stuart666

Id buy an F4K/Ark Royal DLC just on announcement. Unfortunately one has to be a realist and ask, how many others would? Its not like anyone else bought F4K's. My initiation on them was watching the really rather splendid TV series 'Sailor' which was on in the late 70's, early 80's. Britains Biggest Warship gets close, but its not really Phantom Phriendly.

We can use this system with airfields in the caucaus, but I think we still lack an ILS system for maps like Channel and Normandy? If we cant have the maps engineered with it, it might be a useful work around to create a placeable system we can put at the end of runways so we can do it ourselves. Either a permament or semi permament system. https://www.rafblakehillfarm.co.uk/babs-beam-approach-beacon-system

This is actually a really good idea. I was investigating my local airfield, and found they had a searchlight at the end of the runway as a navigational aid, possibly used in conjunction with the Beam Approach System.

Its worth saying this. I have read that as the Tomcat community became more and more concerned about the range of Soviet Radar guided AAM's, they did move towards carrying a single phoenix for in the face shots. The logic being they would outrange whatever came at them with an R27. This would be the Mig29/Su27 threat. They would I think have carried sparrows as well, but it illustrates some of the thinking. I would presume this is the same reason they were also looking at integrating the Aim120 with the Tomcat, before giving up. Its hard to see the requirement when they had the Phoenix already, struggling to justify its keep in the post fleet defence world in the 1990's.

Hope you dont mind me asking, do they do that so they dont have to trash the cockpit removing all items that might be useful to Iran?

To be fair its probably not a great idea to have the autopilot in standby waiting to be engaged whilst on the ground, but even if one did, It seems difficult that this is a designed feature that it can conflict with the NWS. Can anyone replicate this?

If you cant fly the A effectively, you are just using the extra thrust on the B to compensate for you not flying the B properly. There is really not that much difference between the two. The A is less forgiving of mistakes, but its arguably not underpowered at low altitude. At plus 30, yes it would be, but there seems to be relatively few scenarios regularly in that region. Practice coordinated turns. You save a heck of a lot of energy.

So I made a discovery, if I have the autopilot channels and the autopilot on,whilst on the ground, when I press nosewheeel steering engage button, it will engage the autopilot, and hence the tailerons pitch up. Im guessing autopilot engage should be deactivated when on the ground?

Right, cleared that up, thanks fellas. As for the taileron, its seemingly intermittant. Did it once, didnt do it the second time. And I had used the autopilot at some point both times.

EW is so simplified in DCS, im not quite sure its going to be that much of issue, is it? Id be happy with a GR5, I can see the problems with the later ones. I guess it comes down to how popular Falklands is going to be.

So I had a go again today. It may be poor piloting on my part, but the way ive disengaged autopilot before is simply to move the joystick, not use the autopilot disengage which turns off part of the stab. So I did the former again today, and I felt it was making it difficult to trim. So I used the autopilot disengage button, manually flew the approach, it felt a bit easier to trim, and after landing, the elevators remained as normal. Is it possible that part of the autopilot parameters, such as trim, are getting stuck, even after the pilot is deactivated? And its only the autopilot disconnect thats making it drop it? Just speculation on my part.

Yes, I had this happen with a fully manual case 1, the elevators are at full nose up after landing. Didnt use autopilot,I did have altitude hold selected, but not engage. Didnt use auto throttle either. Spectacular when I launched again, went in a very impressive pugachevs cobra.

I find if you fly most of the approach using take off flaps, and only then go over to landing flaps at maybe the last 100 metres, and cross the threshold at about 320kmh, you are probably going to grease without running out of power. Any faster and you are going to bounce, any slower and you are starting to get too much high angle of attack. I agree the glideslope with the mig21 seems far too steep. Did I read somewhere the devs used their own glideslope code instead of the DCS one?

The biggest flaw with the Caucasus map, the lack of any Turkish airfields. Or even Iranian come to that. It leaves you either having to model a carrier in the Black sea, which will never happen, or Georgia vs Russia conflict. Whereas personally, Id love the ability to do a decent cold war scenario based on the map. For its flaws, its a great map. I just wish they would reconsider not doing any work on it. It would open up so many possiblities with just a few changes. Heck, just one Turkish airfield would be enough. Id even settle for a road stirp.

In a dogfight, I find myself continually pulling the engine back to mil or less in a B. You are accelerating out of the best turn speed very easily. In the A, you do that a lot less. Yes, you have to do energy management a lot better, but at least when you are not packing lots of Phoenix, it just seems easier to manage. Maybe its just me. That said, there is no doubt that the A accelerates like a scalded cat at low altitude, and that is quite useful on the dogfight server.

Thank you.

Just as a matter of interest, what font is suitable for the RAF?

Its all down to preference. Ill be honest, ive got pretty much zero interesting more modern jets. Ive bought the F16 and F18 and I just dont fly them. The FBW input makes them very boring, and I cant say I enjoy remembering the MFD multple functions. Yeah, I did that in the harrier, but the compensation was it was highly interesting to fly, I suffered through the MFD's for the experience.. Lawn darts and Hornets, I just cant enjoy. Right now, I fly the WW2 warbirds, the Mig21 and the F14 and I dont see it changing. In fact, perverse though I am, I prefer the F14A more. I think the B if anything has almost too much power in a dogfight. With the A, you just put in burner or mill power and try not to fly like a tool. Much easier. Even starting the Tomcat is a doddle. As they said on the Tomcatcast, its easy to fly, but hard to master. I like aircraft like that. I do agree though, it punishes you for not flying it for a long while. Particularly in the Carrier pattern. OTOH, the recent changes (welcome though they are) havent exactly made it easier.

Apologies if this is impertinent, but anyone replicating older SAM sites on the Caucasus might find my Static Template useful.

For anyone making cold war scenarios, ive create a template for the defences of the Caucasus map for authentic SA2, SA3 and SA5 sites. Ive also put in a scenario with markers showing where historical military locations were in Caucasus and Transcaucasus military districts, and a couple of Google Earth markers ive made showing the real life locations on Google earth so you can recreate them. If you fancy looking at the actual reports that created the data, they look something like this. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp78t04759a000600010107-3 https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP78T04759A000600010107-3.pdf And the dcs files you can find here. https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3319451/ Hope this helps somebody.

To brake in a given direction, I just index the direction by applying rudder and then tap the brake. The only problem im having is because the paddle switch on the thrustmaster is of an on/off nature, you cant graduate it. So you have to be real careful on the landing roll not to hold it too long or you get a nasty tail thump. Ive broke the tail wheel a couple of times doing that. I cant dig using brakes on take off. Yes, as it stands, you dont have much alternative. But if you are veering before you rudder gives any input, that is really what using split throttles is supposed to fix. Which doesnt seem to work. And due to the nature of the brakes, you are probably setting yourself up for a spin in the opposite direction than you were getting. As said, the best way to do it is work against the parking brake, run up the engines, pop the brakes and run the engine up quick. It works. Whether it works so well because the airframe accelerates too quickly on the ground is my only question. I think there is still something not working quite right here.

Yeah, ive a split throttle warthog, and I cant make it work. Perhaps you need a throttle with a longer travel, might be worth trying those 3d printed ones that are being worked on I guess. Yeah, I believe it. I suspect it likely that heavily loaded they would have had to have advanced against the brakes.

Ive tried it. It works great. But I still think there is something wrong if you can avoid nearly all drift through the acceleration phase, pretty much as you can avoid the worst affects in the Spitfire by bunting the throttle open The pilot notes for Mosquito are clear, you have to adjust via the throttle, presumably before the rudder is effective, yet you absolutely cannot do that during acceleration, or you spin out.

I dont see any reason to remove the sight. if it was this awkward in reality, well lets keep it that way. If people want a removed gunsight, a warbird version say, then remove the main armament too. Its not exactly easy to see, even in VR. But when you go down the road of making it easier to use, you may as well give it a digital cockpit IMHO.

Thats probably a candidate for a restoration effort right there. There are probably some good metal parts that escaped the fire, just as they did with the Peoples mosquito project, which similarly sourced parts from a fire destroyed aircraft. I agree with all that. I will say, as I said on the wishlist, I think navigation aids probably need to be look at as a whole. Not just for this, but for any subsequent twin we might see.