bluepilot76

Yes I'm sure that I saw you could buy replacement stickers. Thinking about it though, arent't they just reflective stuff anyway, like the really good stuff on road cyclists jackets etc. You can probably buy that stuff locally.

Trim is something pilots use to cancel out constant stick forces. The A-10 has a pitch trim and a roll trim. Both can be mapped to keys or joystick functions in the options part of the interface. If you have a constant rolling moment you can use roll trim to cancel that out, allowing you to concentrate on using the weapons or looking at the nice scenery. The Thrustmaster T1600 is a VERY good CHEAP joystick. Great if you dont want to commit the big money for a proper HOTAS settup (X52/ thrustmaster warthog etc). If just starting out, I would get a Track IR and Thrustmaster T1600, rather than the warthog stick. you will still have loads of money left over for buying DCS Blackshark and the upcoming warthog scenery package.

Settle in behind the tanker maybe 10m or so behind the boom. spend a couple of minutes checking your trim and throttle setting are set such that you can fly more or less hands off. This will be the same trim and throttle setting as when you connect, so memorise the sound of the engines at this setting, and do not touch the trim again. Note the speed. To move in, give a nudge of the throttle and almost straight away reduce it to what it was (use the sound). watch how the speed reacts. you want it to go up maybe 2knots at most, then it should settle back to your original speed. Take note of how far this nudge got you towards the boom. Do these nudges as necassary untill you are close to the boom, then the operator will stick it in the slot. You want to judge it so that on your final nudge, your speed reduces back to the original speed at the moment that you arrive at the refuelling position. I find it is easier to be slightly higher than you would think correct. You cant really read the indicators at the front of the tanker from this position. I think it is better because it gives you a better view of the tanker and you can see how the coloured markers are getting moved on the boom, all without moving your head. Its a lot of fun so enjoy the practising! It seems to take a little over a second for 100 pounds of fuel. So you typically need to hold the position for a minute or so. Another useful thing is that if you disconnect, just hit the NWS botton to reset the system.

That may be the case in some parts for of the world, but any combat pilot I have met is not a psychopath that doesnt give a dam about civilian casualties. Usually the RAF filters out the nut jobs well before they get anywhere near a combat aircraft. I hope so anyway!

Hi Jarith, Mine works fine on default settings. Make sure you are pointing the camera directly at your reflectors or proclip before starting the sim, there is a display in the Track IR software, make sure your reflectors or lights show up straddling the crosshairs. This will give you the best chance of not going out of the field of view when you duck down to look at the side panels. Track clip pro is a huge leap forward compared to the reflectors though. With the reflectors you may also need to close the curtains, turn down the lights etc.

Roll Trim Hi Villain, You are aware of the roll trim? can you use it to cancel out the rolling forces? Because I use my single hat switch for multiple HOTAS functions, I sometimes find that if I havent pressed the correct modifier I am actually dialling in roll trim when I am trying to change the MFCDs.

Anyway, back to the thread, I think the mechanics as described by Frostiken make a lot of sense. I think it would aadd a lot to the smulation if your target was in the village, and you decided rather than clusterbombing the village and getting a nasty civilian kill count, you would plan your attack with a more precise weapon, or save it for someone out in the plains. I am sure real pilots are faced with these choices every day over eg. Libya. Not killing the civilians is probably more important than killing the tank- Therefore it should be factored into the debrief in some way in my opinion.

I said, "Human shield tactics are unfortunately common in modern warfare too" so this is wrong is it? / absolute piffle?? I did not say they have been invented for modern warfare did I, I did not say they werent used by caveman in the stone age. I said they are UNFORTUNATELY COMMON in modern warfare. Are they not unfortunately common? How GUERILLA tactics have got anything to do with airforces cluster bombing villages, Im sorry but I do not see the relevence!

Well, according to wikipedia.... Guerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare and refers to conflicts in which a small group of combatants including, but not limited to, armed civilians (or "irregulars") use military tactics, such as ambushes, sabotage, raids, the element of surprise, and extraordinary mobility to harass a larger and less-mobile traditional army, or strike a vulnerable target, and withdraw almost immediately. Not really what we are talking about is it, whereas in nearly every MODERN war that I have seen on the news, one side will claim at some point that these LGBs cluster bombs etc destroyed this hospital, school etc, for eaxmple apparently Gadaffis compounds were surrounded by civilians and news crews which prevented attacks. Thats about as modern as it gets! Gorilla warfare might be something that happens in the zoo? prob doesnt involve cluster bombs though.

Its easy to test if its a cross wind; Take off and fly with ball centred whilst flying along the runway .Your nose will be pointed into the wind. Lest say to the right of centreline. Now perform a 180 turn and fly back along the runway. Which way is the nose pointing? If to the left of the runway centreline, then it is a cross wind. If still to the right then maybe a bug? Cant test I'm at work , but I have noticed this as well, assumed it was crosswind.

You can get the Hall rate technology in the Thrustmaster 1600, cost £39. It certainly is really nice- sensitive and smooth. Spend the change on Track IR, beer and wine. Actually I would love a warthog, but dont have space to set up a pit permanently and dont want to have to spend 25minutes gettting eveything in place every time. Im a kitchen table guy. compact stick ,throttle and rudder peddles works well for me untill I buy a bigger house.. Anyway this thread title is about realism. Even on the kitchen table with my little cheap joystick and 17 inch laptop screen it is still awesome and real. (Another of my colleagues is sold after showing him Wags sitting Ducks video. He hadnt realised how much the genre had come on)

I think its a good idea! Human shield tactics are unfortunately common in modern warfare too.

Good point Impact, Although I suspect that "resistant to small arms fire" does not mean the glass wil lbe completely undamaged, just that it will resist a complete penetration of the bullet. Dont know though. Anyways, my glass was broken (on the exterior model) just be flying the aircraft gently into the refuelling boom, so Im sure a bird could manage it!

But you can start simply enough, say the gun for example, its really not that hard. master arm, master mode, pull trigger. The plane as a whole is complicated, but you dont have to jump right into intricacies of programming the navigation computeer for example. Taken bit by bit its really quite easy. Just get stuck in. I thnk far too much was made about how hard the KA50 was, I was nearly put off. when I actually got it I found I was flying around quite happily within a matter of minutes. Obviously wasnt going to do well in a campaign straight out, but didnt need to do that to get satifaction out of the sim.

Yeah its no problem to find missions where the Hog is sitting on the runway ready to go, or already flying. The aircraft itself is very easy to fly and land, you can spend many happy hours just flying around without delving into the complications of getting the weapons to work. I quite often do just fly around, doing touch and gos or enjoying the scenery, flying under power lines, in out of clouds, night flying etc... You wont regret it!

HI Ozz, I guess there are some keys you can "map" to move the pilots head up and down, left and right, backward and forward, same as in FS2004 / FSX. It Would be a good use of the numeric keyboard. Anyway I think the real answer is "Track IR". Have a look at how it works in Youtube, It basically makes your simulation turn into Virtual Reality!. Worth every penny and will transform your experience. Get the latest one with a Track Clip Pro. Its better.

I have just learned about birdstrikes from another thread... This is not really a "wish" but something that might be quite cool (although probably quiet annoying if it happened more than once a year...): How about other sorts of birdstrikes, for example windshield. It could be a big bang in one of the sections of glass, and the glass goes all cracked and hard to see out of, with a nice smear of red and some blood and feathers running back over the the canopy. It would provide a nice challenge to land without being able to use one of the windscreens!. Perhaps sometimes it could be in combination with a rough running engine, as no doubt some of the bird would end up going through one of the turbines. Anyway, prob best to get the AI / ATC sorted out first.

Cool! I think I will turn the birds back on. I quite fancy a bit of that realism! (I am sure my instrument failure was caused by the lightning, it was like FLASH/BANG/BEEP BEEP BEEP...)

Hi apoll, Congrats on your safe landing. Its much harder to control during the takeoff than any other time in flight. Good practice because I find the engines take a lot of hits on the missions. Did you have any stores? good to jettison them pretty quick. About birdstrikes, I have turned off birds, thinking that would save me a few frames. Are there actually birds that you see or is it just something you can enable to create the chance of random failures? Although I dont have birds, I did lose some instruments the other day on a training flight (so not due to enemy action) There was a big flash of lightning at the time so I assumed that was what caused it. Its good that this stuff is modelled.

Some people might consider it cheating, I call it using your initative which is one of the qualities an airforce would look for in its pilots! Anyway it must be fun to try and do it the old fashioned way. Good luck! At least now without the cloudbase you have a chance...

You can carry the targetting pod if you want, plenty in stock I checked.

Nice tips guys! sounds like I need to do some homework on WEZs, and invest in a pen and paper. I like the offset waypoint method, which I only just discovered, because once you have the first one, you only have to update your previous waypoint with the 5figure offset figure and save the new one, which I find a bit easier than inputting the new WP off the coords. You are right though, it doesnt seem to get quite the same accuracy as the coords method.

Welcome to flight sim nirvanna! (and a world of grief off your better half, thank goodness for eastenders thats all I can say...)

Oh I see thats kind of what I thought, hope it works well for ED. Thanks for settig me straight! I have to disagree about the downloading the software wherever you are bit though; I got IL2 COD through Steam, and with my current limited internet connection I cannot download an update for Steam, so I cannot get this patch that everyones raving on about to work. (Whereas, although it took about 8hours, with a download manager I was able to successfully download and install the 1.1.0.7 patch off the ED website). Anyway Welcome New Steam Pilots! Come and see what you have been missing! Please dont vulch your fellow Warthog pilots on the Ramp though....We take this SIMULATION seriously!

Hi sorry if this is a bit of stupid question; Can someone explain briefly what the benefits of Steam are? Why wouldnt you just buy straight off the ED website (which I did). I also dont understand the excitement surrounding the Steam release, is it just that a wider audience will suddenly see the Sim and think, I quite fancy a go at that! so that we are expecting a vast influx of rookie Warthog pilots blasting around? I would assume that enyone who has the remotest interest in flight simulation would already be aware of DCS A10C?