chaos

IDS for sure however.... Half of all the things that made Tornado enjoyable for me was flight-planning. I could spend a lot of time optimizing my flight-plan. Making use of terrain masking and minimizing exposure to AA defences. Time management so as to arrive with all 4 aircraft within a few seconds to strike an airfield. This, I believe, is an essential part of the module (*if* ED is planning to create this module at all). The mission editor in DCS should be updated to allow for quick and easy planning "Tornado-way".

I'm pretty well versed on aerodynamics, thank you very much... ???? The wind is just a vector being added to the aerodynamic forces on an aircraft. It affects the amount of sideslip required, lift produced and a host of other effects. It determines not only groundspeed and track but also the performance of the aircraft. The effects may have been exaggerated somewhat in DCS (and I assume that is what they tweaked) but it certainly affects all aspects of the FM. On the ground and in the air.

Wind _does_ affect an airplane in-flight. The effect is most noticeable when you’re on or near the ground but it obviously affects the aircraft at any speed and altitude. A plane is like a boat... Just imagine what a captain of a boat would have to do in order to stay the course if he faced strong currents.

It's that wonderful time of the year.... ...to f#@$&ng smash those bloody light bulbs up top again. Wooohooo!

According to a blk50 manual, GPS is only used to refine own postion and in-flight re-alignment. There must be a good reason for having to manually enter the initial position. I'm thinking UX/UI design. Simply accepting what a system tells you is a great way to introduce errors. My only reference are commercial nav systems. On modern (Boeing-) aircraft, the pilot needs to enter position manually to align the IRS (even though GPS pos. is known). Most likely for the exact same reason as described above.

What exactly is the problem with the soft and/or hard cams in your opinion? I wonder if your personal preference or rather, experience, is shaping your opinion. From what I gather, you’re a TM WH user. It’s well understood that the breakout force of that stick is rather heavy. I’ve tried the WH combo and I find it difficult to fly accurately with it. Then again, I’ve used the CH flight stick and TM16000 combo which are extremely light on the controls so there’s that... All comes down to personal preference I think. I’d love for WinWing to add an extra set of cams to the package. Instant buy for me if they did...

Early days and reviewers need more time to properly review the hardware. Biggest issues that I’ve noticed in Jabbers’ stream so far... Split throttle causes 1 part to interfere with the other and quite a few switches on the throttle stand are momentary action switches which limits their usefulness. No dedicated slider for zooming. There is a slider but seems to only control throttle friction. As for the stick... no clear center and the springs are too soft. This is largely a personal preference though. Hardware seems solid with good quality switches. It looks badass!

Actually, Jabbers mentioned the 16th on Discord and that he would do a live unboxing on either YT or Twitch.

The Airspeed Reference bug on the Airspeed/Mach Indicator is colored black or very dark green which makes it unusable. According to my sources it should be white or bright green. I run a GTX 980 video card. All drivers up to date.

No such thing as backcourse in DCS IIRC

I'm hoping somebody in the know is able to answer this for me. Since JHMCS is featured in both the F-18 and -16 will we, at some point, be able to target objects on the ground as well? It's a handy feature in dogfighting however, slaving sensors to find targets on the ground would be extremely helpful.

Congratulations! Now this thing doesn't come with a manual. It's flying by the seat of your pants!

I'm convinced that 9 times out of 10, it's the 'setup' that is lacking. I found that, after making sure all the conditions are correct (as stated in the manual), the F-16 performance closely matches the graphs. It's a real tribute to the engineers who coded this thing... A difference of 5 degr. C is enough to get a performance delta as stated in the book. Why default weather in DCS is still 1013Hpa and 20C(?) is beyond me.

I believe you're right and that's not why I have an issue here. It's the handling (or lack thereof) that I find difficult. It's extremely sluggish... more so than I'd expect (although that isn't saying much :-) ).

Here’s my take on the Early Access Release of the F-16C. I like to do a lot of flight testing and the majority of my sim-flying is spent doing just that. Thanks to ED for another module. I’m hoping that, in the months to come, this will continiously be improved upon. I’m looking forward to the implementation of the ground radar. I understand why it is somewhat lower on the priority list but not having it just makes the module unfinished. The model is nice although, in my opinion, ED’s F-18C model is even better than this. The aircraft handling is crisp and ‘feels’ a lot more like a fighter compared to the F-18. That is until you select the gear down. Rates are halved (or more?) and it behaves like an airliner. I don’t have anything to back up my claims but it ‘feels’ off. Turning short final and rolling out at 200’ is very dificult to do at best. It’s fine once you’re established on final but maneuvering in the pattern is just plain annoying. I’ve done a few quick performance tests and the results closely reflect the data I have at home. Very impressive and kudos to the FM engineers for that. Acceleration, slow flying and turn performance seems to correspond nicely to my performance charts. As an aside (Hummingbird). It should be ok for us to challenge and debate various aspects of the sim. I’d like to hear how Hummingbird determined why things are wrong. Getting beaten by AI isn’t exactly ‘proof’ that F-16’s perf. is off. Even getting smacked around by human opponents in a 1v1 dogfight isn’t proof either. Let us debate and back it up with ‘hard’ data. To the coders/engineers and art department; thanks for creating this model! It’s Early Access and I see a lot of potential here.

Ah, right up my alley!. I too like to performance test my modules.... Make sure you have all conditions correct including Temp. Press. Drag Index, Altitude, Weight etc. I’ve done 2 quick tests and they line up well with performance data in my manual. I did an acceleration test from 200 to 600 in max AB and a Turn Performance test (all at 5000’ on a standard day). Performance is very close to what I can find in the manual... and this is done quick and dirty. I’m happy with what I’ve found so far.

That may very well be but I can hear the cries of many players now saying the MAVs are borked because they break lock upon launching. It's one of those fringe cases (pardon the pun) that I can live with. Like you're saying... 'theoretically'. The specs as mentioned in these brochures and various places on the internet (wiki?) are possibly a bit on the optimistic side. Missile behavior leaves a lot to be desired but they're working on it as can be seen from recent updates. Performance however is not too far off if I'd hazard a guess. DCS is a work in progress and will always be... I seriously hope this will not end up like the flamewars of yore but knowing 'The Internet'... People are going to compare DCS F-16 with Falcon and some bits are going to be better on one product compared to the other. Caveat being that DCS is work in progress and Falcon is more or less done. Let them (ED) do their thing and all will be golden. It may take a while but it will happen. Heck, I've been around since the Flanker 1.0 days and the improvements they've made since are nothing short of incredible. Especially considering this niche market and without any serious competition to keep them on their toes.

It's been one of my pet-peeves with DCS:World. It's easy to start complaining about this while there are so many other things that need to be taken care of. There's only so much time and resources available to get it all done. No proper weather modelling in a simulator is like having an airplane but no air to fly it in. Getting back in 100m visibility adds a whole new level of excitement to the mission. The current clouds don't cut it and the fog/haze is just so-so. It looks too artificial and that's why I always fly on clear summer days. What a waste as the mission could be much more atmospheric (pun intended). It becomes a lot more fun... well... for me at least. An update on where the "new clouds" sit on the development roadmap would be appreciated. DCSW is amazing and is becoming better all the time. I just hope they'd give this feature a little more priority as it currently seems to be lacking attention.

The .trk replays have always been iffy at best. It's a shame because this feature is one of the best things DCS:WORLD has going for it. To accurately replay your and your opponents actions is the best tool to get better at this game. I wish there was a better way to record trk's. I would prefer that over, for instance, a dynamic campaign... but I'm probably in the minority here...

I believe that one nice feature that Pro has over Home is to defer an update (up to 35 days, Targeted or Semi-Annual). Is it worth the extra? That you have to decide for yourself...

Actually...

What is the reason for not restocking the MT-50 base? I’ve been holding out for that because I intend to mount it with an extension and the WarBRD seems unsuitable for this purpose. Seeing as there are quite a few users who are looking for that particular base, is there any chance you’ll do a one-off batch in the near future?

I suggest you take a good look at the Modelviewer that is included with DCS World. If you load up a current model (such as the F/A18C), you will know exactly what the limits or good practices are regarding a 3D model. It’ll give you insight in what makes a model work in DCS. Also, read the forums (Mods section). 3DS Max is the application you should use to create a model.

Calibrated airspeed is the same as Indicated airspeed but corrected for position error (it’s “true indicated airspeed” if you will). You’re right that that is the number you should be looking for with regards to structural limits...

A lot seems to take place on the discord server. There are a bunch of 'groups' that dabble in modding DCS. Look for 'DCS Modding Hub'. Fairly high level stuff but at least you'll find others who are in the same boat as you...