We’ve learned a bit about the F-16C. How to start it…how to fly it…how to point it in the right direction…how to access some of the features via the UFC. Time to start exploring the capabilities. For doing some generic exploration of the radar of the F-16C and some of the weaponry…I’ll be using the really nice Squeaky’s Training Day Nevada Sandbox mission. This mission populates with a ton of ambient activity…and allows for selective activation of certain target areas. For our purposes, we will be flying an F-16 with 4x AIM-120C AMRAAMS and 2x AIM-9M Sidewinders.
I’m still not sure on the mapping of my radar controls. I feel like I don’t know what everything does…I need to spend an hour just doing that and figuring things out…because at the moment I’m sort of a mess of button pushing.
After a bit more messing around I head to Creech and contact them for a visual approach and landing. I wanted to learn there to see if I could rearm and refuel there for future missions if I use this template again. (You can)
Today we will check out a little bit of air-to-ground weaponry. Mk bombs are my go-to. Put the thing on the thing…hit the release…very much my thing. Not ideal for survival…but simple for this very primitive monkey brain.
Carrying a load of six slick and six high drag Mk-82s.
Just an undefended range of trucks… I dropped into Groom Lake a few times to rearm. I was mostly playing with the ripple quantity and pulse (spacing) settings trying to get a feel for them…
Switched to GMT to experiment with that. I’m still pretty unfamiliar with my HOTAS controls. Is it fair to say that the cursor on the ground radar is also always slaved to the TGP (?)…it seemed that way. The TGP feels very A-10C familiar-ish…but some of the bindings are a bit different. I only messed around with the sensors and didn’t have any ordnance left to bomb with…
I did finally figure out how to get in strafe mode. The 20mm cannon seemed to not phase a T-60 something tank at all…even when hitting it from the rear aspect. This ain’t no GAU-8…
This is my favorite part. In any combat flight sim. Laser guided bombing. I don’t know what exactly it is about it…but no matter the game…putting a laser on something and having a smart weapon follow it there…just checks off all the boxes of nerdy button pushing that I enjoy. Maybe it is because I grew up watching the first Gulf War unfold in front of me on CNN. Watching the footage of F-111s dropping bombs and “tank plinking” and all of that… Just proof that the world has always been complex and upside down.
For this mission, I’m using the stock Quick Mission for LGB 10/12 in Nevada. It is a nice and concise mission…but not really a tutorial…so I had to run it several times and spent a LOT of time in ACTIVE PAUSE trying to figure out the piano key strokes of getting all the things to do the right things. I’m still pretty lost.
After some messing about…I managed to get the TGP doing something. I still don’t know how or why it sometimes seems to slave to a steerpoint and sometimes it doesn’t. No idea. I was really good at using the TGP in the A-10C…but some of the mapping is different in the F-16C…so I find myself doing the wrong thing. Often. But when it works…it works good.
I still haven’t tried or figured out buddying lasing or JTAC/LSS mode. I’ll have to do some experimenting with that. And am I wrong in that I can’t find a way to point two LGBs on the inside wing hard points on the F-16? I see that I can mount two on racks on the outside bomb hardpoints…but can only mount one bomb on the inner pylons?
I think that’s exactly correct (for all I know about the Viper).
Even the Harrier has a similar restriction. You can carry an ITER on the inboard stations, but the innermost bomb position cannot be used due to clearance concerns.
You might need to read up on the cursor zero function. Check part 10 in Chuck’s Guide chapter 3.6
When the targeting pod is slaved to a steerpoint, the targeting pod’s reticle will create a SPI (Sensor Point of Interest). Slewing the reticle of the pod will move the position of the SPI, which will dynamically create steerpoint offsets, also referred as “deltas”. System deltas are longitude and latitude offset values which reflect the horizontal difference between the SPI position and the currently selected steerpoint’s original position. The SPI position is initially locked on the steerpoint position. Once SPI is moved (by slewing the TGP) system delta values change. These delta values are applied to all steerpoints, even though the original steerpoint positions (including Bullseye) will still be displayed on the FCR (Fire Control Radar) and HSD (Horizontal Situation Display) pages. The Cursor Zero function (which is available on the TGP page) allows you to erase any previously created system delta. All steerpoint offsets will return to their original position, and will return the SPI position to the current steerpoint position.
tldr: Slewing introduces offsets. CZ removes these offsets. It’s the F-16 way of dealing with a slapped on pod which was never intended during the LWF program in the 70s.
