NO TRACK LAUNCH is driving me loco!

[GazAce]

Hey good pilots!

I keep getting a "NO TRACK LAUNCH IHBT" message when I go to use my MAV missile. I'm following everything to the letter as in the way of setting up both my MFCDs and DSMS but I can't seem to get a lock or actually no hang on.. I DO get a lock but when I go to fire away that pesky mesg pops up and stops me from doing so and yet in the Training tutorial with the instructor it all worked fine. It only works if I tick the Game Flight Mode and Game Avionics Mode in the Difficulties Options Menu, then it works fine but it's kinda too easy and also shows in each top corner of my 55" UHD Samsung tele these huge TAD and TGP displays when I use F2 or F3 etc for external views which is annoying, so wondering if anyone knows how to get rid of those and also is there any way of changing the color or brightness on HUD Display? I know, asking a lot here.

Peace out, G :)

[bart]

You can change the colour of the HUD from green (day setting) to orange (night setting) via a day/night switch just under the master arm switches on the left of the main front panel. If you want a different colour you have to use a mod.

 

The brightness is adjusted by a rocker switch on the up front control panel just below the HUD.

 

Not sure what's going on with your Mavericks, I have never had that issue so can't help there I'm afraid.....sorry.

[al531246]

You must be within launch range, i.e. between ~1 mile and 8 miles. Also get your aim within the 'keyhole'. See image

[GazAce]

Hey that's great, thank you very much for those tips fellas and I've finally sorted the MAV issue, was just a matter of trial and error and more practice and yes you def have to get within good range. For any A-10C newbies like me out there, there's a good little mission called River Run where you have to take out 6 bunkers along a river as you come in from the sea and the SAMS get harder as you progress further along the river. I've only got to No. 2 so far haha, anyway I reckon it's a good one cause you get to use a number of different missiles and bombs.

[escaner]

IIRC, that message appears when the Maverick does not have a lock. You can tell from the small SA cross in the Maverick MFCD. It flashes when the missile is locked and tracking a target.

[Emmy]

Hey that's great, thank you very much for those tips fellas and I've finally sorted the MAV issue, was just a matter of trial and error and more practice and yes you def have to get within good range. For any A-10C newbies like me out there, there's a good little mission called River Run where you have to take out 6 bunkers along a river as you come in from the sea and the SAMS get harder as you progress further along the river. I've only got to No. 2 so far haha, anyway I reckon it's a good one cause you get to use a number of different missiles and bombs.

 

I've found you can work all the way up river if you climb the whole way. You need to be at or above 20,000' by the last bunker to avoid its defenses.

 

:smartass:

[GurbY]

I have to agree with TS, last time more than on previous occasions I get a "no track launch". Looks like locking a target with the mav is much, much more difficult than before, and sometimes even impossible.

[tom1502]

I've been making a SPI in the TGP and switching to the Maverick, which has the target dead centre in the crosshairs...no lock, I have to move the seeker head and it locks. doesn't matter what direction I move it, it's a little annoying.

[Pocket Sized]

I've been making a SPI in the TGP and switching to the Maverick, which has the target dead centre in the crosshairs...no lock, I have to move the seeker head and it locks. doesn't matter what direction I move it, it's a little annoying.

 

Set the MAV as sensor of interest and hit TMS up to lock the target.

[GurbY]

Set the MAV as sensor of interest and hit TMS up to lock the target.

That's the normal procedure yes. But, after the last update, I'm also (like TS) keep getting "NO TRACK LAUNCH". Very annoying.

[Razor18]

Are you "within the keyhole"?

[Kang]

If you - thanks to TGP - are certain that your seeker is on target, but you can't seem to get a lock, you could try going in Force Correlate Mode.

Hold the boat switch in center for one second until a full center crosshair appears, reach launch zone and fire away. Just keep in mind this sets the target to the ground and won't follow any moving targets.

[GazAce]

Thanks for the heads up FlyingPhotog, so far I've managed to take out 5 of them... was sooooo close. Man this is one tough mission!

Edited March 11, 2017 by GazAce

[marcwoolery]

Hey that's great, thank you very much for those tips fellas and I've finally sorted the MAV issue, was just a matter of trial and error and more practice and yes you def have to get within good range. For any A-10C newbies like me out there, there's a good little mission called River Run where you have to take out 6 bunkers along a river as you come in from the sea and the SAMS get harder as you progress further along the river. I've only got to No. 2 so far haha, anyway I reckon it's a good one cause you get to use a number of different missiles and bombs.

What "sorted" it out ?

What was the issue ? I am having same ...

[kylekatarn720]

What "sorted" it out ?

What was the issue ? I am having same ...

 

You should read the a10c flight manual page 568 to 570. If that doesnt help, it means you are not with in range to lock the target.

[GurbY]

You should read the a10c flight manual page 568 to 570. If that doesnt help, it means you are not with in range to lock the target.

The problem is known and reported as a bug. Mavs DO have a tendency to be unable to get a lock in this version.

[kylekatarn720]

Cant say i played 2.5 a lot, just a couple of practice flights, since its been released but i didnt come across any problems regarding agm65's. Can you post the link to the bug thread if you have it

[Shadow KT]

The issue is with the H variants mainly, not the D

[GunnyMac]

Yeah they have been giving me a hard time as while

[Yurgon]

Ran a Shooter-Shooter Mavericks (two jets, two Hotel Mavs per jet) during a training sortie yesterday, splashed 4 Zu-23 in about 5 seconds, from circa 5 miles out. Doesn't appear to be a global problem.

 

If anyone with this type of problem could post a track (short, preferably), that might help us narrow it down.

[Maverick806]

This thread was 17 months old before being resurrected. The issue was likely fixed a while back

Edited September 4, 2019 by Maverick806

[JetCat]

Hi,

unfortunately this bug is still present, probably occurred when game flying mode was removed from the sim. No matter how many fly-by´s I try and how ideal the angle is, the Maverick every time refuses to launch. (Training mission, every setting should be correct.)

Or maybe I did something wrong let´s see...

Right display: Air to ground mode to make the targeting pod active.

China hat aft to make the targeting pod jump to the point of interest.

HOTAS TMS forward until target is locked with the targeting pod and point appears.

Coolie hat left long to make the Maverick SOI.

China hat forward long to make the Maverick seeker jump to the targeting pod point of interest.

Maverick force correlate with boat switch center.

Maverick seeker ground stabilize with HOTAS TMS aft short.

 

Weapon launch - it never fires, "no track launch ihbt" always, no matter what altitude angle or distance I use.... 9 miles or 1 mile, and the Warthog is good trimmed and centered at the target.

Any tips are welcome

 

[ASAP]

1 hour ago, JetCat said:

Or maybe I did something wrong let´s see...

There's a couple of issues with what you said. I'll step through them, hopefully it will help. The maverick is a very finicky weapon and the tutorials do an abysmal job of explaining how to use them...

1 hour ago, JetCat said:

Right display: Air to ground mode to make the targeting pod active.

China hat aft to make the targeting pod jump to the point of interest.

HOTAS TMS forward until target is locked with the targeting pod and point appears.

First issue. TMS forward short is not "Locking your TGP" onto anything. the TGP does not actually "Lock on" to anything. when you slew the TGP around, its using a lot of internal logic to stabilize and track the scene that it has in its field of view. It's doing that by freezing the scene in place and looking for points of contrast to enable that. The TGP doesn't know or care that there is a tank or a building under the crosshairs, it cares that there is a contrasting image that it can hold stable in its field of view. In point mode it is essentially doing the same thing, it looks for the sharp outline of a vehicle and it slews the crosshairs to keep it in the center of the screen. Also if you are hitting a stationary target, you should stay in area track, because it's a more accurate tracking method than a point track on a stationary target.

Unless you are slaved to a SPI (more on that in a sec) the pod will easily wander off on thin wispy clouds, explosions, contrails, etc... anything that interferes with the pods ability to keep stable on that contrasting scene that it's got a track on. When the pod is slaved to a SPI the the pod uses it's INS to point where it believes the coordinates/elevation of the SPI are. the TGP uses it's own INS to do that, but it is getting told where is by the EGI in the jet.

When you TMS FORWARD LONG, you are not getting a lock, or in any way capturing any info about the target to pass to other weapons. All you are doing is telling the jet that its new point of interest is at the coordinates and elevation of where the target pod is looking RIGHT NOW. so if you TMS FORWARD LONG on a tank, and then slew your targeting pod off the tank to something else, your jet doesn't know about or care about that tank. Its only looking at the 3d position of where your TGP (thinks) its looking. This is very often confused and I'm sure there will be a ton of comments telling me I'm wrong because the training does a terrible job of conveying this concept.

1 hour ago, JetCat said:

Coolie hat left long to make the Maverick SOI.

China hat forward long to make the Maverick seeker jump to the targeting pod point of interest.

That's fine and a good way to get the weapon looking in the area, nothing wrong there at all.

I prefer to fly the reticle in the HUD to the target. From all the real world A-10 pilots I've talked to that's the norm, but that's technique only. One of the big benefits of doing that is that you have matched up where the weapon is pointed with an outside reference as opposed to just slaving all to SPI (What if you screwed up the HOTAS and your SPI isn't where the target is?) It's a more deliberate and safer way to verify you are pointing your weapon at your intended target. (Off my soap box, like I said, that all technique)

1 hour ago, JetCat said:

Maverick force correlate with boat switch center.

Force correlate is not the normal mode of operation and under most circumstances it's probably the worst way to use the weapon. Force correlate is only used if you are trying to hit a specific part of a large target (that has to have good contrast kinda like the TGP issue above). If you need to hit a specific span of a bridge, or put a maverick through a specific window, maybe its the way to go, otherwise don't use it.

What you should use for any tactical CAS target like a tank, APC, vehicle is leave the boat switch either full forward, or full aft. The Maverick video is always going to be white hot for an IR mav or CCD. If your target is light compared to the background, use the boat switch aft to make the crosshairs white, if the target is dark, use boatswitch forward to make the crosshairs dark to match your target.

1 hour ago, JetCat said:

Maverick seeker ground stabilize with HOTAS TMS aft short.

This is the root cause of your problem. You are using ground stabilize and equating that in your mind with a lock. You are getting the no lock launch inhibit because you are telling it specifically not to lock onto anything and essentially do something similar to an AREA TRACK in the TGP. the missile doesn't look at whats at the center of the crosshairs, it just looks at the entire field of view and tries to stabilize itself on the scene. 

You have to do something else to actually get the missile to lock onto your intended target. This is where most people get lost actually. Slaving all to SPI got your maverick pretty close to your TGP SPI (and hopefully the intended target) but now you have to actually look at your maverick video, and slew the crosshairs onto your target to get a good lock on the target. The easiest way to do that is to use DMS UP and HOLD to space stabilize the missile so you can slew the missile seeker onto the target. You also should be in narrow field of view to get a good lock. To actually get a lock all you need to do is slew the crosshairs to the target, and release the DMS UP and HOLD. If you get a good lock the crosshairs will "bound" on the target and they will snap in and be stable on the target. This is how you know you have a good lock.

The other technique people use in DCS, that probably wouldn't reliably work in real life is to slave all to SPI and then TMS UP SHORT to just tell the maverick to lock onto whatever is in the center of the crosshairs. That MIGHT lock onto the intended target, it might lock onto something else like the targets shadow, or a tactical sized bush. In DCS it usually works ok, but i've seen it fail a lot too.

Lastly.... lets look at the photo you posted

1 hour ago, JetCat said:

 

 

I just want to point out a couple things. 1) You are in wide field of view, so you wont be able to really see how good a lock you have. In training the AF would call that an unassessable shot. and it might guide, it might also go stupid. 2) I can't tell if you're trying to target the airplane in the center of the crosshairs or the building... and neither can the maverick. The dark crosshairs means the maverick will attempt to lock onto the dark parts of that building though. 3) The maverick isn't bounded on anything. The crosshairs have not moved and are not actually tracking anything, which is why you are getting the launch inhibit.

 

Ok, that's the best maverick academics I can give. I hope that helps. go play around with it and let me know if your results improve. cheers mate.

[JetCat]

Wonderful this is a super-detailed tutorial about the Maverick. It was the first time I tried the A-10 and did what the Maverick tutorial said, but without really knowing what is going wrong.

So the targeting pod is only stabilizing itself with the help of a build-in gyro system without actually locking on something when doing this, interesting. And the IR view of the Maverick must extra be locked onto something with clearly visible thermal differences.

47 minutes ago, ASAP said:

Force correlate is not the normal mode of operation and under most circumstances it's probably the worst way to use the weapon. Force correlate is only used if you are trying to hit a specific part of a large target (that has to have good contrast kinda like the TGP issue above). If you need to hit a specific span of a bridge, or put a maverick through a specific window, maybe its the way to go, otherwise don't use it.

Is the Maverick (or any of the screens) reacting to the force correlate mode? I have noticed that nothing on the screens or the crosshair change when clicking the boat switch center.

In the tutorial videos no one is using correlate mode, in the videos they rotate the seeker of the Maverick with China hat forward long to their target pod point, and manually lock on the Maverick with TMS up short button press which makes the crosshair lines of the Maverick screen flicker a bit.

I am looking forward to test-fly the A-10 more tomorrow get both the visually guided and laser-guided Mavericks into the target.

By the way ..... is it true that the recoil of the Gau8 equals full thrust of one of the A-10 engines?

 

[ASAP]

1 hour ago, JetCat said:

Is the Maverick (or any of the screens) reacting to the force correlate mode? I have noticed that nothing on the screens or the crosshair change when clicking the boat switch center.

If you were in force correlate mode (In the screen shot above the maverick was not) the cursors gap would be filled and the lines would come together and intersect in the center of the crosshairs.

 

1 hour ago, JetCat said:

In the tutorial videos no one is using correlate mode, in the videos they rotate the seeker of the Maverick with China hat forward long to their target pod point, and manually lock on the Maverick with TMS up short button press which makes the crosshair lines of the Maverick screen flicker a bit.

The TMS up short is actually superfluous, you just need to slew it over a target with good enough contrast and it will auto lock. Your indication that you have a lock is the crosshairs will close in on the target.

1 hour ago, JetCat said:

By the way ..... is it true that the recoil of the Gau8 equals full thrust of one of the A-10 engines?

No. The gun firing has no real effect on the airspeed of the aircraft. that is a myth.