point all this will be worth adding to the sim.

@BaronVonVaderham I'd second contacting their support. I've heard of their system having some difficulties with some addresses before and it's generally been fixed pretty quickly.

Fair point of view. I'd argue that it was a relatively tiny space of time that took us from the Bullpup to the Maverick, though. If it's in that manual and has any amount of space devoted to it, it was probably pretty useful.

I suspect that there would be a surprisingly large demand for this, given how much demand there seems to be for logistics modules. So long as, as everyone has said, there's some depth (lol) to the simulation. I've always wanted a high fidelity P-2 and P-3.

As per this post, the 'show pilot body' selection may have some issues worth investigating. I have never particularly liked having the pilot body in the cockpit, so I've left that option unchecked since it first appeared. Yet every time I spawned in the Tomcat, my pilot body was there. I fixed this by checking the box, loading an instant action mission and then quitting, and then unchecking the box. After this, my body no longer spawns in SP games. I suspect that because I have never interacted with that check box in the time since the check box was implemented, the game failed to write the "show_pilot_body" line in options.lua. By checking the box, it enabled the line to be written and thereafter disabled. Note that this workaround does not seem to work in multiplayer. Hope this isn't a hard one to squash!

Thank you, @Temetre and @draconus for pointing that out to me. I noticed something interesting @IronMike and I'm not sure if you'd like me to file a bug report relating to this that might explain why some people still get the body showing when the 'show pilot body' box is unchecked. I had the box unchecked but was still having the body appear each time I loaded in. I was able to fix this behavior by checking the box so that 'show pilot body' was enabled. I then loaded into an instant action mission and immediately quit. I then unchecked the 'show pilot body' box, loaded an instant action mission and there was no pilot body. I think that if you never interact with that option, the ["show_pilot_body"] = false line is never written to options.lua. So when I enabled it, it added the 'show pilot body' line and then disabling it set it to false.

I can't see it listed.

Is there a way to permanently hide the body. I'm one of those weirdos that hates seeing a body in the cockpit and finding the right key combo in VR can be a bit of a pain.

I disagree that the Navy had "very little concept" about the purpose of datalinks. SAGE was already quite successful for the USAF, I suspect the Navy knew exactly what they were doing when they began developing their own systems. Technology-wise, I'm not sure what you're expecting. You're focusing on one campaign with severe operational, geographic and meteorological constraints, discussing one platform that is not going to be usefully relevant to control of shipboard fighters, criticizing a different system for not being able to detect and identify contacts and then concluding that the datalink isn't useful. Vietnam is an interesting conflict to study when it comes to air warfare, but it's not the whole picture. The AN/ASW-25A was a one-way datalink. By definition, data was only transmitted one way. Either a ship or an E-1 or E-2 transmitted data to the fighter. The fighter could not transmit data. The fighter could be maneuvered by the datalink, or it could be maneuvered by the crew according to directions transmitted to the fighter by the controller in the Tracer/Tracker/ship. It was battle-tested and was found to be useful enough to be incorporated in future USN Phantom production, and retrofitted to existing USN Phantoms. The tactical manual I referenced was written after Topgun was established and it devotes an entire chapter to it's usage. The purpose was to make fighter control more efficient. You mentioned detection and IFF: Getting human eyeballs into a position to visually identify contacts is your IFF. That's just one element.

US Navy Phantoms did. A squadron's worth of F-4Bs were modified with a two way pre-Link 4 system in the early 60s. These were eventually redesignated F-4G and served in the Vietnam war. Eventually these aircraft were returned to standard F-4B configuration (and as we all know, the G designation was later used again for the USAF Wild Weasels). The F-4J used Link 4A with their AN/ASW-25A receivers. These were retrofitted into F-4Bs and were therefore present in both F-4Ns and F-4Ss. These were coupled with the AFCS so that the aircraft could be remotely steered by a controller. If the crew was maintaining control themselves, there would be a steering dot for a single contact inserted in alternating video frames with the radar. There was also a unit in the cockpit that displayed a limited number of possible commands to the crew. This datalink also provided for ACLS when coupled with the approach power compensator. However this was the only mode where throttle control was not directly controlled by the crew. There was no offboard throttle control in that regard. It was a very controller-centered capability. The Phantom could not send information to other aircraft via Link 4. It's a very limited boost to situational awareness overall. Very reliant on a controller to provide both data and voice command. The Tomcat had a slightly different datalink system using Link 4C, which was two-way. That and the TID are real situational awareness enhancements that the Phantom didn't ever have. There's a great section about Link 4 in the F-4J/N/S Tactical Manual from 1972, it's well worth a read. USAF variants, I don't believe they used any form of datalink.