cctoide

I don't know much about the internals of DCS but I wouldn't be surprised if they did some sort of aerodynamic modeling (or "blade element theory" or whatever else) instead of a look-up table like regular flight sims. They did model the rotor blades in several sections for Black Shark, I assume there was a reason for that beyond the damage system. Whether it's possible to put the plane into a realistic spin should be a good indication of how good the FM is, as I've heard desktop flight simulators usually don't do a very good job simulating the edges of the flight envelope.

It only gets drawn in a circle around the camera, like in pretty much every game.

I've seen it called "DCS: A10-C Warthog" in most formal articles. That seems to be what they're calling it now, though it might also be that ED hasn't decided yet. edit: got Wagsed :P.

Small error (unless you know something we don't :music_whistling:), closing paragraph puts the release date as "early next year":

I'm not sure, but it sounds like you're trying to engage auto-hover before the doppler system is fully online, since you say you're doing it right after takeoff. The doppler system is required for auto-hover. It takes a while to be available after starting, I think I read somewhere that it needs to get some returns (i.e. moving ground) before it starts working. IIRC, if you can't see your radio altitude in the HUD then the doppler system is not operational yet.

A couple of nice screenshots (well, photos of screens) with this article, which was linked to in another topic here by the author: http://www.gamingshogun.com/Article/7014/Thrustmaster_HOTAS_Warthog_E3_Preview_Event.html I think the last screenshot shows a lot of improvement when it comes to the ground environment in DCS.

New Joint Fires Training video on Wags' YouTube account has better A-10 footage than the last one: edit: Out of curiosity, does anyone know if the song starting at 1:30 has a proper name? I only know it as the 1.0.2 BS MP music, I was wondering if it was composed specifically for BS. edit2: "Lopster" by Dmitry S. Baikov.

Wags said "yes" in the audio interview in response to the question of whether all the armament carried by the real A-10 would be available in the sim. However, I recall some time back people were asking about certain bombs (the CBU-97, specifically, IIRC) and an ED Team member said it might be difficult since that type of weapon hadn't been coded for DCS yet. Was Wags just answering generally or have there been new developments? ... or are you going to make us wait to find out? :P

Maybe the least relevant thing to comment on here, but I like the new menu look, it looks a lot classier compared to DCS:BS. I hope that's the final design and not just for the demo copy.

I don't want to start any rumors, so take this as speculation, but from what I gathered from the (Google translated) Russian thread for the fan translation of the A-10 manual, they want to have it (the manual) ready by the end of summer. So my personal estimate is September/October 2010, leaning towards the latter.

IIRC, mid-July was the stated earliest possible date for the Producer's Notes videos. Wags said we might get "news" this week, though.

It might be cool, but I doubt it would be any easier than getting a private pilot's license up to the point where you can take up a Cessna on your own... probably significantly harder, actually, considering the issues remote control brings into the mix. It's still a real plane that can really crash and hurt real people, in the end.

C looks like an A/C nozzle to me. I'm puzzled by A too, my only guess is some sort of light level sensor so the HUD knows how to adjust brightness, but that's a bit far-fetched. edit: Well that was the greatest synchropost ever. I guess I might as well throw this in here rather than dig the A-10 thread back up: in an A-10 cockpit shot, I noticed a bunch of sockets/buttons(?) right behind the stick, on the lowest panel in the center console. I can't recall which photo I saw this in but they had names that sounded like they corresponded to individual hydraulic actuators, so assuming they're actually sockets I'm guessing something plugs into them for diagnostics/testing of each actuator on the plane. Is it anything like that at all or am I way off base?

I don't know if these were even shown at the expo, but I just assumed those latest videos were made to be played on repeat at a booth, and that's why the editing was simple and quick. I don't know if that's actually the case, but I can understand why the editing of a video wasn't given top priority when there were probably tons of other stuff they had to do to set up for it. We got to see the A-10, though, and I can't complain about that. ;)

With the current state of fighter development/adoption, how likely is it for ED to get a fighter contract that isn't heavily restricted? I don't know much about real-world air forces, so I'm wondering if people who follow those events see any chance at all of military-grade fighter simulators being needed in the near future. Or for any other type of aircraft, really.

I hadn't been following this closely until just recently, but had we seen the A-10 in motion before this video? Looks - and sounds - awesome.

This is really minor, and I don't know if the graphics engine supports it, but can't cockpit monitors have a little shading applied to them? Currently it seems that whatever color the pixels are in the virtual display, that's the color it is on your monitor, with no shading in between. It's not really that noticeable in the Shark as it only has the ABRIS and it's doesn't look too bad on the Shkval screen, but on those preview shots of the A-10, the MFDs really stand out as a solid block of unshaded color, especially in the night shot where the rest of the cockpit is softly lit. It should be optional, as some people might prefer having a pristine screen. I know mods can add smudged fingerprints, dirt and whatnot as overlays, but that's different.