Meatwod

Lonewolf registering for Blue Flag, Callsign: Meatwod Preferred aircraft: Mirage 2000C, A-10C, F-15C, F-86, Su-27, Mig-29, P-51, Ka-50

Pray for those who lost loved ones in Moore, OK today.

I played the Full Real Battle mode today and it is much more my style of game play. I was not expecting a DCS flight model, so I was disappointed that their isn't a cold start procedure. What the games lacks in realism, it makes up for is gameplay. The Arcade mode is for grinders. " I gotta get 1 million exp, so I can fly the XXX by next week". Like all others MMO that are EXP based, the end will come at some point and losed interest for an individual. If it keeps interest for more than a few months then job well done. The promised land and naval units will be a welcomed addition and further the attention longer and give the level grinders something else the chew on. The Full Real Mode is quite difficult as a combat game. I only wish there was more reward for those who choose difficult gameplay over the arcade style that seems to reward the grinders.

The 104th phoenix.com has a teamspeak channel and the host a busy server with lots of folks that can help you. Unfortunately, there is no DCS server for technical support, but don't worry. Everyone on the 104th or any other server is friendly and several folks are willing to help. If you can't get the game to run well enough to connect to the server then you have to use their website to get the TS address. Otherwise, it will be listed in the chat when you join. For X-52 mapping, make sure you clear all of the keyassignment in the X-52 column in the games UI. these are created by default really aren't very useful. Then open the Saitek Profiler an assign the appropriate keyboard key to each button. you have to save before it will be activated. You want to focus on the HOTAS commands first, i.e. TMS, DMS, Coolie Hat etc. If you take the time to do this yourself, it will make things easier to understood than trying to figure out someone else's setup. The game is very processor intensive, so a decent dual core and gfx is necessary.

I have all of the modules. P-51 is very much like A-10C without any avionics, just pure stick rudder flying, so imagine flying the A-10C a little faster and with only a gun and your eyeballs. The cockpit is very well made and getting airborn takes a little getting used to since there is no computer help in this baby. FC3 has one thing in common with P-51 and that is speed. Everthying happens in 3 seconds rather than minutes. For the A10C you loiter and pick off targets at your leisure. In the Eagle, you have to have your SA on full or it's bye-bye in no time. The lack of advanced avionics makes combat a little simplified, but the combat tactics are just as they would be in the real thing. A missile is a missile. If you spent any time learning how to defend against SAM, then you have no problems handling the air-to-air variety. However, the launcher is now chasing you at 700 mph.

The game is designed such that if you don't do things correctly you will blow yourself up. Getting air born shouldn't be too hard. Watch Humanvegetables video and you'll see what I mean. Staying airborn for more than a few minutes in hostile terrority will take considerable effort on your part to learn the system you are flying and the ones you plan on attacking. A pilot requires a PHD's worth of knowledge to survive on the battlefield. What's the point of blowing stuff up if you get killed in the process. There is a more laid back "arcade mode" that simplifies the avionics so you can focus on learning how to avoid getting killed. But the appeal of this game for the vast majority of people in this forum is earning that sense of accomplishment. If you don't think flying a 4 hour mission doing nothing but air refueling is not appealing then this probably isn't your cup of tea.

Go with it man!

Do a little research on the F-22 and Euro fighter and you'll find the answer.

If you are using "New Button Presses", Try using a "New Advanced Command" using the "Press" field and set the quantize time to 0.010 between each button press. Sometimes this is too fast, but it seems to work most of the time. Also try putting shift command first and the key command second. Then swap to test if the order matters. Try the reverse and see if either method works. My X-52 (standard) has no problems with ALT, SHIFT, or CNTRL used in conjuction with other keys. If you see me on one of FC3 servers, send me a chat and we'll jump on team speak and try and get this sorted.

The Su-25 is really the only SEAD aircraft available at the moment. If there are too many air defenses in the mission to destroy, then you have to use masking and defensive maneuvers to defeat them. Most lost range SAM can be destroyed with a pop-up attack from low altitude. I do this with the P-51 from time to time, which can be quite exillerating. However, with AAA or SHORAD defenses close by this would not be advisable. Masking becomes your only option. All of the campaign missions are designed to be accomplished a certain way. They don't make them unbeatable, you just have to anaylze the mission first to determine what the best tactic is going to be. Some of the F-15C missions seem impossible until you learn what the RED A-A weapon limitations are. The AI is predictible which equals death in combat. Prediction requires experience, which takes awhile to get unforturnately. Learning how to react to certain threats can save your butt. If you are attacked by a SAM you didn't know was there, you are toast. But defending a SAM that you are expeecting to fire at you is pretty simple. You'll want to watch some SAM defense videos on youtube. IR sams are deadly in any situation. Staying out of range is really the only soultion. Strelas and MANPADS are always the ones that get me, but I usually don't die, just crippled and RTB if I'm lucky. Killing them takes practice and requires that learn how to spot them. The Strelas and tanks look the same from 10K feet, but tanks are usually in groups with MANPADS and the Strela and Shilkas are usually by them themselves and spreadout, often hidden by structures and trees by presky mission builders.

There's a significant amount of risk calculations that go into the decission to ground a fleet becuase of quality escapes like this. Things like this happen all the time in all military and commercial programs, but most them are negigible risk and don't make headlines. Others have significant impact on air worthiness, but can still be mitigated by inspection or other means, which prevents the service from grounding the fleet. Newer systems are always under tighter scutiny and unit cost makes the decission even more critical. A nozzle crunch on an F-15 doesn't even classify as a Class A Mishap, becuase the cost is low and the impact to OSS&E is minimal. However, the STOVL nozzle cost considerably more, so a similar failure would exceed cost threshold for a reportable MISHAP.

The button map for the HOTAS is the best place to start. The map defines each button and it's function in various operating modes. The good news you don't have do a lot of thinking about where best to map each button. That's already been decided for you based on best practice and experience of real pilots. If you don't have Track IR you'll have to compromise the standard HOTAS layout and assign one of the hat switches to pan the camera, a major bummer since it compounds the problem.

"I think I am about to takeoff, so I better close this."

If you played Falcon 4, you know how this is done. However, DCS doesn't display bullseye on the hud or radar, so it isn't useful information. For Falcon, your AC current bullseye location is displayed on the HUD. The radar cursor shows the current location of your targets bullseye. The HSD (moving map) has a small icon that looks like a bullsyeye that also indicates bearing and range. But as has been stated before, the best thing to do is ask for vector to nearest bandit, since bullseye are of know use until better avionics are implemented.

Submit your application to the 476th vFG. Most of our members are from the Netherlands and fly in the same time zone. Be prepared to wait a while to begin training though. However, you can still be granted temporary guest access to the TS channel and fly on the dedicated server. Just send Nu-NRG a PM.

Definately trim to hover without auto-hover. Then it should be slow decent to the ground, watch your rate of decent indicator, when close to the ground you should be no greater than 3 per sec or risk damaging the gear of bouncing off the tarmac. The closer to zero the better.

Before you attempt to air refuel, the best pratice is flying formation with the tanker. Maintain a comfortable distance all the way around the track and slowly close your distance with each circuit until you are within a few feet of the left wing (proper position). The tanker changes roll pretty quick when leveling off so you'll need to learn how fast to react and maintain formation. Doing this with buddies makes TrackIR a necessity and expect to spend about 20X more hours before you complete your first full tank. Tip - Up the curve on your pitch and roll axis to about 30 to flatten out the input ratio. This makes minor corrections much easier for maintaining position behind the boom. Trim for slight nose down so you have constant back pressure to maintain level flight. The stick should always be moving very small amounts. The throttle is much different, anticipating speed change is key and the hardest thing to learn.

Jump on to the 104th server and login to their TS channel. There are always alot of pilots on that can answer questions or even do some tutorials while you are being attacked by OPFOR. :helpsmilie:

For a head on engagement, which I assume you firing at max range, you should expect the R-27ER to miss, bit this is not a bad thing. The target will manuever unless he has no knowledge of BFM at all. This is exactly what you want since he can't employ weaposn anymore and you can continue closing distance. It also exposes his tail which gives you a perfect R-27ET shot (or close range heater if you are in range). Think of long range BVR missiles as deterance rather than weapons. Against AI you can force them to waste all of the BVR missiles and then employ the above tactic with ease. However, this tactic won't work against experienced human pilots. The only was to beat an experienced pilot that always reacts correctly is force him to make and mistake. Forcing them to make a mistake without making one yourself will take years of reading and practice.

It's a very wierd bug then because all of the campaign missions cannot be editied in the mission editor. When asked to save the file, it pops up with WP errors. Then only way I could get the file to save is to delete all of the aircraft.

Replicated this problem with the Mig-29S campaign "Over the Hump #2". Open mission editor. Open Mig-29S Over the hump #2 and cannot save a copy of the file due to numerous waypoint erros. Cannot edit loadout or waypoint for player aircraft. Start Campaign Mission #2 and click Mission Planner and game locks up on the loading screen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhenium Rhenium is by far the most expensive element by weight of any elemnt used for jet engine metals. The US government does not allow the resale of critical alloys due to limited supply available on the open market. It's useless to anyone except defense contractors. Of course a contractor will pay a premium to get it from wherever. Most of the engine is either Nickel Alloy or Titanium, which is relatively cheap by comparison, but 2 tons of metal is still not chump change. The engine is far more valuable as an engine than scrap metal.

http://now.msn.com/f16-engines-stolen-from-israeli-airbase

http://www.f-16.net/f-16_forum_viewtopic-t-15879.html From the very informative folks at F-16.net

Sorry, butterfly valve. I was trying to type from my cell phone. A supercharger has a herringbone rotor. Air passing through the rotor makes them turn. It's the herringbone rotors that have flex shafts attached to them that generate torque. The flex shafts are connected to a nozzle actuator transmission which converts the torque into an actuation through a ball screw assembly. Air entering the rotors has to exist somewhere, so it is vented out through an exhaust tube. The air is extremely hot, so the rotors cannot be lubricated with grease. The sound is a combination of resonation and mechanical gears accelerating to a very high RPM in a short time. The tube resonates because the exhaust tube has a convergent washer that restricts exhaust flow to limit the open and close rate to prevent the actuators from overshooting and damaging the nozzle assembly.