VincentLaw

Yeah, there was something super secret going on yesterday. Maybe the picture will return on Sunday when Wags does the Mirage 2000 video.

Don't forget "Civil" also starts with a 'C' ;) I'm not really worried about the trainers. I'm not interested in any of the current ones, so I don't own any of them, but I doubt they are really getting "in the way" of other aircraft development. My main problem with the currently available trainers is that 2/3 of them only have an SFM, and for a trainer, a good flight model is even more critical than any other kind of plane. I'm also concerned with the decision to drop multi-seat for the Hawk. Flight model and multi-seat are the main attractions for a trainer.

I probably won't have much time to fly the Mirage in December, and I've never been in a squad before, but what's the worst that could happen? Count me in.

I wouldn't be surprised if ED has playable ship modules somewhere on the to do list, and I would definitely want the ability to walk around the bridge of my ship. I don't have enough floor space to do that with a Vive in anything larger than a response boat, but it would still be cool.

And yet they are all somewhat redundant. The C-101, Hawk, and L-39 are very very similar, which ironically means we could use more trainers. It would be nice if we had more variety in trainers. The F-5 is actually a great example of the kind of trainer we could use more of. I'm honestly a little disappointed that we are getting the F-5E instead of the F-5F. (but then again, I'd rather have an AH-1 than either F-5, so I'm not complaining.)

In addition to the different flight model, there are some other differences. For example, I'm pretty sure the FSX version has the RDM radar panel, but I saw a WIP for the RDI radar panel for the DCS version. There are also going to be differences in the armament options between the FSX and DCS versions. The FSX version can use the Exocet and the DCS version cannot, and the DCS version is getting a number of extra bomb types that the FSX version doesn't have. The mod structure for FSX and DCS are fundamentally different, so a significant amount of the work must be redone to transfer a plane from one sim to the other.

Well technically you could hang anything you want on the pylons. Depending upon the limitations of DCS, it might be easier to allow players to equip invalid loadouts and then have the avionics throw an error when the pilot tries to start the plane. What kind of error would occur for this situation, I don't know, and it depends upon the specifics of the avionics in question. Sometimes when software encounters undefined behavior, it still works without crashing. You might just get the CCIP showing up in the wrong place for certain weapons, or maybe the plane would think some of the pylons are empty when they are not. Worst case, the weapons system might just completely fail to start and leave you unable to arm pylons.

I'm pretty sure I checked the BST website last night and didn't see the announcement there. The time stamp is probably from when the announcement was created, but not when it was made public.

Don't worry, it's still on the planned development list. http://www.belsimtek.com/upload/docs/development-tasks.pdf

A crosswind gust will cause the airplane to yaw, but a steady crosswind will not. This is a well established fact that is not up for debate. Try reading my previous posts. Your second figure shows the aircraft heading necessary to maintain the same ground speed. The airplane does not automatically yaw this direction. your graphics are not illustrating a crosswind "affecting" an aircraft. They are illustrating the pilot compensating for crosswind to achieve the desired ground speed.

Imagine, if you will, that the wind was moving 1000000000000 km/h. It doesn't really matter what the speed is, just an arbitrarily large number. For simplicity, ignore effects of the speed of light, structural integrity, and gravity, and assume the air is infinite and with uniform velocity. Now, if you start with an airplane at zero km/h in this massive wind, it will rapildy weathervane into the wind because it's relative velocity to the wind is 1000000000000 km/h... however, without any other applied forces, drag from the wind on the airframe will soon cause the airplane to reach equilibrium with the wind until there is 0 drag. At this point the airplane will be traveling in the same direction and speed as the air particles. Now, from the perspective of the pilot, the ground will appear to whiz by at incredible speed, but there will no longer be any weathervaning effect no matter what orientation the plane takes because as far as the plane is concerned it is traveling ZERO km/h relative to the wind. At this point, if the pilot turns on the engine and tries to fly around, all of the instruments (sans GPS, inertial navigation, and similar) will read like the pilot is in normal flight. There will be no abnormal side slip. The pilot can fly around and the plane will not weathervane towards the wind because the plane is already flying relative to the wind. The plane will point in any direction the pilot commands as easily as it would without wind. In aerodynamics only the speed of the plane relative to the speed of the air matters. It does not matter how fast the wind is moving compared to the ground. A pilot in a 100 km/h wind effectively cannot tell if the wind is traveling 100 km/h or if the Earth itself is moving 100 km/h and the wind is still. It wouldn't make a difference. If you still think it should make a difference, consider that Earth is currently orbiting the sun at close to 108000 km/h. That means that relative to the surface of the sun (ignoring rotation of the sun), the average wind speed on Earth is close to 108000 km/h. Now, why don't we weathervane that direction?

I think the Mk-20 is a placeholder for the BLG 66 Belouga which is not done yet.

I am a native English speaker and I can tell you that the statement is ambiguous. Some people would mean "before the beginning of the month," and some people would mean "no later than the end of the month." You can even see a page here where people called a similar question ambiguous. http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/159339/meaning-ofby-the-month-of-april If it makes you feel any better, despite the reason for closing, it is pretty clear what the intent of the question in that link was. The language itself is ambiguous.

Well I don't think Octvember is trolling. It's Octvember already! I'm feeling positive so I voted Octvember. Leatherneck seems pretty close to ready.

Perhaps this feature can be revisited when AI bombers like the B-17 are introduced. I assume the related code will be reusable. AI gun stations are massively important for such bombers, and very significant for helicopters like the Huey.

Something I have not explored very much is loadout modding in DCS. Does anyone know if it is possible to restrict loadout by nationality? If RAZBAM could add the ARMAT just for Egypt then it would probably satisfy most people. I have also seen some reports that India purchased the ARMAT.

Yes, it would seem unusual, and I agree that some of the information in the sources I linked may contain errors. I am simply posting my findings from places that seem at least semi-credible, but without either official or corroborating sources, some of the information, such as use in Iraq or the Balkans, can be taken with a grain of salt. The statement about the ARMAT being secret is from an official source. In any case, what France selects to make public or not regarding secret material is up to France, not up to common sense. And I also agree that seems the most logical from my point of view, but I really have no perspective on what lead to any such decision. I personally think that retiring the Martel and relying on allies to provide SEAD support is an absolutely terrible decision... but I don't have the whole story.

Don't be surprised when the coordinates for your rescue mission end up being the end of the taxiway with a wheel stuck in the mud.

Last time I checked, the publicly available API was completely missing several essential features, such as sound or external lights. I assume the intention is for it to be impossible for an unlicensed 3rd party to create a decently polished aircraft mod, so the limited public availability of the API serves only to allow prospective third parties to play with the system enough until they are prepared to request third party status.

the ARMAT is based on the Martel, and it has a lot in common with it, but I did not see that document specify any of that information for the ARMAT. If I understand correctly, the only specifics they really give about the ARMAT is that it is able to cover all three frequency bands of the Martel simultaneously.

You did not quote the book in the link I provided. It says It doesn't matter that you can't see a reason for the secrecy. My official book from Dassault Aviation says the ARMAT is very secret. Most information about the ARMAT, or technology upgrades based on the ARMAT is going to be secret. It is very logical that France does not release information about the logistics or use of a top secret weapon. According to this source, some French Mirage F1s had SEAD capability. http://www.eurosae.com/pages/comaero/Bonnet_Avions_militaires_II.pdf France had Jaguars and F1s for that role, so of course they would not request that capacity if they didn't use it. They are also unlikely to discuss secret weapons very much. I am interested in the technical compatiblity of the plane with the weapon, not if they have actually used it or not. I still see no definitive proof for or against the 2000C RDI being compatible with the ARMAT. Either one would satisfy me. For now, I am not arguing that this specific variant of the 2000 can use it. We can't be certain without more evidence. I am simply maintaining that this compatibility is plausible. This discussion is not comparable to the F-14 AIM-120 discussion in which there is definitive proof the versions in service cannot use the missile. Unlike France and the secret ARMAT, the US didn't go around vaguely stating that their F-14 can use a certain missile.

Unfortunately none of these sources demonstrate how the systems appear to the pilot, so Azrayen's point about "How to do it" is valid. A certain amount of guesswork is probably necessary for any modern aircraft though, especially regarding the more secret systems. If my sources are all copying each other, then why do they all refer to different locations? French using ARMAT in Chad: https://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1988/1988%20-%202808.html French using ARMAT in Iraq: https://books.google.com/books?id=Y8kePYFK1L8C&pg=PA149#v=onepage&f=false NATO (who other than French?) using ARMAT in Balkans: http://www.ijet.pl/index.php/ijet/article/view/10.2478-eletel-2013-0034/145 Your publication does not say the French didn't use the ARMAT. It is just discussing exportation as the motivation for its development, and as for faith in publications, your document only mentions 160 ARMAT missiles being produced, but this one mentions 450 were exported to Iraq. Clearly there is a discrepancy. http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/13/pdf/rapports/r3191.pdf Right, I can demonstrate that 2000C RDI/ARMAT compatibility is plausible, but without better, more specific sources, I have no proof. As such, it is rather pointless for me to continue arguing unless I manage to obtain some better sources. I'll return if I do.

This is incorrect. There are multiple literature sources indicating French usage of the ARMAT. The fact that you believe otherwise is a symptom of the secrecy of the missile.

Yes, this is correct. We have not seen photos of the ARMAT mounted on a Mirage 2000 RDI, however, absense of evidence is not evidence of absense. Literature on the Mirage 2000 being able to use the ARMAT is both extensive and vague, and information related to the ARMAT is veiled in secrecy. I'd rather not treat instinct as fact, so I will continue searching for actual evidence definitively proving one way or the other.

You can add to that list: Mirage 2000, Lavauzelle in collaboration with SIRPA AIR and Dassault Aviation, 1992, pp. 120-128. This official book lists the ARMAT as an armament of the Mirage 2000. Unfortunately it does not specify which variants can use it. It does say "[ARMAT] reste encore tres secret" (it is still very secret), which seems to be the general trend in literature related to the ARMAT.