How to create a flight plan on a MP server?

[Mik75]

Hi there! 

I just began flying some of my planes (Viggen, A10C II) on the Through The Inferno Multiplayer Server. You select your aircraft and airbase to start from (on the ground, cold and dark) and choose a mission after spawning. In the Viggen it's super easy, I just enter a "blank" data cartridge and enter the code for departure and arrival airfield, plus the coordinates given by INTEL, and off I go. In the A10C II I've only flown SP missions and a campaign, in which the flight plan had been pre set (only a single waypoint needed to be set up, via TAD for instance) so far. So my question is, what's the best/ easiest/ quickest way to enter a flight plan, knowing my departure and arrival, and the coordinates for the targets (and having access to the F10 map)? Thanks a lot in advance for any input! 

Edited May 23, 2023 by Mik75

[jaylw314]

3 hours ago, Mik75 said:

Hi there! 

I just began flying some of my planes (Viggen, A10C II) on the Through The Inferno Multiplayer Server. You select your aircraft and airbase to start from (on the ground, cold and dark) and choose a mission after spawning. In the Viggen it's super easy, I just enter a "blank" data cartridge and enter the code for departure and arrival airfield, plus the coordinates given by INTEL, and off I go. In the A10C II I've only flown SP missions and a campaign, in which the flight plan had been pre set (only a single waypoint needed to be set up, via TAD for instance) so far. So my question is, what's the best/ easiest/ quickest way to enter a flight plan, knowing my departure and arrival, and the coordinates for the targets (and having access to the F10 map)? Thanks a lot in advance for any input! 

 

There isn't one in the A-10C, you'd have to enter each waypoint in the CDU, then add those waypoints to a flight plan.  It's not hard, but it is tedious and annoying.  I'm assuming you know how to enter waypoints and add them to a flight plan?

At least a couple minor shortcuts:

• Recall that waypoint #0 is always your initial position, so not really a need to set a departure waypoint if you started on the ground. 
• You can add the airport waypoint #'s found on the NAV->Divert page (or scrolling through the waypoints) to the flight plan.
• If you already have a waypoint near your target that you want to change or copy the MGRS coordinates, if it's in the same grid zone and grid square you do NOT have to type in the grid square letters, e.g. if you want to change 38S YJ 123456 to 38S YJ 123456789, you don't need to enter the 'YJ' part

 

Edited May 23, 2023 by jaylw314

[Mik75]

1 hour ago, jaylw314 said:

There isn't one in the A-10C, you'd have to enter each waypoint in the CDU, then add those waypoints to a flight plan.  It's not hard, but it is tedious and annoying.  I'm assuming you know how to enter waypoints and add them to a flight plan?

At least a couple minor shortcuts:

• Recall that waypoint #0 is always your initial position, so not really a need to set a departure waypoint if you started on the ground. 
• You can add the airport waypoint #'s found on the NAV->Divert page (or scrolling through the waypoints) to the flight plan.
• If you already have a waypoint near your target that you want to change or copy the MGRS coordinates, if it's in the same grid zone and grid square you do NOT have to type in the grid square letters, e.g. if you want to change 38S YJ 123456 to 38S YJ 123456789, you don't need to enter the 'YJ' part

 

 

Thanks a lot! Ok, good to know that #0 is taken automatically, and that I can use the "Divert" page, really didn't think of that. I could also select #0 as steerpoint again, after the mission is completed, right?

It's pretty neat in the Viggen that you can create flight plans on the F10 map, and choose the corresponding data cartridge on the ground...

[Yurgon]

3 hours ago, Mik75 said:

I could also select #0 as steerpoint again, after the mission is completed, right?

Yup. Unless you manually change the coordinates for this waypoint, it'll always point to where ever you began the mission initially, and its name will be INIT POSIT.

What I really like about the A-10C is that you have a keyboard available and can actually name waypoints from the cockpit. The CDU also has an autocomplete feature, which is really neat, and rewards players who give their waypoint's names a bit of thought (WP1, WP2, WP3, ... are bad for autocompletion; CLIMB, ENROUTE, FENCE, IP, and TARGET work fairly well with it ).

If I recall correctly, the entire keyboard from A to Z can be accessed with LCTL + LWIN + a-z on your PC keyboard, so if you don't fly in VR, you can use your existing keyboard and don't need to fiddle with the CDU on the right console.

By default, the CDU displays and accepts coordinates in Lat/Long, but like Jay said, MGRS (labeled "UTM" in the CDU) has a lot of advantages when it comes to data entry. Newly created waypoints copy the coordinates from the waypoint that was displayed before. As long the the grid zone designator ("38S") doesn't change, no need to update it. And LSK L4 accepts a wide variety of formats, from the full "GG1234567890" down to the much shortened "16" (which, following the principles outlined before) gets automatically expanded to "GG1000060000" (provided that the previous data was already in the "GG" 100 km grid square).

Long story short, yes, entering waypoints manually is a tedious process, but from my point of view, it's still fairly straightforward.

Finally, mission makers can place hundreds of INITIAL POINT objects on the map. These will be displayed on the F10 map, and the A-10C has access to all of them. So if a well designed mission comes with tons of IPs placed all over the map, like "FLOT WEST", "FLOT EAST", "HOSTL SA11", "RAMAT DEP", "RAMAT APP" and whatever else someone can think of, players could just enter the flight plan menu and create a flight plan from all of these existing waypoints, and players would then only need to create their own new waypoints with actual and current target data.

[Mik75]

1 hour ago, Yurgon said:

Yup. Unless you manually change the coordinates for this waypoint, it'll always point to where ever you began the mission initially, and its name will be INIT POSIT.

What I really like about the A-10C is that you have a keyboard available and can actually name waypoints from the cockpit. The CDU also has an autocomplete feature, which is really neat, and rewards players who give their waypoint's names a bit of thought (WP1, WP2, WP3, ... are bad for autocompletion; CLIMB, ENROUTE, FENCE, IP, and TARGET work fairly well with it ).

If I recall correctly, the entire keyboard from A to Z can be accessed with LCTL + LWIN + a-z on your PC keyboard, so if you don't fly in VR, you can use your existing keyboard and don't need to fiddle with the CDU on the right console.

By default, the CDU displays and accepts coordinates in Lat/Long, but like Jay said, MGRS (labeled "UTM" in the CDU) has a lot of advantages when it comes to data entry. Newly created waypoints copy the coordinates from the waypoint that was displayed before. As long the the grid zone designator ("38S") doesn't change, no need to update it. And LSK L4 accepts a wide variety of formats, from the full "GG1234567890" down to the much shortened "16" (which, following the principles outlined before) gets automatically expanded to "GG1000060000" (provided that the previous data was already in the "GG" 100 km grid square).

Long story short, yes, entering waypoints manually is a tedious process, but from my point of view, it's still fairly straightforward.

Finally, mission makers can place hundreds of INITIAL POINT objects on the map. These will be displayed on the F10 map, and the A-10C has access to all of them. So if a well designed mission comes with tons of IPs placed all over the map, like "FLOT WEST", "FLOT EAST", "HOSTL SA11", "RAMAT DEP", "RAMAT APP" and whatever else someone can think of, players could just enter the flight plan menu and create a flight plan from all of these existing waypoints, and players would then only need to create their own new waypoints with actual and current target data.

Yeah, it's not that big of a deal!

And I'll check if there are Initial Points on the F10 map of the TTI server, but I'm pretty sure there are. Haven't thought about these yet, so thanks a lot for the heads up! 

[jaylw314]

8 hours ago, Mik75 said:

It's pretty neat in the Viggen that you can create flight plans on the F10 map, and choose the corresponding data cartridge on the ground...

I mean, I suppose you could drop markpoints on the TAD if you weren't using them for targeting, but you'd have to copy them to waypoints to put them into a flight plan, which is clunky to say the least.  That's 90's tech for you

[Mik75]

3 hours ago, jaylw314 said:

I mean, I suppose you could drop markpoints on the TAD if you weren't using them for targeting, but you'd have to copy them to waypoints to put them into a flight plan, which is clunky to say the least.  That's 90's tech for you

These are the things I tend to forget of I don't fly a module regularly... 90's tech is cool, the F15E will be full of it, right? 

[jaylw314]

2 hours ago, Mik75 said:

These are the things I tend to forget of I don't fly a module regularly... 90's tech is cool, the F15E will be full of it, right? 

LOL, I'd compare the A-10C to MSDOS and the F-15E to Windows 3.1

[DirtyB]

The Way  app is pretty good for flight planning 

[Yurgon]

On 5/24/2023 at 1:31 AM, jaylw314 said:

LOL, I'd compare the A-10C to MSDOS and the F-15E to Windows 3.1

Sure. Without a keyboard, the Strike Eagle has to use a crippled interface instead of just typing the proper commands.

[Feller-Buncher]

One trick to do it easy is GitHub - aronCiucu/DCSTheWay: Imports waypoints from DCS F10 map into the plane navigation system, like a Data Transfer Cartidge.

It is a tool/mod that does the work for you in the CDU.

 

[Mik75]

25 minutes ago, Feller-Buncher said:

One trick to do it easy is GitHub - aronCiucu/DCSTheWay: Imports waypoints from DCS F10 map into the plane navigation system, like a Data Transfer Cartidge.

It is a tool/mod that does the work for you in the CDU.

Very interesting! Thanks a lot!

Very interesting! Thanks a lot!