AndyJWest

Personally, I boy DCS stuff to fly it, not to complain about what other people do with it.

Yup. A nicely-printed 'DCS Startup Sequence' placard would solve D4n's problem. And wouldn't be a bad idea for me either, given how often I've forgotten to start TrackIR before running DCS. Though I've sort of solved that by arranging the relevant icons on my desktop in order, making it less easy to forget something.

TLDR thread summary: When I do 'thing', it breaks stuff... Stop doing 'thing' then. But I want to do 'thing'! Then you'll have to put up with 'thing' breaking stuff.

Source? This thread. You are having problems because Windows controller software is flawed. ED can't do anything about it. Go complain to Microsoft. @Dagger71Personally, I fly with a gamepad plugged in. Partly because I sometimes use it as a cheap 'button box' in DCS (and other flight sims), and partly because I also play games that work best with a controller. I keep it plugged in because the flawed Windows controller API gets flaky when you plug in and unplug controllers. Doing it that way, no issues. Or at least, no more issued than as usual with Windows USB stuff.

A message that something has happened which might cause the game to stop working properly is not an indication that doing what caused the message is supported.

Hmmm, tricky question. I'm not sure about this. I only fly offline, so what other people hang off their wings doesn't affect me, and I'm a bit inclined to mess around with implausible loadouts myself (mostly to improve my slim chance of actually hitting anything ). On the other hand, if the DCS F-16 is supposed to represent a specific aircraft, adding stuff because other models carry it looks like a route to feature creep. Not usually a good idea. Really though, this looks like being more of an issue for the multiplayer crowd, and I can understand the obvious concerns there. If I had to vote, I'd probably go with 'no', since one of the major attractions of a simulation like this is learning how to make the best of what you are given. I'll not voting for now though, since like I said, what other people do in the sim isn't an issue for me, and if ED are fine with it (the change presumably won't involve much work), it's their sim, and ultimately their decision.

The only port-side-island carriers I know of were the IJN Hiryū and Akagi. According to Wikipedia (probably not an ideal source) the port-side island on the Akagi was tried as an experiment, "to see if that side was better for flight operations by moving the island away from the ship's exhaust outlets". The majority of Japanese carriers followed the starboard-island convention, so presumably there wasn't any benefit. And yes, it's quite common to see WW2-era photographs mirrored. It was very easy to accidentally flip the negative before taking a print, and if you didn't know what you were looking at, it may not have been obvious. And sometimes photos in newspapers etc may even have been deliberately flipped, just for composition purposes.

The Ark Royal had its island on the starboard side.

Another suggestion: don't oblige people to enter a date of birth in order to sign back into the forum. Even (as I have) an entirely fictitious one. There is no reason whatsoever why a forum like this should even include this as an option, never mind try to make it compulsory (which I'd have to assume wasn't intended). People should not be encouraged to disclose personal details.

:thumbup: :joystick: :pilotfly:

I'd have thought that if the airbrake was intended to be able to be stopped in intermediate positions, there would have been some sort of in-cockpit position indicator provided. Otherwise, the pilot would have no way to tell where it was. What may be confusing the issue slightly is that, from what the NATOPS manual says, the extended position varies according to airspeed:

This is a long-standing issue with the Windows game controller API. It has always been flaky, and expecting an application using it to continue working flawlessly while unplugging devices is optimistic, to say the least. A controller-specific driver may possibly help, but I wouldn't count on it. Don't use plugging in/unplugging devices while playing as a 'fix' for other issues. If it works, it is only by coincidence, and cannot be relied on.

Yup. I had another go yesterday, and a little rearward movement at the start seemed to make it work better. The other thing you need to do is add power as you start to go nose-down - if you don't, you'll lose height. From what I can remember, pilot's demonstrating this seem generally not to try to return into a level hover. Instead, they pull up beyond horizontal, and climb away forwards (presumably with nozzles moved to less than the 82-degree level hover position). Probably easier than reestablishing a flat hover, and more impressive looking.

I think the answer is that they are actually moving. Just not enough to be obvious. If you start in a stationary hover, and 'bow down' significantly, you are going to move forward, even if you swing the nozzles to the 99° position as you do so. Moving the nozzles maybe a second or so earlier will start you moving backwards though, so by the time you've finished your 'bow' you won't have gained so much forward momentum. That seemed to work for me, though I didn't put much effort into doing it with any precision - I'm still working on the more fundamental aspects of hovering, and was happy enough to convince myself it could be done. It's probably worth looking at your attempts in replay, from an external view. Even looking at it side on, where fore-aft movement will be most apparent, unless you are really close to the ground (not a good idea for this manoeuvre) any such movement probably won't seem as pronounced as it is in-cockpit. Which goes for hovering in general, really - it almost always looks worse in cockpit than it does from outside.

Yeah, I um, discovered one of the Kutaisi airfields by accident, while flying the Viggen during the free-to-fly offer. Meant to land at Kutaisi itself, but got confused as I turned onto final, and lined up on the one shown in the screenshots. :doh: Fortunately, I'd set the auto-thrust-reverse gadget, so no great harm done. If I'd been flying any of the jets other then the Viggen, it would have ended in tears.

Yup, I found the same thing. It only seemed to affect the 2.75 in rockets - the Zunis I used first were on target, or at least not so obviously wrong. Another thing I noticed, possibly related, was that the STRS page showed a TGT ELEV for rockets, whereas from memory, it didn't before: I managed somehow to get it reset to zero (closer to my target elevation), somehow, though I'm not entirely sure what I did to do this. In any case, the rockets were still missing afterwards. Something is clearly awry. EDIT: I've just noticed it also reads MODE MANUAL on the screen, but not on the ACP. I think it should be in CCIP mode for rockets - maybe it was configured wrong.

Yes, I know it isn't precise. Which is why I'm asking if there is a way to make it so. 'Buy more controllers' isn't really helpful, since RAZBAM clearly intend systems to work with the inputs they provide.

Is there any way to adjust the rates of movement of nozzle rotation and STO stop position when using either a HOTAS button or the keyboard? They seem to move too fast for me, making setting a precise angle tricky. If the rate of movement was a little slower, it would make things much easier. I could put one or the other on my HOTAS radar elevation rotary, but that is also rather awkward to use with any precision.

It has been done on other sims (see e.g. https://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/9614-using-faders-as-sliders/ ) but it involves using external software to emulate a controller, is tricky to set up, and you may find the low resolution (0-127) of Midi sliders/rotaries to be a problem.

Loving the Tomcat.

Possibly. But without a better source for actual performance figures, stating the conditions and configuration, there is no way to be sure.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:General_disclaimer As for performance in DCS, it will depend, as with the real world, on aircraft configuration, and on atmospheric conditions.

After looking into this further, and reviewing multiple tracks/recordings of my efforts, I've come to the conclusion that I do better if I use the ball (or ICLS, since they still concur at this point) to get close in, but for the last couple of seconds, use the velocity vector as a guide, and eyeball myself in. This isn't how NATOPS says you are supposed to do it...

Yup, that's my impression too, at least some of the time. i have a suspicion though that there is something else going on, possibly related to things that shouldn't really be affecting the IFLOLS at all - possibly the wind speed and direction and/or the speed of the ship. I'm going to continue to look into this, and see if I can narrow it down.

That may not necessarily be inaccurate. From Aerodynamics For Naval Aviators, 1965, P.381: