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On my Warthog I moved the engine start and stop commands to the ENG OPER switches, up for start and down for stop. Unfortunately for me this is a workaround, my left hand throttle has been acting up and doesn't report position accurately. Still, I've never missed the original purpose of the switches either.

I miss the first switch I aim for. Every. Single. Time.

Since you asked I'll mention the electronic engine governor switches, one switch per engine. These prevent overspeed and I've had vibration warnings followed by engine failure for leaving them off. Also make sure you're not flying around with the yellow throttle levers on Max all the time. I can't remember having a failure caused by that but usually if I move those from Auto to Max the situation is already rapidly deteriorating.

I've got a similar complaint about the engine noise that can't be solved by the in-game or Windows volume sliders. I just want to be able to hear what's going on around me better instead of an idling engine constantly. I hadn't played with Combined Arms for a very long time and loaded it up recently in Nevada. I n the mission editor I set myself up near a bunch of enemy targets and put down a half dozen AI A-10Cs to do strafing runs thinking to myself "This is going to sound awesome!". Instead I could barely hear anything other than myself idling.

The Thrustmaster T-Flight X is an extremely low-end entry model, that might be just what you're looking for though. Expect to be a little disappointed with the precision and lack of buttons, but if you're just looking for a cheap stick go for it. The Logitech Extreme 3D pro is another good joystick for the price. Just keep in mind if you start having a lot of fun you might end up wanting an upgrade pretty quickly. Triple monitor is supported natively without using Nvidia Surround, I've got 3 monitors running at 1680x1050 and the game lets me pick 5040x1050 as a supported resolution. Only problem is the max FOV is too narrow at that resolution and a file has to be tweaked to fix that. I swear this is one of the best kept secrets of DCS, it has amazing keyboard controls for flight and the mouselook can emulate just about everything you can do with TrackIR. I used to fly the A-10C a lot with purely keyboard controls and it's no problem at all and not a bad way to get used to the avionics. Never tried flying a helicopter with the keyboard though, I'll leave that to braver folks!

I haven't noticed this yet myself despite spending a lot of time in the Ka-50 on the new map. Just checking, are you starting from the ramp or with everything already running? If starting from the ramp are you engaging the SAI power switch early enough for it to spin up to full speed? I don't know how long it's supposed to take but I've always assumed it's a few minutes, I usually engage the SAI switch prior to starting the API and then uncage the SAI after turning the AC generators on. Edit: I should have checked before I posted, now that I'm paying more attention to the SAI it's definitely accumulating errors way quicker than it used to.

Here's a good way to fix that using the in-game settings: http://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=1241264&postcount=7 I'm pleased that since I moved to a TM Warthog I've got a nice steady zoom slider without needing to resort to this. And of course I'm using TrackIR for leaning not zooming. As an aside, I think a lot of complaints about small HUD font size would go away if more people leaned backwhen they zoom in.

The thing about the camera jiggle is it has next-to-no input from the simulation. I haven't had it turned on in internal view for many versions, but last time I tried it the only thing that changes the vibration is how fast you're travelling. There's no extra vibration at all from firing the gun for one.

It sounds like you're flying missions in "game mode". Check in Options->Gameplay and make sure Game Flight Mode and Game Avionics Mode are unchecked. In controls you'll notice the top-left dropdown has controls for A-10C Game and A-10C separated, so if you're in game mode the controls you've changed won't be working. I'm pretty sure training missions are forced into sim mode, so that's probably why your controls work there.

I'm amazed that they're offering us old customers a retroactive discount at all. I don't even want one, I just want them to take more of my money by modelling more planes.

If you commit fratricide don't you just abandon the points for the mission where you had friendly fire? I've never noticed "losing" anything I did last week because of friendly fire I did today, then again I don't pay attention to the logbook very closely.

I've "run out" of licenses for Black Shark 1. I've still had to install it once in a while since my copy of BS 2 is an upgrade one. Since I've never had to install it twice in 30 days it's never been an issue though.

Not sure if it's bad for any of the systems but I'm guessing the main reason not to do it in real life is the amount of throttle you have to give the left engine to get the right engine spinning. It's probably not an enjoyable experience for anyone and anything behind you. I did a cross-bleed start on the ground just last night in my A-10C, not because I wanted to, but because I accidentally shutdown the APU too early :doh:

Last time I went through the training missions was a long time ago, but when I did I clearly remember that though it said to press space to continue, what it really meant is pull the trigger to continue. When I moved the cannon from space to enter, I had to press enter to continue.

It's the right crosshair according to the manual: "Yardstick. This numeric, when visible, displays the relative ground distance covered by the right half of the crosshair."