DarkFire

Dead zone should correct the slight left roll. I'd also definitely recommend using a curvature of between 15 & 25 units in both pitch and roll. This will allow you to make precise, small changes but will still allow for drastic inputs when you need them. It's important to remember that the Su-27 doesn't have a traditional autopilot rather an "automatic control system" that works via trim inputs. The ACS on the Su-27 does not have any control over the throttle input, so if you use ACS functions such as the 'panic button' or route following mode, it's important to remember that you as the pilot must still manually control the throttle to maintain the desired airspeed. Pages 44-46 and 110-117 of the Su-27 flight manual are well worth reading.

Very happy to have helped, and the results are most impressive. Great campaigns!

If I remember correctly the R-77 will activate its seeker head when it thinks it's 15Km from the target, with guidance to that point being provided by the launch aircraft. Back in the day (Flanker 2.0?) I vaguely remember that the Su-27 could carry the R-77 and I don't think it had a countdown timer like the AIM-120 does in the F-15. I think I remember it being up to the pilot to guess when the missile had gone active.

Try running start --> Eagle Dynamics --> Repair DCS World That should sort out any corrupted files that might be causing a problem. I think the keyboard bindings for the Su-27 are stored in this file: C:\...\DCS World OpenBeta\Mods\aircraft\Flaming Cliffs\Input\su-27\keyboard\default.lua I'd save a copy of it before deleting it though because I'm not sure if the game will re-create a default file when you re-start DCS world after deleting it.

AFAIK if a pylon doesn't have anything attached to it, it generates zero drag. To answer the OP's question: the F-pole is another often overlooked but potentially successful tactic. It is however very dangerous if it doesn't work, though the ability of the F-15 to convert altitude in to speed mitigates this a bit.

Could you post a track file showing the problem? That might help us figure out what's going wrong. When you try engaging the autopilot, is there a red warning light illuminated under the HUD?

Oops! That'll teach me to read the dates on original posts :music_whistling:

Not yet. I think the Su-33 is slated to get the professional flight model first, followed by the MiG-29.

:shocking: Wow, I'd never seen that graph before. I'm surprised they didn't use F-15's as chase planes for the later Apollo missions... Unless they did?

When you're scanning with your radar, altitude hold mode is your friend :) So much so that it's worth binding the key, and the "autopilot off" key, to HOTAS buttons.

The various autopilot mode lights are forward of where your throttle appears. When you turn on your autopilot are any of them illuminated?

Did you have wingmen? The 1, 2 and 4 symbols can represent which of your wingmen are providing datalink information for those specific targets.

Having watched the video, what happened was actually completely believable. It appears that the Eagle driver realised the situation, hit zone 5 and descended to gain air speed before turning away and zoom climbing. For some reason when I read the original post I envisages some sort of Saturn-V level of climb-to-orbit from a low and slow starting condition. Duh, my bad. :doh: I also later remembered "test" flying the ED F-15C myself a few times and being incredibly impressed with both the acceleration and climb performance. I'm actually amazed that the Eagle driver didn't push and force the engagement as the point of closest approach was just under 35Km at only about 3,000m altitude difference. Plus ~8,000m isn't a particularly good altitude for conducting BFM in a Flanker. Maybe they were out of AIM-120's or something. I guess without full knowledge of the tactical situation we'll never know. True. Being in a friendly SAM WEZ and / or having AWACS or EWR support makes a big difference for the Flanker driver. In fact I'd go so far as to say that having a fully populated HDD in the Su-27 gives you equal SA to the F-15.

The engines on the Su-27 each have 12,500Kg of thrust (at max afterburner, under optimum conditions) so your T:W ratio will only be above 1:1 if your all-up weight is at or below 25,000Kg. That essentially means less than 50% fuel with ~4 missiles. The F-15C will accelerate and climb faster than the Su-27, but climbing that high while accelerating is a bit suspect. Are you sure he didn't alt-tab? Alt-tabbing used to (not sure if it still does) produce a massive lag spike which causes aircraft to nearly instantly warp miles upwards. Your maximum speed at 7,000m should be in the region of 2,230 Km/h TAS, which in a standard DCS day will be about 1,530 Km/h IAS, which roughly equates to Mach 1.99. It's worth noting that at 95% RPM in a clean configuration the Su-27 will actually supercruise at that altitude. If you're driving a Flanker, you want to entice the Eagle driver in to a turning fight at under 6,000m altitude. Your instantaneous and sustained turn rates will be better as will your nose authority. This combined with your R-73 and HMS gives a powerful advantage. Most disciplined F-15 drivers will however do everything they can to avoid this situation and will try to stick to a high-speed BVR engagement in which their better situational awareness and massively superior BVR missile gives them the advantage. The key in the Flanker is surviving to the merge. Learn how to gauge distance using your SPO-15 RWR. Learn to love the EOS and use the radar sparingly. The Su-27 can be successful at BVR but it really helps if you have a numerical advantage against an enemy and can co-ordinate team work against them.

I wonder if theoretically it would be possible to change each 30mm cannon round to some sort of mortar smoke shell instead? I'd hate to see what that would do to game performance though...

Interesting, I haven't tried it yet with a full A-A war load. Stand by... OK, here we go. I had to adjust my climb profile slightly to account for the extra ~2,500Kg of weapons. Essentially I had to lower my vertical velocity by 5-10 m/s per climb 'stage' but the end effect was largely the same. I ended up at M2.38 at just over 12,000m altitude. Fuel usage was significantly higher, to the point that this time I failed to make it to Soganlug and had to land at Krymsk instead. Acceleration to the max speed was also significantly lower. :ermm: :disgust: Edited to add: Was I drunk when I wrote that last sentence??? I meant that acceleration was lower. Track and ACMI attached.

That would make sense. The translated Su-27 manual that's floating around the internet states something like 'speed above 2.0M - not more than 5 minutes' for exactly the reason you mentioned. Fair enough that it can aerodynamically go faster than that, I suppose the often quoted maximum speed figure of 2.35M may be the 'official safe figure' like the F-15C having a quoted maximum speed of 2.5M whereas it's actually been flown to 2.7M. Thanks for the insight :)

Yep, definitely. It'd be nice if ED could add some explanation text to the info bar at the bottom of the screen in external views to make it obvious that the readings are GS and not IAS or TAS and ASL rather than AGL etc.

The HDD on the Su-27 shows TAS, which will approach that number. I forget now what it shows at ~M2.6 but IIRC it's above 2,000 Km/h. Edited to add: I was wrong. Max speed is attained at around 12,000m altitude, but in reality the difference in Vmax over the range 11,000 - 14,000m altitude is so little that it makes no practical difference. Attached is an example track file and ACMI recording. Tacview reports maximum speed at 13,500m altitude (as per the HUD, actual altitude was around 13,950m) was 2,759 Km/h which equated to Mach 2.60. I believe that the TAS shown on the HDD was 2,750 Km/h. For the test I took off from Krymsk and landed at Soganlug 28 minutes later, with a distance flown of ~690Km. For a speed v altitude profile for the Su-27, see this thread: http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=165967

Except the Su-27 doesn't carry tanks :) There are 2 ways to do it: 1) Use the mission editor to place yourself at high altitude and high speed. Jump in to the cockpit, trim, stabilise the aircraft, engage altitude hold mode on the ACS and hit the burners. Eventually you'll reach maximum speed. 2) From the runway. Take off using dry thrust. After takeoff level off at low level until your speed is between M0.85 and M0.9. Pull up to somewhere between 12 and 15 degrees pitch and climb with vertical velocity between 50 and 75 m/s until you reach about 6,000m altitude. At that point bring your vertical velocity down to 35-40 m/s until you reach ~8,000m altitude. At this point bring your vertical velocity down to between 20 - 25 m/s until you reach 10,000m altitude. At this point you should have roughly 8,200Kg of fuel remaining. Level off at 10K and engage the afterburner until you're at ~M1.2. Climb to between 13,000 - 14,000m ensuring that your IAS never falls below 560 Km/h, which is shouldn't do in maximum AB. Finally, level off at 13,500m, hit altitude hold and wait. For a 'standard' DCS day with a completely clean configuration the Su-27 will eventually reach M2.55 - M2.60 which is significantly faster than it should go, but it is fun being that fast :) Note that you'll only hit absolute Vmax between 13,000 - 13,500m altitude during a standard DCS day.

This is probably due to a combination of things: 1. All the missiles in DCS, i.e. SAMs, AGMs and AAMs, use some form of proportional navigation to reach their targets. With the exception of cruise missiles like the Kh-65 they have no idea where the ground is. 2. Some aircraft use missile ejector racks that forcibly push a launching missile down and away from the parent aircraft. This is done to ensure clean separation between the missile and aircraft and usually happens before the missile motor ignites. The end effect of this is that some missiles will drop away before ignition rather than sliding forwards off the launch rail. 3. All the SARH missiles in the game (AIM-7, the Magic 550 and the R-27 series) currently suffer from the same problem: the effect of chaff on the missiles is currently modelled as being simply percentage based so dump enough chaff and the missile will be decoyed. The susceptibility of SARH missiles to chaff is too high at the moment, and demonstrably so. If you do a search for R-27ER and chaff somewhere there's a huge thread where this was discussed in great detail. All that being said, ED apparently have someone reviewing and working on guidance for all missile types at the moment so I'm sure there will be improvements in the not too distant future.

Very interesting, thanks.

Nice, always useful to see training material from various air forces.

Sounds awesome! I wonder if it's on YouTube somewhere...

Wow, that must have been impressive! Is he still the flagship of the black sea fleet?