DCS-MDC usage

[Posohm]

As a wingman and a member of a flying team - its important that you are able to "do your part" and i.e. generate the datacard for an upcoming mission.

DCS-MDC tool is available through https://mdc.455aew.com which takes you to https://dcs-mdc.com

Whilst primarily a mission datacard generator - it can also serve as a useful flight planning aid.

In this post, I´ll walk through generating an MDC from start to finish, and anchor on some of the flight planning tips and tricks. I´ll ignore the Importing data through CombatFlite at the moment, and assume that I already know the waypoints etc that I need, so we´ll leave that out for now.

First of all when you open the site, you´re presented with a menu as such:



Select 455 vAEW from the squadron list.



Select "Mission" - at the time of writing we have KOLA and NTTR available. What this does is populate a database of waypoints and presets available in the mission we have uploaded. More on that later. In this case we´ll select NTTR and hit Next.



Select the relevant airframe, leave the Coordinate format as DDM which is the standard coordinate set that's used in the F16, then write in the pilots ( this is optional, but useful ).

Hint: Completely fill out the info for one pilot, e.g. TCN ( Air to Air Tacan ), LSR ( Laser Code ), LSS ( Laser Search Spot) and Squawk. When you add the next pilot, those fields will automatically increment in sequence, and set the correct tacan channel separation.





Hit next to proceed to the Mission Page


Fill in the details based on details you know or skip this until later - the primary and secondary frequency are meant for the primary and secondary Intra Flight Frequencies.

Example below - hit next when done.



Lets assume we are flying as a part of a package, just to cover all the bases - so answer yes when asked - and fill out the details as necessary - example below:


Next up is the Loadout page - I usually skip most of this except the Joker and Bingo values -

You will not get automatic TOLD data or anything from this, but if you fill everything out correctly, at least you´ll get the Gross Weight.


Click next to proceed to the profiles section:
This page is somewhat self explanatory, use the Additional Loadout Information free text area for stuff like arming delay, ripple settings, etc. Whatever is useful.
I usually leave the countermeasures stuff alone.

Fill out the harm tables per squadron standards or as planned/briefed - when clicking the names - you can partially write the system in and autocomplete the rest of the info:


I´ll not cover the HTS classes in this setup, so just leave it on its default setting. Click next when done.

Departure

On this page, you can select the departure, arrival and Alternates - click Location and start typing, either the ICAO code or the airfield´s name, e.g Nellis. If the airfield is already in the database, you should see it in the drop down list, select it from there and the fields will auto populate - provided those things have been entered beforehand behind the scenes. In this case they havent, and the only things that come up are the airfield altitude (MSL), TACAN and AI frequencies.



If you´re headed out and back, then select "use departure" - this will set the arrival airfield the same as your Departure airfield. Same goes for Alternate. Hit next to continue.

Waypoints:
This is where the meat is:

Walk time is what we call "Step" time, and should be the time where we essentially plan to load up the sim and hit the ramp. T/O time is as you guessed, is the planned takeoff time.
Enter the correct Transition Altitude and Level if its not correct already, leave the units in nm and kts


The bullseye point .should be autopopulated, in this case its ELVIS.

Next, start adding waypoints by clicking the balloon in the mission plan to add the first waypoint. Waypoint 1 will be generated. Add Nellis as waypoint 1 by clicking on the Waypoint field



Start typing and select Nellis AFB from the drop down:


You should see that the waypoint details are auto populated with the Altitude, planned Ground Speed, calculated TOT of the waypoint, the LAT and LON. You can then modify any of these fields to a desired value. The ACT is for "activity" in the format HH:MM:SS and denotes how long you intend to "hold" at that waypoint. Clicking on the lat or long field will bring up a menu where you can manipulate the coordinates of the waypoint ( more on that later). Clicking on the little plus at the far right allows you to enter any notes for the waypoint you desire.


The Ground Speed is assumed to be always the same unless you change it between waypoints. Add waypoint two by clicking on the balloon again.

Lets assume here that we are going to fly the LSV100 stereo route out of Nellis ( you can find it on the flight plan form )

( See next post)

 

[Posohm]

Continued from before:



Enter DREAM - add a note:


Note that the new TOT is automatically calculated based on your previous groundspeed, as well as the distance between the two points.


Continuing the Route: note that LSV35266 means LSV (VOR) radial 352 66nm - so I´ll enter LSV into the box, then click the lat long box to bring up the coordinate input, then I can select "update with offset" to update the coordinates for the waypoint.


Click Update - note the coordinates will change, then press LOAD to input the coordinates, THEN press save changes.

You can then rename the waypoint if you desire, i.e. to LSV35266 - it should not change any of the coordinates.


Next up is ILC200050 with a 0h+15 minute delay before proceeding to Reveille to R4807 direct FLUSH direct JAYSN direct STRYK to KLSV ( Nellis ).
Filling it out - it should look something like this, note the 15 minute "ACT" at ILC200050. If a waypoint does not exist in the drop down list, you´ll have to enter the coordinates manually. Use whatever tool at your disposal to find out where that waypoint is. In tis case we don´t have a waypoint named "R4807" so we´ll have to find out where that point should be ( the R4807 boundary that is). In this case i´ve determined that our flight will be intersecting the R4807 boundary at N 37 27.699 W 116 22.335 so we´ll enter that via creating a new point - name it R4807 for example, then select the Lat Long box.



Paste the coordinates in ( note that the previous offset is still on the left, that´s fine, as long as you dont click update, the offset wont be applied ).

Once you hit load, teh coordinates will be updated in the Coordinate input section. Don´t forget to hit save changes.


Our final route should look something like this:



note that the TOT is automatically updated as you go based on the last ground speed defined - given that we maintained 400KGS exactly, we should be coming back home at 20:01.

 

[Posohm]

Additional points of interest might be any arbitary points you want to have saved with you, but not necceserily in your flight plan. For example, if you wanted to note where
Creech is



Hit next to continue to the Mission Communication page.

Default RAMROD is C O M P L E X I T Y - i´ll not cover this here.
Here you can also add different agencies to build a comm plan of your own, but generally speaking we don´t need this here as we have this stuff with us on the IFG.

The Threat Page contains a database of threats , same principle as before, hit the little triangle - fill out and select the one you want from the drop down. For example - SA-10 and SA-8.

Add in codewords if those are in use: example:


Finally you have the NOTES page:


This is basically a WYSIWYG text box editor for any notes and pictures you may want to take along.
Pro tip: take a screen grab, copy it to the clipboard, then just paste it in there - you have yourself a picture
It can be a bit finicky to format, so don´t rely to heavily on this.


Finally - click Next to go to the download section:
This is where you can download the end product ( see next post for example).
The default output template is 2022-05 but you can select different ones to suit your needs, e.g. a dark one.




Finally select either a PDF or PNG for your download depending on which you want.

The JSON import i mentioned earlier takes the the "JSON" file you download here. Note that this is NOT the JSON file you need for tools like dcs-dtc import. That particular JSON is packaged with the zip file that the PDF or PNG download brings.

Lets select PDF in this case:

Once you do that, a download dialog will appear and you should have a zip file with your pdf as well as your json file for dcs-dtc for example.



Opening the PDF - you should see the details you entered throughout this process.





Note that if you want to share the MDC, all you have to do is share the URL to it - but note that in doing so, anyone can make changes to any page and overwrite your work. The proper way to preserve your work while sharing the mdc for user by others, is using the CLONE button.

See the screenshot below for example- once you hit clone, a new MDC URL will be generated. Share that one, or alternatively, ensure that when someone shares an MDC with you, and it is not yours to edit, that you hit that clone button, before making any changes!!