coweatyou

If you don't want to refuel the external tanks you could always just jettison them before tanking.

There is a box just above the seat height adjustment switch (to the left of the flaps and gear indicators). I don't think it was functional but now there is a green light that turns on when a switch is in the right position. It isn't mentioned in the manual so I don't think it's that important but can anyone enlighten me on what this box does?

I believe they mean that the TVV is actually supposed to be off the hud in the direction the arrows are pointing. (meaning you either have a very high AOA or the wind is blowing hard enough that the TVV would be off of the hud.

Never change the group id, it will be set correctly for you at the start of the mission. Group ID's are assigned so that each flight has a unique number, you can't base it on the flight number.

It is auto zero'd, just put in the 5 digits they give you and when you set them as coordinates it will auto pad the data.

Another way to check if it is an in game failure or hardware failure would be to try some of the hotas keys on the keyboard. If they don't either the keyboard and joystick failed at the same time or there is an in game failure.

Exactly. I had a failure in a weapon training mission and nearly had a heart attack. Luckily it was just a CADC failure and I was able to finish the mission sans the left MFCD.

I've seen a similar bug in the shore campaign. I was tasked with taking out some tanks but once I reached the fence, 2 units of tanks radioed that they where ready to move and an option was added to F10 that allowed me to order them to move out. The only problem was no units had these names, the point they where supposed to be moving to didn't exist and there was nothing in the unit briefing about it. Just for fun I told them to move out but selecting either option didn't have an effect and once I destroyed the target specified in briefing, it gave me a mission complete dialog. This happened again on another shore campaign mission when I was told to escort some tanks to a specified position. I flew in destroyed the targets and told my tanks to move in just to discover that they didn't exist. I was forced to quit the mission and take an incomplete mission and in the debrief screen there was no indication that any of my ground forces where destroyed and so I don't think they where ever spawned when the mission started. It sound like you have the same thing. If you quit and take the mission failed, a new mission should be generated for you.