Xpendable

Nice job. I like it!

I would not say mk82's are useless against MBT's. I usually have decent success with low level drops using snakeyes and airs, but I will drop 2-4 at at a time with low intervals which gives a higher success rate. Of course it is riskier... their gunners can hit you. The key is to come in fast.

By the way, this is looking really awesome. Did you put any metal inside the yellow throttle arm for strength? I'm guessing you did, but can't really tell from the 1 picture.

It won't let me see or download this video.

I have been working on designing a full scale facsimile AV-8B ejection seat, which is the first component of my Harrier cockpit that I plan to build. I've got a long way to go before this design is finished and I can finally start building. What do you think so far? It will be made out of 3/4" and 1/2" wood primarily (most likely MDF, possibly plywood). The seat back will get covered with a thin piece of aluminum (I think) and of course will get a padded seat back in front of that. I was going to make the seat raise and lower like the real thing, but I couldn't find any cost effective solutions for that at this time, but is something that could be added later. When I'm done, I'll be putting the FreeCAD file up on Github to share.

I see. That makes sense. I usually use multiplexing chips in my designs such as the mcp23017 which makes the diodes unnecessary, although you do need resistors in that case. Of course adding a chip also increases cost and there is a bit of work in the code necessary to make it work - which I already have as I reuse it in a bunch of designs.

Very much a work in progress. Will be built mostly with 3/4" and 1/2" MDF or plywood.

I don't understand what purpose the diodes serve in your circuit... Can you explain? It looks like you're just hooking them up directly to the digital I/O pins on the Arduino, and that shouldn't require the use of diodes. Assuming of course you are using the built-in pull-up resisters mode on the Arduino.

I am down with the idea of forming an OpenHarrier group. I am in early planning stages, although I have 3d printed the UFC from here and started 3d modeling the throttle grip.

I like it. I have the same images loaded into my FreeCAD project but not quite lined up yet.

Hey Tea Cypher, I'm super interested in your project. I'm in the beginning stages of doing my own AV-8B sim cockpit and would like to collaborate where possible. You are obviously a lot further along then me. I have the electronics and Arduino experience already, and have successfully tested using DCS BIOS, so I know how to do that stuff already. I have access to a laser cutter at the local library which is where I plan to cut my and etch my panels for my sim from acrylic. My cockpit will be mostly wooden construction with some parts 3d printed as necessary. I have started designing the throttle handle in FreeCAD, and have already 3d printed most of the UFC that is found here. Since I'm a VR user, I probably will not be doing backlit UFC buttons at this point, but that might change in the future. Also, I don't "officially" have support from my wife on this project, so that'll be a fun conversation when she finally figures out what the heck is going on. LOL. Anyway, please send me a message if you'd like to collaborate on anything. Any files I create related to my project will be publicly available on GitHub. Also interesting that you got to converse with Aiden on his sim cockpit. I messaged him awhile back, but he never responded to me. Xpendable

Usually means you bumped or bounced the nose gear on takeoff. I literally just did this last night. I tried to rotate too early and there was a slight bounce (had a heavy load). I literally damaged the nose gear and it would not retract. Respawned with same loadout and was more careful this time - no issue.

You can work around this problem by manually a creating a new waypoint from the cockpit. Once you create it, everything should function normally. Here's how: On ESHD page, press DATA then press "WYPT" OBU then on UFC press 2 then ENT. This will put "*2" on scratch pad. Now press "POS" OBU, press "2" for N, then enter something like "410000" ENT, the press "POS" again, press "6" for E and enter "0430000" ENT. Confirm N and E coords are shown in top left of ESHD. Press DATA again and you should now be able to cycle through waypoints, mark points, target points, etc.

My only experience with the Harrier is also at airshows... I've seen the Harrier at EAA Airventure perform in Oshkosh, WI numerous times over the past 2 decades. Of course that does not make me an expert or anything of the sort, LOL. That pilot would hover a decent amount of time (and who knows how much fuel he had) and then VL, taxi away from the touchdown point and then let his JPT cool down for a couple of minutes before doing another takeoff.

Easier said than done, but so is the Harrier, in terms of flying.

Agree. I am unable to perform any airshows with the Harrier, and my twitch channel was based on the Harrier, so I won't be live streaming anymore, either. Again, not sure if this more realistic or not. I dunno.

Well in the process they nerfed the VTOL capability. I was able to hover it without water after reducing fuel to 3600, and not much room for error. Doesn't seem right.

As someone who has dedicated to flying the Harrier for the past 2 years, I was surprised by recent performance changes to the engine in one of the last 2 patches (not sure which one did it). It feels like a "nerf" to me in the area of hovering. I've always thought that the Razbam Harrier was not accurate in some areas of the hover, as I don't think I should be able to hover indefinitely without overheating the engine. Anyway, now a hover does not even seem to be possible unless you are carrying nothing and less than 3.8 on the fuel (without water). I used to be able to hover at 5.7 to 5.9 without water and have 2 smoke pods on, but this does not seem possible anymore. With water I can get up, but the water disappears very quickly and then you crash. Just wondering if the hover capability is more realistic now or if it's way off. I'm honestly not sure. I do know that I can no longer perform the airshows that I used to perform - at least not the way that I had done them. I supposed I could get away with something if I'm carrying almost no fuel.

Yep, I knew about the waypoint increment requirement. I also found that if I drop below a certain altitude the TPOD would be obscured by my aircraft before the bomb hit. Dropping from a higher altitude solved that problem. I was dropping on Tonopah Test Range from about 11,000 feet, which is only about 5,500 AGL. That's too low, apparently. Dropping from 13,000 or above (8000 AGL or more) gave the TPOD more visibility after overflying the target.

I have been trying for HOURS and I cannot get this to work. I've watched this brand new video 3 times... And still cannot get it to work. I've got the target lazed... I've tried with area track and PT track on a static fighter on the ground. I've tried both 1688 and 1588 code. I've got the target loaded into the ESHD and have DESG boxed with TGT next to it and confirmed T 0 is selected. The TPOD is tracking the are or point. I have the auto drop queues on the HUD. I've confirmed the laser is in actual LASR mode (not TRNL) and I've got the FIRE button boxed and have the flashing L on the HUD. Everything should be working. The bomb drops exactly when it should... and it misses by hundreds of feet. I've tried this over and over and over again. It is not working and I'm ready to pull my hair out. ARRRRGH! EDIT: Ok... maybe I'm an idiot. I've just realized that the last few times I've been switching to bomb camera and it's possible my plane is rolling an blocking the TPOD laser, which could explain why I'm not hitting the target. I'm also doing this relatively low... like 8000 feet. Maybe I should be doing this higher? Will try some more. Further EDIT: Yep... that was it. This time I stayed flying straight and level (and slightly higher) and watched from the TPOD and sure enough I hit the plane dead on. Gotta practice this more.

Still trying to figure out what I need to order to affix the matrix to the front panel. M3 threaded inserts? Or M2.5? It's not clear to me.

It would be super cool if we could somehow get that scan or model! However, we can still work with what you uploaded. I can load these into FreeCAD as planar images, and then scale them by drawing a line on the threaded part and telling it to scale the image based on that line being 1.5" long. Then I can model the shapes on top of the planar images in the background. This in itself is super powerful. You've unlocked super powers by uploading these images, and I greatly appreciate it!

mattjonesgr9, Where on earth did you acquire such fine pictures? This is a fantastic amount of detail. Do you by any chance have the original model that these came from? If the thread is truly 1.5", we may be able to interpolate all of the dimensions using that as a reference point.

I've printed the upper box (spool snagged so I have re-print it), the recessed buttons, the top plate, and the button matrix. I printed everything in white because that's what I had on hand. I'm going to be spraying everything with gray filler, and will be finishing by sanding and painting. Anyway, I noticed that the master caution and the master warning lights for the side illumination lights are not modelled as buttons. Those should be able to be depressed. Ideally those should be separate buttons that can be printed separately with a little matrix behind to hold a microswitch. This would also save on a ton of material because currently there is a slanted ramp designed to allow that master caution / master warning to be printed without supports. That is a lot of wasted material that would not be needed if these were converted to buttons. Looks like I can load the .STL into FreeCAD and I may be able to do some parametric modeling to remove this area and create separate buttons. But if the original author wants to tackle this, feel free!

I just had another person recreate the same issue using my instructions, and they confirmed the bug as well. I was just about to do a livestream on Twitch to show other Harrier pilots the bug. In regards to "...if you keep accelerating and know that you're going to rip the wings.....why continue? Just cut the throttle and turn outbound. Im confused." Just trying to report a bug that Razbam was obviously unaware of. That's it. Fix it or don't fix it. I don't care.