Helios

How long this should take is something which really should depend on the individual's starting point. If you are a dedicated simmer and have spent the last 15 years with F4AF, FC2, Jane's, and what-not, then most things should come pretty straight-forward, because you are building on a lot of relevant knowledge/skills. E.g. if you know how to land in F4AF, it's just the same thing except different AoA and AoA marking, slightly different glide slope, much slower approach, some stuff missing from the HUD, at what speed do you lower gear, you now have flaps available, airbrake should be 40%, get the nose down after landing as opposed to keeping it up, when do you engage NWS, etc. Those few informations should probably be enough for most F4AF pilots to make a nice landing on the first attempt. However, if this is your first sim, then absolutely everything is new, so you basically have to also learn all the stuff that more experienced pilots know from other sims, including things like management of throttle/stick to stay on a glide slope. Which sums up to quite a lot of knowledge and skills. I would think most of the people who posted they could master the basics of this sim in [relatively very short timespan] had some prior sim experience. If that does not apply to you, then it really should take longer - otherwise you are probably going too fast. The learning curve is intimidating, but it's really only intimidating when trying to achieve too much at once. Avoiding competing with the "pros" and instead taking it slow and focusing on one thing at a time really helps (at least that's what I'm doing and it seems to work for me). Over time all those little "baby steps" really start adding up. Also going on multiplayer and asking people (politely) for help goes a long way.

What he said. There is no point sugercoating it - while it's perfectly possible to enjoy the sim without a full rig, having those two components does make a big difference. The authentic HOTAS is how the plane was intended to be operated, and in real life we can look around by moving our head. I have an X52 Pro myself which I will want to upgrade to the Warthog HOTAS, but maybe hold off on that for a while after too many hours of frustrations with FPS problems on my ageing PC caused me to spontaneously order a new gaming rig yesterday with i7 2600K, GTX 280, SSD and all that good stuff, which put a rather big dent in this year's sim budget :) For pretty much everything not configured to the HOTAS I use the mouse, which combines nicely with TrackIR - mainly with the exception of using '2'-'3'-'4' to select autopilot mode, gears/flaps, and external lights 'LALT-P' and 'LSHIFT-P'. And of course there is 'ctrl+E' to eject 8)

This is really good news. No biggie if the compatibility patch is not right around the corner, it's plenty fun flying already - so no rush. Joint multiplayer on some missions where there is a real co-op component would be a lot of fun. I'd happily sacrifice a tiny bit of realism to be able to lase a target for an inbound A-10. Don't know how 'deep' a patch would go, but SW development wise a compatibility patch could make a lot of sense. You really don't want to maintain multiple code bases which essentially do the same thing (3D environment, weather, run the battlefield simulation, ATC, etc).

Congratulations, you'll be having plenty fun :-) I would suggest - while having looked at the real HOTAS charts - just (re)programming the HOTAS as you go along through training missions etc, you'll notice some real-life HOTAS commands you will be doing all the time, that you really want to be able to do on the stick. Eventually you find "your" setup. I would consider using the 4-way on the stick for trimming, because that's something at least I end up having to do a lot of minor tweaks as flight parameters change - so it's really nice to have that right there. Or maybe just configure up/down for trimming pitch (needed more often), and use left-right for something else.

You'll probably hear as many opinions as there are people in this forum, I'll volunteer mine :-) If you like choppers, and you are willing to learn flying the Ka-50 without throwing heavy items at your laptop when you discover that in the beginning it's hard to do things like hovering and landing, then that's what I would suggest (then again, I like choppers :) ). It took a while before I even started programming the HOTAS for the Ka-50. Plus probably easier on HW requirements, which may be better for running on a laptop. As you may often find yourself hovering or flying slowly with a trimmed heli outside the enemy's engagement zone, you have a lot more time to operate keyboard etc. The one button you really, really need on the stick is the "trim" button - which you will be using all the time - but it's just a button and not a 4-way as on the A-10C. A-10C it's a lot easier to get in the air and fly around. But operating the thing efficiently and getting mission results ... not so easy. As I'm still learning this thing I find it is hard enough even with a fully programmed setup. So the HW may get a little more in the way.

Getting started with a setup that fits your budget sounds way better than delaying the whole thing. If you maxed your budget, then you probably made a great choice. And as you start upgrading gear later the experience will just continue to get better. Not having a top-tier HOTAS does mean some loss of immersion and added pilot workload / reduced efficiency as you will be hitting the keyboard a lot more - instead of just letting your fingers work the programmed buttons while keeping your eyes out the window. But that's probably just fine for quite a while, compared to the alternative of not playing.

Flip a coin? ;-) They are both great. I never tried out the Apache game on XBox 360 you were referring to, however I would be very surprised if it comes anywhere near the level of realism in Ka-50. So Ka-50 could be your chance to have an "I loved the Apache and want to bring that to the next level" experience, whereas A-10C would be "this also looks really cool and would be nice to try out something different than the chopper". The difference between hovering/slow-speed in the Ka-50 vs. constantly moving around in the A-10C makes for two quite different experiences. Your HOTAS should be quite an upgrade from the 360 controller experience, so that will be a lot of fun! As was hinted at earlier in the thread you will eventually probably want to think about upgrading to X52 or better to have more programmable buttons/thingies to get a true Hands On Throttle And Stick experience. It sort of works ok in both Ka-50 and A-10C with my X52 after I have tuned my profile quite a bit, but then pretty much every button has a function, including secondary commands by using the pinky switch. I'm sure you'll have loads of fun with either of the two sims, and eventually you will of course want to be flying both :-)

The solution I was told when I encountered this same problem on a multiplayer server was to swith off/on CICU and then perform 'load all'. Which I would assume is not an appropriate procedure compared to the answers provided by others earlier in the thread, and probably takes longer while waiting for CICU to power up - but it works :)

Yes, but to be fair the current wiki - though quite useful - is far from the type of learning portal I was suggesting. Having a wiki is not necessarily the same as having a great wiki :-)

Though I saw a comment about wikis earlier in the thread, I thought it may be worth iterating that point. This forum is really great, but it sure can take quite a bit of effort keeping up with the posts and finding answers by searching. And while this "works", it does take quite some persistence and commitment - which effectively raises the bar for getting started or not giving up. So on the topic of making the sim more accessible to new pilots, I think a wiki set up to take a new pilot through a "curriculum" - taking the pilot through a manageable sequence of topics something along the lines of this recent SimHQ post - would go along way. This would probably only happen if ED set out to create such a wiki, driving towards definition of a master series of topics, and putting enough structure and content into it that it would reach "critical mass" and it would start becoming attractive for the community to go there and add/edit/post content. As for myself, I love this sim so much that I'm perfectly willing to stick with searching the forums. But to truly address the question which drives this thread - to _really_ lower the bar for new pilots who didn't buy the sim already (and so more likely to have a more "casual" attitude towards the sim) - I think a more structured wiki-based learning portal would be the answer. Just my $0.10 :-)

Have been looking for where to find course information. Very helpful!

Great material, thank you very much for sharing with the community! :beer:

Just a tip for anyone who might not have thought about it; in single-player mode you can speed up time while waiting for INS alignment. Just hit CTRL+Z a few times, watch CDU, and when it hits T=4.0 press SHIFT+Z - saves a few minutes. Not 100% realism, but hey - it gives you a few more minutes in the air ;-)

Thank you Frederf (again) :thumbup: / Helios

This situation sounds familiar :-) A couple things I experienced, (a) making sure the right frequency is set on the radio for the ATC (at that airport), and (b) I think APU power needs to be on before they will respond to engine start-up request - at least that's how it worked for me. On the broader topic of learning (which I'm going through that process myself), there was an interesting post over at SimHQ about how to sequence topics for learning. Made me think it would have been really nice to have a kind of Wiki curriculum for self-assisted learning. I've started to create various missions for myself, but some times it's a bit much to be your own instructor and research everything (including "what should I practice next") by searching the forum, watching youtube videos etc. Even real-life pilots who have the luxury of flying this thing as a full-time paid job don't have to be their own instructor, and I assume they are not searching the web for answers ... A kind of simplified online curriculum with lessons, video examples, Q&A, relevant missions to practice etc. - as a device to sequence the learning with a nice and manageable progression - would really help. / Helios

I have been practicing landings the last couple days and was wondering what are some operational boundary conditions for landing the A-10C? Kind of when should you (not) try to land, and when is it ok to whine about rough landing conditions without becoming the laughing stock of your fellow pilots. A few random things I've been trying out: Trying VFR landing with 17 m/s (so about 32 kts) ~85deg crosswind - with a full loadout. Because according to the Operator's Checklist I found somewhere on the forum, 35 kts is the operational limit for "clean a/c normal operation" at 90 deg. I am not sure what "clean" means but I am starting to suspect it may mean "no munitions"? Should perhaps have thought about that sooner ... Anyways, can land with 20kts crosswind and full loadout every time no problem, but 32 kts ends up with an abort or popping a tyre or two if I risk a landing. IFR/IFS landing with rain and fog, 1 km thick and 110m visibility. Could track the glideslope reasonably well, but when I went past the runway threshold - lol, couldn't see a thing - after a few seconds of flying completely blind I thought I could vagely see some stripes next to me and tried to put down just for fun - landed just on the side of the runway which for some reason went completely fine. But I suspect these conditions are "banned" for landing if any other non-lethal options exist - seems you have to commit to making a landing before you even know for sure whether you are above the runway. I can't even imagine adding cross-wind to something like this ... Tried to simulate what an IFR/IFS landing would be like without the HUD to assist (e.g. assuming the HUD was knocked out by enemy fire), keeping heads-down and trying to use the other instruments to track the glideslope. Feeling really lost without the HUD flight point markers, steerpoint caret, and 0/5 deg lines to help, and the ADI seems just too crude to try to precisely track a 3 deg glideslope. So I thought it might be an interesting question to ask - what are some reasonable boundary conditions for practicing real-life landings? / Helios

Thank you for your insightful replies, I will try out in my next round of night missions, with some changes to NVG usage and playing with NVG gain settings. Not tonight though - right now my head is spinning fast after practicing too many 35 kts crosswind landings (daytime). I don't know what USAF charges per smoked tire, but I believe I owe Uncle Sam some $$ ;-) / Helios

I started customizing some checklists for my own use, and I thought I might as well share some of them here in case anyone finds them useful - currently a Cold Start Checklist. In particular I wanted 1-page checklists with two levels of information (so only need to read 2nd level when necessary), in a format that can be easily edited and customized. The checklist has a mind map format and was created with the open source FreeMind software. If you don't like my PDF version, you can install FreeMind and roll your own based on my source file. Note you (probably) need to rename the ".txt" source file to ".mm" extension before opening (had to rename due to forum restrictions on file extensions). Also note FreeMind is not very clever when it comes to printing, so you need to manually set a zoom level which works with print output. You can hide/show branches by clicking on them, e.g. I have chosen to hide the details of "configure laser codes" in my PDF, however if you click on it (in FreeMind) there are some more instructions behind it. I built the cold start check list straight off WarriorX' checklist, so all credits for checklist content goes entirely to him, however I take credit for any errors I might have added ;-) Hopefully this checklist is helpful for others the forum - if not then apologies for wasting your time, but at least you got the above link to the checklist which was used for input, which is known to be quality stuff :-) Edit: Uploaded v0.2 after fixing some embarassing omissions which I discovered when I actually beta tested my own list - don't know how I managed to delete "APU Start" which was there at some point in v0.1. Note that this list is probably not the best one to use for a first-time startup, as it is nowhere near as instructive and easy-to-read as the WarriorX checklist that was used for input. It is intended more as a condensed format reference and mental map for someone who is familiar with all the steps. / Helios Checklist - Helios - Cold Start - v0_2.zip

Just tried out my first night sortie for a simple ramp-start / take-off / land procedure. Which was very fun! And of course there were a few hiccups when trying out something new: I was following the WarriorX cold-start checklist (which I really like) that specifies setting up NVG for a night sortie. Everything was good until I was near the runway and my take-off got approved - wow, who turned on the lights! The world suddenly got very bright, and it was pretty clear there would be no NVG take-off if I wanted to actually see the runway. So from that experience I am assuming that NVG for taxi or take-off is a no-go. Also the manual seems to indicate NVG should also be removed for landing, which was also my experience from this flight when I ended up landing after a last-second disabling of NVG and landing with the HUD barely visible. Did some searching and didn't seem there was too much info to get from forums, manual etc. regarding night operations, so this led me to want to ask a few questions ... Anyone with some good input when to (not) use NVG when flying at night; beyond not using for take-off/landing are there other situations when (not) using the NVG is more appropriate? And another question - how should one best use the MFDs with night vision. Even after switching them to night-mode, the TAD (with map projected) was just a bright blur. I forgot to check the TGP whether it had the same problem, but I assume so ... Seems like a couple options are (a) switch off night goggles when checking graphics on MFDs, (b) tilt the head so one can read the MFDs just below the goggles, or © maybe there is some MFD setting that makes things look nice with the goggles - just rotating MFD knob to "night" didn't seem to cut it though. Third question - there was a post a few minutes ago regarding procedures for setting external lights - what (if anything) should be done differently at night? I'm guessing there are some night-flying experts here who might have insightful comments :-) / Helios

The Shark is my default choice when there is limited time available or I am in relax-and-have-fun-mode. Have grown relatively comfortable with flying the heli, and control movement and HOTAS programming is sufficiently commmitted to muscle memory that I can get going with little fuzz. I very much enjoy the ability to hover or fly slow and take time to scan a target area. A-10C when I have a lot of time on my hands and I am in learning-mode. With A-10C I am still very much in an early learning phase, and currently with too little time to spend flying (it can some times be 2-3 weeks between sessions) I tend to forget things and having to re-learn. With the added time pressure of having to sort everything out as you approach the target area at medium-to-high speed, it some times gets a little too much too fast. If I would have to pick just one - even if I was starting again from scratch - it would have to be the Shark. However, in a year or so when my A-10C skills have improved, it will probably be either-or. / Helios

OP has a point that videos with commentary and pointing out relevant visual cues can be a nice learning tool, and makes it a lot easier to get started if entirely unfamiliar with the aircraft and some of the key concepts related to e.g. navigation. However, it is probably worth taking 1-2 hours to speed-read the manual. Not studying it in any great detail (you'd be spending the day), but trying to get a sense of what information is covered. When you're in the sim, there is a chance you might pause and think "hey, I saw something about that" and be able to quickly find it again in the manual. Eventually you will probably want to get through the manual in a little more detail. And it is the deeper level of understanding which comes with that reading which brings the sim to the "next level". However, the manual will probably be a lot easier to study when you've done some flying already. Studying the manual really pays off as an investment for fixed-wing sims overall. I just started with A-10C and have run through most of the training missions, without yet opening the manual. Now don't misunderstand me here - I _am_ going to to through the manual, in great detail. The reason I did not need the manual yet is I have been through the Falcon 4.0 AF manual quite a few times and so far everything covered in training missions can be more or less directly related to concepts that I already know from F4AF. If you think about it, there is probably a lot of knowledge from the Ka-50 you are using already without even thinking about it, such as waypoint navigation. So ... it can be a little pain to dig through the manual, but eventually it's a good kind of pain! And reading up on the next fixed-wing sim will be that much easier. / Helios

I just got started this week with A-10C, and I must say this sim is just so much fun and so awesome it's hard to put into words. So I won't even try, but you get the picture. I do have some complaints though. It has gotten really hard recently to choose between flying the Ka-50 or the A-10C. There is the sleep deprivation from doing and redoing training missions until late at night. And between A-10C/Ka-50/FC2/[*cough*F4AF] it is getting increasingly hard not to confuse the various HOTAS profiles. I anticipate further problems whenever the US fixed wing [edit: fighter] release comes out. Well, actually not if it means F4AF can be retired ;-) As it is bad form to shout I won't be using caps, but if you want to you can imagine that I'm hitting caps lock just about ... now. A big thank you to ED for this fantastic sim! :clap_2: Please please please continue to evolve the DCS series and push out new releases for a long time going forward. I would probably buy them even if I did not had the HW to run it, just to support the DCS concept. / Helios

As I have just been getting started with multiplayer and spending a little time on the 104th, I have probably been one of those idiots :-) Was not aware of the speed effect, so very happy to discover this thread. With the map on 104th, terrain masking options do seem rather limited (though I liked the idea of "hiding in cities" as was mentioned in an earlier post). Not sure which is worse though ... even at standard max safe cruise speed, flying to targets 40+ km off with nothing much happening already takes a bit of patience. Dropping to < 130 kmh and taking a longer detour to avoid being where you can be expected to be ... well, better not get shot down 3 mins before reaching the target ... By the way I must say flying on the 104th and listening in on Teamspeak is really great fun, it's a nice crowd there. I love my Ka-50, even when getting shot down by fighters! However everyone else also seem to also be having so much fun with their fixed wings, so now I am also waiting for my freshly ordered copy of LOMAC to arrive :)