Zimmerdylan

Yes, audio was set back to default for me. Not a biggie as I just reconfigure in a few seconds. Control mapping was also set back to default. I learned a while back to save my "Input" files, located in the "Config" files for each of the downloads for just such an emergency. So I just pasted them back into the updated DCS and all was great again. There is a very noticeable difference in the FM of some of the planes. I set everything identical for 2.0 and 1.5 and as I go between the two, I can certainly feel some differences. Just remember to save your Input files in a safe place every time you remap or mess with control settings so that you can always revert to them if things go wrong or if you have to dump the game and reload for any reason.

I had never experienced a tyre blowout before. But now it has happened in the Hawk, F5, and I think in the F86. Whew!! I thought I had developed a bad habit on takeoffs or something. :joystick:

The two maps are completely separate as of now. They will not be merged until 2.5 version comes out. So for now, your Nevada maps has to stay on 2. and the other map is still 1.5. In order to fly both you have to keep both loaded as separate entities.

Exactly........If you pay attention to how everything is priced. It boils down to whether you want to get anything in pre-release at it's marked down price or if you wait and use your bonus points. The price is usually the same it's just a matter of when you want to make the purchase. Bonus points are good if you don't have the $$ at time of pre-purchase. You can still get it at the 20% discount if you have to wait. I wasn't aware that they expire. I could be wrong on that. I remember having lots of bonus cash for the longest time because I didn't really understand how it worked. I don't recall ever losing any to not spending it. I ended up using it on a bunch of newer modules at some point.

I know that this may sound odd coming from a professional musician, but I could not tell you what any of the soundtracks for any of the modules are. I turn the music completely off. Why??? I couldn't say.

LOL....Sorry I gave that bit of info to you "yet again". I didn't read through and see that others had already told you several times.

I never got into the whole Steam thing. After seeing all of the issues, I'm glad I didn't. Everything from COD to DCS seems to have it's shortcomings. For me....better to go straight to the source.

https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/news/2016-11-03_Spit_PrePurchase/ Because it tells you the release date. :doh:

So for me....That makes the 15th Christmas eve!! Yay!!!!:cheer3nc:

OK guys........It took me about 30 seconds to get my behind over to the DCS sight when I saw pre purchase for the spitfire started today. Slapped down the ole Visa and now it's just a matter of time before many of you are shooting me down in this great plane. All I can say is that as more and more modules are being released, the process is getting better and better. Planes are coming out with fewer bugs and in better shape. I am sure that the Spitfire will be no exception to this. I can't wait guys!!! Thanks so much for helping me realize my fantasy of being a fighter pilot. You guys are tops!!!! :pilotfly:

Come to think of it. This would be a pretty good idea. Many is the time I have been called away by my little boy and I have to get out of DCS and lose progress. I never really thought about it but it would be nice.

Have any of you come across this??? I had to do a double take. Gotta love the little surprises.

It's possible and in fact, it's standard practice for dogfighting. By the way....I use to Smoke Old Gold cigarettes years ago. Non filter....the only way to kill yourself............

AC is short for Aircraft. In the mission, the enemy AC are labeled. On the label, the distance between you and the AC you are following is measured in miles and tenths. So if you are a mile and a half, it will show 1.5. When the label shows .3 or .2 , or .1. You are 3,2,or1 tenth of a mile away from your target. You will be hard pressed to have any luck hitting it from any further away. Most guys won't even shot at you from any further than .4 and will be hesitant to shoot from that distance unless their target is moving in a straight line directly in front of them . Also....you need to set the wingspan on the sight to 37 ft. by the way. And set your distance to target on your HOTAS so that you can adjust it on the fly.

This is something that I have seriously taken into account on this chopper. I am pretty forgiving of it's faults because it does feel very natural to me. Whenever I run into as bug or an issue with it's FM, I just say to myself "It'll get fixed". I just love flying it.

Guys: Trust me and everyone who's been there. We've had all of your frustrations. You can easily catch up with and overcome those AI planes in the training video. Not one person here thought it was easy when they first started. Many of them thought the same thing that you guys did (including me). I get it, we all get it. But you have to put the time in and figure it out. That's all there is to it. You can take all the instruction in the world and if you take what people are saying and apply it, you will eventually start to get the feel of how you do it. But it takes practice. It's kind of like riding a bike. Someone can show you but they cannot give you the feeling of balance or take over your body for you to navigate when you turn left or right to keep yourself up. It's not magic, it's just practice......I promise. If you were going up against a fighting 109, I would tell you to just give up and find a much easier mission until you were good enough. But the Gyro training mission is just hard enough to train you. It was a very good exercise for me after I got the feel of it. I could not keep up, the planes moved too much, my bullets seemed to just go straight through the other AC when I managed to actually hit the damn thing. And gradually.....I got the feel. Remember.....lead the AC you are chasing and you gain on him. Trail him and you fall behind. Don't just get behind him and chase. And don't just let the bullets fly either. This will make everything much worse for you. Be patient and shoot in short bursts, and very sparingly. There is a tactic to it. Both of those planes will bank early on. When they do.....you can easily catch them by placing your nose ahead of their AC. The further ahead you go, the faster you catch him. As far as firing on him and knowing what distance. As a beginner you try and fire .3 or under. .2 or .1 are even better. Keep your flower the right size so that the bullets meet his AC. If you think that the training mission is hard, you'll never make it in MP because those guys are vicious! That training mission is pretty helpful just the way it is. I sometimes go back to it just to practice my gunnery skills if I haven't fought in a while. For the record, I'm no ace pilot. I do OK but there are many people who play DCS for hours and know every little trick. I am a casual user. But all of us have learned that PRACTICE is the best teacher in this simulator.

Through following your guy's advice and ideas, I'm able to get locked from 7 miles out now. Something I did not know was that you can actually kind of lock using the TGP if the Maverick is slaved to it. You can use the slew on it so long as the Maverick is slave to it, it will remain there. I was not aware of that before. Thanks all!

What The Black Swan said. I use TeamSpeak. Makes MP a lot more fun.

I don't really care about the bugs, I love this chopper.

And how many years did you spend in military choppers? That's like comparing apples to bowling balls. Speaking of which, I've watched people golf for years and my Wii has a golf game. Man....how unrealistic is that? Dude....you just made my point for me....thank you. You cannot say that you know it's not realistic because your comparison just made that point. My OP said that if felt realistic in my opinion based on my experience watching others and actually feeling the movement of the chopper. I went on to further say that this sim (or any other for that matter) in no way closely resembles reality. And that too is from very personal experience. There were times that I really thought I wasn't going to make it home during some of those rides in the military. But from MY EXPERIENCE, it is my opinion that this module feels better than others. In no way did I say that it was a fact set in stone. You on the other hand are saying that you know for a fact that it's inaccurate based largely on the words of others who posted in these forums. But what you are really telling me is that you can drive a clutch based on the words of another who watched someone else drive the clutch. Your taking this all waaaay to seriously. Both you and I have opinions of this. Neither of us are stating any facts because we don't actually know the facts. But the difference is that I am making this perfectly clear. Your just beating a dead horse by arguing opinion. Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that in your opinion based on what you have heard or read, it's not realistic. That would be a fact. At that point I would actually consider what your saying to me because that's a rational way of making your point. Again....Understanding that most everything is about perception will get you a lot further in life than trying to tell all that you know and they don't. Trust me....I've been there. We all have. Just relax, your point is taken, but with a grain of salt because of the way you are trying to make it. That's why so many posts end badly with people getting warnings. At this point I'm kinda done with this particular conversation. Sorry to have ruffled your feathers. Hope we can be more friendly from here on in.:D

+1 +1 I agree that you cannot judge realism unless you have actually experienced the reality. I myself have sat in many a Huey and watched them being piloted. From what I have experienced, the balance in the Gazelle is much more accurate. We're not talking about some of the buggy little quirks. The actual craft looks and has the general feel of a chopper. More so than the Huey or Mi8. For anyone to tell me that it's not realistic, it falls on deaf ears unless they can send me some absolute proof that they have been there and done it. I dismiss younger people who think they understand these things as "realistic" or not because I again draw from personal experience. When I use to play COD and Battlefield, all of these high school kids would tout how realistic it all was, and I, having been a combat veteran would be just laughing and laughing to myself because there is no way you can get to the same city with the same ballpark of the realism of combat without actually being there. It is like nothing you have experienced or ever will experience once you leave it. DCS is pretty much the same. You can look at all of the data you want, and all of the charts, and even talk to pilots, but if you never did it yourself, reality is just a word at that point. All I know is that from my experience in helicopters (and I have flown in many, albeit 30-35 years ago), the Gazelle reacts more like the ones I have been in than their actual DCS counterparts. This does not mean that I do not like those AC. I fly them all of the time. All it means is that I see a new standard being set by the Gazelle. And yes, I notice some of the flaws and bugs. But it does not change the fact the it feels better. Thx guys!

Wow.......Weapons training??? "Notice that we have put the helicopter in the air in "careen to the ground no matter what you do mode" so that this training video becomes absolutely useless. C'mon guys....can we fix this travesty please?

Just goes to show you how every person is different in their sense of feel, or their taste in these modules. I have heard a lot of people tell me how hard this thing is to fly. "It's too sensitive" "it's movements are way overstated". But for me, the reaction of all 3 components of the rudder, collective, and stick are syncopated to one another much better than the other choppers. In the Huey, when I hover and am adjusting the collective with the rudder, the movements are not well coordinated and there seems to be a lot of overcorrection on my part to compensate for that. In the Gazelle, I don't have this problem. When I move something, it moves and it moves accordingly. From my experience watching pilots, this is more accurate. And whether it is or not, my body tells me that it is because I can hover this craft with no effort whatsoever. While I still struggle with the Mi8 and Huey in certain situations, I can (after only a short time) maneuver the Gazelle pretty much any way I like without fighting. In the Mi8, it is much more difficult to work with the autopilot features. There are all of these tutorials about it and yet still so many people cannot do it correctly. It took me a long while. Not so in the Gazelle. It's kind of funny though. When the BF109 came out. There was this overwhelming response of people saying that there is no way any AC could be this hard to fly. That it's not realistic. Threads and threads of complaints. I was one of those complainers. But after a time, everyone got use to it and now it's a very popular plane. And many of those people complaining are now saying how accurate it is. Yet it has not changed all that much. I stopped looking for "reality" in PC flight simulation and started going with what feels right for me. And what I would think feels real in MY hands. Going on the internet and reading tons of literature, downloading charts, and trying to get something out of interviews with real pilots only adds to most people's frustration. For me.....it's a hobby. Something to do when I have nothing else going on. I have no real desire to become a gaming guru. Nor will anyone who has never piloted any of these AC be experts on their handling. So....realistic or not, I find it a much more maneuverable AC. .

I have never found much reason to use them at all against the Mustang to be honest. I have never flown against another 109 or 190 in SP, or on a server. I have found myself really needing them just to stay up with the 109 in the P-51 though. I am no ace pilot, that's for sure. But I have held my own and shot down a fair number of P-51's and never used flaps. Would I have done better had I used them? Dunno........maybe. In DCS (IMO) it's all preference. In reality.....I could not say.

So after long deliberation, I decided to purchase the Gazelle. I would like to share my first impressions of this module with those who do not own it. Please keep in mind that I am not a pilot. I do not spend much time on the internet looking up every detail on every aircraft that DCS puts out, or any aircraft for that matter. It's just not that important to me. I judge modules on how they feel to me, and if I have an issue with something, I do some research and in some cases I will share what I have learned with others on the forums. But when it comes down to tit for tat, or whether something feels real, not real, good, or just plain bad, I believe that we can all judge with some degree of accuracy. There have been issues where I absolutely knew something was not correct in a module. I brought it to the forums, was promptly skewered for it, told how wrong I was by all, and 2 weeks later the issue I had problems with was completely fixed in a patch or upgrade. So I know that I am not completely wrong on some of these issues. But the conclusion that I have come to (and it has brought me peace of mind) is that you cannot expect a computer simulation to be accurate to real life. You just can't. DCS has given me many hours of pleasure and fun whether it's any where near reality or not. I still enjoy it very much. All of that being said: I got the Gazelle, did a quick tutorial on startup. Got to where I knew how to get if fired up and started flying. Now....I have only taken the Gazelle out for 3 or 4 flights. But I have to say. In my opinion, it acts, flies, and feels closer to what I expect a chopper should be than any other DCS chopper, or plane for that matter. The response of the collective, rudder pedals, and stick are just right there. It is every bit as sensitive and yet not sensitive as I would expect. It's hard to explain, but it's right on the money. With the Huey or MI8, the controls are OK, and I got use to the way each handles and responds, but I never feel as though either handled anything like the real aircraft. They are (to me anyway) fun aircraft that handle the way they do because they are on a PC and are stuck with those limitations. But the Gazelle just blew all of this out of the water for me. The cockpit has that cramped space feel without feeling claustrophobic. It does not have that over sized feeling that the Mi-8 gives me, and that “everything can get to closed in" feeling when I zoom in on the Huey cockpit to emulate really sitting in the seat. The funny thing is that I never knew exactly why those AC didn't feel as real as I thought they should until I purchased the Gazelle today. Honestly....I never paid much attention. In the Gazelle the cockpit is just perfect in size and proportion. Now....I flew in a lot of Hueys back in the early 80's while in the military. I know just how maneuverable those choppers can be and just how stable they can be in the hands of a skilled CW4 as opposed to some young butter bar. I had the daylights scared out of me by both. Warrant officers scared you and made you down wright sick to your stomach just to mess with ya.:pain: Lieutenants scared ya because they had no choice sometimes.:cry: And from my time in the military, the Gazelle from Polychop seems to be able to readily respond and give a visual and feel that's just perfect as though you are really swinging around the sky with a good CW4 at the wheel. It's truly amazing how well it is modeled. And what really gets me is that they got the visual of the shaking of the AC so well. It's right there with accuracy. I don't know how they did it :dunno: but it's pretty vivid and brings me right back to my army days. Just amazing! This is a very nice module and I am sure that it's only going to get better. I'm going to take my time with this and enjoy just flying it for a while. Then I'll learn more of the systems and get more serious with it. I really enjoy flying all of the choppers in DCS and I am not complaining about the Huey, or the Mi-8. I just have always considered them to be a very fun hobby that I felt could never really be accurate to real life. And I absolutely enjoyed them on that level. Polychop has set a new standard here and it's great! Thanks so much guys for your hard work and this most excellent of modules. This craft is on the top of my list and I am sure that it will be for a long time!:imho: