Dudikoff

There seems to be a more substantial stock available today.

The controller board is in the stick base so it has to be connected to it to work (unless you buy the TUSBA adapter which IMHO would be a waste of money since you can just put the connected stick base somewhere out of the way). There are updated Cougar drivers and they work on Windows 10, including the CCP. Thus, the microstick works as well though you might need to disable the rudder axis in CCP (enabled by default IIRC for some reason) and enable the microstick ones. I remember I also remapped the microstick axis to some Direct X ones within Target scripts for it to work, but don't recall exactly why as I mostly use the Warthog throttle with the Cougar base these days.

Interesting that it's the standard MiG-31 rather than the modernized BM. They have a bunch of other simulators as well on the webpage. Too bad they didn't cooperate with ED and then ideally letting them release a few consumer level modules.

Yes, the engine needs to have and has a lot of power, but that doesn't come for free: https://www.defensenews.com/air/2021/02/12/an-engine-shortage-is-the-newest-problem-to-hit-the-f-35-enterprise/ Regarding the range, sure, it beats the legacy fighters they're replacing (with internal weapons load at least), but I'm not sure if that should be enough given the different environments the aircraft were designed in. As a light fighter, the F-16 was not required to have a long range on internal fuel so is rarely seen without those big draggy drop tanks, while the Hornets had a miserable range compared to the A-7s they replaced (on which the Super Hornets improved only somewhat). I'm not sure why such reduction was finally accepted in the end, but at least the carriers had dedicated tanker aircraft at the time. Given the potential conflicts in the current setting (proliferation of various ballistic and cruise missiles, long range SAMs, etc.), a much longer combat range is becoming a necessity these days. While Marines and the many smaller operators might be getting a good deal out of this program, I can't help feeling that the USAF and USN needs would have been much better served by a larger design with a bigger internal load and optimized for longer range and supercruise, even if it had to be twin engined and more expensive from the start (which F-35 turned out to be in the end anyway by trying to satisfy different service requirements with a single airframe).

IMHO, it's not the development troubles with the B so much, but the overall design constraints of the B that are the main problem with the F-35 in general. Namely, the somewhat stubby (and thus I presume more draggy) body which was necessary to fit that vertical lift fan, plus the limitation on overall fuselage dimensions which had to fit the elevators of those amphibious assault ships that the B is destined for. The thrust needed to push around that seemingly draggy body and the increased weight due to unrealistic original designs seems to be pushing the single engine beyond its comfortable limits, compounded with a dumbfounding decision to cancel the alternate engine so late in the process to save a few bucks in the short term, especially given how well having two competing engines worked out with the F-16 program. At the same time, those factors are also limiting the range which is pretty bad, especially for the carrier variant where some sort of refueling drone is urgently needed. The rest of the issues with the program are more like consequences of the concurrency approach to production (which has been proven a colossal failure in multiple projects, e.g. the F-22, F-35, LCS, Ford class) plus development issues with the new tech that was crammed there (like e.g. the HMD system). But, those design characteristics stemming from the B unfortunately mean that even when all or most of the issues get sorted out eventually, the plane will still be somewhat operationally limited in terms of kinematics, range and maneuverability which is disappointing given how much money was spent on it. And that's even before adding how much it will cost to maintain that thing, so no wonder there are ideas to further cut the procurement numbers (except for the F-35B) and develop a new plane from scratch. Since the NGAD and B-21 seem to have been progressing reasonably fast, it might be a good idea in the long run if the services could somehow afford even more waiting time for new airframes. Even if I'm completely wrong in my amateur impressions, surely a better performing airframe with a longer range and with less issues that would have been in service in large numbers already should have resulted from the F-35 program given all the TIME and HUGE sums of money spent on it. In that regard the program itself could (should?) be considered a failure, regardless if the F-35 eventually reaches successful service in large numbers.

Perhaps Air Forces Monthly, not sure as it was a while back. IIRC from the original article, the only regiment that operated it (Kursk one) started switching to Su-30SMs and some of their SMTs were sent to Armenia to replace the 9.13s stationed there. There is a mention of that in this article: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/33666/mig-29-fighters-were-at-russias-air-base-in-syria-just-before-showing-up-in-libya

Again, I didn't dispute the total numbers, but simply the claim that all those were upgrades of older RuAF MiG-29s to SMT standard because IIRC most of them came from purchasing the SMTs built for, but eventually rejected by Algeria.

OK, I'll try once more. AFAIK, the Russians didn't upgrade that many SMTs as you've said as most of their SMTs came from a rejected Algerian SMT order. So, basically they've bought them to help MiG out. I don't know why you're writing about MiG-29M/M2/35 as I never mentioned those.

Most of those were the 35 ones built/converted for Algeria who rejected them on the basis that the airframes used were not brand new. But, I think all SMT's are withdrawn from RuAF official service and are relegated to foreign deployments (e.g. Armenia, Lybia, etc.).

On one of the attempts at mission 5, I've locked one of the first two Su-27s and Jester kept insisting it was a friendly for some reason. I think that time around I actually forgot to prep the missiles in advance and switch on the coolant for the AIM-9's. It's a long shot, but maybe his dialog choices on calling them hostile when I wanted to fire were influenced by those conditions (e.g. missing the tree option or a recording for non-prepped missiles)? BTW, I'm still using the initial version of the campaign posted here when it didn't make it in the open beta patch.

I'm not aware of all the relevant differences, but if it's that much of an effort, it's still relatively minor compared to making a new plane as you have like 95% of the work already cut out for you. Given sufficient interest, perhaps you could offer it as a separate module and at a significantly reduced price to owners of the original module? It's still too early to think about that of course, but I know I'd gladly pay more to have the USAF version as well.

Thanks, it's reassuring to see that if I go for the 6800XT that it won't hamper the VR performance in DCS. But, to be fair, it says Radeon 6800XT OC and somewhere above it says OC means OC 115% (maybe 15% higher clock?) so I guess those are not really stock performance numbers. My disclaimer was based on the general impression from the reviews where in some games at 4K it trailed 3080 noticeably (like 10%), but nothing that would be a deal breaker. I'd gladly get myself a 6800XT if it's cheaper than 3080 even though I have a G-Sync monitor.

I would beg to disagree. I had a 27" 1440p monitor before this one and it wasn't something I'd call super sharp as text looked somewhat pixelized to me, so I can only imagine the much larger pixel size on a 32" 1440p. On the other hand, 4K on 32" is super sharp which definitely helps with DCS in regards to immersion. To be fair, in Windows I use a 150% DPI setting to ease the pressure on my eyes which brings the text to about exactly the same level as 1440p would be, with the difference that everything is super sharp. Besides, if the OP is getting a 6800XT, why would he need to worry about performance at 4K? The 32" 4K screens are 60Hz at the moment, anyway.

I have an 32" 60Hz 4K screen with G-Sync and play DCS with my laptop's 1080 GPU so I'm sure you'll be fine if you go down that route. For 4K, Nvidia 3080 usually has somewhat better results as it has more bandwidth on the memory bus, IIRC, but those are much harder to find due to the latest crypto craze.

Yeah, I was thinking the same. I hope they consider the fact that it might (or will) wear off with time and make the cables easily replaceable. I was hoping for a more integrated solution where the throttle arms would have electrical cables or traces integrated and there would just be some exposed contacts that the traces on the handles would align against.

Yeah, it wasn't the most "serious" sim of the day, but having different cockpit arrangements was a nice touch compared to e.g. Birds of Prey which came even later IIRC. Sure, there were better sims like Falcon and Combat Pilot, but FB and Birds of Pray were only ones which had the F-111. Regarding the location, it wasn't a war game, but it was set around Curtis Le May trophy IIRC. Well, I guess that was the limitation of those times. In DI's Tornado, the enemy fighters would kind of stick on you when they ran out of missiles (flares and chaff weren't 100% effective, though) and try to gun you down, so you could use a similar breaking trick and switch to A2A mode and AIM-9s and then if you're lucky enough for them not to crash into you (about a 50/50 chance) and if you were quick enough, you had a decent chance of locking them up and hitting them with winders before they made a fast turn and got back behind you. Fast forward to DI's F-16 in 97 and the enemy fighter AI and FM still felt the same (where they would stick on you or sometimes just fly in super tight circles), but by that time it was quite obviously obsolete in that regard.

Wasn't trying to correct you as it wasn't really a study sim as the sims were not quite there yet, was just trying to reminisce those old times. But, by 1993 already, DI's Tornado was a pretty serious game for the time and I guess offered a lot of that F-111 experience with its fast flying at low level with swept wings and a TFR set to 200 feet, A2G radar, dive-bombing, dumb, cluster and laser guided bombs, etc. with an extra twist of quite useful ALARM ARMs with their unique indirect mode.

I didn't actually play that as I had Atari ST at the time and didn't have that one. Plus, it only had 512 kB of RAM so I couldn't run F-16 Combat Pilot I did have. But, I did read about it in gaming magazines. To be fair, the first more serious "study" sims only came with 386 PCs, like e.g. Spectrum Holobyte Falcon 3.0 in 1991, Microprose F-15 Strike Eagle III in 1992 and F-14 Fleet Defender, Tornado in 1993, etc. I never did get into Falcon 3.0 for some reason (graphics were kind of obsolete already I guess), but I over-played the other three mentioned (among others) on my 386DX40. F-14 & Tornado are still among my all-time greats, while the F-15 was quite decent systems-wise (e.g. it had SAR radar mode and its various limitations implemented quite nicely for the time), but they didn't have multiple flights yet in their game engine, so the world and missions were kind of empty and not that immersive.

IIRC, Fighter Bomber.

Since it's HB, I kind of hope they might be able to provide both TRAM and SWIP variants as the differences between them are relatively few and they already have the AN/ALR-67 done for the B Tomcat, plus ED has already implemented all these extra guided weapons for the Hornet (e.g. HARMs, SLAMs, Walleye & Laser MAVs) so they can simply be reused.

Am I reading correctly that the desktop version has a longer arc on the axis compared with the big version (50 vs 26 degrees)? I guess that makes sense given the much longer radius, but I wonder how do they compare in practice in DCS, e.g. when one needs finely tuned movements for air to air refueling? I use a Warthog throttle and find that the useful range between idle and AB detents is somewhat limited. I was considering the Taurus, but I'm not sure how much of an upgrade it will be then. Not really thrilled by the layout and looks of most of the controls on the Orion (the design and finish looks more like a prototype than a production model), but replaceable handles are a cool feature given that the F-16 throttle handles seem to be almost ready. Speaking of modular controls, perhaps they could have went a step further and designed the rest of the controls on the throttle as modular blocks which would be mounted on e.g. three slots on the throttle base. I do hope they might have plans for more Flight Ops panels for the Taurus. E.g. if DCS MiG-29 comes out, it would be cool to have a grey panel with different style of controls and different throttle panels.

Unlike in the F-14A/B, the RIO in the F-14D had an extra MFD as well which was used to show the LTS picture AFAIK (and not the TID screen).

Balance is not the main reason when asking for older F-16/18 variants. Some people would enjoy late Cold War scenarios where the airplanes were not that multi-role (so, single-role aircraft still existed), the weapons were less smart and missions were probably more adrenaline inducing. Thus, IMHO, it would be great if ED would offer some older variants of Falcon and/or Hornet (kind of like A-10C II or the now defunct Ka-50 BS3).

A puzzling perspective, IMHO. For me it's quite the opposite and any FC3 module is a logical candidate for a DCS level module made by ED since a good chunk of work is already done, mainly the FM. The main benefit is that after flying full DCS modules, a lot of people don't enjoy flying FC3 modules at all because of their very shallowly modeled systems, so e.g. with DCS MiG-29 we'd finally get its radar, IRST, WCS, RWR, GCI and navigation systems properly modeled with all their submodes and various limitations. These things most certainly are not in the sim at the moment and without them, it's just some simplified black box hulk which flies the same and fires the same weapons. And once they have these subsystems modeled, they can be reused for other Soviet aircraft from the period (like, e.g. navigation and RWR systems could be reused for DCS: Su-25, etc.).

Yes, only three. You can see the three buttons (top row, the bottom one is for the three home base waypoints) on the right panel in DCS.