Navigating

[rddaos]

I asked this question accidentally in the tech support area and maybe that's why I got very little feedback. So I hope I'll get better feedback in this part of the forum. Here goes. I am new to DCS A10, and I want to create a training regimen for myself. I want to begin by practicing navigating, later move on to practicing weapons.

 

Can someone please suggest a series of progressively more difficult navigation challenges that would and cover all the basic principles of navigation in the A10C? For example:

 

1. Start with practicing flying the flight plan that loads with the data cartridge

2. Next, practice taking bullseye offset calls over the radios and locating the target.

3. Next ....

 

Etc.

 

Something like that would be really helpful for me.

 

Oh and one last question, a guy told me that I should forget about practicing bullseye offsets because I won't need them with the digital TAD screen. Any ideas what this guy was talking about? Why wouldn't I need bullseye offsets?

 

Thanks!

[LostOblivion]

First of all, you need bullseye navigation in DCSW, but your CDU can do most of the work for you. All you need to do is enter the CDU OFFSET page, select the BULLSEYE as initial point, and then type in HHHRR in the other field, where HHH is heading from bulls, and RR is range from bulls, then press ?X* on the right side, where X is the next available wp #, and voila, a wp on the bulls call.

[rddaos]

Thanks LostOblivion. I will indeed practice the bullseye offsets. Are there any OTHER major principles of navigation that I'll need to practice? I mean aside from approaches and landing. If I learn how to fly the flight plan that loads with the data cartridge and take bullseye offsets, am I good to go with navigating (ignoring takeoff, approach, and landing)? Something tells me there are more principles of navigating I need to practice for the enroute part of the flight.

 

For example, what kind of typical situation would I be in where I would need to create a flight plan from scratch using the CDU?? The flight plan is usually part of the mission info loaded automatically with the data cartridge, so why would the A10 pilot bother with creating a new flight plan itself?

 

Secondly, there are tutorials that instruct me on how to search the CDU waypoint database (which contains up to 2500 waypoints). Under what circumstances would the pilot be searching the waypoint database? Perhaps I might receive instructions over the radio to provide support at waypoint POTI? Is that how it works? Thanks!