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Allright, the missing piece of information was that the serial number is on the manual - which was in my by now rather extensive shelf of game manuals (1942 PAW, RBII, the original B17FF etc... wow! Trip down memory lane.) and not the DVD box. All sorted now!

I blame it on the F-14. :)

Allright, I have the DVD. Do I have to reinstall in order to get a serial number? No serial number in the box, just the TrackIR commercials. Cheers, /Fred

FWIW, the solution seemed to be to stop using DCS for most of a year and then return with v2.5... (Read: The issue I was seeing on my end, whatever it was, has apparently been resolved somewhere between then and now.)

Still haven't found any way around this. It may be of interest that the TIR is still working when it happens.

I have this as well, as of a week or two ago. In my case it is most definitely when DCS loses focus. Over to my second monitor to flip up the next approach chart and the controls freeze. Clicking in DCS to bring focus back gets them working again. With charts, Teamspeak etc it is essentially a showstopper. No issues in other programs, e g FSX or P3D. Rgds, Fred

Is this the high speed dive test document referenced? http://forum.il2sturmovik.com/index.php?app=core&module=attach&section=attach&attach_id=21158 (Versuchs-Bericht Nr. 109 05 E 43 'Hochgeschwindigkeitsversuche mit Me 109' dated 1943-04-15, with English translation included in the above link)

Those where you can black yourself out are somewhat limited in their functionality as well and only lend themselves to very basic simulation functionality. Check post #27 in this thread though. :)

No. But carrier trials were performed, including retrofitting an arrestor hook. It's on the Wiki page. Carriers were used to ship Mustangs during the war, that's where the pictures of Mustang-stacked decks and hangar bays come from.

The inner ear does you no good. You only spend time learning to ignore it, as it is mainly a source of sensory illusions. Those with a well developed sense of balance get the additional joy of dealing with motion sickness. What you need is TrackBehind, as that's the sensory system at times used to supplement your primary sensors (i e vision and hearing). Simulation controlled pneumatic cushions are in use, and I've seen them in serious hobby level home pits... they work surprisingly well. Speaker elements in the seat is the next best thing I hear.

Mustang Manual Misquoting Please - drop the "excessive". It is a misquote - it's not in the manuals, P-51D or F-51D, even though the wording of the caution changed a bit. If it was in a DCS manual, it was probably under artistic license. It does not seem to be mentioned in the early manuals, so it was possibly a lesson learned the hard way while operating the aircraft. If you have a brake dragging by even an unnoticeable amount, things will be hot regardless of the amount of taxiing performed. Shredded Tyres It is true that you do not want to retract a spinning shredded tyre, as the rubber shreds can wreak havoc on the electrickery and hydraulics inside the wheel well. I wouldn't rule out denting a bit of structure either. On a big plane with several wheels per landing gear, it is a real risk. On a Mustang, or other WWII fighters with one wheel per landing gear, the likelihood of you shredding a tyre during the takeoff roll without noticing it is... let us say somewhat reduced. In theory you could hit a rare (and endangered) Southern Rebar Hedgehog just as you take the weight off the wheels and not notice that your tyre was ripped apart, but... Precession The gyroscopic forces are real, but nothing the torque links can't handle. Compare the precession loads with the punishment the gear has to take on the ground, and it'll be completely marginal. You'll find that some of the automated systems will apply brakes during the retraction, not prior to it. In other words, only once the gear is moving and the precession loads are already in place. Red herring/OWT. It's Getting Creepy Applying brakes after take off can lead to the tyre creeping on the rim. For this reason, and as mvsgas pointed out earlier, the automatic systems apply a limited amount of brake pressure (at times even on separate actuators, hooked up to the retraction system). Moderating the brake pressure finely is not an easy thing to do well manually every time as you're busy flying the departure. For tubeless tyres, tyre creep is merely bad. For tyres with inner tubes, you'll end up shearing a valve stem and find a completely flat tire upon landing. Not a good day in the office. Terminology Snubbers is the term I'm familiar with for the rubber pads braking mainly nose wheel tyres. 'Scrubber block' was a new one to me, and to Google it would seem. Where is that one found? Final Words As always: Go by the book. If you think the book is in error, get engineering to change the book and then continue to go by the book. In the meantime - and this may be surprising - you should go by the book. Cheers, /Fred

FWIW, IMNSHO TLAs and ETLAs are sierra hotel. YMMV. Sorry, couldn't help myself. ;)

Enter an ICAO identifier and you get a URL which you should be able to use for HTTP access from your code.

There are a couple. Google should help. One is at: http://www.aviationweather.gov/adds/metars/

From abother thread here: That removes some uncertainty. I also think you need to look at the azimuth you use for the downwind turn. I'm on the road, doing the calcs literally on the back of an envelope so I can't really post them, but I find a theoretical lateral distance from final if rolling out blind of around 1200 to 1800 meters at slightly short of the expected distances (17.4-19.6 km). It must be considered that in practise it takes time to initiate and roll out of the turns as well, extending the pattern. The intention isn't precision either, but to get close enough to a decent pattern even though the speeds dictate you'll rarely be visually oriented to the runway as you'd be at 80 KIAS. Finally, I've found it to work as expected in actual practise. Does your mileage differ? Post a track?

To my mind, that's effectively a lead-in radial, i e the heads up to start an intercept of the final approach course. I don't expect to roll out on the extended centerline, but rather fly a 30 to 45 degree intercept at that point. Otherwise, you'd have overshoots half the time.

Real world, it varies and varies a lot - more than a factor of ten - depending on facility. NDBs intended to serve an approach will typically be low-powered, in the 20-30 nm range, while high-powered NDBs for navigation in an extended area can cover 300 nm. Then you used to have coastal NDBs for oceanic navigation... Finally, as there is ground wave propagation, the range differs depending on whether the signal path is ovet water (50% longer range) or land. :)

You specifically build aircraft not to rely on one pump for feeding the engine. You typically have an engine driven pump, hooked up to the auxiliary gearbox (i e driven off the shaft of the engine) and a boost pump in each tank, each independently capable of delivering enough fuel to the engine for safe flight, but possibly (probably, in the case of engines with reheat) not maximum power, should the other pump fail. You wouldn't want to have the engine quit on you in flight due to a simple boost pump failure.

You need to have a good idea about where your roll axis is relative to your sight. That way, you know the circle the sight will describe when you roll back wings level. Fly to place the lower edge of that circle on target and Bob's yer uncle. Regarding more modern jets, FBW systems (and some earlier non-FBW ones as well) can do all sorts of fun stuff with that roll axis, like always aligning it with the velocity vector so you always roll around your flight path. Makes things more predictable. No such luxury in the A-10 though! Cheers, Fred

Whatever works, just suggesting good practises to reduce relearning later. :) On the approach you do need to get the airspeeds right so you should use the air speed indicator. Getting the approach angle right is a lot harder in a sim than in real life IMO, so that's where the VSI could be a viable crutch. When doing IFR work up in the clouds, you're going by airspeed and VSI so it's a completely valid practise - even though you shall be heads out most of the time when flying visually. If visual, I'd suggest leaving the attitude indicator out of it and go by visual attitude (out the window), ASI and VSI. If you're in the feet and knots world, the rule of thumb is airspeed (strictly ground speed, but you don't have that readily available) times ten divided by two (i e an easier way of calculating airspeed times five) to go from knots to vertical speed fpm for a three degree glide slope. (120 knots = 1200/2 = 600 fpm) Unfortunately we do not have those units in DCS, but similar rules can be figured out. Get the airspeed right, get the VSI to match the ASI and you're good, no matter what the AI tells you. Once you have the sight picture figured out, you will find that you no longer need to reference the VSI to get the proper approach angle. Crutches are like training wheels, they can be real hard and take a lot of re-learning to get rid of - and you'll find yourself reverting to not counter-steering when you should have later. A good analogy to use which will unfortunately only work amongst bikers. :) Cheers! /Fred

From the real world: Don't:s. 1) You should not have your head inside staring at the VSI or other gauges. After the final speed check crossing the threshold, it is strictly heads out. Cheating with heads-down is easier in the sim, as it does not require refocusing and as you can have the virtual VSI closer to the direction you should be looking (see below). It is not a good practise to get used to though. 2) You really can't land wings level or with the ball centered. Any crosswind (and there will always be a little, outside of poorly set up simulator scenarios) and you have to line up with the runway with rudder and lower the upwind wing to remove drift. That means landing on the upwind wheel. It's not a bad thing though. I find I tend to bounce more (real world) when there's no crosswind to speak of. The rotation to level after touching down the upwind wheel acts as additional shock absorber travel. Do. If you cannot land without resorting to going heads down, I suspect you have discovered an error which is very common behind bad landings out in the real world - you need to consider where you direct your attention, i e where you look. The way human perception works is that we go where we look. It is the same on motorbikes, in cars - and in aeroplanes. (Google keyword for those who want to learn more: "optic flow".) On final, you focus your gaze on the touch down point. The crucial part is that as you initiate the roundout and flare, you need to move your focus to the far end of the runway. This will make the transition to hold-off natural and greatly reduce the tendency to either balloon, stall in from too high or smack it down before the aircraft is ready. This simple change of focus makes all the difference in the world - in the real world and in simulated flight. Even today, when I botch landings, I often find that my mistake was not moving my gaze. Once you are down, aileron into the wind and stick full back once you're in a three point attitude - and keep flying until the prop has stopped and the shocks are in. :) Cheers, /Fred, certainly (hopefully) repeating advice given a couple of times earlier in this thread

You probably do not mean QNE but rather QNH? http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?p=1029506&highlight=qnh+qfe#post1029506 You will probably want to read the thread linked below: http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=130908&highlight=altimeter+millimeters&page=2

Nitpick: For CATIIIa autoland is mandated only to touchdown. Good reading for those who want to learn more. Cheers, /Fred

Bad example, I think. I spent fifteen seconds last night memorising the stall speeds for all aircraft in the world during the vertical part of a hammerhead entry... ;)

I seem to recall it having been established that it was purely geometrical speed in the game world - i e the absolute magnitude of the velocity vector, ground referenced. If that matches your findings here, then that's probably it. If not, I may remember it incorrectly. Find the P-51 vertical dive thread, I think that's where it was discussed at length. Cheers, /Fred