=Mac=

I fly any Western aircraft in DCS and am available any Saturdays (any time) if you like. I'm not the greatest but here is a link to a vid I made in the Huey for my family and friends.https://vimeo.com/87342921

For the record, as I have said a gazillion times, I will buy anything ED fits into DCS. Just to give it a helping hand, I bought CA twice. I've purchased LOMAC several times, FC 1, 2, and 3 and will buy 4 if necessary. I may not fly non-western craft (Russian is just too much for my addled brain), but I got 'em! :worthy: Eagle Dynamics Rules!

For Huey's sake, I'd love SEA so I could run the Mekong or around Cam Ranh or, with a fully loaded Hawg, how about right up Hai Phong to HaNoi! But for an Eagle/Flanker party, Crimea/Russia would be nice. I loved Sevastopol in LOMAC. Nevada will be a nice separate map just for training the Western birds. Europe would be nice for the P-51 and whatever comes out to match that. Not that it really matters. Years ago, our community had monthly online wars between Sochi and Maykop. The map really doesn't matter. AFM, and new aircraft DO!!!! Someone Puh-leeze get me a SuperBug!!!

The photo you posted shows what it would look like if you were in front of the GAU-8 while it was firing. If you could live through it, that flash is all that you would be able to see. If you are getting that same flash inside the cockpit while you are aiming at a target, then there is something wrong with your sim. Probably would need to do a repair or clean install. Inside the cockpit, you get no flash other than tracers on their way.

Give a good pilot just a broom stick, a sling shot, and a small rock and he can take out any flanker out there. Problem is, finding a rock that can take the G-stresses when the pilot launches it. :chair:

I had a curve of 30 and things were just not precise when I needed it. I do know about the wild throws at the edges of the stick so I expect it out there. I moved it to 40 on the pitch which helped me up until AAR. I got frustrated (shooting the tanker twice made me feel better...) but I move the curve up to 50 and got super precise response and could slide up to the boom easy. Getting "contact" was great. My third AAR. I will try lowering the curve later. But my question is: if I disconnect, is there anything I am not doing to end up with no response from the tanker? The boom stays down but that's it. Then, I can't even get a connect with the boom practically stuck into the nose-port! (The boom does not "seek" me as I close in.) Edit: Okay, I will focus on the tanker not the boom.

Ping Linebacker Linebacker: Please contact me randall.macdonald@rogers.com I have made a short video of last month's flight. I need a list of credits. :director:

First try AAR. No go. Zooming all over the sky near the boom. Reset curve on Y axis (TM Warthog HOTAS) to 50. Next attempt connected for a second or two then fell off the boom. Then tried to reconnect and the boom operator apparently left town: good approach but no clear pre-contact. Requested rejoin but, again, nobody home. The boom was down. Tried aborting rejoin. Backed off a mile and re-approached, requested rejoin. Nothing. I sure am puzzled. I just have to be missing something on the reconnect. What... I must say please or something?:helpsmilie:

(1) Bring your sister along. Let her fly. (2) Sleeping? Who needs sleep at a time like this???

(1) Bring your sister along. Let her fly. (2) Sleeping? Who needs sleep at a time like this???

Phantom88, re: your sigpic. Were you assigned VF-101? I was at Oceana in '74, attached to VF-74.

Mac acknowledges he is on the roster. Will be practicing bumping into the tanker this weekend. :book: For my political discussion, I vote yes. (Sorry, I can't get more controversial than that: I'm not politically qualified. :argue:)

Thanks for the photo.

Thanks guys. I stand corrected and chastised.:) “There are no dangerous weapons; there are only dangerous men.” (same author)

I just shut down my gaming machine so I cannot recall which gauge it is, but one gauge (Fuel pressure, I think) is mounted 90 degrees counterclockwise from the way it should be. At least, it was this morning.

My wife and step-daughter are Chinese and the language barrier is formidable. For me, I use Google Translate that, sometimes, gets things hilariously wrong. 以中国飞行员：春节快乐。不幸的是，中国和加拿大之间的距离，使电脑游戏太乱了 Edit: some of the characters failed to display correctly. I have no idea what I managed to write to them! :sad_2:

For the past 10 years or so, the U.S. has been doing a lot of stupid things. Eliminating the A-10 is one of the stupidest. There is nothing out there that comes even close to what the Hog does. Consider this: The top five recipient countries in U.S. money GIVEN AWAY the FY2013 request are the same as the top five aid recipients of the allocated FY2012 funds. Israel tops the list at $3,100 million in Foreign Military Financing, Afghanistan ranks second, with $2,505 million requested, of which $1,237.9 million is designated as OCO (Overseas Contingency Operations) funds. Nearly three-quarters of aid requested for Afghanistan is within ESF (Economic Support Funds). Pakistan ranks third at $2,228 million. Iraq moves up from sixth in FY2010 to fourth in FY2012 and in the FY2013 request. Of the $2,045 million for Iraq, $1,750 million is OCO money. These are over 50 BILLION tax dollars being given away with nothing returning. An A-10 costs close to 12 million dollars. That's over 4 thousand A-10's! The replacement for the A-10? The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF). But the JSF is not going to be able to do the job the Hog has repeatedly done. Just look at the hellishly limited canopy on the JSF: you can't see behind you. (In a dogfight????) Besides having a terrible view of the ground battlefield, the F-35 is also too fast and lightly built to loiter over a hot ambush zone — and its 25-millimeter (yup, just 25mm) gun comes with just 180 rounds, compared to the more than 1,100 tank-penetrating 30mm rounds an A-10 carries. Can you imagine plinking a couple T-72's with just 180 rounds of 25mm? Forrest Gump said, "Stupid is as stupid does." Killing off the A-10 is case in point.

Sunday, again. Awesome. Absolutely! Please sign me up for March 23, any time. 1900Z is fine for me: it was 1400 local for me. Refueling. I will practice offline to make sure I don't take out the tanker.

First, I would like to thank Linebacker for an absolutely awesome training session. All the time, money, and frustration I've gone through for DCS, this training session is WHY I do it. The great set of guys flying today was... well, I've ran out of adjectives. Just..... Wow! If something like this ever gets put together again, you sure can count on my begging to join! Second, I would like to thank my flight lead, Connor, for putting up with my fidgety flight path next to him. Connor, your flight skills are number one and that help me "settle down" and fly a bit closer to you consistently. Around WP 4, we were just under the overcast and I was on your 9 o'clock when, just like a soap bubble, pop: you were gone. You didn't just go through a cloud, you popped out. That's how I went blind. I suspect we had lag between you and I. I think one of the greatest moments in the flight... heck, in my life!... was when I was closing up to the "crowd" as we approached WP 5. Seeing 5 or 6 A-10's holding hands was such a joyous thing. I can't find the words to describe that. My one embarrassment was hearing "land left, then move over and taxi right" and then actually landing right. (Will I get a traffic ticket for that?) One question: did anyone record the TeamSpeak channel or was that disabled?

No =Mac= ?

AFAlinebacker42: Everything still go for 1800Z 23FEB14 (This Sunday)? I still want to participate.

The way I visualize a Vortex Ring State (VRS) is a donut with the rotor going around inside it and the helo in the center. The wind is blown down, curls outward then up, then sucked back into the top of the donut to be cycled around the donut again. The reason you lose lift in this case is that the air coming over the top of the donut ring goes down the donut hole and is already moving downward quite fast (rather than still air) It's a mad vicious circular donut. How I get out of it, is to bank really hard to one side or the other and pull collective. So far, it has worked for me... most of the time. :) Practice hovering in ground effect for an hour or so. Then practice forward flight from a hover and then stop to a hover. Not too fast. Then, fly at altitude for a moment and SLOWLY make a descending approach to a hover. Remember, if you "feel" a VRS starting, bank and pull enough to stop it BEFORE it becomes inescapable. 1.2.7 has made the Huey very nice to fly. Ground effect is very noticeable when you find it. If you are using a deep curve on your axes (plural of axis?) you will get really smooth central control but once you get near your edges (full left, full right, full forward, full back), that little movement of the stick you love will disappear (near those edges) and the stick will jump causing the helo to jump, too. You are going to have to play with the curves to get that smooth center but not too much wild jumping near the edges. Enjoy your flights. It's not the destination, but the journey.

I was scouting some terrain around Batumi for a Huey Farp when my chopper grounded hard. I hopped into different arty (top of a mountain northeast of Batumi), and fired at a bridge in the distance. Bang, rocking gun, smoke, and pulled up the (bin)oculars. Nothing. Ten seconds later, still nothing. Drat, I thought, not very real if there is no explosion at the receiving end. Maybe the shot fell short? Pulled away from the binoculars to see if there were any explosions at the bottom of the mountain. Nothing. Maybe there were ... wait! There! In the water! Splash!!!!! Huh? I fired again, lowering the elevation considerably. Smoke, rocking, clearing, nothing.... Again, I searched. Nothing. Then, 28 seconds after I fired, thick black smoke about 100 meters short of the bridge. Twenty eight seconds!!! Fired again. For over 1/2 hour, I pelted the area all around the bridge, trying my best to zero in that bridge. Each shot taking almost half a minute to get there. I never did bring that bridge down. I switched to an apartment building. Five or six shots later, the building looked hit but didn't burn... I loaded another round and scoped it only to find that, yep, it did burn... to the ground in rubble. I tried for another building and eventually got that, too. But... twenty eight seconds for the shell to get there? Wow. I wanted to drive into the city but the trip down the mountain took a "turn for the worse" and I tipped it over. :-/

So far as I can tell, I can cold start (start from ramp). Don't know how to set up the radios but I do TS well. I would love to join if you'll have me. 1800Z 23FEB14 is a little after noon for me on a Sunday.

Modern aircraft have a "weight on wheels" safety switch that prevents landing gear from retracting while on the ground. I don't know if the P-51 had one.