So what is kinda crazy here is that me and @Franze we’re discussing the Hornet gun one day on Discord and I linked a video of Discovery Canada’s JETSTREAM episode 8, where the student pilots practice strafing runs in CF-18s. Guess what video Wags linked in the description? The exact same video.
Here it is. You can skip to about 17:30 in.
That’s a great series, I watched it, like, 10 times or so.
“Was that a girl?”…
Classic 
Yea, part of the problem of having a small military is the attitude often modernizes even slower than the out of date equipment.
I thought it was great as well!
What’s sad is they did a DVD set that isn’t around anymore, nor does it seem to be hosted on any service. The company that made the series appears to have been bought out.
Alas, the fine gentleman on YouTube fortunately saved it for public viewing!
Hey everyone, I want to give you a little Hornet update on the targeting pod and other items coming to the F/A-18C. After talking with the team today, the Litening targeting pod will need a bit more time in the oven before we can release it. Given how integral this feature will be for the product, we want to further flesh it out before releasing into an open beta. We do apologize for this delay. Please note that all dates and time projections are best estimates at the time and can change. I mention this a bit here: Viper Mini-Updates - DCS: F-16C Viper - ED Forums
In parallel though, other tasks are steaming ahead like new features for the SA page including STEP, EXP, TXDSG, and other elements to complete this system. We are also making great progress on the Harpoon and it went into internal testing today. As noted, before, initial implementation of the air-to-ground radar rendering technology is now being used to create the Real Beam (RB) mode for the radar. Once RB mode is done, we can then use that as the foundation for other modes like SEA, EXP, GMTI, etc. On the GPS-weapon front, work continues on dynamic launch zones for JDAM and JSOW, Track While Scan (TWS) radar mode is underway, and other items and bug fixes.
Thanks,
Wags
It’s cool with me. No hurry at all tbh, rather see it well done than rushed out half-baked.
Ground radar! yay! Extremely happy to read there’s movement on that front!
Next you’ll be telling us the FLIR rework is nearly done, night lighting and rendering of lights at night is going to get fixed and the DC is about to prototype!
We are going to wake up one day and the completed Hornet will be “legacy” like the A-10C. Dynamic campaign will be out and budget VR will be clear as glass.
It goes by so fast already, not in any hurry for that day to come.
Take your time…as they say…
Hey everyone,
Probably the the most anticipated new feature of the Hornet is the targeting pod. As mentioned earlier, we will start with the Litening pod due to it being used by the USMC and similar to what we already created for the A-10C (hardly a cut-and-paste though). Attached is an image of it in action.
It is important to understand that this is neither an ATFLIR or Litening pod ala A-10C. It is a Litening pod that uses standardized Hornet Mission Computer (MC) data export.
Most of the core AG functions are in the game and working, with the big ones still being worked on being the setting a Target Point via the TGP (critical for AUTO and TOO mode attacks) and, AREA vs POINT tracking . After the initial release, we will continue to flesh out the pod to include AA mode, control pages, and additional functions/symbols.
Our engineer assigned to the pod is working very, very hard on this and we are pushing to release it as soon as possible.
Thanks,
Wags
Can somebody with more smarts than me explain what exactly this means?
Wild guess, but features we have for the LITENING pod on the A-10C won’t be the same or available to the F/A-18. A kind of “basic TGP” interface that can work with a variety of pods, but not utilize any advanced features.
Thanks for the heads-up Nineline, always appreciated.
At least it has forced me to learn how to use the UFC for JDAM and JSOW.
I’m too lazy to do all that typing 
ooooh TGP! saw that it was in the changelog
…and there was much rejoicing 
That aint hard at all. Was pleasantly surprised to find the laser behaves like the one on the hog does in manual, latched mode.
I turned the kit off after expending 8 gbu-16s on the range for a landing and reload. Somehow the laser arm switch refused to go to the armed position after takeoff.
