How to identify an airbase when landing in emergency
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I don’t think so…
You should probably have situational awareness to know where you are. Identify airbases along your route and pre-id alternates/diverts during mission planning.
(also good to know that you aren’t landing on an enemy field, if you are operating in badguy land or near the flot)You can use things like the runway headings to validate that you’re looking at what you think you’re looking at. For example if you are looking at a N/S runway, that’s not Osan…
I did a DEADCAP hornet sortie one time, and thought i’d go hit the tanker mid-vul, but I doofed my timing (by using time compression irresponsibly haha) and then I was on fumes trying to find the tanker, then I couldn’t get hooked up to the boom worth a crap… Seriously about to lose my engines I looked straight down and saw an airbase so I swooped in and landed… I had to sit there on the ramp for a minute and use GPS coordinates along with the rwy hdg that I landed on, to figure out what base I was at, to change to tower and request hot fuel. Ha. It worked, though, I guess… Not the finest of moments, but a story maybe worth telling (do as I say, not as I do)
Real-World there’s always guard… Also real-world there’s probably C2… Also real-world you’re probably flying with charts… Ooh real world there’s also nordo and tower light signals
A while back we did BFS over at FO… I made a bull chart that had the major airbases on it, just so I could learn the theater. It was pretty cool though, I could reference the chart to get myself to the right bullseye-hood of whatever base I needed to be at, or pretty quickly id a base I flew over if I didn’t know what it was. However, depending on your EP, you may not have any BE reference readily available to you in the pit.
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Add alternate airfield steerpoints when planning your mission. You can add one or more as desired. Then just select the steerpoint for your alternate airfield and dial in the freq. for the one you chose.
On the planning map, right click and select set pre planned threat steerpoint from the dropdown menu. Then drag the threat marker to the airbase you want to designate and right click on the marker. Select status and select the name of the airfield from the list. Now the name of the airfield will show up in the MFD along with the threat steerpoint.
There are other ways to do what you’re asking, but this is simple and pretty straight forward.
Edit: Make note of the STPT (it will be identified on the map). Pre Planned Threats start w/ STPT 56 iirc.
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Unless I am mis-remembering big time (unable to check right now) you can get a hotpot refuel even using your homeplate twr freq.
Assuming radio is working I wonder if the bearing and range supplied for home plate and nearest available would allow using chart to identify divert field. My brain. Is too fried to run with that one.
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This isn’t exactly what you are asking, but when flying campaigns what I do is have several bases throughout the theater as pre-set channels. For example, we are currently flying in the Balkans. So my DTC is set up like this
Channel
Victor
15 Brnik
16 Falconara
17 Palese
18 Gino Lisa
19 Pula
20 Shkoder (Neutral Albania, no tower voice)Uniform
15 Aviano
16 Amendola
17 Casale
18 Gioia Del Colle
19 USS Carl VinsonSame is done in Korea, or Israel, or any theater. And because I transfer around from base to base, doing this means I am not kicking myself for forgetting to Set Tower before committing
There are dozens of bases of course, so this is just a sampling, but they are spread out and gives me a base nearby, regardless of where I am flying. If I just don’t want to fly all the way home, if I need fuel, or if I am damaged, I can call up any of them, get vectors and landing authorization. Of course in a real emergency, you might need something closer, in which case it isn’t much help.
You can also ask AWACS for a divert base and they will give you vectors, but obviously you might not have the tower frequency (or know which airbase this is. Through time you will learn all bases and where they are located). Print out the navaids list, really useful.
You can also drag the alternate base steerpoint to whichever (undamaged) airbase is closest to the front on your return path. Get the frequency from the navaids list before taking off.
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DBond kind of has the right idea. If you do’nt use any external mission planning stuff that would identify these things it is a very good setup to mirror STPTs with UHF freqs. For instance, set STPTs 15-20 as alternate bases around the theater, and then in the DTC set the freqs for those towers to the matching UHF preset. You may not know what the name is of the base you’re landing at (Unless you print them or just remember them), but it’s easy enough to select STPT 17 and UHF 17 together to know you are headed to the right place and talking to the right place.
This still gives you final STPT-14 and 21-24 as pre-planned targets if you want them, and has the added bonus to split them up if you want. For instance, I will often set 11-14 as the actual mission STPTs for targets in a Pre-Planned CAS or Interdiction (SA launchers or Runways, or whatever you’re going after) then use 21-24 as general CAS areas of opportunity that I can go to and look for some targets after the fact if I have stores remaining.
The Pre Planned Threat STPTs are also good at this–or just to add some SA so you know what airfield you are landing at. If you look through the list, there are “Threat Types” that correspond with Airbases in Korea so you can pop them in and they will show on the HSD. There is a file in the Theater folder that holds the names for these (PPT something I believe) so they can be modified for other theaters like Balkans to have more appropriate names.
Also IIRC you can hot-fuel anywhere on Channel 15, regardless of what the freq is set to or who owns the base.
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I’m with B.S
I think a pilot should always know where he is.
so basically knowing where to go for alternate before having the need for one is good airmanship.If you ask yourself what’s the base you just landed at, you probably don’t ask yourself the right question.
that said, hotpit refuel work on any valid tower freq in 4.33. So do as Cobalt uk said
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wrong thread
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There’s no function like on the A10C where you can dial up a list of divert airfields is there?
Always found that helpful in DCS
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This is the problem with IRS/GPS pilots do not know how to use a chart any more.
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There’s no function like on the A10C where you can dial up a list of divert airfields is there?
Always found that helpful in DCS
Real jet yes, BMS no.