Shading = lethality. Change a lethality tier from the dropdown if/when a future
BMS release reclassifies a system.
AAA guide
F-16 munitions
Grouped by store family. Editing a group name renames that whole band.
Drag a panel by its handle onto any cell — including an empty one — or nudge
it with the arrows in its header. Blank positions stay blank.
Drag a menu by its handle onto any cell — including an empty one — or nudge it
with the arrows in its header. Blank positions stay blank; nothing reflows behind you.
Ramp Start Checklist
Ramp Start via VoiceAttack
Your data
Every edit is saved in this browser on this machine. Export writes one JSON file
holding the whole kneeboard and both logbooks — keep it with your backups or carry it to
another PC.
Resetting discards every edit and restores the reference tables, layouts and logbook to the
configuration this file shipped with.
RAD Software started as a programming hobby in the early 1980s, when Texas Instruments
was selling programmable calculators and IBM’s first PCs arrived running MS-DOS.
Various games and personal productivity applications followed, distributed as shareware
over bulletin board systems (BBSs) long before the internet existed. The radsoftware.org
domain was registered in 1993 and still exists today.
The website originally offered 16-bit Windows executables. Over the years those became
32-bit applications. When Microsoft moved to the .NET platform, RAD Software turned to
Excel workbooks aimed at personal productivity. In 2025 RAD Software began transitioning
to browser-based software: downloadable, open-source HTML files, free of charge (contributions always welcome). Today
RAD Software offers apps for public safety, financial tracking and planning, health
tracking, bridge (the card game) teaching tools, and entertainment.
RAD-FalconAssist is not on the RAD Software website. The author happens to be a flight
simmer as well as the owner of RAD Software, so the company’s resources went into
building it. See “About the Author” for more.
Genesis
RAD-FalconAssist began as an Excel workbook I created in 2023 to assist me in putting
together and flying campaigns.
It was originally a few quick-lookup reference tables, along with a hand-kept logbook of
every campaign flown.
As I relied more and more on VoiceAttack’s flexibility and power, I added more
quick-reference tables that were VoiceAttack-centric.
RAD-FalconAssist is that original Excel workbook rebuilt as a single web page that can
run on any browser.
In creating a generic version for Falcon users, I had to make certain structural
decisions:
First, I realized that, if it wasn’t highly editable, it would start going
out-of-date with every Falcon update. So I made sure to construct the app in a way that
allows editing of pretty much everything. If Falcon BMS releases a massive update that
would require fundamental restructuring (one can only hope, right?), I will re-write the
app.
Second, I had to decide whether or not to include the emphasis on VoiceAttack tables and
features, because not everyone uses VoiceAttack, or uses specialized versions of it that
would not be compatible with some of the ways that I use VoiceAttack. I ultimately
decided to leave them in the generic version, because a lot of people do use VoiceAttack;
if they don’t, they can just ignore those features & tables.
As mentioned in another section of this “About” window, RAD Software no
longer charges for any app, but contributions help to support continuing development and
are always welcomed and appreciated.
The Author
My callsign is “SoBad,” and I’ve been using that moniker since flight
sims first emerged in the mid-1980s. This is also when “F-16 Fighting Falcon”
(MS-DOS) was released as the very first version of amazing things to come.
I’ve installed and used every variant since then, and when Falcon BMS emerged as a
grass-roots non-profit developer (after the original Falcon developers crashed &
burned), I hitched onto that wagon and I’ve never looked back, sticking with them
through the years.
Today (2026), I fly exclusively VR, depend heavily on VoiceAttack to communicate with
ATC, AWACS, & flight packages, and I still own a Saitek X65. For decades, I doubted
that I would be here to see the depth of realistic immersion that I wanted to see —
but it’s happening now (finally), and it will get better every year.
The short version
Everything you see is editable, and every edit saves itself as you make it. There is no
save button and no edit mode — click a cell, type, move on.
Editing a grid
Click any cell to type in it.
⌃ and ⌄ move a row up or down.
+ inserts a new row directly below the one you clicked.
× deletes a row, after asking.
Section headings and group bands carry their own +, which puts a new
row at the top of that section.
Colored chips
A colored chip is a category you can change. Click one and pick from the list: a threat's
lethality tier, which family a comms panel or menu belongs to, or how a campaign ended.
The row or card recolors to match.
Arranging the comms decks
Drag a card by the handle at the left of its header onto any cell, including an empty
one. Drop it on another card and the two trade places.
The four arrows in a card header nudge it one cell at a time.
Columns sets the width of the grid, Close the gaps
repacks everything, and Group by function gives each family its own row.
Pilots and campaigns
+ Add New Pilot asks for a callsign and creates a pilot with a full
rank ladder and an empty campaign ready to fly.
Each pilot page shows career totals, a progression chart plotting mission points,
campaign rating and career score, and a block for every campaign newest first.
Open a campaign with the triangle at the left of its bar, or use the toggle at the
right of the controls row to open or close them all.
Inside a campaign, Log a mission adds a row to the grid. The
✎ button at the end of a mission row opens its debrief.
Every campaign edits the same way whether it is finished or still running.
Ramp start
Tick the checklist as you work through a cold start. Clear the ticks
resets it for the next run. The keypress column on the VoiceAttack tab is valid whether
you speak the command or press the key yourself.
What the colors mean
Threat rows are shaded by lethality — deep orange most lethal, pale orange
least. The shade follows the tier, so changing a tier recolors the row.
Comms panels and menus carry the color of the family they belong to: ATC, pit,
flight, AWACS, tanker, JTAC and so on.
In the mission grids each column group keeps a color: blue for flight data, greens
for tasks and post-actions, gold for package kills, red for your own, and separate
colors for mission points, campaign rating and career score.
Altitudes and units
Threat altitudes are written in thousands — 65k rather than 65,000
— with the unit stated once in the column heading. Type a full number and it is
converted for you when you leave the cell.
Printing
Print buttons print the tab you are looking at, laid out for paper rather than for the
screen. This window prints the section you are reading.
Your work lives in this browser, on this computer. There is no server and
no account. Nothing you type here leaves your device — which also means nothing is
backed up unless you back it up.
One file, no install
The whole application is a single HTML file. There is nothing to install, no runtime to
keep current, and no internet connection needed once you have it. Open it from your disk,
or put it on a web host and open it from there. Copying the file copies the app; deleting
it removes the app but not your work, which stays in the browser.
Version numbers
Versions read vYY.MM.DD.N — the date the build was made, then a
counter that only ever climbs. This copy is , build
, made on . The number in the
masthead always matches the file you have open, so it is the quickest way to tell two
downloads apart.
Where your work is kept
Everything — the reference tables, your layouts, every pilot, campaign and mission
— is stored in this browser’s local storage, tied to both the browser and the
location the file was opened from.
A different browser on the same machine is a different, empty copy.
The same file opened from a different folder, or served from a website instead of
your disk, is also a separate copy.
Clearing browsing data with cookies and site data included erases it, as do
some cleanup utilities.
Export is the real backup
The Export/Import Data tab writes a single file holding everything:
reference tables, deck layouts, column counts, pilots, campaigns and missions. That file
is the only thing that survives a browser reset or a move to another PC.
Export after any session where you added something you would hate to retype.
Keep the dated files with your other backups rather than beside the app.
Import restores a backup on any machine, in any browser.
What a backup file looks like
Exports are plain JSON, named rad-falconassist-YYYY-MM-DD.json. Being plain
text, a backup can be opened, searched, compared or repaired in any text editor, and it
will still be readable long after any particular browser has moved on. Nothing in it is
encoded or locked to this application.
Import replaces, it does not merge
Importing a backup overwrites everything currently in this browser. If you use the app on
two computers and edit both, importing one set discards the other. Pick one machine as the
master and treat the rest as copies.
Reset to defaults
The reset button on the Export/Import Data tab discards every edit and restores the
reference tables, layouts and logbook to the configuration this file shipped with. Export
first if there is any doubt.