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How to follow waypoints in F-5E?


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How to follow waypoints in F-5E?

You don't. The F5 is a vfr aircraft. You plan your route on the map in the sense that you pick up terrain features that tell you where you are and you use those to navigate.

You calculate speed and time to reach a Waypoint and you cross check with the terrain features you decided to use, etc. You really have to do your navigation.

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Just tried this approach. NICE! Way better then messing with Tacan......

Highly unrealistic and gamey though. Just sayin'.

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Highly unrealistic and gamey though. Just sayin'.

 

Just treat it like you have a map in the cockpit and you are marking it with a pencil :)

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Back in the day, when the pilots were planning the mission they will use visual references that can't be missed... a Bridge, a Fork in the river, major road junctions. So when they start they can pick up a heading and fly that heading for a determined period of time and start looking for the land mark.

 

 

Over water or in a desert the only way is by Tacan radial and dme readings. So Tacan 12 on 240 radial at 25 miles would be the way point.


Edited by Erk104
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You don't need anything to "tell" you how to navigate.

The ability to follow waypoints with compass and timer is Basic. That makes the F-5 so damn fun to fly and should be a basic skill even for digital aviators.

You need to keep the bearings, time, speeds, distances and landmarks handy though. Like in a piece of paper or a cellphone or tablet.

You can use tacan or ADF if nearby, usually easier to plan them as waypoints so you can use radial in and out for convenience.

Getting to the mission area on the F-5 like this is fun at least for me, using the TAD on the A10 feels like a waste of time in comparison.

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You don't need anything to "tell" you how to navigate.

The ability to follow waypoints with compass and timer is Basic. That makes the F-5 so damn fun to fly and should be a basic skill even for digital aviators.

You need to keep the bearings, time, speeds, distances and landmarks handy though. Like in a piece of paper or a cellphone or tablet.

You can use tacan or ADF if nearby, usually easier to plan them as waypoints so you can use radial in and out for convenience.

Getting to the mission area on the F-5 like this is fun at least for me, using the TAD on the A10 feels like a waste of time in comparison.

 

True. F-5 navigation is not much different than flying a b737-200 without the fancy gps, of which I spent hundreds of hours in x-plane.

 

It's almost half of the fun.

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That used to be taught on the nav course at RAF Finningley, Map, chinagraph, stopwatch, listen to the brief, walk out to the aircraft, that'st he nav kit set up. No waiting for INS to set up 10 mins etc.

Story goes many years back, that some poor guy came on exchange from F-111 world, asked how long it took to set up the nav, when told about 2 mins was amazed and looked forward to the flight. The IP ran him through the planning, and took him out to the a/c. Wound up the engine and was asked so now we set up the nav kit?

It's in your lap, hope you were listening, let's go.

Poor guy was less than impressed, but took it well. Good ole MOD never wasted money on equipment, but probably moaned about the stopwatch costs as opposed to their first choice, the sundial. As I understand it all aircrew are taught to operate from basic, so that if all the fantastic powered stuff goes off line, they can carry on regardless.

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True. F-5 navigation is not much different than flying a b737-200 without the fancy gps, of which I spent hundreds of hours in x-plane.

 

It's almost half of the fun.

 

Yeah, the FlyJSim 732 and 722 are the airliners I enjoyed the most in X-Plane :) . Well, you can also take advantage that this is only a game. Do you miss a beacon? Add it there!

 

In DCS this is a little bit harder than in X-Plane, but ... there's a trigger action which allows you to transmit a radio message. The sound file can be a morse code (e.g. the nearest real world NDB beacon to my house transmits "HLV" in morse code which is an abbreviation of the beacon's name - "Holešov"). Frequency and modulation - check your aircraft radio equipment. Then you can use it for ADF. This may sound like an overstretch but some low-powered radio beacons can be quite small/portable - e.g. downed pilots used to have one in Vietnam era.


Edited by emko
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I refuse to cheat my way out of navigating through any of the in game helpers. I consider the limits of the nav suites of particular aircraft as important as the limits of the weapon systems and sensors. Besides, it really is half the fun.

 

Hopefully we will be getting the add-on GPS for some aircraft. Wonder if it'll make it onto the F-5?

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The problem is that it is not you who is marking the map. I just fly with Tacan, NDBs, and Visual. Problem is when HSI is damaged!!!

 

Are there any NDBs that can actually be tuned to by the F5s radio? I have noticed that all the ones I have tried to use have been far too low frequency, and thus haven't used them at all.

 

With regard to navigation I often find if I am drifting off course a quick "inbound" call to an airstrip can provide me with enough info to work with.

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You can't use those NDBs from F5. BTW they are in "normal" range (which is used in civilian aviation ... assuming somebody still actively uses that ... can't imagine even even a Cessna pilot keen on using it). You can add your own beacons in mission editor or write a script for vectoring.

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You can't use those NDBs from F5. BTW they are in "normal" range (which is used in civilian aviation ... assuming somebody still actively uses that ... can't imagine even even a Cessna pilot keen on using it). You can add your own beacons in mission editor or write a script for vectoring.

 

You can even add Tacans by modifying the beacons lua. U usually have 3 or 4 extra for friendly land... Enemy territory... Is another thing...

 

Using Tacan low precision because the distance, watch, map and pencil. Soooo fun!!

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