missing info INS Alignment - No Stearpoint Distance on HUD

[MrYeti]

Hi all,

Can't figure out if i am doing something wrong so could do with someone pointing out what I am doing in error;

Problem - When doing a Cold start and Alignment I sometimes don't get the stearpoint and  distance to displayed on the HUD. 

Procedure for Cold start that I follow;

1. Main Battery on

2. Starter 2

3. Wait for 60 and then Shift>Home

4. all switches on Avionics power panel on RHS (but not the INS knob)

5. UFD- List and 6 to see allinment data.

6. INS knob to Normal

7. Enter N and E coords clicking on Enter after each input.

8. Wait for 8 mins/countdown to 10

9. Cross fingers.

What am i doing wrong?

 

Thanks in advance

[Deano87]

Have you tried it without entering the coordinates, just confirming each line with Enter?

[Sinclair_76]

Beside the point risen by @Deano87An alignment can be disturbed by aircraft movement. This could happen due to the jet wash of other aircraft. What also disturbs the alignment is movement due to weapons loading. But then the countdown of the INS accuracy wouldn't reach 10. 

[Bouli306]

Are you in the NAV mode? Indicated by NAV in the lower left side of the HUD?

[Ignition]

Also, the steerpoint depends on mode selected in each weapon. For example in the maverick VIS has a different steerpoint than PRE, its really confusing sometimes and annoying.

If you change the INS knob to normal it will go to the INS DED page automaticly.
It has been a long time since I did a normal alignment so I don't know but stored heading was working fine.

Also after 9.crossing fingers, I guess you are switching the INS knob to NAV.

[MROK73]

12 hours ago, Ignition said:

Also after 9.crossing fingers, I guess you are switching the INS knob to NAV.

This!!

 

[MrYeti]

17 hours ago, Deano87 said:

Have you tried it without entering the coordinates, just confirming each line with Enter?

Thanks, tried this last night and didn't edit/re-enter the co-ords and same problem.

 

16 hours ago, Sinclair_76 said:

Beside the point risen by @Deano87An alignment can be disturbed by aircraft movement. This could happen due to the jet wash of other aircraft. What also disturbs the alignment is movement due to weapons loading. But then the countdown of the INS accuracy wouldn't reach 10. 

Interesting - I'll have a look at this as I tend to set the INS Align going and then set up the aircraft including loading weapons so this might be a solution. I'll have a go later and report back. However, when doing this the alignment does reach 10.

14 hours ago, Bouli306 said:

Are you in the NAV mode? Indicated by NAV in the lower left side of the HUD?

Yes, happy with how I switch between Nav, A-A, A-G and what that looks like in HUD.

 

One other thing I found out yesterday is that whilst the steer point and distance (looks like this - 56>03, ie 56 miles to spt 3) does appear in the HMD but not the HUD.

Will try to diagnose later with all the above suggestions and will respond.

Thanks all.

 

 

[MROK73]

8 hours ago, MROK73 said:

This!!

 

Again... 

Did you , on step 9 rotate the INS knob to NAV position, after the align is finished (ALIGN flashing in the HUD)??

PS. Did your aircraft move, even for a tiny bit, during the alignment process?

Edited November 16, 2021 by MROK73

[MrYeti]

17 hours ago, MROK73 said:

Again... 

Did you , on step 9 rotate the INS knob to NAV position, after the align is finished (ALIGN flashing in the HUD)??

PS. Did your aircraft move, even for a tiny bit, during the alignment process?

 

Hi,

Yes, moving knob to NAV once alignment is down to 10 and Align is flashing in the HUD.

Again, the steerpoint and distance are displayed on the HMD when I turn my head but not up on the HUD.

I can't find anything on the HUD panel (down on the RHS) which solves this.

Edited November 17, 2021 by MrYeti

[Sinclair_76]

2 hours ago, MrYeti said:

Hi,

Yes, moving knob to NAV once alignment is down to 10 and Align is flashing in the HUD.

Again, the steerpoint and distance are displayed on the HMD when I turn my head but not up on the HUD.

I can't find anything on the HUD panel (down on the RHS) which solves this.

 

I deliberately botched the alignment by not entering the LL on the DED. After reaching 10 I switched to NAV. HUD as well as HSI show no range, but the JHMCS does. I think the latter would be a bug. 

Could you give us a track file to work with?

Edited November 17, 2021 by Sinclair_76

[MROK73]

Hi MrYeti,

Check that you enter the coordinates within 2 minutes from start of the alignment.

"41.
Enter and confirm aircraft coordinates used for INS alignment.
a)
IMPORTANT You must either enter or confirm the latitude and longitude
coordinates of your aircraft on the INS DED page within two minutes after
starting an alignment Failing to do that within 2 minutes will result in a
degraded INS alignment"

This is from Chuck's guide, and I think Wags also pointed out on his video...

[Ignition]

Page 80 from the DCS manual.

"Failure to enter the data will flag the alignment as degraded and not allow important monitoring functions to
take place. Navigation, weapons delivery and targeting pod pointing errors may also result.
The alignment will stop and start again if the data is entered later than two minutes into the alignment."

[MrYeti]

 

Chaps,

Thanks - I thought I was getting the same issue regardless of whether i enter the co-ords or not. I'll experiment later today.

[Frederf]

The real manual uses the phrase 'flagged as degraded'. I suspect that DCS's interpretation is pessimistic and that failing to confirm otherwise correct info would not result in any noticable behavior change. I (again) suspect the line about possible poor behavior is related to bad info not being corrected. I don't know though and would appreciate insight from the rare individual that knows the system in that depth.

[MrYeti]

Gentlemen,

I tried yesterday, process was battery, APU, system switches, Alignment to Norm, enter co-ords on UFD, and didn't then do anything until fully aligned (state 10) then switch to NAV and load weapons etc etc. and it worked. I had full alignment in that I had steerpoint and distance to as well as the red flag on the compass unit disappeared.

I will experiment with setting the alignment going and adding weapons during alignment to see if that has an effect and will report back again.

[Sinclair_76]

54 minutes ago, MrYeti said:

Gentlemen,

I tried yesterday, process was battery, APU, system switches, Alignment to Norm, enter co-ords on UFD, and didn't then do anything until fully aligned (state 10) then switch to NAV and load weapons etc etc. and it worked. I had full alignment in that I had steerpoint and distance to as well as the red flag on the compass unit disappeared.

I will experiment with setting the alignment going and adding weapons during alignment to see if that has an effect and will report back again.

I did some test yesterday as well. Loading the aircraft early in the alignment, will disturb it. Later on (40) it doesn't seem to matter. I need to test further to determine the tipping point.

[MrYeti]

1 hour ago, Sinclair_76 said:

I did some test yesterday as well. Loading the aircraft early in the alignment, will disturb it. Later on (40) it doesn't seem to matter. I need to test further to determine the tipping point.

Brilliant - I'll do the same and we can compare notes.

[Deano87]

I do wonder why, if you're happy spending the 8 mins doing the long alignment you don't just load the weapons before start as would be more realistic. I only takes what... 20-30 seconds for weapons to load?

[Frederf]

7 hours ago, Sinclair_76 said:

I did some test yesterday as well. Loading the aircraft early in the alignment, will disturb it. Later on (40) it doesn't seem to matter. I need to test further to determine the tipping point.

The tipping point should be whenever "ALIGN" appears solid on the HUD. Not only are you allowed to rock the airplane during the later parts of the alignment, you're allowed to taxi! It's called auto-nav and you can taxi in the middle of your alignment with the knob in NORM and the alignment will continue once you stop. Best normal alignment involves leaving the knob in NORM until just before takeoff and then selecting NAV which gives the system maximum time to align. This is also how EIA is possible as you must taxi between two different orientations while aligning.

[MrYeti]

On 11/18/2021 at 10:50 AM, Sinclair_76 said:

I did some test yesterday as well. Loading the aircraft early in the alignment, will disturb it. Later on (40) it doesn't seem to matter. I need to test further to determine the tipping point.

Having played around with it It looks like your suggestion of 40 being a key point of the alignment. 

 

On 11/18/2021 at 5:44 PM, Deano87 said:

I do wonder why, if you're happy spending the 8 mins doing the long alignment you don't just load the weapons before start as would be more realistic. I only takes what... 20-30 seconds for weapons to load?

I've actually started doing this however the counter argument is that you start up the aircraft, start alignment and as that is aligning you set up the rest of the aircraft like stores management, weapons, planning mission and add/change steerpoints etc.

[Frederf]

The dividing line looks like status 62 which is when "RDY" first comes up. If you switch NAV at 63 and RDY is not up then you get a flag on the HSI distant readout.

[Sl1ck]

Solution below: