Harrier JDAM without pre-planned targets
Posted: 20 May 2021, 06:25
Ok, Hammer. I figured out how you select JDAM targets without pre-planned.
Assumption here is you've got the TPOD.
For starters, this only works if you've got at least 1 regular waypoint programmed into the Harrier. If you don't, there's a bug where nothing will work right. Fortunately, you can create a waypoint on the fly. Here's what I do to create a waypoint:
Create dummy waypoint:
======================
(Only needed if you don't already have at least 1 waypoint)
On ESHD screen, press "DATA" button. Text will turn red on the ESHD. Press the "WYPT" OBU. Enter "1" and press "ENT" on UFC. (This selects which waypoint you want to edit). Now press "POS" OBU. Press "N" (for NORTH, then enter "410000" and press ENT. You'll see N 41.000.000 on the top left of the ESHD. Now press "POS" OBU a second time. Press "E" (for EAST) and enter "0410000" and press ENT. (Make sure you enter the leading 0 or it won't work). Now press the "DATA" button again, and you'll now have a waypoint 1 and you can also now increment waypoints properly. I have no idea where this lat/lon points to, but it doesn't matter.
Ok, now that we've got at least 1 waypoint, spool up the TPOD. Press the TPOD button and then press the "STBY" button to put it in operation.
To control the TPOD you have to press TDC down twice. It should say "TPOD" on the screen (and not INS).
Slew the TPOD to a target. It helps if you put it in IR mode. Press the "AR" button to switch it to "PT" (point track) or "MT" (moving track) if so desired. This will help because the TPOD should lock on an IR signature when you slew it. Once you've got it tracking your first target, on the ESHD, press the "MKX" (where X could be any number, like 0, 1, 2, 3, etc). This is on the button row of buttons. This will create a mark point where the TPOD is tracking. Now slew the TPOD to the next target, press MKX. Keep repeating until you've created markpoints for all your targets.
Now, in order to do auto-bombing with these targets, you need to do a couple more steps:
Make sure you've armed the fuse on your bombs, selected J82 on stores page, master arm on, and HUD in A/G mode.
Press the "DESG" button on the EHSD to "box" it. It will likely say "STP". on the right side of the ESHD, you need to use the up and down arrows to select your desired first target (usually M0). Make sure you've got M0 selected and not T0. Press the waypoint increment for 0.8 seconds. Don't press too long or you'll create a temporary T0 target. This tells the EHSD and the HUD that you want to autobomb on markpoint 0. You should see symbology on the HUD and on the ESHD - like a red line on the ESHD showing you your drop range to the target. On the HUD you should see the bombing circle with "N0" underneath it and on the right of the HUD you should see distance to TGT (target). On the TPOD page, box "SLAVE" and the TPOD will go back to tracking your first markpoint.
When the counter starts going up and you're ready to pickle, hold down the weapons release button (needs to be held at least 1.5 seconds). When the bomb drops, you'll need to hit the waypoint increment button (make sure you have this mapped to something!) which should switch to markpoint 1 (if we were on markpoint 0). Pickle again. Keep pressing waypoint increment and pickling bombs until you've dropped a bomb on each of your desired targets. If you're high enough, you should be able to drop 10-12 bombs in one pass, all on different targets and without pre-planning on the F10 map. However, as I was testing this morning at 8000 feet, I was only able to realistically drop 4 or 5 bombs before I overflew the target (mainly because of the delay of 1.5 per pickle and having to manually increment to next mark point. The cool thing is since the TPOD is slaved to the ESHD, it'll automatically slew to each target with each press of the waypoint increment button.
Here's a video that I found that should help you visualize this:
Assumption here is you've got the TPOD.
For starters, this only works if you've got at least 1 regular waypoint programmed into the Harrier. If you don't, there's a bug where nothing will work right. Fortunately, you can create a waypoint on the fly. Here's what I do to create a waypoint:
Create dummy waypoint:
======================
(Only needed if you don't already have at least 1 waypoint)
On ESHD screen, press "DATA" button. Text will turn red on the ESHD. Press the "WYPT" OBU. Enter "1" and press "ENT" on UFC. (This selects which waypoint you want to edit). Now press "POS" OBU. Press "N" (for NORTH, then enter "410000" and press ENT. You'll see N 41.000.000 on the top left of the ESHD. Now press "POS" OBU a second time. Press "E" (for EAST) and enter "0410000" and press ENT. (Make sure you enter the leading 0 or it won't work). Now press the "DATA" button again, and you'll now have a waypoint 1 and you can also now increment waypoints properly. I have no idea where this lat/lon points to, but it doesn't matter.
Ok, now that we've got at least 1 waypoint, spool up the TPOD. Press the TPOD button and then press the "STBY" button to put it in operation.
To control the TPOD you have to press TDC down twice. It should say "TPOD" on the screen (and not INS).
Slew the TPOD to a target. It helps if you put it in IR mode. Press the "AR" button to switch it to "PT" (point track) or "MT" (moving track) if so desired. This will help because the TPOD should lock on an IR signature when you slew it. Once you've got it tracking your first target, on the ESHD, press the "MKX" (where X could be any number, like 0, 1, 2, 3, etc). This is on the button row of buttons. This will create a mark point where the TPOD is tracking. Now slew the TPOD to the next target, press MKX. Keep repeating until you've created markpoints for all your targets.
Now, in order to do auto-bombing with these targets, you need to do a couple more steps:
Make sure you've armed the fuse on your bombs, selected J82 on stores page, master arm on, and HUD in A/G mode.
Press the "DESG" button on the EHSD to "box" it. It will likely say "STP". on the right side of the ESHD, you need to use the up and down arrows to select your desired first target (usually M0). Make sure you've got M0 selected and not T0. Press the waypoint increment for 0.8 seconds. Don't press too long or you'll create a temporary T0 target. This tells the EHSD and the HUD that you want to autobomb on markpoint 0. You should see symbology on the HUD and on the ESHD - like a red line on the ESHD showing you your drop range to the target. On the HUD you should see the bombing circle with "N0" underneath it and on the right of the HUD you should see distance to TGT (target). On the TPOD page, box "SLAVE" and the TPOD will go back to tracking your first markpoint.
When the counter starts going up and you're ready to pickle, hold down the weapons release button (needs to be held at least 1.5 seconds). When the bomb drops, you'll need to hit the waypoint increment button (make sure you have this mapped to something!) which should switch to markpoint 1 (if we were on markpoint 0). Pickle again. Keep pressing waypoint increment and pickling bombs until you've dropped a bomb on each of your desired targets. If you're high enough, you should be able to drop 10-12 bombs in one pass, all on different targets and without pre-planning on the F10 map. However, as I was testing this morning at 8000 feet, I was only able to realistically drop 4 or 5 bombs before I overflew the target (mainly because of the delay of 1.5 per pickle and having to manually increment to next mark point. The cool thing is since the TPOD is slaved to the ESHD, it'll automatically slew to each target with each press of the waypoint increment button.
Here's a video that I found that should help you visualize this: