Dragon1-1

The problem with most of the Hornet's training missions can be summed in one sentence: they were made years ago. That means the module was incomplete, some things didn't work, some things worked differently. Waypoints, for instance. That mission could explain things like markpoints, creating a new waypoint, designating one as target... only, it was made so early that "click two buttons and fly around" was more or less all you could do. While most of the stuff works, the way it's explained is behind the times. You also can't "fast forward" the old missions. The last few missions are a better experience, being much more recent. IMO, all missions should be remade to that standard. Some could be consolidated, too.

If anything, it shows that the concept of a trainer is very much relevant in DCS. It's just adequately filled by FC3 aircraft, with their simplified avionics. A trainer is supposed to be simpler to fly and operate than a proper combat jet, and FC3 Eagle is just that. Yes, it has powerful engines, but IRL trainers have wimpy engines so that they're cheaper, not because it confers anything in terms of training benefits. Same reason most of them can't carry AMRAAMs (plus, real radars are not as easy to operate as the FC3 Eagle). Software side, it might well be on a similar level. As for the hardware, it can use a motion platform and a full cockpit sim. You just have to own them (and some do).

In fact, that's the reason for Mode 4 on Western aircraft. Modes 1, 2 and 3 are not encrypted, so anyone could do that sort of thing by simply interrogating them. If you don't turn off those modes, anyone with an interrogator can see exactly where you are.

It doesn't, sometimes the check seems to fail, in the Phantom, at least. Jester declares a bandit while in friendly airspace. It's also worth noting that some aircraft (friendly or otherwise) don't have IFF. Civilian ones, in particular, would never respond in Mode 4. This is rarely a factor in DCS, but occasionally it can be.

They work just fine against fighters if you shoot fairly late, leaving the missile with a lot of energy. This is part of the fun, you need to be aware of the ranges and decide whether to fire earlier and risk a miss, or fire late and risk being launched at before the missile goes active.

One more thing, we should remember that he likely never fired a real Phoenix at a real, high speed target. Training in those days was done using timelines and calling out shots, which would be evaluated based on a number of parameters. As they didn't have computers to help them (they were expensive and took up a whole room back then), it had to be simplified somehow. Without more information, it's hard to say whether this is a factor here, but depending on the assumptions taken, it could lead to actual flight time being off.

I'm flying the Hornet campaigns now, and damn, I even miss that idiot in the back. Mostly analog flight controls, just enough displays to do the job, and you can foist some jobs on the backseater. The Phoenix feels more rewarding than the AMRAAM, too, it's more difficult to use while still keeping you on top of the food chain if you did figure it out.

So I thought, but the next two missions seemed to have some trigger weirdness, too. I made a separate thread for M23, M22 also told me to support the ground troops (and I did, with all fifteen bullets I had left), but then seemed to get stuck. This seems to be affecting several missions in the campaign.

In a reverse of my usual complaints, the M23 is too easy. Normally I don't mind that too much, but I saw that the Su-17s I was supposed to go after, along with their escorts, were torn to shreds by a Chaparral and a Bradley before I even got there. Nothing for me to do, Phantoms were doing just fine with the other bombers. I suspect that's not how the mission is intended to play out. I'm also not sure if the mission was. After I landed (at the right airfield), the results were still zero. Called bingo just to be safe, you may want to check the mission completion trigger (I never got the "mission complete" message, I did get voice info to divert).

OK, so the stars aligned, Phantoms shacked the SA-6 radar (but not SA-2, thankfully I was so low it was no factor), and I managed to dodge the SHORAD. Big bang, got told to RTB. Wingman got shot down delaying the MiGs. Landed back at base, the mission did not proceed. So that's another bug to be checked. Rockets only works best on this one, BTW, particularly with pods set to ripple. They're draggy, but you can go fast, and the pods empty in a handful of shots. I did have a few rockets left (the ripple setting seems bugged, IIRC it should empty the pod with one trigger press), see if that could be a factor.

For what it's worth, that is unrealistic. With the basket, once you're in, you may rip off the probe, or the basket, but displacing outside some arbitrary box the sim wants you to stay in won't cause the basket to suddenly phase through the probe and return to its extended position. You can disconnect if you end up too far back, but not from getting too far forward, and to the sides, it depends on how much hose you've got left. If you slide forward and sideways, then as long as the probe doesn't snap off, you should be able to return and resume tanking. The crew can cut the fuel flow off if you're out of the box, but they don't have a whole lot of control over the basket.

I'm not struggling with navigation, I'm just annoyed by the constant "we're off course!" reminders, whenever I deviate from the line. They seem to trigger whenever I'm not exactly on the line between two waypoints, which is unreasonable to expect when flying VFR. The only way to fly to follow waypoints that tightly is using an INS. In the F-5, you may be following a river, or simply turning a bit sharper or less sharp when you overfly a turn point, leading to you being a bit offset, but otherwise flying a proper course. Also, you need to get fairly close to waypoint for triggers to fire. Save for the callouts, navigation is not too bad on this mission, but it just feels like it was made for a plane with INS. It is capable of carrying both, sure, but it's not very realistic for it to be doing so. The loadout should be set up according to what's the best tool to complete the mission, and the mission set up according to the intended loadout. That's how every other DCS campaign does this. Also, consider that with rockets and bombs, you can't really get up to 400kts (minimum speed at which bombing tables start) without afterburner. Using afterburner in presence of IR SAMs is a bad idea. While the loadout can be altered (and that's what I'm doing to make those missions play somewhat better), most people won't do that because in nearly every other campaign, doing that will break triggers.

Yet another luck-based mission. The Phantoms circle uselessly over the airbase, sometimes they kill or distract the SAMs, sometimes they don't. I would expect them to clean up the SAMs with Mavs and then help with SHORAD on the airfield. They don't even seem particularly eager to fight the MiGs. I hit the cargo planes with rockets (taking bombs on this one is just dumb), but the secondaries didn't seem to trigger. This campaign needs a review, and not just due to scripting bugs, but due to bad mission design. In particular, the default loadout for all air to ground missions is very bad, but not only does the mission dialogue imply that's what we're supposed to fly with (either way, relying on changing loadouts in planner is not the right way to build a mission), the objectives and triggers seem to be based on that. Repetitive (and unrealistic) radio messages with "navigation help" do not make it better, and neither does navigating by arbitrary "waypoints" along an arbitrary route. It's as if the missions were meant to rely on the F10 map. In reality, such a mission would've been flown by referencing landmarks (such as rivers and towns), which are plentiful in the area.

The RIO evidently had more guts than Jester does... He actually stayed in the plane.

Keep in mind that the Pave Spike was a bit of a crock IRL. At least we have the updated software version which doesn't hopelessly lock the pod up when you fat finger your switchology. The original version would go into "idiot mode" and stop responding to commands if it wasn't operated exactly right.

Are both you cranking after launch? Also, what's the bandit doing? Carroll could be referring to some scenario that they practiced, and this would not necessarily mean the aircraft are flying straight ahead at each other. The standard procedure after launching AIM-54s is to crank, considerably reducing closure. Speeds and altitudes also matter, the Phoenix works best up high, and if you're supersonic when launching it, you'll give it a boost. Honestly, I'm not sure if talking about ranges like that even makes sense. He might have had some canned scenario to work with (try Speed and Angels campaign, could even be the one Reflected reproduced there), but in combat, BVR timelines will vary based on a number of factors. You could possibly make your first launch at 100NM in some situations, though it'd likely be more of a posturing shot than something you'll expect to hit.

Latest version (literally flown a few days ago), the AI F-5E detects and reports targets at 45nm. Not only is it far beyond the capability of the F-5's radar to see a MiG-21 sided target, the range scale doesn't even go past 40nm.

I don't think PTID changes the trapping technique. Two spoiler versus four spoiler DLC would be more relevant, but the theory behind it is the same, all indications assume you have the jet set up in full landing configuration, and if you don't, they will be off. So even if you never touch the DLC wheel, you want to have it extended. Either A or B NATOPS can explain that in detail.

I do hope we get it for DCS someday. I've seen WIPs from two different devs, one even showed the wing sweep at one point, but no official announcements.

You know, where was this one movie where they had F-5s do that a time or two... Yeah, real tactic, and it would confuse TWS. If AWACS or other assets could watch them take off and form up, it'd be less of a surprise, but it would have been an issue.

That's where you're wrong. In RWS, the computer does minimal processing on the signal before sending it to the DDD. That you can see multiple hits doesn't mean that a 70s computer can. Basically, the computer needs some tolerance around a hit to make sure it jumping around due to radar's inaccuracy doesn't cause another track to be created. If multiple hits are within this "tolerance box", the computer will classify them as a single track. Engaging up to six targets with Phoenixes is possible... just not when they're far away and in a tight formation. You seem to think a computer must be better at reading the radar picture than a human. This may be true today, but it definitely wasn't in the 70s. Even something that looks obvious to you may not be so to the computer. If that was not the case, there would be no reason to have RWS mode.

Watch again. Which of the planes did you see flying there for a brief moment? TG might not be big on publicity, but they're working on it. While the Wags' usual line wasn't said, the idea is there.

Did you watch the release video for Cold War Germany?

I'd also suggest you reconsider using rockets on the F-5, and especially loading them together with 5xMk82. This loadout was not used IRL and there's a good reason for that. While the F-5 can fly like this, it struggles to get up to 400kts where the bombing profiles start. This is part of why all the strike missions in the campaign aren't nearly as fun to fly as they should be. I now tried with a 5xCBU loadout, and it flies much better that way, though I have yet to figure a good attack profile that still keeps me out of the flak. In general, instead of the arcadey "haul as many individual munitions as possible" mindset, try to consider what weapons would a real air force would employ for a given sortie, and then adjust the damage expectations accordingly. CBUs are now usable, but for a lone pair of F-5s, they can't really punch a whole lot of big holes, especially if they want to live. For the same reason, the guns are generally not worth considering in a high threat environment. Another thing you should consider is flare-only CM loadout on every mission that doesn't deal with radar threats. This is an example of what a proper QC pass should do, on every mission. There are many more improvements like this that could be made, for most missions.

In general, this is another mission with a randomness problem, too many factors piled onto the player at once. Oh, and either make the FAC immortal or make him fly a little further, he sometimes soaks up SAMs and gets shot down. Oh, and it's a second mission in which a "waypoint" (you really should have been using either landmarks or TACAN fixes in all mission, this isn't the Hornet) is placed right on Pshana, which is lousy with flak. Overflying it gets you shot at unless you've at 8K or so. At least enemies there are marked on the briefing map, but that same map implies it's meant to be overflown, which is a dumb thing to do.