You can boresight Maverick without touching TGP.

[Marklar]

All the tutorials I've seen teach you that you should designate one target with both TGP and MAV and hit BSGT to boresight it. I learned today that you can boresight MAV without touching TGP at all. Lock a target only with MAV using VIS or BORE mode, press BSGT and now it will be perfectly aligned with TGP. Is it a bug or works as intended?

I've attached a track file and a YT video. Around 1m55s you can see TGP and MAV pointing to a different location. After performing a boresighting 2m50s Maverick is now pointing to the same spot (tank) as TGP 4m30s. It seems like the "official" method is overcomplicated and time consuming.

 

f16bor.trk

Edited November 5, 2021 by Marklar

[Tholozor]

A TGP is not required to perform BSGT, only that the pilot can coincide the Maverick seeker LOS with the location of the SPI, regardless of what is generating it.

[Deano87]

3 hours ago, Tholozor said:

A TGP is not required to perform BSGT, only that the pilot can coincide the Maverick seeker LOS with the location of the SPI, regardless of what is generating it.

That may be true, but I think OPs point is that the MAV and TGP can also be looking at different objects and the BSGT still completes successfully. This is an old issue. Any BSGT error does not get recorded and its just considered to be perfectly BSGTed.

As seen here: 

 

3 hours ago, Marklar said:

It seems like the "official" method is overcomplicated and time consuming.

That's because the "Official" method is how it should really work. The simplified way is essentially exploiting a bug, any error between the alignment of the TGP/SPI and Mav when boresighting should be saved and replicated when trying to subsequently slave the Mav to the TGP, so they should be aligned as accurately as possible prior to boresighting to minimize error.

Edited November 6, 2021 by Deano87

[Frederf]

Current implementation makes a perfect calibration every time you press BSGT regardless of the actual alignment of the lines of sight. That's absolutely not how the real airplane works and I wouldn't count on DCS leaving that in indefinitely. You should get in the habit of doing it the right way because the wrong way won't work forever.

One thing I've been trying to get information on is if boresight calibration against LOS sources other than TGP is a thing. Can you BSGT against any SPI or is the process solely reserved for the TGP? I don't know and I could see either being the case.

[Marklar]

10 hours ago, Frederf said:

That's absolutely not how the real airplane works and I wouldn't count on DCS leaving that in indefinitely.

I hope you are right but it's been 12 months since boresighting was implemented. 

10 hours ago, Deano87 said:

The simplified way is essentially exploiting a bug

So it's a bug. Was it ever reported?

[Furiz]

47 minutes ago, Marklar said:

 

So it's a bug. Was it ever reported?

simple search and voila:

 

[Marklar]

I saw this one but wasn’t sure it’s the same bug.

12 hours ago, Frederf said:

Can you BSGT against any SPI or is the process solely reserved for the TGP?

Well, even if you don’t use TGP you still need to boresight MAV against HUD sensor. Otherwise HUD crosshair will be misaligned with crosshair on WPN page in both BORE and VIS modes. 

[Deano87]

3 hours ago, Marklar said:

So it's a bug. Was it ever reported?

The link to the where I reported it was in the very post you were replying to lol.

[Frederf]

2 hours ago, Marklar said:

I saw this one but wasn’t sure it’s the same bug.

Well, even if you don’t use TGP you still need to boresight MAV against HUD sensor. Otherwise HUD crosshair will be misaligned with crosshair on WPN page in both BORE and VIS modes. 

Almost certainly if there were alternate calibration avenues it would be simply LOS to SPI which could be anything: FCR SPI, HUD PRE TD box, HUD EO VIS TD BOX, TGP AREA, TGP INR, TGP POINT, actually that's about it since you need to have the missile selected. It couldn't be the EO BORE cross because the EO BORE cross is fixed in the HUD. It never defines SPI. In EO BORE the SPI is at the TD box location since BORE is essentially PRE without several of the features of PRE.

I know why you would calibrate against other sensors than TGP if you didn't have TGP. You want your cueing accurate even for non automatic boresight correlation handoffs. Manuals never describe the procedure except in reference to the TGP in point track. I don't know if means it's only really useful with TGP (because misalignments are so small the other method don't matter?) or it's only possible with TGP.

[Marklar]

Try to use BORE mode without boresighting maverick first. You will never lock a target because maverick camera is slightly off the BORE cross.

Also BORE cross in not fixed to the HUD. You can slew it with RDR Cursor. At least in DCS, maybe it works differently in real Viper.

[Frederf]

In the real airplane the EO BORE cross is a fixed mark on the HUD. The Maverick is never locked by direct view through the HUD in any mode. The cross is just to get the missile close enough to the target to complete alignment and command track by reference to the WPN format.

• HUD - fly bore cross to target
• DMS - WPN SOI
• TMS/EXP - contrast/FOV adjust
• Cursor - slew
• TMS - command missile track

[Marklar]

58 minutes ago, Frederf said:

The cross is just to get the missile close enough to the target to complete alignment and command track by reference to the WPN format.

Is it not what VIS mode is for? If you cannot use HUD cross to lock maverick in BORE mode I don't see a point of this mode. 

[Frederf]

Sort of, VIS is like DTOS for Maverick. EO VIS is the only visual delivery mode for the missile. EO BORE is EO PRE without the auto-slaving to SPI and they are both considered preplanned delivery modes. The manual describes EO BORE as a degraded form of EO PRE.

The point of EO BORE is when you want to get the missile on target without disturbing the SPI location or for some reason the normal slaved aiming process is not practical. Say you found a column of tanks and set your FCR there but then there was something you wanted to attack you could see. You could change to EO BORE and engage it while leaving your FCR on top of the tank column. Or you just wanted the freedom of a non-visual attack mode in terms of FCR or TGP but didn't necessarily want the missile pointed at your SPI. I don't find EO BORE useful and don't plan on using it very often.

[Marklar]

It's been almost a year and boresighting is still broken. You can boresight maverick when the missile is locked to a different target than TGP and it still gets boresighted correctly. What's the point of this feature if it does not work as intended?

 

[silverdevil]

21 hours ago, Marklar said:

It's been almost a year and boresighting is still broken. You can boresight maverick when the missile is locked to a different target than TGP and it still gets boresighted correctly. What's the point of this feature if it does not work as intended?

this process works for me. there are several other YTs about same process.

[Marklar]

6 hours ago, silverdevil said:

this process works for me. there are several other YTs about same process.

What do you mean? I know boresighting works when you follow the "official" procedure, but it also works when you do not.

[silverdevil]

5 minutes ago, Marklar said:

What do you mean? I know boresighting works when you follow the "official" procedure, but it also works when you do not.

i meant the 'official' procedure. honestly i just discovered this procedure. i went for a long while not using mavs because i could not get a good lock using just the mav seeker.

[CobaltUK]

18 minutes ago, Marklar said:

What do you mean? I know boresighting works when you follow the "official" procedure, but it also works when you do not.

What does it matter then ? If the RL method can be followed that will give you your buzz. The fact there is in effect a cheat makes no difference to you surely ?

[Marklar]

It matters because it's a half-baked feature and I expect more from a full fidelity module. If I perform HMCS alignment incorrectly HMD will be giving me wrong information. If I enter wrong coordinates for INS alignment the navigation system won't work properly. If I designate two different targets during Maverick boresighting but the missile still gets magically aligned with TGP then something is wrong.

[silverdevil]

21 minutes ago, Marklar said:

It matters because it's a half-baked feature and I expect more from a full fidelity module. If I perform HMCS alignment incorrectly HMD will be giving me wrong information. If I enter wrong coordinates for INS alignment the navigation system won't work properly. If I designate two different targets during Maverick boresighting but the missile still gets magically aligned with TGP then something is wrong.

ah i see now what you mean. i re-watched your video. frankly i would never discovered this because i have not tried another way except the official way. maybe its because you have the mav and tgp mfds switched. everyone knows the mfd with tgp is supposed to be on the same side as the tgp  /sarcasm

[Dragon1-1]

I hope they will fix it before the module leaves EA. This seems like such a half-baked feature. IRL, Mavs can be boresighted to HUD, FCR and the TGP, maybe also the HMD, and more often than not, those boresights will not coincide. TGP is especially important because of handoff, but it should be useful for every sensor.

[Bunny Clark]

On 9/8/2022 at 6:24 PM, Dragon1-1 said:

IRL, Mavs can be boresighted to HUD, FCR and the TGP, maybe also the HMD, and more often than not, those boresights will not coincide.

IRL, the Maverick is boresighted to the system SPI, however that happens to be generated at the time, and not a specific sensor. This works because the weapons computer knows where the different sensors all point relative to each other and can correct for those errors. The only unknown in the system is the Maverick seeker and exactly how it was loaded onto the launch rail. Once the computer knows the boresight corrections to bring the Maverick seeker in-line with the TGP, it can do it just fine with the HUD, or the FCR, too.

[Frederf]

There might be a special logic when using TGP to boresight that's slightly different than plain SPI but it's not mentioned in pilot-facing documents. To him it is not his concern. One is absolutely able to calibrate missile boresight against simply the HUD TD box without TGP carried for example. Obviously if TGP handoff is anticipated boresighting against TGP is the smart action since there may be differences between TGP and other sources of SPI in terms of calibration. One thing that we should be aware of is calibration is parallax dependent, calibrating against a target 500' away and then trying to use against a target 30,000' away will give poor results even if using the same sensor, nevermind if calibration and employment sensor are different. Calibration instructions say to use EO VIS or EO PRE. I don't know if EO BORE won't work or is simply not recommended.

[Bunny Clark]

On 9/20/2022 at 3:43 PM, Frederf said:

There might be a special logic when using TGP to boresight that's slightly different than plain SPI but it's not mentioned in pilot-facing documents.

Agreed. And even if there isn't, TGP Boresighting would seem to be favorable anyway, since it's likely to be the most accurate

Quote

 One thing that we should be aware of is calibration is parallax dependent

I'm not sure that's true. Range to SPI is a known value, so the boresight corrections should be able to be calculated in 3 dimensions and then extrapolated to minimize parallax errors. 

Quote

I don't know if EO BORE won't work or is simply not recommended.

My impression has always been that it's not possible to boresight in BORE mode, but it's certainly not clear in the -34. Since BORE doesn't generate a SPI or have any range data associated with it, it would be a lot more difficult. 

[Frederf]

There is a SPI in EO BORE, it's the steerpoint. I don't know exactly why EO BORE isn't an approved mode, either impossible or just a really bad idea. Mavericks have two modes, slave and bore. In EO BORE slaved operation is disabled entirely. They warn you the MLE scale is based on steer instead of a more representative point.

Boresighting isn't 3D, it's an angle. You calibrate station 3 with TGP at close range and that crosseyed angle is saved which gives parallax issues when employing at far range.