DCS F/A-18C Complete LITENING II TGP Tutorial

[@RedKiteRender]

I hope you enjoy this one, took quite a while, and covers the whole lot, don't forget a pen and paper! Videos like these take a considerable amount of time to research and produce, if you enjoyed the content please consider supporting me on Patreon!: www.patreon.com/RedKite

[@ricecake4754]

Your diction is so good that even fan from S.Korea can understand easily!

[@RedKiteRender]

Glad to of been of help!

[@ieurau-8583]

fans from north korea seeng this video: write that down

[@yyy-xxx-yyy4855]

Hi, so do I. I am from Russia and I can understand him easily

[@einarabelc5]

Isn't that awesome!! I know the feeling when only native speakers can understand....

[@Tridan24]

Your a legend Redkite. Because of folks like you who take the time to do tutorials you make it so much easier to understand, frequently visit and enjoy your greatly appreciated work. Thanks so much.

[@RedKiteRender]

Thank you kindly!

[@Ayetsu]

A-10C II and RedKite video in the same day? This is great!

[@sterlingarcher4989]

Thank you for not falling for the letterbox format that so many ‘How to’ videos seem to be shifting to. It’s refreshing to be able to see what I’m being taught.

[@RedKiteRender]

KZbin's compression and low bitrate are the primary reason I prefer to do closeups! otherwise it's so easy for things to blur away, especially with lots of motion.

[@ZiRo815]

The letterbox format is a result of recording a widescreen display which has a different aspect ratio to non-widescreen displays

[@Kolobochok95]

As always, amazing tutorial, no bullshit and straight to the point! Much appreciated and keep it up!

[@wee6838]

laughs in grim reapers doing nothing but handing out wrong tutorials

[@slader..8953]

@@wee6838 fr grim reapers is not even good

[@S.Figur-the_real_one]

Many Thanks. I was so frustrated when after a long time in VR I couldn't get along with the Hornet because of the pot. I'm training that right away and give thumbs up for this calm and very good tutorial. Thy vm ^^

[@JayDKBGames]

THis guys videos are the BEST tutorials he doesn't do a lot of other talk around no joking just straight to the point. I friggin LOVE his videos.

[@sterlingarcher4989]

Redkite videos - the Chuck’s guides of KZbin.

[@Nate-ip4qo]

This is such a good video. There's the normal stuff that's in most tutorials then there's the 10000IQ shit like the A/A flir usage or that HARM TOO interaction. Thanks a ton, man. This was really helpful.

[@mrsatchie]

Coming back to this after a year (and noob on DCS at that time) has great value! Thanks again, great video..

[@RedKiteRender]

Glad to help!

[@flyingfatcats517]

As a newer Hornet driver, I greatly appreciate this like the others have said! Have shared this on our discord channel under hornet training. Thanks much!

[@RedKiteRender]

Thanks! Welcome to the Hornet! It's my second favourite (after the hog)

[@lotnylotny671]

I'm 400. You make very good tutorials. You speak slowly, clearly and calmly - this is important for people with poor English :)

[@JohnnyJiuJitsu]

This must be the updated video I was asking about in the laser guided bomb tutorial from 2 years ago. *Gets out pen and paper. No, I'm going to bed. I'll save this for tomorrow :)

[@GeFlixes]

Your tutorials are one of the best sources the community has to offer!

[@RedKiteRender]

Thanks GeFlixes! glad they're appreciated.

[@wiwa23]

This is really good and welcome stuff. A brilliant roundup of all the features of one specific system. This is the sort of tutorial that is worth watching over and over to remain ‘current’ and get refreshed. Because whatever the case, you tend to forget stuff. Thanks for your work Redkite. It is very much appreciated!👌

[@vandaahl1400]

I wish I found this one earlier... Thx a bunch for a spot on tutorial. Very informative and easy to understand.

[@inuit2winit]

An excellent video for a hornet driver returning after a long break (and perfectly timed, to boot), thanks!

[@sushieduardo]

Best in depth view of the system

[@godseykj]

Fantastic buddy. Finally put warheads on foreheads with help from this video.

[@TheBizno]

14:13' VVSLV I did use it a lot, until the HMD A2G capabilities came out :) Great Video! And yeah, I'm taking notes :)

[@falcos]

Thank you! It was hard to find videos since so much has changed over time

[@williamhall2386]

God your videos have the best clarity, organization, and flow..... you make these modules worth really digging into

[@ErikScott128]

I've been waiting for a video like this. The TGP in the hornet has gone through so many changes and revisions that the official videos are rather worthless. I will also say that I really appreciate your no-frills, no-bullshit style of video. Very well done.

[@RedKiteRender]

Thanks!

[@alvarodelaorden8901]

truly a masterpiece you got here, sir. Much appreciated.

[@JoJo-vm8vk]

Best Hornet Litening pod tutorial ever, amazing work 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

[@ex4lt341]

I am watching every of your tutorials. I don't even have DCS, it's just so well done that I like watch it :D

[@RedKiteRender]

Thanks for the kind words! (DCS does have a fair bit of it for free, with the simplified Su-25T being available if you want to try it out though!)

[@noisytwit]

The bomb fall line on the TGP I was not aware of. This is a game changer!

[@RedKiteRender]

That little indicator packs quite a bit in! Took me by surprise.

[@alexisesguerra2544]

Best tutorial for the TGP, ever! Clear and detailed. 👍👍👍

[@prayong64]

Absolument fantastique le tuto...Merci

[@omarselim6281]

Hey Redkite, just bought the Hornet and Supercarrier in the Christmas sales and just getting to them now. Thank you so much for these! You should make a training campaign for the hornet mate. I'd buy it tomorrow :)

[@Templar7832]

Red Kite this is just BRILLIANT Thank you! flaming well done mate, I don't know how you do it! 10. Out. Of. 10.

[@RedKiteRender]

Thanks kindly!

[@JerDog1984]

Excellent. Thanks RedKite!

[@ryanw5584]

Great video. Underrated for sure

[@fullspecwarrior]

Impeccable as always. I've only ever signed up for one Patreon, this one, because how can you not? The results clearly come from the effort put in. Thanks as ever.

[@RedKiteRender]

Thank you kindly!

[@thefridge71]

Youre a boss mate. What an anazing teacher you are. Having taught a hands on trade online this year I can really appreciate the amount of planning and time that this has taken you. Thankyou for your efforts and I hope you are being well rewarded for your hard work. Take care, all the way from Australia! Tom

[@RedKiteRender]

Much appreciated.

[@marczamp4737]

This was really well put together, thanks sm

[@bitboydcs9825]

Outstanding tutorial, thanks for sharing.

[@Tyetheberious]

Great video, very easy to follow.

[@romagnolo]

amazing video! Thank you! I could bet that real life F-18 pilots use this to study for their finals hahahaha

[@icarebecozudo]

learned a lot, and with great pleasure, thank you!

[@AndriyMisuyrak]

This tutorial was needed !

[@Peter-oe8qp]

I like your videos so much, I watched this even though I’ve already learned the pod. You sound happy!

[@RedKiteRender]

Hah It's nice to be covering a (mostly) complete system!

[@robkelman4704]

Another awesome video. Thank you!

[@8BitThoughts]

I thought I had the flir pod down pat but I learned a lot from this lol

[@jep1103]

As usual a very informative and concise vid...I learned a lot from this thank you

[@PedroRodriguez-ui6pq]

Excellent as usual!!!

[@mrpawno4955]

Nice and professional.

[@ac555555555555555]

Hi Redkite, thank you very much for your tutorials! So calm, and simple to understand, but nevertheless very complete.

[@RedKiteRender]

You're very welcome!

[@starfleethastanks]

Raven One Mission 8 has been giving me trouble. After this video, that Grisha's hosed!

[@RedKiteRender]

Go get 'em!

[@noisytwit]

I was sure the default load out didn't give us a FLIR on M8?

[@starfleethastanks]

@@noisytwit It did for me. But I keep trying to be smart and use the pod to avoid the awkward Mav slewing, which requires the TDC to be depressed for some reason. Problem was I couldn't see shit and was fumbling with the mouse because I didn't fully know the Hotas controls.

[@noisytwit]

@@starfleethastanks you can disable realistic slew in the special page in settings under the F18 and you should be able to slew the MAV then without holding TDC depress. Taking out the Grisha for me wasn't too bad. Taking out the fastboats with the rocket showever was a pain, could not see those at all! Though I did do the mission the other night whilst we had the white NVG so with green it may be easier to see them.

[@starfleethastanks]

@@noisytwit Wait, is it green again?

[@haedubabaganush]

Very well done. Best tutorial I've seen on the subject. Thank you.

[@stevegriffiths4954]

Spot on ! 👌 very informative💥👏👏👏

[@clevercat5844]

Training time! Thank you RedKite!

[@zackbenson7658]

Awesome tutorial. Very comprehensive ... Thanks!

[@man_vs_life]

I've got a lot to learn. Thank you for this!

[@brainfart22]

The king has returned

[@swiftplus175]

At 7:15: The meter stick can not be "any" leg, only one of the two horizontals can be used for any distance measuring according to the meter number on the screen. The vertical ones in the TGP always show different distances, depending on how steep or shallow the TGP is looking at that moment. Similar to the flashlight effect. You can also see the reason for difference, if you look at the North direction cross top right corner, which is represented paralell to the ground in the display, in kinda 3D. Look at it at 6:45, the South-North arrow seems to be much longer, because you see it broadsided, the East-West arrow seems much shorter, but is is the same size, only tilted. Also see A-10C DCS manual page 337: "This numeric, when visible, displays the relative ground distance covered by the right half of the crosshair"

[@ArdiOye]

You teach better than my flight instructor :)

[@starvinmarvin7964]

Jesus I need to take a course just for the tgp. Going to take some time to get all of down for sure.

[@benben2846]

Great tutorial ^^

[@benben2846]

yep i editing with openshot yout YT, and step by step, with the summery i make tuto "in french" on word with comment and images^^ ,so i'm french , but i inderstand step by step all the updates ^_ ^ There is everything for the Tpod on your YT tutorial, Thank's very much !!

[@PizzicatoUK]

Awesome work! Fantastically useful resource. Thanks for all the hard work.

[@harritudur176]

hey kite, thanks in advance for this one. Will help me a lot to get back to the bug!

[@williamsmith7914]

ty for the updates

[@Ghost-pz3uy]

Thank you very much for doing this, it helps a lot.

[@roy8200]

well done thank you

[@resisthouse]

Thanks again RedKite!

[@ivanangelov589]

Great video!!!

[@ccharlot]

thanks papi this is dope

[@atun120793]

Man this is like some college course material worth of stuff you gotta learn.... except you actually want to in this case lol (not to mention RedKite makes for a better prof than almost any)

[@RedKiteRender]

Haha Thanks!

[@enggood5097]

Thanks!

[@HercNav]

Great job RK!

[@Ninjahat]

Good stuff m8.

[@piston_77]

Very nice Red! Can you please elaborate more on the topic about the offset? I am not so sure that real life pods have troubles maintaining locks on low contrast areas. We all have seen pods locking perfectly during the gulf war where there are a lot of content available.

[@RedKiteRender]

In most cases the pod won't have issues, sometimes sunrise/sunset can also upset the IR camera tracks! I couldn't say how much this method is used over just using INS ground stabilised or area/point but it serves as a useful a fall back mode.

[@falanglao01]

ED and the 3rd party developers should pay you, mate... DCS can be quite frustrating for a casual on/off player, the tutorial missions and manuals if these even exist are quite unsatisfactory, stuff gets changed frequently, which in itself is good as they improve and add things but without guys like you I'd have given up.

[@traffictraffic]

This was really awesome thank you!

[@ofCross]

Brilliant ! Thankyou!

[@rustyshackleford2841]

Awesome 👏. Thank you.

[@rookie081]

Master Job. New sub here! Thanks a lot.

[@matthewmcgee]

Fantastic video! I wish I could give you more than one "like". :)

[@T-ya]

Thanks for the great video. Could you please turn on the subtitle feature for me, as I am not very good at English hearings?

[@lowisao]

What do you guys think that Commander Fravor saw in the California coast in 2004? I absolutely cannot wrap my head around it, and it has been tormenting me since I heard him in a podcast a couple of weeks ago.

[@bartbroekhuizen5617]

@RedKite, what i noticed is that the TPOD LonLat is only 6 digits, is it possible to have a more precise LonLat (8 digits) to send to the JDAMS / JSOWS, or will the TPOD send a 8 digit LonLat when you designate a target? This way you get more accurate hits at long distances.

[@wsd810]

@redkite seems like I cannot get the pod to slave to impact point on CCIP. Any suggestions? Great Video!

[@arzhangsadeghi]

Hi what is the difference between dashed and solid target diamond in ATFLIR ? Most of the times when try to lock on A/G targets I get dashed diamond.

[@FreeRangeLemon]

Please do this for the A10C 2!

[@RedKiteRender]

Will sooner or later, it's on the list :)

[@rifledude303]

Incredibly useful video, many thanks!! When practicing I've found that I sometimes get to a point where I cannot slew the pod even though it is SOI and in INS track mode... do you know if that's a known bug or am I just messing things up somehow?

[@RedKiteRender]

Probably need to press tdc depress

[@rifledude303]

@@RedKiteRender roger that, thanks again!

[@satanicdude]

8:23 How do I switch from point/area mode to slewable mode ?

[@RTSchramm]

The cage and uncage button didn't toggle laser track mode and the Raid/Flir button also didn't work for the FOV or Toggling of the CCD and IR camera, but all of the controls were mapped correctly and the FLIR was the sensor of interest. Any suggestions?

[@AceLain]

It is because you have a MAV or a HARM selected, for wathever reason the MAV/Harm have priority over the FLIR even is it is SOI. I recall having seen Waggs saying it was on purpose on the DCS forum a while ago.

[@reorg]

Ok, I'm new to dcs.. .so can you please explain all the the word "The"

[@ericandi]

At around 3:07 in this video, what was that object was panned thru the view of the targeting pod camera? It looked like an object was only about a a foot in front of the camera. It looked like the metal surface of a missile or bomb. The object just quickly panned thru the view. Did you move the camera so it panned across one of the munitions attached to the plane?

[@RedKiteRender]

It's something loaded on the wing, can't remember what. What's going on is the pod's not being slewed around, its following the ground. However the plane is in an oribt, and i was adjusting the angle of the wings to maintain distance, so it moved into shot.

[@MoodOnTele]

Hello, how do I get the flir to Grey scale and not green

[@paul1e]

how do you move the FLIR camera ?

[@AceLain]

An amazing video, really good job ! I have a question thought, do you know how to shoot a AGM-54E in PTKR ? its look like the TGT doesn't update while the PTRK is moving, so the MavE cannot lock the laser because the uncave slave the missile to the TGT. I realized it in one of the "Raven one" mission and I was looking for a workaround.

[@ledude114]

Publicly available footage of the ATFLIR shows a much more useful offset mode that what is in DCS. Even though it’s an ATFLIR, I feel like this is actually the correct implementation vs what’s in DCS currently. What it does is keep the track (eg the tracked point in ptrk) but center the TGP in the offset point. This allows for "offset lasing" meaning the laser actually points at a point relative to the point track that was defined using the offset cursor.

[@Obi1-KenBone-Me]

We dont have the atflir in dcs. This is the lightning 2 and it's not even complete

[@delayed_control]

This is not ATFLIR at all dude, read the video title.

[@ledude114]

m4ti140 that’s my point. Read my comment again. *Even though* the footage is from the ATFLIR, the offset cursor makes a hell of a lot more sense than the current implementation in the LITENING, hence why I’m suggesting that ED’s implementation is wrong. That wouldn’t be a first.

[@ledude114]

Albert as I said to the other commenter, that’s my point. We can definitely suppose that the offset cursor of the ATFLIR is the intended functionality for the LITENING.

[@RedKiteRender]

Whilst it's a logical upgrade, it's also plausible our version of the LITENING II wouldn't support it even if, it was retroactively added to this pod later. You've got to keep in mind we're using documentation from Spanish avionics and undoubtedly it won't be the most recent software either. We're limited by what documentation ED can legally obtain and use.

[@04svt_twinscrew]

I'm having an annoying bug in the Hornet with the TGP. Slave to velocity vector and designate puts the designated area shown on the HUD way off in the distance versus under the VV, but the TGP is looking in a different area.. Also same thing with waypoint designate on a waypoint, it shows correctly on the SA page as where it should be looking but its off looking somewhere else.

[@peterfagan3587]

I'm getting the same thing. When I use "slave to velocity vector" and try to designate a point on the terrain my target diamond appears well beneath the velocity vector. It's effectively going into a snowplough mode. It's easy enough to correct, since it appears in line with the desired point and I just have to slew upwards a bit with the TDC cursor, but it's annoying and wastes time at a point where my workload is rapidly increasing. You can compensate by deliberately aiming the velocity vector beyond the desired target - pitch up slightly for a second or so - but of course this doesn't offer the same degree of precision. So, these days I'm more inclined to use the HMD for this purpose, but of course this means flying at a slightly offset angle.

[@peterfagan3587]

I've worked out where I was going wrong. I had it in my mind that for the vertical velocity vector to serve as a designator I needed the dot in the middle. However, this meant making the HUD SOI. So I was confusing and conflating two separate modes. It would be handy if there was some sort of indication in the HUD of being in VVV mode with TPOD as SOI though.

[@EPOCCH]

I'm getting so frustrated with this. Whenever I press uncage it switches the pod to a different mode (I believe lss) and unlocks my target. Is there anyway I can unbind this?

[@Uollie]

Cage/Uncage on the throttle is the input to switch to LSS, you're right. Are you trying to undesignate instead? That would be the same button that is used for nosewheel steering. But yes, you can unbind the LSS, but it will also unbind cage/uncage as they're the same button.

[@aaronwhite1786]

The laser safety is definitely annoying, after getting so used to not having it before. I can't count the number of times I completely forget about it, and find myself on an attack run with no laser.

[@RedKiteRender]

I bound laser arm to my SYM brightness up/down button on my MFD frame for that exact reason! more than a few time's I've forgotten (I forget once or twice in this video too!) and set the laser on as part of my checklist prior to weapon release. If you've got a button spare 100% you should bind it.

[@aaronwhite1786]

@@RedKiteRender That's actually a pretty solid idea. I will have to click around in the F/A-18 HOTAS config and see. It's maddening coming in against a SAM sight trying to line up an AGM-65E, only to realize I don't have the laser armed.

[@alexiao73th]

Great video! I didn’t get how to switch from green scale to b/w gray scale, can you help me? :)

[@RedKiteRender]

Only the centre mfd displays the tgp in black and white (supports full colour) the others are greenscale with limited colour elements.

[@MrBecas22]

I might have missed it but you didn't mention the LST/NFLR switch. Is it not used for our pod?

[@RedKiteRender]

Not used, other pods have extra fixed forward facing cameras built into the mount which are controlled by this switch.

[@MrBecas22]

@@RedKiteRender roger. Amazing tutorial!

[@jayroo71]

does anyone know the purpose behind the laser switch resetting after use to guide a weapon?

[@RedKiteRender]

Its a safety to insure the laser doesn't get burned out or used unintentionally. It is a little unusual for the actual laser arm switch to disengage however!

[@jayroo71]

@@RedKiteRender just another thing to forget for a follow-up attack haha. Thanks for the reply RK