Skeet

Mac, I don’t know what you Canadians are going to do with all of that Monopoly money after we make you our 51st State. Loonies and Toonies; who would have ever thought that stuff would actually pass as real currency! You still have the same phone number? I will give you a text tomorrow so we can make arrangements.

Perhaps you can teach me how to fly? -Skeet

No, there is not a published document like that discusses what the fuses do, the practical use for them, which munitions might be accepting of them, and which would not, etc. At least to my knowledge there is not (hasn't been). There is a User's Manual, however it has not been updated to include that information, unless it is out just recently, and I have not downloaded.

The OP is 73 years old. The game is difficult enough just to setup without having to deal with VR.

How is Retribution for quirky issues with DCS updates? For instance, are there occasions when you attempt to fly the mission, and your aircraft just never spawns into the game; you can watch all of the A.I. flights on F-10 view and F-2 views, but the player jet just never spawns?

I am looking for help on Liberation and can't obtain access to their Discord to ask. They text me a code on my cell, I immediately type in the code and the Discord invite rejects it as "someone already is using that code... blah, blah, blah". So here is what is going on and my question: I created a Liberation Mission, set specific TOT times for the various sorties on the Blue side; example, AWAC to spawn asap which is 11:19, SEAD Flight specifically timed for at 11:23, DEAD timed for 11:28, etc. Saved it, all appears great, hit "Take Off', which successfully creates the mission and the "Cleared to Take Off" dialog, and the mission is in my DCS folder as it should. Here is the deal, when I actually get into DCS and attempt to fly it, the Red aircraft all spawns at the 11:00 o'clock timeframe as planned, however Blue is "wait to start'. I exit out of the mission and pull it up in Mission Editor: In the mission editor I confirm that the red is all perfect to go at their assigned 11:00 o'clock times, however the blue sorties for whatever reason are all created to spawn at the 02:00 o'clock timeframe; that is seventeen hours later! That is just a little bit long for me to "Wait To Start"! Any idea what is going on here? Hopefully there is a simple radio box that I need to check or something?

My opinion, get your credit card out, commit, and not look back! WinWing is good stuff, you will not be disappointed in that choice. You will want to figure out how you want your virtual cockpit (your desk) to be setup; where and how stuff will mount or if it is just going to sit there (can you reach it comfortably), how you want your chair so that you are comfortable in it for hours at a time, maybe rudder pedals, your head tracker, your headset (wired or wireless), etc., etc. You will find that the hardware is more expensive (and maybe harder to acquire, and as difficult to set up) as the dang game. It's much cheaper than a horse though, so you can feel good in that! Related to your PC, if you find that your box needs a little more, then you just go out and get a little more; RAM is relatively cheap, frankly even a new/larger hard drive is relatively cheap. I don't know how much storage you have available, but this software is huge, particularly once you start buying all of the terrains/maps that are available. If you are not confident enough to do it yourself or don't have an existing IT guy, just call and make an appointment at Best Buy/Geek Squad, take the machine down to them. They will sell you components and install them (probably even give you consulting advise). Once you are thousands of dollars into it, stuff is starting to deliver to your doorstep, excited as can be, at that point you are going to find that the game is very complex with thousands of options in setting it up and much of this will probably be foreign to you. You should count on the fact that initially you will have a few frustrations as you are working towards getting all of your new hardware components functioning with the game. When that happens, when you are frustrated, you take a break from it. Just take a break, step back and figure out which section of this website is the appropriate place to ask, and then post your questions / concerns / problems. You will have dozens of folks responding, and willing to help you off the cliff! Welcome to the deep end of the pool!

Yes, you bring up a very good point. When Mother is calling for a Case III, she will have already accounted for that nine degrees and provide the Final Bearing in her directions. New pilots should be cognizant that they should not subtract the deck angle as she has already done so in a Case III condition. That said, this is a computer simulator, she will only give you a Case III if it is night and/or rainy-fog. In the Original Post if the pilot is just practicing an ICLS (Case III) in what would elsewise be good weather, and daylight conditions, Mother is not going to know that you are practicing for the ICLS. Because it is daylight, she is going to give directions for a Case I approach. With that, she will be providing BRC and you will need to do some math.

I do just like that as well. @Hootman, one other system that is very useful is the alignment light at the stern of the carrier; Red, Amber, & Green. Prior to DCS updates you could see it from 25-30 miles out on a clear night; now it seems like it doesn’t become visible until I am inside of six miles, but still very useful. Red, Amber, and Green- Left to Right in that order, if you see the light as Red you are left. If you see it as Green then you are right. Amber you are right down the middle! If they are flashing Red or Flashing Green it is telling you, “You’re Way Off, Get Over!” It is a more precise indication than the vertical ILS line on the HUD, so in addition to flying the ILS needle (bullseye I guess according to the last post), watch for that light. Because the ship is moving left to right just a little, I like to approach right on the green to amber area; literally if it just changes from amber to green, then back to amber, then to green - that’s going to align me over there on that superstructure side and an easier trap. Or at least easier for me.

FWIW, for a Case III Approach, what you are referring to as ICLS Approach, I personally set my courseline bearing to the “Final Bearing” as opposed to the “Base Recovery Course”. They are going to be different by nine degrees; the BRC is the exact direction that the Carrier is traveling, whereas the FB accounts for the 9* angle that the deck is rotated counter-clockwise. So in answering the first question, it’s not a specific offset distance, it’s a specific angle; subtract nine degrees from the BRC. By flying the FB, you will need to be conscience of the fact that the ship will always be traveling from your left towards your right. It is slight, but it is moving that direction. From a distance it will be negligible, but as you get closer to the ship it becomes more pronounced. When you get within 3/4 mile, your alignment needs to be over towards the superstructure, as the ship will continue to move to starboard and you will want to account for that drift.

Yup, she is pretty good at that; obviously done it about a million times!

My Radar Elevation switch is a spring loaded wheel. To get it to work properly, within the Control Settings, “Add” which pulls up the dialogue box, then I had to roll the wheel AND hold it (taking my finger off it, physically the spring will snap it back to center, so I had to hold it such that it would not) and while holding it I used the mouse to Click “Save” or “Accept” or whatever the heck it is. Rinse and repeat for Down Elevation and Up Elevation. For practical purposes, when it is set up wrong that way, every second you have the jet engines running, that switch is telling the computer “lower the radar”, “lower the radar”, “lower the radar”, “lower the radar”, “lower the radar”… so you hit the button on the FLIR Screen and it complies for just a fraction of a second, and then your Radar Elevation switch changes it right back!

As noted above in my comment, in my situation it absolutely was the Radar Elevation switch that was causing the issue. It was not only an issue with the Tpod, but was not functioning correctly for A2A radar. For testing purposes, as the previous post suggests, find the Radar Elevation in the controls settings, look at how you have up and down bound, make note of this, and then delete them. Now go try a training mission to determine if that fixes the Tpod. Now you are going to have to go back and fix the Radar Elevator switch.

My issue was in fact the way that I had the Radar Elevation bound to my controls. I have a WinWing Throttle and on the front of the handle under my middle finger is a wheel used for this purpose. This wheel is spring loaded so that after rolling it, by simply letting go it will physically snap back to the center position. Long in the short of it, had I not had to rebind half of my controls for no Fnkn reason, but now I am just complaining. It took me 3 or 4 attempts before I was able to get that wheel to act as I want; roll forward and it lowers the elevation of the radar and it stays put, roll backwards and raises and then stays put ... The FOID/RAID button works as indicated it should, and then this Radar Elevation works as it should. Thank you all that helped!

@mla306 If I am understanding correctly, he is saying that another way to switch the Field of Views from Wide, to Medium, to Narrow is to press your FOID/RAID button (assuming that you have that assigned to a button). By default, I believe this is the 'I' key on the computer keyboard. In addition to possibly using your mouse, hovering over and left clicking on the top left button of the display the way you and I had previously attempted, this FOID/RAID button hopefully would work, because it is not working the way we would expect it to. Furthermore, in lieu of using the mouse to click the zoom levels (in or out) of the left side of the display, the Radar Elevation switch (again, assuming that it is bound to one of your controls) could be used. With the ATFLIR, the wide-angle field of view does not have any zoom opportunities at all, so being stuck in that wide setting certainly makes it hard to accurately target your munitions drop. If you can get it to Medium or Narrow, then you would potentially have zoom-in opportunities via the Radar Elevation switch. I am at work, so no way to test drive it to confirm for another 6-hrs or so.