kikaku August 17, 2022

Contents
I. Introduction 1

II. Pop-Up Attacks 2

A. Why this attack profile? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
B. Why the F-16? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
C. Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
D. The two types of Pop-up attacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
E. VIP vs VRP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
F. MSL, AGL, and DED entry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

III. How to use the Pop-Up Planner software 7

1. Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2. Using the software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
A. Program: Start Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
B. Program: Parameter Entry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1. Tab 1: Attack Type and Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2. Tab 2: Weapon and Ingress Info . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3. Tab3: Attack Run: Plan, DED and Export . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
C. Generated Kneeboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
1. Attack Run Schematic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2. DED Entry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
3. Parameter Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

IV. Parameter Derivations and Calculation Methodology 13

V. A little about me and why I made this 14

A. My motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

VI. References 15

Glossary 15

I. Introduction
I wrote this software with the intention of creating a useful tool for the DCS community in general and
the F-16 e-pilots specifically that would help with the planning of “pop-up” attack runs. What I wanted
to take advantage of was the unique set of symbology built-in (both in reality and in the DCS model) to
the F-16 FLCS that can guide a pilot through the various stages of this type of bombing run. I’ve included
a bit at the end about how I found out about this unique bit of the F-16 and why I was interested in
planning attack runs in general but I figure we have enough to cover as it is so I’ll bore you with personal
anecdotes once we’ve gotten through all the important bits!

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II. Pop-Up Attacks

An example of a “Pop-up” attack is shown in figure 1. As can be deduced by the name the ingress is done
at low altitude until a given, prescribed point is hit, at which point the aircraft starts an offset turn and
“pops” (i.e. climbs) at a specific angle. Once the plane hits a predetermined altitude the pilot rolls the
jet over, points the lift vector at the target and pulls at a prescribed G-load. When the correct dive angle
is achieved the pilot rolls wings level and maintains this dive through the attack run only adjusting the
azimuthal bomb-fall line to ensure that the CCIP pipper crosses the target at the appropriate release
altitude. The jet can egress along the attack axis or the pilot can turn immediately after weapons release
if there is, for example, a AAA threat near the target.

A. Why this attack profile?

The “pop-up” attack profile is most relevant when the ingress falls within the protective umbrella
of medium to long-range SAM sites and/or the target itself is protected by locally positioned AAA or
shoulder-fired SAMs. During the ingress the low altitude, combined with possible terrain masking
effects helps to reduce the threat of longer range SAMs by avoiding detection via their search radars
and minimizes the time the aircraft spends within the cone of visibility/attack of primarily vertical firing
SAMs. Near the target area itself, however, the rapid climb can reduce the vulnerability to both external
AAA/SHORAD threats as well as self-inflected damage from bomb fragmentation. The climb also places
the pilot at a in a position to visually acquire and verify their intended target well in advance to weapons
release.
Clearly this type of attack profile lends itself to the employment of free-fall iron bombs (Mk82/83/84
series) and cluster munitions(CBU-87/97) rather than weapons requiring post-launch support such as
LGBs or long, fiddly acquisition procedures such as the AGM-65. This profile could be used to drop LGBs
so long as they were guided via “buddy-lasing” or by a ground-unit/JTAC. Interestingly I have found this
type of attack to be a uniquely effective method of employing AGM-88C HARMs against SAMs such as
the SA-15 that are particularly good at shooting down both me and any HARM I fire. HARMS fired from
a pop-up profile have the advantage of both attacking along a near vertical axis and striking the target
while the motor is still burning and the missile is at maximum speed.

B. Why the F-16?

While this software is designed for the Viper, just about any reasonably equipped jet can make use
of the attack profiles generated for bombing runs. The reason that the F-16 is particularly suited for
these kinds of attacks (aside from an excess of thrust) is the attack guidance symbology built into the
F-16’s systems. Specifically the F-16 allows for the 3D placement of up to 4 unique points around a
chosen steer point (each with a distinct symbol visible in the HUD or HMD) that can act as visual cues
to direct the jet through a pre-planned attack run. Using these local “sign-posts” as mid-attack run
checkpoints allows for the delivery of unguided bombs with remarkable precision. In effect, these
floating 3D sign-posts can play the same role as the green, square ‘helper gates’ used to guide new
pilots through tutorial flights in DCS.
Unfortunately this helpful cueing system does not get much use due to the non-intuitive compu-
tation required to programming in the locations of these “helper points.” Specifically, the location of
these points must be input into the FLCS in terms of a relative bearing, distance and elevation from a
chosen steerpoint. In effect defining a cylindrical coordinate system with the steer point at the origin.

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This doesn’t seem too bad when you think about it briefly but now imagine even the simple task of
giving your friend directions to your house using only the bearing and range from your house to your
friend with the added bonus that despite any instructions you provide any device your friend uses to
follow the instructions (e.g. compass , map, whatever) is going to provide him with his bearing relative
to himself to your house – the opposite of what you provided him...And now provide these instructions
such that your friend arrives at your house traveling from a specific direction at a specific speed...
Don’t despair! I may not be the best pilot but what I do have are a very particular set of skills. Skills
I have acquired over a very long career [time in grad school]. Skills that make me a nightmare for [math
problems like this]...If there is an interesting unsolved physics problem I will look for it, i will find it and
I will solve it....
OK OK, this software does all the hard math for you and helps you plan pop-up attack profiles. Then
it gives you all the extra details found while doing the math. You don’t need those but it’s fun to know.
Then, most importantly, it exports a kneeboard that contains a) an outline of the attack plan with key
distances, headings and points marked, b) what to enter into the various DED screens to set the helper
waypoints to guide you through your attack plan and c) A summary of the parameters of the attack run.
If you want to get to mission planning ASAP and you are familiar with pop-up attack terminology
you can skip to the specific software instructions now – If you are like I was; a complete n00b, the
following section will help in defining the terms used in the software instructions and give you better
insight into the types and limitations of pop-up attacks.

Figure 1: Schematic example of a “Pop-up” attack run with some of the features and symbology labeled.
Bottom image is the final phase of the attack run.

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C. Terminology
While I’ve included a glossary at the end of this manual I’ll mention a couple of terms here that are used
often enough that I feel I should define them now (some of them are illustrated in Figure 1:

• VRP: Visual reference point; A poorly named term that indicates the beginning of the attack
run. Rather than via external landmarks I’ve found that this point is easiest set and reached via
HUD/HMD symbology. While I prefer the term Initial Point the F-16’s systems use this term so it’s
here to stay.

• VIP: Visual initial point: A poorly named terms that indicates the beginning of the attack run.
This is why I think these terms are poorly named. They are different (explained below) but their
difference has nothing to do with their acronyms.

• AP:Action point: this is the point in the attack run where the offset turn is made.

• PUP: Pull-up point; it would be logical for this to be the point where the climb portion of the
attack begins, and that is the case on paper. However this is also the name of a unique HUD/HMD
symbol that is often used to indicate the AP rather than the PUP.

• PDP: Pull-down point: The point in space where the desired altitude is reached and the jet is
rolled to place the lift vector on the target and the final angled turn into the diving attack is taken.

• OA1/2: Offset Aimpoint 1 and 2: These name specific symbols seen in the HUD/HMD and the
symbols can be used as the name implies such that putting the flight path marker on this point
means the bombs fall on the target, however, often these are used as utility symbols with different
roles based on the type of pop-up attack run being planned. In my case OA1 always corresponds
to the PDP and OA2 can be either the PUP or an actual offset aimpoint.

• Dive Angle: The angle of the aircraft during the final leg of the attack just prior to weapons release

• Tracking/VTD/HTD: Tracking segment of the attack run in which the pilot visually acquires the
target and repositions the aircraft for weapons delivery. The period(usually 5-7s) begins as soon
as the aircraft rolls out from the pull-down maneuver and lasts until weapons release. Horizontal
and Vertical Tracking Distance are the terms given to the distance the aircraft travels in those axes
during this time.

• MAP:Minimum Attack Perimeter; a circle centered on the target with a radius equal to the distance
at which the Tracking phase begins

D. The two types of Pop-up attacks

Pop-up attack runs can be roughly divided into two types: Type I and Type II. Amongst the various
sources I’ve looked into this division is fairly uniform but what defines a Type I or II attack is often just
shown via diagram and almost never clearly explained. I guess a diagram of the two is pretty important
(one is given in figure 8) but in addition I will try to explain in words how the two attack types differ. In
general we can say that any pop-up attack begins when the aircraft reaches or crosses an Initial Point
(often this point is depicted in the HUD using the previously mentioned VRP symbology). From this
initial point the aircraft will fly on a heading that would take it directly to the target, we can call the line

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connecting the IP and target the “ingress axis.” At a prescribed point (the previously mentioned Action
Point) prior to reaching the target the aircraft will make an “offset turn” to intentionally leave this axis
to set-up the correct horizontal spacing for its attack run. In a Type I attack this action point is as close
as possible to the target (<3-4NMi) such that as soon as the offset turn is taken and the aircraft arrives at
the offset heading it begins the pull-up or climb phase, followed immediately by the pull-down/attack
turn phase, tracking phase and finally weapons release. If we look at the top diagram in figure 8 we
note that the two turn angles θ1 and θ2 are roughly equal in magnitude for the Type I profile – this is a
property of Type I profiles that is not technically required but is very common.
In contrast, when flying a Type II profile, it is often the case that the IP and AP are a good deal further
( 10-12NMi) from the target. Like the Type I case the pilot turns to an offset heading at the AP, however,
unlike the Type I case, a climb is not immediately initiated and the pilot continues flying along this
new heading at the original ingress altitude. As the aircraft approaches the target (<3-4NMi) it reaches
a predetermined “pull-up point” (PUP) and now initiates the climb phase of the attack run. As with
the Type I attack the subsequent pull down/attack turn, tracking and weapons release phase all follow
immediately. The key feature to note is the delay period after the off-set turn and prior to the PUP
that is missing from the Type I attack run. Another feature to note is the clear difference in magnitude
between the two turn angles θ1 and θ2 in the bottom diagram of figure 8. Again this is not required but
is, however, a very common property of Type II attack runs. By initiating the offset turn much further
from the target than in the Type I case a smaller offset turn angle can still accrue the needed horizontal
spacing over this larger offset travel distance.
Fundamentally neither type is “better” than the other but one or the other attack type may be
better suited to the geography or anti-air threat situation of a specific mission. The type II attack could
be used to avoid a particularly nasty corridor of SAMs or take advantage of terrain by following below an
extended set of mountains. The type I attack works well against dense anti-air coverage where exposure
to threat needs to be minimized and is particularly useful against SAMs themselves as they may be
placed on or near abrupt geographical features for protection from aerial attack. Experiment! Have
fun! There are no right answers! (Although I claim that type I attacks are more fun to fly :))

Figure 2: Comparison of Type I and Type II attack runs [not to scale]. Note the locations of the PUP vs
AP and the distance over which horizontal separation is achieved

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E. VIP vs VRP
There are two “modes” of inputting information into the F-16 FCS that differ based on what is consid-
ered the “reference point.” In either case this reference point is always a steerpoint from which other
important points are indicated via a bearing, range and elevation. [For those of you who are familiar
with cylindrical coordinates the steerpoint is at the origin, and r, ϕ, z correspond to range, bearing and
elevation, respectively] The Visual Reference Point (VRP) setup places the reference steerpoint at the
target and the Visual Reference Point (VRP), Pull-Up Point (PUP) and 2x Offset Aimpoints (OA1/2) are
indicated from this steerpoint. The Visual Initial Point (VIP) setup places the reference steerpoint at an
“obvious” initial point from which bearing, range and elevation are used to determine the positions of
the target, PUP and OA1/2. The difference between the two is shown schematically in figure 3. While
there may be utility in the VIP setup, I have chosen to focus on the VRP setup as either through mission
planning, use of the TGP or the HAD system it is almost always easier to place a steerpoint on the target
and use this as the basis for setting up the attack run.

Figure 3: Definition of VRP and VIP from the MCH manual 3 . Note direction of arrows indicating zero of
reference system. [Image from 3 ]

F. MSL, AGL, and DED entry

There is a mild complication regarding how the F-16 understands altitudes vs. how these are entered
into the DED and how these altitudes can make intuitive sense during attack planning. (A thank you to
Vigo68 and Shrike88 for pointing out related errors in my code). Let’s walk through this via an example:
Assume your target is at steerpoint 1 at an altitude of 1250 ft MSL (for all intents assume MSL as an
absolute altitude measurement). When we are planning and calculating our attack we will let our
target altitude be our zero reference. Therefore any parameters we enter into the software, such as the
Ingress Altitude or the Release Altitude, will be entered RELATIVE to the target altitude. In our example,
ingress of 150ft relative = 1400ft MSL and a release altitude of 2500 ft relative = 3750 ft MSL. I chose to
use this convention for the calculation because at the end of the day we are trying to hit the target.
(Note: Under some conditions it is possible that the ingress altitude is less than zero. ) Once we have
finished the calculation and extracted relevant parameters we can shift our picture back to the absolute,
MSL scale. While you, the reader, may find one or the other of these scales more intuitive, we have to
use both during data entry into the DED. When we enter the elevation of the VRP and PUP points the
F-16 FLCS uses the corresponding steerpoint altitude as a reference so those elevation numbers are
RELATIVE. However, when entering the OA1/OA2 elevations the F-16 FLCS ignores the altitude of the
corresponding steerpoint and the entered altitudes of the offset points are ABSOLUTE (MSL). I don’t

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know why this is the case OR whether or not this is an accurate reflection of the real system in the F-16
or an artifact in ED’s code. I just wanted to mention this ahead of time to avoid confusion down the
road.

III. How to use the Pop-Up Planner software

1. Installation
The software is distributed as a standalone .exe file PUP_calc_v1.5.x.exe where x may have been
updated since writing this. It should be distributed in a .zip file kikaku’sPUPcalcv1.5.x.zip that includes
the exe, a config file, this PDF Manual, and some subdirectories containing Fonts, tutorial missions and
example kneeboards.
Just unzip to a whichever directory/location you want with the following note: I was hoping
that no install would be needed, however, the method of embedding fonts into the code is asinine.
Previous users may have noticed that without the correct fonts things are completely mis-aligned and
somethings disappear. I started to figure out the correct way to embed the fonts I wanted to use but
then decided, Fuck it. Fonts are easy to install. I have included as a sub-directory two main font families,
the DED font for the F-16 and a font I used for every other label and text box called Source Sans Pro (and
its styles). You can install these fonts easily – open the start menu, click the gear icon, type Font in the
search bar to bring up the Fonts setup page. Then drag the fonts from the subdirectory to the dotted
box near the top of the page. Done. In terms of saving kneeboards and so-forth, no defaults need to be
set – when exporting kneeboards it will prompt you for a file name and location to save them.

2. Using the software

I’m not a software developer. I guarantee people will find ways of breaking the code that I would not
have anticipated in my wildest dreams. I chose to write the code in the Windows Forms environment
so I could more easily make a GUI and have buttons and controls and so forth – incidentally this was
also the first program I wrote in the Windows Forms environment...So...a bit messy and disorganized
I’d say. In all seriousness, I would appreciate feedback – either on any program bugs you find or any
results you have using the software to plan attack runs.

A. Program: Start Page

01 Navigation Panel: Reset will close and reload the main window. Home will return to the first tab
page. No configuration options yet so the button is not enabled.

02 Mode Select: Picking either radio button either enables or disables tooltips for the parameter entry
fields and the Info Panel on the RHS.

03 Info Panel: Contains relevant and/or not so relevant bits of information on aspects of the program.
Also rants about random poor aircraft design.

04 Changelog: Information about changes to current version of software and acknowledgment of

known bugs.

05 Get Started: Loads the first parameter entry tab environment.

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Figure 4: Program Start Page

B. Program: Parameter Entry

1. Tab 1: Attack Type and Setup
06 Tabbed Windows: Tabs 1 and 2 are for the user to input information and Tab 3 shows the output of
the code in the form of an exportable Kneeboard

07 Select Attack Type: Pick Type I or Type II – note that some input parameter options and the roles
played by the OA1 and OA2 points change based upon selected attack type

08 Select Alignment: Allows for the attack run to be aligned based either the ingress heading or
preferred final attack heading. Note that the first input parameter in the RHS panel changes based
upon this selection.

09 Heading and Alignment Panel:

• Alignment Heading – either the ingress heading or the preferred heading for attack
• Distance VRP to AP: Sets the distance to travel along the ingress axis prior to the offset turn
• Distance TGT to AP: (Only for Type II attacks) Sets how far from the target to start the offset
turn in a Type II attack
• Which Map?: Drop down menu with DCS maps – choose in which one attack plan is to be used.
This information serves to translate between the F10 map heading (True North based) and the
Heading Tape shown on the HUD in the F-16 (Magnetic North based). The magnetic declination
that determines the offset between the two heading types varies both with location and
time. The corrections made via selecting the map from the drop-down list corresponds to
the default mission date of 2016. The 7th option in the list allows for the entry of a custom
declination offset.
• Pick whether offset turn is to the Left or Right when looking towards the target
• Enter the elevation of the Target above MSL.

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Figure 5: Data Entry Page 1

2. Tab 2: Weapon and Ingress Info

10 Panel on LHS allows for entry of information about the aircraft during ingress and attack segments
of attack profile.

• Altitude is measured relative to the altitude of target

• Enter the Speed as True Airspeed (TAS). The calculations are formulated around the TAS not
the default Calibrated Airspeed (CAS) shown in the hud. A switch on the right panel in the F-16
allows the pilot to toggle which one is displayed in the HUD
• Release Altitude: Relative to the target altitude – should be high enough to avoid bomb
fragment damage
• Dive Angle: Angle of jet during weapons release. This determines the horizontal travel relative
to the vertical travel (i.e. altitude) of the weapon during flight
• Track Time: The time alloted after completing the pull down maneuver to visually acquire and
align the jet to the target
• G load range for pull-down. Chosen based on weapons loadout – modulates how tightly some
turns can be performed
• Bomb Type: Select from the 3 classes of bombs in the list. As the distance traveled by the
weapon varies based on weapon type this is needed to estimate the distance to the target
at weapons release. Please see the section below on how this was calculated for more
information

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• Symbology Scheme: Not enabled yet
• Calculate Attack – Press this button to start the numerical solver and view the results of the
calculation in the RHS panel that appears on this tab. Pressing this button will also generate
a kneeboard in the third tab. After pressing this button to perform the calculation if a
parameter is changed on this or a previous tab then this button must be pressed again in
order to redo the calculations based upon the changed parameter.

Figure 6: Data Entry Page 2 and Calculation Results

11 Panel (not initially visible) with some of the calculated parameters based on user input. Please see
below where some of these parameters are explained in more detail.

3. Tab3: Attack Run: Plan, DED and Export

12 Kneeboard ready for export. The various aspects of it are explained below

13 Export Panel: When the top-most textbox is clicked a dialog box appears to set the export file name
and location. If both of these values are determined to be sensible the Export button is enabled.
Clicking the button saves the Kneeboard to the file/dir specified above. The bottom portion of
this panel is a slightly experimental option for creating sets of Kneeboards across which single
parameter is varied. This could be useful if the situation surrounding the planned attack run is not
known precisely. One of five parameters can be chosen from the drop down list. When a parameter
is chosen the Start:Step:End boxes are populated. Currently changing the step parameter is

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Figure 7: Kneeboard Display and Export

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disabled (this was to prevent attempting to output thousands of images by accidentally setting
a very tiny step parameter), however the upper and lower bounds (ie Start and End) can be set
for the variable to be varied. Once the parameters are set click the lower filename textbox and a
dialog will open allowing the user to specify the location and file name stem to be used for the set
of kneeboards to be output. If the location and filename are valid the Export Sequence button will
be enabled and pressing it will output a set of kneeboards based upon the programmed upper and
lower bounds.

Figure 8: Example of exported kneeboard

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C. Generated Kneeboard
The kneeboard generated by the program should have the standard3:4 aspect ratio of DCS kneeboard
and can be divided into 3 sections:

1. Attack Run Schematic

This section serves as a quick reference for the attack run to be carried out. Note that selected options
such as Type I/Type II and R/L offset turn will change the overall outline shown in this section. For a Type
I attack run 4 key points are listed [IP, AP, Pull Down Point, Release Altitude]. The heading listed at each
point indicate the headings just prior to reaching and just after passing the point. Changes in heading
correspond to calculated turns of prescribed angles at predetermined locations. d: corresponds to
the straight line distance to the target at that point. The xxxxft parameter describes the altitude of the
aircraft upon reaching that point. Additional information such as specific climb or dive angles may also
be specified. If a type II attack is selected an additional Pull Up Point is created on the attack outline. In
this case a level turn is performed to a new heading at AP but the original ingress altitude is held until
reaching the PUP. At this point the prescribed climb is initiated. The TGT LAYOUT area is meant to be
edited by the user after export if, for example, additional information about the specific distribution of
targets around a central point becomes available.

2. DED Entry
The four recreations of the DED panel correspond to the data to be entered via the DED to accurately
place the 4 visual cue points. Note that the roles played by the points vary slightly between a Type I and
Type II attack and this should be reflected in the title above that DED image.

3. Parameter Summary
A few of the parameters used to generate this kneeboard are copied to this section to preserve the
information if needed in order to produce a similar attack run in the future.

IV. Parameter Derivations and Calculation Methodology

WORK IN PROGRESS This is almost done – I mean the math is done but it’s a bit of a pain to put all
the geometry into LATEX . I’m thinking of just adding that file later as a separate document since it would
effectively double the size of this document at its current length and will likely accrue about 10 more
pages before it is finished. I noticed that if LATEX does what you want life is great – if it doesn’t do what you
want, you can probably find a library that will let you do it, so life is eventually good. If LATEX almost does
what you want and you just need to tweak something, you’re fucked. I’ve written an entire dissertation
in LATEX and I still don’t know how to change the font of a document’s title....that’s why this document
has an image for a title. Oh...that reminds me, I should go through all the derivations I did at like 3am
and remove all the sarcastic comments and snark about chemists.
ETA September 1 2022, probably along with any corrections to the software for errors that get
reported to me

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V. A little about me and why I made this

A. My motivation
Over the past 12-18 months my involvement with DCS has gone from very casual to somewhat intense.
Through a combination of an odd work schedule and being just plain lucky I managed to find myself on
a SATAL team (WADAFAK) full of interesting people who each took the time to impart some knowledge
and improve my flying. At least my flying when it came to A2A engagements. A2G was a completely
different matter. Post-SATAL season I found myself a bit burned out on A2A and was having fun flying
a persistent campaign called “Desert Shock” where my initial attempts at A2G resulted in my getting
swatted out of the sky by all manner of SAMs. So I dug a bit here and there and while watching a
random youtube video made by Gaffer DCS on attacking an SA-10 site I saw him perform a textbook
type I pop-up attack without the use of helping symbology. So I spent a day or two studying his video
and figuring out how to replicate that maneuver (which at the time I thought, naively, maybe he had
invented because it was the first time I had seen it clearly demonstrated). Independent of that, and
I can’t remember how or what I was looking for, I came across a copy of the manual for v1.3 of the
“Weapons Delivery Planner” for OpenFalcon written by Cars Burgers. Reading that manual helped
close the loop for me, putting a name to the maneuver I saw in the Gaffer DCS video and for the first
time letting me realize that the Viper has built in a unique attack run guiding symbology. In fact this
was a relatively new addition to the DCS F-16 model, but then why had Wags’ introduction to these
new symbology modes not covered this specific and (to me) amazing application? So I dug more and
noticed that while in this symbology has been utilized by pilots in other sims such as OF/BMS and so
forth, despite being present in the DCS F-16 model, I hadn’t found anyone presenting a methodology
to use it in DCS. In my digging I found the CAF-16-5 USAF manual that explained how to calculate
some of the pop-up attack parameters and was really confused because this is a fairly straight-forward
computation. It was only when I was trying to use the parameters to plan an attack that I realized the
USAF manual was, perhaps intentionally, incomplete in it’s explanation of the pop-up attack geometry.
So I tried to define and solve the geometry problem the USAF manual left incomplete. And I solved it!
Wrongly! The resultant attack runs were hilarious... So I threw away all my simplifying assumptions
and solved the fully general geometric model of the problem. It took a couple hours spread over a few
days and lots of scratch paper. Since I saw the program written by Mr. Burgers as a very useful tool for
OpenFalcon I thought I would make a spiffy tool that did a similar thing for DCS. So I taught myself some
of the basics of the C# Windows Forms programming to write this tool in a GUI format. Sorry, it’s my first
time ever using the language... In the end, I hope whoever happens to be reading this, whoever you are,
find this tool the the documentation of it useful. It has taken me a decent amount of time writing the
software it and documenting the software and math so I’m invested enough in this project to want it to
do a good job at what it is supposed to do. It is definitely a work in progress and I appreciate feedback
(kikakuVR AT gmail.com).

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 kikaku August 17, 2022

VI. References
References
[1] Cars “Falcas” Burgers, Weapon Delivery Planner Manual V1.3 for Open Falcon

[2] Cars “Falcas” Burgers, Pop-up Attack Manual, V4.7

[3] US Air Combat Command, F-16 Combat Aircraft Fundamentals: Multi-command Handbook, 11-
F16,Vol. 5, (1996)

[4] US Air Combat Command, F-16 Combat Aircraft Fundamentals: Multi-command Handbook, 11-
F16,Vol. 1, (2021)

[5] US Air Combat Command, F-16 Combat Aircraft Fundamentals: Multi-command Handbook, 11-
F16,Vol. 2, (2021)

[6] US Air Combat Command, F-16 Combat Aircraft Fundamentals: Multi-command Handbook, 11-
F16,Vol. 3, (2021)

[7] Korean AF BEM, Basic Employment Manual F-16C, Volume 5, Oct (2005)

[8] Air, Land and Sea Application Center, Multiservice procedures for the joint application of firepower,
FM 90-20, Nov (1997)

[9] Lockheed Martin Corporation, F-16 C/D Block 50, Avionics and nonnuclear weapons delivery flight
manual, T.O.GR1F-16CJ-34-1-1 June (1997).

Glossary
AP Distance from target where offset turn to approach heading is taken

AO Difference in heading between attack and approach heading

APX Highest elevation point achieved during attack run. Occurs after pull-down point and before
tracking begins

ApH Heading flown at just prior to start of pull up/climb

AtH Heading flown after pull down, during tracking and just prior to weapons release

CA Pitch angle of wings-level climb initiated at the pull-up point

DA Pitch angle of wings-level dive prior to weapons release

HTkD Distance traveled across ground during the visual tracking period of dive

IH Initial heading of the aircraft that defines the neutral axis of the attack run

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kikaku August 17, 2022
IP Initial reference point of attack run. In most cases this will be the Visual Reference Point

MAP Radius from the target at which the jet rolls wings level and visual tracking of target begins. Sum
of horizontal tracking distance and bomb range

PPDD Ground distance traveled between pull-up and pull-down points

PDP Position during attack run, after offset turn and climb, where the jet is inverted and transition
from climb to dive starts

PUP Position during attack run, after action point and offset turn, where the wings level climb begins

Tracking time Time alloted for visual ID of and alignment to target

VTkD Decrease in altitude during the visual tracking period of dive

VRP Point set w.r.t. target location along the ingress heading axis which determines the beginning of
the attack run.

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