Ala13_ManOWar

Flanker, this is the English forum section mate. Why you keep speaking Spanish? Everybody has the right to read and understand you, no matter you know we do speak Spanish, your messages aren't private to us but with everyone in here. And your concern about Marianas WWII map and ED's Japanese assets pack is shared with many others, so many people might be interested in reading you in English.

Well, I hope they release both of them at about the same time now, but that's only really up the them, so I just hope .

That's an ED announcement, they don't really do those unless there's something going on mates.

Exactly this. I's rather prefer they spend their valuable time in developing the modules than catering for a discord server, to be honest. I don't see the point in having one here

Yep, I recall the date of my purchase. 11 and a half maybe

And literally nothing, we bought MiG-21 12 years ago to another company .

Mates, it's not there yet but still it's great news!! I know it's been a while but remember some third parties had to quit in the past with "easier" modules to model, and one of them with a WWII prop fighter in the works. To model properly a high performance piston engined propeller plane is no easy task, at all, and specially if you have no previous experience about it and if they finally make it to the end (which I hope is close enough now) it'll be an amazing accomplishment for an small team to achieve. On top of that, a model from a so well known aircraft we all await for and know about, so the slightest slip in the model will be noticed right away. If they finally make it there'll be nothing left but praising them for their achievement after all the bumps in the road they've dodged. And yes, I await either for their promised MiG-21 v2.0 after the Corsair (and the Crusader, of course), but let's them show us all first their job with this one before judging what they can or can't give us. I await eagerly this module to experience the WWII carrier ops and this amazing bird we all have craved for so long. Don't be mean now they're so close to an end to that journey that I'm sure they've suffered to get to this point now. I can only support them and hope for the better (and for the revamped MiG-21, any versions!! ).

Hi!! We had kind of that discussion in the "trainer for DCS" thread beneath this one, not long ago. I'm sorry to hear about your experience, it's awful how it was back then and the stupid selection criteria they used (well, stupid and plain sexists ones). As for using DCS as a training platform, and like the thread I mention in short, well, as an entry level thing yes, DCS is a wonderful learning platform and you may learn a lot of the basics in this simulation. Will you go straight to the real aircraft and fly it at once only with this? Probably not, but it depends on your own skills, not the sim itself, and anyway it's a wonderful way to get some fears away about things one may not have been aware of about aviation and flying. Depending on the media and material you use to learn and read some of that basic stuff it'll be fully transferable to real life, or not if you only keep with the sim stuff and tutorials. If you plan to go flying RL, from my own experience it's best to read directly the RL material you'll need for your tests, perfectly usable in the sim, while you'll encounter some things not aplicable to the sim because it's a sim, than using the sim simplified tutorials and finding later in RL those are just sim exploits hardly aplicable to RL than the other way around. If you need any further info just ask. Hope it helps

Good news the T-45 is getting some love. It felt like a great but derelict mod. Thanks for the heads up.

Emm, you didn't read my whole answer. I said you're dead in an IFR IMC condition. No, you won't "get used" to feelings and paying attention only to instruments despite sim experience, what you feel in that situation is too overwhelming for a first time.

Uff, you're mixing here lots of different things, too much to talk about, and even some of them far beyond my knowledge, I'm just a PPL pilot, remember. But I'll try to address some of them, Yes, obviously I'm talking here about GA and piston engines, of course I am. Because you asked about the using the Yak-52 as a training platform, remember? Airliners, which I'm only acquainted to being a passenger myself, are a very different kettle of fish, but we weren't talking about those in the first place, were we? Of course many pilots have died for trying to fly by the seat of their pants when they shouldn't have been doing that. But no worries here, if you're a passenger either in a GA or airliner aircraft and you have to take control to land without being yourself an experienced pilot in the type you're mostly already dead no matter how skilled in a flight sim you are, Ok? But that wasn't your first question. Then again, the sentence you've heard about means you shouldn't fly by the seat of your pants in situations where you aren't supposed to, and those are mostly IFR ones, specially real IFR ones meaning IFR in IMC conditions because you know airliners do fly IFR all the time no matter how weather is. And, while flying IFR you must rely on instruments no matter what because, used to it or not, your body sensations lie to you (which you study in the health subject in you PPL or CPL), your ear lies to you, your gravity feeling (proprioception) lies to you, whenever you don't see a thing you feel lots of things and all of those are mostly fake sensations your body tells you because you don't see a thing, so you must rely on instruments no matter what your body tells you. Yes, that's a thing. No, that wasn't what we were talking about, nor my advice if you ever are in that situation mate... XD Not to make this too long. Yes, airliners can be easier "to fly" than piston single engine. No, still you won't land those easier than the GA aircraft without previous experience, there're too much to handle there without experience mate, really a lot. I wouldn't even dare to try myself unless there is absolutely nobody else to do it. About your last question, why not? Because you aren't used to that feeling at all, it's not a game there and no matter the plane, even in a small slow prop plane, you haven't seen and felt the ground coming to you, ever, and you don't know how you'll respond and feel until you find yourself in the situation. I've taken squadmates to fly and they, even being very good and skilled pilots in the sim, wouldn't dare to almost touch the controls despite me telling them to do it and showing how it is. They take the controls and try to move them millimetres like they were in their home joysticks thinking the plane response would be huge, turns out it's not and they don't expect that. On top of that, think the bumps, the shake, the vibration, even the smells, all of them are real there and without previous experience you don't know them and how you as a person will react. It could be fine, or it would be horrible, and you won't know until the time comes. Watching the ground come to you, the feel of a slide like (yes, a toboggan to make me clear) when you're crossing the threshold and pulling to flare, that's a lot for a first time experience and with only sim experience it's hard to cope with. It's not the sim doesn't help a lot in knowing so many aspects of the aviation operation in before hand, but those you'll get to know only when you do it by yourself, not in the sim nor even because I try to explain to you how it is, you have to feel it in person to know. Until that, you don't really know what to expect in that regard.

Hmmm, well, for instance to go to flight school and fly from day one, no, you don't need. But remember what I said previously, the instructor is actually flying himself the plane, not you, even if you don't notice that, at least with a good instructor. To fly for yourself in the usual hypothetical situation Airplane! movie like, remember what I also already told. It's not only getting used to controls (which can make really tricky to use some of the controls you actually need, but well, yeah, you could somewhat use them), but be aware either you're not used, not just to use those controls, you aren't used to actual flying sensations and flying by the seat of your pants, which goes far beyond the old motto. Flying by the seat of your pants is an actual reality up there, you need to feel the plane and its behaviour. You could get used to controls stiffness in five minutes (or more than that, but ok), yeah, but you won't get used to flying sensations in five minutes because while learning that happens when you already have 15-20, or even more flight hours and actually you don't just stop learning those the day you're examined. In five minutes, or even a whole hour to say something if the situation were real on a real aeroplane, you or anyone would get used to those at all. Problem is you need to be used (which you aren't with sims), to climb, dive, banking, everything, and not just that but need to be used to listen to the engine which sounds really different than movies and all the mods out there (people making those mods say they're "realistic sound" when they mean movie like sounds, they aren't realistic at all, you don't listen to plane engine in dolby surround yet there are hundreds of sound subtleties you need to know). Up there you even know when the aircraft is climbing or diving even slightly while cruising by the sound of the engine, which I don't know if can currently be reproduced in sims, but it plays a major role in your RL flying skills, not to mention while gliding to the runway while attempting to land. Those are the various nuances and subtleties I meant in my first post, you can't learn those from pc sims because they're hardware limited and those absolutely subtle quirks just aren't there. But Ok, let's say in an absolutely good day, you are plenty of time in the plane to get used, at least a little bit, to all those little details and you manage to more or less get a grip of the aeroplane to try to land (which is the trickiest situation, flying high up and levelled everybody knows to "fly"), well, it can be really tricky, cumbersome, and bumpy. You actually don't know to land properly from a sim, you aren't used to see the terrain getting close to you and at what speed, you aren't used to the bouncing of the aeroplane, etc, but depending on your own skills and how much you know, from sim or not just sims but how much of an aviation geek you are so know plenty, or let's say enough, yes maybe you could do it with no previous experience even if it's a somewhat traumatic situation and experience. Not to mention when your life is at stake it definitely helps either . But a last thought. Even if you manage to get to ground safe, not sure if sound, remember something sims don't tell you either. In a Cessna (the usual ) the landing gear is actually sturdier than you are… In a hard landing you could really hurt yourself, specially your back and neck, while the aircraft could be intact and that's either something you don't know from sims at all. Some people without RL experience on the internet forums would probably say something like that in a sim "is unrealistic", but that's real life.

Well, actually you don't need to know because while learning you have an instructor sitting besides you, but if we enter the "could you land it only with sim experience" question, that usually means doing it by yourself on you own with no assistance. And still, I believe it could be done (maybe not everyone…) with wide enough sim experience. But surviving doesn't mean you don't smash the plane onto the ground, and all of those little details .

P.S.: this was my baptism flight, yes I had never sat or flown a real aeroplane before, and I flew all the way. So it can be done…

Well, with Yak-52 if you want to learn "just" the absolute basics? Yes, it can be good enough to learn those basics, even to "learn to fly" and go there without previous RL experience and fly something without experience (with the instructor by your side, obviously), in a sunny, windless, good day. The thing is real life flying goes beyond those basics really quick, just with a minimal weather change. And those, even though DCS excels like any other sim in recreating atmospheric changes and how those affects the aircraft behaviour and performances (an usually overlooked aspect of DCS), are too many, too subtle, and too much to learn from a sim which only gives you a pc experience with home controls. Because this, one of the most overlooked areas and a huge difference between pc sims and RL, are the controls itself… what it shocked me the most in that first experience I had was how the controls behaved and felt!! I didn't expect the yoke, or pedals, or even the trim wheel to be so hard to move, which in the real plane isn't something bad at all, it prevents you from overcontrolling especially the rudder pedals. But it's shocking if you hadn't felt that before even if you expect it. An ULM for instance has way lighter controls, that wouldn't be so different than your own home controls if you have long stick and regular pedals, but a simple Cessna? you don't expect how those controls feel and perform. And that's something everyone trying to answer the all times favourite question in flight sims, "would I be able to land/fly a real aeroplane with just my sim experience", always overlook. So, you can't learn it all because for starters you can't have that same feeling at home with the controls. The other thing you don't expect is moving yourself with those controls movements. You think you're doing a nice, gentle, banking turn for instance like in the sim, but when you look at the artificial horizon what you think is a regular 30º turn as you do in sims is actually a 15º turn . Now I think and recall my experience, you don't expect either how tight and yet slack the controls in real aeroplanes are. In Cessnas for instance ailerons have lots of slack, while pitch control is way tighter and responsive. You don't know that in a sim for sure. Or the oposite, the time I flew some minutes a Tiger Moth the ailerons response was heavy and a bit hard, but pitch control felt like you could loop the aeroplane just sneezing (a bit like the Spitfire is in DCS when you don't adjust the controls, yes, but worse when you're in RL). About the Yak-52 I can't say much, I've been around it several times, never got the chance to fly in it, but if you ever get the chance at ~500$ an hour, expect those controls to be quite heavy compared to any home flight gear. So, in short, this is what I meant when I said "you can't learn it all", which doesn't mean you can't learn anything. You can learn a lot of things in the sim, actually I did as I told, it's just you aren't in the real environment and all of those nuances can only be learnt by being there.