SU-25T issue following waypoints.

[artmustel]

I am trying to do this "Ramp Start and Navigation" mission that includes engines start, taxing to runway, take off and then following like 17 waypoints and landing on a different airport. Problem I have with this mission is after I reach waypoint 1, display changes to waypoint 2 and then I try to reach it same as I did with one, but aircraft seems to be flying away from it (distance to it increases) instead of approaching it. Also, there is a moment that I cannot continue the route since it takes me to a wall of mountains and I just would crash if I follow it. My question is why after flying successfully to wp #1 I am unable to reach wp #2? I am missing something or doing something wrong? Thanks in advance!

[Rudel_chw]

I am trying to do this "Ramp Start and Navigation" mission that includes engines start, taxing to runway, take off and then following like 17 waypoints ...

I am missing something or doing something wrong?

 

 

 

Hi,

 

 

I did that tutorial a long time ago, and I'm sure that the tutorial itself is good, so most likely you are doing something wrong :)

 

 

Since its dificult to tell what is going on on your end, may I suggest that you get a view of this tutorial ... it's very clear and teaches you to not only guide yourself by the HUD cues, but also how to interpret the navigation instruments

 

 

... this will be useful to you, as there are some DCS aircrafts that dont have a HUD, so understanding how the older instruments work is a good aproach, it will be a more sound basis on which to learn:

 

 

JKLO_PC62_o

[rogonaut]

same happened to me couple of days ago i think its broken - no confimration tho

[esb77]

I just flew the mission in the latest version of DCS 1.5, and aside from a spectacularly bad approach and, well I'm not sure if I should call it a crash or a landing (crash-landing maybe), there were no issues.

 

I'm definitely out of practice for a crosswind landing where the crosswind component is more than 40 km/h.

 

A few comments on the mission in its current state:

 

Some of the altitude changes between waypoints were insane, well outside of what the aircraft is capable of. That said, as pilot, your responsibility is to review the flight plan before takeoff and if the waypoint locations or altitudes or speeds are clearly crazy you should either edit them or plan to ignore them.

 

The HUD steering circle was all over the place, especially at long distances. I ignored it and flew the waypoints by following the HSI. Blindly following the steering circle would have produced poor to disastrous results.

 

There was only one "fly into the mountain" spot that I saw, and I was a bit off of the course line so that may have been my error. There were however 5 or 6 places where if you don't anticipate the turn you'll get awfully close to the hillsides in the river valley, especially if you don't know how to make a coordinated turn. Some of those turns are also 60 degrees or so of bank if you don't want to get close to the hills. For the AI and autopilot in missions you can set waypoints to "fly over" or "turn before" and it looked to me like these were supposed to be "turn before" based on their locations in the river valley. The smart option is to just ignore the waypoints beyond "is this the right river" and fly down the valley VFR manually cycling the waypoints if you don't get close enough to trigger them.

 

If flying a Su-25 and the tower tells you that there is a 13 m/s crosswind on the runway it would be a good idea to divert to a field where the wind direction and runway direction are not almost perpendicular to each other, if you have enough fuel. There was no fire but I trashed the tires and the gear and ran off the runway by about 400 m. I should have at the very least done a go around, but really I should have diverted to Mineralnye.

 

 

So my advice is:

 

Look over the flight plan before you fly. If you see something that looks dangerous or foolish, change the plan. This is a chief responsibility of a pilot.

 

If instruments are telling you do things that seem foolish, cross check with other instruments and use your judgement. Just because the HUD steering circle indicates that you should fly into the side of a mountain does not mean that it is really a good idea. (Note, for night and IFR flight conditions you really need to know and check your flight plan, when instruments are all you have, you need to be sure that your waypoints don't lead to controlled flight into terrain).

 

Check the waypoint number in the HUD and in the counter window on the HSI, if the automatic turnover didn't trigger because you didn't get close enough to the set waypoint because you were flying a safer course then just manually cycle to the next waypoint. Right Ctrl + `.

 

 

 

 

The pilot's job is to be intelligent and spot potential problems long before they happen so that they can be completely avoided. Do that, and this mission is quite easy.

[sea2sky]

Never use HUD steering circle (flight director?). HSI is your main navigation tool. In general, flight director will try to bring you back to a right course, not just direction.

[Ironhand]

Following the flight director circle will bring you to the correct altitude and course line. This is different from merely pointing you toward the correct waypoint. That being the case, a mission that has extreme changes in either direction or altitude can make following it an adventure.

[DarkFire]

Never use HUD steering circle (flight director?). HSI is your main navigation tool. In general, flight director will try to bring you back to a right course, not just direction.

 

Agree. When I used to fly the 25T regularly I always used the HSI to get me on track and on bearing. The flight director circle is handy as a 'ready reckoner' as it will also direct you to the desired altitude, but for fine alignment on course & track the HSI is definitely the way to go.

 

This problem highlights a common issue with mission design: designers need to bear in mind aircraft capabilities when designing desired routes, particularly when it comes to changes in altitude between waypoints and even more so desired TOT.

 

This can have a very real effect on whether or not the desired flight plan is even possible. For example, giving a fully loaded Su-25T strike flight a TOT which means they have to fly at 900 Km/h for 750 Km is clearly impossible. Likewise asking an Su-27 flight to escort those fully loaded Su-25T's is also impossible because the minimum stable flight speed of an Su-27 is often above the maximum speed of a fully loaded Su-25. Having the Su-27's perform a fighter sweep would be entirely sensible whereas an escort would not.

[MadDog-IC]

Agree. When I used to fly the 25T regularly I always used the HSI to get me on track and on bearing. The flight director circle is handy as a 'ready reckoner' as it will also direct you to the desired altitude, but for fine alignment on course & track the HSI is definitely the way to go.

 

This problem highlights a common issue with mission design: designers need to bear in mind aircraft capabilities when designing desired routes, particularly when it comes to changes in altitude between waypoints and even more so desired TOT.

 

This can have a very real effect on whether or not the desired flight plan is even possible. For example, giving a fully loaded Su-25T strike flight a TOT which means they have to fly at 900 Km/h for 750 Km is clearly impossible. Likewise asking an Su-27 flight to escort those fully loaded Su-25T's is also impossible because the minimum stable flight speed of an Su-27 is often above the maximum speed of a fully loaded Su-25. Having the Su-27's perform a fighter sweep would be entirely sensible whereas an escort would not.

 

Yes I found out these things the hard way, when fixing some missions and using the AI to test, all looks ok when they fly the mission, but when you fly it yourself, you see the glaring problems of the existing missions aircraft airspeeds, etc (at or below Stall speed). It doesn't help that the mission editors default speed is 500km for all aircraft (from memory).

 

There is just an enormous amount of variables to consider with playing around in the mission editor and with missions.

 

Regards, Ian.