Carrier Rad Nav made easy

[=CfC=Bounder]

After flying Conky’s carrier mission last night, I thought it time to experiment with the new carrier radio navigation features.

It is pretty basic really and you do not need to know Morse code…just be able to hear the difference between a few dots and dashes and refer to Bounder’s “cheat sheet” and carrier ID form now available in the Dropbox “Noticeboard/CarrierDF_Illustr_Essex.odt”. Unfortunately it is map specific in that the 30deg. segments for Allied carriers change their ID letters when you change maps. So initially, this form refers only to the carriers Illustrious and Essex and the online DF map based on the “Islands”.

To practise with this system, here is what you need to do:-

- In the Dropbox under “Bounder Missions” you will find a folder “Ver410”. Inside this is the latest DF folder for your 4.10 installation dated 100111. Copy this folder into your 4.10/Missions/Net/dogfight directory.
- Print out a copy of Bounder’s cheat sheet from the Dropbox.
- Read from P28 of the 4.10 guide about carrier rad nav. (ZB/YE beacons and a little about Radio Direction Finding)
- Fire up your 4.10 installation and select “Controls”. Assign at least one key to “next beacon” and if you wish another to “previous beacon” (in the Misc. section)
- Load the “islands_DFRB01_41_45_410” from your multiplayer selection and create a server in the normal way. (Important….you must have the realistic navigation switch enabled for radio navigation to work…set in the “difficulties” section prior to loading the mission)
- Select a machine on one of the allied carriers and spawn. (you cannot select Air Force “none” in the arming selection as radio navigation will not work with this selection)
- Spawn on the deck and press the “Tab” key to see the ID’s of your friendly carriers. Note from Bounder’s cheat sheet if the sectors and carrier ID are correct. Assuming they are, get rid of this text by pressing “0”.
- Using your newly assigned key, select the correct beacon ID by pressing “next beacon” until the two letter ID reflects your carrier.
- That’s it…..get airborne….fight the fight…..when you want to fly home listen to the dots and dashes and using the cheat sheet work out a rough heading to get you back to the carrier.
- For the Japanese carriers, after spawning on the deck, use the “next beacon” key to select your carrier and watch for the needle on the instrument (bottom left) to move to the middle…that is then the correct beacon for your carrier (make a note of the ID letter in case you want to switch the sound off).
- That’s it……get airborne and when you want to fly back to the carrier turn on to a heading approximately in the direction of your territory and wait for the needle to centre, then hold this heading to the carrier.
- Within 5-10 minutes you will be a familiar with this and be able to navigate around without having a cheat icon on the map.

Bounder

NB. "Quick" missions for all the CfC DF missions will be ready shortly together with an "installer". This will enable you to fly QMB missions on the exact DF maps that we normally fly Sundays and Tuesdays.

Edit: I have placed a second version of the "Islands" cheat sheet in the Dropbox named "IslandsRadNav01" which is easier and clearer to use. In addition, there is a blank form as it seems that even missions with the same map change the coding. The blank form can be used to fill in the coding from the "Tab" screen once mission is running.