flyco

I have found the same. Fuel usage rates for any rpm/boost settings are anything up to twice the figure quoted in the Pilots's Notes. Even allowing for inaccurate flying and settings that is rather excessive.

I generally find it easiest to put a Huey in the scenario and fly that to a suitable position, then note its location and use that. When you want to place a radar/missile battery, you can also look around and confirm that there is a good field of view/ fire in the relevant threat direction. I also find that most hill tops in DCS are razor-edges, and actually finding a few square metres for a stable placement can be trying.

A couple of us have had one or two of the radios stop working and showing zeros in the on-screen frequency overlay. Nothing untoward in any of the 3 SRS logs. Anyone had anything similar

If you think that wind predictions are a sad compromise in DCS, you should see some of the ones to be found in real life.

I echo Neil's input. It would be good to have someone else from 'God's Own County' - (other deities are available)

Works Ok for me. in 2.1 with a 4K main screen, plus a 1092 touch screen. Confirmed in A-10C and Huey - not got all the rest set up yet.

I have the same problem. All the Huey from just aft of the pilots seat is missing. However I have the same problem in some other aircraft also, but not, for example, the A-10C. In my case, removing all mods and running a repair fixes it, but running Kneeboard Builder brings it back. I am currently searching for the problem, and have found that something is changing the last line in the file mod/users/username/Uh-1H/cockpit/drive_init.lua. I have still to finally identify the root cause. I'd be interested in Alaskan Grizzly's views.

You often get continuous smoke all the way home, and sometimes flames. Did the Fire light go out in the T-handle? Provided the flames are from the engine and do not reach the fuselage or tail surfaces, I would be inclined to stick with it at least until you're over friendly territory.

The official (1946) RAF Pilot's Notes 'Check list before take-off' includes 'Main tank booster pump - ON'. Elsewhere (para 33 (iii) (a)) PN also includes the statement ' The main tank booster pump should be switched ON for take-of and landing and at all times when these tanks are in use in flight'. Somewhere the belief seems to have arisen that this pump is not normally used. There is no support for this in the Pilot' Notes. Pilot's Notes are less prescriptive about the use of tank pressurisation. However, I can see no reason why it should not be used, unless there is a possibility of fuel tank damage, when the pressure could increase any possible fuel leak rate.

OK, thanks for that. I will have to do some test flying to try and work out the limits. Good to know that it is a design feature rather than a random bug.

Thanks. I've tried both with barely noticeable differences. I am sure that a few months back, lock on was a lot more reliable, but as I get older, perhaps I only remember the good times.

It seems as though the TGP ability to,lock on to a moving vehicle has become very variable recently. As I understand it there is no way to force a lock-on. You simple select Point (as opposed to Area), and it should lock on to any significant image within the cross-hairs - or am I wrong. At present I am returning the cross hairs to a moving vehicle around 10 times for every one lock-on. Is this normal, and if not, can anyone suggest what I am doing wrong?

I have always found the A-10C prone to this effect. It seems to be at the lower speed range, less than 200kias. I have found it worse in a turn with ALT engaged. I have always assumed it is a normal limitation of the ircraft - as I say, I only find it a problem if I am flying realitively slowly, probably at less than Min Drag Speed.

I know that the suggestion that the DCS Spitfire is too prone to blowing the engine due to low IAS has been refuted, but I still find it difficult to believe that running for more than a couple of minutes at less than 180 kias would be so disastrous. In support, I quote from the contemporary RAF Pilot's notes for the Spitfire IX. Para 54. The speeds in m.p.h. (knots) for maximum rate of climb are Sea level to 26,000 ft - 160 (140) I.A.S. 26,000 ft to 30,000 ft. - 150 (130) I.A.S. etc. Admittedly elsewhere it does give the recommended climbing speed as 180 m.p.h. This is explained as to give 'ease of control (especially at higher weights)'. This is a fairly common recommendation because the loss due to flying at 5 kts less than the optimum is much greater than the gain from flying at 20kts higher than optimum. Of course, we will never know for sure. The chances of anyone flying a Spitfire today, at a speed likely to blow an engine, just to satisfy DCS fans is (I hope) fairly remote.

Thanks Wrecking Crew, but I have cleared the problem - I think. I had the units that I wished to trigger checked as 'Visible before Start'. By removing this check mark, they now seem to spawn and respond as I had intended. I will run this on our server this evening, just to confirm. Is this a known fault? (Indeed, is it a fault, or deliberate for some reason?) I would really welcome a definitive update for the Mission Editor manual.

I have built and tested in single player a mission that uses 'Unit in Zone' to trigger activation of other units. This works fine when I test it in on my PC in single player, but does not appear to work if I upload it to our server for multi-player use. Can anyone suggest why this might be?

The DCS version of the Mk IX has an inverted fuel carburetor so the fuel flow continues at negative g. In earlier versions the engine cut within a second or two of negative g - hence the need to roll inverted to begin a sudden descent. The likely limits are going to be oil or fuel starvation, and the latter is going to depend on power settings - you will use any recuperator fuel faster at high settings. I don't know whether any limit is laid down, there is not one quoted in Pilot's Notes, but it is certainly going to be for at least 10-30 seconds. You could slow-roll it and you will inevitably have 10 secs or more of negative g during that manoeuvre, if it is done properly. I would check the oil pressure if you are going to fly inverted for a minute or more. When the engine cuts through fuel starvation, it will usually recover when positive g is re-applied. If you run the bearings dry, you risk a massive engine failure.

I would endorse SRS. The simply way it links into the aircraft model is excellent. A few hiccups when installing, but once up and running it seems to be rock solid.

Worked OK for me.

Ensure you stay within ground effect. The fact that you are pulling a lot of collective suggests that you may be trying to hover too high. I had great trouble holding a constant spot, until I realised that if I stayed at around 3-6 ft agl (as shown on the Rad Alt). I could then forget about the collective - if the aircraft climbed a little the reduced ground efffect would bring it back down, and vice versa. With the height pegged, you can concentrate on staying stationary. As recommended, spend half an hour hover-taxying around the airfield, landing at points as you go. I also used to positively think about what I was doing, for example: I'm going forward, stick back a touch Now I'm slowing down move it forward a touch Coming to a halt, move it back a very very small amount Etc etc I actually talk to myself as I fly - my wife thought I was going senile (well I am going senile of course, but that's a different matter). I recall many years ago, when I was training at the RAF's CFS, I was always getting bollocked for 'chuntering' to myself all the while - the more difficult the task, the more I chuntered. Still do it - you should hear the things I call myself doing AAR.

I must offer the DCS Spitfire and its modellers an apology regarding my earlier criticism of its g modelling. I have since flown some trial flights and looked at the results in the TacView recording. It seems to me that the black-out sets in at about 5.5 - 6.0 g, and the red-out at minus 3-3.5 g, both very reasonable values for an in-practice fighter pilot without g suit. certainly I was not able to reproduce the sudden red to black out that I experienced yesterday - I must put that down to a gremlin - very common among aircrew of the 1940s.. Mea Culpa! Not to appear downhearted though, I will put in my bit about the 'engine blowing up at 179 mph' controversy. The Mk IV Pilots notes give a recommended climb speed of 180 mph, with a setting of 2850rpm and +12" boost for up to an hour. Given that, I do think that the current failure rate is a little too harsh. Like many, I find that as little as 15 secs at anything less than 180 mph will, almost inevitably produce the blow-up, even at 2650/7", which is what I use to dogfight - increasing to 2650/12" only briefly. Finally, on the subject of control curves. I find that the Spitfire is the only DCS aircraft in which I do not use curves for the controls. This is due to the sensitivity of the elevators in particular. Unless you are in trim, your stick will not be at the neutral point and so you will be away from the flattened part of the curve. This, together with the very slow rate of the trim motion makes steady elevator application very difficult. I did briefly set up an analogue elevator trim, using a 3-turn pot and a large wheel, but, while it worked, I could not get used to trimming by hand, despite having flown many hours on aircraft that had such a system - I think this was due to the lack of feed-back to the stick that you get as you use a trimmer wheel in real life. However, it must be said in closing that I do thoroughly enjoy the Spitfire - Roll on Normandy!

I find red-out a problem in the Spitfire. While slow rolling I pushed slighty to keep the nose up and the screen went red,very quickly, and then immediately black. It remained at black for at least 5 - 10 seconds, at which point I hit the ground. Since I began the roll at about 500 ft agl, I could not have pulled enough to cause a black-out, nor do I believe that I pushed hard enough to cause a red-out in the first place. I routinely do low level aeros, spins and stalls in any new DCS aircraft to explore its envelope, and have never had a problem with red-out previously. I have flown outside (i.e. inverted) turns in several DCS aircraft, including the P-51, without this sudden red-out. I accept that the Spitfire is very sensitive on its controls, but I cannot believe that this is normal. Has anyone experienced similar problems? As a slightly wider observation, I find the DCS black-out very frustrating. As a one-time RAF Jet-Provost QFI, I was well, used to students (and QFIs) carrying out aeros with me as a bystander (OK bysitter!), and I adopted the technique of straining as require to delay the onset (no g-suit in the JP) With DCS this is not an option (even so I find myself tensing and squeezing my leg muscles when 'pulling' g) but at some arbitrary point it all goes dark very suddenly. I accept that there is no alternative in non-professional or affordable simulation, but it is annoying. I am afraid I routinely fly with black-outs de-selected.

A 2-point wheeler is useful in a cross-wind, since you can kick off the drift and positively put the aircraft on the ground. In a 3-point if you get it wrong, or there is a sudden gust, you can get a lot of sideways drift which can damage the gear. It's also better if you want to practice 'rollers', that is touch-and-goes. Finally, you can cheat in spot landing competitions. While flying level at 1-2 ft agl at almost any speed you can put the wheels exactly on the right spot, by a judicious push. That said, you would probably be marked down for the bounce!!!

Possibly, but I prefer to have 3 separate short-cuts for the 3 different versions. In any case, I don't like having something not working as I expected without knowing the reason

I have Kneeboard Builder working in my DCS 1.5.6 Stable, but when I try to run it as a separate installation in 1.5.6 OpenBeta, or DCS 2 Open Alpha, it runs as far as to allow me to enter the main program and saved games locations, then crashes. All 3 versions are run from a common folder in my User Folder. Further attempts to run, crash on start up. Deleting the KneeboardBuilder.exe.config allows the faulty installations to run to the identification of directories, but then crash again. Examination of the Windows Application log shows that there is an error in .Net runtime, followed by an error in Kneeboard Builder. Any suggestions?