DaveRindner

WOW! Thank you. I'vee been flyin and dyin in DCS and FC3 precurso since 2005. I have KA-50 BS2, A-10C, Mig-21, F-5E, FC3, UH-1H, NTTR, Normany, and WWII Assets, and just got AV-8B and M2K at the same time becouse of sale. They say learning Harrier is unlearning previous fixed wing. Already crashed a few times, without fatality, all on landing. Perhaps I did not put it into VSTOL mode correctly, maybe I did not use water injection correctly. Or something else. My VV gets too high despite at full power, and nozzles in vertical, gear down. Down in very low, last 100 feet or so, aircraft destabilizes,and I hit terra-firma with excessive VV, gear snapps, wing snaps, engine catches on fire, but virtual USMC aviator (there are no pilots in Corps), remains alive. This is expected, and if I greased AV-8B NA on first flight, I would be disappointed in it. USMC AV-8B veterans say that 30-40% of training time at OCU, is spent in transitional VSTOL regime. But of a bunch post apocalyptic alien invasion cave-men can learn to fly it with a simulator, in Battlefield Earth (2000), so can I! As Indiana Jones said, "Fly yes! Land No!"

Got the AV-8B. Like it! A lot. Excellent performance. 78-98 in Nevada at 2560X1440 with HIGH settings. 65-73 ish in Caucauss. Subtract 5-7 FPS when flying over thick forest. Normandy perofrmance is somewhere inbetween Caucauss and Nevada. Don't have Person Gulf, yet. Any advice for AB-8B newbie?

ACM is hard dude! F-5E is actually more of a ground attack, then air-air. But in daylight WVR its alright. Regardless of platform, situational awareness is most difficult, in DCS, and in real life. Which is knowing your aircraft relationship to target or threats, or both at same time. External views, especially F5 nearest aircraft and nearest ground hostile view,are most usefull. Have labels, so you would know where the friendlies and enemies are. In F-5E, radar is ancillary sensor at best. Visual target and threat detection with RWR is more useful. After SA, managing energy (air speed and altitude) is next most difficult. Aircraft needs speed for best performance. About 400-450 knots for tightest turn, and fastest turn rate. The harder the turn, the faster the AC looses energy. Read Energy Theory of Air Combat Maneuvering by USAF Col. Boyd. This is central to Western thought on ACM. Gross weight of aircraft effects how it sheds and gains energy. So you can't 'dogfight' with fuel tanks and AG stores. Even full internal fuel will slow you down, but F-5E will go through that fast in afterburner. In my opinion, within context of DCS world, unless you are fighting Mig-21, Mig-15, another F-5E, L-39, Hawk, or intercepting large aircraft, you are at energy disadvantage vs. 4th gen fighters, and will probably loose. Even AI opponent at Good or better. Mig-29, SU-27/30/33/J-11A, Mirage2K, all can see you further out, have more and better AA weapons, faster, and climb faster. A clean Mig-21Bis climbs quite a bit faster then F-5E. So best bet is one pass at enemy, fire off Sidewinders, one head on gun pass if possible, then run away. Ambush tactics! Like the Claire Chenault's Flying Tigers in China in 1940. Fighting superior Am6 Zero's with less maneuverable P-40. They would ambush Japanese, dive on them, or single pass from underneath, then run like hell. In DCS I find that F-5E has really fast roll rate. Quicker then almost everything, except clean Mig-21. Fight at 400knots IAS is best. So roll alot, to prevent opponent gun or missile solutions . If taking a IR missile shot, break to side, and dump flares like crazy. If an opponent is on your six, and you have altitude, dive with burners on to gain speed and run away if possible. If you are fighting against MIG-25 or MIG-31, and you survive radar missiles, get them in close, slow the fight to 350 knots, then turn to kill, take the shot, if possible, and run away at low altitude. F-5E has superior turn rate and turn radius then those huge things. Above 500 knots, your turn advantage diminishes. In real world, you should conduct your initial attack (i.e. the merge) with sun at your back. The good old 'Out Of The Sun', tactics from WWI. But, and this is just my opinion, I don't think that AI opponents are affected by sunlight in DCS. But I could be wrong. There is a great , but old book and old 1990's Internet posts by F-16 pilot Pete Bonani. He was a top F-16 USAF pilot, though he was actually Air Force Reserve or Virginia Air National Guard. He wrote great articles, and videos describing ACM basics, air combat geometry, energy management, and so on. His work is based on F-16A and early F-16C blocks, but they hold true for ACM, regardless of aircraft. If you can find it, there is a book by Richard Herman, called "Fire Break". In it there is this list made by one of the story's characters. Called "Abner Furry's Rules Of Survival". Its something like Star Trek's Ferengi Rules Of Acquisition, except shorter. Furry's rules are a bit comical but memorable.

So true. Easier said then done, at least in my case. Especially spatial relationship between own ship and bulls-eye.

My understanding that those hooks are not just for emergency arrests. They are also used when landing on short field , and on expeditionary runways during wet , hot, high density altitude locations. Navy and Marines used to have, may still do, a shore based expeditionary catapult (steam), to assist high gross weight tactical aircraft departures.

Thank you. Just as I figured. Looking forward to getting it + AV-8B. Right now my favorite is F-5E followed by A-10C, followed by MIG-21, followed by helo modules. I do not have MI-8 nor Gazelle. KA-50 and UH-1H I have and love em both. Something about F-5E module that is most satisfying.

I don't have the module. I assumed that lack of advanced avionics and weapons is becouse it is early access. Which is fine.

I was under impression that DCS F/A-18C Lot 20 is a late 1990's early 2000's, about 2005 FY aircraft, according to ED . However current release has no FLIR pod, no HARM ETS pod, and no AIM-120. F/A-18C with AIM-9M and AIM-7F/M is mid 1980's to Desert Shield/ Desert Storm era. Cold War wrapup era aircraft. Is this becouse this is early access? Non-flyable F/A-18C , on the other hand does have all those pods and AIM-120, and AGM-154 JAASM weapon. Does the module makes both F/A-18C and -18C Lot20 flyable or just Lot 20? $80 for a single module is a bit steep. But not a showstopper. Thank you so much. Wishing for A-4M/ -4R FightingHawk.

I suppose I am last one to figure it out. I noticed that F-5E and UH-1H havebeen taken out of 3rd party and into DCS proper space. So BELSIMTEK has been absorbed into ED?

Don't have it yet. Planning on to getting it with AV-8B and PG, once out of beta. Curious about its performance with 1060, or 1070 cards with recent CPU. Though my home wkstation is Quadro equipped (P4000), the performance with DX11/12 is equivalent to GTX 1070 or 1070Ti. At 2560X1440 I get 70-100+ fps in NTTR , and Georgia. Little less in Normandy.

No big deal, but F/A-18A/C/D is 4th gen. F/A-18E/F is 4.5. Mig-21bis is 3rd gen Mig-29A/C is 4th gen. F-5E is 3rd Gen F-4E/G 3rd Gen. F-111G is 3.5 stradling the grey area between 3rd and 4th gen. SU-24 4th gen a-g Tornado is 4th gen F-14A/B is early 4th Gen. F-15C, F-15J(JASDF) is 4th Gen F-15E, F-15I,F-15SA are 4.5 F-15 Silent Eagle is 4.5++ SU-27/30/33, J-11A/B, is 4th Gen SU-35, SU-30MKI is 4.5. F/A-22, F-35, SU-57 are 5th Gen. I also would love to see a fully simulated Russian gen 4. With PFM/ASM, clickable cockpit, instant stress damage, cumulative stress damage SU-27/SU-33/J-11A are most likely candadates given their current flight model. PFM I beleive. My preferense would be MIG-29 SMT or Mig-29K (SMT navalised). Mig-35OVT and SU-35SM/SK are advanced 4.5 gen thus too much classified information for a proper sim. NATO is fairly well represented in study sims in DCS. A-10C, F-5E, AV-8BNA, F/A-18C Lot20.

The Normandy map, is a decent, albeit imperfect, substitute to Baltic Sea, Gulf Riga, and Denmark Straights scenario. As well as a littoral naval warfare, and naval air-ground environment. The austrere aviation infrastructure stands in for sparce , austere operational environment. Regarding Nevada. If , possible, take time to visit (open to public) areas of NTTR, 29 Palms, Ft. Irwin(National Training Center), White Sands. Notice that region has topography similar to Afganistan, Pakistan, Central Asia, MidEast, North Africa, that is applicable to low, medium, and high intensity combined arms, air-ground, ground-air operations.

By heroes, you mean, of course, posthumous recipients of MOH, Cross De'Guere, or Victoria's Cross.

So is it worth $50? In its current state.

Prefer Xian JH-7A JH-7 is the only current PLAAF strike anti-surface aircraft, that is interested. Its basically a larger SEPECAT JAGUAR.

In RL this is highly restricted field, used by US Dept. Of Energy (DOE) and authorized users. Meaning its nuclear related. So its off limits to common humans. Even then, authorized use is daylight VFR only. Its located among fields of atomic sized sinkholes from underground detonations. In DCS, you can land in IMC , at night, in A-10C, KA-50, and UH-1H using NVG. Some modules have NVG mods, which I don't use. I would like NVG for F-5E and Mig-21 and SU-27/J-11.

Upon start, the update checker fails and crashes. All of my modules are disabled, and unable to connect to account.

Link is broke. "The page you are trying to access doesn’t exist. Error 404 – File not found"

Runway illumination was used at night, during departure and recovery of aircraft. Otherwise base would be under emission control(EMCON). For military purposes, light is considered an emission , just like radio, and radar. In Normandy the kickplate metal of expeditionary runway is almost same color as surrounding ground. But on all RW historical reels, even B&W, runways and taxiways standout at close range, and are somewhat darker and less saturated with green. I wonder if barrage balloons are effective against fast jets Gen3 and higher. Would the cables rip off wings. In Nevada, in Mig-21bis. I specifically flew between powerline towers and snagging a power line, just to see what would happen. In a 21, there is a metallic clang and snap sound, but the aircraft keeps flying without damage indicator lights (Xmas tree lights) Even ext tanks are not damaged.

Having lockOn issues with AGM-65H in daytime in. D locks on fine as long there are good IR contrast. But H, regardless of daytime contrast, is having a hard time locking on, and holding the lock. Much weaker then in 2.5 stable release. Performance is especially poor at daytime in Normandy, but with modern targets.

Having lockOn issues with AGM-65H in daytime in. D locks on fine as long there are good IR contrast. But H, regardless of daytime contrast, is having a hard time locking on, and holding the lock. Much weaker then in 2.5 stable release. Performance is especially poor at daytime in Normandy, but with modern targets.

That is correct behavior. Carrying ACMI pod and other wingtip pylon empty, places aircraft in asymmetric load condition. That causes slight roll. You need to trim alerons to compensate.

My radar was on Standby. I think I have sence found the cause. Gun/Msl arm switch must be OFF, to drop wing pylon bombs. If Gun/Msl switch is ON, fire control system thinks I want to launch AIM-9. I think it is a bug or improper implementation. When weapon select is to Bomb, Ripple, or Rockets, fire control should only fire guns, and release bombs. By setting weapon selector to OFF, and setting sight Msl or Guns1 or Gun2, the system should then be in AirAir mode. Manual Sight mode is really AG mode, and should be shown as such on Sight selector switch. Perhaps, the OFF option on Weapon selector switch should written as Air, instead of OFF. However I will keep an eye on dogfight modes of radar. In F-5E, I almost never use radar. We can only carry AIM-9P/P5 IR missiles. They can que of radar, but they go 'pitbull' (self guidance), off the rail. In a WVR ACM, MK1 target detection and identification system is , IMHO, proper choice.

F/A-18E Block1 and AIM-120C5/6/7 Personally I'd prefer F/A-18E Block1 and AIM-120C5, and AIM-9X Block1, with JHMQS for F/A-18, F-15C. But hey, a lot of it classified, and a lot of it has been deduced.

Self explanatory. In any flyable type without nightvision, landing at night is impossible. If there is fog and night, it is totally impossible. So F-5E, Mig-21Bis (without NVG mod), SU-27, J-11A, F-15C, SU-25/25T, cannot be operated in nightime in Normandy. I guess maybe there should low power runway and taxi lights. Or torches. A-10C with NVG ON, no problem, at night, as long as fog is not too dense.