GeneralDynamics

Does anyone know if TM HOTAS Warthog dust covers for throttle and stick are available anywhere? I searched the forums on a number of key words related to this but came up empty. The only ones I've been able to find online look really nice and are sold through an outfit named AliExpress. Check them out here: http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Cloth-Cover-for-Thrustmaster-HOTAS-Warthog-Cougar-joystick-dust-cover/32326240077.html?spm=2114.01020208.0.1069.aFEvVo Now, here's the thing... I'd never heard of AliExpress before, so I checked out what folks had to say about them. They've gotten some pretty bad reviews and the word "scam" was mentioned more than once due to substandard buyer protections and some not so trustworthy sellers on their site. Has anyone had any experience with this online retailer, or better yet, has anyone by chance actually ordered these covers successfully from AliExpress? Edit: There were a few good reviews from customers as well, but most were negative it seemed.

I think I should take this opportunity to clarify a few things:-) I didn't mean to make it sound like my wife constantly nags me over purchases in that first post. It's just that she's very thrifty and thank goodness for that. If it weren't for her, I'd likely still be making interest-only payments on the house like a moron, and only responding to bills that came in those yellow or orange envelopes, you know, the ones that say pay now or something's getting shut off, not to mention the late charges. It's not that I couldn't afford to pay, it was simply because I was irresponsible and couldn't be bothered before she came into my life. Now, thanks to her, and only her, all the bills are paid on time every time, and we're a mere couple of years away from paying off the house, and for that I couldn't be more thankful - I owe her a LOT. While she does grill me pretty good on purchases (which can be rather humorous at times), she knows I work hard and she's willing to give me the benefit of the doubt to spend a little $$ from time to time. Yet, those purchases do cut into things she cares about like the house and bills and savings, and she works just as hard as I do to make ends meet. So, that being said, it's not so much about one person having veto power over another as it is about finding a path forward together in this crazy, mixed-up world we live in:-)

I noticed there was no more "convo" after that either... LOL:-) Edit: BTW, best of luck to you on the new house and your continued flying!

My wife is actually pretty good about not buying a bunch of useless junk she doesn't need. Even stuff she DOES need, like not letting me get that crack in her 350Z windshield fixed! Drives me nuts. Edit: I didn't buy it for her - it's a 2005 model she had already bought for herself new when we first started dating:-)

Sounds like that is the approach @xaoslaad has taken!

LOL! I haven't even looked at what they're going for yet as I won't have the Crosswinds until sometime in October. If you're interested, I'll be sure and let you know. The wife would be so proud if I actually sold something.

You lucky dog, you! If only I could get my better half interested in flying!

I thought I would post this latest exchange with my wife over my most recent sim addiction purchase on the off chance some of you married folks can relate and get a chuckle out of it:-) So, I've been getting pretty disgusted with my current Saitek Combat Pedals and I've been reading everything I can find about the MFG Crosswinds and looking at pictures and videos online in a darkened room for weeks now. I have no interest in porn, but this really is the avid simmer's equivalent, is it not? Ooooooo... I want those! I want them BAD! My mind's made up, I'm gonna do it, but how to convince.... the WIFE?? I work days, she works nights. My dear, sweet wife gets home about 11 pm and makes her way into my man cave. The game is afoot! HER: Whatcha doin'? ME: Ohhh, the usual, did some flying, been researching some stuff. Her spidey sense begins to tingle and her carefree demeanor starts to take a turn for the worse. HER: Oh really, what have you been... "researching"? ME: Well, I've been thinking about maybe kinda looking at some new pedals for the sim... HER: What?? What's wrong with the pedals you have NOW?? Here we go. ME: (In my best whiney voice) Well, you know, they're kinda laggy... It's hard to take off straight... They don't have a good FEEL to them... It's hard to line up targets... And they're just kinda old and... HER: When you bought those things just a couple years ago, you told me they'd last forever, they were the best things since soft butter, and you'd never need another set... Darn it all, she has a mind like a steel trap, guilty as charged. "Yabut" is a new English word that has morphed its way into our household vernacular - it is the concatenation of "Yeah, but", used when attempting to get a response in edgewise between rounds while being fired upon by the verbal equivalent of a GAU-8 Avenger. ME: Yabut... HER: And if I recall, they weren't cheap at the time, either... ME: Yabut... HER: And what are you going to do with those if you get new ones?? ME: Well, I can sell them on Ebay. HER: You say that every time, and you know good and well you've never sold a single thing on Ebay. Look at that closet! I sheepishly shift my gaze to the notorious parts closet. She's absolutely right. My closet contains enough old processors, graphics cards, power supplies, monitors, memory, miscellaneous pieces and parts and used sim stuff to build two or more entire PCs from scratch AND another sim pit. I tread lightly around it lest I run the risk of being killed in an avalanche. After all, I built her current PC entirely from stuff out of the parts closet, right? There are benefits. ME: Well, I never know when I might need that stuff... ME: Anyway, just look at THESE! And I pull up the MFG Crosswinds web page showing the pedals in all their sparkly, shiny-new-thing glory! A halo forms around the image on the screen, and strains from an angelic choir stream down from heaven. Somehow, she's not getting the same effect. HER: Yes, those look very nice, but what's so great about those compared to the ones you have now? I thought I had touched on that already, but nevertheless I began to extol the many virtues of Hall Effect Sensors, ball bearing design, lack of center bump, near infinite adjustability, over the top positive reviews, etc etc, so on and so forth. Thought I was making an excellent case, but I'm losing her... she's glazing over. Stall warning! And THEN... HER: How much are they? Uh oh. I wasn't finished with my pitch yet! Direct hit. Engines aflame, controls unresponsive. EJECT! EJECT! But the seat's not armed. There's no turning back now. I look down at the floor, shuffle my feet, and mumble the number of syllables required to say, "Three hundred and sixty five dollars and seventy cents." She couldn't quite make it out, but she knows from the length of the mumble it ain't good. HER: How much again??? I'm dead... I blurt it out... ME: THREE HUNDRED AND SIXTY FIVE DOLLARS AND SEVENTY CENTS. In retrospect, I suppose I could have left off the seventy cents bit. Kind of just adds insult to injury, doesn't it? So in what seemed a stroke of genius at the time, I added: ME: SHIPPING INCLUDED! HER: WHAT?? Are you NUTS?? ME: Yabut... HER: Nearly four hundred dollars?? For computer game pedals?? To me, $365.70 equates to almost $366, but wife rounding is done from the tens column apparently. ME: It's a simulation, honey, it's not a "game"... and... HER: Can't you get them off of Amazon for any less?? AHHH, an opening perhaps! But no... ME: Well, no, see... they're only made to order by this guy named Milan in Croatia... HER: Some GUY? In... CROATIA!?!? ME: Yabut... HER: WHAT THE??... NO! A long silence ensues. Last resort... Queue pouty lips and puppy dog eyes one might expect from a three-year-old. More silence. HER: (Deep sigh plus eye roll) Oh for heaven's SAKE! Do you really want them that badly? ME: (My voice quavers) Yes. I really, really do. HER: Well, go ahead and order them then, but we're going to have to cut back on eating out for a while. ME: I'll STARVE for those pedals! And that, folks, is how it went down. Does any of the above sound familiar to you married type simmers out there?

Thanks Sporg - I set deadzone to 2 and that does seem to help some.

@RogueTrooper My apologies if I'm a bit dense and missing something - is there a problem with the TM Warthog quality? That's the one thing in my pit I've been satisfied with thus far, except for maybe the center bump on the stick, and I just ordered a 10 cm extension to deal with that as well:-)

@kingpinda: LOL! Well, Milan's website said current orders were shipping in September, but that remains to be seen:-)

Wow, kingpinda, thanks for the great writeup on the Crosswinds. I'll definitely be referring back to your post once they arrive, "sometime" next month hopefully. Maybe the problem is the hardware deadzone on the Saitek pedals, but it feels more to me like it's input lag or something along those lines. I start rolling, and start veering off to the left a little bit for instance, so I give a little right rudder... nothing... a little more... nothing... a smidge more and then UGHHH! Too much! And I end up veering off to the right of the center line. Then the whole process starts again trying to get back to the left and I end up over compensating again, the end result being that I look like a drunk trying to take off until I get a little speed up and disengage NWS. Maybe if I did a few shots before climbing into the seat I could take off straight! :-) Again, it seems more like a delayed reaction to the pedal input, and once it finally starts to react, it's too much at that point. Then again, maybe it's a combination of both hardware dead zone AND lag. Whatever it is, it's a royal pain. In retrospect, I should just wait for the Crosswinds to arrive and go from there rather than bugging people on the forum over the Saiteks since they're going away eventually anyhow. I got so frustrated last night, I posted the thread today without thinking it through. But, I do have your excellent post to refer back to later when the Crosswinds do finally arrive. Thanks again.

Hi everyone - when using my Saitek Combat pedals and nose wheel steering during the first part of my take off runs, up to 70 kts, the response is mushy like there's some kind of severe input smoothing going on. This causes me to constantly overcorrect and I'm all over the place before turning off nose wheel steering and finishing my takeoff roll using rudders only. The response has always been that way since day one and I've just lived with it, but now that I'm getting better at everything else over time, this is becoming more and more annoying. I looked for any smoothing settings that might need to be turned off in both DCS world axis settings and in the Saitek profile editor, but I'm not finding anything. Can anyone tell me if there is a way to get a more direct, positive response out of the pedals, or if that's just the way the game/pedals behave? I just ordered MGF Crosswinds pedals last night, and I'm pretty stoked about that, but I don't know if they'll have the same feel during takeoff or not. Any comments on that as well? Thank you! EDIT: Neglected to mention this is with A-10C.

Well folks, I was trying to sort out how to get some additional functionality out of my budget pit, and I stumbled across an old Saitek Cyborg Command Unit gamepad I had in the closet. Turns out, it worked really well for me to supplement my TM HOTAS and Helios in A-10C so I thought I'd share what I'd done for what it's worth and point out some of the features that I found very useful: 1. Quite inexpensive - I saw two on Ebay for $25 - $35. 2. Backlit, although it's hard to see in the photos because of the camera flash. 3. Very easy to program, even with complex key macro sequences (if you need that). 4. Relatively compact. 5. Each key profile you define has three separate sub-profiles that are selectable with a slider in the upper left corner of the device, so it's like having three separate controllers at your fingertips. Each of the sub-profiles backlights the keys with a different color, red, amber or green, so you always know which sub-profile you're using. 6. Has a mini joystick which can be programmed as a mouse, and you can configure keys as your two mouse buttons. 7. Controller is old, but if you can find one, drivers and software for Win 8.1, 8 and 7 are still available from Saitek/MadCatz. Pardon the mess in the photos, work in progress. As you can see, I made a simple base out of plywood and attached it to the front of the HOTAS with the upright portion angled 40 degrees away from the throttle panel, and mounted the controller on that. I plan to take it back apart and paint the plywood black to match the rest of my little pit. I've configured two sub-profiles thus far, one for mouse and keyboard functions necessary to select and start a mission, and one for functions in mission. In mission, I have all the F keys for the radio comms and various views set up, and can use the mini joystick to pan around my F2 external view for instance. I have two keys set as mouse wheel up and mouse wheel down for zooming in external views. Also set up a macro for CNTL+E+E+E on one of the keys in case I need to eject. Worked like a charm. Along with Helios and the HOTAS, I never have to touch a keyboard for anything with this little controller from start to finish. Select the mouse and kbd sub-profile, get the sim up, then switch to the in mission sub-profile once you've selected your mission with a flip of the slider. Because the radio knobs have issues in Helios, I plan to set up a third sub-profile and map radio increment/decrement keyboard commands for VHF AM and FM radios, and anything else that's twitchy in Helios. You can also set up a shift key which doubles the functions available in each sub-profile. I think I've just scratched the surface with this little controller thus far. Flying Smerch Hunt tonight, the radio comms were a snap with this controller. My main in-flight sub-profile is backlit green which looks nice with the HOTAS. Very easy to hit F2/F6/F7 and then pan around with the mini joystick. Some of you guys have very elaborate setups, but for those of you that are on a budget like me (my wife says we are, anyway) I thought this might be an inexpensive way to get a lot of added functionality in a compact space if you can find this controller on Ebay. I just checked and as I mentioned there are two out there on ebay right now for $25 - $35. I hope someone finds this useful - maybe there are controllers out there now that are much more full featured, but I had this one laying around and it worked very well for what I needed, so I thought I'd share.

Thanks so much for the input, guys! Very much appreciated - I'll try specifying different attack approach directions and pay more attention to the layout of the target area. Maybe there's one that will work besides default or east.

Hi guys, I've been away from DCS A-10C for a while, but I've recently gotten back into it much deeper now. I've been studying and applying what I've learned, can start the aircraft from memory now, and I'm really enjoying testing the waters in missions. That's where I have a question. Was working on the Hideout mission last night, got the radios down, navigation etc... When I was over the target area, I had the targeting pod set as SOI, set a BTR-80 (I believe it was) as SPI with point track. I radioed my wingman and requested he attack ground targets at my SPI with missiles. He acknowledged, and then every time he would fly off across the border into Russia and get hammered with SAMs and I'd have to tell him to rejoin to get him out of there. Same behavior if I told him to attack from the east or default direction. I ended up having to take out all the targets myself. If I simply told him to go after targets of opportunity or air defenses he'd get some of them but would generally get himself into trouble as a result. Is there something fundamental I'm missing when instructing my wingman to attack my SPI? The good news is, I got through the mission without a scratch, RTBed and landed... Mission Complete! I was stoked, and I know that this will certainly generate some eye rolls, but it was a big deal to me. Finally getting the hang of how everything works and I'm loving it. Just need to sort out why my wingman decides to head out to parts unknown, however. Can anybody offer any suggestions regarding what I may be doing wrong? Thank you!

Hi Peter, I'd like to also offer my sincere thanks for sharing your mods and for all the work and effort you've put into them. I'm still just getting my feet wet with DCS World and have a lot to learn... BUT, with the helpful posts that you and others have contributed, I've managed to get Helios and Loz's V2.1 profile set up and working with all gauges exported and running correctly, and I didn't even have to bug anyone:) I run with a primary 46" 1920x1080 screen and Helios and Loz's profile running on a 27" 1920x1080 touchscreen. The last feature I was hoping to implement was your v3.1 clickable radio menu incorporated into the screen area in Loz's profile for that purpose, and I've done that. I've got the radio menu right where I want it, but I'm having the same problem with v3.1 that was reported by Hokie17 in post #56 where he mentioned: Ok, the left click works. I had to set Helios up so the radio switch on the throttle outputted LWIN+R on each release of each direction, because if I just left the script active it interfered with normal holding down of left-click touches. That, and tapping an OSB would result in it being held down for a few seconds before being released. And you responded: oh! Sorry Hokie! I made a small typo in the scripts - the stuck button is absolutely unintended. I loaded up the corrected scripts and it is fixed now... I believe I have the exact same setup as Hokie, with 3840x1080 total res, and Helios and Loz's profile loading on the touchscreen on the right hand side. Just as Hokie reported, the radio menu works great with Left_Click-able_Radio_Menu.exe loaded and running, but buttons in Helios stay stuck for 3 seconds or so before releasing, and if I try a button that needs to stay pressed, like the fuel gauge test, for instance, it only stays pressed for 3 seconds and then releases even though my finger is still on the button. If I run the sim without the left-clickable exe running, then everything in Helios works fine, except for the radio menu of course. Hokie's posts and your responses were back in August of 2012, and I was unable to locate "the corrected scripts", and even if I could, I don't know if they'd be applicable to v3.1... Also, would I need a v3.1 version of Left-click-hokie17.exe? I really didn't want to trouble you with this, but I've exhausted my limited knowledge in trying to sort this out on my own. Any guidance you could provide would be most appreciated, and if I've missed something in the posts, please accept my apology in advance. Thank you!