DD_Fenrir

Whatever. The only shrill tired voices peddling the same old tired manure with absolutely zero evidential data to back up their rancid little attitudes comes from your rabid band of delusional fanatics - as resoundingly proved by your OP. Because if you understood anything about the ECM jamming in DCS is that tactically it provides you with little to no advantage at all. You always get burn through before realistic max weapons range and any advantage you may have thought you had by altitude masking can quickly be negated by healthy application of the left hand on the part of your erstwhile opponent. It's pretty damn useless to everyone. But, no, of course, you're right, it's EDs personal vendetta against you cos you like Russian aircraft. Seriously, do have any comprehension as to how asinine that sounds?

Waaaaahmbulance please on aisle 2. Ooh, it's looking serious - better bring extra tin foil hats as well!

What controller hardware do you have Finnster?

As I would expect it to be. Most of the guys I know who struggle with AAR aren't interested in that environment anyway! Non-issue - there is exactly the same metric when it comes to visual aid spotting icons; and what happens with this? The server operator decides what audience they wish to cater for and tunes their icon setting accordingly and ergo puts up with the pros and cons of that decision. Easier AAR could be implemented in an identical function. And who's to say the functionality could not be developed to allow both types of operation from the same tanker, so that it's an F10 radio option as you approach pre-contact to give you the easier AAR refuelling zone at this point? Or if you don't want it, to continue as normal? Or have two tankers, one set to easier, the other set to normal, in the same server? This whole idea is to provide training wheels, to give some people who struggle that half-step, a sense of accomplishment that they've reached a mid-point, that if they have sufficient skill to keep their aircraft in a narrow enough portion of sky to get this far, then maybe they can develop further enough fine motor skill to push on and go the basket/boom proper. That's my point; these aren't newer members - some of these chaps have been flying DCS for years but found AAR so challenging after hours and hours of attempts they refuse to even entertain the thought of trying. Yet these are members who can otherwise operate the jets very well, get bombs on target and hold their own (mostly!) in a dogfight. Enabling an Easier AAR feature on our server would allow some of the more proficient hands the nuanced complexity of flying longer ranged missions and doing AAR without having to exclude those members who, if it weren't for the AAR restrictions would love to take part.

I agree on the last part and is not the way I would wish to see it implemented. However with some intelligent cogent and considerate software design it is not impossible to design an aid system that could be both selectable, scalable and used as a progressive training aid towards accomplishing actual probe-in-basket/boom-in-receptacle AAR in DCS. I outlined my proposal on a solution that could accomplish that already:

How gregarious of you.

Where do I challenge that specifically in my response? Nowhere. You're reaching to find a valid argument and are conjuring phantom axes of argument on my behalf. The greater question here is why you are so threatened by a training aid that could potentially help those who find that leap to AAR too challenging and could use a leg-up? If - as a user selectable option and equally easily activated or deactivated by server operators - there was an easier AAR option that specifically does not dumb down AAR for your personal edification, there is NO logical or rational reason you should be so against this as IT HAS NO EFFECT ON YOU. Get it? It's that simple. If it is implemented intelligently and my squad-mate chooses to turn it on, in his SP mission to practise his AAR, your precious little immersion bubble won't suddenly implode; you won't suddenly find yourself with 360 degree radar and 50 missile auto-replenishing loadouts and clown-plane FMs. IT HAS NO EFFECT ON YOU.

And I shout "narrow-minded" and "gatekeeper". Considering the evidence presented to the contrary, how bloody dare you pompous ass. Though having said that, it's unsurprising that your capacity for any other viewpoint than your own is so limited; comes from having your head so far up your own posterior.

What a bunch of hysterical drama queens. Do you have any sense of dignity?

I have no particular stance on the issue - I see both sides of the argument and my personal feelings are that sometimes it's useful but at others it can be clunky. The content of my post directly addresses the manner in which you choose to berate, insult and belittle the work of some of the hardest working, communicative and considerate devs in this community and then have the temerity to expect something to change in your favour.

Way to go. Motivational speaking at it's finest.

My two cents: There aren't many stepping stones in other aspects of DCS to help those who wish to progress in a given task to master it, and as such it tends to be a hurdle that you overcome or you don't. That said, AAR is a particularly steep hurdle, and can be dishearteningly frustrating - I was fortunate in that I was able to get proficient relatively quickly (though it must be said I'd rather take a basket than a boom any day!). However, I have seen many of my squad mates try repeatedly, despite the best help I can give, to fail to either connect or maintain the connection when attempting AAR even after many hours of trying. And some of these guys can fly reasonable combat formations. They just struggle with the PIO elements that dominate the neophyte AAR experience. This limits the scope of missions I can propose; or it punishes those who might get trapped in a dogfight and obliged to use more fuel than they had planned to land away from their home base, crash or eject, because they dread the thought of trying to AAR, especially in front of their friends. For that reason alone I'd welcome as easier AAR option. There could a fairly simple workaround that could be used as an aid to work up to sustained contact with the basket/boom. As a difficulty option, selectably overridden by servers have a Defined 3D Zone behind the tanker which, after communicating the necessary rejoin requests becomes visible as a translucent cube/cone, whatever. By flying and keeping your aircraft within this area you are automatically transferred fuel. Maybe you could have Zone size selectable or scalable to help those who wish to progress make the Zone smaller and thus gradually work towards the ultimate goal of realistic plugging. I'm a fairly hardcore DCSer and prefer to do most things as per prototype - but I for one would welcome the implementation of a feature that would ease the learning gradient of AAR - which to some can seem vertical and almost insurmountable - for the sake of my squadmates and the entry level DCSers. As long as I can still do it the authentic way, it's no skin off my nose.

Possibly; until you develop the muscle memory required to not over-G the Cat it is very easy to jerk the plane into high onset G rates and inadvertently pull loads of 9-10G, particularly in the 400-500 knot range. That's enough to make the INS throw a tantrum and knock-out navigational and trajectory information systems but not to rip wings off.

There is another factor - on the B in particular; the idle thrust of the GE F110s is very high and if coming in too high or too fast, a power down correction might resort the pilot having to go to idle power if the deviation is large enough. That can be risky - if you over-correct (stay idle too long) you have the spool up time of the motors to account for and it maybe a few seconds before the power-up begins to bite and where you were too high too fast, you suddenly find yourself too low and/or too slow. Close in that could be fatal, By having the airbrake out it means your throttle down changes have more effect, more quickly and you are therefore less likely find yourself in the above predicament.

BTW: if you're spinning at high AoA you've either: Stayed beyond 15-17 units of AoA too long and let the speed get too low, or You're trying to roll using lateral stick inputs above 20 units AoA, or Both Learn to dogfight keeping the AoA to 15-17 units and be patient. Also remember to coordinate rudder and lateral stick at this mark. Take brief excursions to the 20 and above mark if you must to defend or gain angles but regain the energy spent as soon as you can by unloading when possible. And if you must make rolling manoeuvers at anywhere above 20 units then DO NOT USE LATERAL STICK; keep it centered and work the roll using the rudders; there is significant roll inertia using pedals in this regime but you can get used to it. Use the stick and the spoilers will induce roll OPPOSITE to the way you wish to roll. Also if engaging in BFM it is advisable to disable the Roll Stability Augmentation System to help mitigate uncommanded roll inputs being generated by the system in it's attempts to keep up your inputs in the high AoA regime.

My 2-cents: At high AoA the stabilators and the vertical tail surfaces will be in the aerodynamic shadow of the "pancake" and will be subject to the turbulent airflow coming off it, plus the "pancake" is so large that it itself will be being hammered by the turbulence generated from the leading edges. The "pancake" is large so significant amounts of turbulent airflow will be generated and at anywhere above 15 units where the ratio of lift-drag starts to favour the latter, you will be generating a lot of turbulence. Ref: the MiG-21 comment, I find it surprising that this needs to be asked; the MiG was designed 15 years before the Tomcat and represents the manned missile school of interceptors; the Tomcat represents one of the first 4th generation aircraft where consideration of high AoA controllabilty and agility was a major factor. The thing was literally designed to out-rate and out-radius the MiG-21 and F-4 - these two were used as benchmarks to improve upon as part of the design specification.

Experienced the same.

Sorry, yes you're quite correct; brain farts are coming more frequently in my advancing years! Corrected the advice post accordingly, thanks drac.

Similar to the clipped wings we see the broader chord rudder with the pointed tail only become standard in the ETO with the introduction of the mk XVI. They were a production feature of the mk VII and mk VIII and a few examples found their way to the odd LF.IX in the latter part of 1944 but were uncommon.

Stennis has no deck crew. Line up manually on the catapult and move forward till you're nose gear is just behind the cat shuttle. Use F2 view to assist if necessary. Kneel the cat to lower your launch bar Press "U" to connect to the shuttle. If you're correctly positioned the Launch bar will lock into the shuttle and the Jet Blast Deflector will raise. If not you may need to move closer to the shuttle or raise the Launch Bar and reset your approach completely. Once connected, go to Full Military Power Press 'Left Shift+U' by default (or whatever you have mapped to your 'Launch Catapult' key binding) to initiate the catapult.

Nealious, is this just after lift off? Do you leave the ground and it happens a few seconds after you get some air under the wheels?

1. Unless you have to, avoid 3000 RPM/18lb boost and rather stay at 2850 RPM/12lb 2. Avoid getting under 140mph IAS. 3. Do NOT make extended steep/vertical climbs and NEVER tail slide. 4. Only turn as tight as you need to at any given moment; the Spit will give you vast amounts of turn rate but at the expense of airspeed so manage it carefully, ref point 2.

Have to say I too am getting a very low hit % in TWS with the Phoenixes, both A & C. Been using Kabas Cage the Bear campaign and the Southern Watch missions (ergo, single player) that shipped with the F-14, and thus far have only a 25% hit rate against fighters launched ~co-alt and 0.8-1.0 mach and ranges 20-25nm. This compares to ~75% prior to the new API. Watching some of the missiles in they do not appear to be making much/enough mid course corrections when under datalink command - thus when they do go pitbull the target is often wide of their radar cone or so far to the limits the missile is obliged to pull massive g and bleed it's remaining airspeed to pull it's nose on to interception course and is subsequently defeated kinematic-ally.

Good lord, some people just can't take no for an answer. And if your feverish hard-on for PTID let you convince yourself that Heatblur had committed to a PTID model (which they never had, and said 99% likely never will because all the information on that system is still classified) then that's your the fault of your own overactive and over-entitled imagination. Get over yourselves, seriously. It's downright undignified.

It's not just speed related chaps; you can damage the torque tubes applying g whilst the flaps are moving, particularly with rotational g.