Question about HUD symbology after last AMRAAM is fired from the aircraft...

[Ballinger French]

Hi,

When firing AMRAAMs, after the last AIM-120 missile on the aircraft is fired, the HUD symbology reverts to either Sidewinder missiles (if loaded) or simply goes back to basic air to air mode with no inflight radar guided missile telemetry displayed.  The problem here is that the AIM-120 is initially data-linked to the firing aircraft for guidance to target before the missile's own radar activates and the AMRAAM becomes autonomous.  Without any indication of when the AIM-120's own radar activates and the missile goes 'Pitbull', the pilot in the DCS F-16 has no reference as to when to break off tracking the target and must simply guess when the missile has either gone active or splashed the target.  Again, this condition only exists after the very last AIM-120 is fired. 

When there are additional AMRAAM stores available on the aircraft after a AIM-120 missile is fired, the HUD provides time to missile activation and estimated time to impact.  This information will however disappear after the very last missile is fired, leaving the pilot in the dark as to missile status. 

Is this actual F-16 logic or is the DCS F-16 perhaps a little bugged here? 

Thanks!  

 

 

[_SteelFalcon_]

aaaah it's been a while  see here:

the tag is sadly misleading, since it wasnt fixed in oct 2022

Edited November 10, 2023 by _SteelFalcon_

[buceador]

Good point, it MUST be a bug as you would not expect a pilot in a combat situation to have to guess the outcome of the launch!

[Ballinger French]

16 hours ago, _SteelFalcon_ said:

aaaah it's been a while  see here:

the tag is sadly misleading, since it wasnt fixed in oct 2022

 

Aha, the culprit is already being hunted, thank you.  Doesn't appear to be too high on the fix list at this time, so I guess the only viable workaround would be to carry an extra AMRAAM on a pylon and use it as a captive hostage to force the correct HUD symbology for the other missile(s) when they are fired.  I mean, the hostage missile could still always be used for attacking a bandit at some point, just with the caveat that telemetry isn't possible after it's fired.  I guess you'd be firing in FC mode (fingers crossed) in this situation.  

[Geraki]

Any news on that? the A timing and T  timing must be visible on the DLZ when last amraam is lunched. even when the A-A submode changed into SRM AIM-9

[mobile83]

The solution is to long-press the NWS key after the last shot to switch back to AIM (even if you have 0) to follow the last shot. 

Edited January 4, 2024 by mobile83

[_SteelFalcon_]

2 hours ago, mobile83 said:

The solution is to long-press the NWS key after the last shot to switch back to AIM (even if you have 0) to follow the last shot. 

 

That only works since recently, as i‘ve noticed now too that a 6shooter amraam loadout finally shows you TTI and TTA for even the last missile, which was not the case for years until recently.

question that now remains is if it is correct that TTI and TTA should disappear when an amraam is being guided but the jet automatically switched to aim-9 since no further amraams remain. 

[skywalker22]

1 hour ago, _SteelFalcon_ said:

question that now remains is if it is correct that TTI and TTA should disappear when an amraam is being guided but the jet automatically switched to aim-9 since no further amraams remain. 

By any logic, not. Why would be for the last remaining amraam any different then for any previous ones?

Now we only have to prove it