War_Pig

...or start one!

I'm so excited about this I can barely put it into words. The fact that Heatblur is doing the F-4 is amazing. While I'm sure that other developers could have pulled it off, HB has a proven track record of doing absolute justice to 60's and 70's aircraft. The Viggen and F-14 are my favorite modules in DCS, and I can't wait to have the opportunity to sit in the virtual cockpit of the F-4. I have no doubt that HB will depict the heart and soul of the Phantom in a way that only they could!

For the rudder trim, what component are you using? Is that a pot, or an encoder? I've got 90% of the printing done, and have ordered most of the components I think I need (there is always something I forgot until it's time to put together...), looking forward to getting home at the end of the month and trying to assemble it.

Awesome, thank you! I was excited to get to do FM homing to an LZ; glad to hear that you were able to fix it.

I noticed a while ago that when flying at high speeds and using external views, with the ball centered the aircraft seems to be flying sideways relative to the direction of flight. I assumed it was just something helicopters did, but it's definitely a thing in DCS.

It might be possible to make it so that if you ask for a long count, they transmit either continuously, or just repeat every few seconds until you get close. IRL, at least in books like Chickenhawk (I see a lot of influences from there in this campaign, which is awesome!), the ground unit would likely give you a couple clues like: "You're getting closer", or "You're going the wrong way". I don't know if this would be possible to rework, but I had to repeat the ten-count several times, closely checking out each hilltop I came to until blind luck made my copilot give me the "There they are!" message. It worked, but it was a little frustrating because IRL things might work a little better.

One thing I really wish we could have is removal of the forward portion of of the XM21 Armament System along with the Flexible Sight, when the forward-firing miniguns are not present/equipped. The flexible sight/forward firing miniguns were much more rare than the rockets, and while they're great in a dedicated gunship role, having the flexible sight and forward hardpoint present ANY time door guns are equipped (such as a slick) is annoying to me, and probably others. The flexible sight gets in the way along when flying left seat in VR, as it's right there at eye level when stowed, and creates a big blind spot. And no slick would be equipped with the entire armament system just so it could carry the two M60 door guns. I'd like to be able to remove the forward mounts and flexible sight in the loadout options when they're not necessary. Perhaps even remove the pilot's XM60 sight when forward-firing weapons are not equipped. As it is presently, if we want door guns, we have to also carry all the other baggage along which is unfortunate.

Reflected, just wanted to let you know that I think Paradise Lost is every bit as awesome as Fear The Bones is. It's taken me from a novice Huey pilot (couldn't start-up without the checklist, couldn't hover; Autorotation? What's that?!) to a- well, I won't say seasoned, but competent Huey driver who grasps the cockpit flows, can hover hands-off, and can fly the thing with smoothness and fineness. This campaign gave me a reason to 'go to school' on the Huey and really learn the bird, and it's such a simple aircraft systems-wise that the results are impressive. I've had a blast learning, and flying the campaign. I know you didn't build the campaign to be a school for novice whirlybird pilots, but the difficulty ramp-up is well done, and very conducive to that. Thank you for another great campaign! I haven't encountered any bugs at all, except for one minor issue: Without spoilers, the LRRP team's long-count was actually only 3 seconds of FM transmission (needles alive, the audio lasted the full 10), which meant homing too a few (several! lol) tries to pin down their location. Not sure why that was, but FYI. Probably a DCS bug.

I have the same issue in my F/A-18 cockpit built using Jself's files (which are AWESOME, btw!). The virpil cm50 stick has the same range of motion in both directions of the pitch axis. Eventually what I will have to do is engineer a way to externally limit the forward throw of the stick, and then compensate for that with a curve in the software. I will add that, as I'm sure you know already, the Warthog base has too much throw in all directions when used with an extension. Maybe someone could design a 3D-printed "box" structure that could be mounted above the base to define the limits of stick throw?

Yes please! With jself's permission, I would love to have some of your modified buttons, and it looks like you even designed your own Hornet-style DDI's, which look AMAZING! I'd love to print some of your modified or customized parts if you're willing to share. My printer would not slice the text on many of the files, and so I wound up adjusting the dimensions by a fraction of a percent until it would render, allowing me to get nice results. I really love how you added the labels directly to the buttons, I guess you designed your own button caps? That's very nice! Thank you for your kind compliments! I didn't have any way to modify the files themselves, so what I did was increase the size of the part as a whole, and any parts that directly connected to it. There was some trial-and-error in the slicer until I got the text large enough to be able to slice correctly, and then the parts printed well the first time. I've forgotten exactly how much I had to increase the size, but it was a fraction of a percent, certainly less than 1mm, and well within the dimensional tolerances of a 3D printed part this size. I only increased it just enough so that the text was completely rendered, the printed part wouldn't be noticeably larger at all, and all of my holes and connections lined up perfectly.

Thanks, that explains it perfectly! I bet I can hacksaw up a piece of bar stock and drill some holes to make it work. Appreciate the reply! Alas, I thought I’d have some progress pics but my work schedule has kept me on the road and away from my printer for a month now. Haven’t printed the first part yet.

@Jself, I have a question regarding the WinWing throttle mounting: I'm not familiar with the monstertech mounts as I'm using a mount I fabricated that bolts directly to my seat; I've looked at the .STL's and I'm not quite clear; in the documentation you note that if we do not have the monstertech mount we will need to make an adaptor. Is that adaptor one of the "winwing adaptor" or "winwing adaptor L/R lower" parts in the files? I just want to make sure I'm printing what I need. Thanks again. I'm about to warm up my Prusa (maybe do a nozzle swap, it's got about 600hrs of PLA on the original oem one!) and start printing again, can't tell you how excited I am!

Thank you for making it possible!

You are incredible Jself! Thank you for sharing! I will pass along a token of my appreciation for you sharing your hard work and effort. I lack the talent and skills to design these kind of parts, and really appreciate you sharing your work!

Respectfully, you’re dead wrong. I can 3D print anything while I’m at work and come home and start printing again. That’s much easier and accessible than going and finding metal, cutting and grinding and everything else. I don’t have a shop, if it cannot be accomplished with sandpaper and a dremel, it won’t be done. I printed @Jself ‘s front panel, and it turned out amazingly well. I love it, and it’s incredible to fly with in VR. Could I have also used OpenHornet and a cabinet shop to cut MDF, and either lasercut acrylic or engraved metal for the panels? Sure I guess, but I would still be working on it. The results speak for themselves. And, no offense to anyone, but the picture you’ve cherrypicked to show the output of 3D printed parts is not representative of the quality that can be achieved by 3DP with a little bit of tuning and tweaking (not much in the case of my Prusa). On my build, I increased the size of the lettering by 1%, which allowed the printer to print them very cleanly and clearly. Printing the letters directly to the part is awesome, it makes the product require no sanding, painting, or finish work. I did zero post processing, and I’m very happy with how mine turned out. @Jself, I would love the opportunity to print these as well if you decide to publish them like you did you front panel. If you decide not to I understand, you certainly don’t owe anyone anything, but your work on these is awesome, just incredible! ETA: Here’s a couple pics of my print of the front panel, still waiting on UFC screen plexi and proper colors for the OSB buttons.

Yes, AIRIO is incredible. Frankly, it's the only reason I enjoy the Tomcat; it makes you and the RIO a team. Unplayable without it. It's really going to hurt MP numbers. Or maybe more servers will simply turn off IC.

This is unacceptable. The continued screwing-over of the community with changes to IC checks has got to end. If not, it's time to do something different. As a home cockpit builder, the way exports have been messed up is infuriating.

Awesome job! I was literally wishing someone would do a great set of kneeboards for the Harrier like @Minsky did for the Hornet. I think he set a new standard for quality and comprehensiveness. I love the layout, and format. So I went and looked to see if there was anything similar for the Harrier, and lo and behold, you’d released yours literally a couple days ago! Thanks for putting the effort into these and releasing them! I’m looking forward to seeing the rest of them as you release them. I really like how Minsky gives RWR codes and stuff as well. One last thing if I might suggest, Minsky used black text for ‘must do’ items in DCS, and grey for ‘should do’ items like tests. If you could differentiate what must be done and what can be done it might make it easier for people like me who don’t test fire switches and stuff.

Honestly, tomorrow they could announce that the Viggen was released out of EA and I’d be happy. It’s a wonderfully simulated aircraft, it works, and it’s a more complete product than any other aircraft offered by any other studio for any other sim, IMHO. What more would you like them to do with it?

My wingman was engaged BFM defensive in a knife fight with two of them by the time my AIM-7 hit and I could turn around. I splashed the two -29's, then another with guns. The fourth got behind me a stuck a missile up my tailpipes. My point is that I don't want to skip the mission, I'd love to be able to restart the mission at the second part. If that's not technically possible, I'll take your word for it. It's unfortunate though, it shaped up to be an awesome fight, especially with that SA-11 thrown into the mix. I just can't invest another hour+ into the boring portion. Thanks for the response though!

I played this mission last night and enjoyed it. I went after that transport, splashed it, then engaged the 29’s. The last one got me. Unfortunately now I have to start over, which means another night some other time due to work and family (two little ones). It would be tremendously helpful if we could split this mission into two parts so you can pick up right behind the tanker if you get splashed during the action, and skip the first hour.

I’ll take your word for it, I can only speculate. That said I’ve had my warthog for years and had no issues. The feeling of the switches on the warthog is much like those in a real airplane. Very authoritative click, takes some force. The winwing lacks that feeling, and they can be switched by accident. That’s all I’m saying, I haven’t had any actual quality issues with either product. Why did you disassemble your winwing?

This should DEFINITELY be a thing! Who cares if the AI has unlimited fuel, it won’t hurt the players immersion. When they run out arbitrarily it certainly does.

I want to post a respectful counter argument to some of the earlier posters. For me, Mission 1 was an awesome wake-up call, telling me that I better put some focus into learning the procedures, flying the airplane, navigating and trimming to keep altitude and airspeed. I haven’t flown a real DME arc since instrument primary, and only a handful of times hand-flown since. Being forced to fly one at night, hand flying (hadn’t bound any AFCS switches) and working things the old fashioned way (no real hud, instrument scan, time & turn) was not something I would have done by choice, much less thought would be fun. It was a blast!! Being challenged in that way, and then getting into the focused mindset to pull it off made the next several missions seem much easier, and set the tone for the rest of the campaign. I chose not to tanker at night (didn’t realize I had NVGs) but to continue holding at max conserve. I shot the Case III and boltered x3 (rusty on carrier stuff, and no experience with the F-14A, again I would never have chosen the A over the B on my own. Now I Love it, it’s got a lot more personality, but if flown right it’s a beautiful jet!) but still managed to land with 1200 IIRC. Flying the F-14 has actually improved my instrument scan and hand flying skills IRL. A few days ago we had to MEL the AP on our CE560XL and wound up flying two legs (about 3 hours altogether) by hand at FL270. I thought I would be wore out by the time I was done, but it was actually easy and pretty fun. I give a lot of credit to Reflected for putting me through some refresher training in the sim, lol! I think the first mission is perfect, and it makes later missions come much easier. Not every mission IRL involves shooting at bandits and dodging SAMs; flying proper procedures and airspeeds/altitudes is absolutely crucial, and operating at night in poor Wx is required. I’m glad the first time we have to launch in those conditions isn’t in wartime.

Agreed! Awesome campaign, and it's forced me to grow as an F-14 pilot. Now I can not only fly the jet (and I never dabbled with the A model, why would I have when the B is there?), but actually fight in it. Flying an 70's jet without the fancy HUD and all the bells and whistles that the F/A-18 has has actually improved my scan in real life tremendously. Thank you for making this tremendous campaign and offering people like me the motivation to fly the F-14, and the A model specifically. I'm loving it!