victorlima01

None of what I'm saying is based on rw experience but on what I learned from reading and talking to military personnel (so please correct me if I'm wrong): For comm brevity FACs will omit the first characters of the MGRS coordinates because it's quite unnecessary - you're obviously flying over that portion of the Earth already. They'll try to be as precise as possible, but usually a 100 x 100 grid is what you'll get. No need to be more precise when a) they're lasing it for you or b) you're given a description of the target, a 100x100m square to search and you have atflir or Lpod.

This helped very much! Now it all makes more sense and instead of memorizing I can deduct the appropriate settings. Thank you!

Ok, now I feel like an idiot. I'm even a subscriber to Wags' channel, and yet I hadn't seen it. Thank You! I'll make a spreadsheet and share it once it's done.

Hey all, As the Hornet's A2G capabilities are rapidly increasing I am having trouble keeping up with all different fuse-settings for the different types of ordinances. I've tried coming up with a spreadsheet but I don't have any trustworthy literature that I can reference (my guess is since this is tactical-related info it's mostly classified and won't appear in natops). So far I've been doing it from memory and when that fails I'll try out different m and e-fuse settings until I get the weapon ready to go (ie, no dud indication or crosses on the stores page). I'm sure our real-world counterparts will brief the specifics of their selected bombs before walking to the jet and take the appropriate tactical QRHs with them. But if anyone knows where I can find this information in a trustworthy manner please let me know. I'll try to synthetize everything in one place and share my handiwork once it's finished. Cheers.

Don't worry! You'll get there! Lex's Discord is a great place to get help and learn how the pros do it.

I struggled with the same decision process and I'm as thorough as you apparently. However, I'd been waiting literally more than a decade for high-fidelity sim of the hornet. So I just dove right in and it was my first (and only) jet in DCS. What I did was a lot of flying around to get a feel for the jet, and when I felt confident enough started flying around the boat. Next came a lot of navigation, followed by Case III and finally AAR. After 4 or 5 months I finally felt like I could handle the jet around the boat and I joined a virtual squadron. There I discovered just how much I'd have to train to be somewhat proficient at form flying, and BFM. I've been with them for about two months and even though I'm the straggler of the group I've been having tons of fun and been getting much better. So to answer your question, if you love the jet and that's the one you want to stick with than by all means dive right into it! I agree with you that learning other jets and weapons systems that you won't use in the long run might be a waste of time (a good way to waste time though - you'll be flying!).

Nope. Refer to Wags' video on it. LTWS doesn't update quick enough to present firing solutions. It's surv only. We'll have to wait for TWS.

Then I'd say DCS' flight model probably needs to be looked at. If that were the case in real life the real drivers wouldn't casually dismiss this question the way they did when it was raised (by saying they never did it and never saw it being done). All in all, whether it behaves like the real thing in that specific scenario is irrelevant imho. If I ever find myself launching with assymetric loads I'll just trim the thing and have a safe launch. Thanks for the heads-up. Edited for typos.

I see. Thanks for the clarification. I'm guessing they never had to deal with a real-life situation with enough assimetry to require trimming prior to launch, and assumed it was simply not used. I will bring this up with them and see what the response is. Good to know Natops has us covered yet again.

I always thought assymetric loads had to be trimmed out prior to cat launches. Interestingly, I've already heard from two hornet pilots that only longitudinal trim is set prior to takeoff. You deal with the roll assimetry yourself once airborne

Have you guys confirmed that that is the reason?

AFAIK, MGRS coordinates are still not available to the DCS hornet, although present and extensively used in the real plane. For now you're stuck with latlon. They've already annouced that this will change.

Exactly. I've discovered that selecting any wp (in the FPAS page with the up/down arrows) that is not part of a sequence will deactivate the "home fuel" advisory. Thus I just press the up arrow from wp 0 to go to wp 59 (never saw a flightplan loaded up with 59 waypoints)

HUD designator means nothing to the GBU-12. As long as it's set-up properly and the target is being lased, as soon as you pickle the bomb should home into the laser (provided the target diamond is somewhere near the actual target). Also, there are multiple ways to get the target diamond to overlap the exact spot being lased. Please refer to Redkite's excellent tutorial here. I followed it to the letter and answered all my questions which were the same as yours.

I think with the last update trimming has become a lot smoother and faster for me. Depending on weight 9-11 unites of trim will get me dead-center on the E-bracket. Since you can't feel stick pressure in a sim I think it's good practice to leave the FCS page on either DDI so you can quickly reference what you're trimming for. IIRC in the real plane as soon as you take your thumb off the trim switch you'll get a flashing number on the HUD which is really the AOA you're trimmed for. But don't quote me on that. Regards, VML

New user and I'll try to keep it short. Hopefully this outsider's view will give you some perspective. Disclaimer: haven't seen his video, but I don't need to in order to reach the conclusions I've come to. I'm talking pretty much about one post specifically and those who supported it. I am disappointed, or should I say appalled, at some of the replies I have read here. Like someone else said, Mover and Lex's viewpoints of the game (it is a game) are obviously worlds apart from the viewpoints of those who will never get to fly a military jet, but would use DCS to fulfill that fantasy. Nothing wrong with that, heck, I do it all the time. But you have to know how to differentiate reality from enjoying a desktop simulation. You might've found the way Mover handled the video disrespecful to the community. But I personally find that post disrespectful to two servicemen who have put their necks on the line for years and were gracious enough to come here and mingle with us and answer our questions. What's more I found the tone intriguing. Not sure such things would be said in that tone upfront to Mover if you were sitting at a table over a beer. Sure, they weren't openly disrespectful, but to say the least there was a lack of tact. I don't mean you'd be afraid of saying such things man-to-man. I just mean if you did, you wouldn't look well. And what I just can't get is this: the forum finally get what it desperately craves - a real-world guy to validate our countless sim hours for us. And just because it hasn't been done according to certain expectations we find it in our right to reply in such a manner as to drive him away from the community? Doesn't add up. We'd just be ostracizing ourselves from men and women who could teach us much, even if their legitimate feeling is that this is just a game. The truth will only bother you if you fail to perceive it as such. Mover, needless to say, needs no defending - much less from me. So this rant is just to remind some in the community to behave in a gentlemanly way. And I'm sure Wags and ED guys have pretty thick skin and are extremely proud (as they should be) of what they've accomplished, so I'm positive whatever's on that video would in no way diminishes them or their work, as previously suggested. I'm extremely excited about DCS and learning what little is available to civilians about combat flying and USN ops. I'll take whatever I can from guys who've seen actual combat but still find the time to come here and play with us. And I'd do well to remind myself to thank them for their service at the end of the post. I'm sorry if this post offends anyone, I tried to speak honestly about things that might upset some. I look forward to making friends in these forums and learning from the experienced simmers and RL pilots alike (although I suspect I'm not off to a great start). Yours truly, Victor Lima (this is my actual name and last name)