By the G pulling balls of Olds, why no F-4 in DCS?

The Pave Spike pod was pretty basic. It could be cued to a point on the ground using the WRCS and A/G radar, and kept there via the INS (kinda), or pointed to 12 o’clock (pilot put the target in the gunsight so the WSO could pick it up and start tracking) or 9 o’clock (pod pointed level at 9 - you put a grease pencil mark on the canopy during ground ops, and the pilot put the target in that “sight” off his left shoulder, the WSO then had to find it in the TV and track it. No automatic tracking, you took control of the pod LOS with the radar hand controller, and kept the crosshairs on the target during lasing until impact. Took a lot more skill than today’s fancy Sniper and Litening pods!

The pilot could see the same TV video as the WSO in his cockpit display, so could help a bit in finding the target. On odd feature is that the pod was not roll-compensated, so the image was often upside down or backwards…could really mess up your head in a pop-up delivery!

I never did any AGM-45s, but from the -34, when setup you could hear a radar that the missile was tracking in your headset, then you centered the ADI steering bars to setup the attack in pitch and yaw, then shot on preplanned parameters. Need to find an old F-4G guy to explain more. He would know about AGM-78s - they are not in the E TO (probably G only).

The AGM-65s (and my -34 covers As, Bs, and Ds) could be employed form either cockpit. The Pilot selected TV on his display, selected the station he wanted to shoot, blew the dome cover and uncaged the seeker with the trigger, held down the AAR button to enable slew, then used the old Bullpup handle in front of the throttles to slew the seeker onto the target. Releasing the AAR button locked on, and pressing the bomb pickle button launched the missile.

From the backseat it was essentially the same, instead the WSO used the radar control handle on the right console; blow dome and uncage with the rear stick trigger, trigger on the radar handle to slew enable, slew seeker on the target with the radar handle, release the trigger to lock on, then launch the missile with the bomb button on the WSOs stick.

Odd difference was how the front seat slew controller worked compared to the back seat. In the front, it used “Pilot Logic”; moving the little stick forward moved the seeker head (crosshairs) down, as if it was a little RC airplane with a TV. In the back seat, the radar handle used “WSO Logic”: move the stick.forward, and the image moved down, which looked like the crosshairs moved “up”. So you had to think that you were “slewing the image to the crosshairs”, while the pilot had to “slew the crosshairs to the target”. Weird at first, but you got used to it.

I wouldn’t get all tied up in block numbers - those are mainly production lots and most mods were done retroactively (the Dash 1 lists all the tail number for each mod). I would hope to get a slatted, DSCG (radar/TV) scope, Tiseo, Pave Spike/AGM-65 smoky jet, not the later ARN-101 mod (which had the GBU-15 and Pave Tack, as well as LORAN, etc). Pretty representative of late Vietnam configuration. The ARN-101 mod didn’t hit the fleet until the mid - 80s.

Fun digging out the old TOs and figuring out how it used to work. I have forgotten so much!

Cheers,

Vulture

komemiute · July 20, 2017, 9:04am

That guy is a gold mine.

chipwich · July 20, 2017, 1:16pm

Very much agree. I wish so much that my dad was still with us. In his last two tours out of Ubon in the early 70s, they were using a lot of new technology like Pave Knife and Spike. If memory serves, they would most often use a two-ship, with one designated a shooter and the other lase. Then switch roles. I should dig through his docs to see if I can find any AAR type material. There is one of his fellow Phantom drivers living a few miles from me in his mid 80s. Need to invite him over to the house and have him try the MilViz F-4E with Oculus.

I haven’t seen it mentioned yet, but I think that they were also using LORAN to drop slicks, maybe during his '68 tour at Da Nang.

Aginor · July 20, 2017, 2:31pm

From what I read in “War for the hell of it” the very first Paveways must have been quite some work as well.
Really interesting times for fighter bomber pilots because all those new guided weapons were coming, and while they looked promising they had quite a lot of quirks.

Brix · July 24, 2017, 9:41am

The RAF perspective - Tally-ho, chaps!:

(note the simulator from 21:30 and the hook landing from 30:50)

near_blind · August 6, 2017, 7:14am

Belsimtek has further elucidated upon their Phantom. Tl;dr: Late model ARN-101 update with DMAS, so AGM-45, AGM-65, GBU-15, Paveways, Pave Tack, TISEO, rudimentary CCIP.

The F-4 Phantom II is considered one of the greatest and most versatile jet fighters for its time. Conceived during peacetime, it served as an interceptor, strike and reconnaissance aircraft, and was the second most produced jet fighter after the North American F-86 Sabre. The Phantom II was one of the largest postwar programs with a total 5,195 aircraft constructed — 5,057 built by the McDonnell Corporation and 138 under license, by Mitsubishi Aircraft in Japan. It was first fighter aircraft to fly simultaneously with the US Navy Blue Angels as well as the USAF Thunderbirds, and was the first US Navy fighter to be adopted by the USAF. By January 1962, it was flying with three branches of the military — the US Navy, USAF and USMC.

It could carry a bomb-load greater than the Boeing B-29 Superfortress, and served with twelve nations including Great Britain, West Germany, Spain, Australia, Greece, Turkey, Israel, Egypt, Iran, Japan and South Korea. It was first in many areas of aerospace engineering innovations that would go on to break fifteen world aviation performance records. The Phantom II was the first fighter aircraft to be completely reliant on its own radar and detection systems.

The developed modification F-4E is equipped with the DMAS (Digital Modular Avionics System) AN / ARN-101.

The Digital Modular Avionics System (DMAS) is an integrated navigation and weapon delivery system installed to enhance the all-weather capability of the aircraft. The DMAS replaces the existing navigation computer (AN/ ASN-46A), inertial navigation set (AN/ASN-63), and weapon release computer set (AN/ASQ-91). In addition, the DMAS provides a self-contained, automatic computer approach-to-landing-mode.

DMAS is integrated with the radar AN/APQ-120, optical sight AN/ASG-26.

The presence of an optoelectronic system AN/ASX-1 Target Identification System Electro – Optical (TISEO), which is installed in the leading edge of the left wing, allows to detect air targets at long distances.

Against air targets, the aircraft is armed with AIM-9, AIM-7 missiles and M61 Vulcan gun.

For ground strikes, the aircraft can use a large range of weapons that includes conventional and guided aircraft bombs, bomb containers, unguided rockets, gun (gun containers SUU-16/A), guided missiles AGM-65 Maverick and AGM-45 Shrike.

This modification is also able to use a guided bomb GBU-15.

For detection and target designation, an AN/AVQ-26 optical-electronic container can be suspended on the central pylon.

As a means of EW, up to two AN / ALQ-131 containers can be suspended.

Pleasure in flights,
Belsimtek team

Exterior and cockpit F-4E (WIP).

https://belsimtek.com/news/1787/

@Bogusheadbox tl;dr: Crikey mate, It goes fast, carries a bunch of bombs, and has a Pave Tack. Stone the crows, you’re two swinging wings and a jar of vegemite from one of these!

komemiute · August 6, 2017, 10:11am

Yeah. Ok. No worries @Belsimtek… who cares about old Komemiute here… Nonono I don’t deserve any A-6 apparently.
Just go ok making the favourite airframe of everyone here EXCEPT mine…
See if I care…

Brix · August 6, 2017, 10:14am

I don’t see a Jaguar?

komemiute · August 6, 2017, 10:15am

Pfffft probably monday’s schedule update or something.

(All in good humor, it’s a running gag between me and the guys )

Brix · August 6, 2017, 10:17am

MBot · August 6, 2017, 10:35am

Phantastic, they picked the best possible Phantom version in my opinion. GBU-15 is going to be super fun in multiplayer. One human WSO will be able to guide the bombs from all aircraft in the flight.

chipwich · August 6, 2017, 12:24pm

Ahhh, proper 4th TFW paint and did he said unguided rockets? Yes he did…

Dad mounting his 335th F-4E sporting a bunch of rocket pods.

tempusmurphy · August 6, 2017, 12:32pm

too much news about the F4 here … but where is the news about the Hind

Brix · August 6, 2017, 12:58pm

The shame is, if it had been anything other than an -E or -F, we could have made a believable FG.1 or FGR.2 out of it. As it is, well, we can’t.