BL755 / BLG-66 technique

[Jonay]

Just looking to collectively get opinions on BL755 employment from other C-101 pilots. 

 

I've had some success flying level at 1300ft AGL @ 300kts and releasing as the target disappears from view + 1 second but it depends on the threat how confident you are flying that low over them taking shots at you.

 

Anyone else got a better technique? 

 

BLG-66 isn't one I've used often so any advice on that one too would be great

[TLTeo]

Yeah I've been wondering the same. The Mk.82 profile does not work at all, for obvious reasons. IRL I read it's supposed to be dropped at 450 KIAS from 300ft, but obviously the C-101 is too slow for that. The solution is to fly higher to hit the same slant range, but as you said you end up having to overfly your target and wait which is annoying. I tried delivering in a dive but I got very mixed results too.

[Sacarino111]

Hi.

Never tried, I think. Will do some tests... (nice, good excuse to use the CC!).

Saludos.

Saca111

[TLTeo]

Maybe @Vibora can help out? Is there an official weapons table for anything beyond rockets, guns and the Mk82 anywhere?

[Madpie]

Did anyone work out a solution? Might try this myself.

[TLTeo]

I tried playing around with it. The best way to figure out the right parameters is to go to active pause and drop weapons then, because then you can see where they land. I didn't find any good combination of speed/altitude that gave consistent results though.

[kontiuka]

1 hour ago, TLTeo said:

I tried playing around with it. The best way to figure out the right parameters is to go to active pause and drop weapons then, because then you can see where they land.

Just like they do in real life.

[TLTeo]

Bump because I think I FINALLY figured this out. So, both the BL-755 and the Belouga as far as I understand are designed for low level high speed delivery. Unfortunately, we're flying C-101s so we don't do high speed. Or rather, on paper a level delivery at 350KIAS and 600ft would work with ~200 mill depression, but unfortunately the gunsight disappears below 110 so that's not a good option imo.

What works for me instead is to start a 20 degree dive around 5000ft and ~230 KIAS (which is more or less what I orbit at over a target). I keep MPR and full throttle in. Set the gunsight to 110 mills. The goal is to be at around 1500-1800 ft (which you can monitor easily by checking the radar altimeter in the ADI with your peripheral vision) and 350KIAS. The bomblets will disperse between the gunsight and bottom of the reflector glass, so if you put your target in the general area between the two you should hit it - we don't need to be very precise because it's a cluster munition anyway. The trick for me was to keep the throttle in - if you go idle you don't accelerate enough and the impact point ends up being below your nose/gunsight (because again, we're in C-101s so we don't do high speed), so you're kind of back to square one.

And as a bonus, the ballistics of the Belouga and BL-755 are similar enough that this seems to work for both. The only caveat is that with the BL-755 sometimes you release late enough that you will hear the explosion and see the bomblets, but do no damage, so try to release closer to 1800ft than below 1500. The Belouga releases its bomblets much quicker so it's not really an issue.

Edited February 23, 2022 by TLTeo

[OpticFlow]

15 hours ago, TLTeo said:

Bump because I think I FINALLY figured this out. So, both the BL-755 and the Belouga as far as I understand are designed for low level high speed delivery. Unfortunately, we're flying C-101s so we don't do high speed. Or rather, on paper a level delivery at 350KIAS and 600ft would work with ~200 mill depression, but unfortunately the gunsight disappears below 110 so that's not a good option imo.

What works for me instead is to start a 20 degree dive around 5000ft and ~230 KIAS (which is more or less what I orbit at over a target). I keep MPR and full throttle in. Set the gunsight to 110 mills. The goal is to be at around 1500-1800 ft (which you can monitor easily by checking the radar altimeter in the ADI with your peripheral vision) and 350KIAS. The bomblets will disperse between the gunsight and bottom of the reflector glass, so if you put your target in the general area between the two you should hit it - we don't need to be very precise because it's a cluster munition anyway. The trick for me was to keep the throttle in - if you go idle you don't accelerate enough and the impact point ends up being below your nose/gunsight (because again, we're in C-101s so we don't do high speed), so you're kind of back to square one.

And as a bonus, the ballistics of the Belouga and BL-755 are similar enough that this seems to work for both. The only caveat is that with the BL-755 sometimes you release late enough that you will hear the explosion and see the bomblets, but do no damage, so try to release closer to 1800ft than below 1500. The Belouga releases its bomblets much quicker so it's not really an issue.

 

Once you've found out a suitable combination of dive angle, speed and altitude, you can get the gunsight depression by going into active pause at the release point. Once in active pause, you can pickle the bomb, which would fall down to the ground and explode while your aircraft would stay frozen in the air. You could observe the bomb impact point and adjust the sight to match it.

[TLTeo]

9 minutes ago, OpticFlow said:

Once you've found out a suitable combination of dive angle, speed and altitude, you can get the gunsight depression by going into active pause at the release point. Once in active pause, you can pickle the bomb, which would fall down to the ground and explode while your aircraft would stay frozen in the air. You could observe the bomb impact point and adjust the sight to match it.

Yea that's how I found this system. The problem is the pipper physically doesn't get rendered if you add more than 110 mills of depression (it only half shows at 120), so finding the precise setting is impossible anyway.

[OpticFlow]

19 hours ago, TLTeo said:

Yea that's how I found this system. The problem is the pipper physically doesn't get rendered if you add more than 110 mills of depression (it only half shows at 120), so finding the precise setting is impossible anyway.

Ah ok. Then maybe use a steeper dive angle (it would give a flatter trajectory)?