Some questions about Mavericks
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ARMSTRONG at whatever point was briefed? Except for CAS ops…but that’s another scenario.
I’m assuming you’re SEAD/DEAD or SES off the CV?I generally Arm at Wp4(in the scenario described). The general philosophy is to go Hot upon confirmation of no failures and crossing the enemy coast. I did so mainly for CMDS dispensables reasons, as I’ve always assumed you have to be in Master Arm state to dispense chaff/flares. However, this post got me to wondering about that, so I RTFM’d but didn’t find anything specific. I’ll test that tonight. If not, then I may Arm up closer to the IP.
While I try to fly different things, my favorite is DEAD, so yes off the Boat that’s my main focus -
I generally Arm at Wp4(in the scenario described). The general philosophy is to go Hot upon confirmation of no failures and crossing the enemy coast. I did so mainly for CMDS dispensables reasons, as I’ve always assumed you have to be in Master Arm state to dispense chaff/flares. However, this post got me to wondering about that, so I RTFM’d but didn’t find anything specific. I’ll test that tonight. If not, then I may Arm up closer to the IP.
While I try to fly different things, my favorite is DEAD, so yes off the Boat that’s my main focusI wouldn’t conjecture that you’re doing anything “wrong” here, as really the timeline for these actions is “as briefed”…so you’re all good, IMO.
You do have a point about expendables…some jets have an expendables ARM switch on the side of the jet that is pushed in by the ground crew during final checkers, and MASTER ARM isn’t required to dispense (only dispenser on) - the Hornet is an example of such…but I’ll bet that isn’t modeled specifically in BMS at this point. So I’d agree with sticking to how the Viper model operates.
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I think the only reason you have to go GND JETT ENABLE is to get power to blow the dome covers…which is crazy, and one more reason not to load Mavs with the dome covers in place. Like the USN does…Fly Navy!
…and it’s even more interesting that they mention the laser…they’re gonna put someone’s eye out.
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I’m speaking out of my depth I guess.
Is there any remedy for faulty WOW switch which is inhibiting conventional delivery during combat mission or no? And jet can’t get external power or simply run up to store bore values and turned off?
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I think the only reason you have to go GND JETT ENABLE is to get power to blow the dome covers…which is crazy, and one more reason not to load Mavs with the dome covers in place. Like the USN does…Fly Navy!
…and it’s even more interesting that they mention the laser…they’re gonna put someone’s eye out.
Actually if you read the first paragraph “AGM-65 boresight procedure may only be performed on the ground if the missiles do not have dome covers and squibs installed. If the dome covers are present, the procedure must be done while airborne.”
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Actually if you read the first paragraph “AGM-65 boresight procedure may only be performed on the ground if the missiles do not have dome covers and squibs installed. If the dome covers are present, the procedure must be done while airborne.”
…then it shouldn’t have to mention GND JETT ENABLE at all, one would think. The other thing to note is what it has to say about having to step to each station/weapon and wait for the timeout…then boresight that missile. That doesn’t seem to be how BMS behaves, from what I’ve read in the forums.
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Has anyone in BMS succeded in boresighting Mavericks on the ground ?
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I have. The avionics really really hate it and sometimes you just can’t. I believe it’s because the TGP (in BMS) insists in pointing in a direction with an associated ground location which is problematic while being on the ground. I.e. TGP in AG can’t look above horizon. I bet if you could taxi up to the edge of a crater it would work.
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Why would you want to BSGT on ground?
It’s easier to find some city near your target with some buildings that looks “odd”. Then you place target steer point on it and you can use it for boresighting. It’s a lot faster and easier than BSGT on ground.
If you don’t have such steer point you can use FCR to find some city near target.
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Why would you want to BSGT on ground?
It’s easier to find some city near your target with some buildings that looks “odd”. Then you place target steer point on it and you can use it for boresighting. It’s a lot faster and easier than BSGT on ground.
If you don’t have such steer point you can use FCR to find some city near target.
The more “work” you can do on the ground means less “work” you have to do in the air. Simple really.
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The more “work” you can do on the ground means less “work” you have to do in the air. Simple really.
This. The close the object is, the less accurate of a boresight you’ll get, however you can get the TGP and seeker heads looking at more or less the right location making airborne bore sighting quicker.
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The more “work” you can do on the ground means less “work” you have to do in the air. Simple really.
You still need to have the work done, no matters its in air or on ground. Work is work, hog is pork, simple as that
And don’t forget that when you run MAVs on ground you need to prepare then which makes ramp start slower. Also it consumes EO time as the EO time is said to be cumulative per mission. In air you have to turn them on no matters if you BSGT them or not.
It’s a good habit to find some city about 30nm before targets and use buildings for BSGT. Doing BSGT on your way to target does not requires any extra time in air as you do this when hauling your (T)rump to the target zone.
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The only battery in the Maverick is a one time use chemical-thermal battery which is activated on launch. Mavericks are powered by the aircraft’s electrical system through an umbilical cable before launch. The time limits are generally because the Peltier cooler for the IIR sensor is moving thermal energy from the seeker area to the rear of the missile in a thermal buffer. The longer this goes on the larger the thermal difference and the harder the cooler has to work until it can’t keep the sensor properly cool and the picture whitens. With the missile powered off this heat dissipates into the environment and resets. I’m sure there are other considerations on longevity, but finite battery power is not one.
As I understand it every single F-16/AGM-65 operator on the planet does a ground check/bore and then turns the missile off for takeoff which among other motivations checks if the missile even works at all. If it takes 5 hours of preparation to save 1 second in combat then you do those 5 hours of preparation. There is no “why bother” in professional air forces. Ground align against a 3,000’ distance reference object when missile and TGP are 10’ apart laterally gives 3 mil precision in alignment. You can always check and improve on it in air given the opportunity but if not then you’ll be glad to have the ground alignment as backup.
EO power gives power to all inventoried missiles simultaneously. The three minutes time starts for all missiles simultaneously and they provide video automatically at the end of those three minutes with master arm in SIM/ARM, WPN format displayed, and that missile selected. If the pilot wishes to bypass the timeout for that particular missile sooner than 3 minutes (e.g. missile was briefly powered off a short time ago and so is still spinning-cooled) the pilot uses the uncage button.
I’m guessing GND JETT ENABLE switch does more than just allow ground jettison. My estimation is that GND JETT ENABLE simply forces the WOW switches to report the in-flight condition with all of the changes that implies. This would explain a lot of things like how it starts the DWAT timer and allows Maverick video, etc.
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This very well could be the result of “after the fact engineering” It may have nothing to do whatsoever with power, or existing WOW functionality. It’s not uncommon for a contractor to look at a requirement that might say “Operator must be able to deliberately enable or disable XYZ functionality” and the contractor says “hey, why don’t we just tie it to ABC switch instead of adding another one in…shouldn’t effect anything else and accomplishes the requirement–now charge the Government an extra 100k for our engineering genius breakthrough…” Not saying that’s the case here, I have no idea, but my point is not to get TOO wrapped up around the WOW functionality as it is commonly understood.
My thinking is that you have to do it to override the safety and be able to blow the dome cover…or even worse, to apply power to the station in order to power up the weapon at all…which in the case of forward firing is a strict no-no on deck!
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The only battery in the Maverick is a one time use chemical-thermal battery which is activated on launch. Mavericks are powered by the aircraft’s electrical system through an umbilical cable before launch. The time limits are generally because the Peltier cooler for the IIR sensor is moving thermal energy from the seeker area to the rear of the missile in a thermal buffer. The longer this goes on the larger the thermal difference and the harder the cooler has to work until it can’t keep the sensor properly cool and the picture whitens. With the missile powered off this heat dissipates into the environment and resets. I’m sure there are other considerations on longevity, but finite battery power is not one.
As I understand it every single F-16/AGM-65 operator on the planet does a ground check/bore and then turns the missile off for takeoff which among other motivations checks if the missile even works at all. If it takes 5 hours of preparation to save 1 second in combat then you do those 5 hours of preparation. There is no “why bother” in professional air forces. Ground align against a 3,000’ distance reference object when missile and TGP are 10’ apart laterally gives 3 mil precision in alignment. You can always check and improve on it in air given the opportunity but if not then you’ll be glad to have the ground alignment as backup.
EO power gives power to all inventoried missiles simultaneously. The three minutes time starts for all missiles simultaneously and they provide video automatically at the end of those three minutes with master arm in SIM/ARM, WPN format displayed, and that missile selected. If the pilot wishes to bypass the timeout for that particular missile sooner than 3 minutes (e.g. missile was briefly powered off a short time ago and so is still spinning-cooled) the pilot uses the uncage button.
I’m guessing GND JETT ENABLE switch does more than just allow ground jettison. My estimation is that GND JETT ENABLE simply forces the WOW switches to report the in-flight condition with all of the changes that implies. This would explain a lot of things like how it starts the DWAT timer and allows Maverick video, etc.
…this - and some of what was noted in the previous handbook citation - are a lot of the reason I believe “ripple fire” of Mavs is totally bogus. From the book citation I don’t believe all weapons on a station (unless a single rail is mounted) are powered at once - only the one selected and under the hammer. And then there’s this -
“NOTE: When the inventory on any weapon station is changed, all AGM-65 will power off. The pilot must put power on the missiles and wait for the 3-minute timeout.” The inventory changes every shot…but it says “any weapon station”…so that holds for any weapon fired?
Which leads to believe that at best…if you are REAL good and REALLY fast…you can only fire one every 3 minutes. One weapon, one boresight, one shot…lather, rinse, repeat.
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Mavericks are definitely powered on globally, spinning gyros and cooling seeker as necessary. The video is standby (black) until needed. Normally video is only available for the missile selected and ARM/SIM but video can continue in the background if the first missile is locked and a second missile is selected and using the WPN format. I don’t know if video is always available internally to the missile for tracking purposes (the airplane only seeing black) or if there is no video anywhere if missile video is in standby. Considering the A-10 lists different idle times for video showing and video standby I’m guessing it’s the latter.
Maybe some countries did not elect to pay for the feature of simultaneous ready Mavericks or some airplanes cannot support the same but the F-16/USAF can. I’ve never heard of mixed ready/not-ready Mavericks ever. If you could share the passage of the book that makes you think that that would be interesting.
You can bore non-IR Mavericks on the ground through the clear covers with some image distortion. The covers are only removed with Master ARM so you’d use SIM on the ground. If using IR Mavericks (or otherwise opaque covers) you’d need Master ARM to remove the covers before any video was usable for any purpose.