F4E - Navigation Kneeboard - Waypoint Leg/Distance and selectable speed - thoughts?

[Hawkeye_UK]

Heatblur, hope this finds you all well !

 

Many thanks for taking my recomendations with the flight computer last year, I note on revisiting them recently it is far superior to use with the clickable values.

I have another request, which "should" be relatively straight forward, or certainly for you guys.

The large joy of this module is to be able to navigate correctly to target and is critical for its attack runs.  I note in reality a good few hours preflight would be designated to route selection, map making and cutting, choosing the nav points from the terrain profiles and then working back from target for good offsets/nav fixes and final IP's to begin attack runs.  So that from this a kneeboard can be made with the drawn legs with timings, heading, dangers etc etc.

However at present, especially in VR it is very problematic for this information to be calculated and referenced.  Given that the game engine stores in GPS format (a joy) there are formula's out there that will calculate a magnetic heading and distance from point A to point B.  Given that we can plan a route in the mission editor, or indeed from the F10 map - can we in the back end populate this into the kneeboard.  It would be a quantum shift in ease/reality especially for those of us that cannot say spend an hour planning the "mission" first and measuring marking legs with distance and bearing.  So with the time players have they could concentrate on route selection, but then the "donkey work" would be completed and be able to referenced inflight.  It also stops us having to reference the F10 (which in itself is a cheat mode) during "flight".  This could really be represented on one page (an additional bonus would be for it to be split in addition onto the map pages within the kneeboard itself).  It would be a huge help for either single crew flight, or for a nav alike that flies in VR.

It would be most beneficial for just about every single phantom player that really wants to play with the module in the spirit of true gen 3 aviation.

It would with this data then be very simple to have to additional boxes on right hand side, that you could select airspeeds, say 420, 480, 540 (ideally starting at 360 in clicklable 20 knot increments to say 600) that would then populate a time for that leg.

This is bare bones, currently i tend to use 450, 480 (8 miles a minute) and finally 540 for attack runs (9 miles a min) as it gives easy timing on the fly.

 

PS Note to map developers - when you build a map start putting in the aerial masts that are shown on pilot charts, every time a new map comes out i end up populating it with around 40+ of them lol as they make great VRP's.

Edited July 20 by Hawkeye_UK

[Karon]

Apologies, but I don't understand why you cannot do this stuff before the mission, and then load the results in the kneeboard.

[Hawkeye_UK]

3 hours ago, Karon said:

Apologies, but I don't understand why you cannot do this stuff before the mission, and then load the results in the kneeboard.

without using any other third party app or having to insert files into a saved games folder, please explain how waypoints set either in the mission editor or mission planner tool would then give leg distance, bearing of each waypoint and this be loaded into the kneeboard prior to takeoff, and easily available during play?

If you read my post, you will note time and also VR considerations.  Note personally i use open kneeboard and also have a drawing pad/stylus that can write into that directly - however most players will not.  This is not about what i want, but what is better for the module and players in general with simple improvements.

This is about getting basic information calculations into the kneeboard from the off, which is easy for a PC to do if you have known GPS positions.  Having the bearing, and distance to the next waypoint as part of the kneeboard would be invaluable.  

It was then a logical progression to have a speed table to calculate times on the fly in a vertical column, or even two columns would make sense.  Again i do that myself and have experience, but this is about making it more realistic and helpful to the majority.

It wouldnt be too much of a push to have a base fuel calculation either for each waypoint.

[Karon]

Calm down, son. Catch a deep breath rather than going full reheat against someone who started with "Apologies". Also, it is a legit question since this has been done for what, 17 years? You know, copy coordinates either directly from the game or to a piece of paper, plan before the mission itself on the F10 map, Google Maps, CFlite, and make your own spreadsheet. But you want something in-game, right? Is the ruler not enough? Drag a line and call it day. Why does that not work? You can also write the results on the canopy itself, instead of using openkneeboard. Actually, I will record a brief video to show you how you can open a map, drag a line, write two numbers. Already in-game, already in VR, takes a minute. This would be so much more coherent with your statement. Ad verbatim:

> It would be most beneficial for just about every single phantom player that really wants to play with the module in the spirit of true gen 3 aviation.

But I doubt you want that. In fact:

> This is about getting basic information calculations into the kneeboard from the off, which is easy for a PC to do if you have known GPS positions.  Having the bearing and distance to the next waypoint as part of the kneeboard would be invaluable. 

These are not really basic, but OK. If I understand correctly (my English is not great - "from the off"? Off mission, off track, off what?), you want something that knows your position as well. I thought we wanted a "true gen 3 aviation" experience here. Anyhow, since you want a GPS, the NS430 works perfectly (it also lets you cheat when updating the INS Fix, but don't tell any real pilot, they get mad because they never thought about it /s ). I have an F-4E/G EWO/WSO and a F-4F pilot who mentions that they used actual GPS in the Phantom in their career. If you want no GPS, then the solution is simple: INS, pilotage and DR.
But I see it's not over:

>  It was then a logical progression to have a speed table to calculate times on the fly in a vertical column, or even two columns would make sense. 

Ok, now you want multiple speeds. So, to recap the necessary parameters to do what you want, we need:

• TAS for each turn/leg;
• Course for each turn/leg;
• AoB/G for each turn/leg;
• Altitude for each turn/leg;
• MagVar for each turn/leg;
• Wind direction/speed for each turn/leg.

I can think of more parameters, but this should give a general idea. The first 4, besides the course, require manual input. Wind is interesting because it is a big factor that should be accounted for IRL. But wind changes. So, do you want it fetched in real time in DCS? What happens when the dynamic weather arrives? Anyway, the input part is getting crowded already. But then you want fuel as well. OK, easy to do. Should DI and weight be calculated in real time and fetched in DCS? Or at the beginning of the mission? Or at the first WP? Is the first IP the ingress/reference or just a turn? What if there is an AAR scheduled before or after? What if you are delayed? How do you plan for a dogleg/trombone fuel-wise? All these variables should be specified somewhere. This kneeboard is getting a tad tiny for the purpose.

 

However, up to here, it's all easy. But then the problems start: DCS players.
Imagine you build your mission and flight plan from the mission editor and share it. Altitude is 10,000ft, speed 360, 2000 ft 420 kts at the ingress, 540 kts at IP and delivery. Player A flies instead at 6,000 ft the whole mission and at 450 kts. The plan says he can make it fuel-wise, but he uses reheat for too long at departure, or perhaps loads a couple bombs more, and he runs out of fuel. The next thing he does is go and complain because the kneeboard doesn't work. I know because, throughout the years, I answered so many complaining about the AIM-54's crappy performance, when the fault was all theirs.
The alternative would be to recalculate everything in real time: positions, timing, fuel, speeds, DI, wind, magvar, et cetera. Feasible for sure, but then you are asking for functions present in the modern Hornet and a GPS. Not really "gen 3 aviation" vibes here. Why not use the NS430 at this point? It is actually realistic past a certain time frame.

The point I'm trying to make is quite simple: either devs make something very basic, like course and distance from the specified points and leave out player-influenced parameters, or you make a thorough tool. The former can be done already with no additional tools, both in VR and pancake, and takes a minute. Seriously, I'll put a video together when I have time.
The latter requires more work, but this must not be on HB's shoulders. It should be a concerted effort driven by ED. There should be a proper planning tool before pressing "Fly", opening a mission editor-like page, where all the parameters can be set. A nice, full-screen tool, with all the appropriate parameters, where the members of the package can be specified and the plan shared (not only across groups, as on casual servers, this does not work), and so on. Something that works across modules, with the option of having Jester ready to input coordinates right after startup, and creates a series of reference kneeboard pages.
Ideally, something that spits out something like this: https://flyandwire.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/low-level-planning-tool-launch-example-map.jpeg

It is quite simple to do, in my opinion (but of course, I don't know what's under the DCS hood, so it may be very complicated instead). It's all a matter of resources, priorities, and time. ED already has a lot to do in this regard. Nevertheless, a planning tool, a TacView and LotATC equivalents should be part of DCS already. The in-game VoIP is a good first step, but it'd be great to see more basic functionalities "returning to DCS". Again, this is not a 3rd party's job to do, no matter how cool and sexy they are

So, if you want something like that, I'm all aboard for it, just tell me where to sign. A kneeboard page instead is good to present an output, but there are too many parameters to be considered if you want to do a thorough job, and, imo, it is not worth the dev's time.

 

What do you think?

[Gunner0331]

Crickets...