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Manual Flightplan entry CDU, best practice?


Scuby

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Hi gents,

 

I am very interested in your ideas and/or approach with the following.

 

Sometimes we might join a multiplayer session and take seat in an A-10C without any pre loaded flight plan. With the CDU we are able to create such flight plan.

 

When in 3D and hot jet, what steps or preparations do you guys make in order to come up with multiple route coordinates (and other data) for manual entry in the CDU? Do you work from some kind of map? (Tried F10 but couldn't retrieve complete data).

 

Thanks for your insights!

 

Cheers,

Scub


Edited by Scuby

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Hi Scuby,

 

The F10 map works fine for me for finding coordinates for waypoints as well as elevations if needed. I find using MGRS grids to be much easier than lat/long. Write down the points you need, plug them into the CDU as waypoints, and off you go.

 

TACAN is always an option too depending on where you are on the map, although line of sight limitations can be problematic if you are going someplace while staying down in the weeds and it makes complex courses harder to manage.

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Fastest way I find is to slew in TAD page and mark point the rough locations I want A B C D. It helps to be in markpoint display mode so you can see the results of your work.

 

 

Then I make copies from the letter markpoints to numbered waypoints. Easiest way I found is to slew TAD over each markpoint and press *1? OSB to copy that mark to that number, repeating for the rest of the marks.

 

 

After that make new flight plan with those numbered points. You can use mark points directly but you can't customize the position and I don't know what happens when you cycle through all 25 and start overwriting those letters again.

 

 

 

If there is precision coordinates it is good to get them F10 or briefing or kneeboard or whatever is the best source. Best situation is to have friend read them out as you write them. It is going back and forth that takes a long time. Otherwise pencil and paper saves time. After to ensure you have the same just broadcast SPI over TADL and he can copy each through TAD just like mark points but wedding cake instead.

 

 

Having keyboard directly to CDU/UFC makes typing numbers and letters very fast, every other keyboard function happening on some modifier.

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Having keyboard directly to CDU/UFC makes typing numbers and letters very fast, every other keyboard function happening on some modifier.

 

 

I just set up the backspace key as a "toggle switch" rather than modifier to make the keyboard work as the CDU keyboard (press backspace and letters become CDU letters, press it again and they go back to whatever what mapped to them. No need to hold it as it toggles on and off). Saves having to remap all the stuff that goes to normal keys.

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This is great stuff! Thanks.

 

The UFC I have covered with dedicated hardware to support with WP naming etc.

 

@Frederf, will each created WP from TAD (#?) automatically be designated as Flight plan? Or will this require the additional steps in the CDU/FPLAN menu? I assume that this is the case, since with pre-loaden flightplans all other WP's in the CDU database (like airbases WP 51,52,.. and bullseye WP 2049) are also not part of the flightplan.

 

@Tom, indeed F10, but where did you retrieve complete coordinate data in this map view? As far as I could see I would only see incomplete data...


Edited by Scuby

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I just set up the backspace key as a "toggle switch" rather than modifier to make the keyboard work as the CDU keyboard (press backspace and letters become CDU letters, press it again and they go back to whatever what mapped to them. No need to hold it as it toggles on and off). Saves having to remap all the stuff that goes to normal keys.

 

I didn't know that was possible Rob but that sounds great -- is there a mapping in DCS that lets you set a toggle like that, or did you have to use a 3rd party solution?

 

@Tom, indeed F10, but where did you retrieve complete coordinate data in this map view? As far as I could see I would only see incomplete data...

 

 

In the attached screenshot I had my mouse cursor right over the crossing of the two runways, but the screenshot function masked out the mouse. Regardless, at the bottom you can see the MGRS readout circled in red. I'm not sure how familiar you are with MGRS so hopefully this isn't telling you something you already know, but a six digit grid will get you within 100 meters of a point and is generally plenty close for what we need. So in this case GG 323 360 would be your entry. As I think I mentioned in another thread I have been out of the A10 for a long time, so someone can fix me if I'm wrong, but I believe the entire Caucus map lies on the 37 T map sheet so you don't ever have to use those letters and numbers, just the two letter grid identifier than the string of numbers.

Screen_180821_065819.thumb.png.02fb12c6e56b1328c85cfb5e59bc35bf.png

Multiplayer as Variable

 

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Thanks!

 

@Tom, indeed your screen shows grid co. Is the mission editor view the same as F10 view with regards to the display of co on the bottom? I think it is not possible to access mission editor from 3D...

 

 

Also good to know that DCS controls have switches, will look into that too.


Edited by Scuby

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Also good to know that DCS controls have switches, will look into that too.

 

I had never actually clicked on the modifier button in controls to see the switches option, but that looks handy. Thanks guys, learned something new.

Multiplayer as Variable

 

Asus Z97-A - I7 4790K - 32 GB HyperX - EVGA GTX 1080 Ti - Corsair 750i PSU

 

TM Warthog HOTAS - TM Cougar MFDs - CH Pedals - TrackIR 5 - Samsung RU8000 55”

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I didn't know that was possible Rob but that sounds great -- is there a mapping in DCS that lets you set a toggle like that, or did you have to use a 3rd party solution?

 

I had never actually clicked on the modifier button in controls to see the switches option, but that looks handy. Thanks guys, learned something new.

 

 

Yep, in the modifiers in the setup for the controls. That's the challenge with a complex beast like DCS: sometimes you almost have to go back and relearn it just to discover all the things you forgot about or missed from the firehose of information the 1st time around :)

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@Tom, indeed your screen shows grid co. Is the mission editor view the same as F10 view with regards to the display of co on the bottom? I think it is not possible to access mission editor from 3D...

 

 

Thanks all. Only one q remaining. How does F10 view help with coordinates?

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| TM HOTAS COUGAR | VPC WARBRD BASE | MFG CROSSWIND V2 | G.TRIX JETSEAT KW908 | HP REVERB G2 |

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Because the F10 view has positional information for the cursor in several formats cycled with Alt-Y. During the mission I can ascertain from the F10 view that the Kobuleti TACAN is at position

41*55'50N 41*51'53''E

X-00317879 Z+00635515

N41*55.833 E41*51.716

37T GG3728746051

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Because the F10 view has positional information for the cursor in several formats cycled with Alt-Y. During the mission I can ascertain from the F10 view that the Kobuleti TACAN is at position

41*55'50N 41*51'53''E

X-00317879 Z+00635515

N41*55.833 E41*51.716

37T GG3728746051

 

Thanks and that is the thing.... I was reading only incomplete data... scratching my head but will look into this more.

| AMD RYZEN 5900X | INNO3D RTX 4080 ICHILL | G.SKILL 3200-C14 32GB | ASUS X570-E GAMING | LG 27GP850 2K/QHD |
| TM HOTAS COUGAR | VPC WARBRD BASE | MFG CROSSWIND V2 | G.TRIX JETSEAT KW908 | HP REVERB G2 |

YouTube: ScubyFlying

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Do you know how to use the OFFSET function?

 

Sometimes, it can be enough to just have your Initial Position and one waypoint that's an already existing point in the CDU Data Base that's near the FEBA or AO and just work with Mission Points or Mark Points off Bullseye.

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