ARM505

This is actually quite interesting, and again makes me wonder what an experienced sim pilot could do in the real aircraft. I know, I know, we've had this discussion a million times, but I'll wager that almost all experienced sim pilots here jumped (or could have, RTFM notwithstanding :) ) into the A10 on the 1st install, and flew a circuit - I know I did. You only need your stick, throttle, rudder, F, shift F, and G - simple. Hell, I even managed to take the Blackshark off the deck and put it down without braking it on the first go, blind, and I'm sure there are guys here who are lightyears better than I am. What I'm saying is the basic actions and thought processes are the same for a modern sim as they are for the real deal when it comes to just making it around the circuit in one piece. Sure, IRL you get ALL the theory in plenty of detail, and you get the basics done thoroughly - but when it comes to just making it succesfully around the pattern, you can get by on just the basics alone. And I fly real aircraft for a living, and have a couple of thousand hours of instruction IRL too - so, the OP has really got his/her hands full when jumping into such a complex sim. Respect. Persevere, and you'll get there. It's almost an unreasonable amount of stuff that you're supposed to know before you even lift off, so you really have your hands full if you're starting from scratch. We kind of take a lot of it for granted by now. Someday I'm going to chuck an experienced sim pilot into a 172 and see what happens if I tell them 'its all yours' pre-taxi. I'll give them a little briefing on stick forces and controls, but thats it. Should be worth a lol or two. :)

All I'm saying is that hypoxia is notoriously difficult to self-diagnose. Your brain is the first organ to be affected, before your eyes and ears. It's very, very easy to sit on the ground and say 'hmmm, if I noticed that I was blue in my fingertips, feeling slightly dreamy/etc I'm sure I'd do something proactive'. Your thought process is impaired - you have to 'snap out of it' and do something, which doesn't always happen. This alone has killed people - that is an unalterable fact, so it is clearly a threat by itself. Also, everyone seems to think that aircrew all have to undergo a flip in a high alt chamber - that simply isn't true. Military maybe, civilian, no (or at least not under the regs I fly, heavily JAR (or whatever it is nowdays!) influenced). I fly 737's every day, and I have never experienced hypoxia, intentional or not. In summary - you cannot plan to RELIABLY self diagnose it, unlike in DCS where the symptoms are obvious and the remedy very very clear. That is my 2c, backed up by real world theory, training, and the fact that hypoxia is a proven killer, despite crew KNOWING about it and having access to oxygen.

GGTharos is correct - it is possible that you may not notice the symptoms of hypoxia, being somewhat akin to being drunk. Feelings of euphoria, happiness or some other emotion, inability to concentrate etc. If you don't suddenly notice that you are not acting or feeling 'normal', and have the mental function to connect this to hypoxia AND are able to take corrective action (Masks on), you may well end up completely unconscious, and ultimately dead. This is NOT THE SAME as detecting that the cabin is not pressurising properly, or noticing that the cabin is climbing slowly due to other physiological effects caused by pressure change (ears popping, equalising etc)

The fuze generally goes bang after a certain time as well. I'm generalising, but all HE AAA rounds I've seen fired (20mm, 40mm, 76mm) did the same. The theory being that if they haven't hit anything after that amount of time, they certainly weren't going to be hitting what you originally aimed at :)

Dunno on this one, I have mixed feelings....if it's 'achievements' like 'down a fighter in your A-10', then no thanks, thats lame. But if it's something akin to getting signed out on a particular system, and it was viewable online, or required for entry to a server...then maybe. You could then force a server full of people who you knew had a certain amount of systems knowledge, ie all online could reasonably be expected to know how to buddy lase, correctly use Mavs, or handoff/receive points via datalink for example. No excuses such as 'I don't know how', and no excuses not to be able to team up properly either. Something like that would have merit IMHO.

Because it's the best simulation of a rotary winged aircraft available for a personal computer, anywhere in the known universe, and just flying it around is awesome? Dunno about anyone else, but that's reason enough for me... :)

In my one and only experience of seeing a 'gatling' gun running (without ammo, it was a shipbourne Phalanx CWS), it made a hell of mechanical racket, I thought it was busy tearing itself to pieces. Turns out, thats how it sounds without ammo, the sound of the shots just drowns it out when it's being recorded by audio equipment. So yeah, mechanical noise...

Thanks mvsgas for the details :) And yes, I know it should never be left on the park brake alone, but just for short stops I thought it would have one. I've only ever flown US made aircraft (civilian of course), and every single one of them had a park brake, from Cherokee 140 to Boeing 737! I assumed the A10 should have one too :)

Ok, so just to clear it up - this aircraft doesn't have a park brake? That's a bit wierd for a plane thats supposed to operate in an improvised forward strip (knowing how chocks get lost, every plane would end up with a brick/tree stump/dead cow being used as chocks all the time!)

..when you stare at something, and, not knowing what it is, wait several seconds for a tooltip to magically appear telling you :)

...but it, combined with the CAS video clearly shows the incredible pressure, and potential consequences of a dedicated CAS aircraft. It's a necessary reminder of what the A10's job is about - troops on the ground. The CAS video could easily have resulted in fratricide, and the skills and professionalism of the soldiers managed to lower the chance of that happening. There's no point glossing over or ignoring the deadly consequences of a mistake - it's easy for us to laugh off a blue-on-blue in the sim, but reality is a little harsher. I don't think we can attempt to pursue absolute realism without a little reality check of what this is all about. Of course DCS will sadly be unable to create quite such dynamic interaction with troops on the ground, but anyway...

Yeah, aviation is actually the original home of ABS (antiskid) technology, but anyway. Back OT, I've also seen this - one press of the pedals should not result in a constant rate of pressure loss, and even at idle the hydraulic pumps should be able to maintain pressure.

Yes - I've noticed it. No, I've no idea why :)

...IRL. But in Lockon, and now DCS, the ineffectiveness of near-misses has been around for a long time. No doubt they're working on something to improve that of course, but it has been with us for a while.

An engineers greatest fear.......a pilot with a leatherman!

I agree - DON'T read the manual before the 1st circuit! There's nothing like taking a lap of the track in blissful ignorance before you start studying, and it's not like the Hog's a hard plane to do a circuit in. It was awesome - I love the jiggly ride on the runways, and it's got a great feel. I even managed to arm the cannon and strafe the tower on downwind! Nice impact flashes..

Agreed - but it won't happen at just a fraction above the published 'limit', and it is far less likely to happen to a squeaky-clean, brand new aircraft.

I suppose we all know, but it might help to remind everyone that g-limits do not necessarily mean that whatever was limited will break when you exceed it. ie 5 G limit with tanks doesn't mean the tank drops offs/disintegrates at 6 G. At some value, it will - but the real issue is wear and tear, which is basically irrelevant in a sim, since you get a factory fresh (in fact, even better than that) aircraft every time you click 'Fly'. So technically, whilst it may not be simulated in Lockon, it may not be that much of an issue anyway.

Hmmm, never had this discussion before.... :) The one single PITA I find with all the channels engaged is the heading hold function of the yaw channel - if it could just act like it did in FD mode, all could be forgiven. Instead, if you're even 0.5 degrees off from the system heading, the rudder gets applied. Aaaaargh! Stopit! Just act like a yaw dampener already! :)

I'm working those latrines. Hard.

I read recently that the US Air Force is reducing the amount of real flying time a drone pilot requires prior to operating one, perhaps with the long term goal of being a drone-only pilot. It's a cost thing, but I think that in the long term you'll end up with drone specific pilots only, with little or even no time at all in an aircrafts cockpit.

I still maintain the biggest challenge to this dream is NOT technical, it's financial. Who is going to develope a technically accurate, non-console, MASSIVE (I say again: MASSIVE) project, with almost no hope of recovering development costs? Unless you can say: - Broaden the reach ie console FPS's (or other) that tie into the massive, persistent game world (yes, you'll need that too) but do not have the whole sim since they won't be able to run it. You MUST gain a large following. - As mentioned, you'll need one or more large, persistent game worlds (think EVE online) for players to do their part in. Something that rewards organisation, leadership etc. Yet more stuff to develope (ie yet more resources required) - You will almost certainly need subscription based play to sustain the amount of maintenance/patching required. Just a guess. Technically, PC's will get there soon enough. Financially, I don't see this being possible in the way that we (technically accurate sim loving people) want. IMHO.

I think this discussion, while interesting, is a bit moot in terms of BS, due to the limited blast/frag damage simulation, limited damage model of targets, and limited enemy AI (ie you won't get soldiers to 'duck' when under fire, nor can you scatter a convoy or harm their ability to return fire). Also, the sniper like accuracy of enemy MG's is a killer. All in all, 90% of the time, rockets are a waste of weight in BS, IMHO. This clearly differs from RL.

1) Doh! 2) Doh! Thanks for the help :)

Ok, I've tried to have a quick read through of this thread, but don't recall seeing these two items: 1) My trimmer doesn't work correctly post patch (clean 1.0 -> 1.02) The rudder trim works, and the heading is recentred, but pitch and roll stick inputs are no longer trimmed in. (I've tried playing with both options in the setup menu) 2) I haven't noticed this before, so it looked a bit odd when I saw it (maybe it should be like this) but is the the entire throttle assembly meant to rotate with the collective lever? It seems pretty wierd, and tbh doesn't look right.