Is The Air To Ground Workflow In The Real F16C Blk50 Really This Clunky......

[Yurgon]

37 minutes ago, drspankle said:

The viper is the most successful selling multi-role combat aircraft in history.  Obviously there are a lot of market forces at play here, but it didn’t become that because it’s difficult to use …

And Windows would never have become the best selling Operating System in history if it was bad.

Better not go down the road of "if it sells, it must be good"...

[drspankle]

Just now, Yurgon said:

And Windows would never have become the best selling Operating System in history if it was bad.

Better not go down the road of "if it sells, it must be good"...

Like I said - clearly there are market forces at play.  But it's still a great jet.

[shagrat]

vor 6 Minuten schrieb drspankle:

Like I said - clearly there are market forces at play.  But it's still a great jet.

Or the bang for the bucks is considerable better, than for other aircraft. Or other aircraft are too expensive for the available budget, as a minimum of X aircraft is required, so you chose cheap over perfect... IIRC the MiG-21 and its licensed builds or copies were very popular, despite its shortcomings outside a very specific role.

The original concept for the F-16 wasn't really a ground attack plane for Close Air Support, BAI or Air Strikes.

[Dragon1-1]

Remember that the people who buy fighters are usually not the ones who fly them.  

That said, there's nothing wrong with air to ground workflow in the Viper. IRL, you'd have a steerpoint or a markpoint over the target in all cases. It's just good practice, and the system is designed with this assumption in mind. It might be hard to get used to at first, but if makes perfect sense once you realize that.

[Hog_driver]

On 11/17/2023 at 6:09 PM, Dragon1-1 said:

Also note, some real aircraft features are clunky. This is a 70s jet upgraded with newer and newer avionics over the years. Some things are holdovers from the A, and others simply aren't perfectly integrated. This is not at all uncommon with real hardware.

Many years ago, I read a book by Lou Drendel, "USMC Phantoms in combat". I remember a paragraph that made me laugh a bit, here it is:

"There was a little island off the coast of NAS Cubi Point, Philippines, and we began using that as our target. At first, the island itself was used as the bulls-eye, and we counted it a successful mission if we hit the island. None of our airplanes were  wired for dropping bombs and that created some very interesting situations. As I recall, all the intervalometers were wired backwards and you never quite knew what was going to happen  when you hit the pickle button. We would roll in, hit the pickle,  have nothing come off, pull off, then sit there wondering how to  get rid of the ordnance. Some of the switchology was pretty arcane...stuff like, "pickle, reset, pickle, pickle, reset pickle. ” (I don’t know if that is how it actually went, but you get the idea.)

You can imagine how difficult that made the bomb runs. There  you are, on the perch, trying to remember the exact switchology  for dropping the bombs before you even considered the geometry  of the bomb run."

I'm still learning to fly the Viper in DCS and frankly, all these WIP quirks and bug descriptions sound a bit discouraging.

I wonder what we'll get with the Heatblur F-4

 

Edited December 2, 2023 by Hog_driver

[SickSidewinder9]

On 12/1/2023 at 2:30 AM, TED said:

I recently started trying to really learn the viper, having learnt the a10c, Hornet and harrier before. I have to say I found the viper very frustrating to begin with as well as some of the logic follows through from the the others and some is totally different. Now however I really love it and find it very easy to use. My cas workflow is selecting tpod, select a weapon in vis or dtos mode, hmcs as soi, long tms up then short up on the target area Im looking at. Then dms down to reselect tgp as soi, and designate a target. 
if it’s something I’ll come back to I’ll select mark on icp, ensure tgp on the cni is selected by dobber switch, then tms up short. Mark point saved. 
I find myself now using mavericks and other guided munitions this way, then using ccip bombing for most cluster and unguided stuff to clean up. 
take out the really dangerous stuff with mavericks or agm154 then ccip on the rest.

This is the way

[Dragon1-1]

21 hours ago, shagrat said:

Or the bang for the bucks is considerable better, than for other aircraft. Or other aircraft are too expensive for the available budget, as a minimum of X aircraft is required, so you chose cheap over perfect... IIRC the MiG-21 and its licensed builds or copies were very popular, despite its shortcomings outside a very specific role.

Don't forget the F-104, which sold really well, for reasons that had nothing to do with the plane itself...

Notably, the Viper was made by the same manufacturer.

[TobiasA]

vor einer Stunde schrieb Dragon1-1:

Don't forget the F-104, which sold really well, for reasons that had nothing to do with the plane itself...

Notably, the Viper was made by the same manufacturer.

The F-104 worked well for us.

And it is surprising how far the F-16 came, from a light weight fighter with sidewinders to a multirole fighter. Not everything was planned when they designed the plane, but here we are.

Just as the 104 did back then. Not without flaws, but it is amazing what we got out of that airframe. Looking back, fitting bombs on it wasn't quite something it was good at, but it was an important step. And not a bad airframe. 

[Yurgon]

3 hours ago, Dragon1-1 said:

Notably, the Viper was made by the same manufacturer.

Only if you discard the first 19 years of its existence.

I suppose only military aviation historians can tell us to a high degree of accuracy how much General Dynamics is in the F-16C Block 50, but probably more than a little.

3 hours ago, Dragon1-1 said:

Don't forget the F-104, which sold really well, for reasons that had nothing to do with the plane itself...

It was a simple, straightforward design for a very specific purpose. And you're right, it's a bit hard to understand how it was then used in a variety of roles that had little or nothing to do with intercepting bombers and fighters.

[Dragon1-1]

35 minutes ago, Yurgon said:

It was a simple, straightforward design for a very specific purpose. And you're right, it's a bit hard to understand how it was then used in a variety of roles that had little or nothing to do with intercepting bombers and fighters.

If case you haven't heard the story, here's the real reason it sold so well: 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_bribery_scandals

In short, some money changed hands, a good chunk of it under the table. It's not hard to understand at all, because it all boils down to people who buy and sell fighters not having much in common with people who fly them, but a lot with each other. Deal of the Century, in other words, at least until the chickens came home to roost. While there's no evidence (so far) of the F-16 purchases being similarly motivated, there's a strong suspicion Lockheed sold them at a loss to kill off the competing F-20. 

Edited December 3, 2023 by Dragon1-1

[MAXsenna]

If case you haven't heard the story, here's the real reason it sold so well: 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_bribery_scandals
In short, some money changed hands, a good chunk of it under the table. It's not hard to understand at all, because it all boils down to people who buy and sell fighters not having much in common with people who fly them, but a lot with each other. Deal of the Century, in other words, at least until the chickens came home to roost. While there's no evidence (so far) of the F-16 purchases being similarly motivated, there's a strong suspicion Lockheed sold them at a loss to kill off the competing F-20. 

I still don't understand what this has to do with General Dynamics. Did Lockheed bribe decision makers so they would choose and airframe of a company Lockheed planned to aquire over a decade later. Damn, that's what I'd call planning ahead!

Sent from my SM-A536B using Tapatalk

[Dragon1-1]

The sales I was talking about happened after GD takeover (most foreign models are Block 15s or later), and the bribery happened with another fighter entirely. You would do well to actually read and comprehend the post you're quoting.

Edited December 3, 2023 by Dragon1-1

[WinterH]

17 hours ago, Dragon1-1 said:

Don't forget the F-104, which sold really well, for reasons that had nothing to do with the plane itself...

Notably, the Viper was made by the same manufacturer.

It was not though, by the time Lockheed took over the F-16, from the company that actually first designed and built it, General Dynamics, the type was like 20ish years old in service already.

13 hours ago, Dragon1-1 said:

Deal of the Century, in other words, at least until the chickens came home to roost. While there's no evidence (so far) of the F-16 purchases being similarly motivated, there's a strong suspicion Lockheed sold them at a loss to kill off the competing F-20. 

Not sure how this follows to be honest. Deal of the Century refers to F-104 afaik, and that was some ways before the F-20s time... F-20 was, in fact, intended as an F-104 and F-5 replacement. When F-20 did indeed get killed off by indifference of US towards the type, and by the F-16 itself, Lockheed had nothing to do with the F-16. F-20 was very cool, but with adding features that made it thus cool, and up to scratch with modern tech, it became barely any cheaper than current F-16s, new 4th gen competitors like F-16, F/A-18, and Mirage 2000 all promised a lot more future upgrade potential, and while being pretty close to those new types in flight performance with the upgrades, it was still not quite up there in most respects.

1 hour ago, Dragon1-1 said:

The sales I was talking about happened after GD takeover (most foreign models are Block 15s or later), and the bribery happened with another fighter entirely. You would do well to actually read and comprehend the post you're quoting.

I am honestly curious, can you give us a list? Afaik, by the time LM took over, which was after mid, probably late 90s, Block 50 was already a thing, or was about to be. Block 40 happened under GD afaik.

The sales that killed F-20 happened in at most mid 80s, and by then LM had nothing to do with F-16. And again, while most was, not all of the sales that killed it off were F-16s, Hornet and even Mirage 2000 did pay some part as well. Although the Mirage in the end, arguably didn't end up being upgraded to as truely multirole as F-20 was, at least not in great numbers. But the potential was there.

Back to the topic itself, a lot of the advanced air to ground stuff are literally tacked-on afterthoughts on the F-16, and it shows. A-10C upgrade was more of a ground up thing, as was the Hornet, being intented as multirole for the Navy and Marines from the start, replacing A-7s, to a degree also A-6s, but only supplementing F-14 as a fighter, latter remaining the main fleet defender still. F-16 at first was supposed to be a light fighter with mavericks and some bombing features too. Multiple sensors and precision weapons  came later.

Being primarily centered around the idea of pre-planned strikes isn't as bizarre as it may seem at first. In truth, great majority of air combat operations are pre-planned flights if possible. Planes looking around for targets is really more of a sim-ism we are accustomed to. In A-10's case it is more fit, it being a primarily CAS platform, but even its system works much nicer with preplanned targets being available.

Edited December 3, 2023 by WinterH

[TobiasA]

This. Flying around and looking for targets is mostly a sim thing.

DCS doesn't have a lot of OCA strikes, SEAD/DEAD packages with multiple flights and types or Deep Strikes on enemy logistics.

And even CAS would have pre-planned target areas. 

[Extranajero]

22 minutes ago, TobiasA said:

This. Flying around and looking for targets is mostly a sim thing.

DCS doesn't have a lot of OCA strikes, SEAD/DEAD packages with multiple flights and types or Deep Strikes on enemy logistics.

And even CAS would have pre-planned target areas. 

And don't forget the mission makers who require you to loiter around for an hour killing every single tank\truck\air defense unit in an area before something else can happen....didn't get that last infantryman hiding under that tree ? no trigger for you

It gives a totally warped perception of what attack aircraft would really be tasked to do in a hot war.


 

[Noctrach]

1 hour ago, Extranajero said:

And don't forget the mission makers who require you to loiter around for an hour killing every single tank\truck\air defense unit in an area before something else can happen....didn't get that last infantryman hiding under that tree ? no trigger for you

It gives a totally warped perception of what attack aircraft would really be tasked to do in a hot war.


 

Yep, and without judging on "clunkiness" of the A2G workflow. It clearly worked well enough that the F-16A and C types flew over 13,000 missions in desert storm. OCA, STRIKE, CAS, SEAD/DEAD... all before the modern tape upgrades.

Stick with it, do some basic preplanning, understand the waypoint/markpoint flow and it becomes an extremely versatile swiss army knife.

[jeventy26]

I did learn the Hornet first and I do prefer that for A2G... but I prefer the F-16 in A2A.  F-16 is also great at SEAD.  I just am not a fan of the TGP.  I am getting very good in the Viper... but I do have a question.  When I am out of weapons... and I see a ground unit directly to my 9 o'clock and want to put a laser on it for my wingman, what would be the workflow to put that TGP on it quickly, aside from snowplow mode?  

[Noctrach]

10 hours ago, jeventy26 said:

I did learn the Hornet first and I do prefer that for A2G... but I prefer the F-16 in A2A.  F-16 is also great at SEAD.  I just am not a fan of the TGP.  I am getting very good in the Viper... but I do have a question.  When I am out of weapons... and I see a ground unit directly to my 9 o'clock and want to put a laser on it for my wingman, what would be the workflow to put that TGP on it quickly, aside from snowplow mode?  

With helmet mounted sight:

Mark (7) --> HUD --> TMS up long to slave to JHMCS --> aim with HMS --> TMS up short to stabilize --> refine with TDC --> TMS up short to confirm --> MSel (0) to activate

Without helmet mounted sight:

Steer aircraft to capture area in HUD --> Mark (7) --> HUD --> position box with TDC --> TMS up short to stabilize --> refine with TDC --> TMS up short to confirm --> MSel (0) to activate

In both cases use cursor zero (CZ) to remove any previous slewing offsets.

You can also fly an offset and use the ground radar to quickly slew your SPI to near the target area, then refine with TGP. (Then drop a markpoint with TGP)

Edited December 4, 2023 by Noctrach

[jeventy26]

4 hours ago, Noctrach said:

With helmet mounted sight:

Mark (7) --> HUD --> TMS up long to slave to JHMCS --> aim with HMS --> TMS up short to stabilize --> refine with TDC --> TMS up short to confirm --> MSel (0) to activate

Without helmet mounted sight:

Steer aircraft to capture area in HUD --> Mark (7) --> HUD --> position box with TDC --> TMS up short to stabilize --> refine with TDC --> TMS up short to confirm --> MSel (0) to activate

In both cases use cursor zero (CZ) to remove any previous slewing offsets.

You can also fly an offset and use the ground radar to quickly slew your SPI to near the target area, then refine with TGP. (Then drop a markpoint with TGP)

 

TY!!!  

[Hulkbust44]

Wow, it’s that convoluted? Maybe the lack of MC space/processing power wouldn’t be much of an issue if the software was even remotely optimized…


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[LastRifleRound]

On 12/3/2023 at 6:04 PM, jeventy26 said:

I did learn the Hornet first and I do prefer that for A2G... but I prefer the F-16 in A2A.  F-16 is also great at SEAD.  I just am not a fan of the TGP.  I am getting very good in the Viper... but I do have a question.  When I am out of weapons... and I see a ground unit directly to my 9 o'clock and want to put a laser on it for my wingman, what would be the workflow to put that TGP on it quickly, aside from snowplow mode?  

Did you have LGB's or Mavericks, too? Even though they're at 0 if you already used them, you can still see them on the SMS page. If LGB's, use DTOS, if Mavs, use VIS. TMS up long to make HMD SOI, look at target, TMS up short, DMS down to get the TGP to be SOI. It's not much different than the A10 except the part where you have to pick a delivery mode. If you think you'll  need to save that point for reference, hit MARK, then SEQ right to TGP as source, TMS up. If you want your new MARK to be active Steerpoint, hit MSEL while still in the MARK page.

I really don't think it's that hard and the debate on who made it and why I think is based on the entirely subjective suppositions on how "clunky" it is when doing DCS stuff. Even for DCS stuff, it's not any harder than the Hornet is, and the A10 was purpose made for DCS stuff so you can't expect other airframes to be as good at loitering and plinking. In fact, you could argue DCS itself was built around the KA50 and to a lesser extent the A10, so DCS was built around this kind of mission.

Give it some more time and I'm confident you will all will get in the flow in now time. I never thought it would be, but the team on the Viper has done an excellent job in my opinion and it's probably my favorite at the moment.

Edited December 8, 2023 by LastRifleRound

[Blinky.ben]

On 12/4/2023 at 9:04 AM, jeventy26 said:

I did learn the Hornet first and I do prefer that for A2G... but I prefer the F-16 in A2A.  F-16 is also great at SEAD.  I just am not a fan of the TGP.  I am getting very good in the Viper... but I do have a question.  When I am out of weapons... and I see a ground unit directly to my 9 o'clock and want to put a laser on it for my wingman, what would be the workflow to put that TGP on it quickly, aside from snowplow mode?  

I have markpoint bound to my controller. You can be in any mode doing anything and if you see something I press markpoint then make hud soi. Look at what you want then TMS up and there you have a the location and a wpt set to that point, plus your Tpod will also be looking at the location.

[davidrbarnette]

On 12/3/2023 at 3:12 PM, TobiasA said:

This. Flying around and looking for targets is mostly a sim thing.

DCS doesn't have a lot of OCA strikes, SEAD/DEAD packages with multiple flights and types or Deep Strikes on enemy logistics.

And even CAS would have pre-planned target areas. 

Well, regarding the "flying around and looking for targets is mostly a sim thing", that's really not the case.

For the past 20 years, most of the activity that the US Air Force, Navy, Marines, and Army Aviation have been engaged in can be almost exactly described as "flying around and looking for targets." 

It's actually easier to name the few circumstances where pre-planned targets were a thing than it is to name those where they weren't. The early stages of OIF were largely pre-planned targets, but after the first week or so, it switched to mostly on-call CAS. OEF was almost exclusively on-call CAS, and Syria has been much of the same, except for the few instances where there have been retaliatory pre-planned strikes against fixed assets.

Indeed, most of the activity the A-10, F-16, F-15E, F/A-18, F-14, AV-8B, and AH-64D that we have modeled in DCS have really spent most of their time over the past few decades just flying around looking for targets. Most accounts from pilots involved in these operations go something to the effect of "we took off, flew to the Ops area, checked in, refueled, refueled again, got called to respond to a target a JTAC had identified, dropped a JDAM on it, refueled again, and went home after 6 hours."

[Yurgon]

11 minutes ago, davidrbarnette said:

For the past 20 years, most of the activity that the US Air Force, Navy, Marines, and Army Aviation have been engaged in can be almost exactly described as "flying around and looking for targets." 

In the context of the F-16-switchology discussion, I'd say that's not all that relevant; as TobiasA already pointed out, CAS isn't actually about flying around and looking for targets. These targets have already been spotted and identified and the aircrews are now guided onto them through a process that typically involves a set of coordinates. Which, in turn, means pilots won't be required to look around and somehow get their sensors on a target of opportunity, and instead most likely create a waypoint, slave and slew sensors and then refine targeting until everyone is sure they're targeting the right thing.

What you're describing sounds more like a killbox in which flights are free to engage every object that meets certain criteria (military vehicle, tracked vehicle, armed vehicle, any vehicle whatsoever - that's of course a matter or ROEs and SPINs), which is what the highway of hell in ODS would have looked like, and likely other operations since then. In terms of the actual targeting process and the switchology involved, I believe this is still very different from CAS.

[davidrbarnette]

1 minute ago, Yurgon said:

In the context of the F-16-switchology discussion, I'd say that's not all that relevant; as TobiasA already pointed out, CAS isn't actually about flying around and looking for targets. These targets have already been spotted and identified and the aircrews are now guided onto them through a process that typically involves a set of coordinates. Which, in turn, means pilots won't be required to look around and somehow get their sensors on a target of opportunity, and instead most likely create a waypoint, slave and slew sensors and then refine targeting until everyone is sure they're targeting the right thing.

What you're describing sounds more like a killbox in which flights are free to engage every object that meets certain criteria (military vehicle, tracked vehicle, armed vehicle, any vehicle whatsoever - that's of course a matter or ROEs and SPINs), which is what the highway of hell in ODS would have looked like, and likely other operations since then. In terms of the actual targeting process and the switchology involved, I believe this is still very different from CAS.

Fair enough. My point is just that the idea that most missions IRL are pre-planned targets, something like interdiction, deep strike, or OCA, just isn't the case. 

Granted, I agree the majority of CAS missions would have a JTAC providing the pilot with coordinates. Early in this thread, my note was that the F-16's systems are actually super-easy to use in these scenarios. Punch the coordinates in, slave the TPOD to the coordinates, find the target, lase, and drop. Piece of cake, really.

The only thing I'd maybe add that isn't so realistic is that even with coordinates, most real CAS scenarios involve the JTAC talking the pilot onto the target, as it is usually small, potentially obscured, and not easy to identify, even with coordinates. DCS doesn't simulate this well (and I'm not even sure how it would simulate this). 

Long story short, most real missions for the past 20 years haven't been pre-planned strikes. They've been pilots loitering, waiting on someone to pass them a target, whether through coordinates, a visual talk-on, or in most cases a combination of both.