Zychon

Late to the party as usual... I can't speak on the flight model as I have no experience with it nor any historical knowledge. Just not a grognard. But it seems right. Torque being dominant at low speeds, makes the wing dip, then the nose blocks what little air is flowing over the left wing and ...toast. Same thing was happening to me. Whatever the state of the flight model, the instructions are a little vague and I think that's the problem: At 160 Km/h, the tail needs to be coming up. By the time you hit 200 the tail should be level and *then* the A/C will lit itself off of the runway. No 3 point takeoffs. What has basically been happening to you and I is a premature takeoff with too much back pressure on the stick at too slow a speed, because we are still holding the stick back (as per instructions) as we approach 200 Km/h. Be ready for the left yaw as the tail rises, but be careful not to over correct for it. Thankfully the liftoff is pretty immediate, so you can be slipping all over the place, so long as you don't have back pressure on the stick you'll be fine. As an aid, you can first power up to 2600 with the brakes on, then release for the roll without any adverse effects. This might help to give you one less thing to keep track of. I also power through the 2600 mark as I am gaining the first few meters of alt. Hope that helps.

Labels are a factor, but that applies universally across every match up. As of yet, we don't know what parts are in their completed states and what is unfinished. Is the 15's FM as it is intended? Are the performance differences between the A/C realistic? No one is certain about that yet. What we do know is that the MiG is the lighter of the two with more thrust, so to some degree, you will always be in this position in the energy race. We also know that even against an identical twin A/C, if you are constantly pulling for lead pursuit you will lose energy much faster than your opponent. Even in pure pursuit, you are in a reactive position and the delay between observation and action will bring you out of line and therefore cost you more energy per maneuver than your opponent. Most people are familiar with energy fighting from an altitude standpoint, but less so from an angle of attack perspective. You need to trade position (not merely altitude) for energy, and vice-versa. With more inherent wing loading and less thrust, you're going to have to sacrifice position quite a bit and make your move only when you can capitalize from it. I've also noticed in a few videos people electing not to climb at all. This is a mistake. You may not be able to keep up with the MiG in a climb, but hanging out below him will put you at an energy deficit that you will never recover from. There's a space you can occupy in between pulling around on someone's six o'clock and being on the defensive. In that place you can maintain pressure on the bandit and force it to commit to a position where you can go to guns. You just have to find that groove. The AI might fly beautifully, but it makes a lot of tactical blunders. Make your energy state a high priority and you'll have the E to put yourself in a kill position when that happens.

I got most of my "fighting skills" (in other words, "bad habits") from the old Red Baron series. Later on, there was Jane's USNF but most of that was missile engagements. I didn't come back to "dogfighting" until I played Rise of Flight. I played a ton of single player and got my gunnery up to snuff, but Mplayer was where I really wanted to be from the beginning. I started watching this: https://www.youtube.com/user/Requiem10NS/playlists After getting shot out of the sky a hundred or so times, I got enough skill to learn how to not die, and eventually to get a few kills. I talked to a friend of mine, and he told me about this: http://pilotpress.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/inpursuit.pdf Since then I have collected and read all the books and docs I could find online. Every document out there has value, but for me personally the greatest jump from "I know how the thing works now" to "I know how to hunt and kill now" was In Pursuit. It's geared toward WW2 flight sims, but the aspects of the book on the mental game and mental preparedness really helped me.

This happened to me once as well. I assumed I was in some way abusing the engine. Of course I could have actually been grazed by enemy fire, but that's just crazy talk! :music_whistling:

This was my assumption too. Reducing any "residual" lift.

Ah-hah! Yeah, it's a teeny little antenna. Makes sense for its limited purpose. I just didn't know where they were in reducing the weight and size of things this early in the game. Thanks for doing the leg work. I don't know all of the specific gold mines of data on stuff like this, but the one certainty is that I fail at Google. Thanks again.

Concerned with sales/maintenance contracts with smaller nations where is it still a front line fighter, perhaps? Just a guess. The russian military is not a place I'd instinctively associate with transparency. "Share your information with us, please." "Do we have to?" "Not really." "Okay, then No."

BST also recommend fully retracting the flaps before braking. Also braking very early on and gently... which makes for an interesting dance number right after touching down. :) For me it gets hairy if I'm misaligned at touchdown. The rudder is not very responsive even at cruising speeds, so I'm tempted to engage the NWS. But at 145 KIAS, you've got to be very *very* careful. :D FYI: Had some hydraulics system damage the other night and only the nose wheel would drop. I don't think the hyd emer release has been modeled yet. I came in set to no flaps, no airbrake, and setting her down tail-dragger stlye. She did fine.

Wow, thanks El Hadji for the insight! I got as far as Wikipedia, but from there it seemed that it was largely experimental until the Vietnam era. At least for smaller A/C. Still I had no idea it was even attempted with WW1 area stuff ...with a freaking hose and a hand pump! Fascinating stuff. Looking at the nose here has got me wondering: just where the hell is the radar in the Sabre? I know it's not some sophisticated phased array job (it's essentially a simple range finder), but it had to be very small, right?

Insane. Steadier hand than mine! In both of these examples it makes me wonder about heat resistance in the canopy. Obviously, in these cases we are dealing with little or no throttle. But it seems even the radiant heat off the cooling engine would be very intense. I guess up there at altitude things cool off pretty quick. Awesome stuff, though.

The issue here is the way the hardware works many switches have an "off" position. On other words, swith up = button 25, switch down = button 26, switch in the middle = nothing. In order for the switch to do something in the middle, you need to set an "onRelease" macro. When you stop pressing button 25, do <this>. If you don't like the T.A.R.G.E.T. software, there are third party applications like pinnacle game pro.

The shots land right on the dot for me. This may be obvious, but just in case: 1) Keep in mind the gyroscopic sight only works when you track. That is to say: when you manipulate the nose of your A/C to hold the pipper on the target. It is oblivious to the bandits trajectory and speed, you need to help it by holding it on the bandit. 2) The shots will fall right on the dot. Do not lead. You might not think you are, but it's a natural instinct to lead the target with the sight. 3) If your sight is jumping, it's because your radar range rheostat is set to long. The radar is getting reflections from the ground/water and the reflection from the bandit is getting lost in the noise. Decreasing it will help by masking off the ground clutter. Think of it as a flashlight that you can control the length of the beam on. Unfortunately, there is no key binding for this that I know of, and you have to reach up and do it with the mouse. I know of a lot of players who cage the gyro on the P-51 and the F-86 because it helps in lead shots. If you are performing a high deflection shot such as a lead shot, the sight will not come to rest at center until you unload the wings, and even then there seems to be a good deal of lag in its response. This robs you of a nice hard reference point while you are setting up the shot. I use the gyro though, because it greatly extends the reach of your guns. At ranges which would otherwise be very hard or impossible to gauge lead, your shots are right on the money. That's what made it such a deadly piece of technology. Others have to walk the stream of bullets onto the target, getting hits only where the paths converge. With the gyro, squeeze the trigger and they all hit home. In the P-51D, you can set the sight to "fixed & gyro" so you get both. In the Sabre, you have to make do with the cage button.

The F-86 doing this, I can imagine. An F-4 pushing an F-4 is much harder for me to imagine. :joystick:

Makes sense to me. I can use my NVGs in my P-51, after all.

I remember that clip, but don't remember him mentioning any aerial refueling. It was done back then, but I don't think it was common. I'm nowhere near as versed in this as most here, though. It might be best to wait for one of the Grognards to answer. :D As for DCS itself, yes. Planes equipped to receive fuel in flight can do so.