Fri13

IR threats are easy, you see them and you pop some flares... I see nightmares about ZSU-23-4 just waiting me to fly around the tree that behind it is.... And we are receiving the R-60M, someone needs to have good idea for what purpose those are, even with just a couple kilometer effective range... The SPO-10 is better than nothing, and it will give at least a 45-90 degree accuracy for expected threat direction, and then state.

Looks like we have slight bug slipped to the mirror behavior. Hopefully they get the mirror angle turning properly when the door is operated so it isn't static projection. And that mirror frame will actually be attached to the door frame. In the MiG-21Bis the mirror angle is animated so when you flip the canopy to right side, the mirror will turn. It just has a bug that the mirror flips 180 degree wrong direction so it is upside down. The mirror is important element IMHO in the DCS, it gives you the good visual to rearward. I wish that many developers would not see mirrors as a visual effects, but actual feature in the combat and such. This is problematic in many modules that their mirrors are not curved (example a Harrier) that makes the mirror useless as it has so tiny field of view that you can't even see anythin. Then there are some amazing mirrors like Mi-8MTV2, L-39 or F-14... Oh boy... Those are just so gorgeous mirrors. And so super useful when you can actually see backward. I hope to see a another feature in the future as well, movable mirrors... So you can actually rotate them to wanted angle and get the view you need. That is little extra work but basically only way for me to ever see the fuselage in any plane is the mirror or through the glass as I don't usually use any external cameras etc. Those Mi-24P mirrors are so huge and so... That they really must give a great visibility to backward for the destruction you make!

Have you thought that DCS doesn't model more than single radio operation regardless how many radios you really have? That is real limitation for all modules. And anyways to operate radios in the Mi-8MTV2, you don't need to do more than use a one radio panel as pilot, that is above you, you don't need to go around cockpit. It is odd as well that in the hot-starts you have radio set to Manual model instead Presets. Why you can't operate radio channels straight away above you as . In a western modern fighter like AV-8B it is simple as you have two radios and radio channels to communicate, you select the radio with a hat (Aft/Forward or Left/Right) and you have no way to talk to more than one at the time. In a one pilot old plane like MiG-21Bis you have only one radio channel selector in the cockpit, and you need to be switching it between channels depending do you want to talk to wingman, ATC, GCI or what ever. You don't have two radios there as you are single pilot. In a Mi-8MTV2 it is multiple radios split for two (R-863 for pilot and flight engineer and R-828 channels for Co-Pilot). Why? All have capability to select what radio to use for communications, just like in UH-1 if would have all four panels (two for pilots and two for rear). You can listen always two channels, master channel and monitor channel. You can choose which one is ICS and which one is another radio. You switch between them with your cyclic trigger that is dual-stage trigger, first pull is one radio and full pull is a another. When this switch is set to the СПУ (ICS) position and the unified ICS RADIO PTT button on the pilot or copilot cyclic control stick is pressed to the first position (one click) or second position (second click) intercom is used. When this switch is set to the РАД (RADIO) position and the unified ICS RADIO PTT button on the pilot or copilot cyclic control stick is pressed to the first position (one click), then intercom is used. When pressed to the second position (second click) - radio is used. When in РАД (RADIO) position, broadcast transmissions are heard at a normal volume level, while crew is heard with reduced volume. To adjust volume, pilot should use the ОБЩАЯ (MASTER) and ПРОСЛ (MONITOR) knobs. When the SPU-RAD switch is set to СПУ (ICS) position, intercom volume is controlled by the ОБЩАЯ (MASTER) knob and radio volume by the ПРОСЛ (MONITOR) knob. When the SPU-RAD switch is set to РАД (RADIO) position, intercom volume is controlled by the ПРОСЛ (MONITOR) knob and radio volume by the ОБЩАЯ (MASTER) knob. Now think about the workload that it takes to talk between crew members, flight members, ground units and something else? Sharing all to different people makes it more efficient. This is same thing as "what if a pilot dies in the Apache?" or "what if RIO dies in Tomcat?". There are more important task at that moment, as he already has the navigation systems ready for the task and pre-set channels for requirement than continue the mission and handle everything alone. Mi-8 is meant to fly with a crew, not solo. If you kill either one, it is changing situations like killing another engine or something. UH-1 fits for DCS limited single player experience as you don't have the multi-crew capability modeled so well in DCS. You can't have both pilots operating all radios same time as their hands are colliding. How is the Hip worse than the Huey? In Hip each crew member has their own responsibilities (like in Apache, Hind etc) even when they are in the same cockpit, you don't do duplicate things or try to decide what someone wants to do and when. Everyone knows well their tasks and it makes it simpler as you don't try to do all by yourself. Having a crew helps you a lot and makes everything easier and simpler.

It is difficult to find anything about the Cat Eyes, than some marketing material. But similarly to find from all others there are some that are difficult to find. Yet, it would be fancy to have it for the DCS as it is in the manual. It must feel odd to have the perspective from 10-15 cm above your head, but then considering that even with it you turn off it when looking at the HUD so you see it properly. But when you look outside, you would get the extra elevated point of view as well when your seat is down for safety. That would give the nice 30 degree FOV without those black edges, and capability to focus infinity from the top and middle part of the lens and to 40 cm from the bottom part, so you would be easily looking the cockpit as well. But that must be odd feeling as like wearing a dual-strength glasses (or what they are called where you have long distance in up and close distance at the bottom, split by a prism).

If the radio systems would be correctly modeled in single player, you would have separate sets for both pilots. Same time they can talk to each others over ICS because the PTT is in the dual-stage trigger. The Net 1-2 is not modeled in the module, so you can't perform these things and why it looks so messy that both have the panels and you have only one radio to use. Yeah, because that is co-op operation. Like example the helicopter is operated normally with the pre-configured channels for radio communications. Both pilots has their own sets to be configured so they can talk to different (or same) people. But in a emergency or special situation you can manually set the frequency and that is the flight engineer task front of him. It can be done by the co-pilot as well as the thing is next to him, but it is easy for flight engineer to set from Channels to Manual and then set the custom frequency while pilots are flying and navigation so they don't need to do three tasks at the same time (flying, searching, communicating and handling the situation). The Intercom system has six points: pilot, co-pilot, flight engineer, troop commander, door operator and cargo door station. The navigation system is tied for one as that is responsibility for co-pilot to navigate so he does all that work. Pilot and Co-Pilot both talk to own external channels, UH-1 is more limited and restricted capabilities and designs. Mi-8 has better logic and organization between the crew members for the helicopter operations in all stations.

No it doesn't. It is/would be nice that technically compatible targeting pod is maintained as it allows to generate some different missions and eras.

Very interesting... Sounds like a new generation of engineers got a plan to sell a Mi-35M as "improved", without really realizing that what they were modifying. Result was then a unwanted characteristics that they were required to fix by simply rolling back the changes that previous engineers made with experience from years, by going as well the rough experimenting route....

It is at most as accurate as the Doppler Navigation System is, and its main inaccuracy is the map scale and the helicopter position marker stamp. But the best thing is that you have no problems to synchronize its to your position if you see it is inaccurate, as long you just can see somewhat outside. Like if you fly 100 meters on the right side of the river but map shows you fly at the left side of river (1 mm in the 1:250000 map is 200 meters) then you don't care about such error. If it shows you fly 1 km off from the location, you just roll the dial slightly to reposition it for your position. You don't use map to navigate under 1 km distances as you are suppose to be visually at that moment. You use it to know that are you on right canyon or that 5 km from your left there is a river and 10 km ahead is the wanted town. That is why I don't care about the NS430 not to be implemented in the Mi-24P as you have so amazing map to start. A digital moving map like ABRIS in the KA-50 is fancy and very nice as it is tied to your weapons system and how you designate targets or you see your flight members on it. A digital moving map in a Hornet or Harrier is... Let's say questionable. And I adore the digital moving map in the Harrier. Not so much in the Hornet as it is not so well designed cockpit for ground attack like Harrier is. But in Harrier the map is anyways incorrectly implemented, but what it has, it is very nice how the system is integrated for weapons. The navigation part in it is as usable as in Hornet, you get your waypoint and you get to fly there. But when you fire gun, rockets or you release bombs, the Harrier should designate the point and open up automatically the map for you on DDI that sensor you used, create the ground angle when you released weapons so you can see on map that what was your attack line and then assist you nicely back to it, requiring you to re-select sensor for attack etc. The paper map in the Mi-24 is not tied to weapons. So you don't simply care about it. If there would be a digital map in Mi-24P that has no connection with the weapons, then it would be almost waste of time. Maybe the nicest thing would be a automatic GPS assisted time calculation for next waypoint or so, but good pilot can perform that calculation quickly even in good ball park with the knowledge of the speed and distance. And I am waiting to have change to create own JPG files for the map boards, because then for mission I could write the leg information (speed, angle, altitude etc) as well draw troops locations, expected/assumed threats around etc. Like why not just use a pen to draw on that map that where everything is when you are planning mission? NS430 can't provide anything as fancy there, and it can't survive from the GPS jamming...

Think about how many thousand is missing the information because they can not find it from the ED forums.... They have only for Harrier channel alone 1000 people online, and there is possibly tens of thousands searching the information in here. Without people like Him copying the news to the forums because official community managers are unwilling to do it, they would be losing lots of marketing later on.

I re-played my trackfile from that bug and it seemed to work properly, but because the sliding bug when TDC is in the buttons it was incorrect replay anyways. So I need to check out it next time that does it work or not. As well need to check that does it work with the TPOD that was its designation jumping related to it.

Yes. How much under max weight? If you can barely get off under max weight, but not when in max weight, then it is by the specs, right? Harrier is not meant to take-off vertically for missions. It is short rolling and then jump in the air. It is the landing that is possible to be done vertically easily so you do not need long runways. I just did simple short attack mission. 3100 pounds of fuel 1x IRMAV 1x Mk-82 TPOD Gunpod Vertical wet take-off, 140 water consumed for that. I flew a 75 nmi total ground distance I had two MT-LB as targets and a building (a tall tower). I failed to destroy the vehicles with maverick as it hit somewhere elsewhere because I launched it so far and I didn't use narrow field of view to even try to acquire lock, but it did damage both by 11% even by missing about 50 meters. I completed the building attack with Mk.82 bomb dropped on the target perfectly, and it damaged both vehicles in proximity by 20% extra from 25 meters. When I landed back to base, I had 1500 pounds of fuel left. It took only 1500 pounds really to take-off, fly 75 nmi, drop some ordinance and return back to home and didn't consume any water for vertical landing. If that would be a FARP/FOB operations, I was just 33 nmi (61 km) from the action. The whole sortie took 12 minutes 45 seconds flying at 100 FFPM (gave about Mach 0.6), so from the take-off I was attacking the targets under 5-6 minutes (because I took the longer sight route instead going straight) and I was back in the base under 15 minutes from the take-off. I could have rearm, refuel in few minutes and get back. With the extra fuel, I could had a 11-12 minutes loiter time on the area (80-85 FFPM) by spending 1000 pounds for that, and that would have left me a 500 pounds extra after landing. This is what Harrier does. You operate close to the enemy. You are light, you are fast, you are ready to attack the target in minutes after the plan has been approved. So example your on ground troops finds an enemy, it can be 15 minutes from that you have plan made for the sortie, from that few minutes and you are in a cockpit taking-off. And well under an hour from the intelligence gathering, you have already attacked the target. How you would do that by a Hornet when the carrier fleet is 200-250 nmi from the coast? In that process, there is easy to maintain constant or almost constant air support for marines on the ground. In a emergency situations you can have Harrier on site in few minutes even when they are not on station. This is what makes Harrier so cool, that you have a lot of things to do in the whole time that goes in Hornet for flying to and away from carrier. And if really do the fancy missions in Harrier, you don't take-off from a airbase but from the roadbase middle of nowhere hidden. You have some odd short straight road middle of the forest. People are now so custom to load Harrier with a crazy amount of weapons and fuel and then take-off vertically and land vertically as heavy because the Harrier engines were maybe 1.5-2x overpowered.

Should the 82L and 82H even be separated in top row? I remeber that it should be just 82H or 82L as type, based to the programmed bomb mode. So it would switch whichever mode bomb is set that is it L or H, but they wouldn't take two separate types on top. So not as: 82L 82H CB59 GUN But as: a) 82L CB59 GUN b) 82H CB59 GUN Where it depends the mode set for bomb. The manual I remeber showed only either 82L or 82H in the too, never both same time....

It was from the start deigned to have purpose carry troops. It was the "Flying BMP-1". from 08:00 - 14:05 https://youtu.be/JZ5je96v8H8?t=472 It was not designed to be a cargo helicopter like Mi-8, just to be able carry 8 men with their equipment and some rockets like two rocket pods on both wings (maybe even the AT missiles in wingtips). But why to use it normally for that when you get more men in the Mi-8 and you can better support Mi-8's by attacking the enemy? If needed, it could do those many things well.

And that Ladies and Gentleman, is the beauty of the simpit and VR when used with hand tracking devices that requires you to move hand on switch/button/knob position, instead using a mouse, keyboard or voice commands.... You learn these only small things only by moving hands around to reach something..... But you will as well learn faster, and more efficient manner as your muscle memory builds up very quickly. It is like trying to explain someone what it is to drive a bicycle instead driving the bicycle.... A such knowledge or reason answering to questions like "Why this is here at left and not there at right?" is what makes VR so fun.

I don't find Mi-8 cockpit messy. It is well organized for three personnel inside a cockpit. The workload is share dynamically so one doesn't need to do everything - like in DCS. How do you fly in Mi-8? Do you sit in the left seat and then from there operate everything? If so, then it totally will be messy. What I do is that I have one hat for each for seat that there is: Left = Pilot Right = Co-Pilot Up = Flight Engineer Down = Door Gunner When I fly, I am mostly the pilot. For a combat operations you need sometimes tell to your co-pilot that what weapons you want to use (so jump to the right seat) and they select the pylons that are energized for you. They as well have navigation responsibility (N430 as well doppler navigation) that they would tell you to assist you to fly the course and route. The start-up or shutdown process is easy with the flight engineer assisting you. Alone the Mi-8 is totally different compared to fly it together with two other players. So in solo flying you need to do some role playing, so as you are role playing being a pilot, you need to role play as well being co-pilot, flight engineer and door gunner. Getting use to the idea that you are playing as all roles makes it easy when you just jump to proper seat and then understand that it is someone else meanwhile operating other seats. If you want to experience more of co-op flying but alone, you need to make a voice commands scripts using third party software that will do the wanted things by voice. Like "Ivan, I need the 30mm grenades" as pilot, and the software will read the status of the co-pilot control panel and adjust them to proper modes. Your task as pilot would be to set your upper head panels as wanted. As well Mi-8 like any other requires effort to first time to sit down and just look and understand every panel, button and switch there is to generate the overall picture of everything. Then it makes very much sense what Mi-8 is and how much easier it is compared to UH-1 example. What I like in those systems is that once you see them, you know what they do as they are so well shared across vehicles or their logic is. So it becomes easy to fly MiG-21Bis and then Mi-8MTV2 as they basically share majority. And Mi-24P will be same, but from its unique parts (tank periscope, controls etc). What I like in Mi-8 and expect to like in Mi-24P as well, is the capability to react and work quickly in emergency situations. The cockpit layouts are such clarity that you don't need to think but you just perform.

Contrast is not taken in consideration as it has not been so far modeled in DCS (possibility is that with upcoming FLIR update it could). Only a time of day is modeled in the DCS, this is the same that example automatically sets your cockpit lighting as night lighting when time of day is specific or you have NVG On. That is just a hack to simulate the loss of visual ranges by shortening the range of lock for targets. Example with random values: Shkval in KA-50 is set to have lock for 9 km in mid-day. At the 6 pm it will be 7 km and at 8 pm it will be 3 km. Then it will be something like 1.5 km after that, unless a target is inside illumination rocket "illumination circle" (a specific distance from rocket) and then you can lock to it again at something like 7 km. This creates silly situations where you have sun above horizon, direct sunlight shining on the target that has very strong shadow and all, but because time of day is earlier than 8 am then "you can not lock it from max range". And similar thing is with aircraft targeting etc. All is based to just time of day instead actual contrast (and that would allow you to lock on anything, and it would be required as without contrast lock you can't have a ground stabilization for many systems like a Shkval, DMT or Litening/ATFLIR targeting pods). So if no contrast, no pattern, no track...

Any information what other NVG are in use in DCS modules? As in the Harrier the NVG should have automatic shut-off feature when looking the HUD (pg. 1-171). This because HUD resolution is higher than NVG and it cause fuzzy HUD. So any time pilot looks at the HUD it turns off NVG and returns it when looking elsewhere. At the night the NAVFLIR projection to HUD doesn't look good with NVG why you should turn NVG off. DCS needs a multiple different NVG simulations, like Harrier pilots should get "Cat Eyes" with 30 degree FOV but superior situational awareness as you don't have dark edges and can see more around them, even between. And they as well automatically turn Off when looking at the HUD. With the up coming Apache we will have again one new more. Another is the Scorpion in A-10C. And we should see monocular ones for Combined Arms and even for helicopter pilots. The NVG as well should require changes to others HUD projections and capabilities than just Harrier. So you need to adjust how to sit and look through the HUD to see it overall... I would gladly take a 30° FOV NVG without black borders, as seeing cockpit partially is a must.

So does that mean that the release calculations are not perfect, but are using the proper calculations for the aircraft altitude over target? As this is still the reason why example DMT in Harrier is superior to radar variant and Hornets when it comes to bombing accuracy as the ARBS system does it more accurately that radar can't do.

If we follow 2005 timeline, then we should have the Nite Hawk pod, instead Litening or ATFLIR. As those two newer were extremely rare (like two per active fleet) for F/A-18C in 2005, priority going to Super Hornets and Hornet D models in USMC. But after 2005 the Litening and ATFLIR became more and more available and became eventually selected in service, as in 2005 US Navy and USMC was still testing and searching that what they will pick up for next targeting pod to replace Nite Hawk. What ED should do is to model the Nite Hawk pod as the primary targeting pod for Hornet and leave the ATFLIR and Litening for missions that are past 2005 (like 2007-2008). As it is nice that there is option for the future targeting pods in our Hornet, but would be even nicer to have the proper targeting pod available for our Hornet.

Dividing ship to a compartments would be a big improvement for the simulation. If there is no information about exact design, then at least use educated guesses as ships does follow some patterns and design laws. We would at least get the minor damages like even if the ship doesn't sink completely because leak is in small compartment that was sealed shut in time, it would slow down the ship, cause operational downtime or just slow it down. The ship would sink deeper and start to slow it down, a repair would be commenced and these takes time that naval warfare is about, long distances and slow speeds. This is important especially on the WW2 era ships where guns and bombs are the main weapons. And there the visuals are even more seen. The different audio sources for ships is now easy to do for torpedo etc to track them, but IMHO we shouldn't consider DCS to enter to submarine warfare any further than just use submarines as special units that dive and surface and can launch some missiles, deck gun and torpedo. Would there be any sources where we would hear these audio differences? As even if going or such state as in DCS to offer a sonar display or something, I see it more as a ID number in some cases for those to react. But likely as smaller boats would be the main victims to drive to seamine on harbor or near shore etc that they would totally blow up in the air. So some work there is required in the future. Similar as driving to a mine in car or tracked vehicle, the force is high so it is supposely part of the new physics modeling that vehicles going to mines (or getting exploded near) to have the capability jump in the air etc. Checkout the latest M2000C news report from MyHellJumper. The M2000C just was announced to receive the anti-runway bombs. A JP233 would be very nasty for cleaning up, that would really open up these missions for Harrier, helicopters etc to operate in more suitable locations.

I don't know but I have a feeling that there are some variants floating around that has some pages missing and some that has those but something else missing. Of course if you don't just have a corrupted file that just blanks those pages

All cameras has very effective IR filters, we are talking about 99.98% filtering in usual. Some cameras has such level weaker IR filter that you can utilize them as a IR camera without performing IR conversion (removing the IR filter from the filter stack front of the sensor) by just using a IR filter that will pass only IR light. But even those cameras doesn't pass enough IR spectrum to be visible at all, it is negligent amount (ie, you have in direct sunlight a exposure of 1/8000, f/8 and ISO 100, and with IR filter to get a somewhat acceptable photo you have 2-3 minute exposure with f/2.8 and IO 100) That is effect of the lighting. It might sound stupid at first but photographing a flame you need stronger lighting. It is question of the balance. A red color is just 1/4 of the digital cameras capture capability. The normal RGB bayer filter is 1/4 of red, 1/4 of blue and 2/4 of green. So green is most sensitive and detailed color that can be captured. The red is as well very problematic as it is longest wavelength and sensor will clip it first before other colors. Why photographing with a digital sensor on the red light is very challenging, especially if you have a purple light where you are mixing red and blue as you get two opposite ends of the wavelength and camera needs to create the color that doesn't exist, hence magenta (purple) is non-spectral color. Our brain invents out of the thin air many of the colors, like the purple color. It just does fancy educated guess that our eye sees red and blue light but green is missing, so brain invents a color. Our eye doesn't even see a red, as it is just interpreting the yellow-green cones are active without the green and blue etc. But it is a subject of many topics where colors has different meanings across different classifications depending from who you ask, a scientists, artists, average joe, biologist etc. Like many doesn't agree even with the fact that black is not a color as it is absence of light. We can manipulate light to some point, but flames like gun muzzle flashes doesn't turn their colors so much, but we can make them look more visible by having a slower shutter speed for the framerate so each frame is exposed more (or less) and get better visibility of fast short period flashes. It is similar to human eye and brain to "burn" the very fast exposures. Example the fighter pilots were tested for their capability identify target shapes in fast exposures. IIRC it was over 1/10'000 of a second flashes where the pilots were still able to identify silhouette and so on aircraft type, that is a faster than a strike of a flash. Our brain and eyes are just so slow that while we can quickly recognize, identify and react to things we see (like bug flying in to our eye when cycling 30 km/h speed) and we have reaction time to close the eye lid just by seeing the bug 10 cm from our eye. But then when we see a very short period flash of light, it can last seconds in our vision and mind even when it is long time gone.

How much different it would really need to be from the current damage modeling? A underwater mine exploding on ship hull is pretty devastating action. If no hole itself is made, then there is some kind serious leak. As liquid can not be compressed, the effects are severe from explosion. That goes nicely for the future radar simulations, as both are just little different but in programming perspective almost same thing. You detect something by emission and you try to define what it is. At least I wouldn't be waiting any massive audio work to be done for long time as recording them and creating new ones must be fairly big work to those who does them. I don't believe they can drop mines either. But KA-27 could be used for anti-mine operations. At least there is no need to see anyone doing the work as it is submerged but having a crew disabling the mines etc would be as important as laying out the mines. It is little difficult to say which ones would be more important, ground mines (anti-vehicle, anti-personnel) or sea mines.... In a modern era the sea mines has probably run their course as against ships you go with anti-ship missiles and such so much easier, and against submarines you again want to go at sea. So the mining operation is more for denying some beach operations so easily, or getting to rivers etc.

Page 23-63 Just as OP quoted the 23.13 POSITION MARKING. It is about creating Mark Points from any Waypoint, INS, Radar, DMT etc. So example pilot can fly with DMT/LST, ask JTAC to laze target and shift it after each lock and pressing TOO. After JTAC has lazed all the targets, pilot has generated all targets as mark points. Now the pilot can simply start attacking each mark point with non-laser guided weapon. All it takes is to press TOO button -> uncage -> Shift -> SSS Aft -> Lock -> TOO button. (As the DMT/LST stops scanning but keeps a track of laser until lock is lost. Then it enters to INS mode and you need to return back to LST to get it searching.) There is currently a incorrect implementation that DMT/LST is constantly scanning, and it returns to scanning after gimbal limit is reached (you turn back toward target area).