effte

I do agree that you do not seem to need any help to build a reputation around here. :thumbup:

Indeed. +rep and -rep assigned as apropriate. :)

Thank you. I don't think anyone considers it high-priority or expects a quick fix at this point in time. There are bigger fish to fry right now. While bug reports with full documentation (and perhaps even a suggested fix) is of course the dream for those of us who are developers, a reported potential bug without full documentation is better than a potential issue never reaching us. Then there's the factor that I'm doing this in my spare time, which means every minute spent researching is a minute less to spend with my son, be out on the bike, go flying for real or, for that matter, enjoy the DCS product I bought. While I do enjoy the research immensely - after all, aircraft is not only my profession but also one of my main interests - there comes a point where it gets slightly annoying to nag for a potential issue to get acknowledged by those I pay for a product which has technical accuracy as its main selling point. If you started out with "I will report it, but can you provide more detail", I'd be less annoyed and more inclined to spend my time helping. You do appear a hard-a$$ at times. :) Cheers, /Fred

Now, some people have grasped the art of doing two things in parallel. With modern technology, you can even have one browser tab open for reading while you are writing posts to these fora in another tab. It's pretty amazing once you get the hang of it - you should try it! Once these skills have been mastered, it can be reflected in one's writing. Another example could be "I am reading a book, and have found something which puzzles me". While it is obvious that the person writing is not reading the book at the exact moment of writing - as he or she is, indeed, writing rather than reading - only a true anal retentive would have a problem with the statement. Then there's the issue of quotations, and the special symbols which can be used to distinguish between your own words and a quote from another person's writing. Without them, it can become a tad confusing. I think that's a bit advanced for today's lesson though! Or, to put it another way: "For f***s sake..." :pilotfly:

Ah, now I see what you're saying. I have no additional insight to provide, but it makes sense and agrees with the text. Cheers, /Fred

If a report of a possible issue cannot be comprehended without reference to a Youtube video, please produce a video suitable for referencing the problem as previously described. Even though the pressure is reduced to 800-1100 psi, it shouldn't be that sluggish. Besides, it is causing operational issues which is an indication that all may not be right. That's not 'feeling', that's familiarity with similar systems speaking. Hence, it should be looked into to determine if it is correct or not. If you have access to a real aircraft, as I assume the developers do, it can be done in a jiffy. We're here to try to make this as good as it can get, right? So why not put it on the watchlist. If the research is in place showing that it is indeed correct, the issue can be set to resolved/no action with next to no effort. If not, well, then it should be on the watchlist.

Reported here.

Steps to reproduce: 1) Activate NWS. 2) Move pedals from side to side. 3) Observe rate of movement of nose wheel. Compare with real world, if possible. Otherwise, review tech data available, operational impact and evaluate plausibility.

NWS is not intended to be used during the landing roll. The NWS system will act as a shimmy damper but do no steering.

Essentially: When you activate the NWS, the nose wheel will not align itself with your pedals. You have to align the pedals with the nose wheel and until you do, you cannot control the nose wheel. Once you have brought them in line with each other, they are connected and you have steering. I have to read up on the mechanics, but picture it as a pin dropping in between the pedals and the nose wheel to connect them. You have to go "fetch" the nose wheel wherever it is at with the pedals, align them and have the pin drop in. Then you have steering. If the nose wheel is pointed left and you have your pedals to steer right, the pin does not drop in and you do not have steering. Cheers, /Fred

As per the TO1 F-86F-1, the nose wheel steering (NWS) should not engage until you align the pedals with the nose wheel. Currently, it remembers the position the pedals held the last time it was activated and actively steers the nose wheel to this position, before aligning it with the current pedal position. I e, if you 1) steer left 2) deactivate NWS 3) turn right by using the brakes, thereby turning the nose wheel to the right 4) position the pedals for a continued right turn 5) activate NWS while holding the pedals right the NWS first turns to the left, before coming back to the right. Edit: To stress the point, there's a "memory function" which definitely shouldn't be there. The NWS remembers that the pedals were to the left previously and goes left before coming back right. It should do nothing until you have the pedals aligned with the NWS, i e if you instead centered the pedals, you'd need to first move them to the right before you could again steer left. I originally interpreted the attached -1 text as indicating the nose wheel should be free swivelling when NWS is not activated, thus permitting tight turns using differential braking if required. There is, however, the requirement to disengage the nose wheel towing release pin before towing the aircraft in order to allow the nose wheel swivel. I need to do more reading before having a firm opinion on this. Perhaps the free swivelling range with NWS deactivated is only that allowed by the NWS acting as a shimmy damper. In that case, you could go outside of the 21 degree movement range by turning left, deactivating the system and turning more left using differential braking. You'd then have to use right diff braking to be able to reengage the NWS, as per the attached text. Cheers, /Fred

The nose wheel steering (NWS) isn't delayed, as I perceive it. It is, however, very, very slow indeed, i e the rate of movement is very low. This can easily bring you into PIO hell on a fast taxi or on the T/O roll. While it could theoretically be that slow in the actual aircraft, I find it hard to believe. Here's a clip (admittedly of a D/K) which to me shows the NWS being a lot faster (6:37 in), as could be expected - especially as he straightens out the steering. This clip, @ 13:55, shows rather crisp movement of the NWS. I think this could do with being looked into. Devs listening? Cheers, /Fred

The rudder trim keys on the keyboard or rudder trim when mapped to controller buttons don't seem to do anything. When clicked in the virtual cockpit, the rudder trim does move the trim tab and the T/O trim light will light up as designed. Cheers, /Fred

Those markings are on the ownship indicator post from what I see in the attached picture? The pitch decals are on the sphere, according to references as posted. I assume the sphere to contain the gyro and be earth-fixed, meaning the displayed behaviour is correct. It will move the opposite direction of the bar, as the bar (as in any modern western AI, even when the bar is replaced by an earth/sky depiction) has linkages which reverse the direction of movement. Cheers, / Fred

The inclinometer in the turn and slip seems to be missing the markings on the glass for a centered ball? Ref attached picture, from the flight manual TO1 F-86F-1, the vertical lines either side of the ball. I grabbed the shot for a -1 to a -30, only since the picture is a bit clearer. It's the same for -35 and later. Edit: You can also check the instrument design in an F-86A - I don't think it's something they'd remove in future versions. Cheers, /Fred

What you do not do is to go around designing loadouts of your own. While you could (should) be able to sort out the mass properties, there are a lot of other issues to consider. Flutter, aerodynamic interference, the safe separation of stores, inertia and the effect on flight control systems, structural loads... Edit: Now someone will step in and say that it is done, and it was/is always, somewhere... but it could be argued that it shouldn't be. Then, there's peacetime and wartime. In wartime, the damndest things go on wings without all the testing. There's even the famous lavatory... :)

...keeping the dispersion/harmonization pattern in mind, and guesstimating how many percent of the rounds fired actually hit the target - ref the patterns posted above. Not easy. Personally I think the number of rounds required to make it very likely that the aircraft is out of the fight, due to actual damage, is low. Then there's the psychological factor. A pilot which knows his aircraft has been hit, but not how badly, is rather likely to head for home. Would you gamble your life on that round through the wing not having hit the spar and continue manoeuvring? That one is taken out of the equation on your average MP server though, along with a lot of other factors which would normally oppose the development of the Never Ending Furball. Cheers, /Fred

Always. Never leave home without a CR-3! ;)

250 KCAS should equal M.82.

Nice illustration. I created something similar when this debate came up in RoF. What's the source publication? It displays another point worthy of nothing, which I forgot to include earlier: Being x yards closer than the convergence setting is as bad, if not worse, than being x yards further out, for getting hits. Two nicely tight dispersion patterns bracketing your sighting point and quite possibly missing completely.

For tactical aircraft, you're typically far less concerned with mass properties calculations. You have a pilot and fuel, and so far you can't go outside of the envelope by design. Then you have a number of approved loadouts, where mass properties are one of the smaller concerns but still verified beforehand to be OK. Any potential issues will be noted as restrictions. BTW, potato plots are a specific variation of mass properties charts, where you make semiscientific assumptions as to how the cabin is filled in a passenger aircraft. This produces a plot of most forward/aft center of mass with increasing number of pax which is reminiscent of a couple of potatoes stacked on each other - hence the name. Cheers, /Fred

Yeah, this is a good idea for general implementation. A2A has click spots in most of their aircraft which hide the yokes, and the throttle-hiding mod for DCS A-10C was a favourite of mine. Even with TrackIR, I find the controls a nuisance. In real life, I never find them an issue in the same aircraft, so enabling us to get rid of them is just a step towards a more realistic experience evading the limitations imposed on us by our hardware. Cheers, /Fred

Lots of ridiculous arguments thrown around here, and I think some debaters need to step back and think for a bit, both with regards to the "facts" they bring to the table and with regards to the tone of their writing. A firing range of 500 yards discredits the results? Have a look at the ballistics of M2 .50 rounds. They're hefty pieces of metal, and have quite an outreach. Barret rifle ring a bell? Armoured aircraft? Ever seen an aircraft? Weight is the name of the game, and thin alu sheet metal is the way to keep it down. Armour? Behind the pilot and in some cases another plate protecting part of the engine was pretty much it, in the pre-missile era*, as an attempt to reduce the risk of pilot or engine being taken out by one lucky stray bullet or piece of shrapnel. All the rest is thin skin, thin ribs, thin stringers. A .50 will cut through the structure like a hot knife through butter if it hits, be it from the rear, from above or on a sinusoidal path from wingtip to wingtip... Built to take damage? Not quite. Aircraft are built with an eye at producing redundancy, alternative load paths etc, and that will improve resilience against damage as well, but if you start building flying tanks designed to suck up damage, you will only make sure that you lack the competitive edge needed to avoid taking all that damage and more. There are notable exceptions, mainly in aircraft specifically designed for the ground attack role - the Il-2 and A-10 are the most well known in this category - but in general the idea is to produce performance enough to be the one doing the damage rather than taking it. These objectives are mutually exclusive. The best you can hope for is for the structure to be flimsy enough for projectiles to pass clean through, without depositing their kinetic energy. A .50 in a wing spar and you will not want to pull Gs until that spar is replaced. The safety factor is typically only 50%, without extra lightening holes in the webbing. Convergence range is a factor for getting hits, but a hit is a hit is a hit, even if it was achieved outside of the convergence setting. Even at the convergence range, the idea has been to produce a dispersion pattern intended to maximize the chance of getting hits, rather than concentrating fire at the sight line. What does this say of the effectiveness of single .50 hits? That's practical war-time experience speaking. Early in WWII, some people had the idea of harmonization at a single point in space but this quickly proved ineffective and was dropped. Modern aircraft, with only one gun, still go for the shotgun effect rather than maximum number of rounds on target, but through carefully engineered dispersion patterns rather than through gun harmonization. That's with explosive rounds though, so a totally different ball game. As was written here, it was found remarkable enough to be recorded when aircraft got back with tens of .50 hits. Is it reasonable to see 100+ hits in more than extreme cases? That'll have to do for now. *) Self-sealing or foam filled tanks are not armour per se.

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Hm? Source?