ThePops

I never stated that "old is bad", nor that "new is good". As a matter of fact, that seems to be your view all things considered. What I said was that this is the end of an era with new and surprising assets from Currenthill every other month, and lots of them. It was a very cool thing, sort of a game within the game, like a mini Christmas every now and then Now, these assets becoming a native part of DCS is of course a positive direction. Nevertheless, there are other aspects here. We have gained some and lost some, even though the gain is larger than the loss.

My point was that although this is good for ED and players right now, this is also an end to Currenthill as we know it. In his FAQ he writes that there will be no more new assets. Not enough time due to all the additional work with the substantially more complex "ED-certified assets". This is the end, not the beginning. Some might say it is a good end, and I agree. It's still the end though. I mean, new assets every couple of months from CH was a big thing. Something to look forward to, there were always lots of surprises. DCS has become a better game due to this, but it's not without a cost, a rather substantial cost. No more new stuff will come unless a new "Currenthill" emerges from somewhere

There are more sides to this. CH assets was a thing all by itself. Lots of cool stuff with regular updates adding lots of new cool stuff. This is now gone, dead, replaced with a more stringent and bureaucratic update path. The assets have also become more complex, LOD, consistent damage model etc to adhere to ED standard. The good: Higher quality assets, better graphic performance More consistent assets and therefore more usable in general Available for everyone from the start. The bad: No more "old school" Currenthill assets, other than the leftovers Much slower updates Any new assets are likely to be decided by ED, no more "odd and cool" stuff In essence it's a good thing right now. DCS will natively come with lots of cool stuff that wasn't there before, but it still was available for everyone! At the same time it's the death of CH assets for all foreseeable future. New stuff, not already in the current CH asset packs, will grind to a halt more or less. Good for ED right now, much bleaker for the community looking a few years ahead.

I'm sure the footprints will increase for all of them over time. My problem now is I have 3 largely undone maps (Kola, Afghanistan and Iraq), and no space left for yet another largely undone map (Germany) A typical first world problem, but still. It will be a long time before Germany gets purchased and installed. I don't know if it's just me, but I really don't care all that much for graphics details. They all look perfectly fine by me. What I care more about is the maps being populated by airfields. I would rather the devs used their time making those maps functional first, and then gradually increase graphics detail and other make up. Playability over looks should be a priority IMO.

It's mostly 2D flat desert, rock and sand. Not exactly wowwww IMO

There's 737DIYsim https://www.737diysim.com/product-page/737-fmc-v4 737 of course, but he makes all kinds of stuff. He could perhaps make a A-10 if the interest is large enough, or the price is high enough I do think that the interest in an A-10 CDU/FMC vs B737 and A-32X is about a million to one or something.

Nice videos Except fisheye lenses

I didn't say it was, and it's a very odd presumption anyway. DOSAAF was the Soviet counterpart if you like, of private GA in the west. It was however focused on aerosport in a typical Soviet style manner. That is gliding and aerobatics. Obviously training is a large part of such an organization, but the point remains. There's no good reason to have the aerobatic performance of the Yak-52 as an ab initio trainer. The only reason for this performance is to: Train people in aerobatics, all the way to advanced class, and Use the aircraft in competition aerobatics. What I said was that DOSAAF obviously had a word or two in the design process/design parameters of the Yak-52. Today, most of the Yak-52s are on private hands. This is not due to the virtues of the Yak-52 as a trainer, but due to: The looks The sound The performance as an aerobatic aircraft In the west it's used pretty much in the same way that it was used in DOSAAF, a sport aerobatic aircraft (which also includes lots of training, it's a two seat aircraft after all). It's also an excellent military trainer of course, but in such use, only a fraction of the aerobatic performance is needed, if any. Candidates only needs to learn the basic of flying as well as checking their aptitudes of flying, then go straight to jet trainers. For civilian ab initio to commercial pilot training, none of the aerobatic performance is needed. The Yak-52 is a cool aircraft in its own right, and that's the main purpose people get it also in DCS. It certainly could be used as a trainer, but why? In DCS you can push ESC and start over using any aircraft. Then again, it's a sim, a game. If you want to use the Yak-52 to become proficient in most things related to "seat of the pants" flying, like aerobatics, nothing is stopping you. I'm sure the skills will be very transferable to an F-16 for instance. This doesn't mean you cannot do the same thing, and much more, starting with the F-16. I mean, cool down, relax, have fun The Yak-52 is as cool as it gets, and it's fun to fly, which is all that matters.

As vise men have said. To pick a course to your destination, you first have to know where you are This also means that if you know where you are at any given time (as you do with TACAN), then the accuracy of your initial course isn't all that important. You check and adjust as you go. The main issue isn't accuracy but work load. With the offset function and autopilot of the F1, the work load is almost removed entirely. With GNSS/INS (and autopilot) in more modern fighters it's gone completely. In VFR conditions, this isn't a such a big issue when the pilot has studied the map, but in IMC it's a completely different ball game. Today, we have to wonder how they managed without modern navigation technology. The point is, many didn't. Accidents happened all the time. Pilot errors? sure, but the main issue was saturation of work load. It's super cool that in DCS we can simulate this That figure 12-13 and the explanations really should be included in every module manual for an aircraft with TACAN.

Interesting, but that's good old VFR with a little help from Jester in the back with his INS

It's also a matter of what a "fix" really is. If it's given as lat-long coordinates as in the ME, then good luck translating that to bearing and distance vs a TACAN station without a map or some "black box magic" In modern jets lat/long coordinates makes sense, because this is what modern not ancient avionics understand. Nevertheless lat/long is simply too abstract, cryptic and error prone also for everyday civilian use. IFR waypoints are used instead. Even for VFR (which is completely "random" flying), the best way to report your position to ATC when asked, is distance and bearing (in S, SW, W etc) relative a IFR waypoint.

Indeed, TACAN is about intercepting radials and following those radials. There are tons of Youtube videos about all of this. It's mostly VOR/DME I would think (MSFS and X-Plane and real flying), but VOR/DME is functionally identical to a TACAN. A TACAN is also a "VOR"/DME, only the VOR is a bit more accurate, but the DME part is the exact same thing. It doesn't really matters what flight sim you use as long as the technology is represented correct. Different aircraft may have different ways of visualizing, but the principles are still the same. I haven't flown the F-4 much (yet), but it seems to be a good IFR platform. Another important point is that TACAN/VOR is no substitute for GPS and INS or even DME/DME. It's an archaic form of navigation used before GPS/INS. Today it's RNAV. RNAV is short for random navigation, meaning you can set waypoints at "random" and fly between them, preferably on autopilot. "Random" points is what comes out from the ME, and that is really only good for RNAV or VFR. You can in principle do the same with TACAN, but not without transforming points to radials and distances to TACAN stations. The Mirage F1 has a function where you can set a random point out from a TACAN station. You set the radial and distance from the station, and the needle points to that point instead of the TACAN station. With a switch you can switch between that virtual point and the station. You can do the same thing manually, but it requires substantially more brain cells, and preferably a paper map. TACAN will pinpoint your position. The problem boils down to the fact that this information has to be transferred to a map. Paper maps were used for this, an essential part. To do it "properly" you really need a stack of paper maps. A second screen with maps will also do of course. Lots of usable maps on the net. You have to plan differently using TACAN/VOR than what is possible or "default" with the ME. DCS isn't the best sim for this, but with some manual adaption and tweaks it works OK.

I agree with others about DCS and IFR. X-Plane is IMO the best choice of sim for (learning) IFR, hands down. Having said that, DCS isn't far behind, it's more that it's inconsistent and contains idiosyncrasies regarding this. You will use lots of time sorting out those things instead of learning IFR. Then, it's a fact that IFR and autopilot fits together like hand and glove. No one in their right mind would today fly "hard" IFR (in the soup) without an autopilot. Learning how to use the autopilot is essential. Nevertheless, the basic skill is hand flying without external references. This means zero external references, like in a thick cloud. The main instrument is the AI, Attitude Indicator (artificial horizon), with other instruments as secondary. Traditionally this is the "six pack". AI, ASI, alt, turn coordinator, VSI and heading indicator. Today it's typically a Garmin G1000 glass panel or similar. It contains all of that in the main screen, but with a different layout. The principles are the same though, AI is the principal instrument. Then it's just a matter of training until you can fly, turn, climb etc. at will using only those instruments. This can be done in almost all planes in DCS. Then you can start navigating, flying ILS's and so on. I don't know what the best plane for practicing is. In a sim you can just hit esc and start over. I like the Mirage F1 CE. It has it all regarding avionics and it has a good autopilot. But it's also fast of course, things happens fast. Perhaps a good practice is the F-5E shooting some TACAN approaches. TACAN is perhaps the most intuitive navigational instrument there is (same as VOR/DME), and you learn to use the HSI, setting vectors looking at distances, in combination with the AI. It's all hand flying, but it's also rather simple because there's only one instrument, TACAN/HSI. The F-5 is nice to fly as well. When you can fly the F-5 with TACAN, then everything else is simple. It's more a matter of learning the instruments/navigational aids than actually learning something new in flying the plane. The F-5 is in many ways as simple as it gets because you don't have to think about anything else but TACAN, but also as hard as it gets due to lack of autopilot, LOC, glideslope, GPS and INS.

It would be nice to have the choice of using actual "aviation units" instead of just metric and imperial (even though the imperial isn't completely imperial in DCS). I'm thinking about ME and F10. So what is "aviation units" ? By aviation units I mean the actual de facto standard that is in use internationally, and also in NATO. This requires a bit of explanation. ICAO has since ages ago defined to use the metric system in aviation, SI units. The problem is that nobody cares, and more and more countries are in fact starting to use the de facto "aviation standard". This includes countries who previously have used imperial and countries who previously have used metric. What this means is that: Speed - knots Altitude - feet Distance - nautical miles Flight level - feet (thousand, standard atmosphere) Rate of climb - feet/minute Temperature - degrees C Atmospheric pressure - hPa (AKA mbar) Wind speed - knots Visibility - meter and so on Metric and imperial, as exist in F10 and ME aren't used anymore, anywhere. There are some variations from place to place. Some countries use imperial for a few units, other countries use metric for a few units and so on. Some are specific for a certain part of aviation also. For most of it, this list is pretty much the standard today though.

Of course it would look kind of strange. But a map without (enough) airbases is useless regardless of looks. I just think it's kind of odd focusing on individual private houses and tiny roads when the basic aviation infrastructure that enable good online playing is severely lacking. It's like building an aircraft focusing on the stitching in the headrest instead of installing an engine and a prop, making the aircraft operational. It's getting better and better, but certainly not with lightspeed