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In 38 years of flying jets over six continents, every one except Antarctica, ranging from 40 south latitude to 88 north latitude I've only seen two uses for True. Navigators of bombers and tankers used it for grid navigation when practicing for operations in extreme northern latitudes during the cold war years. I used frequently it in airline ops in Northern Canada, primarily between the Pacific Northwest and Northern Europe. The 747-400 (could have been the classic 747 though - not sure) also required us to be in true anytime above 73 north IIRC. It had to do with an automatic change of heading reference function within the IRUs. Three IRUs would invariably change to true at different times, each has it's own position after even short operating times, so we had a procedure to change the heading reference manually to avoid a problem. These areas have rapidly changing magnetic variation and lines of longitude are very close together both of which create navigation errors when using magnetic. Switching to true eliminates potential errors. I've been trying to figure out why the JF-17 needs to input true heading into the IRUs during preflight. Every INU I ever used only required a current position input. The units could sort out heading during alignment. An error inputting the current position would be detected by the units during alignment resulting in an error message. Needing to survey every parking place that a fighter might use seems like a horrible burden. Even slight parking misalignments could effect the alignment quality or generate an error. The only thing I can come up with is it's a way to reduce alignment time. Surveying alert parking sites isn't a big deal and training could reduce errors. This seems likely since the early access procedure for alignment is the quick alignment rather than a full alignment. As far as DCS is concerned forget true headings. They're operationally useless in the operating areas in the sim. The only thing any of us needs to use true for in game is to follow the IRU quick alignment procedure in "Jeff".

Thanks Lange. That actually makes more sense. That said does the headset go into a low power sleep mode when like a monitor? I've developed the habit of turning off my monitor due to where I live and probably should do the same with the headset. Getting a replacement for either of them here would be a major pain. Our power is reasonable stable but surges and outages are not infrequent.

Closing "Oculus VR Runtime Service" under "OVR Service Launcher" in Task Manager under "Background Services" turns off the headset and the light goes red/orange. I think that it's best to not leave it powered but could be wrong. Occulus Tray Tool has an automatic feature that does this for you as well as returning the audio to you non-Oculus device if you use one or more. I start OTT and it launches Oculus and stops it when I close OTT. One click and done. I like OTT for these reasons alone and would use it if I used nothing else in OTT.

No worries Etirion. We all find a way of thinking about complex subjects in terms we understand. You're spot on - minus the details that do get really messy. Almost forty years of flying jets for a living, including three teaching in USAF UPT and another three at the instructor school (PIT), left me with a nearly unforgettable understanding of all of this stuff from a pilot's perspective. Instructing is a really incredible experience. A guy/gal learns way, way more than most pilots need to do their job or they get happy with embarrassing themselves in front of their peers. Apparently, it has a lasting effect.

That is the essence and what you should understand. I like to think that CAS is the airspeed that an aircraft "senses" as it flies through the air. That isn't a perfect explanation but works well except in extremes when the effects of air density (pressure and temperature dependent), compressibility, and mach effects do weird things to aerodynamics. Almost everything pilots use to know the performance they can get out of an airplane is IAS or CAS (where displayed) dependent. It is what is readily available. In the higher altitude and speed regions of the flight envelope mach becomes the go to performance indicator. Almost everything else that is necessary to do whatever job you're trying to do with an airplane is TAS dependent. Optimum and maximum altitudes, fuel burn, time-distance calculations, and the like all use TAS or mach.

You are seeing as Rictoberfest says the the effect of altitude (air density), temperature, mach number on the several differences in airspeed. IAS, Indicated AirSpeed, is what is raw indication from the airspeed indicator system. It is a measurement of dynamic pressure sensed by the pitot tube compared to static pressure from a static source. It is potentially inaccurate and must be corrected. CAS, Calibrated AirSpeed, is IAS corrected for installation errors found in the indicating system. EAS, Equivalent AirSpeed, is CAS corrected for the compressibility of air. These corrections are found at higher mach numbers. Greater than .80 mach is generally the area where the correction become significant. TAS, True AirSpeed, is EAS corrected for density. Air density decreases with increased altitude and decreased temperature. CAS is generally a solid number to use for pilots considering maneuvering and handling qualities. TAS is essential to navigation calculations. Modern aircraft remove the messiness of calculating all of this through the use of Air Data Computers (ADC). We get real time calculations rather than having to make time consuming hand calculations. A great rule of thumb is : TAS increases by 2% for every 1000' of altitude gain. For example, 300 KIAS at 10,000' is 360 KTAS on a standard day. This rule of thumb is close enough up to about 30,000' and .80 mach. Exceeding either of those numbers increases the inaccuracies to a point that they're not too useful. The relationships of IAS - CAS - EAS - TAS looks like a square root symbol. That is: IAS >- CAS <++ EAS ~ TAS most of the time. Class dismissed.

Buzz the F-14 will still have buffet. Even full forward it is a high performance swept wing. Buffet is a characteristic that can occur on all airfoils. Again, it is only turbulent air separating from the airfoil at high AOA having an effect on the air frame. Different wings and configurations will have different characteristics on the same jet or on different models. Like Wags saying that their Viper pilot sources say buffet is minimal up to 25 degrees of AOA. I'm somewhat surprised but if that's their experience I can't disagree. There may well be more to the story. This may be a clean jet. What about over 25 degrees? I don't know if that is an accessible flight regime. What about with external stores? I can think of a few reasons it may be accurate in all configurations though that's probably unlikely. The Viper is interesting aerodynamically so who knows. A lot of "magic" went into the design.

Buffeting is an aerodynamic property of airfoils. FBW filters/interprets (one way to think of it) a pilot's inputs through control laws to provide the performance requested. It does have limits as mentioned like maximum AOA allowed per the active control law. The thing is that swept wing's lift vs AOA curve is different from a fat straight wing. It is flatter and the critical angle of attack is along a flatter curve with less steep drop off at AOAcrit. The fat straight wing's curve is steeper with a sharp drop off after AOAcrit. Those wings get lower levels of buffet closer to AOAcrit and suddenly lose lift as the wing stalls. A swept wing has a longer area where boundary air begins separating from the wing and becoming turbulent. It loses lift over a greater range of AOA than the conventional wing. That separating, turbulent air is the source of buffet. Often it impacts other areas of the aircraft structure like the horizontal slab increasing the buffet a pilot feels. So, buffet is turbulent air affecting the air frame. FBW has no means of influencing it other than limiting AOA. That might be a great idea for airliners or cargo aircraft. In a fighter where maximizing lift is one of the keys to maneuverability it's not such a good idea. There is still a lot of useful lift from the onset of buffet through AOAcrit up until the wing stalls. It makes no sense to leave it on the table. A good example is the T-38. Load the wing and the aircraft would begin to rumble and that would increase as you continue pulling into moderate buffet. That is a result of shedding airspeed (increasing AOA) from not having enough power to maintain airspeed. When the wing finally loses enough lift the nose would stop tracking. That is the classic sign of a stall and impending full stall. The airplane talked to you rather nicely if you listened. It would begin heavier buffet and shallow wing rock all the way to full aft stick. At that point it would settle into a somewhat level attitude and gently rocking with buffet. You'd see the VVI pegged on the bottom of the scale and be descending at ~10k ft/min until you stopped pulling and recovered. Accelerated entries in a turn were slightly more lively but it had awesome handling qualities at high AOA. It had to be forced to spin but was reluctant even then. But never underestimate the power of a hamfist. The one big downside to the nice handling was in the traffic pattern. Back in the day we flew aggressive tight final turns. 45 degrees of bank and light buffet with a little bottom rudder to keep the nose down in the pull. That light buffet felt normal but it was possible to develop humongous sink rates that might not be noticed before you were in serious trouble. It could also happen in less aggressive patterns or in an unintentional no flap. There were a lot of final turn accidents over the years in the Talon. There's your very simplistic aero lesson for the morning. As far as simulating buffet is concerned - yes, I've seen it before in sims. But like spins it was more a tacked on simulation of buffet through progaming gimmicks that lacked the right behavior and feel. Please don't get me started on spins in flight sims.

Buffet is a characteristic of high speed swept wings. It is an aerodynamic characteristic and has nothing to do with the control system. Buffet onset is much earlier at low speed or at high speed under G load than on conventional straight wing aircraft. The heavier the airplane the greater the effect generally. It's actually a really useful characteristic. You'll hear pilots talking about pulling into the tickle of light buffet as a means of identifying max performance. Heavy buffet is a warning that you're pulling past maximum performance and approaching an accelerated stall. The accelerated stall is easy to recognize because the nose stops tracking even though the airplane remains under control. I'm impressed that ED is able to model it.

I have to hand it to the French. They took all the TLAR out of what we used to call point-to-point navigation in TACAN and VOR/DME. Every USAF student first learned how to do it on an RMI (essentially a M2k HSI without anything except a VOR bearing pointer) in the T-37 and the easier method in the T-38 using the more or less eternally standard US HSI. I like it. Simple, elegant, almost fool proof. The only art to using it is applying a wind correction as you proceed to the point. That's basic stuff if you've ever learned to use an RMI. Thanks for the lesson. Just thinking out loud here but this might be very useful as a very simple solution to avoiding confusion over where you are relative to a bullseye. I'd have to play with it in the jet to figure out how I could use it best.

No worries. I've been around online PC flight sims since 1988-89 flying wire frame WW2 birds in Air Warrior on a 2400 baud dial up connection. There's not much in military flight sims I haven't at least dabbled in. The hardware/software dance is very familiar but I'm certainly not an expert at either. I'm only a user with a tremendous amount of experience with coaxing the most the performance out of a sim on available hardware. There are many better at it and I never cease to learn something unless I get stuck in my own notions of how things work. The most important process I've learned is to always begin a request for help with a full list of the hardware I'm running. Those who are able to help will often spot the components (or game settings) that may be the cause of my problems. Whether they are right or wrong I always get a new direction to investigate. With respect to your issues, I'm certain the low system RAM is a big one. I went from 16 GB to 32 GB hoping to be able to run a RAM disk for DCS. The size of DCS and my bloated system memory usage quickly binned that idea. (Yes, I know I can stop unnecessary processes and resident programs but I choose not to for my own convenience. I own any difficulty that arises.) The big unexpected benefit was that DCS runs far better than it did at 16 GB. I suspect DCS has to access the disk and page file far less often during play which eliminates micro stutters and frame rate volatility. Similarly, my 4 GB VRAM video card doesn't exceed the ability of DCS to feed my 1440p monitor. A large system RAM pool partially removes the hard drive part of the equation while running the sim. I've addressed the hard drives too with a SSD as my system drive and a large SSD for all sims and games. I think, I certainly could be wrong but this is how it appears to me, the primary benefit of the SSDs are in loading the game and missions. I have the overhead to allow DCS to load just about anything it needs into RAM. I have no idea if it does but the performance I have seen following incremental RAM, GPU, and SSD upgrades in both 1.5x and 2.0 suggests something is going right. Flight sims have always been hungry for the best hardware. Developers have always been able to write software that will tax the best hardware available. We have the best combination of hardware and software I've ever seen since the early '80s on the Atari 64. Flanker ran OK but not nearly as well as DCS does on today's hardware. I never saw the relative performance I now see in DCS. Flying in DCS is far closer to actually flying an aircraft than ever before. I have over 23,000 hours and 38 years of military and airline flying as well as the 28 years of flight simming to qualify my opinion. I really want to try VR sometime but I learned to wait for the first couple generations of technology to sort things out before diving in. I really wish I'd have done that years ago. I'd have saved so much money. I hope your RAM upgrade works for you.

rickberry, I read your posts completely. No need to be defensive. Now, do I understand you are running with a full 6 GB of RAM or VRAM? A video card with 6 GB VRAM is one thing and probably shouldn't have many issues with triple monitors unless they are 1080p or higher. 6 GB of RAM should barely function in Win 7 if at all. All of this would be much clearer if we didn't have to guess about your computer's specs. Right now it's all guess work. All else being equal 16 GB of RAM will enhance your DCS experience. One thing to consider which you may already know. Win 7 and above will only recognize 16 GB of installed RAM on a Home Premium install. To add 16 to the 6 (?) you already have will require an upgrade to Professional. If you are running Home Basic the limit is 8 GB IIRC.

rickberry, you didn't tell us the resolution of your three monitors but even if they were 1024 x 768 low res (by today's standard) monitors you would be pushing a mid-range video card's capabilities hard. Triple monitors is a huge GPU resource drain on even the top cards. My 980 with 4 GB runs both versions of DCS at 60-90 fps on one 1440p monitor mostly maxed out. Still, there are times in 2.0 it is pressured. Additional monitors, even 1080p, would force me to accept lower quality settings or to upgrade to a higher performance card. You also don't say anything about CPU and RAM. 2.0 is definitely more resource hungry and yet to be optimized as well as 1.5x. It can easily overwhelm a system that runs acceptably on 1.5x. We really need to consider the complete system as well as the DCS version when hunting for acceptable performance. Expecting 2.0 to run anywhere near as well as 1.5x is setting us up for disappointment.

Chappy, a quick look at Newegg prices for EVGA nVidia cards (I've found EVGA to be better priced, higher spec, and reliable when compared to their competitors for the past few years) revealed the 1060 for ~$260 and the 980 Ti/1070 for ~$450. One version of the Ti Super Clock with ACX 2.0 cooling is available for $425. My son picked up the Ti a month ago and it kicks my 980 SC's ass. The 980 runs DCS maxed out at 60-90 fps in 1440p. The difference in capability between the 1060 and Ti/1070 is probably about the same. Everything I've read indicated the 980 and 1060 are pretty close in performance. You will see a dramatic improvement from the 660 at 1080p. The only downside I can see is that you will be faced with subpar performance or another upgrade sooner than going the 1070/Ti route. I always factor in future proofing in my GPU buying decisions and can often buy two cards for every three to four cycles. It saves money in the longer run while maintaining decent performance. I doubt you'll regret finding a way to stretch to the 1070/980 Ti or waiting until you can scrape together the extra cash. Comparing cards is a PITA. Finding the sweet spot in price/performance is always a chore but one that usually pays for the time spent. I've found Tome's Hardware GPU hierarchy chart a useful tool for performance based decisions. http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gpu-hierarchy,4388.html

Knock-Knock, two seconds in you can clearly see he is on the left wing of another jet. Look just above and to the right of the mirror. Don't feel bad I missed it too and was asking myself the same question. I was sightseeing and not looking in the 'pit. It was during my second time through that I picked up that he was not alone. I've flown the arrivals and departures to CDG dozens of times. Although they don't get as close to Paris, the additional altitude gives you a really nice look at the city.

My dream sheet choices out of UPT were F-106, A-7, F-4 in that order. I can't support the Six for DCS. It's weapons and weapon system is not suitable for anything we do. It is an interceptor tied to GCI. It was an AIM-4 and Genie truck. A hitile and a nuke. The weapons system was designed for ground directed intercept of Soviet bombers that would be on the receiving end of a canned sunshine surprise. The AIM-4 wasn't even effective for bombers as it had to hit the target hence the hitile descriptive. The only sure hit for an AIM-4 was the ground. It was found to be a very good BFM machine when TAC decided they had to begin learning DACT WVR again. Still it didn't have suitable weapons for WVR against fighters since the weapons bay Vulcan had been removed and was a one turn and done unless the nose was pointed down hill. The Deuce is the predecessor to the Six and far less suitable to DCS. The Hun is a possibility. It has some challenging flight characteristics but is a very good high speed FAC, used by the famous Misty FACs in VN, a decent CAS/BAI machine, and can do day VFR A2A. Might be fun. The Voodoo is a very decent recce bird for the time but is less at everything than the Hun. It is also a lead sled with a few nastier characteristics than the Hun. Unsuitable. The Thud is probably the best of the choices although it is behind the F-4 in my opinion due to Double Ugly's greater versatility. The Thud is a great bomb truck with range and unsurpassed low level speed. Tthe Edsel Station Wagon is about the only US jet that was faster down low. The Thud would probably get my vote although I'd prefer an F-4 with the F-8, A-7, A-4, or A-6 right there with the Thud as too close to call. An interesting possibility for VN era use is the A-1D/H/AD family of Skyraiders. CAS/SAR workhorse par excellence. The only thing the A-10A had on it was speed (that's funny shit right there) and a gun. MiG17 or MiG19 is also right up there too but only if the F-4 were available. F-104 was a point defense interceptor with a gun, AIM-9, and Genie capability. Minimal radar usually GCI directed day fighter. Short range and duration. Most sorties were in the .5-.7 hour category. One pass, maybe two if you can reverse back through the fight and go home. BFM is limited to how well you can extend or zoom climb to reposition to reattack on the way home. I had a very limited A2G capability but had to choose between bombs or fuel to attack anything much outside of the boundary fence. Not much fun all in all. Would love it but like the era's interceptors I think it is unsuitable due to lack of versatility. That's an old guy's opinion if anyone wants it.

Thanks for the confirmation Ivan. I've done a little more work in the pattern with it. The landing tutorial flight path boxes create a glide slope way too shallow - I'm guessing closer to 150' per NM. Flying a glide slope closer to 3 degrees, 300' per 1 NM, and being on speed reduces the tendency to float. It's not completely right but is livable. A dragged in approach requires you to carry excessive power so coupled with entering ground effect sooner probably increases the tendency to float, or much worse, balloon. An RSU controller's reaction to a balloon of more than a foot or two was always "Go Around" and if the nose moved much in the ballon an emphatic "BURNERS!" followed. Together with final turn accidents I think flare accidents killed a more students, IPs too, than anything. I also prefer a 2000' overhead. The higher altitude seems to me to compensate for the higher final turn airspeeds and required slightly wider downwind. It might be because I haven't flown any overhead in a real jet since the mid '80s. I was taught to fly the fly final on the green donut and crossing the "fence", runway end, to wiggle off a bit of power then flare so to hit landing attitude a couple feet or less off the runway. Wiping off the power resulted in a nice little plunk of the landing. Carrying power longer results in long landings as the jet will float but not nearly as bad as the sim. That was, of course, a T-38 and not an F-5. They should be similar but.... I've also found the radar difficult to lock. Lots of false locks and resets. All successful lock ons have been <5 NM. Missile performance is as others have reported. I've yet to get a proper growl although I've gotten hits. Bottom line is I'm ecstatic with the flight model. We should be in for many joyful flights if this is the beta model. Last note for this post is the tutorials. I've not done all of them, yet, but so far they are the best I've seen in a DCS module. My only niggle is the size of the text which may be a result of a 1440p monitor.

I flew my last sortie in the T-38 over 40 years ago. The F-5 is no T-38 but the handling and control response seems about right for a jet with somewhat more power, weight, and wing loading. Airspeeds in the pattern are about 20-25 KIAS higher which is about what I'd expect and what the fight manual suggests. The only negative flight model comment is that it floats on landing. That's not right. Even the T-38 with a lower wing loading sat down as soon as you pulled power to idle. This thing can be spot on AOA and will float 1000'-1500' after going to idle. Flare a little high and it floats to a nice touchdown after eating up a bunch of runway. A high flare in the T-38 was never a good idea. Lots of accidents and/or ruined underwear come from high flares. It's also a bit pitch sensitive which is making aerobraking touchy. I also think the deceleration rate is too low during aerobraking. I'll have to get a proper touchdown where the nose doesn't go to the runway like a shot duck to tell for sure. The only other issue is going to be setting up a pitch curve that makes over Gs not so easy. The T-38 was light on the controls except in heavy maneuvering. Loaded up the stick forces were high enough to make over G more difficult. Part of it is the limits of the Wathog or any PC joystick.There is no other reason I can think of where it should be so light on the controls. I don't think it should be able to pull 9 G's at just over 300 KIAS either. The buffeting is probably a bit too light and too late but I'd prefer to have the effect under rather than over modeled. Buffet is important in determining max performance maneuvering so getting it close to right will be important. The other quick test I did was a burner climb. IIRC the T-38 burner climb schedule was 300 KIAS to 10K', 400, maybe 450 KIAS, to mach .9 (or .95 not sure), then hold the mach. Seemed about right. All in all a very, very good first impression.

The simplest way of looking at slowing a jet on landing is that aerodynamic drag is used via aerobraking to the speed it either loses effectiveness or the nosewheel cannot be kept off the runway. Then mechanical braking (also drag) is used to bring the jet to a full stop. Each is used where it is most effective in normal operations. The way to stop the aircraft in the shortest distance is to lower the nosewheel to the runway after touchdown, extending speed brakes, reduce lift by raising flaps, and stomp on the brakes until anitskid starts cycling. Of course, in a fighter you will also greatly increase the likelihood of blowing tires and/or melting down the brakes/wheels/tires and start a nasty ass fire. But if you have to stop right now...so be it. Most high performance fighter and trainer aircraft that do not use a drag chute use aerobraking. Aero braking is only effective at higher speeds and most jets lack the pitch authority to keep the nosewheel off the runway much below 100 KIAS. The purpose of aerobraking is to slow the jet in the most efficient manner possible without relying on wheel brakes until lower speeds. Most fighters lack powerful wheel braking systems due to the high weight. It is a design tradeoff that allows the weight needed for a massive set of brakes to be used for mission and/or performance enhancements. It takes rather robust brakes to handle the thermal energy produced at high speed. The drag, however, of a big delta wing is very effective at high speeds. So, aerobraking is used when it is mostly effective, above 100 KIAS, and wheel brakes are less effective. The nose is lowered to the runway at 100 KIAS and wheel brakes are applied. The amount of energy from 100 KIAS to taxi speed is a small fraction of what it would have been from say a 155 KIAS touchdown speed. Less massive brakes are needed to dissipate that smaller amount of energy. All of that said, the Mirage shouldn't be able to keep its nose up much below 100 KIAS but if it can then you should notice a distinct reduction in deceleration as the the jet slows. It sounds like everything is about right with the flight model other than the possible excessive nose authority at low speed. The matter of the airbrakes (or speedbrakes?) open should have some effect but they too will lose effectiveness the slower the jet is.

I have an ASUS Swift 1440p monitor as well but have had no issues with it in DCS. Thee are a few things I can think of that might be a factor. 1. Have you enabled G Sync in the nVidia drivers? It should only affect refresh rate but it needs enabled regardless. 2. Try resetting your windows desktop to 1440p. (Your icons will get smaller as they are displayed by pixel size. That can be fixed by choosing medium or large icons. The same effect occurs in many games as well.) Some games, mostly when run in windowed mode, use the desktop setting for the GUI. I don't know if that's the case for DCS but having your desktop resolution the same as your GUI avoids problems. 3. Have you enabled DSR? I don't think this will cause this problem but you might find it useful. Google "nvidia dsr" to learn about it and how to enable it. I refuse to install GeForce Experience on my machine but it still works by creating a game specific profile in the nVidia Control Panel. That's about all I can think of right now. I hope one of the ideas leads to a resolution. Good luck.

#02039 Franklin, TN USA

Thanks for that TomCat. I have exactly zero expertise in automotive ABS beyond a long ago explanation of early systems and my own experiences. I defer to your knowledge. I can surely appreciate how modern electronics would make ABS far more beneficial than it was originally invented to do - aid maintaining steering control under heavy braking. Anti-skid has the same functions while it's original design target was probably reducing stopping distance. I'll also agree that early generation anti-skid was OK when it worked but had many, many flaws. The differences between early generation A/S and what I used at the end of my flying career is astonishing. Almost all of the improvements were brought about by the introduction of electronics and digital systems. My only objection is the statement you made to Vitormouraa that claims ABS does not reduce stopping distance. I totally agree that the design purpose of ABS is to ensure directional controlability under braking of a car or truck. However, a secondary benefit is that anything that prevents wheel locking during braking will have the additional benefit of reducing stopping distance. Not all conditions and on all surfaces for sure but under most. I think that is probably correct just from looking at what it does from an engineering standpoint. I certainly could be wrong.

There have been some very nice advances in technology and design over the years. Too bad Canadair didn't bother to make take advantage of more robust logic for ground spoiler logic. Your story is something I would have expected out of the 707 or 727 generations of transports. But there isn't any manufacturer who doesn't use a design that saves that thing that actually makes airplanes fly, $$$, over the most robust features. I flew the A330 for the last eight years of my flying career before retiring. The ground spoiler, autobrake, and thrust reverser systems were very thoroughly integrated and designed. The thrust reversrers were unlocked at main tire spinup while the ground spoiler didn't deploy until weight on all main wheels was senesed and the auto brakes engaged immediately or two seconds afterwards depending on the selection made prior to landing. The system made for a very smooth efficient start of the landing roll. However, as is the story for almost anything man made there are still traps and idiosyncrasies. The airplane landed very well from a pilot's perspective. It mostly fit my idea of how an airplane should work. One of the obvious features of the design included three distinct touchdowns when you landed the beast. The first set of main tires was the easiest to make smooth and if you gave up flying the second set of tires would announce the fact quite clearly. The nose had to be told to land as well unless you didn't do it before about 100 knots when it would thunk down. Like the CRJ the picture out the window at nose gear touchdown looked nose low. Most new guys, and a few old hands who weren't paying full attention, could get the first straight away, learn the second fairly soon, and continue to hunt for the third for some time. Everyone learned to start the nose down right after touchdown with a cross between a small bunt and relaxing back pressure. Eventually. During all of this the spoilers deploy with hardly any noticeable nose down tendency. Even popping the thrust reversers as soon as you touchdown and the finger lifts unlock doesn't do anything. The autobrakes a bit different. Autobrakes Low is like the rest of the system, smooth with only a slight nose down feel. The activate two seconds after both trucks are on the ground and modulate braking for a fixed deceleration rate. They are completely smooth and consistent right up to a lurching stop if forgotten. Medium is completely different. First the target deceleration rate is somewhat higher and the initiation of braking is immediate upon the second touch down. There is a noticeable nose down move that has to be counteracted with a bit of aft stick or it bangs down the nose firmly. The first use of medium autobrakes by a new pilot almost always surprises him/her. They're thinking push the nose down when the need to be thinking about not letting it come down with too much authority. Autobrakes High is a takeoff feature only although there have been a couple knuckleheads who selected it for landing with very bad results. The last little oddity of autobraking occurred when disconnecting them. We'd just push the thrust levers up a bit in the A320 to make it all go away when we got down to a safe taxi speed. Doing that in the A330 cause the brakes to release with a thunking lurch. Actually, releasing them with the brake pedals did the same if you weren't easy on the pedals. I always taught to think about curling you toes and to not wait until the airplane got much below 40 knots unless stopping might be a problem. Advancing the thrust levers to just above idle disconnected the brakes and stowed the thrust reversers which was very nice in the event of an aborted landing after touchdown which though rare is often a huge surprise. Stowing the thrust reversers, spoilers, and disconnecting the brakes takes coordination and time which is usually in short supply while also trying to fly out of a bad situation. I seem to remember something odd about when the spoilers were automatically stowed during this sequence but I'm not sure what. I know a go around, or the rare touch and go for training or maintenance testing, only required advancing the thrust levers and a quick check to be sure everything worked as advertised. That's all more than most anyone would want to know about Airbus stuff but some of you might find it interesting even if you came to this thread only to learn something about anti-skid.

The anti-skid systems on aircraft are not anything like anti-lock brakes on cars. ABS on cars is far less sophisticated. It usually is active on paired wheels, has a limited ability to cycle the brakes due to minimal sensors and relatively primitive control hardware and software, and a solitary purpose of keeping the brakes from fully locking the wheel. Anti-skid on modern aircraft works on each braked wheel independently,. There are sensors that measure wheel spin comparing it to ground speed to determine the amount of braking it will permit on each wheel. The target is usually something like an 80% rolling skid for fully depressed brakes. The control system modulates hydraulic pressure to each wheel's brake pad to keep each wheel's rotation at no less than 80% of the ground speed. (An 80% rolling skid has been determined to produce the shortest stopping distances on the usual surfaces that are used for runways.) Full pedal braking on a bare and dry surface will leave a rubber streak but the wheel continues to spin at a rate that produces the optimal braking force regardless of surface or tire conditions. Less wheel speed relative to ground speed, a lower percentage, damages tires quickly, has a higher probability of nasty events like reverted rubber (think rubber being melted to a liquid which lowers the friction between the tire and surface to near zero - like ice), and increases landing distances. Skids also greatly reduce the ability to steer the jet just like it does your car. Higher wheel speeds relative to ground speed, higher percentage, increases ground roll because the brakes are not being as efficiently applied as is possible. Anti-skid greatly reduces the difficulty of getting a jet stopped. Every jet I've ever flown had at least a warning to avoid more than light brake use above 100 knots when anti-skid is inoperative. I've also seen prohibition of brake use above 100 knots if anti-skid is not working. At higher speeds aerodynamic braking is more effective. It is very easy to lock a wheel or wheels that can result in a skid with a loss of directional control. Remember that the lifting surfaces continue to generate significant amounts of lift at and above 100 KIAS which reduces the weight on the wheels, which lowers the friction between the ground and the tire, and results in less braking force necessary to lock a wheel. Anti-skid uses technology to nearly eliminate these issues. Most fighter type aircraft have relatively small tires and wheels/brakes which generate far less braking force than larger tires like are on jet airliners. They are more susceptible to stopping distance problems. The shortest way to stop, other than say doing an arrested stop, is to aerobrake down to around 100 KIAS or wherever the jet loses elevator authority to keep the nose up. The nose is then lowered to the runway and brakes applied to a stop. Jet airliners use a completely different strategy. They lower the nose to the runway shortly after touchdown and begin braking. This is equally efficient as they have high drag devices, spoilers that deploy on touchdown, which decreases lift increasing the weight on the wheels thus increasing the friction available when the brakes are applied. They also usually have engine thrust reversers which redirect some portion of the engine thrust forward to help slow the jet. Devices like ground spoilers and thrust reversers add significant amounts of weight that an aircraft designed for high performance must forego. It is uncommon to see them on fighters unless the user really wants to accept the performance penalty for some operational reason. Anti-skid is pretty easy for the pilot to use. He/she just mashes on the brakes as hard as possible until reaching the desired speed. It doesn't matter what the condition of the runway might be - dry, snow, wet, or icy - as the maximum braking force is always delivered. Now, as you're probably thinking the problems begin when the runway condition is so bad it can't provide enough friction for the brakes to do their job. That's one of the reasons why pilots get paid the big bucks - to say no when conditions are too bad to operate on that runway.

Remember that if you are still running Windows 7 it has to be the "Pro" version for Windows to recognize more than 16 GB of RAM. I don't know about 8 or 10 but M$ seldom misses an opportunity to make more money. The move to Windows 7 Pro was easy. I bought a serial number for the Pro version and followed the upgrade instructions. Nothing is changed in the system. The upgrade only unlocks features already installed. I did find an observable difference using the additional 16 GB.