VH-Rock

Let her cool down first! Repairing does not 0 the temperatures. If you wait 5 - 10 minutes and let the temps reduce to below 30 - 35 degrees, she should start again.

Whilst a desk mount version is more practical in many cases, it kind of defeats the purpose of an accurately modelled stick.

The title says it all - What would YOU ask a real P-51 Pilot? (And can I have a go / a ride does not count!) The Virtual Horsemen are meeting up with the real team (Steve Hinton, Dan Friedkin & Ed Shipley) in a couple of weeks time and again in July so, I thought I would try to do a short Q & A with questions from the community. So, if there's something that you want to know, post up here and I will do my best to get an answer for you. **Please keep in mind that they are very busy people - I can not guarantee an answer to every submitted question**. Rock =============================================================================== Current Questions: After experiencing DCS: P-51 for yourself, did anything seem to be missing from the overall experience? In DCS, it is quite easy to enter an accelerated stall, especially in high angle of attack maneuvers, in the Mustang. Does this match up to your real life experience? In the simulator, the Mustang vibrates strongly when on the ground. Is this the case in the real aircraft? In a Spitfire, it is known the ailerons can feel very heavy at high speed. Does the Mustang suffer from a similar downfall with Pitch, roll or yaw? Is it possible to quantify the amount of force need at certain speeds? When flying the real aircraft, is temperature management a constant worry? In DCS, it's quite easy to overheat, when using full military power, if your airspeed gets too low. After take off, how soon is the RPM adjusted and what to? Is there a climb rate that you try to maintain to keep the aircraft sufficiently cool?

Absolutely 100% Yes!

In addition to what Pman has just said, We're really very glad to see that our the time and effort put into the server is well justified - the response from many people has been very positive :) Echo, I personally would love to a server with dynamic weather running through different seasons. Whilst that would be very, very cool to do, it's just not practical for us as many people would log on and find they couldn't fly. We do try to incorporate everybody, but the primary focus of the server is formation flying / aerobatics - which, of course, require good weather.

Many thanks for the positive feedback guys, we love running to server and we're really glad that people seem to be enjoying it :)

Very surprising news - I was only speaking to him a week or so ago and was blissfully unaware of his health problems. In the many conversations we had online and the few we had face to face, he always came across as a very passionate and very genuine person who loved doing what he did. Blue skies, Jim

Sounds good, I'm around Stafford quite a bit :)

Yup

Where abouts are you Cowboy (Just seen you're in the West Midlands)? I'm in Stoke, myself :)

If you read my previous posts carefully, you will see that I suggested having a box to choose your load out next to the place where you choose your aircraft. This box would show the same options as when pressing Alt + @ but would not require you to wait for the ground crew to rearm your aircraft as you would spawn with them... As I said, the current system is only useful if you have a specific mission with specific aircraft in mind. If you just want a general combat server where people can fly any aircraft that they have purchased, how do you suggest that is accomplished with the current system. You can't have 32 of every aircraft type on one map to make sure everybody can fly what they want.

DCS P:51 is the only sim that I've flown that from the minute I start the engine to the minute I shut it down, I have a huge grin on my face! With DCS maxed out, in HD and with Track IR, it's a truly amazing experience.

That would certainly be very cool, thanks for your interest :) My idea for this drop down menu for a player to select their aircraft would be something like this.. Mission builder sets an airbase as either red, or blue etc... When he chooses that airfield, he could choose the types of aircraft that he wants to be available. All aircraft would be the generic setting, but if he wanted to remove certain aircraft, that should be possible. (It may also be beneficial to give the mission builder the choice of how many of the actual spawn points at the airfield can be used to save over crowding). This way, If a mission builder wanted 5 A-10C's at Sukhumi on the Red team, he would be able to select just that. At Sochi, he could choose to have every aircraft available.... A play would then be able to join the server and pick either the Red or Blue team and the correspong airfields would be listed below (where the aircraft are currently listed). The player would then click one of the available slots (under their chose airfield) and there would be 3 drop down menus to the right of their name. One for aircraft type (This list would be populated by a list stored in the mission file that was set up by the mission builder above), One for paint scheme (This would be populated by the skins found on the users own skin folder for the corresponding aircraft) and one for weapons load outs (The same list currently shown when pressing Alt + @). It would also be very useful if the available weapons load outs / custom weapons load outs could be stored in the mission file so types of weapons be disallowed or configured as the mission builder requires.

Indeed, but it is not just for our needs, it would also be beneficial in generic dogfight servers. The current set up is only useful if you have a predetermined mission in mind and know exactly what you need. It would be nice to have a Red Vs Blue map where I can in, select any aircraft and go fight against any other aircraft. At the minute, going in and saying "I want to fly a Mig 29. Oh, wait, They're all taken. I'll have to fly a Sukhoi instead..." That way, the situation is ever changing and people aren't stuck within certain parameters if they don't want to be. Ofcourse, I admit the current system is fine if you know exactly how many aircraft of each kind you want for one mission and the ability to select that should remain. But it is not nearly dynamic enough for certain situations.

Yep, I just find it strange how a system like this has never been implemented before as it would give the community much more freedom online. I really don't want to have to rotate missions to allow every aircraft to be flown and we really can't use every air base on the map as our server is supposed to get people flying together...

I don't see how that list would change the current situation at all, really. We've got missions on our server with skins selected. We do not have the skins uploaded to the server machine. If a user joins and has the skin installed, other clients can see that skin if they have it. How would allowing the user to change skin mess that up? As long as both clients have the same skin, it should be possible to see it. Maybe the server could recognise the description.lua and not need to transfer for textures themselves.

Not Necessarily. If you have a drop down list that just looks to the users skins directory and populates from there?

As some of you will know, over recent months, myself and a few friends formed the Virtual Aerobatics website, server and Teamspeak. We've been having a blast, but as DCS increases in popularity, we are becoming increasingly worried about a few things... At the moment, missions for online play have to be pre built with specific Aircraft and paintschemes chosen, prior to online use. Whilst this is not a problem for the moment, it is certainly going to become a more frequent problem as more and more content is added to DCS... We like to enable people to fly whatever aircraft they like in our servers, but do this, we currently have 120 aircraft on 3 airbases - and that is just with the current plane set! So, surely you can see, as more and more 3rd party modules are released over the next few years, if the current system were to survive, many people will not be able fly what they want... Our problem is that our server needs to be dynamic, but that is impossible in a fixed environment. At times we will have 6 Su-27s in formation and no A-10s being used. Other times, there will be more people wanting to fly the A-10 than there are available aircraft... This situation is very, very limiting for us and it is only going to get worse as more content is released. We moved over from Il-2 and I'm wondering if it would be possible to implement a similar system where a player can join, choose his airfield, aircraft and skin... Thoughts?

When the RAF or USAF start teaching formation with a drone as the leader, we might look into it :megalol:

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Thank you for all the messages. And KillarZ - there is currently no intention to add a phantom as our server is intended to get people flying together, not machines. There is pretty much always a formation going in the server.

haha, thanks - according to some of my friends, it quite suites my personality xD

Hi Leafer, After the first patch, there was indeed an error with the trim which meant that you had to use less than the handbook said. However, that was fixed in a later patch so the 6 degrees is the correct figure (Although, as I said above, I personally used 5)

Hi Leafer, Thank you. When you first jump on the Mustang from a cold start, both radiator switches are in the up (Automatic position). If you were to switch on the batter and the generator, both doors would raise up. Following that check list above in that order, you will switch both radiator switches to the down position (Manual) before you turn on the battery and generator. Doing so will mean that they stay open. Continue with the check list, taxi out and hold short of the runway. Whilst holding short, now set both radiator doors to automatic (upwards). You will hear the doors close, it takes about 10 to 15 seconds (I think). Whilst they are closing, I do my 2300 RPM power run up. To be clear about that, prop pitch is full forwards and just move the throttle forwards until you reach 2300 RPM and hold that for about 20 seconds. Taxi out, line up and advance the throttle slowly to 45" Mp. Once airbourne, gear up, reduce the RPM to 2700 and then trim the rudder to the left. One thing I noticed from your track is that you only used about 2 degrees right rudder trim on take-off. The manual says to use 6. Personally, I use just shy of 5 as I find 6 a little too much for my way of taking off. One more thing is that, when landing, I always open both radiators on the down wind leg when I drop the gear and flaps to keep he cool during the approach and taxi back. Loosing an engine on approach is not enjoyable xD Atb, Rob.

Hi Leafer, The Engine management in the P-51 is great fun although, after a while, it gets to the point that it becomes routines. During the course of flying this sim, I have only ever over heated the engine twice and both of those times I was trying to see how much I could push it before she would break. I'll go through exactly what I do below from start up and hopefully it will work for you, too: Flaps Up Carb set to Ram Air (Both Carb controls fully forwards) Both Radiator door switches downwards (So that they stay open) Fuel Shut Off set to on Battery On Generator On Fuel Boost Pump On Fuel Selector set to left thank Prime (4 seconds) Mags set to Both Start Introduce Mixture to "Run" As engine starts to catch At that point, I normally run up to about 800 - 900 RPM and let the temperatures come up to about 40 degrees. Start to taxi out to the runway, the engine will continue to warm up as you go. Once I'm holding short of the runway, the temps should have come up a little more. I then do a pre take off power run up to about 2300 RPM for about 20 seconds. If all sounds ok, taxi out, line up and take off. Now, I know you can go up to 60 inches of Manifold pressure at 3000 RPM, but there is really no need to go above 45. I personally power up to 45 inches and take off. As soon as I get airbourne, the gear comes up. I then reduce the RPM to 2700 to prevent any cooling issues and then I start to correct the rudder trim. If you have any issues, pop onto the virtual aerobatics server / teamspeak and I will give you a hand :) http://www.virtual-aerobatics.com *EDIT* Looking at your track, the reason your temps got so high and your engine quite because you kept high Manifold Pressure, High RPM and very low speed. - Try reducing your RPM as soon as you get airbourne to 2700 and as I mentioned above you don't need to go above 45" MP on take off. I would also suggest staying straighter and not pulling as much immediately after take off to allow the speed to build. Whilst the Merlin is a liquid cooled engine, it still needs good air flow to keep the temps down. ATB, Rob.