Units that exercised A2A Roles are short aircraft.
As new EX’s arrive into the fleet, the Es are going to be stripped of the CFTs and sent to the A2A Role.
Those CFT’s will then be attached to the EX’s to Continue their Primary Role.
A CFT Stripped E would still be an upgrade over the C’s for A2A, Granted it’s a Hand Me Down Upgrade Situation…
But At least the USAF is being smart about it this time around…
Dont pull a USMC and Retire a bunch of their fleet, in anticipation of a new fighter, then have fleet readiness problems, and force the USN to retire their Fleet early to send you parts…
Well, at least the Strike Eagle proved that you can make a great ground pounder out of a fighter airframe. The Tornado F2/3 proves that it doesn’t work all that well when you try to do it the other way around. … and yes, I know the Tornado F2/3 was technically an interceptor…
F-16A was soley a Fighter… from the LWF Program, A2G was an After thought…
F-16’s now are like Honda Civic’s of the Airforce, you could go on ebay as a general and find avionics and body kit parts to upgrade it with and tack onto the airframe…
What your friend did was that he controlled the aircraft through the Control Augmentation System (CAS).
The F-15 CAS utilizes series authority in all three axes. This simply means that the primary surface actuators contain an electronically controlled input to the actuator which can move the surface without pilot control stick motion
The pitch CAS channel detects a pilot pitch force command on the stick and converts this into an electrical command at approximately 3.75 lb/g. As the aircraft begins to respond, g and pitch rate “feed back” against the command signal so as to maintain a given Fs/g and damping characteristic. The hydro-mechanical system is continuing to function as previously described even though the series actuator is fine-tuning the pitch handling qualities through the CAS
It appears QTY is pulses. I set up with 12 MK82 and set to AUTO and Multiple Ripple and set QTY to 6. Press an hold the pickle button and…12 bombs off and falling.
Reset with the same config, but this time set QTY to 3. Press and hold pickle button and 6 bombs off and falling, no more no less.
I must admit that seems backwards to me. The C’s are older than the E’s and the EX’s are being built to replace them.
So why would E’s be moved to the C units and EX’s sent to the E units? To make sure the A2A guys have the oldest stuff?
I thought the EXs were going to the C units and the E’s were staying as is.
EX’s are going to Former C units,
C Units are Flying Es w/ CFTs removed to prepare for flying EXs with no CFTs.
ACC Decided that the EXs don’t need the CFTs, and didn’t purchase them for Phase I of the C to EX transition.
whether or not they are purchased separately down the road is another story.
The EXs replacing Cs, happened because EXs would have significantly longer life vs the cost of upgrading old airframes.
Nice kneeboard checklists. I was making my own based on the Notso video and the manual, but these seem complete enough.
Transcribed the RAZBAM manual.
Edit: I’ve settled on the bottom one, now that the author has added WSO items needed for departure and single pilot ops. Not that I wouldn’t mind having a WSO.
But since the second one is published as a single 16 page PDF, how do you get that into DCS kneeboard format with a file drag and a few clicks? With Kneeboard Builder for DCS World of course. Easy peasy.
Download, unzip, and drop Kneeboard Builder files in the folder of your choice. Run the program, click Options > Preferences and set your DCS root folder and your Saved Games folder (not \Saved Games\DCS World).
Drag and drop any PDF file that you want to be made ins the middle of Kneeboard Folder Import/HMTL area. The will launch a dialog box asking three things, the Aircraft, a Group name (collection of files that you want to be a kneeboard for the PDF you are using), and how you want to handle conflicts (Create new, merge with existing, or overwrite). If this is the first time you are using Kneeboard Builder, chose Create. The program is smart enough to split up the pages of the PDF into separate kneeboard pages.
Once your kneeboard is created, click View > Group Folder and you will find the kneeboard you created.
Drop the kneeboard files into your “\Save Games\DCS.openbeta\Kneeboard\F-15ESE” folder. Now no excuses for not learning cold & dark startup.
There is a lot more to Kneeboard Builder than quick imports, like building custom kneeboards.
It is really easy to loft bombs and the jet has great kinematics to throw stuff. But I found it very difficult to get a good egress profile while designating for lofted LGBs. Bombs lofted from afar fly for a long time, the aircraft is moving away from the target very fast and the targeting pod has pretty poor coverage to the rear. I always end up masking the pod for the last 10 seconds. It will be very interesting to see a good profile that works without hanging around over the target excessively. I think the F-111 with Pave Tack could actually designate pretty well to the rear.
You can actually disable EGI (GPS) navigation in flight and revert to INS which drifts quite significantly. After updating the nav system you only have a couple of minutes until the drift makes AUTO releases of dumb bombs against designated targets unfeasible. In the Mission Editor you can even set the amount of time an aircraft was supposed to be in the air at mission start, with the appropriate INS drift. This is pretty cool stuff, as it gives significance to working the A/G radar and keeping the system updated. GPS basically renders the A/G radar pointless, at least against pre-planned targets.
AUTO releases still seem to be somewhat buggy. Have have seen some funky stuff with the ASL after updating the INS. Target diamond on target, distance and time to release indications all correct but the steering line was way off and would sway around depending on aircraft pitch. I also had issues in MP with CCIP releases, which would drop target designations way off target (1 NM, sometimes even 200 NM). But I am sure this stuff will be resolved eventually.
I’ve been on the road and just catching up.
When I made that durandal runway strike video, I had played around with the various menu and fuzing settings for 10-15 minutes while following the provided manual and everything appeared to work as described. But I’m not saying you’re wrong either. Could be a bug in there? It’s early access and all this could change down the road. Knowing RAZBAM’s record, likely… (tongue in cheek)
… and yes, I know the Tornado F2/3 was technically an interceptor…
It’s early access and all this could change down the road. Knowing RAZBAM’s record, likely… (tongue in cheek)