KLR Rico

I think there's more than enough free room inside the FFB2 case to fit the x52 guts. I didn't do it only because the wood platform mounts to my chair and I wanted to get it all as low as possible. Good luck! :thumbup:

Most of my axes are uselessly jittery, so I just use the bands feature in the profiler to put controls on them. For example, I put zoom in/out on the wheel/button right near my thumb on the throttle. It's setup so 0-20% is zoom out, 21-79% does nothing, and 80-100% zooms in. Then the clutch button can reset the zoom to regular. Using it this way seems pretty natural to me, and beats the constant jitters from the pot alone.

LMAO! So, what movie prop designer defected to iran?

As far as a startup delay for the FC3 jets goes, I wouldn't like it... Sit there and do what? At least with the A-10 I'm *doing* something for those 5 minutes. And as far as mixing the jets and mud movers on in the same mission, there's ways to deal with it. The 104th has been running a mission that cordons off jets away from the A2G forces, that seems to work pretty well. I don't really mind them mixed up either. If I'm flying an A-10 and get shot down, well it's probably because I should have been paying attention outside the jet and not staring at the MFDs, plus I probably should have called in some CAP support at soon as I got nails. EOS attacks on the other hand are a bit more tricky. I've been on the other side and shot down A-10's with fighters, but it makes me feel bad. Haha.

You should dust it off just to try it with the 'stang, if only once. :joystick: Yeah Merlin, I had doubts about WTF I'd do with a P-51 in the DCS environment, but so far it's been worth it just for the systems and overall experience alone, never mind any combat (something that I'll get started tonight).

Pretty much. The X52's handle was gutted and pretty much everything, (minus the axis sensors) were attached to the FFB2 base. On the FFB2 side of the house, the X/Y axis and control board remains, but no throttle or yaw axis. Technically, you could still reuse the axes that I simply discarded if you wanted to rig new levers onto them or something, but I didn't bother. So there are two sticks attached to the computer via USB. I put it all together as a hack/test to see if it was possible, and indeed it has worked very well. I was *supposed* to clean it up or enclose it into something nice looking, but I'm just too lazy. Haha.

Well according to the manual (p 109/110), HOJ attacks are passive. So although the radar is on, there's no transmission when locked on a jammer. The AIM-120 or AIM-7 HOJ attack is passive as well. You have to do the ranging yourself and the missile flies a pure pursuit path with a low Pk.

I think the FFB has a lot to do with flying the p-51 after all. It does a lot for the experience, everything from tight, crisp high speed flight to wallowing around at 125 kts, it really does make a pretty big difference... I don't have a regular stick anymore, but I'm sure I'd lose a lot of the experience without the FFB, probably something worth pointing out. There's still MSFFB2's out there for $20-30 on eBay, if you really want to fall in love with this plane. :)

If the DCS fast mover has TAD/SADL, the FC3 jets are F'd. If everyone can figure out how to set their goddamn ID's, that is. :D

After a year or so flying the A-10, and a couple weeks with FC3, I've been hankerin' for a real "stick and rudder" kind of plane, so I got the P-51. I've only flown it for 30 minutes or so, but I thought I'd share my first impressions. I skipped the manual and just hopped in to see what would happen if I was walking down the street and happened to find a mustang sitting there. I had previously setup the basic controls, and make sure anything that said assist or auto in the options was disabled. I located the appropriate power, mag, fuel, air, and whatever other switches/lever/knobs looked like they'd be important to start the engine and gave her a whirl. The result: burned out starter. :D A peek in the quick start guide revealed that I had it 99% right, but you have to crank it over and go from cut off to run on the mixture lever at the same time. Did that, and got it started up. Then I wanted to see what would happen if I stumbled upon a *running* P-51. :) Result: flaming death as I get rolling a good ways down the runway and then veer off into the grass. Another peek into the quick start guide and I find that I had made a good call with the careful throttle advancement, but the locking tail wheel is of some importance. So with the secret of the tailwheel in mind, I'm back at it and I have a successful takeoff and fly around for a bit exploring the flight envelope. After 10 or 15 minutes of cruising around I still managed to stay airborne without breaking anything and decide it's probably a good time to land... The first attempt was looking pretty good all the way through short final, but I put it down a bit rough on the flare and a good bounce. By the time the second bounce came things were going bad pretty quickly, so I aborted that landing and got her back in the air for another go. The second attempt wasn't too bad. Still a bit bouncy, this time I got it to stick and nothing broke. So by the end of my fantasy flight, I guess I would have broken an engine, and died on takeoff, but that wasn't as bad as I expected. :megalol: Outside of that experience, I'm really impressed by what I've seen so far. I was a bit worried about the people that have crapped on the flight model; how it stalls too easily, etc. I completely disagree with that. Granted I have zero time in a P-51, but to me it feels like a real plane in real air, and the plane is very communicative about when you're pushing the flight envelope. Departures from controlled flight seem spot on, and everything feels "right" with the model. Plus, another area that I was very impressed with was the FFB effects, they are probably the best I've experienced in any sim. The control forces are fantastic and it all feels great. I'd really like to get some more time on it and see if compressiblity and reversal are modeled. Overall, I'm pretty stoked with the P-51. Now I just have to dig into the manual and really learn the plane (and that alone is one of my favorite things about the DCS series).

Indeed... Moody and DM are both huge A-10 bases. I understand the logistical reasons for putting all the planes in one place (like the herks at little rock), but it just doesn't make sense to me tactically. All the eggs in one basket, so to speak... but what do I know? I have stripes, not stars. LOL.

I think the BLU-105 will seek targets, but still self destructs in their absence, maybe that's why the buildings still get destroyed?

Depends... If you want a really solid and precise joystick, no. If you like the "feel" of the plane, then yes. I have a Sidewinder FFB2 with an X52 handle/throttle and love it. I'd love to experience the precision of the TM warthog stick, but I use what I gots. ;) The benefit to FFB varies with the aircraft. For the A-10, you only get trim forces and the stick shaker at high AOA with gear down. You won't be missing much with another stick... Although, I do appreciate the realistic trimming. In the FC3 jets you get the buffeting at high AOA, gun fire, trim forces, control forces increased with speed, and all that jazz. The effects are all there, but for the most part they feel somewhat generic and perhaps a little "arcade" like, but that's kind of expected with FC3, and it still brings something to the experience. I just got the P-51 yesterday, and it has the best FFB effects by far. Simply brilliant, really. It pretty much has the same effects as those mentioned for the FC3 jets, but it's tuned extremely well, the "wallowing" feeling near stall speed is just perfect, and so is the onset of buffet at high AOA. It just feels *right*. I think for the P-51, having FFB makes all the difference, it's really easy to find the edge of the performance envelope and keep it there. I only had a chance to fly for 15-20 minutes so far, but I'm extremely impressed.

I've seen them miss a handful of times. Not sure if I was well past the 30 minute EO limit, or too far outside the "keyhole", but they do miss from time to time. I'd actually prefer it if they had a more realistic Pk and launch parameter requirements. The more realistic the better, I say.

:thumbup: Sounds like it's coming together.

After the forces have been enabled, there's another issue that causes trim forces to move the stick in the wrong direction, but the "swap axis" should fix that. Then again, g940 users have been having additional issues with stick forces, but I'm pretty sure there's workarounds for it.

For some FFB sticks, you'll need to enable an option in the settings that's labeled something like force tuning that click something like "swap axis". I'm sorry I don't remember the exact names, I don't have the game available ATM, but hopefully I described it well enough to help you get it done.

It definitely can tell the difference between dead and valid targets... Even static objects vs mission objects (checkpoints for example), IIRC. It will be interesting when (if) this gets fixed, that's for sure.

C will bring the hud into cannon mode, but you have to use the appropriate number key if you want to go back into aiming missile mode.

Situational awareness is of utmost importance. Use the pre mission brief to understand where the friendly and enemy forces are, and the expected battle lines. Fly along the FEBA (forward edge of battle area) or circle behind friendly lines until you can scout out what is going on. You can also use the F10 map in game to try and figure it out, beware that not all units will appear on that map.

That's awesome. Can it be used to drive custom actuators? I have this pipe dream of building a couple linear actuators. So far I'm imagine having an arduino control RC type brushless motors and ESC's. I'm sure I can work out the arduino sketches and the rest of the hardware, but interfacing with the sim is unfamiliar territory.

I could dig an OV-10 or AT-6 II for COIN and FAC duties.

There were a couple broken links, but I thought these were pretty neat. http://www.canadabizmart.com/bootstrapper/collection/spectacular-cockpit-photos/

That's pretty incredible. I heard that dolphins should be considered "non-human people", because they are self aware, have a social structure and language, and pretty much every other factor that defines a "person". I think it's crazy that we're all in such a fuss trying to find intelligent life, and it's been right here all along.

Gyros drift, but compasses swing due to accelerations and attitude changes. You pretty much have to use them both.