streakeagle

Given that it will not have any kind of AI WSO and that you can't fly combat without a WSO, I don't plan on buying it. I would be okay with no AI if there are shortcuts that I can trigger from the front seat to perform critical WSO tasks. But if I have to put the aircraft on autopilot and switch to the backseat or have to play in multiplayer and find a WSO, then there is no way I will fly this aircraft very often and therefore can't justify buying it. The Jester AI in the F-14B may not be perfect, but I have been able to operate the aircraft successfully in combat with the AI responding to my voice commands using VAICOM Pro. It is immersive until VAICOM fails to recognize a command or the AI proves to be an incompetent radar operator. But overall, I enjoy flying the F-14B from the front seat despite having to rely on AI and voice recognition. If the F-14B didn't have Jester, it would be very difficult to use it effectively in single player. I flew the F-14B in multiplayer for weeks. Never once had a RIO or anyone ask to be my RIO. So, it would have been equally useless there without Jester. If you want my money and you choose to produce a 2-seat aircraft, there better be an effective way to employ the aircraft without another person being in the 2nd seat.

I just looked at the finger lifts from the side. They move up and down with a slot to guide them. It should be fairly easy to make some type of pin or clip to fit in the bottom of the slot after lifting them to lock them up, which is a great idea when flying some aircraft and better yet when flying helos. I just tried jamming my allen wrench for my VKB grip in the slot. Something that diameter fits and the spring pressure holds it in until you pull on the lift to relieve the pressure. So, if you used something of a similar diameter, but shorter, it should work. Perhaps a piece of wire with a loop or d-ring on one end to make it easy to handle.

On some multiplayer servers where dot labels are enabled, you can really see this change. Flash the labels on and off. There will tend to be two dots, one is the label, the other the aircraft. Pretty much any range where the dot is visible, the aircraft is visible. But the dot may be a lot more obvious because it always contrasts with the sky and terrain. But no matter the color, the aircraft can be clearly seen, particularly with the dot to get your eyes focused on the right spot. But maybe my straight jacket is adjusted too tight so I am seeing spots from lack of blood circulation :P

I just ran SimAppPro for the first time in a while and updated to the latest version. I noticed a new feature that I had not found before. I don't know how long it has been there, but under the settings there is now an option to enable/disable startup with windows. This is a small but significant step for me. I don't like to have anything startup with windows unless absolutely necessary, especially software that wants to go online and phone home and even more so from software whose home is China. I don't really need the advanced features for now, but it looks like nice software if I ever need it. I will normally only run it to periodically check for firmware updates to the throttle and startup panel, which hasn't happened since the ones I applied after originally receiving my setup. But I like what I see and like it even more now that it doesn't run unless I want it to run without having to disable it through the windows task manager.

I wouldn't stop there. I would love throttles for most of the DCS modules, especially ones with twist grips for the gunsights like the P-51, F-86, and MiGs. Of course, there is a guy who is about to release a whole bunch of WW2 throttles that says he can provide the twist grip as an option.

I don't know when the change occurred, but there was a change. I play the same instant action missions all the time and have been playing them on the Rift and later Rift S. Originally, I could not see aircraft at long distances. Now, depending on their altitude relative to mine and lighting, they can be dark and visible at pretty realistic ranges, particularly when they are above the horizon and contrasted against the clouds. But with different angles or being below the horizon, the color can be more of a grey than a black, and the pixels tend to blend in with the background. They are still visible, but much harder to spot. Even once you see it, it can be hard to track over some terrain types. For example, the Nevada instant action dogfight for the F-5E which starts on the tail of a climbing F-14: originally, the F-14 was pretty much invisible. You could see chaff/flares being deployed but not much else. Now I can see the F-14 itself and track the small silhouette until a larger, more properly shaped/colored visual image is available. Another example, the Nevada instant action dogfight for the F-86 which starts with three Sabres up high engaging two MiG-15bis turning into them at a distance of 5 or 10 miles. Originally, I couldn't see the MiGs in VR until they were fairly close. Now I can pick them out against the desert terrain before anyone else even calls them out. I have been able to fly VR in multiplayer thanks to this change. So, I can't tell you when the change occurred, but I can tell you it isn't my imagination. I have seen the results both offline and online.

When the wife saw the package arrive, she asked what it was and how much it cost. I said it was a new throttle, which cost about $500... which was accurate. It was the stick, button box, and desk mounts that cost the extra $400. Of course, I recently had a ton of overtime that covered it without even putting a dent in our bank account. The other throttle looked very nice and could be built to customer specs. A few people on here bought it. There were a few design issues that needed to be resolved and I was waiting to see how things progressed, then the throttle was discontinued. The base model was $1,200. Substituting customer specified parts (particularly milspec parts identical or similar to real throttle) could drive the price way up. I was planning on the base model unless there were some fairly cheap authentic substitutions. I think that same company was planning an F-14 throttle, too. I was waiting to see how that came out. https://throttletek.com/gf-14-throttle/ Based on posts in this forum, the F-14 throttle is even more of a dud than the Hornet throttle. Initial asking price was $1,500, now $800 and it has many errors and limitations that shouldn't happen at that price point. It looks so nice in the photos. How much more would it have cost in time, effort, and money to get it right? Maybe Winwing should think about making Tomcat products, too. Pretty much zero competition in that market.

I have looked at the cubesim one, but I am betting I vendor like Winwing could make an equal or better product designed to match the real Hornet's displays at a competitive price. At present, cubesim seems to be the way to go if you don't want to gamble on trying to pick the right display from ebay and then figure out how to mount it and configure it to work. I don't urgently need this capability, but I very much want it. If the right deal fell into my lap, I would grab it.

I want the whole kit. I don't always fly VR and when I do, I more or less develop memory of where the controls are and/or pick a few reference points for easily finding certain controls. The 3-position gear lever shown above is a perfect for many aircraft, especially older Russian fighters and would still work ok for other aircraft with 2-position levers.

I love to have the z-axis available, but lockable. I don't normally need it, but there are two situations that come to mind: 1) Rudder pedals unavailable. I upgraded to TPR pedals and still have my old Saitek Pro pedals, but it is nice to know if I have a failure, I can resort to the stick axis. Also, if I was traveling, it would make sense to use the z-axis rather than lug a cumbersome set of rudder pedals around. The stick and throttle would already be bulky and heavy enough. 2) Other sims that could use the extra axis, particularly battlemech type sims where it makes sense to map the torso rotation to the stick. Older battlemech games can only see one device, so rudder pedals and throttle are not available, the z-axis becomes critical. As it stands, I have my VKB grips with a Z-axis configured to support 5 buttons. The extreme left and right buttons pulse repeatedly. This is great for paging through the knee pad with normal single page flip to the left or right of center and rapid page flipping at the extremes. The center button goes unused.

I have killed a Hornet headon with an R-3R on a multiplayer server. Not sure why he missed me, but it was a great kill for me. I use the radar sparingly, but I still use it. I like to turn it on briefly to try to locate aircraft being called over the radio. I may turn it on for longer periods to light the RWRs of any F-5s in the area to ask them to come play with me. Unfortunately the radar is useless as a ranging system for the gunsight. Even the real aircraft manual suggests locking the gunsight into a manual fixed range for dogfights and only using the radar ranging for intercepting large co-operative targets. It is sad when the F-86, MiG-15, and P-51 have better gunsights than a Mach 2 fighter that is 20+ years newer.

A Hornet stick was duplication. So far, they are pushing Hornet themed devices and their new unreleased panel that adds gear and hook levers with flap controls, etc. is in direct competition with TekCreations. I would buy a set of three 1:1 scale Hornet MFDs if the price was fair despite already having Cougar MFDs. Just like I bought the Hornet stick/throttle despite having the TM stick grip and an adapter to use it with my VKB stick base as well as two TM Warthog throttles/sticks. I would really want them to make an affordable set of Hornet MFDs with screens and a user friendly app for interfacing them with DCS.

I could do without the stick because the VKB is much better for me, but I love the throttle. The attached button box is extremely useful for me unless I some day build an authentic panel, which is at best years away from happening if it ever does. If you are torqued because you can't buy the throttle without the button box, just imagine my situation when I decided to get the whole package despite not wanting the stick and less than a week later, they announce the ability to buy the throttle separately. But the throttle is so good that it was worth the extra cost not knowing it would be sold separately so soon. I was going to pay $1,200 for the other high end Hornet throttle that ended up failing and being withdrawn from the market. So, I really saved $300 to get a much better product plus a semi-realistic button panel and an extra stick (that is really nice despite my lack on interest in it).

Thanks for the tip on installing the sdk. Seat works just fine for me :)

That is because the pilot doesn't move. So as you move your view forward, the chair and the pilot in it get further away. This problem exists with all aircraft that show the pilot in the mirror. The pilot would have to be animated so that when you move your head, his body leans and his head turns to match your head position. I don't expect this to be done, but it sure would be cool, especially in VR. What would be nice is having the pilot image in the mirror disappear when you don't have the virtual pilot in the seat: i.e. when you toggle show pilot, the image in the mirror appears and disappears with the virtual pilot. I will say I was pleasantly surprised to see the pilot in the mirror. I love this effect even if he isn't animated to match my head/body position. It definitely wasn't on the released list of changes.

My experience with the Rift and Rift S has been just the opposite. using PD made the gauges look nicer, but I could still see lots of shimmering terrain. MSAAx2 looked almost as good as PD, but reduced shimmering significantly. MSAAx4 looked the best, but came at too high of a performance cost.

I haven't worried too much about this because going to an older driver has been an effective solution. But I now have a major application that needs the newest driver to perform correctly. So, I have a choice: stay with older driver to keep the MiG-21 fully operational and have unacceptable performance in another application or go with the latest driver and either avoid flying the MiG-21 or leave the radar off. It would be nice if I didn't have to make this choice.

This is already reported a few threads down: https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=280925 It is very minor but really annoying during startup. I would love see it fixed.

I have done some wood work and painting to make room for a modified Warthog throttle to provide the lever inputs as well as improve the finished look "under the hood". I have removed the throttle grips from the Warthog, leaving only lever "nubs" that need to interface with the real levers. Most of the Warthog switches on the base have large blades that will allow me to put the real switches in parallel with the Warthog switches without altering or damaging the Warthog at all. I may have to cut some wires to use the inputs for the grip switches from the Warthog with the grip switches on the real throttle. I haven't had the time to move forward, but this is going to work really well once I get things connected. Most of the switches will be mapped to the same functions. i.e. the speed brake switch inputs on the Warthog will be mapped to the speed brake on the real stick. Mic switch, idle stop, etc. So my Warthog throttle maps that already exist in the game will largely be usable with minimal problems. What I want are more real panels to complete the surrounding areas. I have not been able to find any online. I may have to fabricate my own, which won't look nearly as good and won't have the correct knobs/levers/guards of the real switches.

It is surprising how effective the seat is. Even before I had VR, if I started flying and the seat wasn't vibrating, it felt like something was badly wrong. I love to feel the startup sequence. I love the bumps while taxiing. In combat, I love to feel the buffeting as you approach a stall. It may not be able to replicate the actual forces and vibrations of the real aircraft, but it provides an exceptionally useful equivalent that fills a sensory gap not provided by visual and audio cues. Now if someone would make a high quality joystick and rudder pedals with force feedback and DCS World would provide a more modern, capable force feedback interface to fully exploit them, I would only be missing the g-forces.

It sounds like you are off to a decent start. Good hardware and a very good choice for a first aircraft. I find the Hornet is as simple to operate and fly as the older aircraft like the F-86 and F-5, while having all the complexity and capability of the best aircraft with carrier operations as an added bonus. Enjoy the ride! Whenever a good sale comes up, grab Flaming Cliffs 3. Since the flight models were made as realistic as the regular ED modules, it is a great deal to get so many aircraft that are so much fun to fly.

They are only 6 hot points. The motors are connected in pairs. When you run the test, you should be able to feel two motors vibrating when a paired point is being tested.

I finally pulled the trigger, too. I had the overtime to cover it. But I will need a stronger PC and gpu to enjoy it. That won't be coming any time soon unless I get a lot more overtime.

After disabling the mouse and fiddling with the touch controllers a bit, I am going to try exclusively using the touch controllers for awhile. When there is a virtual pilot body present, I can leave the controllers on my lap where they are easy to find and use, but are virtually invisible. The only risk is having them fall off my lap. But I have already seen someone else's solution to this: where a neck strap and leave the controllers dangling from it. I think having two independent straps would be best so that the two controllers aren't connected in any way other than both have straps hanging loosely around your neck. My intention is that there wouldn't be any weight on the straps unless the controller rolls off of my leg. The straps would have to be long enough to permit free movement with my arms fully extended, but even at that length, they couldn't fall very far if they did roll off of my leg.

When you squeeze the button on the grip, you will see the fingers close into a fist except for the index finger pointing and a colored laser pointer line coming out of the index finger. That is the mode you need to operate controls. Rotating your wrist clockwise and counter clockwise controls the changes the color of the laser line. The colors indicate the direction the control will move (kind of like choosing left or right mouse button). Some controls don't care about the color. You can touch the control with the index finger and the switch or lever will toggle positions. You can also point the laser line at a control and then pull the trigger to get the same effect as touching the control with the index finger. When the laser line is on a switch, you may be able to toggle it by moving the thumbstick up or down. Analog knobs are a little trickier. You can point at them to select them. Then moving your hand up or down may rotate the knob. If you get stuck on a knob, you may need to pull the trigger while on the knob, then release the trigger to let go of the knob. The knob might also be rotated by moving the touch controller thumbstick left or right. Rotating selector switches are where the color matters. When you point at the switch, you pull the trigger to rotate it one "click". The direction it rotates depends on the color of the line. What gets really tricky is that there is usually more than one way to operate a switch, .i.e. pointing with a line and pulling the trigger or touching it with your finger. So, when you are trying to use one method, the other method may inadvertently cancel out or over control what you are trying to do. This is especially the case with trying to touch the controls with the index finger. You are more likely to accidently touch other controls or accidentally use the laser line to cause an extra "click" or "toggle". The virtual hands look pretty cool aside from floating in the air, but I am still way faster and have no accidental control movements using the mouse. For me, the ideal setup would be to mimic the cockpit in real life with identical dimensions to DCS cockpits (vice real cockpits which are almost always different from DCS models in some key arrangements/dimensions), then have the floating hands connected to the virtual pilot's arms but don't have the virtual hands actually touch anything, but exist only to show where your real hands are relative to your real world cockpit that you otherwise can't see.