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.

I flew a mission last night and the exact same thing occurred as is being described in the OP’s comment. ATFLIR would not switch from Wide to Medium (and certainly not down to Narrow) with the use of the computer mouse pushing the top left button on the display as typically used. The top center button changed the TV mode to IR and back just fine, and the TDC moved the targeting retinal around just fine, but no zoom aside of extreme wide angle. I dropped all of the JDAMs as best as possible out of the Wide Angle view and returned to the carrier and called it an evening, was hopeful that it was just going to be a weird single occurrence anomaly. Like perhaps the game just didn’t open correctly and a reboot would somehow correct. Razor, I absolutely do have the Foid/Raid button bound, but was not pressing it. And the one thing that I had done earlier prior to loading the mission was remapped my control button for the Radar Elevation, however was not attempting to utilize that in any way either. The ATFLIR screen was definitely the sensor of interest, it’s what I needed to designate targets out of TOO mode. Next time I will try using the radar elevation switch and/or the Foid/Raid button; hopeful of success. It is sad to hear that my occurrence was not just a coincidence. I’ve experienced several of the same issues others have had over the past week and a half; my control bindings all disappeared, fusing errors on bombs where several randomly become duds/turn into a 500# paperweight, weapons X-out on the store’s page, etc. ALL since the recent update; DCS brings out a new module (the Phantom) and somehow the coding for the Hornet gets buggy?

I think it fair to say, you really should not take anyone's word for it off an internet forum if it is truly important to you. Do some research to satisfy yourself. I would clip Page 34 & 35 of the Super Carrier Operations Manual and paste it here but this gaming computer is giving me issues??!. The Operations Manual is a free download should you like to view it. These two pages discuss the LSO and radio calls to the pilot when inside 3/4 mile. "Your High", "Your Low, POWER"; these radio calls to the pilot are both in reference to a 3.5* glideslope which coincides with the pictural graphic on the page. Further, with regards to the ACLS and having the computer systems of the jet land itself, here is a YouTube video that DCS put out. If you do not want to watch the whole thing, a quick advance to 19:00 will take you to the point where the ACLS system fly's the glideslope right down to the carrier deck; it appears to be almost perfectly a 3.5* angle of decent on the pitch ladder upon the HUD.

In DCS, the landing gear in the F/A-18C is now much more fragile than what it was just a few months ago. Previously, you could slam down onto the deck and into the arrester wires! The worst-case scenario would be that the jet would bounce, your hook would go right over the wires, and you would Bolter. I fly with a few guys, and this was obviously their technique; come in high and just chop the power. Now, with recent updates to the game, they would bust the gear and/or bust the gear as well as bolter. The flip side to that type of high vertical approach would be to attempt the trap utilizing a very shallow rate of decent. What happens with this technique is that the jet hits the burble and then float over the wires for the Bolter. I've yet to break any gear but have floated across the wires on an occasion, or three! Ideally, the Hornet wants to land at a 3 1/2 degree angle of decent. Give it a try. See if that is not the sweet spot that pushes the jet right down through that burble such that it has negligible effect on your landing.

Hey there guys, So inside of the Axis Command, the numbers at the bottom originally start off as In 0 & Out 0 Making sure that the Axis Tune is for the left wheel break, when I push on the left toe break and hold it down: The Red Dot slides down and right on the axis line, and the numerical values change to In 62 & Out -62, Release the left toe break and it springs back: The Red Dot more or less springs back to center on the axis line, and the numerical values change to In 51 & Out -52 Switching cells to the right wheel break, the bottom numbers originally start off as In 0 & Out 0 Push on the right toe break and hold it down: The Red Dot slides down and right on the axis line, and the numerical values change to In 59 & Out -60, Release the right toe break and it springs back: The Red Dot more or less springs back to center on the axis line, and the numerical values change to In 48 & Out -49 And there are no other key presses bound to those two control settings.

Thank you for your help, I sincerely do! So inside the DCS Game, under the Options commands? - As an Axis Command, under the column for “Flight Control Rudder”, alphabetically down towards the bottom is “Wheel Break”, and there is “Wheel Break Left” as well as “Wheel Break Right”. - “Wheel Break” is currently unassigned, the cell is empty. - those two cells left and right are currently assigned as Joy X for left and Joy Y for the right break. - within the Axis Tune Panel for each I have “Slider” checked as well as “Invert” checked. Try to move forward and unfortunately the breaks are constantly on. -within the Axis Tune Panel with “Slider” checked and “Invert” unchecked. Try to move forward and unfortunately the breaks are still constantly on. Ugh! Just not figuring it out!

Does anyone know how to use this app? In DCS, the breaks are always applied; it basically requires that I push into afterburner to taxi around and after landing on the carrier and stretching out the arresting wire, it will not pull the Hornet backwards to release the hook. I own the RX Viper version 2 (I believe) the rudder pedals are vintage July 2020. Downloaded the calibration software from the website for V2 version but not sure what the heck is the proper way to utilize it.

Based upon my test drive, the R/BL Mode seems to work just fine now.

Within todays DCS Updates, For the F/A-18C: Fixed: Cannot designate with the A/G radar Did this by chance repair the Harpoon issue with the SEA Mode on the A/G Radar?

Keep your eyes in the jet, on your roll indicator and your Velocity Vector until you are half way around the final Base Turn. No glancing back to the boat until 1/2 way around, then back to your instruments. You seek consistency in both your horizontal alignment with the boat, as well as your vertical alignment so that you can descend at the ideal glide slope to the wires. Practice, practice, practice! I sent you a PM with some drills that may help.

I upgraded to an extended length Foxx Mount: https://foxxmount.com/collections/frontpage/products/desk-mount-beam-assembly which is basically a Monstertech and I also went after market and purchased an extension to get the handle back up to where my forearm rests on my thigh along with stiffer springs. I like it!