hhatch

As soon as I read your post I had a good idea what I was doing wrong. I simply was not getting close enough to get a lock. I also gave myself more altitude. I've had multiple successful launches so I think I'm back in business. Thanks for the help

I'm back after several years and am in the process of getting reacquainted with the A 10C. I am having a bad time trying to get the Maverick to lock. I am pretty certain I have followed the correct procedures but TMS fwd short rarely works for me. I have looked at a bunch of videos and posts but I see no solution. Does anyone have an idea how to fix this ?

After I posted the video I did some more looking. There was a rudder issue and I found what appeared to be some possible mapping conflicts. I did some adjustments and flew for 35 minutes without incident. Trimming is touchy, but from my memory it was before. I think I am on my way to solving this problem. Thanks for helping out.

This is a video I made showing the problem. The plane starts to roll at about 10:25. I took my hand off the stick a couple of times to show the severity of the roll. In this case I used [YOUTUBE] "instant action" which was just a free flight option. I did not manipulate anything other than trim and I shot a few rounds from the gun. I'm not sure if this will provide much info, but for what it's worth here it is. I hope I did this right.

I just got back into DCS after a long absence. I reinstalled DCS from steam and have started to reeducate myself of the A 10c. The problem I have is that the plane after a few minutes rolls very sharply to the left and cannot be corrected with trim. It's almost uncontrollable. This does not happen when I fly the SU 25T. I checked axis mapping and found no conflicts. My loadout is balanced. The centering of my stick looks fine. I am using a Thrustmaster T 16000 stick and am not using pedals. I spent a good deal of time doing searches here and so far cannot find a solution. I still suspect a mapping problem but can't figure out what it might be. I wasn't sure where to post this since I am not sure whether this is an A 10c problem or not.

I just went and took another look at the videos in the link Eddie posted. The videos start just before the turn to the target. It's obvious that the plane is pretty close to the target when it starts the turn. So I'm wondering how the attack run is set up initially. I'm thinking that initially the plane is flying toward the target and then a mile or so out turns so that the target will be at 3 or 9 o'clock and then rolls in from that point. Is this correct ?

Thanks for the links. After reading and viewing the videos, it's obvious I don't know anything. I have so many questions I don't know where to start. So I'll start with one big issue that I saw and that is the roll in and roll out technique. Until now I've been doing straight in dives. I raise the seat, lower the nose, line up the PIBL and drop. I've seen videos of ccip bombing and some are straight in and others show a roll in to the target. The threads I read have a lot of discussion about this topic. Some of the stuff went right over my head. I would like to find a tutorial that summarizes and shows how all these bits of data come together. I guess one good reason for the roll in roll out is to minimize threat exposure and that makes sense. It also appeared that the dives were very short in duration which would also minimize threat exposure. One concern I have is being able to visually acquire targets. I can't see targets from very far away even with zooming, and depending on terrain are all but invisible. Some say use smoke but if you can't see the target where do you put the smoke ? Landmarks help but seem not too precise. I've been flying and doing recon with the tgp and using markpoints before going in. I've been at this for a little over a month. It's going to take a lot more time and practice.

I've spent about 25 hours doing nothing but ccip bombing with MK 82's mostly in 3/9 mode. I had literally zero success for a long time, but I have reached a point where I have a 70-80% hit rate which was a big improvement. However, I don't do things completely by the book. For some reason I was having a great deal of trouble keeping the azimuth steering line properly lined up. That may be a comment on my piloting skills, but I found it to be harder than a low visibility ILS landing. I've done many of those in fsx. I ended up setting the min altitude at 4000. I go into a dive and go below 4000 so that I get an X in the reticle. I line up the pipper with the target, press and hold the weapon release button and the bombs release immediately or in 1-2 seconds after. I seldom see the asl for more than a couple of seconds and often I don't see it at all. Sometimes the PIBL turned into a single solid line. This seems to work consistently. I also noticed on many of the instructional videos that there were many reticles with an x. Is this a common way of doing this type of bombing ? I also keep my dives fairly steep so that the reticle does not move to quickly. This seems to help with the asl and timing the release. I also used ripple single with 3 bombs with 75 ft spacing. What are the considerations when trying to determine spacing ? Also would it be advisable to drop a little early in ripple mode to get better coverage? I'm trying to figure out how to do higher altitude bombing with the MK 82 but I had no luck with CCRP. I have not fiddled with entering wind data in the cdu yet, but in my mission I had 0 wind at all levels. I can't say that these dumb bombs are my favorite weapon, but I wanted to see if I could learn to use all of the weapons in the A 10c arsenal.

This looks interesting.

I was planning to buy Track IR5 and then upgrade my joystick to a Hotas later, but then my joystick died. I don't have the money to buy both a Hotas and Track IR 5 so I am thinking that I would buy a modest but decent stick like the Thrustmaster T 1600 M which would allow me to buy the head tracking and then do a Hotas later. Over the years I have saved a good deal of money buying a bit behind the technology. I was thinking about perhaps buying Track IR 4 which is available for under $100. I would like to hear from those who have experience with both the Track IR 4 and 5. How substantial is the difference particularly smoothness? I don't want jerky motion. For a number of reasons I have ruled out DIY so that is not going to be an option for me. One aside here. I was struck by all the complaints I read about the build quality and reliability of many Joysticks and Hotas devices. The only consistent good grades I found was for CH products. A sad state of affairs.

Yes, I did check the axis assignments and they are correct.

I have a Saitek Cyborg x stick (now called flight 5) which is misbehaving. My a 10c is suddenly lurching out of control on a regular basis. I have recalibrated,restarted the computer, plugged into a different port, and reinstalled DCS from Steam. I have attached a track. At the moment DCS is not usable. a10c.trk

Yes, that was the question. Thanks for the info.

Those are helpful tips. I keep a printed copy of the RWR close by. I know that the L symbol indicates laser illumination. Does the L appear before a launch or only after ? My reaction time to radar info is slow, but I think I just need more time and repetition. One problem I had was in a quick mission where there were lots of planes enemy and friendly. There were so many radar signals and missile launches I became totally confused because the radar does not distinguish who is who. I was looking online at some specs for a version of the SA 11 and noticed 2 pieces of information one was called altitude missile (20-22k m) and the other engagement range (32-35k m . What is the difference ?

I finally went out on my first real missions. Until now I was doing very simple training missions I created to learn various elements of the game. I did the River Raider mission. I had to run it about 5 times but I finally got all 6 targets without getting killed. The main threats were several SA 11 sam sites. However these were not mentioned as threats in the briefing and they did not show up on the map. I wanted to knock out the missiles but with little intel I could not find them so I had to go after the targets. My goal was to not get shot at but I did and managed to survive with maneuvers and counter measures. I did some reading and watched some videos about avoiding missiles and I tried several approaches. Once I flew low at about 1500 behind some hills and avoided radar but the maverick missed. Then I did the same thing but when I was in range I pulled up to gain some altitude and fired and turned. I'm wondering what is the lowest altitude that a mav can be used ? Another approach that worked a couple of times with the Mavs was to fly at about 10,000 or so and when I saw the location of the SAMS on radar I turned in the opposite direction and when in range fired as I was turning away. The easiest method was to fly at about 24,000 and drop GBU 38 bombs. Generally speaking it seems like it would be preferable to knock out the threats first then get the targets. Is this the best way to go ? I'm wondering if these approaches were sound and what other tactics I might employ.

Well it appears I found the problem and it is me. The targets were where you would expect, I just could not find them. I would not have posted except that I went through a period of hours without finding anything and I incorrectly concluded that I was making some input error on the cdu. I'm trying everything I can think of to get better. If I don't get better then I may just have to turn labels on. I don't want to because once I turn them on I think it will be hard to turn them off. However, it may come down to using labels or find something else to do. I am going to order Track IR5 after Christmas if I have any money left as I could use it for my civilian flight sims as well. Thank you all for the help.

I have tried 0 as well as the elevation shown on the map. The map I am using is in mission editor as this is a mission I created.

I've been trying to create a new waypoint on the cdu for targeting purposes, but am having a problem. My general procedure is to set wp mode selector to mission and cdu page select to wp, press lsk 2 and then I create a new waypoint. I then set the page selector back to other.Then I enter elevation and lat. long. with no spaces. Then I cycle the steerpoint to my new waypoint in the HUD. I slave the tgp to the steerpoint (china hat aft long). However, when I do that the tgp is nowhere near the target. I went into the mission editor and created a waypoint on the target and everything worked fine, so I'm doing something wrong. After several hours I still can't figure it out.

Very useful. Thanks

[quote= Yeah, that's a common problem. In that situation, instead of trying to slew the TGP for the next 5 hours until I get close to the target, I usually reset it to Boresight (China hat aft short), fly towards the target (which I keep in sight all the time) and with TGP as SOI, I ground stabilize it with TMS up short somewhere near the target. Since I should see the TGP caret on the HUD, and have the target in sight, I can then slew the TGP to the target while I turn away from the target in order to set up for attack from a safe distance. (Instead of the TGP, you could also make the HUD SOI and use the TDC in mostly the same way) I've been doing something like that with multiple targets. I mark targets, turn away, and then come back with Mavericks and slave the mavs to steerpoints which are my marks. Then I cycle thru the marks, slave the mav and fire. I managed to get off 4 in one pass once. I love mavs. My problem has been finding the targets. Getting the elevation fixed has helped a lot. After I look at the map for geographic references I zoom in with my eyes and use those references to establish where to scan with the tgp. This has helped to make the scan more productive and efficient as I move my eyes between the tgp and the windscreen. This really got me thinking about head tracking. Another thing I've been trying to figure out is the best altitude to use for targeting. Of course there are any number of things with come into play like the range of enemy threats. For eyeball scanning for me things get dicey at about 8,000 plus. I noticed too at higher altitudes targets appear to be almost under the plane even though I might be 6 miles or more from the waypoint.

I am finally starting to find some targets. One thing I needed to do is enter the elevation of the waypoint where my targets were into the cdu as mentioned above. The elevation shown in the cdu was 6562 which appears to be a default value of my plane in mission editor. The elevation on the map was 36. I also noticed a big difference in being able to identify targets based on the texture of the land. I did a quick experiment. I was looking out of the plane with labels on and saw some targets and turned off labels to see what I could see with my naked eye zoomed in. I could see some targets, but one disappeared and was invisible and I doubt anyone could see it with the naked eye . Maybe it could be seen with the pod zoomed in , but I did not try that. I also tried flying parallel to the target at slow speed. This bought some time and relative safety. However when I spot something with my naked eye and want to take a closer look, I had trouble getting the tgp into the right position, particularly if the wp which I slaved the tgp to is not visible because it's way off to the side. So there is a slight hint of progress. I'm not sure I'll ever get good at this. The old eyes of this retiree are getting tired. I think I'll take a little break.

At the moment I am using ver 1.2.16 which has a map of the caucasus. It certainly appears that intel and pre flight planning is important. Right now I am trying to spend time looking at the map and identify geographic and other features that will give me more info in addition to inputting coordinates. Just zooming the tgc around seems to be a waste. The TGP is a powerful camera however the fov can become so narrow that it is easy to miss a target as well as becoming very time consuming. I have been playing around with modes, brightness, contrast, gain, and levels, but it is still tough going. One other thing. I am using a flight stick and keyboard. I think adding a HOTAS and head tracking won't make me see better but I think it would save time, add efficiency and make the whole process less fatiguing. I initially questioned the value, but after 250 hrs I think a HOTAS at least is almost a necessity if I decide to get serious. This is the deepest most complex sim I have ever tried.

I have been spending a lot of time with the a 10c over the past couple of weeks and one of the big problems I am having is finding targets without using labels. I have read quite a few posts and looked at various tutorials discussing strategies employed to find targets. I finally decided to learn how to input coordinates to the CDU thinking that was probably my best shot at narrowing the places to look with the TGP. So I was able to get latitude and longitude input to the CDU and created a quick mission with objects on a waypoint. I slaved the TGP to the waypoint coordinates and started looking. So far I have not been able to find a single target without using labels, even on a mission I created using what I thought was a good method. I am aware this is a skill for which there is no substitute for practice and trial and error experiments. However, I am making no progress after many hours. I really thought the CDU would be my best tool. I don't know what to do next. I'm out of ideas.

Why I didn't think of that I will never know. Thanks.

I'm trying to learn how to slave mavericks to SPI . I looked at a video and it explains things using HOTAS commands. One of the commands used is china hat aft - long. The only kb command I see under options is for china hat aft which is c. It does not indicate whether it is for china hat aft long or short. Actually I don't see any corresponding kb commands for any HOTAS command that has a long or short designation. I'm thinking of getting a HOTAS but at the moment I am making do with my joystick and kb.