Smokin Hole

I recently put together an Align TRex 250 RC helicopter. Assembling one of these things is one of the most pleasant experiences a helicopter fan will ever have, btw. Anyway, not only does it build nicely but it flies very nicely. I just figured that small RC helicopters with a 4000 RPM head-speed would be immune to VRS. Wrong! It happens all the time. You can actually hear the sound of the rotors change as they take big bites out of the turbulent downwash. Fortunately they are so overpowered that no cyclic is needed, just a hefty amount of pitch. Its possible that DCS exagerates the violence of VRS but I am comfortable that they got it right with the ease at which one enters the state.

I make a markpoint when I position for takeoff. That way I know exactly where the end of the runway is. It beats searching for the ILS freq.

^^^^ I feel like I'm stalking you Taipan. First I reply to your thread at Rise of Flight and now find you here. Don't worry, I don't have your home address.....yet.

This may be old news but I have never noticed it. My wingy RTB'd damaged. When I parked next to him I noticed that all of his access panels were openned as if MX were inventorying the damage.

It looks better (cockpit shadows). It sounds better. It runs smoothly even on my low end 4850. Overall, vastly better. Oh, and campaigns have been corrected too.

The boomer does a great job. Let that jump be your guide as to where he wants you relative to the KC10. After that your job is to form with the tanker, not the boom. If you try to "correct" the boom's position relative to you, you will be adding you corrections to his and making a mess of things. The KC10, it's wings fuselage and engines, make sort of an X shape on the upper forward portion of your windscreen. Maintain that shape and only reference the boom for power adjustments.

3 yo Mac Pro dual zeon quad 2.8. ATI 4850. Runs very well on mostly medium. Looks great as well.

Anyway, the random failures were an example of Pure Simulation taken too far. They could also put an 18 hole golf course next to each airbase and require us to play a round between sorties. It would hardly make the game more enjoyable, immersive, etc.

Any computer that could run the Beta Nevada map smoothly, particularly over the city, could also be used to test nuclear weapons. I am glad ED pulled it and gave it another year.

Nevada has been in the works since when, someone help me out here, LOMAC? And I think, as someone else mentioned, its intended for Red Flag. If you think about it, desert training missions are less contrived than picking a real Hot Zone which anyway may become passe by the time the terrain comes out. Nevada will never be passe as an area to use for training.

Nevada was the one feature I cared absolutely nothing about. And I still don't think I will be able to run it based on my experience with the beta. But I fly into LAS fairly regularly and MAN! it looks EXACTLY like that! In fact I recognized that road in the desert in the first screenshot. My feelings for it as an anticipated feature haven't changed (unless we get to someday pretend it's Afghanistan) but it is another fine effort to please the community.

What I want to know is: Is there a way to turn the damn ID off on the ILS? Once I identify the station I don't want to listen to it anymore. No military guys I fly with do that so I can't imagine that they did when they flew single-seaters.

This is a real world concern. I was once based in the Pacific with a major airline. Some of our destinations were small islands with distant alternates. Many of us discussed (as an ABSOLUTE last resort) extending the RWY centerline which automatically provides via GPS a PDI glide path. The actual RNAV approaches to these runways were offset due to terrain so this would have been the only way to get close enough to the runway and be in a position to land. This is also a perfectly acceptable method to assist with a visual approach. Of course GG is right that you need the coordinates of the approach end of the runway. Nice job, OP!

The Ka50 is simpler and more enjoyable in my opinion. It has just a small stable of weapons and only 1 or 2 ways to deploy them. It's a wonderful single-player machine that allows the pilot to approach the target slowly and, if necessary, hide. The A10C requires more discipline and appropriate squad tactics to be effective. I like the A10. It provides the pilot an amazing amount of SA and firepower. And ED should get all sorts of kudos and hosannahs for reproducing it so nicely. But the plane lacks soul. I am very much looking forward to watching it from my Black Shark tucked away nicely on a ridge-line.

Also, regarding the Lauda crash, pilots in the simulator who were ready for it felt that the reverser deployment was very recoverable. But if you are late to idle the thrust on the deployed engine, it's not going to be pretty, and it wasn't. The Lauda 767 broke apart because of loss of control, stall, and resultant dive, not directly due to reverser deployment.

The older 737 (-100, -200) could technically open the clamshells in flight though doing so is insane. What if one or both fail to stow? The fan powered 737s need weight on wheels. The braking authority of reverse thrust is so minor that we no longer use it at my airline unless the runway is short or there is a turnoff that we really want to make.

^^^^^ Or use the "Prepare Flight" option from the Editor and work it all out from the Players' pits. But that's a hassle. I think it easier just to defined the coordinates of the AOAs in the briefing and the player builds the flightplan himself. The briefing can be recalled with the ESC key and building the FP only takes about two minutes. But it does require some dedication on the part of the FAC.

Just in case I always place a Mark near the target area to check the grid.

Wow. My congratulations to the posters on this thread. I browsed this expecting to see a push for one of the worst combat jets ever placed in the US arsenal: The F-14A. And to my pleasant surprise--not one post! Awsome. What a great community. As for me, anything will be fine. But given the utter devotion by ED to modeling only what they know I just don't see how it could be anything other than the F15C or F16. Personally I am interested in neither but if it brings more people to the genre then I enthusiastically support whatever they do.

No. Just ensure you have "DTS" stated on your HUD and you will never see this message when airborn. Also, be very careful when using the UFC page keys. It is extremely easy to leave the DTS altitude database.

^^^^ Thanks Tom! +1. Also. If you do get a CADC failure you can get speed back on the HUD by switching back to the IFCCC test menu and selecting GS for airspeed options. It's groundspeed but better than "0".

But this can be taken to far. In the real world you'd taxi back to the hardstand and probably scrub the mission and go play golf. Perhaps when the plane breaks we should just play Tiger Woods Golf over a beer for added immersion. Sorry I don't want to be crude but I think only a true git would fail to understand why this is nonsense. If players want to deal with random failures then let them check the boxes to experience them. Otherwise, ESPECIALLY IN MULTIPLAYER, leave random failures out. Because as this thread makes clear, the things that are failing are not necessarily items which fail IRL and in any case the rate of failure far exceeds reality. In my job things break regulary. I write them up and the flight gets delayed. Is it fun? No. That's why I get paid for the experience. The great thing about an Air Combat Simulator as opposed to Air Combat is that I don't have to worry about the drudgery of being an A-10 pilot. And I don't have to worry about dying. And I don't have to worry about hitting innocents. And I don't have to worry about cluster-bombing good guys. And I don't have to worry about all the squadron admin stuff that takes up much of the time in a combat pilot's life. So when you try to separate the DCS player's experience from that of lesser mortals playing HAWX, you should probably consider that when seen from the high vantage point that is real life, both are just games. The question from the comparison then becomes: Was the experience exciting and/or educational? Or was it just a time-wasting PITA?

It's a game. Can you imagine playing CoD and suddenly your character gets a bad headache or chest pains. ...Or your he starts thinking about his ex-girlfriend and gets too depressed to complete the mission. People fly DCS to be entertained. Having the left MCD die on taxi-out with no way to swap the TADS to the right MCD after a 10 minute start and knowing that you just lost 12 minutes of your precious hour allocated to some online fun frankly sucks. Keep it real by not being so hell-bent on keeping it real. Because these failures are not reality. If ED needs the money I'll gladly pay the extra $10 for a 100% reliable A-10.

OK let's talk ADC: This component is so vital to safe operation that you cannot compare it to other, far more failure-prone, "avionics". It has the added benefit of being simple which further explains why 99% of us who fly professionally, either in the military, civilian, or mixed worlds will NEVER see this failure. The closest thing you might encounter is an "Airspeed Unreliable" warning (or something similar), which would indicate a less than nominal operation of the air data system but not a complete failure. There are at least two pitot systems, at least two static systems, temperature probes, computers, etc which all combine to make this thing about as fail-safe as possible. And when it does fail, a la Air France, it is as I keep repeating extremely rare and usually the result of extreme circumstances not contemplated by the designer.

Crap! Didn't even think of that. Plus one!