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Just finished testing with the 120. When you launch, lower left corner shows TTA countdown flashing. Once the missile's radar takes over, a NEW count begins. This is VERY hard to see but if you watch close you'll see it go like: "12, 11, 10, 14, 13, 12, 11, ..." When you see a change in the sequence, that's when the missile goes active. Pretty dumb if you ask me. Who's got time to watch for the time sequence to change? I sure do wish the "M" would change to "A" or something like that to sort of help you out. Capt Rob, I'm still wondering if you (and others who score low with the 120) are not breaking off before it goes active. Practice with some drones until you are comfortable with the switchover. I agree that the 120 (as well as the other radar missiles) are probably too easy to evade, especially after they go active but I think we further degrade it by breaking off too soon. I know I have been.

Glad I was able to "help" :)

Can someone please explain to me how I can tell when my 120 goes active? I have read the manual over and over hoping to see something about this that I have missed. The countdown on the hud appears to be TTI and does not seem to show TTA. In Falcon4, the countdown changes from "T.." to "A.." or something like that making it obvious. Am I missing something on this? Having a clear understanding of that I think would take us a long way toward better accuracy with the AMRAAM.

Gee, sorry to hear about that Wild Bill. Maybe it's time to try VAC or something like that. At least you got a good mic out of the deal. You've inspired me to get out my copy of GC and hook it back up. Thanks for that.

GC wants too much for their stuff anyway. Who, in his right mind would spend $75 for voice recognition software? I paid $49 for the first version but got a very nice head mount mic as part of that price. I even thought that was a bit high at the time. If I'm reading this right, the $75 for GC3 is software ONLY. The've got to be kidding!

Thank you for the invite Capt Rob! I've got quite a bit more exploring with this game before I want to do the OL thing. I'm sure I'll get the bug again and when I do I will certainly look you up. Yes, I am running FC 1.12a. Thanks for your thoughts on TIR. That's my next purchase. S!

Wild Bill, I have GC as well, though have not loaded it up in probably three years. Maybe I should dust it off and see how it does with FC. I'm not even sure it is GC2 (but I think it is). I just did a search here and found this: http://forum.lockon.ru/showthread.php?t=14409&highlight=game+commander Why don't you send fish and xylem a message and ask them if they have any ideas about this? Hope this helps a little.

I just last week upgraded from 1GB to 1.5GB (1 GB and 1 512 MB stick DDR PC3200) and it made enough difference that I was able to increase my resolution from 1024x768 to 1280x1024 without penalty. The game is much smoother in general now too. It definitely helped my system. I was pretty disappointed that I couldn't put the other 512 stick on my MB. It would not work. I even borrowed another 512 stick (bringing the total to 4) and that would not work either. Apparently my MB can only handle two memory sticks. I'll have to buy a 1GB stick for "my wife's computer" at some point and do a little swap-a-roo.

Whoo Hoo! I'm killing the two 27s regularly now! This is great! My SA is much better and I'm not just guessing. I am now able to evade while maintaining both locks (barrel rolling) and in many cases, I'm able to cause them to turn early enough to allow my first missles to get them (two launches, two kills!!). In most cases, I fire a second set and that usually gets them on the run and I simply follow them allowing either the first or second set to get them. Many thanks especially to Cosmo who really stuck with me on this. Thanks to all the others too who offered advice. I've attached a track of one of my successes just in case anyone's bored enough to watch it (sorta like watching someone else's family videos I guess :)). Comments and especially criticisms are most welcome. Thanks again!! -mark

There was a small park where I grew up in Knoxville, Tennessee. I was probably around ten years old (1963). In those days, there were lots of ww2 and Korean war aircraft relics around at schools, parks, etc. This particular park had a P80 Shooting Star mounted up on a pole and a ladder allowed you to climb up and sit in the cockpit. [Can you imagine them doing that today?] I absolutely fell in love with fighter aircraft because of that. I made bunches of F86, P51, P80 models and always had them hanging in my room. I joined the Air Force when I was 18 and the love affair has never died. I have two Guillows models (a P51 and an A6M2 Zero) hanging in my garage right now.

Thank you Xealot. We need more of this sort of stuff.

Prophet, I have not yet tried lomac online. I want to get my legs first. Actually, I've done online, been in sqads, etc. for so many years that I am sorta enjoying just playing around at my leisure offline. I'm sure I'll do that at some point as this is a really fun game. So, as with il2, hyperlobby seems to be the ticket, right? I suppose, like il2, everyone uses different things for vox (mostly teamspeak I would guess.) When vox first got started in the late 90s, I was playing Red Baron 3D at the time and a lot of us were using RogerWilco. I'm not sure but I think RW was the first of its kind. It was really buggy and many guys gave up on it. Later, with Aces High, they decided to build vox into the game. To me, that was one of the best things to come along in mmog. That meant, EVERYONE can at least hear pilot chatter even if they themselves don't have a mic because it was built into the game. If you could hear anything at all, you could hear vox. I haven't checked out OL for lomac yet but I'm expecting it to be similar to il2 on hyperlobby. Fair? I definitely want to try OL at some point. I want to get competent with modern jet tactics first though I think. Thoughts on all this?

Thing is, I feel as you do about my viewing system. I have been using a hat and zoom buttons on my throttle for viewing for 10 years or better. I was in Aces High when TIR first took hold and lots of guys were using it, loving it. I just never thought it would work for me. From watching your track and the TIR videos, it didn't look like you were TIR. I know everyone's telling me to do it but it's a couple hundred dollar experiment. I'm really thinking hard about doing it though. It just seems like having to hold my head still all the time and moving it in such a controlled way would be a real pain. I hate wearing hats too so that goofy piece of coathanger wire stuck on my head is not very appealing. Thanks for your thoughts. BTW, I'm consistently killing the single bandit now. The double not so good. My SA is much better though. I'm probably killing the doubles 2 out of 10 at this point. I'm playing around with locking them both up with TWS for first shot versus waiting till Rpi, going RWS, launching to each separately then going to TWS for the next shot. Idea there is I thought it would cause them to go defensive quicker but it hasn't seemed to. I'm back to the original plan now (like your track). I've also played around with clicking on the jammer at various points but it hasn't seemed to make any difference so I've given up on that at least for now. The SDT seems to notch me and I lose track of him a lot then he'll get me. Sometimes I just go RWS and hunt them down seperately after that happens and with lots of breaking and circleling, I get lucky. I hate getting lucky though. I want to get the kills because I've maneuvered well and gotten in the right situation. I get frustrated about it but then realize how far I've come just in the last few days. I'm trying hard to keep an even temperment about this. My fist is still aching from slamming it down on the desk. :) I haven't had this much fun since I started winning dogfights regularly in Aces High.

I second that! Cosmo, I've been meaning to ask you. Are you using TIR? I have never been interested in that as it seemed like it would make me dizzy (I'm already pretty dizzy :)) However, I've read enough positive posts about it and the videos on TIR4 etc. look awfully good. I'm considering springing for it. Just wondering.

GGT, So are you saying that this TWS behavior that Kula is citing is not necessarily a bug but an anomaly (beam, jam, etc) and would be something a RL pilot would expect to see? In the cases I've seen, leaving the cone just does not seem a reasonable possibility. My SDT was at 32k when he disappeared and my range was at 40 showing 5-42 [i'm guessing a bit here but I think I'm close] He was pretty close to 32k when he reappeared. I cannot believe he climbed 10k in the few seconds he was gone from the scope and would come back to that alt upon reappearing. That leaves beaming or jamming I suppose but if he were jamming, wouldn't I be able to see that? I didn't think I could break a lock by simply beaming unless I was able to fly outside the cone. This really doesn't make sense to me. I'm not meaning to argue with you here, just trying to understand.

Kula, I am very glad to see you are confirming my discovery about TWS. Being a total noob, it is very frustrating to have a PDT and a SDT locked up with my radar pointing right at them (plenty of cone to go around) and the SDT will just disappear, no apparent reason. It finally comes back but again, no apparent reason. I know there is much I don't understand but this behavior has made no sense at all to me. It's very hard for someone at my experience level to claim a bug in the code. Perhaps I'm slightly more sane that I thought.

Thanks for all the advice. Good idea about turning on labels. I tend to resist all that sort of thing as I don't want to develop bad habits but using labels at least part of the time will certainly help me learn how the missile is behaving. I'm really amazed how much fun this all is. I am a ww2 prophead from way back. In fact, I used to think missiles were for sissies. :) I bought Falcon4 when it first came out but never got serious with it at all. I would set up little guns-only missions and just dogfight. I'm a real "fish out of water" with this missile stuff but the juices are beginning to flow. Watch out! Hee hee! I wish someone would put together some good tutorials that cover what we've dealt with here in this thread. I've searched through the stuff Ironhand has done and though his tutorials are very good, I haven't seen anything that deals with the stuff we've talked about here, at least not to this level of detail. On the other hand, a guy could just read this thread, pick up the tracks and practice with them, and learn a great deal. Maybe this is the way to do it rather than have tutorials.

Cosmo, Whew! I've spent the last three hours solid flying these missions. I'm catching on some I think but the progress is much slower than I would have hoped. My missile evasion is still pretty lousy. The last half hour though were better. I decided to switch to aim7s so it will force me to hold the lock. That seems like a skill I really need to learn and I'm afraid the 120 is teaching me bad habits. Thoughts on that? Actually, by switching to RWS, I've realized that I am able to "scare" him better with my Rpi shots because he gets a warning sooner than with TWS. Does that make sense? It seems that way anyway. He definitely behaves differently that's for sure. I made a track of one of my better fights but I'm not going to bore you with it. Maybe I'll just describe part of it (the difficult part) and perhaps you can comment on it. Once I launch Rpi, I effectively end up doing a big barrel roll. It starts with an AB break turn to the side the seems to give me the best chance of getting behind him. I dive as much as I can while turning while staying inside the lock. Then I roll around the other way and climb while rolling with lots of g (almost blacking out). This tends to give me closure and I fire off another missile which really gets him to turn away. That works real good I've found. The problem right here is the probability of his first shot getting me is pretty darn high. I'm dropping chaff like crazy and trying to pull real hard. It's about 60-40 that I am successful. Pretty disappointing really. If I make it through that part, he's dead meat as I get him easily though he is way faster than me so I have to shoot soon because he is great at outrunning me. That part is great fun as I get overspeed warnings, etc. and we're right off the deck. Wow! A couple of random questions for you: 1. If he has launched two or three missiles and splashes while they are in flight, what are the chances that I can get hit by one of them? It seems like that happens but I'm not really sure. 2. Should I make any effort to actually see a missile that is coming at me? I think I've read that it is a waste of time and actually dangerous to do so. My big problem is though, I have NO IDEA where that darn thing is! I'm thinking I need to start doing some timing calculations and use a stop watch to help me know the ETA on those things. That would definitely be better than my bobbing and weaving at something that may not even be there. 3. If my theory about RWS being a better defensive strategy than TWS, does it make sense to use that against a single target than TWS? If you're getting tired of me and my questions just say so. I don't want to wear out my welcome here. Your help is been great and I do appreciate it. -mark

Thank you so much Cosmo! You are a tremendous help. You're certainly right. I have not thought at all about causing them to go defensive by my "wasting" a missile. That sort of thinking has helped me a lot. I'm succeeding now in getting him/them turned around and running from me. That's a big improvement. I'm still not doing very well at evading their missiles but I'm close to getting it I think. A couple of questions if you don't mind... 1. After I fire my first shots (Rpi), should I be trying to hold lock while I make my break turn? A few times when I was successful was when I would just break real hard and lose the lock then swing around and pick them back up again. Course, most of the time, they'd just fire at me again as I did them leaving me in a bad situation. Other times, it was hard to pick them back up on radar. I was able to evade their shots that way however. Actually, this part of the strategy is where I have my most trouble. 2. Is there any indication when the AIM120 goes active? It seemed I had read that the count down timer would change from "T" to "M" or something like that but it certainly doesn't do that now. 3. Do you know why the SDT will break lock for no apparent reason? He's not doing anything evasive but will suddenly just disappear from the scope. I have to wait for him to magically reappear then go and reacquire him. This happens a lot. I haven't seen a pattern to it yet. Just a little strange oddity there. 4. I was playing around with the "single" nmy version you made. I decided to try to go up against an R-77 to see what it was like to face an "AIM120". I chose a Mig29S with a loadout of just R-77s. What a let down. The guy turns on his jammer right away so I bug one of the boxes and just fly toward the TD. I turn my jammer on too so he can't shoot at me through his veil. When I burn through, I find him on the run and it's a trivial kill. A couple of times, I used my guns just for fun. [Dogfighting is something I can do.] My question on all this is, what is the strategy for using the jammer? It certainly worked against him. It seems to me to be a big ole target! Thanks again for all this help and for the tracks. A couple of adjustments I've made to my graphics (1024X768 --> 1280X1024) and setting my preload cache to maximum (since I have 1.5GB mem) have helped me be able to see better. When I can kill both these bandits reliably, I'll post a track. S! -mark

Thank you Cosmo for the track. This is a great way to learn. Unfortunately, it is making me realize that I have a LOT yet to learn. I have done the mission about five times now. The first time was a disaster. They shot me down while I was fooling around locking them up. The other times I got them locked fine and even got within Rpi and launched on both of them. (Note, I can't imagine being able to go all the way to Rtr. You didn't either) I noticed you "sort of" ignore the lock/launch tone before Rpi so I did too. Before, I was panicking and ended up losing the lock. However, I'm realizing that I can't tell when they actually launch. The low pulsing tone, is that LOCK or LAUNCH? Anyway, I was able to evade by turning beam as much as possible with AB while keeping the dot in the circle. It seems like a crap shoot that I get hit or I don't get hit. Actually, those last two times I splashed them both but I feel like I'm just "memorizing" and getting lucky. I'm just guessing where the missile is or if there is even one on the way. If possible, can you give me a debrief and discuss LOCK vrs Launch. I keep watching your track over and over but I can't tell when you know to start evading. Thanks. This is really helpful -mark Edit: Paying more attention to the TEWS sounds. The slow "ticking" is the initial painting. The "faster ticking" is a LOCK (right?) The lower frequecy pulsing tone (different from the initial appearance tone) is the LAUNCH (right?) If that's true, there are about six missiles launched altogether (didn't count them, just guessing). I'm getting shot down about as often as I win. Since I have to launch at Rpi, my missiles are missing about half the time. Again, I feel I'm just lucky when I hit.

Wow! I may never see IL2 or Falcon4 again! Thank you sincerely Cosmo!! If you were local, you'd have a sixpack of your favorite sitting at your doorstep by now! I have to admit that it took me two tries after watching your track but I can do it EVERYTIME now! Just in case you're interested, I was making four big mistakes: 1. I was locking the target immediately when they first popped up (at 120nm). I don't know why I thought I should do that but it certainly makes it harder to see the other three after selecting the first one. 2. I wasn't being careful with my antenna pitch and was letting them fly outside the cone. That was the mistake I made the first time after watching your track. The second time, I was careful to keep them within say 8-42 so they would not fall out of the cone. That concept feels real strange to me for some reason. I'm catching on now. 3. I was hesitant to zoom all the way in on the scope. For some reason. I thought I needed to keep the hud in view while locking them up so I couldn't see what I was doing very well. As soon as I saw you zoom all the way in like that, it was... DUH! Amazing how dumb you can be sometimes! 4. I see you wait for TWS to get the next lock between firings. I was just firing four times rapidly. I didn't realize that I only had a couple of them locked at that point because the other two had broken lock. Waiting for the TD to pop to the next target assures me that I indeed have them locked. If not, I can go back and lock them again before it's too late. When I first started studying TWS, I was excited to try it but got so frustrated because my targets kept breaking the lock (because they would fly out of the cone), I didn't understand why that was happening and got to where I didn't care about TWS. Now I'm loving it! All I want to do is TWS! Hee hee! I hope I can help some else as much as you've helped me. S! -mark

Actually, most of the general avaition aircraft are sort of "left handed" which I was accustomed to when I started flying simulators. For example, the Cessna 172 has the throttle plunger on the right and you tend to fly with just your left hand on the yoke while managing throttle, flaps, radios, etc. with your right. My "left handed" rig is basically like that. I figured there wasn't much chance in me getting stick time in an F15 or F16 anyway. Plus, it gave me yet another excuse to modify my equipment which doesn't take much. As for moulds, the mould becomes the handle, so there isn't any. I take that green gardening foam block stuff and carve it into the shape I want then fibreglass over it to form the handle. I then saw it in half and scrape out the foam. Besides, that's the easy part. Building all the little forms to hold the switches inside is something I don't really ever want to do again. Oops, my telephone is ringing, gotta go! :)

The only way I've been able to do this is to pass through them then come in behind from about 20nm and slow down so that I have enough time to zoom in on the scope. That slows the closure rate down enough that I have time for all the zooming and moving of the TDC.

I put together a simple little mission (attached) with four C130s at 30k about 200NM away from you in an F15 with 8 120s. The trick is to lock all four of them up in TWS and shoot them down in four quick squeezes of the trigger before they get within guns range or at least before they get past you. What's especially hard is you have to wait till they get real close to you because they are bunched so tightly together. I have not been able to do it (cause I'm just a stinkin' noob) but I'm hoping you pros can and will describe to me how you do it. Enjoy and good luck! -mark

When I first posted this picture, I wondered if there might be something in the picture I didn't want anyone to see. I never thought ya'll might start making fun of my phone! :) I guess this is sorta revealing about me. I never get rid of anything if it's still getting the job done. BTW, that phone used to be white about 20 years ago! Ha ha!