Tailspin45

Skipper was quick to join on my wing, dash three and four will get there eventually.

I concur that TrackIR is a "must have." But I emphatically disagree with the idea that you can get along with out a joystick (although female pilots might disagree.) I say that after 50 years as a real life pilot, and former US Navy flyer, so if you grew up with video games and controllers you may feel differently. As a 'study sim', DCS can be intimidating. Despite my background and over 20 years years of flight simming, the A-10C was hugely frustrating because it was so complicated. Concur that for starters the Su-25 might be a better choice, although I'd go with the F-86 or the free A-7E (see below) but that's probably just ethnocentrism. In any case, forget about navigation and weapons initially. Get thoroughly comfortable with start, taxi, takeoff, air work, pattern work, and landings. Then expand your repetoir by learning to navigate. Then learn weapons--first guns, then missiles, then bombs. Then learn air combat maneuvering. If you try to do it all at once you'll be overwhelmed, or at least severly whelmed. Follow your dreams, lad. One day, you'll experience what John Gillespie McGee meant when he wrote the poem High Flight. Speaking of reading, find a copy of Richard Bach's early book, Stranger To The Ground about a fateful night in an F-86D. Also Geoffrey Wellum's First Light, one of the best ever written about learning to fly and Spitfires.

Outstanding! Airmanship was exceptional and the narration, for my money, was better than the Blue's or Thunderbird's. Need a solo pilot to fill the gaps during the long reversals?:smilewink:

Hmmm, you're right. That is different. But I'll check my version in any event. The lack of trim is driving me nuts. Works fine in A-10, P-51 etc.

Thanks for the quick response...and I think you may have diagnosed the problem. That SLUFF I'm flying may be an old one I downloaded from the Russian site, instead of a current version from the Stingers. I'll check it, thanks.

SLUFF in DCA2 is a hoot...but trim inop?? Loaded the A-7E package using JSGME and have had lots of fun terrorizing the Nevada desert. But I haven't been able to make the Warthog HOTAS coolie-hat affect trim. Made sure there were no competing settings in other controllers, reset the HOTAS stick controller, it accepts the input, and saves OK. But the aircraft ignores the profile and will not trim. Anyone have any thoughts? FIXED! Force Feedback was clicked on in preferences. Hell, I learned that 5 years ago, but forgot.

MiG-21 and A7

I'd love to try your profile, Timm. Folks like you make DCS work. Thanks in advance (if that isn't too presumptuous.)

Had same problem. Deleted installed game. Turned off anti-virus and re-installed. Worked until auto-installer added hot fix this morning, now it doesn't work again. UPDATE: Now it works! Didn't do a thing except play World of Tanks for 2 hours and relaunch DCS. UPDATE 2: Now it doesn't work. Invalid serial number after buying and installing SU-25a UPDATE 3: Unbound using online tool. No help. Deleted module in app and re-installed after torrent download. Works fine now, but Module Manager says it has no key. Nevertheless, it works fine so far, including in multiplayer.

Level inverted flight, just in case there's a misunderstanding, requires considerable forward stick. At 1000 AGL my bird quit after a count of ten, but it did restart after rolling upright. Don't know that it would seize immediately, but manual (rl pg 22) makes it clear that scavenge pump would be unable to supply lubrication after about 10 seconds. Perhaps an engine change would be in order, especially if Uncles Sugar is paying.

Okay, back after installing new CH Pedals and everything in hunky-dory. Brakes, tailwheel, and rudder work as designed. Held the brakes and gently increased power until the tailwheel was off the ground (something that's easy in a Cub but probably isn't a good idea in a Mustang), put the rudder hard over, and when I released the brakes the tail swung before it came down. Last CH set was over 10 years old, pots were sick, and one toe brake was inop. Shouldn't have chimed in about the flight model until I knew my equipment was solid.

The devs thought of everything! In rl if you don't push the stick forward you can break that pin, or roll the tailwheel tire over, pinch the tube, and end up with a flat if you're not careful. It's a handful then, as you may have discovered if you blow the tailwheel tire on a hard landing.

Now you tell me! :( PS: I second the motion regarding an F-86/MiG for DCS. I enjoyed the IL2 mod, but something with the fidelity of P-51 would be awesome.

Knew Ed Shipley when he was learning to fly. Have watched his trajectory with interest. Proud of my 1920s biplane, SNJ, and C-45 flying time, but a far cry from his! Have a new set of CH pedals arriving today. Will report back.

Be sure to push the stick forward for sharp turns. And don't forget that that it will be full swivel until you get the tailwheel straight and the pin drops in. Virtually, of course.

Disregard my last After further consideration, and bit more experience in this bird, I agree with Joker68. Differential braking helps here, but a blast of power with the rudder opposite and stick forward, does nothing as he accurately points out. Our SNJ had a P-51 tailwheel and that ship didn't handle anything like this one -- and the gear on the SNJ is much narrower than P-51.

Think of it as a screwy loop Kaiza has it right. A well execute barrel roll will have your nose 90 off initial heading when you're wings are level inverted. If you think of it as a loop with a heading change (intentional, that is) you'll handle the pull correctly--pull into light buffet on entry, relaxing across the top, then pull hard into the buffet as you go downhill on the recovery. Do it right and your entry and recovery will be at the same altitude on same heading. But it's easy to loose a whole bunch of altitude. If you screw it up don't pull through to recover it's easy to get over Vne--relax the back pressure use more rudder and roll out. The worst that will happen is you'll end up in a spin (which is why you want plenty of altitude). If your recovery heading is off you probably weren't keeping the ball in the center as you went around. A very useful maneuver in a dogfight if you're overtaking your adversary. Your path is longer and you'll be slow going up hell and it will get you some lag...a lag roll is essentially barrel roll. Hmmm, on re-read this sounds like a know-it-all blabbing. Just saying what worked for me--and it sure didn't every time.

Think of it as a screwy loop Kaiza has it right. A well execute barrel roll will have your nose 90 off initial heading when you're wings are level inverted. If you think of it as a loop with a heading change (intentional, that is) you'll handle the pull correctly--pull into light buffet on entry, relaxing across the top, then pull hard into the buffet as you go downhill on the recovery. Do it right and your entry and recovery will be at the same altitude on same heading. But it's easy to loose a whole bunch of altitude. If you screw it up don't pull through to recover, it's easy to get over Vne--relax the back pressure use more rudder and roll out. The worst that will happen is you'll end up in a spin (which is why you want plenty of altitude). If your recovery heading is off you probably weren't keeping the ball in the center as you went around. A very useful maneuver in a dogfight if you're overtaking your adversary. Your path is longer and you'll be slow going up hill and it will get you some nose to tail room...a lag roll is essentially barrel roll. Hmmm, on re-read this sounds like a know-it-all blabbing. Just saying what worked for me--and it sure didn't every time.

Anyone know where to set nav and landing lighs so they don't come on during the day when AI land? I've searched here and googled but no joy.

In the SNJ-4 I used to fly, with the tail wheel locked (a P-51 tailwheel), the aircraft would definitely turn if one brake is applied and tailwheel is locked even with opposite rudder. There is, after all, six degrees of steering with the tailwheel locked. Apply it hard enough and you'll either scrub the tire off the rim or break the tailwheel steering locking pin. With it unlocked you can spin the bird, ground loop it, with ease. During checkouts I always had new Texan pilots do it on purpose at slow speed so they'd see how strong the tendency is. In DCS it's too tame with stick back, to my feel, and about right with the stick forward and tailwheel unlocked. Blown tailwheel tires seems not to be modeled as a failure, best I can tell.

Same problem here with Combined Arms if that's any consolation.

Mods won't install My DCS World is at C:/DCSWorld and that's where ModMan is pointed. ModMan 7.3.2 runs, does it's thing, but individual files and zip still have red flags and don't seem to have installed. Anybody have any ideas?

And now Combined Arms won't install I convinced a friend to buy Combined Arms and P-51. He downloaded DCS World and installed it (version 1.2.4.12913). It ran, automatically checked for updates, and updated to .14196. Then he tried to install CA, but it said it couldn't install CA 12913 into DCS World 41496. But no updater seems to exist to update CA to 14196. Where is the new version of CA?

I convinced a friend to buy Combined Arms and P-51. He downloaded DCS World and installed it (version 1.2.4.12913). It ran, automatically checked for updates, and updated to .14196. Then he tried to install CA, but it said it couldn't install CA 12913 into DCS World 14196. But no updater seems to exist to update CA to 14196. Where is the new version of CA or how do I prevent DCS World from automatically updating?