**MAGNETIC vs TRUE (in cockpit but also in AWACS calls and BRAAs) : word from Vincent Aiello from the FIGHTER PILOT PODCAST!

[JEFX]

Hi all friends of DCS,

After many years of (loving) relation with DCS, and more recently with the Hornet, I feel like it is time our DEVs take action and solve this problem please!!!!   If you look at it just from a logical point of view... or even better : from an aviator's perspective.. the discrepancies between TRUE north indications and calls and MAGNETIC indications in DCS dont make any sense...  I have raised this flag several times in the last few years, wrote many posts, but still nothing has changed...

How is it possible that, in the US NAVY's Hornet, when asked for BOGEY DOPE, our AWACS (E-3 or E-2) responds with vectors in TRUE north???  in Nevada that can be off as much as 14 degrees...  This is NOT REALISTIC in any way...

In aviation, (at least in the West) when ATC or other agencies are asked to give us vectors, they always respond in MAGNETIC...

This is even worse when one considers the various instruments and systems of our (fantastic) Hornet...  HUD heading, HSI heading, RADAR and SA BULLS indications, etc... there is no coherence between all these and many of them are in TRUE heading... and some are in Magnetic...

Just to make 100% sure (even though I was totally confident in myself) I sent an email to Vincent 'Jell-O' Aiello, founder of the Fighter Pilot Podcast and former F/A-18C pilot... I asked him if there were anything in the Hornet cockpit that would show in TRUE degrees and if the AWACS were calling BRAAS in TRUE or MAGNETIC... he answered this:

Yes, to the best of my recollection everything in the Hornet was magnetic. BRAA would be in MAG!

Now I find that this has been going on for too many years now... I know that the TRUE/MAG thing can be different in Russia, or in other parts (Eastern?) of the world, but we are talking here about US Navy's F/A-18C Hornets, from USA's (super) carriers, talking to USA's AWACS (dont mistake me, I am not from the US, I am from Canada...) they should all speak to each other in MAGNETIC heading...  Otherwise, building a mental picture of your posit, where you are going, where is the enemy, where are the bogeys, etc... becomes totally not intuitive... you always have to mentally subtract or add 6, 11 or even 14 degrees to your picture.

I REALLY would like if our DEVS could look into that problem and FIX IT PLEASE!!!

In the Hornet Cockpit, EVERYTHING SHOULD BE IN MAGNETIC HEADING!

When we call the AWACS, EVERYTHING SHOULD BE IN MAGNETIC HEADING!

(ED, can you please acknowledge?, all my previous messages about this went unanswered...)

thanks

 

JEFX

[Tholozor]

As a temporary workaround, set the Hornet's avionics to True on HSI -> DATA -> A/C and you'll get true on the heading tape. No mental math needed.

[Bailey]

Interesting how the people you contacted said that there isn’t anything in the cockpit that is True, and yet there is a function in the DCS cockpit that does exactly that. Who knows which is true? Pun intended. Anyways, I’m my experience True is used in similar examples presented by the original post IRL. The reason being is that if you call a BRAA, for example, for an asset that is 200nm away, they may/will be in a different magnetic field and will therefore be inaccurate. The relative direction of True is always correct no matter were they are, as long as they are on earth, haha. 

Edited November 23, 2021 by Bailey

[Valtime]

1 hour ago, Bailey said:

 The reason being is that if you call a BRAA, for example, for an asset that is 200nm away, they may/will be in a different magnetic field and will therefore be inaccurate. The relative direction of True is always correct no matter were they are, as long as they are on earth, haha. 

 

This is especially true (also a pun?) close to the North Pole where a lot of interceptions might have taken place, (being the shortest way between Russia and America).

However, I can easily imagine that the A/C displays everything in Mag (maybe due to aviation heritage and ease of cross check with the compass). And that the pilot might need to do the math. 

[Bailey]

If you are working with an asset that is using true, you should also use true. Less brain cells using math means more brain cells on what matters. 

[Dragon1-1]

12 hours ago, Bailey said:

Interesting how the people you contacted said that there isn’t anything in the cockpit that is True, and yet there is a function in the DCS cockpit that does exactly that. 

That's probably because the people in question had never used this functionality, because they were lucky enough to be deployed to only be deployed to balmy places like Nevada.  IRL, everything in Western planes is magnetic unless you explicitly change that. Russians use true a bit more, but that's due to their latitude making magnetic unreliable. On maps we have in DCS, there's no particular reason to use true north, it only really comes up in Western aviation when you're flying around the arctic circle (or the Antarctic), for the same reason Russians use it. 

[Bailey]

5 hours ago, Dragon1-1 said:

That's probably because the people in question had never used this functionality, because they were lucky enough to be deployed to only be deployed to balmy places like Nevada.  IRL, everything in Western planes is magnetic unless you explicitly change that. Russians use true a bit more, but that's due to their latitude making magnetic unreliable. On maps we have in DCS, there's no particular reason to use true north, it only really comes up in Western aviation when you're flying around the arctic circle (or the Antarctic), for the same reason Russians use it. 

I'm telling you how it is in places that aren't like Nevada. 

[Dragon1-1]

Except in this case, "places that are like Nevada" is basically "entire world minus polar areas". Basically every place of interest except northern Atlantic (GIUK gap and the Arctic itself were big deal in Cold War, and in some ways still are) is perfectly OK with magnetic headings. When have that area in DCS, sure, the AWACS and so on should use true when flying there. Everywhere else it should use magnetic, like it does IRL.

[Bailey]

When I said “Aren’t like Nevada” I meant flying in an operational environment, IRL. Apologies if that was miscommunicated. 

Edited November 23, 2021 by Bailey

[JEFX]

Actually, my point is not only about the Hornet cockpit, but rather I am criticizing the fact that in DCS, AWACS calls use TRUE north when this is clearly not the case in the real world (with proof from real fighter pilots)...  I know that we can customize the instruments in the Hornet cockpit to show True headings (HSI data page).. In usual latitudes of our theaters, we should get AWACS calls in Magnetic and all instruments in the cockpit should be the same (now there are some discrepancies, some things in true some in magnetic...)