I need an Ace to make a bullseye tutorial

[CristianIS]

Hello everyone. I’m pretty new at Falcon BMS (considering the remarkable pilots I’ve seen on this community), and in my learning process I’ve come to this huuuuuuge (think of Donald Trump saying huuuuuuge to realize how big of a problem this is) obstacle: bullseye calls. I mean, I’ve been looking everywhere but I can’t find a “for dummies” tutorial or guide to explain every single aspect of bullseye calls. I mean, I understand the basic stuff (what it’s for, how it’s “supposed” to work), but in practice, every time I hear the AWACS telling me about a hostile, I’m like, “Ooooook… so, in English please”.

Therefore, I’d like to summon the aid of you guys (all the Aces out there) to make a tutorial regarding bullseye, that is simple enough for a newbie to understand (actually, literally, something a four-year-old would understand). I will, without a doubt, appreciate such a tutorial to a degree difficult to express in words (I’m getting all sentimental already) but think of all the newbies you’ll be helping out, because believe me: I’m pretty sure of my mental capacity to learn pretty much everything there is to learn about Falcon BMS, but the one thing that I just haven’t understood yet is the bullseye concepts.

So, thank you Aces! And thank to all the amazing community for keeping the Falcon dream alive!

[Cloud 9]

Take a look here for some info: https://www.benchmarksims.org/forum/showthread.php?23066-Bullseye&highlight=bullseye

C9

[Stevie]

Two tricks -

1. think of bull calls as similar to (if not the same as) calls of radial/distance off a TACAN.

2. steer your cursors, not your aircraft.

You’ll get it…eventually.

[Blu3wolf]

Get some graph paper and a protractor and do some practice. Put your plane somewhere on the paper, with ‘up’ on the paper being north. Plot a bullseye somewhere, and perhaps some points chosen at random. Assess the location of each of those points from the bullseye - it is just polar coordinates, a bearing from bullseye, and a distance from bullseye. Pick one of the points, and see what bearing and distance it is from you, instead of from bullseye.

All you need to be able to do to make use of bullseye in a timely manner in the cockpit, is to be able to do very rough vector subtraction mentally. You can get better at that, by practicing vector subtraction graphically. That is, draw the bullseye vector of a target location (a vector is just a line with both distance and direction, same as your bullseye call has) as an arrow from bullseye, then draw your position vector as an arrow from bullseye as well, and see how there is another arrow you can draw from the head of your position arrow, to the head of the target arrow.

In the cockpit, you are assessing - where am I in relation to bullseye? You know your own position, and you know bullseye is (for example) 15 miles to your 10 oclock (due west in our example). You get a bullseye call for something at 050, 25 miles, and a very brief thought tells you that bullseye is 15 miles due west, and from there is a contact north east 25 miles, which some mental trig (again, graphically solving here) tells you is somewhere north of you, slightly east of you, around your 1 to 2 oclock position, around 10 miles away.

In WVR, you are thinking of your anchored position when you can, and thinking roughly of how far away contacts are from you. In BVR, you are taking note of which contacts are in front of you on axis, which are in front of you but off axis, which are out to your sides…. all comes down to vectors, polar coordinates and graphical trig. All of which you can plot in your head - it doesnt have to be incredibly accurate, it just has to give you a mental picture of what is going on!

Practice is the best way to improve most skills, and mental maths is one of those.

[Bertuz]

Old but usefull

http://www.combatsim.com/htm/aug99/bullseye.htm

[Rich_EXF]

I’ve seen before now a bullseye/compass points diagram. If someone is able to provide a link then print that off and keep it within eyeshot for flying. It will help your SA and to become accustomed to bullseye.

[dolphin]

Look here :

http://www.185th.co.uk/squad_info/training/basic_n&b.htm

Standalone Bullseye Trainer and Tutorial…

[raven6]

Dolphin, used this for offline practice. Great tool

[CristianIS]

Thanks for all the quick replies, fellows! I sure appreciate it! I will now read all the detailed explanations and links. Hopefully I’ll get it this time around

[CristianIS]

This post is deleted!

[Viper]

Maybe this one helps too.

http://47df.com/downloads/Taktik_Page/Bullseye_Briefing.pdf

Even if its in german language, you can use Google translator to get the picture

[CristianIS]

@Blu3wolf:

Get some graph paper and a protractor and do some practice. Put your plane somewhere on the paper, with ‘up’ on the paper being north. Plot a bullseye somewhere, and perhaps some points chosen at random. Assess the location of each of those points from the bullseye - it is just polar coordinates, a bearing from bullseye, and a distance from bullseye. Pick one of the points, and see what bearing and distance it is from you, instead of from bullseye.

All you need to be able to do to make use of bullseye in a timely manner in the cockpit, is to be able to do very rough vector subtraction mentally. You can get better at that, by practicing vector subtraction graphically. That is, draw the bullseye vector of a target location (a vector is just a line with both distance and direction, same as your bullseye call has) as an arrow from bullseye, then draw your position vector as an arrow from bullseye as well, and see how there is another arrow you can draw from the head of your position arrow, to the head of the target arrow.

In the cockpit, you are assessing - where am I in relation to bullseye? You know your own position, and you know bullseye is (for example) 15 miles to your 10 oclock (due west in our example). You get a bullseye call for something at 050, 25 miles, and a very brief thought tells you that bullseye is 15 miles due west, and from there is a contact north east 25 miles, which some mental trig (again, graphically solving here) tells you is somewhere north of you, slightly east of you, around your 1 to 2 oclock position, around 10 miles away.

In WVR, you are thinking of your anchored position when you can, and thinking roughly of how far away contacts are from you. In BVR, you are taking note of which contacts are in front of you on axis, which are in front of you but off axis, which are out to your sides…. all comes down to vectors, polar coordinates and graphical trig. All of which you can plot in your head - it doesnt have to be incredibly accurate, it just has to give you a mental picture of what is going on!

Practice is the best way to improve most skills, and mental maths is one of those.

This is a very detailed reply! I’m processing it all, but as you said, I’ll need to practice for this to make sense to me. Thanks!