I recently applied for a DCS group that, surprisingly enough, flies at a schedule comparable to mine. That’s a rare thing.
They use the Syria map for the initial Checkride. I applied as an F-4 WSO, since playing as RIO is too easy, and the objective is dropping some bombs and a bit of air-to-air. So, why not combine business with pleasure and put together a low-level flight plan? For the occasion, I had to expand my low-level tools to the Syria map. What follows is the first test on the map, and, spoiler alert, it actually helped me to spot an error I promptly sorted.
Planning
The departure field is Incirlik Air Base, located in the South of Turkey. Targets are usually located around the Geçitkale airport, North-East of the island of Cyprus.
Since the group is quite relaxed, and it is an initial flight, I opted for something easy. The tricky part is finding a proper penetration point. The easiest solution is coming straight in from the Mare Nostrum, but that would be boring. So, I spotted that nice coastline near Vasileia, and used it to somewhat funnel the pilot on the correct heading for the first waypoint. That’s also a nice place for an INS Vis fix update.
To keep things easy, I used a visible reference point, that small lake about a minute into the flight. Then I went southeast for a bit of sightseeing towards another lake. The plan was to avoid the capital of Cyprus, Nicosia.
From waypoint 2, the journey is simple until we hit the tiny airstrip of Kingsfield. From there, due North for a big lake, which is located close to the initial point. I’m not a fan of a 90° turn plus acceleration from 420 to 480 kts, but this is a simple test to familiarise with the group and see if the tools work fine. Doesn’t really matter if we miss the target or run dry.
Besides that, the terrain is a bit of a problem. It is not as flat as the Persian Gulf desert is, so reference points may be difficult to spot. Moreover, roads are tiny, definitely not autobahn-size, and the same applies to rivers. As discussed in the low-level series a few months ago, references that look good on a map do not necessarily work from 50 m, especially when flying at 800 km/h.
Execution
Let’s see how the test went. As a friendly reminder, this is the second time I have ever piloted something like this myself, and a toddler has greater piloting skills than myself.
The tricky part of doing this alone is monitoring speed, heading, and altitude, whilst monitoring the clock and looking outside for visual references in an unfamiliar terrain. Practice is required to do this properly. I used the info bar to simplify things because again, the goal is to check whether the tools are fine. Moreover, I did not have to scan for threats.
After the first leg, I noticed immediately something odd about my tool. Namely, the length of the straight leg portion equals the total. I simply referenced the wrong data cell, but I realised only later.
As mentioned, the parameter I struggled the most to keep in check is the speed. Now, legs are short, ergo the impact of a few knots is not huge, but in some cases, I ended up 10, 20 or even more knots faster or slower than the planned speed. This is not ideal, of course.
The second leg was somewhat uneventful. Roads perpendicular to the route are handy ways to monitor the progress. Several were present in this leg, which minimised the navigation errors.
Rivers, railway lines and defined and isolated villages are other recognisable landmarks.
I must say that I did not expect the lake to be almost hidden by the hills. Note to myself: check the topography better next time!
The third leg was the longest and the simplest in terms of piloting, with a gentle heading compensated by working the throttle. Which I did badly, but we know already why.
There were plenty of landmarks to help the navigation. Something to keep in mind is that we do not want too many of them: for instance, a couple of small built-up areas are easy to recognise. Dozens of them become confusing.
All was good until it was time to find the designated landmark indicating the turn: Kingsfield Airport. I miserably failed to spot it. What to do in these cases? Well, I looked around, noticed another pair of recognisable landmarks, looked at the clock and decided to turn. In particular, I noticed the coastline, the sizeable town and another lake.
Delaying turns is not necessarily a mission-breaking issue if doglegs are present, but messing up the last turn towards the IP was a bit embarrassing.
I found myself in an odd position: I had to compensate for the incorrect heading, plus time lost, on top of putting the aeroplane back where it was supposed to be to intercept the initial point. To do that, I took advantage of another landmark, and I turned to place the big lake on my right-hand side, as the flight plan described.
All things considered, it worked OK. Eventually, I skipped the dive toss delivery, as this was not the point of the test.
Conclusions
I’m quite happy about the test, not really for my piloting skills but because it highlighted a problem in the visualisation of the straightaway length, which I have solved.
Hopefully, I should be able to test the tools with a human pilot soon. Stay tuned!
FlyAndWire 