MaxMorlock

Thank you! When I checked this option yesterday, I did not see the "Play Game". (Maybe I tried it too early?) Now I see it and looks like it is downloading. Thank you!

Dear DCS Pilots, Please be prepared for a really dumb question: How can I try out various planes in the current free to play period? I started DCS as usual (Steam, MS Windows) and was hoping that I simply click on the plane I want to try out. And then, after downloading, I am able to use it during the current testing period. This does not work. Can you give me any advice? Thank you!

Hi Ozmandi, Thank you for your kind assistance. I will definitely check the mission out (and more of them in the future, I hope). Thank you!

Got him. ;-) Thank you!

Thanks to both of you! Seems like the "unanimous" (2 out of 2 ;-) ) suggestion is to get used to the mission editor. Post #3 makes it sound really easy and straightforward to create a simple mission. And I guess I can go from there and make things more and more complicated as #2 recommends. Thank you for taking your time!

Dear all, I am relatively new to DCS but not new to flight simming (X Plane for years. Countless hours with Falcon 3.0 in the early 90s). I purchased several planes during sales (F/A 18, A 10C plus upgrade, F 5). Obviously, learning all three of them at them same time is a bit too much. That is why started out with the F 5, as recommended in quite a few forum posts. Starting from Cold & Dark, take-off, flying, trimming, navigating with TACAN, landing works nicely. My idea was not to do too much at once but to proceed slowly. Now I thought I am ready to take the next step: Air-to-Air engagement as well as Air-to-Ground. What is the easiest way to learn it (apart from reading & watching videos)? Maybe I have overlooked something but are there missions easily available where, for instance, enemy planes are just flying around and I can try to find them with the old-school F5 radar and attack them (and they don't fight back)? Or ground targets? I.e. a "sitting duck(s) mission". I am aware that there heaps of missions available, in general. But I thought it would be nice not to be shot down immediately but learn to use the weapons, first, as an intermediate step. I am also aware of the mission editor. But it looks a bit overwhelming at first, I have to admit. Thank you in advance for any pointers, even an RTFM (but with a link to the place in a manual or a link to a previous post somewhere in the forums). Thank you!