Additional Training Missions for the Viggen - Nevada Edition

[Rudel_chw]

Hello Viggen fans,

In anticipation of the Kola Map release, I'm re-learning the Viggen, after many years of having it on the hangar ... not because of any problems with it, but because so many other interesting aircrafts have appeared for DCS, which I wanted to learn 

 

As part of this re-learning process, I edited a few training missions for this aircraft, as this forces me to learn the aircraft in more detail than just flying on it, and I want to share them here. As soon as Kola arrives, I will edit a 2nd version of each, to be flown on the new map, in the meantime they are set at Nevada because I'm truly tired of Caucasus and Marianas is a bit too small, and also because I really like Nevada  

 

I have already finished a small set of these missions, and want to share them here and add more as I go on finishing them. The missions are available from ED's User Files, this is the link:

 

https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3334422/

 

Editing and debugging one of these missions takes about 10 days each, I'd rather not wait until every mission that I want to edit is ready, so here they are:

 

M01 - Abreviated Cold Start

 

 

 

My original idea, was to have a Cold Start with two client slots: one for an abreviated procedure using battery power, and another slot for starting with a full procedure and using Ground Power. In the end I couldn't make it work because the battery start has a very limited endurance, that didnt give me the time for detailed explanations that could be shared between both clients, so I ended up splitting the mission in two: One for battery start (this one), and another mission for a detailed cold start.

 

M02 - Detailed Cold Start

 

I know, I know ... almost one hour for a Cold Start mission? ... the truth is that I love how a Cold Start touches up on almost every System that an aircraft has: Electrics, Fuel, Hydraulics, Flight Control, Ignition, Engine, Radios, Avionics, etc.  Its undoubtedly the single mission where one can truly view the complexities of a modern aircraft.  Bear with me:

 

 

M03 - Taxi & Take-off from an Airbase

 

I was in the middle of editing this mission, when the last DCS update striked ... bugging the ATC. Plase ignore the glitch when asking ATC for permission to taxi

 

 

 

M04 - Take-off from a Roadbase

 

This is similar to M03, but starting from a Road Base near Creech.

 

 

M05 - Autopilot use (added on 26/Nov/23)

As a prior step to learning the Viggen navigation, I tought it would be useful to have a brief mission on the employment of the Autopilot system.

 

 

M06 - Pre-planned Navigation (added on 5/Dec/23)

 

This has been the hardest mission to edit, up to now, even with its scope limited to flightplans created on the mission editor, but it is also the most fun to fly:

 

 

M07 - Visual Landing & Shutdown (added on 25/Dec/23)

 

I promise, this is the last non-combat training mission that I will do for the Viggen on a long while    ... but I needed the student pilots to be able to land after a combat training sortie, so I had to edit this mission on Landing first.

 

For this mission, I elected to give the trainee the ability to select the kind of Landing Approach he wants to learn: Direct or Overhead, Normal or Short (short is harder as it leaves less time to align with the runway), and even managed to put the chance to learn the Shutdown procedure as well.

 

To make the mission a bit more fun, I'm using a Script that @toutenglisse created for me, that will produce a report with the landing distance the student pilot occupied ... this is my own record after about two dozen tries made while debugging the mission     

Other DCS users that helped me to create this mission, are @funkyfranky for his landing diagrams, and @Charly_Owl for the valuable information contained on his Viggen Guide.

 

 

Here is a walktrough video, of the overhead approach:

 

 

 

 

and here is another with the Shutdown alone:

 

 

 M08 - Radio Employment (added on 23/Mar/24)

 

As the Viggen radios are quite different from those of other DCS aircrafts, I decided to edit this training mission to help new Viggen users to get used to its intrincacies. The video includes a small bug on the section about using the emergency radio, which has been fixed but I didn't had the time to re-record the video.

 

 

 

 

Installation:

If you prefer, you can save these missions on the DCS Program folder, that way they would appear alongside the built-in training, like this:

 

 

 

However, I know that many users don't like to modify the original game, so on that case you can save them inside a folder at /Saved games/DCS World/Missions/ and within DCS they would show up on Missions -> My Missions, like this:

 

 

 

Conclusion:

I will keep adding missions to this small pack, until Kola gets released. At that point I will migrate the finished missions to it.

If you detect any issue with these missions, please report it on this thread, with as much detail as you can, and I will do my best to fix any bug.

Best regards to everyone, and in particular to the user @TOViper as without his update of the Viggen manual, creating these missions wouldn't have been possible. 

 

Eduardo

 

Edited May 23, 2024 by Rudel_chw
Changed the Thread Tittle, to avoid confusion with the Kola missions.

[Rudel_chw]

Viggen Weapons Training:

 

Many of the weapon training missions, make use of DCS User Assets created by the 476th Virtual Fighter Group, this is a very mature User Mod, highly unlikely to cause trouble for the user. It is pretty small, using up only 53 MB of disk space, it should be installed at /Saved Games/DCS.Openbeta/Mods/tech/ and it won't interfere with the Multiplayer Integrity Check. You can download it from this link:

https://www.476vfightergroup.com/downloads.php?do=download&downloadid=482

 

 

M10 - Gun Strafing (added on Jan 6th, 2024)

Finally, I have edited my first weapon training mission for the Viggen, here is a walkthrough of its shorter variant:

 

 

 Horrible landing, I know 

 

The mission uses a Script by @Ciribob to check the accuracy of your gunnery:

 

 

After the gun strafing, you can optionally land back at Tonopah TR, where you will get a 2nd report on your landing distance:

 

 

Finally, at mission's end you get a score report:

 

 

Edit:

 

here is a walkthrough of the longer variant:

 

 

M11 - Guns for Air-Air (added on Jan 10th, 2024)

My second weapon training mission for the Viggen, is again using the Gunpods, but this time for air-air interception, like this:

 

 

This is a much simpler mission than the prior one, that's why I managed to edit it so quickly, lets hope the new Viggen pilots find it useful.

 

M12 - Rockets (added on Jan 25th, 2024)

My third weapon training mission for the Viggen, attempts to train on the use of Rocket Pods, giving the user the choice of which delivery mode he wants to learn: Attack Mode, Quick Mode, or Long Range Mode. It would probably have been easier to edit a separate mission for each Mode, but I wanted to avoid overwhelming the Training menu 

 

As usual, you can choose to avoid the take-off and landing segments of the mission, here is a walk-through of the Attack Mode:

 

 

and here is the "Quick" Mode:

 

 

 

and finally, this is the Long Range Mode:

 

 

On the videos some minor errors may be seen, I corrected them afterwards but didn't want to re-record the videos. As always, if you find an error, please report it on this thread and I will do my best to fix it.

 

M13 - Rb05 on Air/Ground attacks (added on March 31st, 2024)

I know it took a lot longer than I first anticipated, but I have finally finished my mission on using the Rb05 on Air/Surface attacks. It took me quite a while but hopefully the end result is worth the wait.

My aiming skills with the Rb05 are still quite poor in spite of having flown this mission over a dozen times, I could have made the mission easier by using a big electric power plant as target, but that seemed a bit like cheating, but a target like a SAM unit or Radar would have been too small for reliable attack practice, so I compromised by using a two story building as target:

 

 

As always, you can choose between a full mission, with take-off, attack, and landing; or a short variant with just the attack part    I'm still using @Ciribob's Range Script, to provide an accuracy report like this one:

 

 

To avoid frustration, I enabled unlimited ammunition for this training, so you can fire missiles until you eventually manage to hit the target, which believe me is not that easy    Here is a video walkthrough, so you can get the idea:

 

 

M14 - Rb05 on Air/Air attacks (added on April 9th, 2024)

Very similar to my prior mission M11 on Gunpods for A/A, this mission is about using the Rb05 on Air/Air attacks. Like on M13, I have provided unlimited ammunition so that you can fire enough missiles until you get the knack on manually guiding them onto the target. Here is a video walk-through of this mission:

 

 

M15 - Infra-red Air/Air missiles (added on April 22nd, 2024)

This mission is about employing all three variants of the Sidewinder missile that the Viggen can carry. You have two missiles of each variant and have to use them to kill three F-4 drones that are in front of you. Here is a video walk-through of this mission:

 

I will now start working on my next mission, covering the employment of the Viggen defensive equipment, like RWR, Flares and chaff. I'd love to do a few missions on anti-shipping, but I'm waiting for the Kola Map in order to do those.

Best regards 

 

Eduardo

Edited April 22, 2024 by Rudel_chw
Added Mission M15: IR Missile employment for Air/Air.

[Rudel_chw]

(Reserved for Recconaisance Missions)

[Spirale]

Thx a lot for your hard work Rudel, the Viggen deserve more attention and you help to it a lot

[TOViper]

It is very satisfying to see that the Viggen becomes love, I like it very much. Not only the Viggen as a module, but its pilots too, which is great!

There was a squall of tutorials in the beginning, with some more tutorials here and there and now and then, and in 2021.
After flying the Viggen A LOT, I felt: ok, let's push it further.
This was why I started my viggen.training project in 2021 (indeed back then I started with a big question bank, currently hosting about 500 questions, with the option to increase it to 1600 if the viggen.training project becomes accepted by the community). I took the "short approach", by explaining not too much in the flight itself, but rely on the student pilots reading the relevant sections in the manual (like they did IRL, apart from classroom training). This is why my missions are short, not too much blah blah, only focussing on the hotspot.

As I noticed, you are creating everything from scratch, with the aim of giving new users as much information as possible in one go. This enables studying of certain topics in the cockpit, which is another approach.

I hope I find the time to go through all of your flights very soon before you publish them, and I feel motivated to help you make them the best in-depth tutorials around.
Ah, and by the way: I love Nevada too, and I think I will love Kola even more.

Edited November 22, 2023 by TOViper

[Rudel_chw]

8 minutes ago, TOViper said:

As I noticed, you are creating everything from scratch, with the aim of giving new users as much information as possible in one go. This enables studying of certain topics in the cockpit, which is another approach.

 

Thanks a lot for your kind words, I do try to keep the missions short, but I also like to explain the whys behind some of the procedure steps, as I believe that they are easier to remember this way. I have also chosen to keep the background units of the missions to a minimum, as that makes it easier to port each mission to another Map later on.

It was the excellent work that you did on improving the Manual, what ignited my desire to return to the Viggen and edit these Missions ... lets hope that Kola is near, I didn't purchase anything on the current Sales because I'm saving towards purchasing Kola early, in fact I have not yet pre-purchased the Phantom, tough I will probably do it during december just to take advantage of the additional PP discount

Best regards,

 

Eduardo

[MAXsenna]

I'm really happy they're in Nevada, and I'm eagerly waiting in anticipation for the Kola version! Thank so much as always Eduardo!
(Subbed this thread )
Cheers!

Sent from my SM-A536B using Tapatalk

[Rudel_chw]

1 minute ago, MAXsenna said:

I'm really happy they're in Nevada ...

 

I enjoy Nevada too, only downside is that it doesnt have any sea, so for the anti-shipping missions I will deploy the training to Marianas for a couple of missions  

[Rudel_chw]

Hello fellow users,

 

Just added a 5th mission to this set, on the first post of the thread. If you already have the prior missions, you may prefer to download the mission directly from this link:

 

https://1drv.ms/u/s!Ai6cuX3YQI26itMB-Bwmp1eEROFW3A?e=X4zg17

 

or, if you deem it safer, download the whole set from ED's User Files, the link is on the 1st post.

 

Now I will continue with the Pre-planned Navigation mission, as it is a needed step before editing the first Weapons mission, best regards to all, 

 

Eduardo

[Rudel_chw]

Hello all,

Added a 6th mission to this set, on the first post of the thread. If you already have the prior missions, you may prefer to download the mission directly from this link:

 

https://1drv.ms/u/s!Ai6cuX3YQI26itJ52JG-TTHJcOvUbw?e=157n2d

 

 

or, if you deem it safer, download the whole set from ED's User Files, the link is on the 1st post. 

 

Next, I will edit my first Weapons Training mission for the Viggen:

M10 - Gun Strafing at a target Range.

 

It will require the 476th VFG Range Objects Mod:

 

 

I hope that doesn't discourage too many users from trying it    ... I know Mods have a reputation for breaking DCS, but this is a very mature and stable mod and it is actively maintained by Nick “Noodle” Landolfi &  Danny “Stuka” Vanvelthoven. I use this Mod a lot and have never had a problem with it 

 

Cheers!

 

Eduardo

Edited December 5, 2023 by Rudel_chw

[randomTOTEN]

A lot of us have had this mod for years

[MikeRomeoSierra1974]

Thanks for doing these. The Viggen is quickly becoming my favourite and I especially love the quirky nature of the old school computer systems and the really ingeniously implemented autopilot and I wish I had bought it during the December sale when it was half price. I have it for another 12 days so wll enjoy trying to learn as much as I can in that time and your training missions are fantastic for getting a good solid grounding without having to read the manual from cover to cover.

[Rudel_chw]

1 hour ago, MikeRomeoSierra1974 said:

... getting a good solid grounding without having to read the manual from cover to cover.

 

This YT series is like sharing the reading of the manual with someone much more experienced than oneself ... highly reccomended, and most of it is still valid, as the Viggen hasnt changed all that much over the years:

 

 

[MikeRomeoSierra1974]

Thanks I have watched some of the Bunyap Sims stuff in the past and it's very good quality. Not seen this Viggen series though so will add it to my watch later list.

[Rudel_chw]

Hello,

Yesterday I added my first weapons training mission to this pack:

 

 

next on my to-do list, I will edit a mission to employ the gunpods on air-air interceptions

Best regards,

 

Eduardo

[Rudel_chw]

Hello all,

 

Just finished my second weapons training mission, here:

 

 

 

It was a much simpler mission, compared with the prior ones, that's how I managed to edit it so quickly 

Next up will be a Rocket employment mission, Cheers.

 

Eduardo

Edited January 11, 2024 by Rudel_chw

[British_Dragon_14]

Thank you very much! This should help me get used to my new setup.

I am re-learning the Viggen again as I just purchased the WinWing HOTAS F-15 throttle and F-16 stick with the rumble add on (coming from the TM Warthog) and now I can finally have a two stage trigger for the Radar and use the add on trigger as the weapon release trigger as you can flip it forward so the safety is off. It's great but the Viggen feels completely different now and I need some good training missions before going back on Enigmas Cold War Server.

Would you be able to do any training missions regarding the Jamming Pod on the Viggen? I never did get around to learning that part of the Viggen. 

[Johnny Dioxin]

Yes, thanks for these - must get back into the Viggen soon and these will no doubt help a lot. It remains the only DCS jet in which I've managed to stall the engine in mid-flight.

[Rudel_chw]

58 minutes ago, British_Dragon_14 said:

I just purchased the WinWing HOTAS F-15 throttle and F-16 stick with the rumble add on (coming from the TM Warthog) and now I can finally have a two stage trigger for the Radar

 

Hello,

I tried to do this with the two stage trigger of my Hotas, but I ended up using three separate buttons instead, as it was too tiring trying to hold the 1st stage trigger for any length of time.

 

58 minutes ago, British_Dragon_14 said:

Would you be able to do any training missions regarding the Jamming Pod on the Viggen? I never did get around to learning that part of the Viggen. 

I intend to do one, but not focused on jamming, but rather on the Elint capabilities of the Pod, which seem to me much more interesting.

[Rudel_chw]

Hello all,

 

I've added a third Weapon Training mission to this Pack, this time covering the use of the ARAK Rocket pods:

 

 

Next on the queue will be a mission about the RB05 missile 

Best regards,

 

Eduardo

[British_Dragon_14]

On 1/25/2024 at 7:45 PM, Rudel_chw said:

Hello all,

 

I've added a third Weapon Training mission to this Pack, this time covering the use of the ARAK Rocket pods:

 

 

Next on the queue will be a mission about the RB05 missile 

Best regards,

 

Eduardo

I definitely need a lot more practice with the RB05's and Rockets!  Thankyou!

I rely way too much on the Mavericks myself. It would be nice if I could take out factory's and infrastructure on Enigmas Cold War server after taking out the SAM's with Mavericks. So that would be at least three sorties in total. Recon and then SEAD and finally a Strike mission on the buildings.

Edited January 30, 2024 by British_Dragon_14

[Rudel_chw]

18 minutes ago, British_Dragon_14 said:

I definitely need a lot more practice with the RB05

I’m finding it a very frustrating weapon, because Its flare cant be seen at distances over 3-4 km … not sure if it will be worthwhile making a mission for it  

[TOViper]

Hey Rudel! Are you talking about flying in VR or on screen?
In VR I indeed had this problem, but on screen I can't remember having troubles seing the flare at 6-7km or even more.

[Rudel_chw]

34 minutes ago, TOViper said:

Hey Rudel! Are you talking about flying in VR or on screen?
In VR I indeed had this problem, but on screen I can't remember having troubles seing the flare at 6-7km or even more.

I’m flying on screen, on the Nevada map. I will record a video and then show you what I see 

[TOViper]

Not necessary, I am going to try it this afternoon. Thank you!