CZ, TGT, TGP questions

[Braeden108]

I'm trying to understand the TGP in the F-16. All of the tutorials are beginning to be out of date, I feel. So I have a few questions.

 

1. What exactly do the CZ, and TGT buttons on the TGP MFD do?

2. If I acquire a target with the HAD how to I slew the TGP to it?

3. If I've locked something in point track and I want to revert to area track I press TMS aft but that will often send the TGP looking off towards my steerpoint. How do I properly return to area track?
 

4. How do I force the TGP to slew to a steerpoint after I've cued it somewhere else with say the HMD.

[Deano87]

There are various weird things about the way the F-16 manages its SPI (Sensor Point of Interest).

In the Viper your current SPI is based on an offset from your current steerpoint. If you imagine you have a target at steerpoint 6, you set steerpoint 6 as your active steerpoint, it should then slew all sensors towards that steerpoint, including the TGP. If you then slew your TGP off that target to a point say 2 miles west and 0.5 miles south of steerpoint 6 and then change to steerpoint 7, your SPI will carry that offset over to the new steerpoint. So your TGP will be looking at a point 2 miles west and 0.5 miles south of steerpoint 7 instead.

So how does one get the TGP back to the proper steerpoint location? This is done through the Cursor Zero or CZ action. This essentially clears any steerpoint offset. This can be done by hitting the CZ button on the TGP or AG Radar MFD page, or selecting the TGP screen as SOI and then doing TMS aft twice. This should zero any steerpoint offset and essentially slave the TGP to the currently active steerpoint.

To get into Area Track you want to do TMS Right as far as I know from Point Track.

The TGT button on the TGP MFD Cycles between TGT-OAP1-OAP2 where OAP is the Offset Aim-Point, this is a pre-programmed location for each steer point. The point of OAPs is to allow you to verify your aiming calculations when you can't actually see the target due to weather. It allows you to pick two local landmarks that might you be able to see to verify where you are aiming. All weapon steering and weapon delivery calculations stay at the TGT point, but by looking at the known landmarks you can confirm that your TGT point is in the correct place. 

I hope that kind of makes some kind of sense.

I really recommend checking out Chucks Guide for the F-16. It's great for walking you through a lot of this stuff.

https://www.mudspike.com/chucks-guides-dcs-f-16c-viper/

Edited March 2, 2022 by Deano87

[Frederf]

CZ and the sighting point rotary are the same wherever they're found. It doesn't matter where you activate it (FCR or TGP), they all do the same thing. When you slew a sensor away from a steerpoint you introduce slews into the system which stay until erased. CZ eliminates all the slews in the system. TMS down in TGP you'll notice puts the sensor back onto the steerpoint, that's CZ too.

The "TGT" shows what the current sighting point is. Sighting point is the place your sensor is looking at which can be different than the target. For the most part you won't have to worry about it. Depending on the situation this can be "TGT" for target or "STP" which is basically "TGT" for non-attack modes, "OA1" or "OA2" for OAPs, "IP" or "RP" in VIP or VRP modes, and even blank for situations where there is no sighting point allowed like in snowplow. A lot of the time if you don't do special preparation you won't have any options for sighting point except the one (usually STP or TGT or blank).

TMS right is area track. Except when Maverick missiles are active it does something else, commanding a reattempted missile handoff.

All sensors are slaved to the same point at all times. When you move one the others move too. AG modes fall into two categories: visual and preplanned. Visual there's no way to put sensors back to steerpoint because visual attack modes are not steerpoint-centric. In preplanned modes, CZ.