user error Mavrick boresight

[alistairm]

Hey everyone I'm starting to learn macricks and have hit a wall i think its somthing im doing. 

So I do start up and the boresight the mavricks but have noticed when I fly after my steerpoint are all well out of whack there fine on the  right nav all line up but on the FCR and helmet there well out i can't see to correct it. Like I said it must be me but in not sure what im doing. 

 

Thank you everyone 

[Tholozor]

A track reply would help us see what exactly you're seeing, but I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest you Cursor Zero?

[speed-of-heat]

Also have you zeroed your helmet 

[Gilligan]

On 7/5/2025 at 4:41 PM, alistairm said:

Hey everyone I'm starting to learn macricks and have hit a wall i think its somthing im doing. 

So I do start up and the boresight the mavricks but have noticed when I fly after my steerpoint are all well out of whack there fine on the  right nav all line up but on the FCR and helmet there well out i can't see to correct it. Like I said it must be me but in not sure what im doing. 

 

Thank you everyone 

would have to know more of your process. 

Did you align your helmet?

Are you in PRE mode, VIS mode, or BORE mode when trying to use them? 

Make sure you "cursor zero" your SPI back to the steerpoint. 

The difference between the boresight difference and your engagement distance may be introducing some parallax to the mav seeker. 

 

[BIGNEWY]

On 7/5/2025 at 10:41 PM, alistairm said:

Hey everyone I'm starting to learn macricks and have hit a wall i think its somthing im doing. 

So I do start up and the boresight the mavricks but have noticed when I fly after my steerpoint are all well out of whack there fine on the  right nav all line up but on the FCR and helmet there well out i can't see to correct it. Like I said it must be me but in not sure what im doing. 

 

Thank you everyone 

Hi, 

please include a track replay example and we will take a look, see if we can give you any pointers. 

thank you 

[alistairm]

hi everyone thank you all so much for your comments as I said it was 100% me I wasn't pressing cursor zero after.  

thank you all for your help!

[Nialfb]

When I cold start, I always align my HMD. I have set up a vehicle about three miles from the end of the runway so I can boresight my Mavericks prior to takeoff. I use the latest procedure for boresighting. When I reach the target area the maverick is pointing in the vicinity of the target according to the TGP, but it is never actually on the target. I align the maverick manually and press the alignment button again. I fire, hit the target , CABOOMBIE and all that. Select the next target and the Maverick is off again according to the TGP.

When using the D type I have the TGP set to AUTO and the Maverick set to PRE. When using the H type I have the TGP set to MAN and the Maverick set to PRE. I understand that the Maverick has to be in range for the AUTO handoff to work on the D type andAUTO handoff does not work on the H type.

I'm convinced that the alignment process does not workcorrectly when cold starting. I am using the old targeting pod and D type mavericks.

Regards

Edited Thursday at 12:02 PM by Nialfb

[RyanR]

56 minutes ago, Nialfb said:

When I cold start, I always align my HMD. I have set up a vehicle about three miles from the end of the runway so I can boresight my Mavericks prior to takeoff. I use the latest procedure for boresighting. When I reach the target area the maverick is pointing in the vicinity of the target according to the TGP, but it is never actually on the target. I align the maverick manually and press the alignment button again. I fire, hit the target , CABOOMBIE and all that. Select the next target and the Maverick is off again according to the TGP.

When using the D type I have the TGP set to AUTO and the Maverick set to PRE. When using the H type I have the TGP set to MAN and the Maverick set to PRE. I understand that the Maverick has to be in range for the AUTO handoff to work on the D type andAUTO handoff does not work on the H type.

I'm convinced that the alignment process does not workcorrectly when cold starting. I am using the old targeting pod and D type mavericks.

Regards

 

Ground boresight is at least part of your problem. For months, I did exactly as you are: place a ground target and boresight before takeoff. When I started bore-sighting from altitude at 10 miles off, I was blown away by how the Maverick seeker looked almost exactly on target. Night and day.

Another problem with auto-handoff is making sure the Maverick seeker is "zoomed" to the narrow FOV, with good contrast. That'll make it much easier for the Maverick to grab the centroid of the target.

-Ryan  

[Nialfb]

Hi RyanR

When I select the first target in the TGP, I find the Maverick is off slightly, not by a huge mount but enough. I correct the Maverick and re-boresight. You'd think that would do it, but I have to do it again on the next target. If I'm lucky. that will do it, but not always, especially if I've been manouvering. If I select the first target, make any necessary corrections and then use active pause. all the other targets behave!

I use narrow FOV almost exclusively due to being as blind as a bat! I'm that guy who has to turn on labels just to find a target! 

This is my practice mission.

F-16C Boresight.miz

BTW ... I might just be imagining it but I think the mavericks align better if I have the laser turned on.

Edited Thursday at 08:04 PM by Nialfb

[Nialfb]

On 7/10/2025 at 7:40 PM, alistairm said:

hi everyone thank you all so much for your comments as I said it was 100% me I wasn't pressing cursor zero after.  

thank you all for your help!

Hi alistairm

What do you mean "I wasn't pressing cursor zero after"? Do you mean you weren't pressing TMS-down after you had carried out the boresight and before changing wing stations? I've been through my training mission dozens of times and the mavericks do not boresight.

 

[Gilligan]

I'm at work and do not have the ability to view your track replay at present, however I believe what you're experiencing is parallax. 

 

The maverick seeker head(s) and the TGP do not share the exact same line of sight to a point on the ground, there is a difference in position for each of the optics.  This means that after you boresight them at a given distance, looking at or trying to lock a target at a different distance will introduce SOME error called "parallax" (the effect whereby the position or direction of an object appears to differ when viewed from different positions, e.g. through the viewfinder and the lens of a camera.) 

The amount of parallax error varies with the difference from your boresight range that you are trying to ID/Lock/Engage a ground target. 

 

The reason it "behaves" how you want to when using the active pause is that you are at a single, steady, and unchanging distance to the group of targets (the few dozen feet difference between the targets is negligible).  Where-as when you are actively flying, you could be anywhere between 15+ to 5 miles from your intended target depending on your approach & etc. 

I usually try and boresight my mavs right around 8-10nm, and try and lock targets at that same distance. 

3 minutes ago, Nialfb said:

Hi alistairm

What do you mean "I wasn't pressing cursor zero after"? Do you mean you weren't pressing TMS-down after you had carried out the boresight and before changing wing stations? I've been through my training mission dozens of times and the mavericks do not boresight.

 

As far as I can tell, he was not cursor-zeroing the SPI after initiating a pint/area/INS track on a location with the TGP (or other sensor), causing the offsets to remain in effect with all other steerpoints in his flight plan. 

[Nialfb]

Hi Gilligan

I have followed the boresight procedure to the letter when carrying out the procedure on the ground and I also carry out the boresight again when I lock onto a target. When I watch YouTube videos of maverick tutorials they always seem to be bang on. I'll take more notice of distance to target in the future and see if that makes any difference. I'm not saying the difference between the maverick and TGP are miles out, but enough to be annoying. I also find that undesignating the target in the weapons MFD and re-locking sometimes forces it to look to the correct target.

Anyway, thanks for your input.

BTW ... I saved a track of my complete mission but when it got to the boresight part the track went weird and it looked like I was boresighting 25 yards away from the target! I hadn't of course and I'd aligned both the TGP and the maverick perfectly. I've added the track if anyone want to take a look. Be warned, it's quite long 

F-16C Boresight.trk

[Nialfb]

I just had a thought after my last post. In my training mission, my targets are quite close together. As the maverick locks on by contrast, perhaps I'm being a little unrealistic to expect it to lock onto the exact target according to the TGP. Even in AUTO I assume the maverick will still lock onto the highest contrast target in that particular area.

[Gilligan]

8 hours ago, Nialfb said:

Hi Gilligan

I have followed the boresight procedure to the letter when carrying out the procedure on the ground and I also carry out the boresight again when I lock onto a target. When I watch YouTube videos of maverick tutorials they always seem to be bang on. I'll take more notice of distance to target in the future and see if that makes any difference. I'm not saying the difference between the maverick and TGP are miles out, but enough to be annoying. I also find that undesignating the target in the weapons MFD and re-locking sometimes forces it to look to the correct target.

Anyway, thanks for your input.

BTW ... I saved a track of my complete mission but when it got to the boresight part the track went weird and it looked like I was boresighting 25 yards away from the target! I hadn't of course and I'd aligned both the TGP and the maverick perfectly. I've added the track if anyone want to take a look. Be warned, it's quite long 

F-16C Boresight.trk 21.07 MB · 0 downloads

In my experience you will not get a good boresight alignment on the ground, as it is not really possible, in most cases, to grab a point far enough out. Most anything you can grab while on the ground is going to be within one nautical mile. I prefer to do my boresight in the air, especially if I can find something that is already damaged or destroyed and I can easily see it's smoke plume. 

 

However if you are re-boresighting while in the air and attacking a target that SHOULD be pretty close. Just pay attention to the range you are finishing the boresight.

For the most part, what you are describing is fiarly typical behavior that I would expect from the maverick.