PLP

This is actually a good idea, and I might do just that. The button wiring is very probably easy to intercept I guess.

It might mess the magnetic field used to measure the angle up, although I'm not sure if it would be significant or not. Edit: This effect is very probably negligeable

I like the result of the wooden gimball, but it is hard to control friction (and it maybe wont be stable on the longer run). Maybe by making them slightly cone-shaped or introducing chalk or soap to increase/reduce friction one might get a good result (that works on the violin:)). A similar design using plastics might be more suited to your needs. I'm also trying to figure out a way to control friction on my device.

So, just thought I'd share a little project of mine and seek out some advice on how to go forward: I've been on logitech's Attack 3 for what seems to be forever now, and they have an abyssimal precision, forcing me to use crazy user defined curves for precision flying (refuelling/hovering/formation etc.). Since I don't really have the free $$ for a TM warthog right now, and I like doing stuff myself anyways, I went ahead and built myself a Hall sensor stick. And it turned out to be really cheap and much easier than I thought! Firs I did the articulation in wood (ball bearings are way too luxurious): And the mounted two-axis articulation, held together with epoxy: The Hall sensors (allegro A1324) are then glued (I love epoxy :D) to the rotating axis and static magnets are fixed (duct tape for now, epoxy in final state) to the non-rotating part: All this took a cumulated half day at most. The most sweat I had was with programming the microcontroller. I used a PIC18F4550 (10bit ADC, plenty of pins for buttons, on a 20MHz clock) for which there is thankfully plenty of examples and many people who did the same, so after 2 days or so I have a USB HID joystick that I can pretty much configure at will. (Electric schematics and MPLAB projects I would be happy to share if anyone is interested.) I use a 5V external source since I am afraid of damaging the computer's USB power source, but that is probably an unnecessary precaution. So basically after some duct taping I have a working 2-axis joystick: (the breadboard on the last picture has more electronics than used for this project) The price was about: Wood ~ 5$ Electronics/Magnets: ~20$ (would be much less if I hadn't ordered in the most expensive store of switzerland, country with no reputation for cheap prices.) And after some flight testing I was really amazed at the achieved precision: I can finally land planes without having to trim all the time (I haven't touched the trim since my stick has no springs), my arial gunnery is sooo much better and I can transition a huey through all flight states without having to trim at all, all with absolutely no curves whatsoever. I also was anxious of how the wood-on-wood friction bearing would feel but it is actually fine, and the stick stays in place when let go of which is convenient. I would strongly encourage anyone to build his own stick, it is oddly rewarding, and the pleasure of having a precise joystick is incredible; especially after years of jumpy inaccurate sticks! I know my stick hasn't got the looks, but I tend to look at my screen when I sim, not at the stick ;). So now to the advice seeking part: I will now need a grip with buttons, and I hesitate between maybe some type of foam or carved wood. Any advice? I also want to build a throttle, and was wondering: Should I make it rotating around an axis or translating on a straight line? Any suggestions for sensors for a translating throttle? A collective is also on my todo list. Sorry for the long post and thanks in advance for any suggestions!

Do not forget the engine priming time depends on the atmospheric conditions, and the auto-start sequence does not compensate for it. E.g. on the virtual aerobatics server mission, you need to prime a bit longer than what the auto-start does. Hope this helps!

If like me you need to prove to yourself it is doable, slow the time by a factor 2 and it becomes child's play...

Assuming your religion forbids warm/air starts:)? I for one would fly the A-10C much more often on the server if it didn't take 5 minutes to start it, or to ferry it from the race starts, especially considering some stability issues (e.g. startup -> lag -> crash -> :mad:). No negativity intended, just suggesting. But overall a great server and thank you for your contribution!

My trust in xplane lasted a few minutes until I looped a supersonic B52... (long time ago with xplane9 out of the box though) I think a general flight model (I mean one calculated on the fly from plane geometry) will not be able to beat DCS's PFM/AFM which are apparently fine-tuned over a year with help of RL pilots for a long time.

I respectfully disagree, I think we are one of the few countries not buying airplanes as political bargaining chips - purely politically, buying the french Rafale or European Eurofighter makes much more sense (no disrespect to Sweden meant, just a cold economico-political analysis.)

I think there is in general here as elsewhere a huge underestimation of the voter's intelligence (remember in the last US elections how popular a speech by Bill Clinton - where he basically stated facts - was when everybody else on both sides were using a much more populist rhethoric), and the debate basically boils down to either Switzerland will be invaded if we don't buy them or they are useless pieces of crap we are buying for a non-existant threat. I think it is a great shame that there has not been an intelligent discussion about the couple last votations in general in most medias. The whole problem - in my personal opinion - stems from a huge mismanagement of the initial purchase by our defense minister, who basically tried to buy the Gripens behind the parliaments back. To your other point, I think that rotating two different fighter types isn't such a bad idea, since it makes us immune to the all-so-current gap bridging problems between two fighter generations when the older is at the end of its life and the newer is delayed.

I don't think being dependent on neighbors for airspace security is such a good idea for a sovereign state on the long term, if only as a principle. And I also don't think entering NATO would be good for us, I mean sure the defense alliance stuff is great but then again it is a also a great way to get dragged into unnecessary conflicts or confrontations. Plus, read in the newspaper today that our Hornets would be enough for 24h readiness and airspace policing, but there would not be enough resources left for other tasks mandated to the air force (e.g. training pilots for CAS).

I am guessing that if you are in range for guns, you would be well within the burn-through range of any kind of radar jammer.

No, and that is exactly the point, it should be changed.

Sure, as long as we have DCS: Rafale first ;)

Yeah I know in Switzerland everything is so orderly that war will never take place at night or on a Sunday, since war is noisy and making noise on Sundays is illegal :P. Thats exactly the point, since it is being used as an argument for the necessity of the Gripen purchase, I was wondering how solid that argument was. I was also wondering how much maintenance is needed per flight hour on those planes, and if we would not go through spare parts and frame lifetime too fast if we were to assure a 24/7 plan for our f18s.

Just a question for you knowledgeable people: We have to vote here in Switzerland for the purchase of a bunch of Gripens to replace our 54 or so aging Tigers. Otherwise, we have 32 Hornets bough about ten years ago I think. The question is: would 32 F/A-18 be enough to ensure a 24-7 readiness, or would it be impossible because of maintenance cycles? Just wondering.

A plane also takes a lot less effort to fly compared to a helo (the A10 you cite is a good example: put it in path or altitude hold and you can devote 95% of your attention to the sensors & weapons). As to the Apache v ka50, the Apache is probably way more effective, although I would personally much more like to sit in a ka50 for its survivability (ejection seat most of all) if I had a choice.

Well the square amraams were due to the LOD setting (how did I miss that:wallbash:), the black weapons pylon might be a dds/tga problem, but then again it is probably just on a part of a texture I forgot about, engine intakes are fine now.

Thank you very much sir! I had never noticed those square amraams before :doh:.

Hi all, started a skin out of sheer boredom the other day, edited with gimp, files saved as TGA, copied an existing skin folder&edited the description.lua, tried out a test mission and here is the result: as you might notice, weapon pylons and amraams are low LOD, plus engine intakes (other image) seem to have the same issue. Any ideas why? As said all textures in tga format, description.lua attached. Thanks a lot in advance for any tips or help. description.lua

Hi all, Just my 2 cents, and I might get pilloried and left hanging for the crows for even suggesting this, but have you guys considered warm (runway)/air starts as a temporary alternative? It would solve your limited park space problems, plus one of the reasons I never fly the A10 on the VA servers is that I would hate to go through the 7min startup just to have someone warp in me on the ground, or crash in a low-fps takeoff. Therefore I always opt for the UH1/P51/F15/... for their quicker startup procedures. Then again, if warm/air starts goes against your philosophy, I respect that and can only be grateful for such an awesome server. Cheers

A workaround is just as suggested above an orbit on a race-track pattern with 0 speed, it will effectively stop the helo (it worked in some previous versions at least.) Cheers

96% rpm is the max throttle of the F15, don't ask me why. Cheers

Topic has already been covered, just want to point out two things though: - Stealth is useless against metric wavelengths, I think that is what you are referring to. Metric wavelengths are cool for ground search radars, not so much for targeting, or embarked radars (your antenna needs to be, well, metric). - War is boring has a few quite well written and argumented articles raising some points on the F-35 that I never saw convincingly refuted (except for the generic "it's next gen the future you can't understand man" argument.) IMHO the F-35 itself is worthless, the technologies developed for it might turn out to be a step forward though.

An example (for shipbuilding at least) is the Reynolds number, which is a way to determine what sort of physical regime you are in (think surfboard or oil tanker?) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reynolds_number