Echo38

A slight correction: both the throttle and prop lever full forward or firewalled, without having yet engaged WEP since spawning in the aircraft at the beginning of the mission. If you haven't used WEP yet that flight, pushing the joystick slider all the way forward pushes the virtual P-51 throttle only up to the wire (which gives you military power, assuming you're at max RPM--that is, propeller lever all the way forward--which you should be if you're going to throttle up that much). Hitting the WEP key while you're at military power breaks the wire and pushes the virtual throttle all the way to the firewall, giving you WEP (again, assuming you are at max RPM). Now that the wire has been broken, then for the rest of that flight (until you end mission or respawn), pushing your joystick slider all the way forward will push the virtual throttle all the way to the firewall, giving you WEP. Hope that made sense.

As Gav mentioned, max sustained is the best power setting for long-term flying. Military power is good for a while, but will eventually start to damage the engine, if you try to fly around at mil power all day. War Emergency Power is the one you need for absolute maximum speed, but you can only keep this up for a few minutes even with a lot of airspeed, because the engine will very quickly overheat. If you're at slow speed while you're at WEP (such as while climbing steeply), you can destroy your engine in seconds.

It can be maddening, yes. I, too, have wasted hours fiddling with my own DCS installation to fix various problems. But, to put things in perspective, the state of the world is such that you have to choose: would you rather have a max-realism flight sim which has a bunch of performance problems and installation bugaboos, or would you rather have a low-realism flying game that runs smoothly? Unfortunately, we can't have both--the world just isn't interested enough in max-realism flight sims for it to happen. Well, best of luck. I find that this sim is worth it, but I guess I can't fault anyone for deciding otherwise.

I was a beta tester for Rise of Flight; it's a much harder job than it sounds like, for the ones actually testing and not just checking out the new build for giggles. Plus, most of us weren't paid (in any way, beyond the forum title). One of the key problems is that 100 testers (and there often aren't even that many) only have 100 different computers. Trying to ensure that it works for 10,000 different computer builds when you can only test on 100 builds is tricky. Hopefully that helps you understand the reason behind the frustration. Just 'coz a big problem slips through sometimes doesn't mean that the testers aren't doing a good job. Sorry to hear about your problem; I can't think of anything that might be the cause, but someone else here surely can.

Smiley! I didn't know you flew DCS. Good to see another Roffer made it here.

I, too! I didn't mention it because I didn't want to detract away from the strength of my P-38 request. ; ) But if I could choose one thing other than the P-38, it would certainly be the P-47. Incidentally, I think we might have a better chance of getting the P-47, since The Fighter Collection has one.

Lockheed P-38

Did you check out the thread that Peter linked to a few posts ago?

Why the hell not? What part of the P-51D is modelled less well than the A-10C? There are no other sims to choose from which have DCS-level modelling (hi-fi FM & hi-fi eng&sys). Why you would imply that there are is baffling to me. I'm not an E.D. shill; there are things that E.D. does which I don't agree with. They have some priorities which I don't share. But you're out of line here--not only for the reasons mentioned by others in the preceding couple of posts, but also because of the reasons I gave. WWII fighters aren't your bag; fine. But don't pretend that there's a disparity in quality between the A-10C module and the P-51D, and don't pretend that there are viable alternatives to DCS for those of us who want a maximum-realism WWII fighter. There are not.

If you're talking about going fast while being approximately straight and level, the two big factors I can think of are keeping the ball centered and minimizing your control inputs. If you're talking about trying to stay as fast as possible while turning, that's more difficult. Keeping the ball centered is again a good idea here, as is staying as far away from maximum alpha as possible while maintaining a reasonable turn. More alpha, more Gs, more drag.

This is one of the reasons I love flight--no matter how many thousands of hours one puts into studying it, there's always a ton left to learn about it!

I use a Thrustmaster T.16000M. Inexpensive but precise. Throw's a bit on the short side, which makes stall fighting harder, but it's still quite possible to do well with it if you're good. Not very many buttons, but you shouldn't be using too many buttons with your right hand anyway. I recommend avoiding Logitech. The ones I've handled have been very sloppy sticks with enormous hardware dead zones (physical flaws in the stick which can't be amended with software). The 3D Pro, like the Saitek X52, is one of those sticks which isn't precise enough for competitive dogfighting. That doesn't mean you could never win a fight with it, but you're going to be suffering a serious handicap and won't be able to do stuff with it that you could with a better stick. I used to use a CH, and it's possible to do very well with that stick, but I wouldn't get another one. The following short thread has some discussion by myself and others on the various merits of Thrustmaster, CH, and other joysticks. Might want to check it out. http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=93642

Because some of us love them. I like prop birds more than jets, myself.

I've never seen a DCS product on a daily deal before. At $16 bucks, it's a steal. I bought it for about three times that, and I kinda feel that in terms of what you're getting (and given the state of the flight sim market), it's worth a triple-digit figure. YRMV.

I'd rather have the 109 as well. It's number four on my list of favorite aircraft, while the Focke-Wulf is something like number seven. But, hey, I can't complain about having a well-modelled virtual FW 190 to fly. It was ten years ago that I first experienced my long desire for a twin study sim: Lockheed P-38 versus Messerschmitt Me 109. Perhaps, someday ... someday.

It can be. It can also be bad. There was a big change in Germany in the early 1930s; I don't think you'll find many people who'd call it a good one. Ditto for the USA in 2001. Not that I'm trying to connect RRG with Hitler (lol godwin) or anything daft like that; just pointing out that change can be good or bad, with an extreme example that doesn't leave a lot of grey area for debate. : ) I'll drink to that! The FW 190D alone is enough to make me giddy. Focke-Wulf 190 isn't one of my top five, but it is one of my top ten. As for RRG: judging from his posts, Luthier seems to have a genuine love of flight (something I always felt Mr. Maddox lacked), so I have a careful optimism for what he'll do in DCS. CloD was his first big project, right, so one shouldn't black-mark him if things didn't go entirely to plan. To a glowing future for flight sims!

Been puzzling over this for a while, but I can't figure it out; how can you over-stress the ship at 1G, unless you're above VNE?

If by "fun stuff" you mean being a stooge for a mega-corporation, then, no, thank you. http://youtu.be/_OfvfEL-hmw?t=2m28s

In DCS, missions can over-ride your difficulty settings; it's up to the mission maker to specify whether the mission uses your settings or the mission settings, and, if he chooses the latter, it's up to him to determine what the settings are. My guess is that the missions you're having an easy time with either have difficulty aids forced on, or else they are set to use your own settings (in which case I'm guessing you have aids on in your own settings). The missions you're having a hard time with, then, would have the aids forced off.

Sorry to hear that you never discovered the appreciation for P-51D. 'Bye.

If you say so. I myself find things like that downright boring--about as boring as "grinding" in Eve.

I believe that answers my question. Thanks, everyone.

MSFS has always had horrid flight physics. FAA recommended MSFS for procedural and instrument practice; it wasn't for aerobatics or anything else requiring a decent flight model. (I suspect that Microsoft's colossal influence and domination also had something to do with the recommendation; MSFS surely would not have gotten the FAA thumb-up if it had been made & published by a small developer.)

I agree completely! I don't have any aerobatic time, but I do have a few hours in Cessnas, and I'm one of the loudest when it comes to complaining about our little plastic gaming joysticks. The difference in normal flight alone is cosmic, let alone anything like aerobatics or combat maneuvers.

So, then, in a real aircraft, can you pull more back-stick without stalling at high speed than you can at low speed, or not? Still confused on this point. At high speed, you have more lift, which means you can ... pull a higher AoA than when you have less lift at lower speeds? Or does the amount of lift not affect the [max Alpha at any given moment]? I guess my grasp of the nature of turning in virtual dogfighting is more intuitive and less analytical than I'd like--I learned mostly from trial and error, although I did do a lot of reading from real-world sources on the subject. In trying to share this knowledge with others, I've realized that I sometimes can't explain the "why," even on a simplified level, even when I can explain the "how."