Dudikoff

Well, that's not a fact since they opted for AIM-7E's rather than AIM-7F's (which were offered to them).

Yeah, being less complex to make and operate and requiring only one pilot, it's the more obvious choice. Or at least, it would make sense to make it before the A-6. But, HB like to challenge themselves, apparently :)

While I don't remember if they claimed THAT many, I absolutely agree we shouldn't take such claims for granted. So, then why would you choose to believe similar claims by Iranian pilots (who mostly never saw if their missiles hit something or not) over the confidential Iraqi audits of their aircraft losses which were made after the war?

Interesting numbers given that actual Iraqi Air Force records mention only around 140 airplanes lost throughout the war to all causes.

And "Israeli made" means made by Dassault and assembled in Israel.

That's because the GPU is holding you down in the graphically much more intensive DCSW (100% load). Strike Fighters 2 engine is completely obsolete and the graphics card can achieve much higher FPS there which then causes your CPU to get pushed harder as you haven't limited the FPS.

Four Intel 'generations' you mean? Until AMD came out with Ryzen and forced them to finally add two more cores to their mainstream line, Intel has been pretty much selling the same architecture over and over (e.g. starting with Sandy Bridge) with minor refinements which would net like 5% improvement over the previous one. So, there's nothing wrong with the i7 4790K and won't be for quite some time until multiple cores become used much more effectively as it doesn't seem likely some revolutionary new architecture will appear that would improve the single core performance significantly.

Just to be clear, I didn't mean the actual keyboard assignments, but the list of all available commands and axis mappings (i.e. the first row on the left side in the controls screen).

I presume the potential input axis and commands are finalized by now. Any chance of releasing these mappings before the module itself?

But, he bases that on using the module and the manual. Unless he's part of the HB test team, his guide will be released after the module has already been available which kind of beats my point.

Yes, of course, I didn't expect the complete manual to be ready, but some early chapters or quick guides for e.g. startup, take-off, landing, maybe even some weapon employment basics.. It can even be some unfinished version with missing chapters. But, anything is better than nothing :)

Were those perhaps the conversions from A's, i.e. F-14D®'s? Were the newly made D's noticeably better regarding the maintenance hours compared to the A/B's? @Heatblur: What's the state of the flight manual? It would be nice if something could be released prior to the actual release so we can learn some basics, work on the HOTAS programming, etc.

Not really. PTID displays went to the A & B's that were upgraded with LTS pod support. Later, when some of those got withdrawn from service, their PTID's went to the D's as well. Sparrowhawk HUD was a much later addition (2001 IIRC).

I presume it's because I have Ka-50 BS2 Upgrade, rather than the full Ka-50 BS2.

They are working on a TM compatible variant, though.

Not sure about the higher AoA for the 9-13, but I presume at least the engine thrust values should be easily changed in the PFM to reflect the reduced performance of the MiG-29G.

So, how does one activate the IRST then in the real plane to be used in this EOS BVR mode? I understand that the DCS doesn't represent it correctly graphically, but as I understand there is a BVR EOS mode when you press "2" and then activate the IRST. The radar will be disabled and IR target tracks will be shown which will look somewhat different than the radar targets (wider lines IIRC). Tough sub apparently, so I'll try again (perhaps I'm failing to understand some key point here?). There is a physical switch for radar illumination in the cockpit. AFAIK, there is no physical switch for EOS sensor, so I presume that it's used automatically in BVR OLS mode and various CAC modes? But, in any case when one changes the WCS knob from RLS to OLS or any of the CAC modes in the real airplane, the radar illumination switch will not budge in the real plane, it can stay put in radar illumination active mode. The same is true in DCS for CAC modes (e.g. in MiG-29 there is a signal lamp showing that the radar illumination is still active e.g. in VS CAC mode even though the mode uses IRST sensor as a primary one as shown on the HUD). But, if you activate the IRST sensor ("I" key) while in BVR mode with radar on (so, this represents the RLS mode roughly), the radar will get disabled automatically which is inconsistent with how the CAC modes work in the game. Finally, and this is my main problem with the current implementation, if you use Warthog throttle or something else with a two position switch to control this radar illumination, you have a problem as suddenly (when you activated IRST to switch to BVR OLS mode), the game deactivated your radar even though your physical switch is still in the active position. If you switch to any other mode after that, the radar will remain disabled. So, all I am asking is for ED not to actually disable the radar in this case, as I presume the BVR OLS mode can get selected and used in the real plane without the need to physically switch off the radar illumination. IMHO, the simplest way to do this is to remove the IRST key (which is not present in the real airplane anyway) and somehow toggle between the BVR radar and EOS modes (e.g. by repeated pressing of BVR mode key or by toggling the radar on and off), regardless if it is presented authentically or not in the game itself.

I'm not familiar with all the interactions in the real plane, but we don't have a full DCS module here. But, even in the simplified form, it is blatantly obvious that there is no IRST button in the cockpit and the current implementation is pretty obviously unrealistic. A lot of things have been modified on these Soviet planes (e.g. disabling the tactical function on the MiG-29 display) since the initial Lock On release so why not bring it another step further and remove the IRST switch as well? Furthermore, it also creates practical problems for me while programming my HOTAS, hence the purpose of my post. So, for you it might be a minor issue not worth mentioning, but please allow for the theoretical possibility that it might be a bigger issue for some other users.

I disagree as they use the NAV mode control ("1") to toggle between different sub-modes of navigation so they can do the same here instead of having this fake IRST on/off key which introduces issues as described before (mainly, inconsistent radar disabling behaviour between BVR and CAC modes and allowing to disable IRST in CAC modes). Alternatively, they could also have a single BVR mode, but if the radar is switched on, then RLS mode would be selected and if it is off, then BVR mode could automatically switch to OLS. In this case, we would lose the HUD screen showing the BVR mode with the radar off, but i'm not sure if it serves any purpose anyway. I'd prefer the first option, though.

Perhaps you didn't read my post at all as the game DOES include and use an IRST switch (i.e. "O" key) and you seem to be making the same point I was trying to make (i.e. that setting the WCS selector to OLS position probably activates the IRST as the primary sensor in a real airplane as there's no separate switch for it). The problem in the game with the current implementation is that once in BVR radar mode (i.e. "2" + "I"), if you press the IRST switch ("O"), it will switch to OLS mode *AND* deactivate the radar which actually has the activation switch on the console (as if you switch "O" again, it would switch off the IRST, but the radar would remain off so you'd have to switch it on again with "I"). This creates a problem if you use a 2 way switch on e.g. Warthog Throttle to activate the radar illumination. I presume this is not how it works in the real airplane and if you set the WCS mode to OLS, the IRST will be used, even though the radar illumination is still active (as both can coexist in some CAC modes). So, to reiterate, instead of having to play with states and scripts in TARGET, it would be nice if ED would actually implement that BVR mode functions as a switch between OLS (activates the IRST, but *doesn't* deactivate the radar) and RLS (deactivates the IRST in BVR activated with the first press) primary modes (which would also be useful to e.g. Virpil T-50 Throttle owners which has a rotary mode selector switch; I also used the Saitek flight panel rotary selector for that purpose before). Also, by removing the IRST switch in general, the probably incorrect possibility to deactivate the IRST in close-air-combat modes would also disappear. It should be an easy correction.

One thing that has always bugged me was the IRST on/off switch; since the actual aircraft have the OLS (IRST) and RLS (radar) options for BVR modes and I don't see any switch to actually activate the IRST, I believe it should be removed. If there is indeed no IRST on/off switch (?), then it would make more sense IMHO if the BVR mode key (i.e. "2") would toggle between OLS (where the IRST would be activated automatically) and RLS (where the IRST would be deactivated automatically) BVR modes. This would be in-line with the close-air-combat modes where the IRST is automatically activated AFAIK. Currently the IRST can be switched off in CAC modes, but I don't see why (and how?) that would ever be done. Of course, if there actually is an IRST control switch, then please disregard the post and I'd appreciate if someone would point out its location to me :)

I just got a used Warthog throttle on eBay and luckily it works and is in good shape. I received it with an almost fully cut USB cable (it was sent wrapped vertically around the throttle so I presume the weight and the sharp edges caused it), but it worked after a rather shoddy wire soldering job. Quite happy that the TARGET software can easily combine it with the Cougar stick base and it's a vast improvement over the Cougar throttle functionality wise (though I really feel TM should have added a rotary control on the front of it like the Hornet one has, Warthog or not). Good point. I'm really curious to see what VKB will do with theirs when it finally gets finished, especially regarding those extra panels in front which I miss from my Saitek X65 (which can easily mount those extra flight panels from Saitek; the biggest problem being that Saitek stupidly never incorporated them in their SST software so that they can be seemlessly combined with their HOTAS). Virpil throttle has some nice touches (like the mode button and the programmable lighting), though I'm not sure how flexible the programming software is. The flexibility of the TARGET scripts is what drew me into getting my Cougar stick modded instead of selling it unused, so I hope Virpil and VKB will have a powerful programming software as well.

They are working on it and it might be released later in this year IIRC.

OK, thanks for the update. Was just wondering if it's still coming or it's cancelled or something as there were no updates after the MCG-Pro release.

Can you comment on the MCG-TM status? I asked about a month ago on the last page, but there was no response.