Who aimed the Mavs, pilot or WSO?

[some1]

For A2A engagements, the roles were split in a similar way than in the Tomcat, but I wonder about A2G. Did the pilot have additional screen for TV feed, or was it strictly WSO job to handle guided A2G weapons?

[AvroLanc]

With the DSCG (basically the radar display CRT) upgrade, both the Pilot and WSO could view the TV feed. Either crew member can view and control the seeker lockon, there's dedicated controls in each cockpit.

[Kirk66]

In my experience, typically the WSO locked on and fired the Maverick; the pilots job was to point the jet at the target and cross check in his TV that the WSO had locked the correct target instead of a "tactical bush". In the F-4 the Maverick (especially the TV As and Bs) was a bit tricky to use and lock on, which is probably why the WSO had that job.

Fun weapon to play with, but the TV versions were pretty useless. Any kind of camouflage would defeat them.

I had one chance to fire a live Maverick, as part of my IWSO check ride during a Red Flag mission at Nellis (no pressure there!), and all went well, found the right tank target on the range, had the Mav locked up, took the shot...and nothing happened.  Turns out the last chance arming crew forgot to hook up the arming cable. Boy was I pissed! Still passed the checkride, though.

Bit of Maverick trivia: In the F-4, the pilots Maverick controller (actually the old Bullpup controller) uses "pilot logic", so pull back and the seeker looks up, push and the seeker looks down.  For the WSO, using the radar hand controller, pulling back moves the crosshairs down on the display, so it's moving the seeker down. I preferred the pilot way.

Vulture

[QuiGon]

15 hours ago, Kirk66 said:

In my experience, typically the WSO locked on and fired the Maverick; the pilots job was to point the jet at the target and cross check in his TV that the WSO had locked the correct target instead of a "tactical bush". In the F-4 the Maverick (especially the TV As and Bs) was a bit tricky to use and lock on, which is probably why the WSO had that job.

Fun weapon to play with, but the TV versions were pretty useless. Any kind of camouflage would defeat them.

I had one chance to fire a live Maverick, as part of my IWSO check ride during a Red Flag mission at Nellis (no pressure there!), and all went well, found the right tank target on the range, had the Mav locked up, took the shot...and nothing happened.  Turns out the last chance arming crew forgot to hook up the arming cable. Boy was I pissed! Still passed the checkride, though.

Bit of Maverick trivia: In the F-4, the pilots Maverick controller (actually the old Bullpup controller) uses "pilot logic", so pull back and the seeker looks up, push and the seeker looks down.  For the WSO, using the radar hand controller, pulling back moves the crosshairs down on the display, so it's moving the seeker down. I preferred the pilot way.

Vulture

Very interesting read, thanks for sharing your experiences!

[Dragon1-1]

Early guided missiles were fun. You either had to manually fly the missile using a flare on its back, like with AGM-12 and AGM-22, or take your chance that the early Mav seeker will not suddenly decide to veer off to hit the famous tactical bush.  Assuming you locked the right thing in first place, even modern Mavs would sometimes rather track lampposts or sheet metal sheds than the tank, as any A-10 jock can attest. I think the Walleye was the best of the bunch, being a proper MITL weapon, though still manually guided at least until Walleye II.

[MiG21bisFishbedL]

On 1/27/2022 at 12:04 PM, Kirk66 said:

 

I had one chance to fire a live Maverick, as part of my IWSO check ride during a Red Flag mission at Nellis (no pressure there!), and all went well, found the right tank target on the range, had the Mav locked up, took the shot...and nothing happened.  Turns out the last chance arming crew forgot to hook up the arming cable. Boy was I pissed! Still passed the checkride, though.

 

The moment I had the canopy open, I'd be looking to send someone to meet Sky Daddy. I hope someone got smoked for that.

[Rick50]

On 1/27/2022 at 11:04 AM, Kirk66 said:

Bit of Maverick trivia: In the F-4, the pilots Maverick controller (actually the old Bullpup controller) uses "pilot logic", so pull back and the seeker looks up, push and the seeker looks down.  For the WSO, using the radar hand controller, pulling back moves the crosshairs down on the display, so it's moving the seeker down. I preferred the pilot way.

 

Ah... two completely different ways of doing the same function for the same item, in the two different cockpits of the same plane... yep, no possible way that would ever confuse anyone! 

 

Kinda makes me wonder how often, or not, you had a WSO who was a pilot? Or were virtually all of them non-pilots? 

[DBFlyguy]

7 minutes ago, Rick50 said:

 

Ah... two completely different ways of doing the same function for the same item, in the two different cockpits of the same plane... yep, no possible way that would ever confuse anyone! 

 

Kinda makes me wonder how often, or not, you had a WSO who was a pilot? Or were virtually all of them non-pilots? 

Initially both crew were pilots then the USAF went to one pilot with a WSO, I think the USN always had a pilot and WSO/RIO.  Mover did an interview with a Vietnam era F-4 pilot who talks about this:

 

[Snappy]

On 1/27/2022 at 7:04 PM, Kirk66 said:

In my experience, typically the WSO locked on and fired the Maverick; the pilots job was to point the jet at the target and cross check in his TV that the WSO had locked the correct target instead of a "tactical bush". In the F-4 the Maverick (especially the TV As and Bs) was a bit tricky to use and lock on, which is probably why the WSO had that job.

Fun weapon to play with, but the TV versions were pretty useless. Any kind of camouflage would defeat them.

I had one chance to fire a live Maverick, as part of my IWSO check ride during a Red Flag mission at Nellis (no pressure there!), and all went well, found the right tank target on the range, had the Mav locked up, took the shot...and nothing happened.  Turns out the last chance arming crew forgot to hook up the arming cable. Boy was I pissed! Still passed the checkride, though.

Bit of Maverick trivia: In the F-4, the pilots Maverick controller (actually the old Bullpup controller) uses "pilot logic", so pull back and the seeker looks up, push and the seeker looks down.  For the WSO, using the radar hand controller, pulling back moves the crosshairs down on the display, so it's moving the seeker down. I preferred the pilot way.

Vulture

Very interesting story&information, thank you very much for sharing it.

If I may ask, with your experience , what did you consider as realistic engagement ranges for those early Maverick TV versions under average conditions (no adverse weather) and how much time did that approx. leave you with to spot and lock the individual target you were attacking?

Kind regards,

Snappy

Edited February 2, 2022 by Snappy

[Burnerski]

On 1/27/2022 at 1:04 PM, Kirk66 said:

In my experience, typically the WSO locked on and fired the Maverick; the pilots job was to point the jet at the target and cross check in his TV that the WSO had locked the correct target instead of a "tactical bush". In the F-4 the Maverick (especially the TV As and Bs) was a bit tricky to use and lock on, which is probably why the WSO had that job.

Fun weapon to play with, but the TV versions were pretty useless. Any kind of camouflage would defeat them.

I had one chance to fire a live Maverick, as part of my IWSO check ride during a Red Flag mission at Nellis (no pressure there!), and all went well, found the right tank target on the range, had the Mav locked up, took the shot...and nothing happened.  Turns out the last chance arming crew forgot to hook up the arming cable. Boy was I pissed! Still passed the checkride, though.

Bit of Maverick trivia: In the F-4, the pilots Maverick controller (actually the old Bullpup controller) uses "pilot logic", so pull back and the seeker looks up, push and the seeker looks down.  For the WSO, using the radar hand controller, pulling back moves the crosshairs down on the display, so it's moving the seeker down. I preferred the pilot way.

Vulture

Your nose gunner probably forgot to turn master arm on.

[Elf1606688794]

On 1/27/2022 at 11:04 AM, Kirk66 said:

In my experience, typically the WSO locked on and fired the Maverick; the pilots job was to point the jet at the target and cross check in his TV that the WSO had locked the correct target instead of a "tactical bush". In the F-4 the Maverick (especially the TV As and Bs) was a bit tricky to use and lock on, which is probably why the WSO had that job.

Fun weapon to play with, but the TV versions were pretty useless. Any kind of camouflage would defeat them.

I had one chance to fire a live Maverick, as part of my IWSO check ride during a Red Flag mission at Nellis (no pressure there!), and all went well, found the right tank target on the range, had the Mav locked up, took the shot...and nothing happened.  Turns out the last chance arming crew forgot to hook up the arming cable. Boy was I pissed! Still passed the checkride, though.

Bit of Maverick trivia: In the F-4, the pilots Maverick controller (actually the old Bullpup controller) uses "pilot logic", so pull back and the seeker looks up, push and the seeker looks down.  For the WSO, using the radar hand controller, pulling back moves the crosshairs down on the display, so it's moving the seeker down. I preferred the pilot way.

Vulture

No such thing as an arming cable for the Maverick on the Phantom. I used to load those things.

There was an electrical cable connecting the launcher (enables communication between the aircraft and missile) to the pylon but in my experience it was the job of the load crew to connect it and not the end of runway crew. If that cable hadn't been connected you wouldn't have been able to use the missile at all, no lock on, no firing, no nothing.

If the malfunction was indeed the fault of the EoR crew (End of Runway) then in my experience it was most likely a safety pin that was left in either the launcher or the pylon.

I don't recall for sure if the pylon safety pin had both a mechanical and electric function but the launcher pin most certainly did.

Edited February 3, 2022 by Elf1606688794

[Kirk66]

On 2/3/2022 at 9:12 AM, Burnerski said:

Your nose gunner probably forgot to turn master arm on.

Nope, we tried several times to get that missile off the rail without success. And we only carried one, so just safed it up and took it home.

Vulture

[Kirk66]

On 2/3/2022 at 1:11 PM, Elf1606688794 said:

No such thing as an arming cable for the Maverick on the Phantom. I used to load those things.

There was an electrical cable connecting the launcher (enables communication between the aircraft and missile) to the pylon but in my experience it was the job of the load crew to connect it and not the end of runway crew. If that cable hadn't been connected you wouldn't have been able to use the missile at all, no lock on, no firing, no nothing.

If the malfunction was indeed the fault of the EoR crew (End of Runway) then in my experience it was most likely a safety pin that was left in either the launcher or the pylon.

I don't recall for sure if the pylon safety pin had both a mechanical and electric function but the launcher pin most certainly did.

 

Apparently (and remember this was 37 years ago!) the Mav was hooked up correctly, as we were able to do the pre-takeoff video and control checks, but there was another "arming" cable or pin that had to be hooked up or pulled in the arming area to allow launching a live weapon. Or a pin, like you say. Like I said, the missile video came up fine after I blew the dome cover, and I was able to slew and lock on to targets; it just would not fire. Perhaps it was an internal failure (I'm sure it was an old A or B model)? Still pretty disappointing at the time. I think we were told why it didn't work by the de-arm crew after pulling off the runway.

Vulture

[Elf1606688794]

On 2/6/2022 at 1:00 PM, Kirk66 said:

Apparently (and remember this was 37 years ago!) the Mav was hooked up correctly, as we were able to do the pre-takeoff video and control checks, but there was another "arming" cable or pin that had to be hooked up or pulled in the arming area to allow launching a live weapon. Or a pin, like you say. Like I said, the missile video came up fine after I blew the dome cover, and I was able to slew and lock on to targets; it just would not fire. Perhaps it was an internal failure (I'm sure it was an old A or B model)? Still pretty disappointing at the time. I think we were told why it didn't work by the de-arm crew after pulling off the runway.

Vulture

The launcher pin safed the launcher electrically, if it wasn't pulled you couldn't fire the missile. 

Normally the safety pins had long red streamers on them to make it harder to miss but if the streamer was missing the EOR crew could easily miss pulling that pin.

[Psydshow]

You are correct, someone screwed up not connecting that cable.

The LAU-117 had two connectors. One on top of the launcher was the interface to the aircraft. The second was on the rear of the launcher and connected the firing circuits to the missile.

When you loaded a Maverick, you would lock it into the launcher, then fit the sacrificial connector that went between the launcher and the umbilical connector located above the rocket motor nozzle. 
Once that was connected, you could power the missile, blow the dome cover, everything but launch.

Only if you connected the second cable, which went from the missile to the small cannon plug connector on the very rear of the LAU was the missile live. This was fitted at the end of the strip, when everything else was armed.

There is no safety pin on a LAU-117.

You can see on this rear view of the launcher the cannon plug socket used for live shots

https://images.app.goo.gl/kS43ELpyz9Gi8ZU49

I spent way too many years maintaining and loading these missiles and launchers, B, D and G models and TGM

 

[Elf1606688794]

5 hours ago, Psydshow said:

You are correct, someone screwed up not connecting that cable.

The LAU-117 had two connectors. One on top of the launcher was the interface to the aircraft. The second was on the rear of the launcher and connected the firing circuits to the missile.

When you loaded a Maverick, you would lock it into the launcher, then fit the sacrificial connector that went between the launcher and the umbilical connector located above the rocket motor nozzle. 
Once that was connected, you could power the missile, blow the dome cover, everything but launch.

Only if you connected the second cable, which went from the missile to the small cannon plug connector on the very rear of the LAU was the missile live. This was fitted at the end of the strip, when everything else was armed.

There is no safety pin on a LAU-117.

You can see on this rear view of the launcher the cannon plug socket used for live shots

https://images.app.goo.gl/kS43ELpyz9Gi8ZU49

I spent way too many years maintaining and loading these missiles and launchers, B, D and G models and TGM

 

We never practiced loading the LAU-117 we always used the LAU-88. In the load barn we'd practice single loads on the appropriate side rail but usually we practiced preloaded LAU-88's.

I was the 3 man on our crew and connecting cables and such was the job of the 2 man so I'll give you the nod on the cable connections.

[Hobel]

 will this be an option? 

[Nexus-6]

2 hours ago, Hobel said:

 will this be an option? 

If it was operationally possible in real life, then it's very likely going to be operationally possible with Heatblur's Phantom.

[Kilo]

On the F-16 you could rip the ventral fins with the inboard missile. On the A-10 you could bust the tires. I don't see anything in the of way of the missile exhaust/plug on the F-4.

[TLTeo]

The Israeli were not the only ones to use the multiple racks, plus the Viper and A-10 carry them despite those issues, so I would think it will be an option in DCS.

[Hobel]

32 minutes ago, Kilo said:

On the F-16 you could rip the ventral fins with the inboard missile. On the A-10 you could bust the tires. I don't see anything in the of way of the missile exhaust/plug on the F-4.

wasn't it called damage? this is the first time i've heard of destruction

[Dragon1-1]

What would actually happen was even less than that. The entire issue was that the exhaust would put undue stress on the parts in question, shortening their operational life. Replacing this stuff costs money, and 6xMavs turn the Viper into a bit of a pig. Not to mention the missiles are expensive and you don't usually need that many, anyway. If they did actual damage, those configurations would never have been cleared. Isrealis used 6xMavs on their Vipers, I guess they didn't mind replacing the tailplanes all that much, and given the things that they do, they needed additional firepower. 

[Kilo]

21 hours ago, Hobel said:

wasn't it called damage? this is the first time i've heard of destruction

Can't remember the exact source (iirc someone else posted on the forums), but I read that on the F-16, the exhaust plug of the inboard maverick had a chance of hitting the one of the ventral fins, rendering the plane uncontrollable.

I know I exaggerated a bit with the effects on the A-10, but the tire's lifespan would decrease quite a lot.

20 hours ago, Dragon1-1 said:

Israelis used 6xMavs on their Vipers

I didn't know that. Cool bit of info!

Edited February 11, 2022 by Kilo

[Dragon1-1]

Israelis in general did a lot of weird loadouts that you wouldn't see USAF fly with very often. I don't know how they dealt with the exhaust cap issue, but they seem to love loading as many Mavs on their jets as they can get away with.

[Hobel]

12 hours ago, Dragon1-1 said:

Israelis in general did a lot of weird loadouts that you wouldn't see USAF fly with very often. I don't know how they dealt with the exhaust cap issue, but they seem to love loading as many Mavs on their jets as they can get away with.

oh yes, my favorite

Edited February 12, 2022 by Hobel