flyco

OK, it looks as though I may have to succumb to the inevitable, although, as a long term pedantic 75yr old, I do take exception to be told that I am outside limits, but not being told what those limits are. But that’s the Navy for you. If I am in the groove from whenever I roll wings level, then, by definition, if I roll out at 10nm I am in the groove from then on. I suspect, having just reviewed Jabbers excellent tutorial, that I am using the wrong wings-level point. My understanding was that it was at 3/4 nm and 350ft. I will, henceforth, try for 250ft and 1/2 nm which should give me a time in the groove of around 18secs.

MooneyTail, your reply shows where my confusion arises. You seem to be saying that the 'groove' does not extend from the 350 ft point to touchdown. As I hope I showed, that must take around 25-30 seconds. If I am only allowed 17 seconds that means it starts at a range of less than 1/2 nm, at which point, I would expect to be at less than 250 ft asl. If I am going to ensure that I am not 'in the groove' for longer than 18 seconds, how do I do that. In effect 'What is the groove?' - I need a definition, and there does not appear to be an agreed one.

I have read various views about ' being in the groove', including statements like 'the groove should take between 17 and 28 seconds'. As a one-time professional pilot and a mathematician, I am having problems reconciling this well-meant advice - and I suspect many others are also. I would, therefore, welcome some useful views on what is meant by the 'groove'. I understood it to from 'aligned with the landing deck centreline at 350 ft asl' and touchdown. Let me run through some simple maths to see if I can try and explain my problem. For simplicity, take the deck height as 40 ft asl, and the point to aim for at the start of the groove as 3/4nm from touchdown and 340 ft asl. At light weights the aircraft on finals will fly at around 125-130 kias, while the ship is typically doing 25-30 kts. So the effective approach speed with respect to the ship is around 100 kts (or 0.277 nm per sec) Hence to cover the 3/4 nm will take around 27 secs.- which I would see as the time 'in the groove'. I really would welcome views on my above ponderings.

I have an F-15C Helios set-up, but the exported radar display does not align with the space on the Helios panel. Can anyone point me to how the F-15C display is exprted, and its name?

Thanks a million for the FA-18 Helios set-up. It is great. I have one observation/question. The Hook ByPass switch (Field/Carrier) is a momentary one - I have replaced it with an On/On switch. I understand the advantage of a momentary switch for the Launch Bar switch, but I am left wondering if the Bypass switch was an error. Forgive my temerity in asking.

When I export the displays, I find the HUD is reduced in size/brightness. To the extent that it becomes unreadable when looking through it into moderate sunlight. The MDI displays remaining on the main cockpit screen are also similarly reduced in size/thickness, although this is not such a problem.

RightStuff, I am glad that your exported MDIs are working well. However, mine are not, and neither are those of many other users, if continuing reports are to be believed.

Exported MDIs in FA-18, have very thick and fuzzy lines. This has only appeared since display export became supported. Reported in several other topics in the Forum.

For what it is worth, I include my User Curve figures for the Thrustmaster throttle with the Hornet. 0-16-26-32-38-44-50-56-63-77-100 I find it gives a smoother, more controllable power control in the mid-range (85% to 95%), without detracting significantly at higher and lower power settings. Lots of suggestions in this thread - try them and take your pick.

I am experiencing the same problem as Sobe. My DDIs have reverted to the previous thin/faint lettering. Not as bad as they were originally before amending the AMPCD_ini.lua line from "shaderLineDrawAsWire = false" to "shaderLineDrawAsWire = true", but worse than before this latest update. Needless to say the Stable version is still fine. I also cannot find changes to any of the lines amended by Capt Zeen in his mod.

Regarding 'press time' for a Bodnar board encoder. There is a specific driver available for download from the Bodnar site. This allows pairs of switches to be allocated as an encoder and timings to be set.

This device accepts 8 potentiometers. Thre are eight sets of 3-pin connectors. The two ends go to the extreme ends of the pot and the centre to the slider. If I remember correctly they are all labelled. All of the other pins are numbered 1 to 32. Let me know if you need any more, and I will unearth one from my set-up and send a photograph.

After flying the Instant Action Case 1 Landing I try to taxi to the catapult for a further couple of circuits. However, as often as not, I lose the NWS caption in the HUD and the ability to steer. Pressing the NWS button gives me normal NWS (including a caption in the HUD), but I can no longer get NWS HI. This makes it sometimes impossible to align with the catapult. Can anyone explain why I lose normal permanently-engaged, NWS on occasions, after landing?

The Hook light only appears to illuminate while the hook is moving. Is this correct? - I would have thought a permanent DOWN indication would be more useful. I like to do a 'Gear down' check on late finals in any aircraft and it would seem to me that 'Gear and Hook' check as I approach the deck would be very useful.

I went from three 24” (1920 x 1200 px) to a single 40” UHD, both with a 24” touch screen below on which I run Helios. It does seem to run faster with the single 40”, and I find it a more congenial set up. The 2 main down-side aspects are the lack of height, and the poorer target pick-up range. Overall I do not regret my change.

Excellent quality as always, and in remarkably quick time. Now just tailoring it to my set-up. Looking forward to flying with it Thanks again.

I got around this, and produced a universal monitor config lua, by ensuring that any exported display had a unique name. I then set up the monitor config file up to show all of the exported displays. Only the ones for the aircraft loaded were then exported for display within the Helios templates. I came across a problem with the AV-8B where the ports were named the same as those in the A-10C, but were required to go in a different position. To get around this I hacked the relevant lua files for the AV-8B to change the name of the displays, by putting ‘AV-8B_’ in front of each. A bit messy, but by installing the hacked lua files as mods, I could remove them when updating and re-install them afterwards.

An incredible response time Capt Zeen! I can hardly wait.

When you are receiving, the frequency in the SRS overlay window should go white. If it doesn’t then the signal is not reaching you. If it does go white, and you do not hear it that would suggest to me that SRS is working and the problem is in your audio set-up. I apologise for the obviousness of the question, but do you have the volume slides in the SRS overlay fully to the right lf the bar.

BluFin, you asked whether there would be any interest in a “beta” version of your Harrier Helios set-up. There would be considerable interest from me. I am in the process of putting togther a very unaesthetic setup for my own use, but yours puts mine to shame. I use Helios for A-10C, P-52, L-39, F-86, and Huey, in addition to my “poor-mans “ Harrier. I await your efforts with considerable anticipating

The problem with using ground speed for a tanker in a mission, is that if the wind at height is, say, 30 kts, your tanker could be going 60 kts faster along one leg that along the reciprocal. A very approximate guide is that TAS = IAS x (1 + (Altitude in 1000s of ft x 0.02)). This gives an accuracy of better than 5-10%. For example I like my tanker flying around 200 kias at 18,000 ft. This requires a TAS of 200 x (1 + (18 x 0.02). Which is 272kts.

Ignore my first post in this thread about incorrect MFCD operation. It was cause by my home-built mod to rename and export displays. I will have to peer into my code. Sorry about any inconvenience. Edit: Found my self-inflicted injury and fixed it. But, thanks to those who tried to help.

Following the latest update today, some of my MFCD buttons are not working or working incorrectly. The EHSD button (OSB2) give the Stores page, and the Stores Button gives a totally blank page. Anyone else have this problem?

Why not a Huey? I put one in all my missions (invisible and invulnerable), so that I can fly over the area and check positioning etc. You can always put it down somewhere if you want to act as a JATAC.

Take it from me even a medium sized bird can punch holes into aircraft wings at 250kias - I’ve had it happen. Just like quarter inch cables can saw off whole wings - hence the wartime barrage balloons. I would have thought that a model that has a 3-4 inch pole shearing off a wing was a reasonable compromise for a designer to build into a simulator. In real life you may get away with it, sometimes, but to expect all parameters to be built into an event like this is unrealistic. Have you thought of trying to avoid hitting anything with your aircraft while you are flying? A more elegant solution I would have thought.