Extranajero

I mainly meant the D9, but what I wrote was also aimed at the A8 to a large degree I've read plenty of technical books and pilots impressions of WW-2 fighters - I know the reasoning behind the design of the FW190's and their capabilities on paper. I'm referring to the DCS FW190 here :) I didn't know you could alter the AI gunners skills. Thanks :) A multi-role aircraft is meant to be able to defend itself, the DCS FW190 can't I disagree about the comparison with the F-18 - the FW190's are simple to operate and beautiful, unlike the F-18 :D

I absolutely love the Dora to just fly around in, but like the FW-190A8 it doesn't seem to have any other role in DCS. It's horribly outmatched in multiplayer. I keep hearing about people who have success as long as they fly it as an ambush\energy fighter, but never see any hard evidence of that. The "amazing" roll rate is handy if you want to amuse your opponent while he's chasing you down to kill you, or if you want to put on an airshow, but thats about it. In single player you have the benefit of dot labels so you can actually see your opponents in time to set up an attack, but then the AI have UFO flight models and it's impossible to ambush them anyway. Try one of the D9 instant action missions sometime. There is nothing you can do versus the Mustang. That leaves bomber interception, but with the sniper abilities of AI gunners it's suicide at the moment. The attrition rate for FW pilots flying versus heavy bomber formations in '44 and '45 was huge, but if it went along DCS lines the Luftwaffe would have ceased to exist in 24 hours. Jabo maybe ? it can do that, as long as no enemy planes see you. Is the FW-190's only role to provide targets for people who fly the allied planes ? Is that why they exist at all ?

The Harrier guys scrounged some NVG's that were on test with the RAE or something similar. But they didn't really get along with them, so they passed them on to the naval helo pilots who found them to be a lot more useful. What they might have done to your neck in the event of an ejection doesn't bear thinking about - you couldn't demount them in a hurry and even the most Gucci kit back in the 80's was bulky and heavy, just not as bulky and heavy as an IWS ;) I heard that the Swedish air force trialled NVG's for Viggen pilots, but decided that flying tactically at night was dangerous enough, without having your peripheral vision and depth perception messed up by what was available at the time.

I can't wait for some comedian to ask for an F-8 with a Hud and AMRAAM's - because it WILL happen :D

It's going to be a long night, bring some coffee :D

I can tell you the release date. I have a prototype Eurofighter throttle quadrant. I bought it months ago to turn into an F-14 replica throttle, but now I'm conflicted as to what to do.... Therefore the Eurofighter module will therefore be released exactly one day after I complete the throttles conversion into an F-14 format. It's a simple law of nature. No need to thank me.

Gazelle + Normandy map = insane amounts of fun I have the Hermes parked in the English Channel to fly the Gazelle and Huey off

Well at least they won't be celebrating the release by crashing into the carrier and then bombing it...honestly... STING TV is an excellent channel, they know exactly when to be serious and when to have some fun.

Very, very, very unlikely. In good old Britain absolutely everything even slightly related to the military is usually restricted or secret unless there is a reason it isn't. It might have ended up at the Public Records Office though, they won't have put it on the internet, but they'll make an unreadable photocopy of it for you at a price of £5 per page or something.

I didn't believe it myself until I read the proposal. And in the context of British air defence requirements, combined with the fact that the Tornado ADV was experiencing a lot of teething troubles, it made a fair amount of sense. The proposal was by senior pilots, not by the MOD - most MOD civil servants never had an original thought in their lives. If someone told them that the sky was blue they'd form a committee to investigate. But your in depth real world knowledge of air warfare is wasted here, you should be telling the RAF and RN what to do, not wasting your time on PC flight sims. Then we might get some decent kinematics :D

I don't make the news, I just report it :) Obviously the MOD wasted it's time considering the proposal, when what they should have done is contact some guys who play a video game instead :) Seriously I'll try and remember which one of my Harrier books I read about this in, I'm sure they are breeding when my back is turned :D I can't remember why the proposal was rejected, probably financial reasons combined with spite knowing the UK MOD

It's a shame the senior Harrier pilots never asked you for advice before they submitted their proposal, you could have saved them a lot of typing and studying performance graphs and the like.

Hopefully you won't have long to wait for the Sea Harrier FRS-1...which will give you a radar, but no radar missiles. It's 60kts faster than the Harrier II though... There was a push to get the AMRAAM equipped FRS-2's saved from being scrapped by using them as Tornado replacements, but sadly that ended up not happening. The FRS-2's phenomenal climb rate made up for it's lack of supersonic speed in the interceptor role, but someone at the MOD just didn't want it to happen.

The answer to all these problems might be for online servers to stop updating to the latest beta about 5 seconds after it's released and run stable instead - then everyone has somewhere to fling their SPAMRAAMs about, do their blue on blues, take off from taxiways and crash into the ground without any issues. The beta can then go back to being a proper beta - i.e. a buggy unfinished mess that's thrown out there so people can test it and find what breaks - leading to improvements that eventually get fed into stable. ED's collective blood pressure is ratcheted down a few notches and the new serenity gained from not having to listen to hysterical shrieking serial complainers allows them to code ( or whatever the hell it is that game devs do ) faster, or better or something. I know the above is a strange and off the wall concept, but it's worth trying...

If you look in the /Data directory of your DCS installation you'll find a file called " censor.lua " which is full of Chinese characters and English words and phrases that are unpopular with the Chinese Communist Party or refer to URL's they don't like. I think that probably should tell you how likely it is that you'll get a Taiwan faction...

Probably not right now if you fly Tomcats - you would be chasing the plane around as it slides all over the deck until it hits something solid and explodes.

It looks like an OK effort for a home DIY-er with a 3D printer and some basic model making skills. I would trust it as far as I could throw it in daily use though. I certainly wouldn't pay $800 for it. Recently I saw a complete, useable, good condition, Tornado throttle quadrant sell on Ebay for under £400 - because it's from a Tornado it has wing sweep, two throttles and a flap lever. Add some sensors and a Leo Bodnar board and it would last forever...

Built a mount for the throttle box, position sensors tested and working, next will be a console and the radar\nav controller which sits behind the throttle. Managed to find an almost correct landing gear switch last week too.

It is, from Harrier GR1\GR3 XW630 :)

I also have had an issue with 2.5.6 hanging on startup, although I don't use Vaicom. The workaround I use is - crazy as it sounds - is to click on the desktop a couple of times while DCS is loading. This took me from a 50% success rate of having a successful start to 99% Hope it helps someone...

All aircraft have the same low res image in the mirrors. It's not a game breaker, I've never had the mirrors turned on before, just thought I'd try them out now my computer has enough horsepower to display them without turning DCS into a slideshow

Recently upgraded my rig and turned mirrors on for the first time. While the world and the cockpit look amazing, the image in the mirrors looks low res, blurry and jagged. Like DCS:Minecraft Edition :D What have I done wrong with the settings ?

Interesting news - because I have a prototype Eurofighter throttle quadrant that I was going to be turning into a Tomcat throttle. But now it seems like events have overtaken me...

And just to confirm - the executable to set as the target is dcs.exe ?