ARM505

Well, I get decent, albeit lower frame rates in the -21 too. But when it loads, I'm always like 'Whoah, that's like a photograph!' all over again. Seriously, each I time I fire it up again it's impressive, especially at certain times of the day with the shadows and light adding to the look. So I think a little slack should be cut, it's simply more demanding to add this level of graphical fidelity. Not to say they can't improve the optimisation, but there is a limit of course...

My problem is that the pilot instantly blacks out at any kind of negative g's (the screen literally just goes black instantly, like the game has crashed or something), the plane ends up flat on it's back, gently drifting down to earth at virtually zero airspeed, the engines shut down, and the pilot simply never wakes up again to even begin any kind of recovery. I've done it from high altitude as well, and that -1 g is enough to keep the guy asleep for ages, the entire way down at least.

...and it's quite an easy trap to fall into since the virtual throttles don't move up from idle even if your physical throttle isn't at idle (same as the A10 I suppose)

I'm still not all that sure about DCS's simulation of the interaction of tires and the runway. Not to be be funny, but slip angles, normal force vs friction etc may only be done at a fairly basic level, which could easily exacerbate something like shimmy/weaving. This isn't a racing sim of course, so it's not the number one priority, but still - That video show it at work, it's pretty implausibly modeled there if you ask me. It's like once the wheel is skidding, it's basically riding on ice.

I haven't had it happen with the Dora, but one easily repeatable test for me is firing using the ZSU23. I think it's associated with the HDR, as the guns fire (when you fire the ZSU you're looking between all the barrels, in the aimed view if I remember correctly, which means you're basically surrounded by muzzle flash) - the screen goes darker and darker as your 'eyes' supposedly adjust to the brightness. Is this what you're referring to?

Nicely built, good pictures too!

Weather doesn't cause significant drag.

Birds strikes won't normally cause an engine fire either. Unless it's a particularly large bird (vulture, maybe a hadeda), the engine should continue to run, possibly with some vibration (damage to fan blades), and you of course get the KFC smell in the cabin. I have personally had multiple bird strikes through the engine, and have never needed to shut an engine down because of them. I would be VERY surprised to get an engine fire from them, but again, a particularly large bird may do a whole bunch of stuff, who knows. We obviously track all bird strike statistics in our company, and none have cause an engine fire in my time there. There have been several catastrophic (ie the engine was pretty wrecked) strikes though. But of course DCS just models it in the abstract - maybe they can think of changing this rather generic approach though. Instead of a fire, I would recommend something that results in a drop in N1 RPM, an increase in EGT, and a big increase in vibration - that would be more in line with that I'd expect from a high-bypass turbofan. Also, burn a feather under your nose (smells terrible!) And yes, you can't really avoid them - you can see them coming often, but IMHO there's no way you're going to guess exactly what they'll do, and you will just as likely move your engines to hit them as miss them completely.

Make sure you turn on the switch to power the jettison system, it's next to the activation power switch, on the RH panel, next to the AC gen switch (going from memory here). Then press the jettison button in front of the throttle (again, memory!) to get rid of them. Works for me. Edit to add: Looked them up: RH panel, switch 50 (that is the jettison power switch) and 51 (booster starter power switch) To actually jettison, it's the left side, switch 60 (red capped, in front of the throttle)

Also....maybe it's just me, but I only ever get one of them to actually fire - or at least the visuals only show the right one firing....

I must say, I find the DCS models have considerable breakaway power requirements, need more differential brake than I would have thought, are oddly tricky to turn accurately and do bounce a fair amount. There may be some kind of point here. But hey...cue the FSX bashing :) I'm amazed at how much differential brakes the FW190 needs to taxi accurately around sharper corners, the 51 too. Try doing smooth accurate S turns down a taxiway, I can't really get it to feel like I would expect, and easily ends up in a jerky brake fest (in the beginning at least, now I can kind of 'work around' it). I have taxied a Supercub, Cub, and Harvard IRL, none of which needed even close to the amount of differential braking I need in the DCS models. There you only needed differential brakes if you were really doing very tight turns, ie with one wheel almost stationary. I must say the Harvard needed a HUGE effort on the pedals to get it to turn, but of course we don't get that in the sim... Anyway, based on past performance, this'll be a huge thread that doesn't really go anywhere :D :D

Group 2, being an 'even' number, was found to have capitalistic, counter revolutionary sympathies and was shipped to be re-educated in Siberia. It later became a T80's fuel pump.

Hmmm....judging by how dirty this cockpit is, maybe the plane is just a bit tired and the avionics are acting up! :) I want to send mine for a repaint and a little bit of cleaning. They can work on the avionics at the same time....

I hope this is relevant - I just started a small two aircraft server, no mods, using the Mig21. Two aircraft only, no other units at all. Both PC's set to 'LAN' connection, in the same city, using the same ISP and the connection was absolutely terrible, and we had quite a few 'connection interrupted' messages, as well as 'ghost' players (he left, then rejoined, only to see another version of 'him' still occupying the only other aircraft!) I haven't played multiplayer for a while, but it seemed really bad. I can't believe this would be considered normal, but it is of course only one case.

I was trying to run a small test server with two aircraft and nothing else, the person joining was only about 15km from me, on the same ISP. Still got constant 'connection interrupted' messages. No installed mods, connection speed set to 'LAN' on both sides. I hope this isn't too irrelevant to the thread. And somehow we had a ping of between 400-800, despite a crystal clear skype connection. I must say, having not played multiplayer in a long time, I was shocked at just how bad the whole setup is, from the poor GUI, horrible warping, to actually having a stable connection for more than five minutes. The five minutes we had of zooming around in the Mig21's was great, just a pity about all the other stuff. I'll be trying to few things, but so far no joy.

I've only done a few circuits so far, but the attention to detail is clearly evident. With a product this complex, issues can only be expected, but they have done a great credit to themselves with this excellent add on of an aircraft that has long been needed in the simming world. Well done, and thank you. I will now go and drink the radar cooling alcohol before actually tackling the manual.

:D FW190 Cockpits, confounding 3D modellers since the dawn of flight sims! :D

Let's be honest, while there are many who study the manuals from cover to cover before release, there are many who simply don't. And then there are those who do, but don't remember most of it. This is an entertainment product after all. Frankly, as long as the right attitude is there (as has been demonstrated in this thread alone by DDG), it's all good. When I read some of the comments, I'm glad I don't 'put myself out there!' - the internet always seems a pretty toxic place, I'm just thankful to have had a heads up on this addition to DCS in more detail than anything else we've received in the past; think about it - normally we get some intro video's from Wags in which he is already competent with what he is demo'ing - this way we get to spot some real learning processes going on. Was anybody here expecting some kind of tutorial from these things or something? Really, I think a slightly more mature or laid back approach to what is for most a casual entertainment product could be beneficial - to the 0.01% who are able to recall the manual and get frustrated watching guys on livestreams, I can only prescribe a chill pill :D

Do I really need to quote my original statement? :) I used to play airsoft a little bit (kind of like paintball, shooting each other with little pellet guns), and quite a few people tried the whole 'sniper ghillie suit' thing, clearly after playing too much COD - the thing is, unless you stopped to take material from the area you were playing in (ie epic colour matching), AND made a very, very strong effort to find a good position, AND made absolutely no movement at all, these guys would get spotted easily. Aircraft can hide in clouds and the sun of course, but they're always moving and they simply cannot be painted in a way that always blends in (even shadows will make them stand out more) - in my experience the camo is never good enough to make you lose the contact when tracking it already, but I will admit it's possible to make it slightly (very slightly!) harder to aquire in the first place. But my actual, original point still stands: The colour blending in real life is simply not nearly as easy as it is in DCS, or indeed any computer screen based sim. It's again, just my humble opinion, but I do have some experience of it IRL. Just yesterday I was trying to find a Dash 8 (I think, not close enough to ID) off to my 3 o'clock at about 7 miles (NM), co-alt, and it took a few seconds - once I had him, it was easy to see, but it does take some staring - in DCS.......don't know if it would be as easy.

Normally I find old Russian hardware unattractive and clunky - but I had a little model of a Mig21 when I was a child, it's actually got a really clean and slick design, a fairly unique look, and I've climbed all over the old shells of real examples left out in the African sun in a variety of old war zones that I frequented when younger. Can't wait for this, release already dammit! :)

Spotting in real life (of which I have done a lot) is all about 'relatives', much like in DCS; relative motion, contrast in relation to the background, relative size of the contact, relative light levels (ie looking at the shadow side of an aircraft against the sky means looking for a darker, easier to see dot) etc Somehow, in real life, the 'relatives' tend to stand out a bit more than in DCS. In DCS for example, a contact can easily acquire the almost exact same colour as the background (a camouflaged green aircraft against a forest from above for example) and the pixels of the one will be identical to the other, making the contact essentially invisible. Does anybody remember that 'illegal' IL2 skin that was made from the exact same texture as the default grasslands from most of the map? It basically disappeared if it was below you! In real life, that simply doesn't happen - you can't get an aircraft to be the same precise shade or texture as the forest below it in a way that makes it utterly disappear, AND it's relative motion seems to stand out quite a bit more IMHO (yes, in the civilian world most aircraft are not camouflaged but I watched some that are, and it doesn't really make a difference IMHO, at least to tracking the contact - the best way to disappear is with a light shade of grey when viewed from below or co-alt, and surprise surprise, that's what most modern airforces use!) That being said, exaggerated dots do result in getting a visual at too long ranges - to spot another airliner (generally big and bright, but I am talking 737 size, not A380) for example, I know that conditions must be right to see them beyond ten nautical miles - if the conditions aren't right, it can be really hard, and thats when looking at almost the exact spot, guided onto it by ACAS. Funnily enought, once you do see it, it seems really obvious :) Then comes the laugh a minute action as you try and talk you fellow crew member onto it....'He's just above that sausage shaped cloud....see? About a finger above......come on, he's bright orange!' And finally the guy sees it and then kicks himself because it seems obvious. Things that stand out are often the shadows, for example in the intake of the engine nacelles. Most airliners have white as a base colour, which can blend in quite well actually, it's not always super bright. Tl;dr - spotting, and especially TRACKING another contact in DCS as it stands now is IMHO quite a bit harder than real life, but conditions (bright sun, shadow, early morning and late day light, canopy artifacts etc) don't cause as many problems as they do IRL. The light seems a little artificial in a way, we'll have to see how EDGE manages it. Two sims that stand out for real looking lighting in my book are the current CLOD, and the new IL2:BOS seems good, albeit an eyestrain with the constant white world (much like real snow cover I suppose)

You don't need hydraulics to allow flap type control surfaces to generate enough force to pull high G's - they can be aerodynamically 'boosted' as well. Example: http://www.pilotfriend.com/training/flight_training/fxd_wing/images3/8.jpg The bit that extends in front of the hinge axis (marked 'horn balance' in the pic above) will not only place weight ahead of the aerodynamic center of pressure which helps control things like flutter, but also creates an aerodynamic load that actually assists in control inputs, helping lower the 'stick force per G'. In real aircraft (with direct linkages to the controls at least) you can clearly feel the controls stiffening up as airspeed increases - often it feels like only pressure needs to be exerted on the stick/yoke to make a change, as opposed to real deflection (of course you are deflecting it, just not much at all). Sims struggle in this regard as the feel just isn't there, often resulting in what you feel - it's seemingly ridiculously easy to generate high G forces, as the 'stick force per G' in sims changes dramatically with changing conditions, unlike reality where it stays more constant (not constant of course, just more so) - note I said 'stick force per G', not 'stick deflection' of course. At lower airspeeds, the same force would generate a much higher stick deflection. IMHO.

Again, I can see why developers charge a price that is the equivalent of any other full priced game - I think we consistently underestimate the colossal amount of work that goes into getting a modern aircraft 'out the door', so to speak. Keep tapping away guys.

AFAIK it acts almost as the equivalent of a modern jet's yaw dampener, the theory being that it's actually easier in the real aircraft because you can feel subtle yaw angles in the seat of your pants before you really see them and it's easier to compensate preemptively. The sim is purely visual of course, so some help isn't entirely unrealistic. I think it just adds some rudder input if it detects yaw. That being said, it's in the nature of simmers to view it as some kind of cheat. So to successfully take off without it, just do what it does, and be extremely active in stopping any kind of yaw before it really develops by using the correct amount of rudder input. Don't wait, stop even the slightest twitch of yaw. In real taildraggers you can often use little 'jabs' of rudder to keep it going straight. But the bottom line is just be very active on the pedals.