pyromaniac4002

Yeah okay, I don't know if they've made a way to change the radio frequency from the HOTAS (though there's no reason they couldn't, I see plenty of jog dials on that throttle), but you might consider the fact that it's the radio frequency. Not something you're going to be paying much attention to at any time other than when you're flying nice and level with plenty of time to correct for the odd air turbulence bump that makes you hit the wrong decimal place for your VHF AM setting. And if we can't find people out of the elite few that will get to fly the F-35 who can manage the HOTAS without hitting the wrong button all the time, we have much bigger problems in the USAF. My guess is they'll get along just fine with the cow pie.

Have you seen that monstrosity that the F-35 has for a throttle HOTAS? There's so many damn buttons, knobs, and switches, it'd be hard to imagine a way to not have every functionality hidden in some combination of them. And I'm pretty sure someone in the air force remembered to tell the folks at Lockheed the middle of an 8 G turn is no time to be poking around on an iPad. Hell, someone at Lockheed may have had the idea themselves. They've only been building combat aircraft the better part of a century by now.

I think you need to take another look at that whole IAF F-15 wing-off incident. You don't think the instant they collided and took the wing off it spun out of control? Well, it did. The pilot recovered it. CAS had nothing to do with it. CAS would probably be more of an impediment to recovery rather than an aid. Electronic flight aids aren't some kind of witchcraft that can just fix all your airflow woes, they only act according to predetermined situations. Flying without one of your wings is hardly an anticipated mode of flight. Besides that, you can have as much fancy computer flying as you like, it doesn't make lift appear out of nowhere. The point of involving this story in this discussion is to illustrate that body lift can account for a lot more than you think. It's not unreasonable to think it plays a significant part in the F-35's case. Pointing to high wing loading or the combination of flaps, slats, or leading-edge root extensions as the end-all, be-all of maneuverability is ridiculous.

First off, congrats on the new equipment. I've got the CH pedals, couldn't tell you about the others (though I wish I could in the case of those Crosswinds, they just look incredible). You're right, they are a bit close together, but I've found it's something you adjust for without even noticing. They're sturdy, accurate, and do everything you need a set of rudder pedals to do and it does all of it at a good savings over the competition. I've had my pedals for a couple years now and they're still working perfectly. The neutral position is good and noticeable without making fine control around it too difficult and the centering spring (or whatever is in there making it return to the middle) hasn't noticeably weakened. I'm very happy with these pedals, and even though they're not the top of the line like my TM Warthog, they complement it very nicely. If anyone can share about those MFG Crosswinds I'd like to hear about that too, though I don't think I'm in the market for one of them for a long time with these CH pedals.

ROFL. We'd need to add a "control surface spontaneously falls off" failure mode and change the pilot model's oxygen mask to that bangin' face rag thing that top guy is wearing.

Good to see some fellow bikers. I don't really have any particularly share-worthy motorcycle stories (mostly just your run-of-the-mill, "some idiot tried to kill me while making their lane change" type stuff), but I do have a pretty sweet picture of my bike that my cousin's aspiring photographer friend took. She's a 2013 BMW K1300S and I take her out on the streets of Southern California just about every day for my commute. Every once in a while I take her down Ortega Highway. One day I'd like to do a motorcycle trip around Europe, probably go to a MotoGP race or the IOM TT. Any other Beamer fans here?

Reading this made me burst out laughing. 8 x AIM-120s is not the "standard loadout," it's a SPAMRAAMing noob's loadout. And if you have any familiarity with DCS, you know that hanging out at 40,000 feet gives you absolutely no advantage. Anyone who knows what they're doing either stays "in the weeds" like your opponent or dives down there when the missiles start flying. Also, you were on his RWR. Basically you're doing just about everything wrong, including coming on the forums and telling everyone how wrong you're doing it. :chair: It's honestly baffling every time someone makes this argument. First off, the A-10C module has plenty to do with the real airframe. It's not the newest version of the A-10C and it's not a complete representation, but it has a hell of a lot to do with the real A-10C. It actually has more to do with the A-10C than anything else you could buy and install on your computer, so it's definitely in the running for "things most A-10C-like." You act like it's a foregone conclusion that ED could do anything to make the game more realistic, and that's the real bullshit. The missiles were much more accurate to their real-life performance before the AFM. ED tried to make the missiles more realistic but in practical terms they made it less. They can make the game more realistic by fixing what they broke like 2 years ago, and they should. Anyone that has a problem with that should be playing Tom Clancy's HAWX. How many World War IIIs have we had since that World War II happened? Oh, right. None. What we've seen since BVR has been introduced are limited-scale conflicts and limited-scale combat has some restrictive rules of engagement. If something like World War III broke out between evenly-matched opponents, you can bet your ass you'd see plenty of BVR. Fighter aircraft are almost never allowed to engage bandits from maximum range, especially the most modern and capable ones. It doesn't mean they can't fight BVR or don't excel at doing it.

~30,000 feet works pretty well for me. One thing though, you're going to want to climb up above that altitude and then drop down to your desired altitude and unload the angle of attack on your plane. If you don't unload the AoA you'll have too much drag to go much beyond Mach 1.6-1.8.

In general I'd say ED is far and away more considerate and fair than any other developer out there making games of this quality. When I was trying to buy my Fw-190, I accidentally purchased a 2nd F-86, an incredibly stupid move which I totally expected to have to live with. I made a support ticket and 2 days later I saw that they refunded the purchase. I think it was the release of the Mi-8 where there was a sale soon after the original release and ED ended up giving everyone that had bought it a discount for a future purchase equivalent to the savings. Nobody does this anymore (or at least it seems that way), and yeah it can be frustrating when you miss the boat on a sale by just a couple days, but you've still got to appreciate the way ED does business. And that's on top of the top-notch, unrivaled products that they develop.

Just a bad case of desync.

In short, there is no fancy trick that will make target acquisition easy. It's just a matter of practice. Personally, I do most of my CAS flying in the A-10C, so I'm almost always working with that targeting pod. In the -25T you have Shkval, but I've found it to be nearly impossible to fly and find targets with Shkval without already having a good idea where to look to begin with, and for that you either need some outside help (mission briefing, JTAC, etc.) or you've just gotta pick it up with your own eyes through the canopy. The Su-25T's LLTV pod can help, targets will stand out pretty good in infrared, but it's still a whole lot of work scanning around. The A-10C is a lot easier to work with in this regard. Besides the targeting pod that will let you see an area without needing to fly directly at it, you have a great navigation system to work with. As I'm scanning around an area I constantly use mark points to help keep my bearings on the enemy or various points of interest so I can instantly go back to them at any time. And then of course when you have JTAC support or a wingman that can pass off target information to you, you can input the coordinates and get an exact fix instantly. The Su-25/-25T are cool, but if you don't have the A-10C already, I highly recommend it. And the 30 mm cannon on the A-10C will definitely get you kills on tanks. :P

The number of kills for successful CAS is only as many as it takes to keep friendlies on the ground alive. If you want to really maximize how many enemy units you can bag in a flight I'd recommend taking guided munitions wherever possible (the Vikhrs on the Su-25T are a good choice, 1 hit kill on any vehicle and you get a whole bunch of them for only taking up 2 pylons), but the definition of successful Close Air Support is just keeping the enemy from overrunning your guys. Dumb bombs are really only any good for attacking buildings or concentrations of infantry. They can be effective for unarmored or very lightly armored vehicles too, but you're much better off going with something guided for anything on wheels. I'm not super familiar with attacking armor with the Su-25's 30 mm cannon, but it is a 30 mm cannon, so I'm sure at some point even the heaviest armor in the game is going to give way. As far as how many infantry you can kill with a burst, it's entirely dependent on how bunched up they are. Glad you're enjoying DCS! If you haven't tried multiplayer you should definitely give it a shot. It's a whole different game when you've got people working with (or against) you.

Nope. Eagle uses it too. Hence the "joint" in Joint Helmet Mounted Cueing System (JHMCS). To reiterate and add my endorsement: JHMCS AIM-9X Conformal Fuel Tanks Do eet ED! Edit: SNIPED!

Anything that gets put on a console destroys it on PC. This is a fact. Plus the 12 year old Call of Duty crowd is way too stupid for even the simplest aircraft at our disposal.

Made me think of Michael Jackson flying an A-10.. "Master Arm, shamone! Gun/PAC Arm, heee hee!" Unless you want to build a pit, some combination of mouse clicks + keyboard + HOTAS is as good as it gets for the forseeable future, and it's kind of pointless to discuss it further. Especially in a thread about the APG-63.

Can't say I've ever worked on one personally, but I'd venture a guess that there aren't many "empty portions" on a Ka-50. Otherwise, I have some very serious doubts as to the proficiency of those Kamov bureau guys that designed it. For an attack helicopter, a direct hit by any kinetic energy penetrator out of a tank cannon should be no less than devastating. The vast majority of surfaces cover some pretty necessary components that don't take kindly to having their guts shredded.

I'd just go by the progression of emoticons he used. It seems something was sad and/or upsetting, but then it all turned out alright. :thumbup:

For the stick, it's a strong centering force, but it's also really smooth. It doesn't really make those small movements abrupt like you'd think. Once you get used to it you won't even think about it. Needless to say, precision fixed-wing flying is no problem at all. For helicopters, chances are you'll be eventually get to be proficient enough to keep up with most everyone else, but I'll admit there are still some better options out there. I don't know why anyone would say it's "nearly impossible" to pull it off with this stick. The throttle idle detent is permanent, but the afterburner one can be disabled with this awesome plastic bit that flips around. You don't even really have to use the idle detent if you want, you could just as easily use your keyboard for starting up/shutting down your engines and then switch over to your throttle. Though the throttle as a whole helps weigh it down and with the idle detent you can leverage your palm against it to help keep it lifting off. The afterburner is a little more difficult to do that with. I've got a little clip thing holding it down just on the edge of the table though, and that completely keeps it from moving. Best of luck with whatever you end up choosing! Hope you enjoy it.

Think I'd better have a talk with my regular flying partners before this patch as well... In lieu of proper AIDS simulation, IADS has gotta be a pretty high priority on ED's to-do list. Every time I take a Su-25T up to kill every single radar-based SAM unit in the AO, I can't shake the feeling of how incredibly cheap it is. Sure, I like that I can immediately switch over to an A-10 or Ka-50 and get to the real fun of DCS air-to-ground work, but this is a simulator. SEAD/DEAD has never been half as easy in real life as it is in-game.

I do love a good ekranoplan to run laps around the Black Sea, but I gotta say I'm slightly more excited about Goat Simulator. Only slightly though.

Correction: We Eagle pilots have "fire & forget about it hitting outside of 10 nm AMRAAM."

I wouldn't go so far as to say that. Very few air forces have the same responsibilities as the USAF. If you're buying planes for the Netherlands, you probably wouldn't expect to have to deal with supporting a 13 year long fight in Afghanistan. The name of the game becomes flexibility to respond to anything that might arise with the limited resources you have. For the USAF it's entirely likely that over the course of a decade or two there will be such incidents where CAS is priority #1, so it makes more sense to have specialized aircraft like the A-10 because it fulfills that role so much better. If the USAF held on to a couple Warthogs at the expense of a few F-35s, I don't think anyone in the export market is going to look at that as a sign of the F-35 being "bad." Besides, anyone who is buying it already has 130 million reasons to buy something else. Watching the USAF decrease its procurement is pretty insignificant compared to whatever got them invested in the aircraft to begin with.

No sir, you fail to appreciate a pretty decent joke. I liked it. And I've used this aspect of the Huey to good effect on multiple occasions. :pilotfly:

K. :P

Unless things have changed significantly from my last infantry strafing run, I wouldn't say I find it particularly hard to get kills using CM in the GAU-8. The kill radius seemed quite appropriate to me. Other than that, I'd say a good old triple ejector rack of Mk-82s is a pretty effective anti-infantry weapon. CBU-87/103 is fine, but unless something like the entire North Vietnamese Army is coming over a hill towards your guys, it's pretty outrageous overkill. And like JMasterFlash said, you'd need to reload it on your DSMS with a lower height of function to be effective for an infy group, which to me is kind of a pain in the ass. The Mk-82 gives you a good area of effect and with 3 bombs to a rack, you get 3 times the fun. :thumbup: