Voyager

So what are the key emergency procedures for the F-14, and which are most important? I'm aware of the Engine Out procedure but that's about it.

Just thinking through the task list of things to train up on on the F-14B Pilot side before I'm "combat ready". So far I've gotten takeoffs and landings, and a certain degree of the startup procedure. Also successful as guns employment supported by radar, and have walked through a sparrow employment. Still learning the VAIRIO commands, but making progress. Thinking the next couple of things I need to get a handle on are daytime navigation, precision navigation, and working with Jester to get INS fixes. Probably countermeasures employment after that, then A2A Refueling, then carrier Case 1 operation? Thoughts and recommendations? Ultimately, I think I want to sketch out a syllabus for getting to a stage where I can run the plane without thinking about how to do it, so I can keep my head in the what to do. Thank you, Harry Voyager

So the forums keep eating my posts, but I did dig this up: http://www.anft.net/f-14/f14-serial-09.htm#100 It lists the fate of every F-14 produced. Haven't gotten through it all but some of the incidents are rather remarkable, including a T-34 colliding with an F-14 and becoming wrapped around its wing. The F-14 was able to land successfully and was repaired and brought back to service.

Epic! Thank you very much!

Thank you. I checked my key bindings and tried the radar modes you all pointed me to and was able to get good locks in the dog fight mission. Slowly figuring out how all these new dangled gadgets work :D. I'm going to have to change my call sign to Luddite or something like that, aren't I? (Though about Old Fogey, but that sounds a little to close to "bogey" to be a good calsign). Did find a different issue; apparently the replays are different from the flight, as in I distinctly remember shooting the Flank we down, but when I watch the replay, he shoots me down instead. Thinking there might be a bug. I'm going to try the dog fight in an F-15 and see if I see the same sort of problem. I'm not sure if it is a replay bug, or a bug in the way the replays handle the F-14B,or a big in the way replays handle the Su-27.

How far off of the ADL can it be? We looking at 5 degrees, 20 or more like 2? I'll have to try the Sparrow +.VLS Low mode to see how that works too.

Is it the sale of skins that is prohibited, or are commissions also contra-eula? The difference being that the commission is for time/cost to creat, but the result is unlimited use/distribution (Yes, I'm having horrible urges to request a Jetfire F-14 skin...)

Getting into dog fighting and ACM, and I'm having trouble getting a radar lock on the bogey when I've gotten them in my sights, so I think I'm doing something wrong, but not sure what. These are in air start. Steps are to flip the ACM switch, flip the arming switch to armed, confirm with Jester that radar is active, weapons to guns, then pressing the PAL key. If I look at the repeater I'll see the radar trace go to a line when I'm pressing the PAL button, but I don't seem to see any response on the HUD indicating that it locks on the target like it moving the diamond onto the target or such. What should I be seeing, or how should I be getting an ACM radar lock? So far I'm doing ok with the gyro sight, but want to be able to at least get a good radar lock before I start with short range missiles. Thank you, Harry Voyager

Just want to say thank you all at Heat Blur for keeping us informed on these things. As complex as sims like this are, it's very easy for us to get lost in the variables and start making up all sorts of mystic incantations on what's going on. I'm glad you all are able to take the time to clarify these things.

Been mostly fiddling around in basic flight and navigation so far, but decided to just give it a go against an AI. Started up the dogfight quick mission, with no real idea of how to run the radar (I figured I'd tell Jester to put it in VSL mode and just go with it) and fortunately it was a guns only mission. Had about ten minutes of swirling dogfight with the Su-27, mostly trying to locate it based on the RWR and Jester callouts and managed to get on the guys tail twice before I realized it needed to be an unloaded shot if I was going to actually hit a jet with no radar support. Got him thought. I think I manged to spend most of the fight near 30 units AoA. Helps to turn off all the autostab stuff. Ended up with 2300lbs of fuel, and absolutely no idea where my airbase was too. It was awesome. I'm going to need to learn how to activate the pilot A2A radar modes. What is curious is that the unloaded aircraft keeps wanting to set up with the Phoenix rails attached. Is that just a visual artifact, or is the plane loaded down with those in the clean configuration? Harry Voyager

Personally I'm starting out by getting comfortable flying the aircraft between locations and running the basic aviate/navigate mechanics. After that I'm going to start on weapon employment until I can reliably run them under training conditions. Then I'm going to start adding in various combat elements, etc etc. A different option is to dive into the deep end and start a dynamic campaign and focus on surviving missions: https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=191858 You can do both, or something in between. I also gather there are some online training squadrons that are entirely based around learning to fly and fight. Depends on how you learn best.

You'll also likely need a different laser mask in that station. Have you tried lasing your wing to see if you can?

6. If you plug in the stick backwards and tighten it down, you can pop the base connector into the base... (I was able to work around it by installing a stick extension and extender cable, so it all worked out in the end, but not everyone is looking to do that.)

Right now there is no AIM-54 guidance code. The AIM-54 in game is currently using the AIM-120 guidance logic which is rather different and has different limitations and tradeoffs. In particular, as I understand it, the AIM-120 goes pitbull when the host stops talking to it, while the AIM-54 is supposed to abort.

True, but you can only do one of those at a time. A good bench marking tool can be set up on a batch of different test beds and run multiple times for averaged results and a multiple settings for identifying bottlenecks. Think the sort of reviews that anandtech or linustechtips does.

That why I'm thinking a canned demo might work better: basically snap the line on a specific build and code could help ensure consistent results, even if the calculations are running live. Or, one could just set up a mission that starts cat launching F/A-18's until a minimum of 20 or them are airborne and in the pattern. Do it at a 15 second interval, and that should get a lot of destructible elements going too...

You should see what autocorrect does with Harmon win...

Doing two seater training with my SO, and planning a navigation flight, which leave me wondering, for low level flying, what are the most scenic places we could do those fly-bys of?

The CPU wars are coming, and DCS (especially in VR) is CPU limited. You guys should set up a benchmark tool so that all the hardware review sites are talking about how DCS with settings on uber crushes computers like tiny little bugs. Feature the Hornet doing insane things, like dropping walls of JDAMs at a dozen different targets, or whatever else crushed computers the most. Not even sure it would specifically need to be integrated into the current build of DCS, but could simply be an independent standalone download containing a snapshot of the code in time. This could, for example, allow a demo of the Stennis advanced Carrier operation to be shown without requiring the carrier itself to be owned, or even, at the time of snapping the line, ready for prime time, but could involve all of the expected calculations one would see during deck handling a strike package of Hornets. That could be expanded to a psuedo run through of a strike mission, breaking it up into legs, that function and recorded flight snippets, (i.e. the actual engine, purges and starts a new flight track after each stage of the flight, while, cinematicly, appear to show stages of the same flight) allowing each snippet to focus on a specific stage of flight, and providing protection against individual unexpected behaviors from derailing the entire flight run. Thoughts?

This may be an artifact of my learning on warbirds, but is there a minimum acrobatic speed for the F-14B? The main one I'm looking for is the minimum entry speed for an immelman turn. My background is the P-47D, which requires a minimum indicated air speed of 250 mph at max continuous to perform an immelman, and 300 mph ias to do a full loop. Slower than that and you'd stall out. I'm figuring the F-14B has different values at Mil and at full burner, but not sure what they are, or if they are even above the stall speed. I do know if you've got the engine set to a speed that gets you a a stable 250 kt IAS, you cannot do an immelman, but wondering what the plane is supposed to be able to do on higher settings.

If it's signed Voyager or Harry Voyager then yes, that's me. It's an experiment. There are different types of complexity, and different people find different things easy and hard. Also, in a team that flies together, both heads can play the chess game. As I said on Reddit, this is as much a "thing to do together" as it is anything else, and there is a lot to do before ever going into a hot mission.

Found the lantirn mod. Thinking I could use the same sort of thing for this. https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3303929/

Actually, I'm trying to set up a system to try out two seater operation for someone who hasn't played before. So I'd have the stick and throttle, they've have the RIO stick and cockpit and I'd be running to their basic direction. It's not a long term solution, but was thinking it would be a way to see if they enjoy it before building a gaming rig, and without entirely throwing them into the deep end. At this pojnt, we don't even know how, or if, they'll handle VR with someone else flying the plane. Addendum: offline RIO centric training missions will be a later leg of this, but this is just initial experience.

Is there a way to set up the flight controls so they are available from the rear seat, even if it only works in single plaher? I'm trying to set up some adhoc "Trying out the RIO" and I recall people have been able to bind the RIO controls to the front seat. There a way to do that for stick and rudder for the back seat? Thank you, Harry Voyager

For language fun, the phrase "there should be" can be either used to indicate that a thing is expected to be, and to indicate if a thing is merely wished to be. Both interpretations are valid, depending on context, and in the context of DCS, a RIO snark control is something that one could expect to find. Actually, I recall from the Dev interview on the Alert5 podcast that the dev team did have the snark turned up higher on the early OB releases to test it out.