DarkFire

There are 2 ways to do what you want. 1) If you start the mission on the ground with a cold / dark aircraft, once you've turned on the power press \-->F8-->F1 to get the ground crew to rearm / refuel your aircraft. You can right-click on each individual pilon to ask for whatever weapons you want, subject to any mission restrictions. 2) if you can open the mission in the mission editor, find your flight, left click on it and on the right hand side of the screen you should see options for adding / altering waypoints. To the right of the waypoint planning tab is a loadout tab where you can again adjust your loadout. With regards to loadouts, weapon restrictions by aircraft types have become a lot more realistic since the days of Lock On. So, no more MiGs or Sukhois with guided air to ground missiles. As far as I'm aware you should still be able to carry 4 x AIM-9's on the A-10A. Hope this helps.

I very much like the idea of having a link to the relevant manual from within the game. Great idea!

You may get better results by editing the .miz file directly using something like text pad or notepad++ rather than using the mission editor in game. Editing the file directly it's possible to program weather pattern much larger than the actual game map, which is entirely realistic. I've never done this myself but it's described in this thread: https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=178451

Great work, thanks very much :thumbup:

This is pretty much what I'd expect, though possibly with some sort of indirect neural interface rather than holographic projection. Something that I hope we'll see in the next 10-20 years is increased computing power to the point where a real combined arms sim is possible - think ARMA + DCS + Steel Beasts + Command Air Sea Ops, on a genuinely global scale. That would be my dream game. I can see DCS becoming a sort of early version of this when enhancements to Combined Arms arrive.

Open beta. There have been very few occasions on which a new patch has broken something catastrophically. Additionally all my favourite MP servers operate on the beta channel so there's very little reason for me to stick with the stable version.

The map is excellent in my personal opinion. Performance is impressive given the level of detail in large cities, and in particular given the map is so newly released. Is it worth $50? Worth can only be a subjective decision. For me it's absolutely been worth it. I've had great fun just flying around on sight seeing tours, never mind bombing stuff & shooting stuff down. I can imagine piles of different operations that can be concocted in this area: everything from COIN, large scale fleet engagements to huge international conflicts so quite apart from MP servers I expect it to be one of the most popular maps for single player missions well in to the future. I think ED did an excellent job with the Persian Gulf :thumbup:

The ACS in the DCS Su-27 has a combined AOA & G limiter which will prevent the pilot from over stressing the airframe. Maximum G is a function of weight and mach number (see the attached diagram). The AOA/G limiter works on all 3 control channels (pitch, roll & yaw) but can be temporarily deactivated by holding down the Y key, or whatever you have it bound to. In addition to the stated maximum G values the airframe has a built-in safety margin of approximately 1.4, so for example if your aircraft has a calculated maximum G of 8 and you disable the AOA/G limiter, the airframe will not suffer destruction until a G value of around 11.2. It's also the case that the AOA/G limiter is not instantaneous, so simply 'banking & yanking' with instant maximum stick deflection with the limiter disengaged is a great way to break your wings off. If you're seeing lots of people breaking their wings in WVR fights, this is why it's happening. The limiter will save you at any weight at any airspeed if it's allowed to do its work. It takes a very experienced pilot to know where the G limits are for any given configuration & mach number, and avoid snapping off the wings with the limiter disengaged. Disabling the AOA/G limiter should not be confused with disconnecting the entire ACS system and flying in 'direct' mode, where deflection of the control surfaces is directly proportional to stick deflection. You can disable the ACS by hitting the S key. Doing this at any speed above ~400 Km/h is not recommended because the aircraft has a tendency to immediately pitch down strongly, and the faster the airspeed the stronger the pitch down tendency. It's perfectly possible to disable the ACS and instantly kill your pilot in this way via excessive negative G. Hope this helps.

That was some pretty impressive emergency decision making, and illustrates the need for instant & perfect memorisation of emergency checklists as the ex-AF chap mentions.

OK, here's the list of Caucasus airfields: WITH RUSSIAN ILS: Krymsk: 04 & 22. Krasnodar Center: 09 only. Maykop: 04 only. Mozdok: 08 & 26. No other runways have Russian ILS. Ironhand - yes, the ILS beacon frequencies are shown in blue on the map.

Excellent tutorials :thumbup: One comment I would make is that unlike most western aircraft each engine on the Su-27 has its own turbine starter, so simultaneous engine starts are possible. I don't know if this is normal procedure with the actual Su-27 as I presume that the engines each control separate generators and hydraulic systems, but as far as I'm aware starting both engines together is permissible. Great work though :thumbup:

Nothing at all wrong with that :thumbup: I always try to learn to master the intricacies of flying an airframe before I even consider learning to fight in it.

Your speed management was Good. Be careful not to get too fast in the diving turns. If the fight develops in to a descending 1 circle affair, or spiral, with you and the opponent equally matched, the winner will usually be the one who does the best transition to level flight at the bottom. Try to practice converting a descending scissors or descending spiral to a flat 1 or 2 circle fight. The more energy you can preserve, without going over your corner velocity, the more chance at success you'll have. The F-15's exhibited some very strange AI behaviour. This may have been a product of the fact that the AI knew it had no cannon ammunition loaded and therefore tried to simply avoid you rather than actively fight. I'd recommend trying the same mission, but give the F-15's full cannon ammo and set yourself to invulnerable. That way you'll be able to review where you potentially would have been shot down without having to restart the mission every time, and I think this would also produce more reliable AI combat behaviour.

Pretty much what happened. I ended up dropping at around M1.2 from 6,000m against the side of a hill that was at most 5 Km from the drop point. Might be an interesting exercise to calculate the maximum slant range permitted for a CCRP drop. I'll have a look at that at some point.

Could well be, thinking about it. When I tried to drop from 17,000 at M2.2 I had a slant range that was probably well in excess of 40 Km.

Having been inspired by watching the Reapers Squadron doing very high altitude LGB releases in one of their Youtube videos (great videos guys :thumbup: ), I decided to try the same thing in my Su-27. I decided I'd climb to 17,000m altitude and release 2 x FAB-500's at maximum speed (turns out to be M2.2 for a standard DCS day with this payload) to see how far away from the target I could drop. It appears that the CCRP bombing mode refuses to calculate a release point at anything over 10,000m altitude. This isn't mentioned on page 130 of the manual which describes CCRP bombing. I know this is ultimately a silly test but I was surprised by the altitude limit. Has anyone else experienced this? Edited to add: couldn't attach the track file as it's too large. Uploaded here: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AnlhZdVeOinTsj7B6aMQq-7uzo-N Su-27 Supersonic bomb test ACMI.zip

Zooming in a bit further, looks like what used to be Myshako airfield has been re-purposed in to a residential area. Looks like one of the old hangers is now a gym & football pitches with some of what used to be the NE end of the runway being taken up by a road and the other side of the runway being parking for high-rise blocks of flats (apartments for our US friends).

As a very general observation, performance in the Gulf map seems to compare favourably with the NTTR map and slightly better than Normandy. Personally I get maybe ~5% less FPS than in the Caucasus map.

I don't think the military sim market is all that saturated at the moment. Outside of DCS & BMS, which relies on the historical Falcon 4 engine, the only other serious flight sims are truly ancient games that have been kept alive by the modding community such as the improved version of DID's Total Air War. Such games have tiny communities still playing them and are commercially irrelevant. TAW was an awesome game in it's day, but that was nearly 20 years ago now. With the eventual incorporation of an F-16C Block 50 and at some point a dynamic campaign in to DCS, there will arguably be little reason for the continued existence of Falcon BMS. At that point DCS will likely be the only serious military flight sim. I think it would make perfect commercial sense and would appeal to a broad fan base if DCS had top-quality stand-alone modules for all the US teen series fighters, since they were and are so widely used throughout NATO (with the exception of the Tomcat). My fear is that as more advanced DCS modules are introduced of various NATO & western aircraft, the Russian aircraft will be left further & further behind in terms of everything except flight models. That would be unfortunate for a number of reasons, not least of which is that the Su-27 is where it all started circa 1995. Edited to add: Should have made it clear that I'm referring to jet sims. The prop / WW2 sim community are somewhat better serviced with titles such as IL2 and the modded versions of Cliffs of Dover.

True, but the last time I tried to use it the mod in question produced an incorrect mach readout on the airspeed indicator. IAS was shown correctly but mach number was drastically wrong.

The original Russian AF Su-30 did exist, but they were converted Su-27 trainers and only about 5 of them were ever made. So the Su-30 in DCS is a bit of an odd-ball relic. Not sure the VKS uses any of them any more anyway since they intend to convert entirely (AFAIK) to the Su-35 and Su-57 or whatever the T-50 is going to get as a service designation.

Ah yes, apologies I missed that. I had no idea the log book worked that way. That's really annoying. Theoretically then we need separate pilots for every country that has player-flyable aircraft. I'd much rather the log book recorded my achievements & statistics, as in me the human player, rather than having to have separate pilots for every nation I'm pretending to fly for in any given mission :glare: Edited to add: the current system would have been fine in the early days of DCS World where having a Russian pilot & a US pilot would cover you for probably 85% of all missions, but we passed that point a long time ago now. Time for the log book to be re-thought & improved I think.

Having thought about it some more, I think in the future FC should actually be fragmented: SU-27: I've said it before and I'll say it again here: I think there's a good argument to be made for bumping the current Su-27S to an Su-27SM. This would introduce a modest ARM, PGM and multi-role capability beyond what we currently have without having to guestimate any advanced and secret systems such as a BARS radar or the like. Of course this assumes that a DCS-level module is not a possibility in the short term. MiG-29: Similarly I think there's an argument to be made for bumping the MiG-29S to the MiG-29SM for the same reasons. Obviously the MiG-29 variants should all receive PFM's which we know they will. Su-25: I feel the Su-25T offers a good mix of strike & attack capabilities and is well modelled for an FC3 level aircraft so I see no need to change it any further. The baseline Su-25 offers a good modelling of that aircraft so I see no need to take it any further, assuming that a DCS level module is not a possibility. F-15C: On the flip side of the coin I see no reason why the current version of the F-15C shouldn't eventually become a DCS module. I wouldn't expect a Golden Eagle or F-15S any time soon but a mid-1990's F-15C should be a DCS module. With the forthcoming F-14 and eventually the F-16C Block 50 we would then have the entire teen series of US fighters modelled to DCS standards which would obviously be immensely popular with the customer base. A-10: Since we already have an incredibly detailed A-10C I see no reason for taking the A-10A any further than it's currently modelled, with the exception of a PFM if it doesn't already have one. Obviously the down side of implementing the above would be that with the exception of the A-10A, the only remaining FC-level aircraft in DCS World would be the Soviet / Russian ones. I can't imagine that going down this road would be popular with those who view FC aircraft as easy mode air quake (I disagree entirely with that viewpoint but that's a different discussion for another time) but if it's the only way that we'll see any red aircraft that have capability parity with the modelled NATO types then so be it, I think it would be a useful and popular thing to do. My dream option would be for every FC3 aircraft (with the possible exception of the A-10A) to become a DCS module, but in the case of red air that's simply not a realistic prospect at the moment.

I imagine it will be dependant on configuration, i.e. max weight & drag, but for a nearly clean F-16 without a heavy fuel load there should be little that could match it in WVR. The MiG-29... maybe? Other aircraft such as the MiG-29, Su-27 and F/A-18C should come close, but I would expect the F-16C to be the king of WVR combat.

I'm very much looking forwards to the Yak-52. A real seat-of-the-pants, stick & rudder prop plane will be great fun to fly around and practice aerobatics. I suspect that the enormous thrust available to things like the F-15, FA-18 and Su-27 may be masking some fundamental lazyness on my part so it'll be very interesting to see how things go.