CBStu

I can see that for sure especially if you are several planes back.

A question for RL. Why is groove time so important? What would be caused by an extra 3-4 second long groove.

You will always move to the left, or more accurately, the ship moves to your right. I counter that in a straight in approach by having the circle of the VV sit w/ it's left edge on the vertical line of the ICLS cross until about .3 to .4 miles out. At that point I let the circle slide to the left so it is centered on the cross. This is the only pic I have at the moment and it isn't quite correct. The VV vs ICLS cross is correct but at this distance the VV should be centered on the island.

I don't use target at all. I use this button on the throttle of speedbrake. I just noticed I labeled it air brake.

Maybe I am misunderstanding something but salute is there already. I use it for every carrier launch. As the crew guy motions you to wind it up, I have the radio onscreen already selected to deck crew. When I hear the AB kick in I click 'Salute' to get launched.

Also if you buy another map, Persian Gulf for instance, you get a ton of missions w/ it.

Be sure your stick has a little bit of dead zone. I increased mine several months ago because I had the same problem. Now I can be in fast forward level 3 (which I do a lot on long flights) climbing at 5degrees and as soon as I see it hit 30,000 (or whatever) I hit the BALT and it levels out w/ a couple of slight swings below and above 30000. I just checked and my stick pitch dead zone is set at 3.

This is where mine is bound

I am flying similar to you w/ similar results. I have found that I need to set the carrier channel in one of the radios since this is not always done by the mission or campaign creators. Or it may be on radio 2 channel 3 and I just miss it. But I usually get a return call giving me carrier course, some other data and an ask to call a 'see you at 10' which I do. Then they say to switch to tower or something (which I don't do) but seems to happen automatically at 4,5 miles. I always get the no 'proper communications though' and at this point I just don't worry about it. If you would like scoring re; your approach and trap, I recommend Banklers Case 1 Recovery mission. It is fantastic.

BuzzU, that is exactly what I have been doing. I just thought it would be nice to upgrade my technique a bit. I have done maybe 10 approaches now and, for me anyway, I like Tusky's technique. Anything involving either airspeed or time just adds one more thing I have to monitor and control. Thanks to all for sharing their knowledge.

Tusky so far I like your process best. Hulkbust I may like yours but so far I haven't gotten it to work for me. 475FG your 6 comes from 40nm / miles per minute at whatever speed I want hold right? Out of time now so I will work on this more tomorrow.

Say I am 50nm out at 30,000 and I want to be at 2500 (maybe math would be easier using 3000) at 10nm out. Is there an easy do it in my head way to calculate what descent angle would get me there?

I have been flying some simple missions to try to get this down. Prior to flying the mission that started this thread I have mostly been using TOO and the ATFLR which is easy to do when the target is easily visible. And it has the advantage over the old flir in that it has a TV mode which is much clearer in some situations. But I am starting to like PP much more now. Being able to change the coordinate format in the F10 map is a godsend. Dropping 4 bombs w/ one pickle is really nice but I will keep practicing because I need to be able to do one at a time for when they are not close together. Thanks to all of you who have helped in this thread.

Guys your info is excellent. I flew the mission that started this thread again. One problem w/ it is that it is something like 150nm away so I fly to it at 4x fast forward. I have a couple of old simple missions I created and am going to go back and make another version to simplify everything and cut flight time. I got a version done where I start out parked just off the runway. This way I can sit there and set up all the bombs etc w/o having other planes etc moving and I am not holding up anyone. Thanks again.

Recluse that scratchpad will be a huge help. I have been going to the F10 map, putting the curser on the target, and taking a cell phone pic of the coordinates that shows in the left lower corner of the screen. Then back to the cockpit to enter them off the cell pic. A real pain.

Yesterday I got a couple hours to play so flew the mission a couple times w/ all the above suggestions and w/ Chucks guide open. Harker's LAlt-Y is a godsend so now I can get the precise coordinates. That worked great. I also did Phantom's recommendation of using PP mode vs TOO. I am not there yet though as the first bomb hit a launcher but the rest went somewhere else. I must say that entering the coordinates in PP is one step harder than TOO. You have to hit either lat or lon and then N or S and the digits. Not a big deal but weird that there is a different method to input the same data. Any way I am getting better but don't have it figures out completely yet. Recluse said, "In both modes I sometimes struggle making sure I have the right Station selected for the right target, so Rich Man or Poor Man, *I* can still screw it up" I think that is where I messed up. So more flights needed.

Harker thank you so much for your help. I don't know about your comments re; mission editer. This is mission in a user files campaign that I downloaded. I have not done mission editor work to it. I think you are correct about the extra WPs. Possibly the original creator set those 'empty' WPs to make it easier for us since we would not need to create new WPs. I think you are also correct in that I may have set WPs 4-7 w/o having SEQ1 boxed. That is usually one of the first things I do but since I was planning to enter data I may well have left SEQ1 unboxed. Thankyou for the way to change WP formatt in the F10 map. That will be very valuable. Phantom 711 I am somewhat familiar w/ the different lat/lon and precise/non-precise formats but not w/ MGRS. When I say familiar, I can't always get things to work and often bring up Chucks Guide so I can pause DCS, check the guide, back to DCS, etc. When I said '6 digit' I meant the most basic lat/lon format but I forgot that there are actually 2 of those. And, since I have not learned MGRS yet, I wasn't aware that '6 digit' would usually refer to it. For some reason I have never used the PP mode but your comment about 'punch the coordinates into the J-dam' has me interested and pickling all 4 bombs at once would also be great. To both of you, thank you very much for your help. I am going away this weekend so probably won't be able to get back to this mission until Monday. But I will print this thread so I can use your suggestions and also study up on this via Chucks Guide. I need to succeed on this mission so I can get all the way through the campaign.

I had that happen a couple of times. Since then I now bring gear up as soon as the tires leave the deck. I do wonder, since over speeding is so detrimental to the plane why it doesn't come up automatically. I know it is slightly different but the flaps come up automatically if I forget.

Harker I understand what you are saying. I have done those steps before in other missions. As best as I can tell I was in SEQ1 throughout this mission. I say that because as I sat there I went to HSI, and then data (?) and then scrolled though WP1-7 doing nothing but hitting the up or down buttons. I was surprised that 4-7 already existed but saw they had no lat/lon but did have some type of grid. (I grid is something I am not up on at this time so I saw the #s, recognized what they are, but don't know any more than that). I didn't know if I could ad lat/lon at all but it worked fine. I also scrolled back through WPs checking that I had entered all the #s properly. The mission briefing gave the 6 digit lat/lon so that is what I used. I thought maybe that since the J-84 is a 1000# bomb, the creator figured that would be large enough to take out the scud launcher even if the bomb didn't hit directly. A related question if I can. I have run into several missions where the lat/lon is given in 6 digit form. I looked at the F10 map and it also gives just the 6 digits. Is there a way to get the more accurate info if it isn't given in the briefing? Something I can in F10 so it outputs a different format.

I am flying a mission that uses J-84s to take out 4 scud launchers. So I figure that using waypoint designate should work. While sitting on the carrier I go to HSI and look for the list of WPs in Seq1. WPs 1, 2, 3 are the route. There are also WPs 4, 5, 6, and 7 which have a grid listed. I add in lat/lon/altitude. They are provided in the 6 digit format which the plane accepts. So I take off and get about 20M from the target. On the SA page I click to scroll through WPs to get to WP4 and WPs 4-7 do not exist. After WP3 the next is WP0. I am on my 5th flight trying to hit these scuds and can't figure out what I may be doing wrong.

You may be right. I don't know. I think this is the way it was done by TM in the preprogrammed setup. I just looked at it after maybe 1.5 years of never even using the off position of the throttles. I am not a stickler for accurate startup and shutdown. I use auto start and on most flights after I get off the runway, I just hit escape to end the mission.

I agree the JHMCS needs to be fixed. Over the last 2 years there have been several threads on it. There are some techniques that can apparently be used w/ TIR to make it better. I don't see that point at all. For every other sighting/aiming/flying view, including the NVG as hotrod points out, my setup works as is. Then I try JHMCS & it is way lower then it should be. Heck since in a large portion of AIM9x use we are banking and pulling on the stick, if it were high I could see that as being a lot more acceptable. I see no reason I should go through a different view setup to make one piece of equipment work when ALL the others work fine as is.

This is my throttle cutoff for my TM Warthog throttle. BTW there are no buttons that you push but something internal creates the BTN29 and BTN30 when you lift the throttles over the stop and pull them all the way back.

Yurgon that makes sense. I will take your advice on doing a new thread vs a drift. Also I think you are probably correct. I will try the switch that Foka showed. But I expect your thought of high bank angle being a cause is correct. The idea is to try to stay below 250ft to avoid radar but 90deg bank angle is reached many times.

Somewhat related question. I fly a mission super low level ingress to LAR and bomb a couple of buildings. Trying to stay at 200ft it reads RALT most of the time but switches on it's own to BALT sometimes. Is there a way to lock it to RALT?