The A-10C II Manual

[Snipes1702]

Fellow Aviators,

Knuckling down to RgTFM, specifically the A-10C II Navigation Chapter. It is hard going. The complexity of the A-10 is a given, ED have built a masterpiece. But this part of the manual is not user-friendly and is not a teaching aid, it is a reference tool only. It logically describes operation of the system:  do this, this happens etc.; to do this, do this etc. However there is no contextualisation of the processes described. So it very quickly descends into a maelstrom of Steer Points, Waypoints, SPIs, SOIs, CDU, AAP etc. Students will have to look elsewhere for teaching. Don't expect it from this manual. I can liken it to reading a chess manual written by a chess grandmaster, rather than a teacher. To newcomers it is inaccessible. I will visit Chuck's Guide to help with this area of learning. But for the moment we have a necessarily complex and brilliant aircraft, an unnecessarily complex manual, and a very simple concept of mission navigation that is completely lost in this part of the manual. Otherwise ED's created DCS World is one of community and genius that deserves all of your free time !! 

[Yurgon]

12 hours ago, Snipes1702 said:

But this part of the manual is not user-friendly and is not a teaching aid, it is a reference tool only.

I must confess I've never read the manual in its entirety, only sections that were of particular interest to me.

What you describe sounds like a good summary of the entire manual (as far as I've read it). It hardly ever explains how to achieve a specific task and rather serves as a reference.

The flight school chapter is maybe the closest to a training aid, but there I'd say the manual is actually overly superficial.

However, with the in-game tutorials, with the huge A-10C and A-10C II forums sections, and with an enormous amount of videos on YouTube, I personally think it's okay to have the manual as a reference rather than a training aid. It does go into a lot of detail regarding most systems, and writing it must have been an absolutely enormous task already. Adding new training chapters that almost no one reads (especially for a module that's 10+ years on the market, if we take the A-10C module as a basis) might actually lead to confusion, when the same content is presented twice in different chapters.

All things considered, while I don't disagree that a training manual would be a good thing, I don't think we'll see any major updates to the manual.

All that said, reading the entire manual will give you a very good understanding of the aircraft's systems, even if you don't fully understand everything while reading it. At the very least you'll know where to look up the details when specific questions arise.

Edited August 13, 2024 by Yurgon

[Raptor9]

Hello @Snipes1702, we do intend to revisit the A-10C manual in the future, with some corrections and needed updates to cover new features.

The manual writer is currently occupied with updating the F-16C manual. However, once this is complete, the intent is to update the A-10C manual as needed and to add some quality-of-life features to hopefully make it more user-friendly.

[LeCuvier]

14 hours ago, Raptor9 said:

Hello @Snipes1702, we do intend to revisit the A-10C manual in the future, with some corrections and needed updates to cover new features...

That's overdue! There is nothing about the ARC-210 radio in the manual. And the CCRP HUD display for the likes of GBU-38, CBU-105 etc. still show the old version. When I recently came back to the A-10C III trying to use the CBU-105 (which was one of my favorite weapons eralier) I was lost. In my desperation I ran the training mission, only to find that this mission also shows the old CCRP HUD. In the end I happened to find the right way of course, but the reference material should be updated when new features are added or existing features change!
And the A-10C is not the only subject where user manuals are outdated.
And to @Yurgon's point: yes there is a lot of information about the A-10C, but it's all over the place; and even though I'm a retiree, I don't want to spend my time searching for scattered information not even knowing whether the various pieces I find are correct. And the didactic quality of what I find is mostly questionable to say it politely.

[Snipes1702]

Thanks all for kind responses, giving some necessary perspective. 

[Dragan]

We will wait for the US Air Force to retire all A-10s, then logically there will be no more update on this plane (little joke) laugh. I completely agree, there are new functions that even those of us who have been flying this plane for years cannot recognize, but this is a sim learning.

[Yurgon]

5 hours ago, LeCuvier said:

yes there is a lot of information about the A-10C, but it's all over the place

True that. Regarding the outdated information in the A-10C II manual, yeah, that should be updated and thankfully, if I understand Raptor correctly, that's already planned.

When I take a deep dive into a DCS module, I usually find one or two YouTube channels with top notch content and then I tend to stick with these. Then flying a lot and trying various missions, and building my own training missions, is a great way to learn.

Of course it would be best if all information was available in a single place. But even before the A-10C II update that wasn't the case. What are the best parameters to orbit around a target without masking the TGP? How do you calculate takeoff performance, rotation speed, single engine rate of climb? What's the meaning of the marks on the AoA gauge? Why does the standby ADI go out of whack every so often? What's the best workflow when you're given a set of coordinates and want to slew your sensors and gain/maintain situational awareness? There are so many things the manual doesn't mention. It's up to us to figure these things out, if we're so inclined.

For instance, when I get into an AO, I tend to zoom (EXP1 or EXP2) the TAD. For me it's a massive SA boost just to have the map oriented to the north. I think many players don't use that function, either because they don't know what it's good for, or because their brains are simply wired differently and for them it would decrease their SA. One of these is obviously a very good reason not to use the EXP modes, the other is obviously not great.

Just how long would the manual need to be in order to teach all these small things? 

As far as being correct goes: Yes, of course the manual needs to be correct and up to date, and that's something to be tackled with high priority. As much as I wish the manual had the same didactic value as that of a certain other sim around the early 2000s did, I don't think such a major rework is going to happen.

[jaylw314]

I'd also point out that for aircraft IRL, stuff doesn't get put in one document, so there's no real-world equivalent for what we'd want in an aircraft user manual, in addition to the limitations of avoiding non-distributable or classified data.  Anyone who's tried writing reference material from the ground up knows how much this sucks, unless you're a masochist 

It WOULD be nice, though, to have the changes in the changelog logged in the front or back of the manuals, until they're written up