2023 Updated Maverick Boresight Procedure - DCS F-16C

[@tnewt21]

Bro, You saved my sanity! I could not get the MAVs to boresight on the ground for the life of me until now.... I did not know you had to switch the GND JETT switch! Thank You for posting this video!!!!!

[@Mightymoose02]

Great summary. It has been confirmed by Waggs that this will be fixed in the next patch.

[@JSRJS]

8 months later, still not fixed.

[@commanderstud2417]

@@JSRJSyep. Only works in mission editor starting in the air.

[@TheEarthwinders]

Something I struggle with sometimes is finding a target to lock onto on the ground if there's not one located on the base. The mavericks don't like to lock onto signs/posts/buildings etc very well. Airplane parts seem to be the best best (like an engine or a wheel), but still hard to get a hard lock on those.

[@Lorian667]

To train good habits: try to do this in flight. If you ever switch to Falcon BMS, where the battery of the maverick only lasts 30 minutes after you power it on, or if this gets implemented in DCS you dont have to retrain.

[@Mark_Point]

Not with the engine running surely? Although I would assume in flight is more realistic. Can't see this happening on the ground.

[@ArchOfficial]

@@Mark_Point The Maverick battery is in the missile, it's not going to draw power from the generator. You're supposed to turn them off while not in use after alignment and boresighting, that'll give you an hour of uptime. Hence you're supposed to turn them on and drop the seeker cover then boresight them only relatively close to the AO.

[@Mark_Point]

@@ArchOfficial Ah ok! Yeah that makes sense. They should put that in then.

[@EbonySeraphim]

@@ArchOfficial if you can do the alignment and boresighting first and then turn the missle back off -> on again with it correct, why wouldn't you do this on the ground then take off?

[@ArchOfficial]

@@EbonySeraphim The boresight will be highly inaccurate due to parallax, and most of the time your transit will be about an hour so you will run out of juice. In DCS I guess it's okay because of the unrealistic 5 minute transit times and immediate targets when arriving at the AO.

[@angryginger791]

Great video. Straight to the point and very clear.

[@justinallen2285]

I ran into that bug without knowing it was a bug until I watched this video. I gave up and just started from the air when using MAVs. Nice to know it was not me.

[@torreypine]

That has been the procedure (MA Simulate, Ground Jettison enabled) for as long as I can remember. You can go back and watch Wags’ video from long ago to verify it hasn’t changed. The issue isn’t boresighting it’s that after boresighting the Mavs don’t slew to the location of the TGP. The question I have (and haven’t been able to answer) is: Is the a MAV boresighting/slew issue or an offset SPI issue? Thanks for the video but I don’t think it will help us with ground target kills until ED fixes something.

[@frankdavis8318]

Yea, I was thinking this is the procedure I've known for a while. It just doesn't work. Misleading video title.

[@mattfrank7]

This has been the correct procedure from the start yes, but in previous patches you didn't *actually* need to use MA simulate and ground jettison for it to work, so a lot of people learned to do it incorrectly skipping those steps since it worked in the past

[@FLYGaffer]

I was apparently one of those people, and looking back at some other YTer's tutorials some leave out enabling ground jett enable or sim (now I am finding some did have it in there, GR and Tricker did apparently). Wags' tutorial shows it done from the air (if he did another video boresighting on the ground, I couldn't find it). So I figured i'd make a new video and do the whole process start to finish, so those who are new to the F-16 can find everything in one place.

[@torreypine]

@@FLYGaffer I sit corrected, thank you. It's nice to have clarity on the procedure for sure.

[@YuriHabadakas]

GROUND JETTISON! That's why my boresighting never works! Thank you!

[@Chibbs.E]

Thank you. I didn’t know about GND JETT switch needing to be on.

[@Sandboxcode]

Great, informative video. Thanks

[@steeltribe3967]

Thanks so much.

[@HenrikWynne]

Awesome. Thank you

[@jeager7623]

even after the update i followed the new procedure its still not accurate even when i do autohandoff any ideas?

[@SlimJimActual]

I’m not a DCS master by any means but I have noticed that the further you boresight the more accurate it will be when you’re actually flying. If you boresight something very close and it’s not pointing to the exact spot you placed your point track then the margin of error will be much higher the further away it is. This also seems to be the case with where you boresight on the object (point track center mass and you boresight the maverick to the corner of the object will be off). I spend a lot of time on the ground getting it as accurate as possible and it really makes a difference when you’re trying to lock from 7-7.5 miles. I try to be on the opposite side of an airfield and boresight off of a 90 degree angle like the corner of a building or a sharp corner of a vehicle so I know I’m aiming everything at the same spot. Hope this helps!

[@Mightymoose02]

Seems logical due to the distance/offset between the Mavericks and the TGP.

[@EbonySeraphim]

This is trigonometry basically. In actuality, either the boresighting is well aligned for close targets, or far targets. It's a targetting pod, so you want it most accurate for far targets, but it will always be a matter of two lines that are converging when too close, intersect at some exact distance you aligned/calibrated for, and diverge further from that point. Consider that If you stand next to a friend, say side by side with a half of a meter between you, both perfectly facing the same direction. If you both point at a small object exactly 45 degrees to the left (of front) 10ft away from you (let's say it's a cluster of objects), you won't be pointing at the same object. Those objects will be as far apart as you are standing (.5m), but for either of you to adjust your angle to point to the other object, it'll be a large angular difference. If you both pointed to something 100ft away, you'd still be pointing at different objects .5m apart, but now the angular difference for either of you to adjust will be far smaller. I won't bother to explain this with words, but if you "align" such that "45 degrees left" results in you both pointing to the same object at 10ft, hold that same direction and look at what is being pointed to at 100ft -- waaaayyy off. Thankfully though, in the case of the TGP + Maverick, they are damn close to each other so as long as they both have accurate "45 degrees left", at 7-20 miles range, being 20ft shifted left or right isn't a problem. You'd rather be accurate that both see the same 45 degrees within 0.1 degrees over that distance.

[@j4s0n39]

That is correct. There is parallax between the TGP axis and the missile axis. If you draw a triangle between the TGP, missile, and target, the parallax will be proportional to the ratio between the length of the triangle and the width. There's also less parallax on the right side mavs, because they sit closer to the TGP. Since you usually aim and launch a mav between 5-8 miles out a 6.5 mile boresight would be ideal.

[@master4098]

It's math. The difference is zero when you boresight infinity. So the closer you boresight the more of a difference it is. Good news is even half a mile should give u low enough error margin for operation.

[@j4s0n39]

@@master4098It's trig specifically, which is triangle math. If you boresight at infinity, the missile and TGP axes will be parallel. So if they're 5m apart on the jet, the aimpoints on the ground will be 5m apart. That could be far enough that the missile locks on to a different target than the TGP, or just doesn't lock. Since the missiles can't go much more than 8nmi, and they have a minimum range, the best option is to sight them in the middle of the effective range, which minimizes the error. For example, if they're 5m apart on the plane and you boresight at 6.5nmi, at 5nmi and 8nmi, they'll only be 1m off, which still should target the same object.

[@scrag0416]

Thanks

[@FreShuuuuu]

Man, i was so mad when i tried to boresight this piece of crap 100 times, glad they found the reason why this wasn't working. Cheers

[@peterluxus7382]

DOCUMENTATION ... why do we get to know this stuff through a video and not through a well up to date docu?

[@new_comment]

I wish they would fix the mavs, it's a headache when you have to fight with slewing the mavs sensor after you've captured your tgt with the tgp

[@jeffreyc2074]

You must have been away from the F-16C a LONG time, this has been the procedure for quite a long time now.

[@Pathfinder_tua]

Yeh iv been doing this procedure for more than a year?

[@jebb125]

I read a article that A10 pilots boresite during flight on their wingman instead of on the ground.

[@chrispoe5292]

I dont know what I’m doing wrong but I’ve done in air and on ground alignment’s exactly like in the video and my mavericks are still always off tgt. They are in the area but if your trying to lock onto a cluster of tanks that your tgp is on it will never be exactly on the tgp feed like it used to be before they screwed all this up in the first place.

[@acrofarmer]

I’m still struggling to get them correctly boresighted. Like stated already, my issue still isn’t the procedure to BS, but to actually have them BS’ed. once I get in the air after BS’ing the mavs, mark point several targets & then lock with TGP. I try to auto handoff like normal & the mavericks aren’t pointing anywhere within 10 miles of the TGP marked target?? I had no issues with this about 6 months ago? Recent update with beta yesterday for me still hasn’t fixed this…

[@mykneeme]

I have the same experience. I hope they’ll fix it soon. Never had any issues before.

[@Slay0r815]

You didn't CZ your T-pod at the end of the procedure. Isn't that gonna be a problem?

[@lexikdark3392]

So they have updated the sensetivity of the mavericks a little bit. so they have a bigger "engagement box" as you can call it, for when you use your TGP to lock something up at range. the average range of a TGP's view-distance where you should actually be able to see something clearly enough on the ground is about 10-15 Nautical-Miles so within that range your Mavs should track properly and even auto-lock on to what you're TGP is locked on to. however, this requires you to Boresight at the proper distance while on the ground. on-ground boresighting should be at 1 Nautical mile so as to not make the boresighting basically crosseyed. 1Nmile = 1.8km or 1800m. so if you're on the ground boresighting instead of doing it in the air, like most pilots in 16's aparently do. you need to be close to if not exactly 1 (One) Nautical Mile off the target that you boresight off of ^^ a trick you can use when making a mission that uses F-16's with mavs is to add a Marker on the ground that the 16's move over too and place a known target 1-Nmile away from it for them to use. or if there's a lot of water big enough to hold a single boat on the way towards the target, or next to the airbase. place a boat. use that in the air. OR use the Yardstick function of the F-16 HSI/TCN and get 1Nm behind your flightlead and boresight off him/her and let them to the same with you. but the sensetivity has been lowered so it is easier to be less accurate and still get a positive lock using just your TGP. that being said. you don't even need a TGP. you can roughly Align them with your Hud aswel in Vis mode. use your HMCS or HUD to guide where they look and then WPN page to finish the job from there ^^ hope it helped

[@angelo-5657]

I also found some weird HMD slewing behavior when in VIS mode. It seems like the ground stabilization doesn't really work

[@_Greebo_]

Did ED change how this works with the latest OB patch? When I press SP now it no longer centers the TGP directly forward.

[@dannyd7714]

The bug is it only works for the selected missiles on the rails, not all 3 of the missiles on each rail at once. So you'll end up with a bore sighted missile on each station, and the rest aren't bore sighted.

[@TheEarthwinders]

That explains so much why I was struggling to make sense of things on my last group liberation campaign. Thanks.

[@ChristopherGreerCDN]

Good to know! It's been driving me crazy that the first Maverick on the rack is fine but the rest are all misaligned when they *should* all boresight per station.

[@jimmy8x541]

Is this still true or has it been fixed?

[@TheEarthwinders]

@@jimmy8x541 I think it's fixed now.

[@zeno6111753]

If it goes bonkers when you get into the air after doing it on the ground. Does it work as it should if you do the boresight in the air?

[@johanverhoeven3661]

Unfortunately this was the method I always used … and it doesn’t work anymore.

[@uglyigor3055]

Do you have to re-align the MAVs every time after you power them off / on or just the first time after powering them on?

[@TheKunext]

Hi, i just see your video and my IR mavs are so blurry, much more than yours. I cant find solution for that maybe you know what might cause that?

[@Duckfisher0222]

Any updates on the fix?

[@FlameBot]

Of course not. It's ED. They took years for fix things

[@Ventura60kts]

Seems wierd to need ground jettison enabled.

[@tehbigshow]

This is a good video but I can never get to actually work well, ever. When I am up in the air and see my target with the TGP, the mav is off just enough for it to have no point in doing at all. End up doing better just using VIS mode. I wish ED would just take this step out completely or have a special option to disable for players that don't want this much "realism". You don't have to do this crap in the Warthog or Hornet.

[@JamesG19771]

Same here. I seem to spend 99% of my time on the ground bore sighting. Only for the tgp and mav to so far apart I cant hit anything.

[@zeno6111753]

Does this work now after yesterday's patch?

[@FLYGaffer]

Yep, tried it a few times and does appear to be fixed. They aren't kidding about the parallax error though, if you boresight on the ground, make sure its at an object far away.

[@zeno6111753]

@@FLYGaffer ah, that's what I did wrong then ;)

[@DD-sw1dd]

This is the most infuriating part of the F-16. If I power off the mavs after boresight, when I power them back up will they maintain boresight? In BMS the mavericks have a set lifespan which is why you can’t power them on and fly around for 2 hrs before using them.

[@shannonnezul4903]

Not currently working, at least not for me and 1 other.

[@jonathonmcrae5671]

Such a stupid system, I wonder if this is realistic, like when they do this IRL they follow the same procedure.

[@Kumyar]

What makes it stupid for you?

[@jonathonmcrae5671]

@@Kumyar The fact it isn't automatically slaved to the TGP like it is in the A10. Weird that you have to lock something on the ground, and boresight it that way.

[@Kumyar]

@@jonathonmcrae5671 Its not automatic in A-10 either. You make a SPI point, and then DMS/TMS long(idk which button it is, i havent played A-10 in months) when you selected Mavs, to make Mavs look at that SPI. Same can be done with F-16. Using Mark tool. You can use HUD, TGP, FCR or HMD to make a mark on the point, TMS aft 2 times to make Mavs look at selected steerpoint. Or take 2 minutes on the ground to boresight them to make your life million times easier when in the AO.