Understanding MK82air fuze/hi/lo requirements for drag mode

Hi gents,

Need your help understanding the manual on one small detail.

Do I understand correctly that the MK82air can be set for delivery in either high drag and low drag mode? i.e. With chute and without chute deployment?

The manual appears to provide two requirements: 1. N/T Fuze setting and 2. Config setting (fixed hi/lo).

Need either one or both requirements be set? I think the manual is bit unclear/inconsistent in this case.

I refer to p.536 and p.279.

Cheers,

Scuby

I always used the fuze option. If you want high drag, select nose fuze, if you want a standard Mk82 performance, set tail or N/T fuze.

As simple as that.

So only setting fuze would do the trick?

Wouldn't it be the other way around?

i.e. High drag = N/T or Tail

Low drag = Nose

?

:smilewink:

The manual is saying (IIUC) is the delivery of the MK-82 Air depends on first; how the bomb is loaded in DSMS. Second; the fuse selected (N, N/T, T).

I need to re-try it in DCS to confirm, but if you loaded normally and if IIRC, N/T fuse will be hi drag, Nose will be low drag and Tail fuse will activate the chute but not arm the bomb (being a dud).

If you loaded as fix low on DSMS, no matter the fuse it will always be low drag.

If loaded as Fix high, no matter the fuse it will always be high drag.

This talks about how the bombs are wired in real life. To activate the ballute in real live there is a wire attach from the bomb to the weapons pylons. If this wire is attach to one of the arming fuses slots, it will allow the pilot to select whether to release the bomb as high drag or not. If this wire is attach to other part if the pylon it will be fix high drag or if not attach will be fix low drag. The selection of this in the cockpit in RL would not affect the bomb, it is telling the DSMS how to bomb is set so it can change the delivery symbology accordingly. But in DCS, since we can't walk around the aircraft you change this setting through the DSMS page.

Hi Scuby,

I have recently been getting back into the A10 a bit after a couple years away. I couldn't remember off the top of my head so I just fired up the weapons testing IA mission in Nevada. That setup has 6 Mk82 Airs on two TERs. Their default fuzing in their profile was N/T. The default config setting in the inventory page was FIXED HI.

Using CCIP (both manual release and consent 5 mil mode), if I changed only the fuzing on their profile to NOSE, I would get an INVALID FUZING message on the HUD as soon as I dropped the nose to start to run in. However, after I changed the inventory page for the bombs to PILOT OPT, I was than able to successfully choose between chute/no chute using the fuzing option on the profile (N/T for the ballute and correct detonation, NOSE for low drag config and correct detonation - I didn't test TAIL).

I only tested this on that one mission, but hopefully this could help point you down the road regardless of the situation.

That confims it!! Thank you all

@Tom. Is it correct that, after changing the config from Fixed HI to Pilot Opt, the default DSMS mk82air profile still reads Fixed HI?

So in other words, did you create a new weapon profile after changing the config, for fuze to work?

Reason I ask is that I like to verify if the default profile "update" is to be expected or not, therefor bugged or correct in this regard.

I see what you mean about the CONFIG: line on the PROFILE CONTROL page not updating when any/all inventoried weapons are changed to a different config. That line remains equal to the type that was selected when the profile was created.

All the other non-underlined (i.e. not profile preference) data TER/PYLON, fuze info will update on the next display of the profile page (either VIEW PRO or DSMS quick look) but it won't while the display is maintained. You have to leave and come back. The station highlight bar at the bottom updates in real time in DSMS quick look but not when looking at the profile page otherwise. I also think it's funny the default profile name is MK-82APO but the default config is FIXED HI. You're probably the first person to notice this issue with the out of date config data on profile display.

I'm guessing that's a bug and the real airplane updates the inventory and selection data on all profile displays for the currently selected weapon set's config even as you cycle through while staring at the page. When it fills in the non-underlined parts of the profile page it should look up that from the inventory data of the selected set. Also very confident that's just a display issue and store mechanization acts like it was inventoried. Aiming guidance... I'm not so sure. It would be simple to test though.

It's not obvious but weapon profiles are only bundles of profile preferences that are shared across different config-selection-sets of the same weapon. Thus you don't strictly have to create a new profile for a new config. Any profile that's valid for MK-82AIR(config 1) is also valid for MK-82AIR(config 2). No specific selection set is part of the profile.

So you're perfectly able to drop both configs using the same profile but since fuze solenoid preference is part of profile you may not want that practically. If you want to only drop config 1 with profile A and config 2 to profile B then you'll have to exercise caution because all four combinations are valid. In fact as you cycle profiles with DMS it will go WEAPONS OFF, A1, A2, B1, B2 and repeat in that order.

Hi Scuby, sorry for the long delay, I have been dogged with some hardware problems that are eating up my time.

Upon looking again I did notice what you were saying and Frederf confirmed - the FIXED HI remaining on the profile, even after the bombs were changed in inventory.

After digging around I found an old thread on the 476th forum that described using PLT OPT 1 when wanting to have the ability to use both types of fuses.

I loaded up an A10 with 4 82 AIRs and went straight to the inventory and set them "PLT OPT 1". If I edit the MK82APO profile that comes in the DSMS, it still says "FIXED HI" in the config, nor matter what changes I make (just like you said). However, if you just select one of the bombs in the DSMS and bring up its manual profile (m/MK82APO), enter a new name, and create your profiles off of that, it will display the correct config.

So for example, using the 476ths naming conventions, I made a profile called A1 20HD2 (2 high drag bombs for a 20 degree delivery) and another called A1 30DB2 (2 low drag bombs, 30 degree delivery). You can set your parameters for both profiles (the config will say PLT OPT 1) to include the ripple settings, spacing, fuzing (obviously), and DTOF.

Then I turned off the MK82APO profile in the DSMS. That way, when I pull up CCIP in the HUD and use the rotary, it will alternate between the high drag and low drag configurations (WPN SAFE/A1 20HD2/A1 30DB2/WPN SAFE). Each profile can access all the bombs on the aircraft, which is what you want, and I also confirmed the IFFCC is properly computing for the selected parameters (I did a few passes, but even watching the PBIL swing back and forth to account for the wind when switching between high drag and lo drag profiles was enough to convince me it was going to be correct).

I realize this is all a lot to visualize but hopefully my point is coming across. And thanks for getting me to dig much deeper into the inventory system than I ever had!

In real life our 82AIR weapon profiles which come pre-loaded in DSMS will have Pilot Opt 1 selected so that for diving delivery profiles only the nose fuse is activated and for high drag deliveries the tail fuse is actuated to deploy the ballute. With weapon profiles no other input is needed by the pilot with regards to fuzing. Any other fuzing combo is rarely used.

Habu