Jenrick

Radar bombing is as precise as you can lock in your offset point. In the Viggen that's governed by the resolution of the radar display and the size of the radar cursor (and that's not even getting into any systems limitations). So at 5km, whatever the combined error between those two is going to be minimum you can hope for, assuming everything is perfect.

Engaging the radar, allows for you to have the range lines at the bottom of the HUD to cue you on when you are in range. Otherwise you are using the range gate in the hug, the targets wingspan, and your best guess on when the target is in range. Obviously radar ranging is more accurate. I haven't flown A2A in the Viggen in a while, IIRC you hold T1 to keep the radar fixed on the current target. Releasing it, going to T2 (or is that TV where it's released, it's been a while), gets you back to normal symbology. So you questions in order: 2) Setting the wingspan allows you to visually estimate the targets range without needing to use the radar. So if you can't get a radar contact on the target the only thing you have to estimate the target being in range is the gate on the HUD. 4) A1 is the PPI radar view, A2 is the b-scope. If you knew for a fact that your target was supposed to be in a certain area, that you had a nav point over going A2 would theoretically give you more resolution to try and find them. 5) When you press T1, you can slew your radar cursor over a target, you should then get the range lines on the bottom of the HUD. You aren't locking it in the sense you would a in the F-15, rather you are using the radar to generate a distance. You have to move the radar cursor to stay with the target. It's mainly useful for large AC you are chasing down, or set it so you can look at your radar screen to see when you're in range. If the target is in sight, put the wing span marker on the target, and pull and hold T1, it will range the target continually for you so long as you have it under the marker. 8) The distance line indicates when you're in range. if it's wider than the two hash marks you are too far away. If you are between the hash marks the missile can fly to that distance and hit a non-manuevering target. If the line is flashing you are too close to launch (the missile wont be able to track). The first HUD is going to IR mod or hitting the fast missile button. The gate in the middle of the screen is set with the targets wingspan (you have to do this) to help you estimate the targets range. The second HUD is when you use the radar and hold to T1 to generate a range. Letting go of T1 will go back to the first one. The number on the HUD on the left is your altitude in meters.

Thanks, gives me some idea. Again it looks awesome!

You're plain old regular hand flying trim is "Flight Control" trim. Autopilot trim only works when the plane is in one of the AP modes. Not sure when you'd use emergency trim.

So radar bombing in the Viggen is a bit of black art. A couple things that can be issues: 1) The radar refresh/raster sweep rate leads to having to guess when the target is "exactly" under the radar bombing cross. The higher or faster you're moving the more this will effect your final bomb strike location. 2) Radar resolution, it's not super high like you might find in say the F-15E or the F-18, you are trying to put the terrain feature or the target blob under the center of the radar bombing cross. Radar bombing is only as accurate as the radar can generate a location or offset. 3) Wind this may or may not be an issue in your mission, but it certainly is one real world. So I found through trial and error, you are having to basically guess when to release due to the sweep rate; the higher and faster, the bigger the chance of error. I've gotten to where I can hit most terrain features with a stick of bombs, or a building complex. I can USUALLY managed to get a hit on a stationary ship, but that's in good weather. In the Viggen as well as a lot of it's contemporary AC, true radar bombing was the last ditch way to get the bombs off the AC if the weather was bad. Using the radar to locate a recognizable terrain feature, calculate your offset, run in, time to release, etc, was your backseater/side-seaters job. In a single man AC you'd need to be Sierra Hotel to pull that off in real time I'd imagine. Radar offset bombing could be pretty dang accurate if well planned and the profile flown correctly. In the Viggen the equivalent is Nav bombing and using obvious terrain features for checkpoints to keep everything from drifting.

Looks great! What are you using as a frame, looks almost like the legs off a folding chair?

Are you on open beta or release? I updated the release client last night and tried it, missiles came off the rail just fine in my DACM mission. Are you doing a cold start, hot start, on the ramp, parking, runway, etc? Just trying to narrow things down.

Can you put up a track? From your description nothing is jumping to mind.

My major gripe for non-combat operations is the the lack of nav aides in place. When I've got 6 TACAN's and a handful of NDB's to fly with, I'm much less motivated to go fly cross country or shoot approaches. Yes I can do pattern work and all, but it certainly seems "sterile" comparatively.

On a separate note, is that an english cockpit?

If you did a cold and dark start, make sure to turn your radio's on. I've forgotten that step before.

There is very little splash damage to rockets compared to bombs, which mitigates any shrapnel effects you'd see real world. However real world HEAT rockets actually don't have much blast damage (for a rocket), and unless you add a fragmentation sleeve not much shrapnel either. The warhead is designed to put all it's energy into a very concentrated spot. So you would need a direct hit most likely, you might check the events listing and see if you are getting hits.

I agree, pretty much any low level strike craft doesn't do well with the AI. Also nice flying!

If the QFE for the area you're dropping in is radically different than where it's set for I can see issues with the symbology appearing. Beyond that if you are in parameters for dropping it should appear.

Thanks for the fast response! Interesting to hear how it all works. I have zero knowledge regarding actual frequencies and ranges, but I will certainly be happy to look into it and let you know.

IIRC in CCIP mode, whenever you unsafe the trigger you'll get the symbology and can drop.

A couple of questions: 1) There are some oddities when trying to identify radars such as the search radar for the SA-11 and the track radar for the SA-3 being identical across all the identifiers (band, freq, etc) we have to work with. A cursory google search, indicates at least this pair probably shouldn't be identical. Are these intentional, or just accidental? 2) Also the data doesn’t match up to any of the info in the DCS encyclopedia regarding Band and Freq (I haven’t seen an entry for timing but I haven’t bothered to scroll all the way through). Would it be possible to have either the encyclopedia changed, or the emitter data changed so that they match each other? This way there would at least be internal consistency in DCS. Thanks!

Short version if you're not near your flight ceiling with the throttle fire walled, shooting at a target that is closing at you: Don't expect anything close to a 38 nm max range. Yes the missile will probably travel 38 nm if fired in the perfect setup, but how often does that happen?

Had the same thing as muamshai, though offiline. Fired a pair of BK90's type 1 IIRC and got nothing. They simply crashed into the ground.

Very nice, gonna have to fire up the Viggen after that.

Are snap views an option in DCS? I could see doing that with a larger sized hood, being a workable option for folks who aren't flying VR.

With the F-18 and F-14 in the works, I can totally see a market for a "Top Gun" setup. Add in Mirimar and Fallon, and I think you'd have a hell of run on sales.

OV-10 would certainly be my preference. If we're going for odd AC of the Vietnam war, how about an A-37 Super Dragonfly? It'd the BLUEFOR equivalent to the L-39 in DCS.

It depends on how you set up things in TARGET. I used the old FOXY and CH Manager, so there are probably some differences. In FOXY and CH Manager you basically use a third party program to say that "Button X" is the equivalent of pressing "LCTRL+RSHIFT+LALT+g". You would set your key bind in DCS to this particular key combination (or you'd look up the default key bind and set your bindings in FOXY and CH Manager accordingly to save a step). So normally what happens is that if you had bound Button X to "missile uncage" and then in FOXY or CH Manager your set Button X to "RShift+M", you will loose the functionality. When you press button X you are sending "RShift+M" to DCS, and it doesn't have a binding for that. Now if you have left the default key binds in place and just added the button presses, AND you set your profile in TARGET to utilize the default key binds, you should be good to go. Also we're getting a FLIR pod for the F-5?!

Well if you're at or above FL180 (18'000 or ~550 meters) you're supposed to set your altimeter to 29.92 inHg (I believe 1013 for meteric). So for higher altitude flight you'd do that, and just use your sectional map and flight planning to avoid hitting anything.