I have released a very simple, free app for Android devices to help with building situational awareness when facing Bullseye calls. The app is named BullseyeHelper. This demo video shows it basic use in less than one minute:

BullseyeHelper app (1/2) – 00:58
— jboys

Background

When airborne in BMS we may receive bullseye calls, for instance telling us where enemies are or where a tanker is available. Seasoned virtual pilots are able to quickly figure out what the picture is from that information. Some of us have used pen and paper to plot the location of our jet vs. those enemies to figure out if the enemy is close enough to be a concern.

This app is essentially a digital version of such a pen-and-paper tool that runs on your phone or tablet.

Features

You can simply tap the screen to place markers (and optionally rotate your own jet to the proper heading). The app will then tell you distance to contact and which heading you need to assume to point the jet at the contact. For higher accuracy, type in exact coordinates in the two fields up top.

The app also contains practice modes so everyone can become better at building the mental image of our jet vs. the enemy. It works by throwing bullseye calls at you for you to solve.

Finally, the app can connect to BMS which automatically places your ownship on the bullseye chart.

The video - or these screenshots - should convey how the app works in showing the tactical picture and how practice mode works.

The picture below shows that the enemy is 73nm away, at our 8’oclock. If we wanted to point the jet directly at him, we should turn left and assume a heading of 228.

The next picture below is from the “hard” practice mode, including a countdown after which the picture of both jets will be revealed (the screenshot is from an older version)

How to use it

In-game you would find your ownship bullseye coordinates either on the HUD (only in A-A or NAV mode AFAIR) or on the HSD, lower left corner.

You then put in ownship and enemy symbols by simply tapping the screen. Every tap alternates between placing the ownship and enemy symbol. For proper heading of ownship, use the rotation arrows. Hold to rotate, tap for fine tuning.

You may also type coordinates into the two fields at the top for

• control over accuracy of coordinates vs pressing with a finger, and
• ability to enter the exact heading for ownship

With the keyboard you start entering values by tapping one of the two grey fields at the top. In this screenshot, I have entered ownship coordinates radial 20, distance 85 and heading 340 and I am about to press Send (button in lower right corner):

The entry fields accept coordinates in two formats, either “20-85-140” (for coordinates radial 20, distance 85 and heading 140) or equivalently “020085140”. In the latter format you must supply 3 digits for each coordinate value.

Enemy or tanker coordinates only require the first two values as input (radial and distance), since we usually do not receive a heading value from AWACS.

Practice

To practice bullseye calls, simply tap one of the Practice buttons at the bottom. Every time you press a button, a new challenge is produced to be solved within a certain time. In the practice modes you may tap the screen to indicate where you believe the symbols will appear once countdown is done.

The “hard” mode gives you your coordinates and those of the enemy, the challenge is to build the picture mentally before it is revealed after the countdown (default 10 seconds) and you can see if you got it right.

The “easy” mode works the same way, only here you are shown the placement of your own jet as a help so you only need to place the enemy jet at the correct location to gauge distance and aspect from that. Default time here is 5 seconds.

The HSI mode is described in detail in post from 22Jan2022 in this thread.

The RESET button cancels practice modes and BMS mode and returns you to the standard mode (plain bullseye chart).

Connect to BMS (optional)

The app will work entirely on its own, no connection to BMS is required. That said, the app is able to connect to BMS by running a small companion program. If you choose to do so, a connection to BMS will enable you to press the BMS button and have your ownship information entered for you (when you are in-game in cockpit in 3D).

The BMS button will turn black to highlight the selection of that mode. When connected, every press of the BMS button will load the current position for your ownship. Enemy markers can then be placed on the screen with a simple tap, or (if you prefer extra precision) by using the enemy entry field and the in-app keyboard.

The github page has more information on how to set up the companion program.

Resources

You may find the Android app and the companion program here:

Google Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.companyname.BullsEyeHelper
Github page with more info, apk file and companion program (BMSBullsEyeServer) : https://github.com/JBoysen1/BullsEyeHelper

The app has been tested on Android 8, 10 and 11 devices, both phones and tablets. If you find any issues, feel free to report them here or as issues on Github.

Updates

10Dec2021: Version 2.21 fixes an issue on Android 10 with inability to use keyboard after having tapped to place symbols

13Dec2021: Version 2.30 adds options to perform range scaling (range increase/decrease) and rotation of ownship heading for proper “X o’clock” call

21December2021: Version 2.40 adds zoom functionality

10January2022: Version 2.45 fixes layout for tablets and has some minor improvements

22Jan2022: Version 2.50 has a countdown slider and a new HSI practice mode.

Just got off the boom, hanging with my AI buddies (and celebrating that my screenshots are working again)

haha, those are really well done. “zero paid DLC” lol

@tgw One thing especially with 4.36 that I am looking forward to is the improved fog. That might give us the ability to come closer to encountering situations like this. Notice how the stern is barely visible from the LSO station so imagine the cockpit experience:

Image is from this video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUSVJ-pncNs

I would say the terrain too - and with that comes better (more believable) cities, forests, coastal areas, ocean. From far up they look ok, but they should look good up close as well.

All, I am about to push a version 2.2 which allows you to tap the screen to place enemy and ownship symbols on the Bullseye chart, instead of using the app keyboard. You may still enter coordinates using the app keyboard, both methods work.

For the practice modes, tapping the screen will place a circle showing the user estimate for where the symbols are going to end up. I believe that was the notion behind your idea, @foxster. An example is this screenshot (I was a little bit off for both symbols):

In the regular mode (not practice, not BMS) every tap alternates between placing the ownship and enemy symbol. That way the keyboard is not necessary to use any longer, unless:

• you want very high control/accuracy of coordinates, or

• you want to enter the precise heading for ownship, or

• you want to place a symbol outside the 100nm default distance, in which case the rings will scale to accomodate the longer distance from BE.

In this mode the ownship heading defaults to 360 as a nod to Rolling Fire but you can change it with the keyboard. If someone has a gesture suggestion for the heading let me know.

The BMS button will fetch the full set of coordinates for ownship (including current heading) and display that. In BMS mode, every tap will place an enemy marker and give directions towards it.

The release should roll out to devices soon (it has passed Google Play review). I will also put together a short demo video of the app

To be continued…

-jb

@Leandro It is described on p. 239 of the BMS-Training.pdf.

But basically, to input the coordinates you

Open DEST on the ICP, using LIST-1
Set a number, say 56 and press ENTR
Go down to where it says “LAT N”, then press 2
Input the N coordinates, press ENTR
You are now at “LNG E”
Press 6, then input the E coordinates, press ENTR

You may enter an altitude as well.

You can now set 56 as a Steerpoint

-JayB

<p>@Gear5 I would guess that you got the calls “is there a problem?” or “expedite taxiing” since you were a bit late to start taxiing? Ground aborting your flight might have resolved the situation, allowing the other flights to move. You did taxi late, after all, so aborting and then re-requesting taxi again could perhaps have resolved the queing issues in the mind of the ATC. <br /></p>

Hi, as many others I sometimes fly as #2 with the AI for a quick flight, to do formation training. Practicing rejoins, going spread, echelon right etc.

One thing I noticed about the lead #1 is that his comms around the ATC is very good. Orders the flight to push tower, approach, which formation to assume for landing etc.

The next phase outside ATC is a bit lacking though, after taking off he does not announce to “push Tactical” after we have been on Departure. And when coming up on a tanker, he does not announce that flight should push the tanker UHF to listen in on his comms with the tanker. It would be nice if that could be remedied at some point.

But getting back to the formation practice: In between steerpoints flying is pretty smooth. That is when it is possible to fly alongside the lead and practice formations.

But when transitioning to next steerpoint, his manouvering can get a little unstable. Going burner, abrupt altitude changes etc.

This wouldn’t be so bad if it was announced, like a human lead would do.

So say we are flying between steerpoint 2 and 3, and coming up on steerpoint 3. The next path from 3 to 4 requires a left turn.

A few improvements in comms could go a long way:

Announce in advance when transitioning to next steerpoint. For instance, “Spade 1, reference steer 4”.
Announce in advance how he plans to manouver onto the next part of the flight path (from 3 to 4): “Spade 1, 30 degree left turn, angels 26”

These messages contain information that he has and is going to apply himself, and hearing it out loud would go a long way to make the #1 a good lead.

It would be nice to see some attention to these suggestions at some point, although I have no idea how hard it is to do.

Thanks,
JayB

Just as a heads-up, 4.36 now allows for inversion of throttle axis

@BOCOWA No, you are right, my rotary fires off a DX-keypress for each notch.

That is probably what causes your issue. Can you somehow “convert” the rotation into DX-keypresses (axis-to-button) through software ?

On the other hand, it should work with using analog control. Reading through the pages in the user manual around 3-47, there is some warning about only use one physical axis per in-game axis, so you could check if you by any chance have a conflict of axis.

@BOCOWA

The docs describe this setting in the Technical manual, p. 3-27. They suggest setting it to zero for 1-degree increments always (when bound to the 1-degree setting). That may workfor QNH. But I use rotaries for CRS as well, so I need to be able to spin faster. Hence my choice of 250.

If you are using the Alternative Launcher, you could show the Mapping screen for those bindings like mine above. Just take a screenshot and paste it in here.

Also, are you mapping the rotary to the 5 degree increments/decrements binding only?

In the BMS UI, under Setup-Controllers, this is what I see when I turn my rotary one notch:

And same for decrement. You might check that you are seeing the same thing

@BOCOWA
I have mapped to a rotary on my CM2 throttle like this:

It is not obvious why you should map to the 5 degree increments but that works, together with this setting in the config:

set g_nKnobAccelerationDelta 250

The setting will allow BMS to figure out if you are slowly dialing the rotary or spinning it fast. The former will then give you 1 degree increments.

Note that 250 may not work for you. It is dependent on the hardware firing rate, so try lower or higher values to see what works.

@Sgt_Fresh-0 right throttle handle or left ? Also Alternative Launcher can make it more transparent what your throttle is doing and it is mapped properly

Please add document outline (pdf bookmarks) to “TO BMS 1F-16CM-34-1-1.pdf”. The other docs have it (eg the training pdf and the comms-nav book) and it helps immensely when looking up topics. It’s this table of contents thingy, like here in the user manual:

Do recon troops fire both IR and laser IRL? I don’t know. If they’re facing enemy defenses with night vision, I hope not, that would give their position out.

The JTAC in BMS currently seems to fire a laser, with coordinated laser code. But whether there should be a visual cue that it is in fact lasing and what it is pointing at, I don’t know. I have not tried buddy lasing in BMS, but it should work the same way

@LorikEolmin I have no idea what is realistic. The new -34 document alludes to visibility of the IR pointer using NVGs. p143 and forward.

The ground JTAC when “lasing” actually fires a laser, like you would with buddy lasing. So a bit interesting that an IR pointer seems to appear on the TGP. I have no idea if that should be visible with or without NVG, that was somewhat my point. That could be cleared up by someone with more information

@LorikEolmin Yes, here is another one: https://youtu.be/8P3gMvEEIkE?t=87

@LorikEolmin It does, there are several examples in videos of that.

But getting back to JTAC, maybe we should just trust that the laser from the JTAC on the ground is pointing/guiding and pickle, even though the laser is invisible. Fine by me, if it works that way

@LorikEolmin Hm, this is at nighttime, you clearly see the pointer (pulsating) : https://youtu.be/Ntit677Upy8?t=146