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You can also center the Track IR cursor (as displayed in the track ir program interface). Setting a sufficiently large central deadzone can make this easier. Target lock in Combined Arms can also somewhat compensate, but TrackIR cursor has to be close to centered before targets can be locked. It's difficult and annoying though, so just pausing TrackIR, default is F9 I think, while shooting is the easiest workaround.

Fooling around with some CA air defense missions shooting down heli's, I noticed that Shilkas and Tunguskas could not shoot down a CH-53E Superstallion with guns. Strelas hit the CH-53E, but appeared to do no visible damage. To see if it was Combined Arms specific I tossed a Su-27 into the mission. R-27ER, R-27ET, and R73 missiles all worked fine, however cannon rounds appeared to have no interaction/effect with the Ch-53E.

I seem to recall that in the mission editor there's an option to configure the aircraft in an air start. I think it's in the same menu as the fly mission, and it basically puts you into active pause so you can configure the plane, then you exit back to the editor to save those settings. I may have details wrong given that it's been years since I've used that feature, as it's generally easier to just put the plane in a position and at a speed where there's enough time and space for the pilot to configure the aircraft to their own tastes. It may not be the module that you need to direct your ire at, but a mission author that is cutting corners. Though to be honest, it has been so long that I can't say for certain that aircraft configuration as a feature still exists, as the ME has gone through several major updates since I last used that feature.

I haven't troubleshot the issue all that much other than to check that Win 10 is updated, and that my driver is reasonably recent (probably not the absolute newest). Always loads well to menu screen. Always loads the missions to the point where I can hit the FLY button. Flies nicely for anywhere from 20 seconds to about 5 min, then crashes, though sound keeps going after the crash. Severity of crash varies, sometimes I can CTRL-ALT-DELETE out to task manager and generate a crash log, other times it's just a power off hard reboot of the computer. Not too fussed about it at this point, as I regard 2.5 release as really still an early to mid Beta as far as compatibility goes. Log attached dcs.log-20180716-231322.zip

I'm on a older notebook that's getting a bit creaky for DCS, but I'm getting a few minutes of really nice gameplay followed by crashes of varying severity. Haven't had time to do trouble shooting other than setting the GPU settings on my machine from application aware (which tends to default to integrated graphics no matter what the program is), to forced use of the discrete video card. First crash ended with DCS sending in an automated crash report, second involved End Task via task manager, third neutralized task manager enough so that a CTRL-ALT-DEL restart was required. I'll monkey around a bit more and post further info if any of the standard remedies produce visible changes. This is with DCS 2.5.0.15365

The radar will be illuminating the chaff as well as the target airplane. The radar illuminates a volume more or less centered on the target, and unless the plane has moved a significant distance from the chaff it has deployed, the chaff will also be within that volume. The reason the radar has to illuminate a volume is that the target is moving, and can change direction unpredictably. So radar has to illuminate a large enough area so that no matter how the target maneuvers the target will still be well within the area of illumination, otherwise it would be very easy for targets to evade all radar locks by maneuvering a bit. The inaccuracies in the sim have to do with how seeker vs countermeasure situations are resolved. In real life there are a large number of factors of signal strength, signal characteristics, and sensor limitations that determine if the real target or the countermeasure is more attractive to the missile seeker. A lot of that information about that is not publicly available, so DCS uses a simple probability test where each countermeasure has a 0.x chance to fool the seeker, modified by a few parameters. It leads to missiles sometimes hitting when they should miss, sometime missing when they should hit, and it rewards pumping out large volumes of chaff and flares more than it really should. The community consensus seems to be overall that missiles should be a bit more deadly, a bit longer range at high altitude, but that with professional quality piloting there's a high probability that most A2A battles are likely to resolve in the WVR arena. The general advice is to practice flying like a real combat pilot, as the trend in DCS is toward increasing realism. The real techniques generally work well even against the not quite realistic elements of the game, and when those elements are revised to be more realistic, you don't want to have a collection of bad habits that only work against unrealistic game features. Practicing techniques that are game oriented has given a lot of people nasty surprises in the past when a patch has increased realism and what used to "work" is suddenly suicidal. I'd recommend hanging out with some of the Multiplayer realism oriented groups that work on realistic combat flying. There's a lot to learn, and having skilled teachers really helps a lot.

Is there any difference between the engine RPMs when this happens? For your input hardware are you using a split throttle? Are you sure there aren't any double keybinds for your throttle controls? If it's really engine related, and it may or may not be, what is sounds like is whichever engine you start first is not being throttled up as much as the second engine you start. The most likely culprit if that's happening would be some sort of input hardware or keybind issue. Posting a .trk file of this happening would help people try to diagnose this for you.

Turn radius by itself does no good. What you're trying to accomplish is to make it so that volume covered by the missile's fuse sensor doesn't intersect with the volume of your aircraft. So if you turn early, it's very easy for the missile to adjust course to compensate. It might only need 0.2 g acceleration to compensate for your 9 g turn. If you turn late, even if the flight paths are starting to diverge, your airplane won't move far enough to exit the fuse trigger range and the subsequent warhead blast range. The space of time between too early and too late to turn is very short, and humans are generally not good enough at judging size, range, and speed to get it right. In principle, if you had an autonomous drone with a radar or other ranging tracker that monitored the incoming missile, and a pilot AI that could calculate the exact proper time and rate at which to turn, then this might be a sufficiently reliable tactic. In practice, it can be a last ditch desperation move, but a human pilot is unlikely to get the timing right.

Out of curiosity, what's your engineering plan for how the flame front that's traveling at 20 m/s is going to catch up to the aircraft that was going at least 153 m/s? One notes that in the F-111 videos, the flame front trails behind the aircraft and never catches up, and never damages the aircraft. I understand that in an argument it's good form to provide supporting evidence, but aren't you supposed to provide supporting evidence for your argument? Or is this humor that just doesn't translate well into English in a text forum format? If it is, it's pretty clear that the Americans and Brits don't understand the joke. You may have to explain. Edit: I'll note that while your 20 m/s figure is reasonably good, well within the range cited by journals, the mist under certain conditions might act like a vapor explosion, in which case catching up to the aircraft is no problem. Still, if that's your argument, bring evidence and figures relavant to that, not figures from a flame stagnation experiment.

Rockets, bombs, or cannon for something like that aren't ideal, but if you have a human wingman (or three), and there's terrain masking enough to let you get into weapon range it can be done. At times in the Su-25T in game I've gone with Kh-25L or Vikhrs to deal with short and medium range air defenses when the Kh-25MPU was acting weird for one reason or another. Or in cases where there's a mission time limit, and six missiles aren't enough to take on all the targets. Retarded bombs or canisters can also be an option. Where lack of a decent ARM really hurts is against long range systems like the Patriot or S-300, or in cases where there are mid range SAMs set up on top of the only hill in a very large flat area. If you've flown SEAD on the Black Sea map you may know the specific hill I'm thinking of when I typed that. You can't carry that many ARMs so unless the AI is upgraded, or you have players running the air defenses as a JTAC or Commander, it's sort of limiting in any case. There may well be SAM units left after your rails are empty of HARMs or Kh-58s. So if you want to press on you have to go in with something shorter ranged. Mind you, I'm not at all upset that the F/A-18 will be getting HARMs in DCS. It's really cool. In some ways though, having the plane is better than having the missile. It's fast, nimble, small, and can carry quite a bit of payload. Oh, and don't ever forget that the sensor and display tools for getting rounds on target are very accurate and very pilot friendly. If you have to go in at air defenses without a dedicated ARM, the A in the F/A-18 is really going to show it's worth.

Aside from JTAC, it can also be good to have one or more Opfor ground commanders for short range air defenses and/or ground units that are objectives. A human player can move a Tor, Shilka, or Igla around, put it in cover where it's hard to see but has a good field of fire, etc. On some of the AAA/SAMs the option to intelligently turn radar on and off is also a benefit. It can make ground targets more interesting too. Convoy drivers can take alternate routes, hide in the treeline or behind buildings, or in the case of unguided munitions possibly even dodge the incoming weapon. I've actually done this in a tank, saw a pilot rolling in on me and turned hard left at release, and manage to clear the blast radius before it landed. Live players are devious and imaginative in ways even the best AI scripts aren't. If you give the ability to play with the "targets" using CA as a ground commander, it does enrich the play experience. It's often surprisingly fun for the ground commanders too. Using a few million dollars worth of ground units to shoot down hundreds of millions of dollars worth of aircraft, or at least frustrate their mission objective, can be rewarding even if the realism and control interface still have a lot of work left to do. So, yes, very enriching. It does take a lot of effort from the mission designer though, and you need players willing to play in the ground roles.

It'll stack up the way any competently designed 4th gen fighter does. The first pilot to make mistakes past an unrecoverable threshold dies. One big mistake, or a bunch of smaller ones, it doesn't really matter. It's not a matter of an airplane winning, but of the pilot not losing. I do think that the high alpha attributes of the Hornet and the Flanker family will make for some really great gun fights.

Another tip that used to work back in the 1.2 era, haven't tried it lately, is that you can use the dump fuel command to empty the tanks. This is handy in the case where you're on fire enough that engine shutdown won't stop the fire. Most particularly in cases where the plane is controllable otherwise and you can make it to an airbase with repairs. If you land with a burning plane and request repairs the plane will often explode from fire before being repaired. If you run to 0 fuel right about at touchdown after 30 seconds or so the fires will go out, presumably due to lack of fuel. It's more "game mechanic" than simulation I suspect, but I've done it several times at least in the 25T and maybe once or twice in the 25? The best part of course, is the feeling of accomplishment when you've managed to time the fuel dump and your approach so that the engines die when your approach is on speed, on slope, just as you cross the runway threshold.

I would imagine that it's much less a matter of can or can't than it is an issue of, "is it worth the effort needed to make the terrain match Earth's curvature?" For a completely new map that covers a large area, it might well be worth it. For a small map, or for an update of an existing map, probably not. Or at the least it's not a high priority. Edit: the math for "cheating" the effect of curvature on sensor range is pretty simple if you're fine with a very basic LOS test. Remapping to a new coordinate system and checking for errors is a substantial amount of work. It's doable, but it takes a lot more doing.

Keep in mind that "Standard Operating Procedure" is not the same thing as "everything the plane can do." Planes and pilot training cost a lot of money. A great deal of SOP is designed to prevent the need to prematurely replace or repair. A single engine start is likely to be a bit easier on the electrical system, possibly on some other components as well. So in normal operation, it makes sense to do the startup in the manner that produces the least component wear. However, in cases where you don't particularly care about aircraft longevity, say for example scrambling to intercept incoming attack aircraft that are trying to drop a bomb on you before you take off, then doing things like dual starts make a lot of sense, even if it reduces the mean time to failure of some parts compared to SOP startup. If the start both engines hotkey is not working, and the aircraft is capable of simultaneous engine start, the correct thing for ED to do is to fix the start both command, not to get rid of it. Edit: It may also be part of the "arcade mode" control interface. Even the full fidelity modules like A-10C, and Ka-50 have the Home key startup option.

They'll most likely upgrade them all eventually, so don't count it at all. Look at price. Which is cheaper, the remaining FC3 planes as single modules, or as part of the FC3 package?

The Su-24 is a low level attack aircraft from the "fly fast and low to avoid SAMs" era. It is meant to go long distances at very high speeds while carrying a payload. The F-5 is a lightweight fighter/trainer design. It's meant to be cheap, reliable, and highly maneuverable at low to medium altitudes when at medium to high subsonic speeds. In a dogfight, the design of the F-5 gives it a large advantage over the Su-24. In a race, the design of the Su-24 is generally going to give it a large advantage over the F-5. Not that the F-5 can't get up to a reasonable speed, or that the Su-24 can't pull some turns, but in terms of primary design purpose the Su-24 is much better suited for going fast and the F-5 is much better suited for agility in a dogfight. They are built for different tasks, and if one tries to outdo the other at the other's intended task it's not surprising that difficulties are encountered.

You should read more carefully. Ironhand was talking aboutairspeed not turn rate. Max sustained turn happens at a given airspeed for the aircraft mass. Max instantaneous turn happens at a lower airspeed for the same plane with the same mass. You start the turn with a limited budget of energy, if you start at max sustained turn and carefully pull through bleeding energy to get to max instantaneous turn near the end it uses that energy budget wisely and gets you the fastest 360 turn. If you pull straight to ITR at the start you waste a lot of energy, and as you bleed airspeed in the turn you fall below the airspeed needed for a decent turn rate. It gives a very tight radius, but takes a long time to do a 360 compared to a turn where the pilot does good energy management. This, I believe, was the point Ironhand was trying to make. The charts are made for pilots that are expected to take the aircraft into combat. How interested are they going to be in the performance of an aircraft with little fuel and no weapons? I'm poking a bit of fun at you here, but in general performance charts for airshow configurations are less available or non-available compared to combat configurations. Though if you can find some airshow configuration performance charts I'm sure people would be happy to see them. Also a few other notes. When people were complaining about your fuel percentages: A fully fueled Su-27 only has about a ton less fuel than an F-15E with full internal and CFTs. So unless your F-15C was 30% internal plus one full external tank (or equivalent fuel mass internally), it wouldn't really be a good comparison. Relatively speaking, an F-15 with just 30% internal is a smaller proportion of its max takeoff weight than an Su-27 at 30% internal fuel is of its max takeoff weight. The Su-27 has a lot more internal fuel capacity for its size. Finally, 30 deg/sec is awfully high as a sustained turn rate for aircraft of that generation in a combat configuration. If you're basing on similar aircraft, a range of roughly 15 deg/sec to 20 deg/sec would be expected, with some of the more maneuverable ones getting to the mid-twenties in light configurations. The F-22 is supposed to be in the vicinity of 28 deg/sec or so. For ITR, then 30 deg/sec is well within the realm of possibility. For thrust vectoring variants it might even go into realm of 60+ deg/sec. The problem is that if you pull that sort of maneuver, unless in the process you killed your last opponent you'll be in serious trouble due to lack of airspeed after having bled so much energy that you're slower than an A-10. The maximum possible turn rate is irrelevant except maybe in airshows, the maximum practical turn rate is what matters. Looking at your initial post's charts what I see is the F-15 getting to an ITR of around 29 deg/sec, and then bleeding a huge amount of airspeed. A very reasonable result. For the Su-27 I see it pulling to 20 deg/sec, and then running into the limiter which keeps the foolishness of a full stick aft turn from hemorrhaging energy quite as badly as happened in the F-15. Using the override (wheelbrake keybind) you likely could have gained ITR and bled energy much like the F-15. Your comparison isn't a turn rate comparison or a max lift comparison, it's an energy bleed comparison, and the only reason the Eagle won is because of user error in the Su-27. If you want to see how impressive the Su-27 is at bleeding energy all you have to do is correctly perform a Pugachev's Cobra maneuver. ;) Jokes aside, in your test you didn't correctly fly either aircraft for a maximum average turn rate and the results are about what would be expected based on publicly available information. Edit: I just looked through the slide show you linked and the performance stats it cites are: F-15 STR: 19 deg/sec ITR: 26.4 deg/sec Su-27 SK STR: 19.4 deg/sec ITR: 28 deg/sec Doesn't say for what loadouts those are though. If you're after evidence that the average turn rate for an Su-27 through a 360 deg turn is above 30 deg/sec you might not want to link sources saying that the max ITR is only 28 deg/sec. ;)

My minimum roll procedure is very different: Jettison all stores Dump fuel to have less than 200 kg at touchdown Check flaps down, airbrake optional Approximately 2 deg AoA Touchdown Rudder to keep aligned with runway Stop Lower gear Engine shutdown Wait for turbine stop Request Repair It gives a really excellent over nose view of the runway on approach. ;) The repair time does include a bit extra for the ground crew to cuss you out for grinding off the below engine missile rails though. Seriously though, GGTharos is right that it's really all about proper technique. The Soviet AFM jets can all land on the shortest runways in the Black Sea map (1800 m?) in icy conditions, no headwind, no chute, and still have something like 400m of spare runway even if the landing is bobbled a bit.

Well, this is where the "game balance" concern gets answered for all the people that somehow manage to not regard DCS as a sim. Bluefor is being handicapped by enabling a loadout that provides an irresistible temptation for many players to try dogfighting with as much mass and drag as they can possibly pile onto their plane. It should be a godsend for Redfor flyers, . . . as soon as they manage to break the habit of trying to superglue extra R-27 ER/ETs onto their Sukhois.

So I'd say that 3 days is an awfully short time period if you travel at all in regions where internet coverage is spotty, ie, most of the land surface of this planet. Sure, most people live in urban areas where access is easy and often cheap, but urban areas are overall a bitty little speck of all that's out there. With a frequent update period, which seems to be what ED is after, I can see 7 days as being a reasonable compromise. More than 7 days means it's getting to be more than just a little trip, and while 14 or 30 days would be nice for those of us that do exceed a week worth of non-access sometimes, 7 days seems like it would probably cover most people most of the time. I'd love a month, I voted 14 days, but 7 is where it becomes a dealbreaker for me when looking at purchasing new modules. Three days is just too damn short.

Range = distance listed in a book or on a wiki is not a valid equation. Range = mathematical expression incorporating: launch velocity, target velocity, difference in gravitational potential energy, atmospheric conditions etc. Change any of the variables in the real equation for range and the resulting range changes. Let's take an example: Say you're flying at about 7500 m, and there's a target that's an F-15. You're at a nice 220 m/s, but what effect does the target's velocity have? Say it's a foolish person that's been closing on you at max afterburner for quite a while trying to get above Mach 2, so they're adding about 500 m/s to the effective speed of your missile. If your missile is in the air for 10 seconds, 500 m/s * 10 s = 5 km of effective range. Supposing you can launch early enough so that the missile can fly 30 seconds, in that case the 500 m/s gives you 15 km worth of effective range. Now take that target and turn it around so that it's flying away from you. Now the relative speed it's contributing to your missile is - 280 m/s. Over 10 seconds that's 2.8 km less range, over 30 seconds that's 8.4 km less range. So compared to the first scenario, there's up to a 23.4 km difference in effective range, just based on what direction the target is flying. There is no single range. Range depends on a bunch of variables. When looking at wikis or books the range figure is often the manufacture's listed figure, which is often a number optimized for selling as many missiles as possible. Ranges at which missiles can hit in realistic situations are normally drastically shorter.

The Su-33 does have one gigantic advantage over the Su-27 for the average DCS player, that I suspect is illustrated by this quote that gets the physics very, very wrong: The advantage being that if you carrier launch the Su-33 the new flight model forces you to stay under a certain payload limit in terms of fuel and weapons, and strongly encourages you to burn up some fuel at the start in full AB. As opposed to the Su-27 taking off from an airfield, which people tend to load up as if it's an An-124, and then complain about sluggish performance.

The Kh-25 MPU, Kh-58, Kh-29T, Kh-25L, Kh-29L, S-24L, and the laser guided bombs are as close as the playable FC3 planes get. They all have the problem that they either do little damage or that against a guided missile ship you have to penetrate about 40 km inside the lethal range of the ship's surface to air missiles. With a very large strike package, and as much speed and altitude as you can get to extend range on the munitions, you can get munitions through to the target. Doing it with AI formations though, I generally got results like 0-4 missile hits on the ship for a loss of 6-10 strike aircraft. It's an expensive and desperate proposition. Only way I could see it working is if there's a coordinated strike where a friendly naval force is also attacking, and the combination of surface to surface and air launched munitions is enough to over saturate the defenses around the target. Against a ship that is unarmed or only has short range (less than 10 km max range) air defenses then the Kh-29 variants do quite nicely. It does list ships as potential targets in the description, but it's not meant for dealing with well defended targets.

Can't remember if it was in the F/A 18 subforum or the Livestream thread, but some observant person noted that on the modules bar for the loading screen in addition to the Hornet there were "WIP 2.3.0" icons for both the Mi-24P and the F - 4.