How do I get this either bigger or brighter ? I can zoom in with my mousewheel, and cycle between brightness levels , but it's still unreadable with the sky as background. Any help, thx!

In the F16 ALT-h changes HUD color, suppose it's the same for the F18. It's helpful against different backgrounds.

Ok once I broke out and dusted off the track IR, set the z axis to zoom, not fov zoom, and when in cockpit, use shift and numpad + and - to fine tune the fov zoom( get the whole HUD image in the glass) then use the track IR to zoom in, the HUD symbology gets larger, but stays within glass, where as FOV zoom makes the whole HUD image larger or smaller.. I had this issue in DCS FC3 , not sure if I got that sorted but now I know what to try :-)

Maybe someone can help ... I'm using my track IR z axis for Fov zoom , and that disables regular zoom with mouse or keyboard , but my HUD is chopped off at the edges, now before without the track IR I could zoom in with the mouse wheel and fine tune the HUD so it would fit , but I can't fine tune the zoom in now with FOV controlled by track IR z axis.. Basically simple question can I adjust the seat forward ??? I want to use the track IR z axis for fov zoom as I like my HUD text to keep its aspect ratio , it gets larger as I zoom in and smaller as I zoom out .. Help me pls !!!!

HUDs are like that. They are projected not 3 feet ahead on the glass but miles away. If you move closer or farther from the HUD frame & glass it makes up a smaller window in angles but the displayed image doesn't. If you got far enough away the FPM would take up the entire glass.

The seat doesn't adjust in Falcon but the eyepoint can move. Often that is accomplished by TrackIR but I swear there has to be a way to translate the camera without it. That's a toughie.

Ok thanks... so I'll just set Track IR Z axis to regular zoom.. so the HUD text moves in and out.. I thought in real life the text would get smaller as you move away and larger when you looked in closer to it.. interesting stuff !

As Frederf said, that's how it's supposed to be (you can google collimators or reflector sights if you want to see how it works), so set TIR Z axis to Z movement not FOV zoom. But, there is a way without TIR too, hold down the middle mouse button and move your mouse forward.