Stuge

On F15 and energy: if you happen to be turning horizontally at 400-450kts with full afterburner, the thing really likes to overaccelerate if you loosen your joystick pull even a little, causing imminent loss in turn rate and/or blackout. This extra energy is best converted into altitude immediately(by tilting the turn a bit towards the sky), lowering airspeed into acceptable range while gaining altitude, giving you advantage. The other option is cutting the throttle or even braking, and this obviously makes you lose energy and give advantage to the bandit.

Not if there's a hill inbetween ;) I was not suggesting that openly engaging an enemy at 5 nm that is shooting back is necessarily a good idea, it's a risk for sure, but that it can be done. If you want minimal risk, only get into one engagement, and rtb full speed :D It's about what is acceptable risk level for you. On the other hand, careful pilots get shot down just as well as the crazier ones...

Forcing a merge is surprisingly easy, because every pilot's situational awareness is limited, especially in a multi-threat environment, and going from 10nm(a range you could still escape a BVR shot from) to 0 nm doesn't take many seconds. The opponent is not required to cooperate. Once the range becomes very close (less than 5nm), medium range missiles start to become easier to dodge because they are still in the acceleration phase when they reach you. Mutual destruction can be avoided by: using terrain for cover, chaff, flares, and high G(whether you see the missile coming or not). Having afterburner off and pointing the nose straight at the incoming missile can help with your flares' effectiveness in spoofing head-on shots of IR missiles. Sometimes it may be beneficial to concentrate fully on avoiding the other guy's shots, instead of taking the shot yourself. And once the merge is complete, it's showtime :D

I agree with Blaze and Kuky here. Su-27 is easily the best, in the hands of any pilot (not just a bad one:P), because the forgivingness Blaze is talking about means 1) vertical dogfight with dynamic airspeed changes is much better 2) there's a lot of "leverage" to convert airspeed into nose position, to take that killer gun shot. Su-33 is similar handling but a bit heavier.. The Mig feels like a bus in dogfight right now, maybe someone knows what I'm doing wrong? :) Flaps helps a little but still... The F-15 strikes the middle, having kick-ass turn capability but requires careful airspeed management. Too fast --> blackout. Too slow --> turn capability suffers greatly and also stall/spin it baby! :D

Hey, just noticed this :) It would be my pleasure.. You can find me on 104th ts after work usually, around 10PM UTC. On non working days (like tomorrow is), you might see me any time of day. Any plane will do, but I of course prefer 1) flanker for beautiful flight characteristics and 2) F-15, just because the flight model is so much fun now... spin it baby! :D

Psst.. I'll give you a su27 dogfight any time i'm around.. Just find me on 104th ts ;)

That is one thing (reversing turn direction when it is not really needed, all it does it makes the bandit's job easier) There's others: Starting a turn before the merge, letting the bandit just casually follow you into it for the kill :D More subtly, ignoring the effect of lateral/vertical separation during the merge. If one turns left, another turns right(one circle fight), or if both go up in the vertical, the one with (significant) separation advantage can blow the other one up with a gun snapshot when the planes meet after the half circle. Very fast way to deal with the threat too!

Buried to chit-chat? The main point of this was to give new FC3 pilots some help with BFM. This just means less people will find it... I don't think I've ever even bothered to look here :D About the video.. between 17 and 18 minutes, the very crude failed turn demonstration that the audience laughs at, I think it is pure genius from that guy. No one has ever shown it better, what NOT to do in a dogfight :) And still people do it way too often. With their turns they set themselves right in front of the bandit (instead of the other way around) EDIT: Thanks for leaving the link there :) I'm sure this info could help many..

I just watched this, never have before. While what you can cover in an hour is limited... I got some new insights from it :) Plus that it's actually entertaining to watch. Enjoy!

You're completely right, you shouldn't get closer than the range you think you'll survive at :)

Just to annoy you, I want to take this completely out of the context :D Aggression is what really racks up the kills. You gotta want the kill, enjoy the kill, get excited about it, visualize it before it happens etc.. A pilot who doesn't crave the kill really isn't that dangerous... My personal opinion. Before anyone tries to say it is not so :P

I haven't fired AIM-120B in a loooong time so I can't say much about that. T and M mean just what you think they do. The M timer is often quite inaccurate, and I'm not sure how well the T to M transition corresponds with pitbull. But once the missile goes active (M timer starts counting), it shouldn't matter what you do after this. The missile is on its own. (in this game that is, IRL it's different) In multilaunch, only the last missile launched shows the timer. But I believe more than one get command guidance, maybe someone could enlighten us with this info? :)

If there's strong winds, CBU-97 will have problems with default settings (that's all you got in the A-10A) Be mindful of the winds, and see how they affect the drift of the teeny weeny parachute thingies.

Oh you were talking about the A model? Oops :D

1) Set height of function (HOF) to 700ft, this means the submunitions don't hang around parachuting for too long, but attack quickly. This minimizes drifting with the wind too. You have to do this through INV. 700ft may be a too small setting for mountainous terrain though, causing it to open too late and thus submunitions hit the ground before the parachutes open. 2) For moving targets.. in case of a long convoy just aim for where the first one is :) But if it's just a few vehicles on the move, try manually leading the targets by the distance you think they will travel while the bomb falls. Also remember that CBU-105 homes on your last SPI before drop, not your TGP target. The submunitions find targets in quite a large area. Strong winds make CCRP of CBU-97 from, say, 15000ft, less accurate obviously, but I find it works great in most cases.

I know style is everything... but you do know that CBU-97/105 is perhaps the most powerful anti-vehicle weapon of the A-10C, right? A10 is not too great when it comes to missile evasion. It's best to try avoid getting launched at in the first place...

Are you saying that the thought of having AIM-9X + helmet sight really doesn't make you horny? :D

I tried it once with the Ka-50. Quickly I realized the learning curve is just too much for me...

I gave Oculus dk1 a spin at my friend's. The level of immersion is incredible. The resolution was, obviously, horrible :) reading gauges was impossible. But still.. hovering with helicopters felt easier for example! The only time it would screw with my balance organs was if I went backward with helo at low alt, that felt just weird :D

FC3 is worth getting just because of the whole new world that modern air combat with fighter jets provides. The lack of clickable cockpit is well compensated by the fact that air-to-air combat is an infinitely more dynamic environment than ground attack is.

I don't think you should reflect your skill against how well you do in some single player missions. They can feel almost impossible for many reasons, the bugs are many too. Perhaps an easier approach: Ask yourself what are you capable of doing in an A-10C? Are you proficient with at least all the guided weapons and your gun? Even the ones that need tuning or skill to function well? (CBU-97, CBU-105, gun) How much damage are you able to do with a full load? Do you manually select a load for every hardpoint or do you just select one of the presets (which wastes valuable munitions). You should consider this and see if there are ways to improve the amount of damage done. Ask yourself are you aware of the performance of most important air defense units? (SA-15 Tor, SA-19 Tunguska, Strela-10, Strela-1, Shilka. How high can you fly over these safely? If not, how do you engage them?(with Mavericks of course, double for the SA-15 because it can shoot the mavs down!!) How to detect them, what do they look like? Use your knowledge of your own weapons' performance. Also BMPs, and main battle tanks pose a real threat if you get close enough like on a strafing run. Ask yourself are you proficient with locating targets with TGP, marking them for further attack, sending to teammates (applies online). After all this knowledge and skill is in place, all you need is data on where the enemy is located, and what it its unit composition. After this it becomes a juicy explosion fest on the ground. All you need to do is stay outside the sam engagement zones while killing everything with your stand-off weapons. Mopping up with your gun is a good idea once you are absolutely sure there are no IR sams in the area and you're out of other munitions. Although if you're really scared of little damage (like a princess :), you can leave the gun runs for those who have bigger cojones :P Note that Shilkas and some BMPs are REAL threats for a gun running A10, so evasive action is needed and strafing is risky, requires special skill to strafe these targets that fire back powerful rounds. Shilkas give themselves away on RWR. As do some main battle tanks with their laser systems. If munitions run out, refuel/rearm is perfectly fine. Even if it might be a test of patience :)

Except you could've looked around more carefully. Or maybe you could have been more stealthy in your actions? :D

Multiplayer servers can block direct tacview recording. Replay a multiplayer track (you find them in your users/yourname/saved games/dcs folder or somthing like that, NOT the game folder itself!!) Tacview should record this when you replay. You can accelerate time through the replay if you want, but you need to sit through it. Keep in mind: replays can have bugs, they do not always work properly all the way.

Someone took advantage of the fact that many people(including you) feel safe near their base, after takeoff, and assume (incorrectly) that the enemy should come from one direction (for example bullseye). Expect the unexpected! Surprise is often key to victory in air combat. The nature of air combat involves "unfair" fights. If you want fair, go openly one on one with an opponent of similar skill level that you know :)

Maybe you just missed another guy who was firing the R73? :) A track would be interesting. R73 shouldn't be able to reach a maneuvering target at 20km range.