JCook Posted January 21, 2011 Share Posted January 21, 2011 Pages 168-245 detailing the CDU and primarily navigation inofrmation is absolutely brutal reading. Seems to be very complex navigation system and not at all user friendly. How much information from those pages needs to be learned? Are there some CDU basics for navigation I need to know up front? And maybe learn the rest later? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WarriorX Posted January 21, 2011 Share Posted January 21, 2011 One of the first things I learned to do on the CDU is to switch the automatic steerpoint switching off. I prefer to have control on switching steerpoints. To turn the automatic steerpoint switching function to manual follow these steps: 1. Locate the FPM button. (look for a row of buttons below the CDU display and above the alphanumeric entry blocks) 2. Press the FPM button and look up on the CDU display and you will now see up near the top left Line Select Key (LSK) something like 01 AUTO. 3. Press the LSK next to 01 AUTO and it will change to 01 MAN 4.Now that you have manual control over the steerpoint switching you can hit the PREV key which is right next to the FPM key. This will take you back to the original CDU display page. (IMPORTANT! Only hit the PREV key once from this point as a second hit of the PREV key will restart the CDU initialization from scratch.) 1 [sIGPIC][/sIGPIC] "Is that you John Wayne?.......Is this me?" Full Metal Jacket //My Mission Data Card//My Cold Start Checklist //Clearing a Hung Store Tutorial //CDU Offset//Asterisk Error Correction Procedure//JTAC UTM Coordinate Entry Tutorial//JTAC 9 Line Lat Long Coordinate Entry Tutorial Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Conure Posted January 21, 2011 Share Posted January 21, 2011 Absolutely agree, i'm learning it because it was mentioned in another thread and I think it may help my target acquisition...Took a break after page 5...Makes my undergrad degree look positively riveting! Intel i7 6700k, Asus GTX1070, 16gb DDR4 @ 3200mhz, CH Fighterstick, CH Pro Throttle, CH Pro Rudder Pedals, Samsung Evo 850 SSD @ 500GB * 2, TrackIR 5 and 27" monitor running at 2560 * 1440, Windows 10. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steel Jaw Posted January 21, 2011 Share Posted January 21, 2011 The CDU can be confusing but I am finding that the majority of its functionality is near useless. As well, a crew chief told me recently that even the RL Hawg pilots can get confused by the CDU. "You see, IronHand is my thing" My specs: W10 Pro, I5/11600K o/c to 4800 @1.32v, 64 GB 3200 XML RAM, ASUS RTX3060ti/8GB. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JCook Posted January 21, 2011 Author Share Posted January 21, 2011 WarriorX - thanks that is a useful tip. Making the mistake of restarting the CDU initialization from scratch would probably be bad. Conure - The thing about those pages are that its menu and submenu options / descriptions and you don't necessarily see the practical use of those options until the other chapters. I'll probably write up step-by-step guides for the various things I need to do in the cockpit to help me learn. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scoochy Posted January 21, 2011 Share Posted January 21, 2011 (edited) Aside from markpoint and steerpoints, the CDU is about as handy as the windshield washing switch. Like the infomercial, set it and forget it. If it could do this, it would be a whole other story. Unless you're learning it for GP. Edited January 22, 2011 by scoochy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geskes Posted January 22, 2011 Share Posted January 22, 2011 (edited) The CDU can be confusing but I am finding that the majority of its functionality is near useless. Respectfully disagree on that one. The useless functionality (for us) is the ground crew stuff which is mostly non functional in sim. All the rest is super cool stuff. waypoint and flightplan management is the most obvious one but there is more. Play around with offset page for example. It allows you to enter a reference point (waypoint, bullseye, whatever you like) and then a secondary point and it will give you heading and distance between the two. This you can use for example to determine egress heading from an attack run toward the next waypoint. You'll know what heading to turn to exactly in advance. The best part is that it also works the other way. So if you input the bullseye as the reference and then enter a heading and distance in HHHDDD format it will actually give you the coordinates and you can store them as a waypoint. Now thats handy for bullseye calls to keep track of OPFOR positions called out by AI. Then if you know where they are moving, you can enter that heading from the new waypoint and estimate how far they will travel while enroute, make a waypoint from that, put these in a flightplan and there you have a line on the TAD that indicates your search area. Also the time page is nice. Suppose you get delayed because of buggy AI ground traffic ;) and your mission timing is off. Put in this page the time delay and you have an actual schedule again. Negative values allowed. :D I agree though that the CDU chapter can be confusing, it doesnt list practical procedures, it is a summing up of every button function on every screen. Its use is not discussed. Be creative and you'll find use for that thing. PS the tooltips for the CDU are dynamic, I found them to be more helpful in delving into the thing then the actual CDU chapter. Read the chapter briefly, then just go check out the tooltips. Edited January 22, 2011 by Geskes I7920/12GBDDR3/ASUS P6T DELUXE V2/MSI GTX 960 GAMING 4G /WIN 10 Ultimate/TM HOTAS WARTHOG Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ED Team Wags Posted January 22, 2011 ED Team Share Posted January 22, 2011 Pages 168-245 detailing the CDU and primarily navigation inofrmation is absolutely brutal reading. Seems to be very complex navigation system and not at all user friendly. How much information from those pages needs to be learned? Are there some CDU basics for navigation I need to know up front? And maybe learn the rest later? That chapter is for reference. You may want to review the Navigation chapter for most common CDU actions. Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/wagmatt Twitch: wagmatt System: https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?p=3729544#post3729544 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snoopy Posted January 22, 2011 Share Posted January 22, 2011 The CDU can be confusing but I am finding that the majority of its functionality is near useless. As well, a crew chief told me recently that even the RL Hawg pilots can get confused by the CDU. I wonder who that was :megalol: v303d Fighter Group Discord | Virtual 303d Fighter Group Website | v303rd Fighter Group Twitter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jinro Posted January 22, 2011 Share Posted January 22, 2011 Just out of curiosity (as I don't actually have any of the betas; waiting for the final release), do you have to actually take your hands off the stick, grab the mouse and click said buttons, or are there any keyboard shortcuts? It would seem a bit clumsy to me if the former were true. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snoopy Posted January 22, 2011 Share Posted January 22, 2011 Just out of curiosity (as I don't actually have any of the betas; waiting for the final release), do you have to actually take your hands off the stick, grab the mouse and click said buttons, or are there any keyboard shortcuts? It would seem a bit clumsy to me if the former were true. I use Helios and only remove my hand from the throttle to type on my CDU. v303d Fighter Group Discord | Virtual 303d Fighter Group Website | v303rd Fighter Group Twitter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jinro Posted January 22, 2011 Share Posted January 22, 2011 Helios? Is that a type of joystick? I've got an X52, but for some stupid reason the mouse on the throttle won't work anymore. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nomdeplume Posted January 22, 2011 Share Posted January 22, 2011 HELIOS is software for placing aircraft instrumentation on a touchscreen for I/O. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geskes Posted January 22, 2011 Share Posted January 22, 2011 Just out of curiosity (as I don't actually have any of the betas; waiting for the final release), do you have to actually take your hands off the stick, grab the mouse and click said buttons, or are there any keyboard shortcuts? It would seem a bit clumsy to me if the former were true. You can program one of the buttons on your stick as a modifier (control setup > modifiers). You can now map every keyboard key and joystick key with a new command for when the modifier is held down. So you would select CDU Panel from the drop down menu in the control setup menu and just program it all :D In this way I programmed all CDU keys with a modifier on my keyboard and the UFC on the numerical keypad. This allows me to type with my left hand on the keyboard, thus keeping hands on stick, and not using the mouse. I can browse pages, enter text, coordinates etc. 1 I7920/12GBDDR3/ASUS P6T DELUXE V2/MSI GTX 960 GAMING 4G /WIN 10 Ultimate/TM HOTAS WARTHOG Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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