Zimmerdylan

yeah....got the whole thing working great now. Thanks for the help guys.

Wow....usually the twist on your joystick can be assigned to the rudder. I thought that this was a default setting for most joysticks. In fact, I have to disable it to effectively use my rudder setup. If this is not the case, as the first poster suggested, then the second poster's suggestion is the next best bet. Pull the joystick back to your belly for take off to lock the tail wheel and do your best with the keys. You have to release the joystick to go forward as you gain speed and the plane starts to lift or you'll mess up the take off. I am pretty sure that I have taken off in the Mustang countless times without a rudder peddle setup so I know that it can be done quite easily. I could not imagine trying to get a 109, or 190 off the ground without pedals.

I didn't think so but every friggin YouTube video I have seen tells me it's Ralt+up. I was just trying to figure out if this was a legit binding or not. I looked all over the forums and internet and could not find it. [ame] [/ame] [ame] [/ame] These are two videos that show Ralt+up as the stabilization. Hmm......like the other poster mentioned, probably obsolete. Thanks much guys!!!!

OK....I have neglected the A10 for long enough. I've been starting to learn the more detailed weaponology, and am now working on the TGP with Mavericks. I got everything down pretty well but I have a question about Ralt+up. This is to stabilize no? Well ok.....all of the tutorials I have seen on this say that this is what I push on the keyboard but none of the YouTube videos can tell me what HOTAS command it is. I must have deleted it when I assigned all of my HOTAS commands to my X52 because I cannot find it in my controls menu, nor can I find it on any keyboard binding chart for the A10C. So what is the HOTAS command for Ralt+up? Please....it's driving me crazy. Does this binding even exist any more??? LOL....Thx

I'm a little confused here. I'm running the GTX 660 Ti card. It seems to have only 2 G of RAM. It runs DCS fine. I have no issues with it. But my confusion lie in RAM memory altogether. So if my card only runs 2 Gigs, but my system is running 16 gigs (and it is), it doesn't matter. My card can only handle 2 gigs. Isn't that the limitation? If my card can only run that fast, it doesn't matter how fast my system runs unless it is slower than my card? At least that was always my understanding of it anyway.

It's all good, all opinions are welcome.

Thanks!!! I was looking into whether this worked well or not.

This issue has never come up to me before so I'm just now finding this out. I have a friend who is really taken with DCS. He asked me to send him to the DCS sight so that he could check into downloading it. I just got an email from him saying that it seems that DCS does not support MAC operating systems. Really??? Please tell me this isn't true. That's just kind of crippling your business. There are a lot of MAC users out there. I'm pretty sure that I'm going to be one of them within the next year or so. All of my work from DAW software to graphic and design software is all much better on MAC computers. Not to mention that I am no fan of Windows 10. Jeeze.........I hope that E.D. moves in that direction. My work far exceeds my hobbies and I'm not apt to replace my aging computer with another PC.

1.2??? You mean there was a DCS 1.2???

When I was in. I flew in Hueys exclusively. Never got to go up on a CH-47. Lucky a$$ Marines!! But when I was juuust ETS'ing out, they introduced the Blackhawk. All my buddies told me how great it was. So either of those two. But....given the choice, the Chinook is more appealing to me.

I was chatting with an A10 pilot about the Maverick missile and it's ability to seek at longer distances using the targeting pod. As we talked, he began to talk about why the Maverick on it's own is limited to the relatively short distance that it is. What he told me confused me and really surprised me. He told me that the maverick itself is capable of finding and launching on a target 20 ft. or larger from over 10 miles. The problem is that it uses a thermal battery that supplies power for a limited time, and after it burns out, the missile loses it's ability to stay on course effectively. Although this made sense, it was something that I had never thought about before. SO I started to do some investigating on it. It turns out that the Maverick as it sits on the rail of an A10 or whatever it is mounted to, is capable of seeking at great distances but the aircraft itself limits that ability. This is because of the thermal battery. Example: This pilot told me that the A10's computer determines the distance that the A10 can lock at and at what size object. When the screen in the cockpit signals a lock by the pulsing cross hairs. The object that it locked on to must fill 1/2 the distance between the gap of where the two (vertical, and horizontal) lines come together. And this is to ensure that the battery will live long enough to facilitate the missile. When I researched thermal batteries in missiles, I understood why: 6. APPLICATION 1: THERMAL BATTERY IN MISSILES 7. POSITION OF THE BATTERY IN MISSILE The components that a missile has: •Guidance section •Warhead •Midbody section •Propulsion section •Control actuator section 8. • The control actuator section maneuvers the missile during flight and provides internal electrical power. The control actuator section consists of four control fins, four thrust vector control vanes, and a thermal battery. • The thermal battery provides internal electrical power for the missile during flight. It is sealed in the body of the missile. 9. HOW IT WORKS IN MISSILE Thermal batteries in missiles provide several output voltages from one battery. They are compatible with pulse regime as well as steady load demands. They easily replace several power-sources with a considerable gain in volume, weight and reliability, becoming the sole source of onboard power to electronics and actuators. 10. • These batteries are totally inert prior to activation. They are therefore completely maintenance-free over a very long storage-life, and are the only power sources able to operate reliably in very harsh environments. • This includes extremely low and high temperatures (they have a range of more than 100°C), extremes of pressure, EMI, acceleration, etc 11. WHY THERMAL BATTERY ? The thermal battery is the ideal solution for artillery shells and smart munitions because of its intrinsic qualities, especially robustness with regards to harsh environments and storage conditions. Moreover, a built-in sticker mechanism can allow self activation under launch-acceleration effects. Recent innovations have allowed the repackaging of the thermal battery to provide all the advantages within a miniaturised volume: by combining innovative manufacturing process and new electro chemistries, a power of 2W is now available in a volume of around 1.5cm³. But this left another question in my head. "Then why is the range longer using the TGP if the Maverick itself is able to achieve that kind of range?" My only conclusion is that when the Maverick is turned on, on the rail to seek, it may start using the battery immediately. And the power that is consumes on the rail is set so that it only consumes a specified amount. But when the TGP is used, the maverick sits dormant, not using the thermal battery until it is launched. This makes sense to me because this pilot told me that at the instant a Maverick is launched, it shuts down the optical power and it resets back on a second later. Anyone know anything about this? I may have completely misunderstood this guy but I don't think so. http://www.eaglepicher.com/publications/158-book-chapters/371-thermal-batteries Abstract for "Thermal Batteries" Thermal batteries are primary reserve batteries that employ inorganic salt electrolytes. These electrolytes are relatively non-conductive solids at ambient temperatures. Integral to the thermal battery are pyrotechnic materials scaled to supply sufficient thermal energy to melt the electrolyte. The molten electrolyte is highly conductive, and high currents may then be drawn from the cell. The activated life of a thermal battery depends on several factors involving cell chemistry and construction. Once activated, and as long as the electrolyte remains molten, thermal batteries may supply current, discharging the active materials to the point of functional exhaustion. On the other hand, even with excess active materials present, the batteries will eventually cease functioning due to loss of internal heat and subsequent re-solidification of the electrolyte. Hence two of the primary factors behind thermal battery active life are: 1) Compositions and massed of the active cell stack materials (i.e. anodes and cathodes), and 2) other construction details, including the overall battery shape and types and amounts of thermal insulation. Depending on the battery design, which is ultimately determined by the specific requirements of the application, the activated thermal battery may supply electric power for only a few seconds, or may function for over an hour. Initiation of a thermal battery is normally provided by an energy impulse from an external source to a built-in initiator. The initiator, typically an electric match, an electro-explosive device (squib), or a percussion primer, ignites the cell stack pyrotechnics. Rise time, the time interval between the initiation impulse and that time at which the battery can sustain a current at voltage, varies as a function of battery size, design, and chemistry. Rise times of several hundred milliseconds are not uncommon for large units. Small batteries have been designed to reliably achieve operating conditions withing 10 to 20 milliseconds. The shelf life of an unactivated thermal battery is typically 10-25 years, depending upon design. Once activated and discharged, though, they are not reusable or rechargeable. Current developments in extending the activated life capabilities of thermal batteries have widened their suitability and application potential in new military as well as industrial/civilian systems.

Wow.......that's really the simplest and best answer I have read yet. Why cant it be a sim and a game? All the rest of us are writing a whole paragraph on this and it's simply just what it is...........

He takes Guitar lessons from me.

That's pretty crazy, I was chatting with an A10 pilot today who pretty much told me the same thing. About Kosovo I mean. He said that there would be spotter planes that would mark the targets with smoke rockets for A10's.

I had my A10 pilot/ student this morning. Some new things he shed light on for me: 1. The cannon, He said that they were trained to hold off firing at ground targets until they were around 4000 ft. away. That they did not usually like to fire at 1 mile because of the flashlight effect of the pattern and because the gun was designed to be very much dependent on the velocity of the rounds. He said that at 1.5 to 3 miles, a single round would not likely penetrate a heavily armored target (no matter the round) because the rounds themselves needed the velocity to do so. And that it was very unlikely that another round or rounds would hit the same spot or area because of the spread issue. He told me that during Operation Desert Storm, he talked to a tank crew that surrendered to the Americans and they told him that they could hear the rounds from the A10's hitting their tank but they did not penetrate because they were fired from too far away. Pretty interesting. 2. Rockets: There was a debate about rocket pods here on the forums some months ago. That some servers weren't letting people load down with tons rockets because A10's weren't capable of carrying that many. Well.....this is right, but it's also wrong. Most pilots do not like using rocket pods to start with because they're not very accurate at all. He said that the mounting system itself is much to blame for this. The screw mounting system leaves a lot of room for inaccuracy. That since there are 4 points of contact, that a person could screw the back left point this many turns and the front right this other many turns and the pods are almost never exactly straight. Also, the drop rate of the rockets is somewhat unpredictable. But....you could conceivably mount every station with 3 pods and have tons of rockets. But according to him it would be a colossal waste of rockets because you would almost never hit anything. And he said that yes....a rocket is a direct hit proposition on a tank. And even then it's not 100% depending on where you hit the tank. 3. Smart bombs. He was explaining how easy it is to set up and drop smart bombs. That you just marked a target, let the plane do all of the calculations and waited for lines to line up and crosses to cross and just drop. Accurate to within ten meters. And again....he said that 10 meters from a T72-90 isn't going to take it out. 3. Marking stuff. This was kind of funny actually. He was telling me that During Desert storm, and in Kosivo that they would literally have Recon planes flying over targets with guys who had high powered binoculars marking targets for them . That they would find a target while the A10's loitered at 20,000 ft. And then they'd mark the target with a smoke rocket, and the A10's would come down and take it out. He did say that it is not very easy to see things on the ground. Desert is much easier to see targets in than cities or wooded areas. But none the less, it's not easy to see things on the ground, or even other AC for that matter. So that issue in DCS is closed for me. And that they never fly low altitude under 10,000 feet unless they have a very good reason. He kept mentioning 20,000 ft. so I'm imagining that is or the standard altitude. He keeps kind of eluding to the whole waypoint thing being only for specialized missions. And that although targets are marked a lot of the time, they do not usually depend on a set system of waypoints to get them to the targets. And that there is rarely just a flight of A10's flying around, that there are always other support AC somewhere helping them. Hmm.......all stuff I did not know. The guy promises to come fly DCS with me on the 8th of January. So we'll see what he thinks!

Anyone know how I can do the update? When I try and do a manual, it doesn't seem to acknowledge that there's an update available.

I just tell her I won't be bothering her for sex as much........Conversation over.

Most of us here feel your pain. If we were all rich......we wouldn't be here flying virtual aircraft. 1.5 is a lot of fun too. I still fly it all the time. More servers on the internet too.

I do not think that this applies to your situation but it may. I find that if I have mouse look on while using track IR with the F86, it tends to make things jumpy. I have to get rid of mouse look to get a smooth view of anything. And also, if I have my zoom set to any slider other than the mouse, it makes the F86 jumpy in general. Hope this was helpful.

Hmm.....I have an A10 pilot for a music student. He has given me some very helpful tips and hints. But he has yet to sit with me and try to fly DCS. He told me that he's not comfortable with it. I get that. I am the same way when people invite me to Karaoke, or especially to play "Rock Band". If I ever do convince him to sit down and take a flight, I'll definitely share the experience with the forum.

I have seen people receive a good verbal beating for calling it a game here in these forums. Many is the poor noob I have seen posting for the first time , calling it a game and then receiving a thrashing because they caught the wrong guy's attention who took serious offense to it. That is not to say that I was trolling when I started the thread. I am just very interested to know what a majority of the people here believe. But is would seem (after looking at the replies to this thread) that these people are very much in the minority. To me, that is kind of a good thing. I have seen those who take their flight sims much too seriously. I know a few with $10,000 cockpits in their man cave who spend every waking moment transporting virtual cargo all over the globe for the virtual air cargo company that they and their friends created. And....they keep a tight schedule. No one here (to my knowledge anyway) takes it that seriously. The odd part of that scenario to me is that the sims that they use for this aren't half as emmersive and realistic as DCS. I do remember that more than once it was mentioned about the A10A or C, not sure which was used to train National Guard pilots or something like that. I wish I could find the posts, But I have not read any new comments on it in a while. But there is someone who comes to these threads who thinks it is true. Whether it is or not, I have nooooo clue. I tend to think it's not, but it's fun to think that it is.

After a time I found that lessening them made it easier to fly. I do keep em at around +5 to ad a little bit of a sluggish feel. But yeah.......you tend to not need em over time. Actually......I have them set slightly negative for the Dora and ME109.

And all I do is fly around and complain......I'm ashamed guys.......and humbled! Thanks all of you for helping to make DCS better for all.

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=144767 Have a look. Great video posted by Sith. It made me want to fly the 190 and 109 again. This guy had some awesome input to these planes. I got a lot out of this interview. When I learned how he took off in these planes I ran to the M.E. and took off with no issues in both planes the first time. Also.....he gave very valuable info on throttle settings, use of flaps, and landing, it was like finding a treasure chest.

It has been talked about at some point that DCS has actually been used in a training scenario? I know I have heard this somewhere. Maybe on this forum.