correct as is FLIR medium zoom slew speed seems way too slow

[FalcoGer]

Particularly the medium field of view seems extremely slow when compared to the medium zoom TV. Or maybe the TV speed is too fast.

The medium FOV slew speed for FLIRis approximately 3.4°/s when the TV's slew speed is 12°/s, but the TV is zoomed in more (~5° TV vs ~6° FLIR). You would expect a more zoomed in view would be less sensitive (slew slower) than the less zoomed in view.

Here is some data

This is the absolute time it takes from boresight to the right limit with max deflection on the man trk controller.

       Wide    Medium    Narrow    Zoom
TV     N/A     10s       176s      348s
FLIR   3s      35s       67s       196s

This is °/s, given that the TADS max limit is 120°

°/s    Wide    Medium    Narrow    Zoom
TV     N/A     12°/s     0.68°/s   0.35°/s
FLIR   40°/s   3.4°/s    1.8°/s    0.61°/s

The field of view is approximately this.

°/FOV  Wide    Medium    Narrow    Zoom
TV     N/A     5°        2°        1°(?)
FLIR   30°     6°        3°        2°(?)

When translated to fields of view per second, or perceived slew speed, you get this

FOV/s  Wide    Medium    Narrow    Zoom
TV     N/A     2.4       0.34      0.35
FLIR   1.33    0.57      0.6       0.31

The numbers seem to be all over the place.

Sadly I can't find the actual FOV values in ° so I had to measure using in game waypoints.

In case you wanna watch me slew the tads around for 15 minutes (I used time compression), here is the track.

If someone has the correct FOV in ° for the different zoom stages, feel free to let me know and I will recalculate the values. The timings should be accurate +/- 1s

SlewSpeedMeasure.trk

Edited May 19, 2023 by FalcoGer

[Raptor9]

We can take a look at the slew rate when in FLIR Medium FOV compared to the FLIR Wide and Narrow FOV; however, the DTV does not have a Medium FOV setting. It only has Wide, Narrow, and Zoom settings. When the Medium FOV command is pressed, it sets the FLIR to Medium FOV but the DTV is set to Wide FOV, which is why the DTV appears to have such a high rate of slew when Medium FOV is pressed, because it is actually in Wide.

[bradmick]

Concur. There is no medium FOV in the DTV.

[FalcoGer]

Regardless of what you call the widest FOV in the TV, it's still zoomed in more than the medium FLIR FOV but slews 3 times as fast.

[Raptor9]

1 minute ago, FalcoGer said:

Regardless of what you call the widest FOV in the TV, it's still zoomed in more than the medium FLIR FOV but slews 3 times as fast.

The point is that the slew rate comparisons between DTV Wide FOV and FLIR Medium FOV do not apply. The DTV Wide FOV should be compared to FLIR Wide FOV, not FLIR Medium FOV.

[FalcoGer]

I'm sorry. I didn't design the system. But if I had, I would have made it so that the slew speed depended on the FOV and made it consistent to get the same 'feel'. I just find it strange that a more zoomed in view seems to slew very fast while a slightly more zoomed out view could hardly manually track a target while flying by.

If that is how the apache is, then so be it in DCS. Sadly, and unsurprisingly, I couldn't get any real data on the M-TADS slew speeds to compare the DCS values to, and I don't know where ED got their numbers from either because they don't tell. So all I have left is make an educated guess on how such a system could/should work and then see how it 'feels' in game, and it feels off.

Do you understand my point?

[bradmick]

Feels fine to me, and I've got 3300hrs worth of use with it...so uh...there's that.