Stuge

Visual spotting and tracking skill must be at expert level for achieving great success. However, if visual spotting and tracking seems overwhelmingly difficult, maybe turning labels on helps. Try labels off, and if it presents great difficulty, then back to labels on. I personally dislike labels in DCS. But in my young days when Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator 2 was quite popular online, most of the fights were conducted with labels on (labels off -games were rare) However, most importantly(!!!) if you are having trouble seeing your target in a dogfight scenario, make sure your hardware is up to the task too. I have an old school CRT screen and play in 1600x1200, that gives me no problem whatsoever. But if the resolution you play in is much lower than that, it may present a problem.. Also pay attention to how other graphical settings may affect visibility of planes. CFS2 is the game that trained me into dogfighting. After that, it was no problem getting into IL-2 multiplayer and eventually Falcon 4.0 and Lock On and DCS.

Don't worry, there are always human pilots who present an easier target than the AI does.. It doesn't suck at receiving gun hits. Practice your gunnery! Remember, a lethal gun shot is possible from any angle! (In theory :P)

What you refer to "game-isms"... once one has experience from a dozen or more different flight sims.. and then some RL aircraft (in a peaceful way:)), most important things are universal. And then comes the ability to adapt. Adaptability means that game-specific details can change or phase out as much as they want.. it doesn't matter in the big picture :)

I liked the music! And I liked that it was long. Once you guys got high though, I was hoping for a little tighter double helix :D

I've never had any real instructors in the sim world. I had to reinvent the wheel through trial and error. But I like to think it's a little different wheel... after all, it's mine, right? :) Yes, their lives depend on it. Fear of death is a strong, possibly debilitating emotion. I don't think everyone is immune, since there is no way to really train for it. Another thing some pilots must feel is the need to spare their targets' lives. (be it an enemy pilot, or people on the ground). So obviously RL combat is totally different from simulated combat, from a psychological viewpoint. Thanks for the interesting facts.. CCT is new to me, so are some of the other terms.. Without going deeper into the "art" thing, at least not now, since that will require definition of art in the first place, I will end with a quote from a fictional character in a certain TV show: "A stroke of the brush does not guarantee art from the bristles." Cheers :)

Are you saying there is one and only absolutely best way to respond to a particular situation? If so, how do you know it? Maybe there is a default way to deal with a situation, something you've been taught, or you learned, but you just came up with something potentially even better! In BFM this is true, i agree. However, with a human vs human situation, there are psychological elements involved. Stress, confidence, expectations of opponent's performance, handling of mistakes, reaction to failure. Also, more important to simulation only: importance/value of victory. Can you always give your 100%? Flawless turning and gunnery require strong concentration. Only if you categorize them broadly. Once you deepen the detail level, suddenly the number of moves becomes infinite. Of course, i agree! Studying is good! Are you saying that to see the whole picture one has to ignore the emotional aspect of human performance? Isn't that just the opposite? Emotion is what makes a human being work. Without it, you would not have the will power to get out of bed, let alone play a flight sim. Science today does not have the tools to explain the full functionality of the brain and the human nature. Air combat is murder only if it occurs in real life, and ends with a pilot getting killed. You obviously treat it as a hard subject. My approach might be more "squishy". With almost 20 years of online dogfighting experience(on/off) I would just love you to run over me in a dogfighting session. And to meet you in person too (on ts) :) i hang around on the 104th server quite often these days, as much as summer work allows... an open invitation for you GGTharos :) I like flying any aircraft.

GG, as someone who has not studied air combat that extensively, i read your last posts with great interest! The question that pops in mind is this: Which is better: A) a procedure learned from a book and then practiced repeatedly B) a perhaps different procedure for the same situation developed by you, for you, without the aid of a book/tutorial. Whoever invented the procedure in the first place must have developed it for him/herself first, right? Has this difference been studied? :)

Bushmanni, you really found the point I was thinking about. One aspect of it is innovation. Not even the broadest definition of procedure includes innovation. You can have a "moment of genius" during combat. Something that applies only to that specific situation. No amount of studying or practice removes this possibility. Because human cognitive capability is, in the end, very limited. And originally, GG, i was thinking of "procedure" narrowly as predetermined step-by-step methods to achieve goals in specific situations. In aviation often in the form of checklists, also. Or learned by heart. My view is that air combat at its best can be a form of art, and this requires moving beyond procedure as a rational thought process. Like for a master pianist, it is not enough to have technical mastery of a piece. It is much more powerful if emotion and heart is brought into the piece while it's being played. And piano playing doesn't have the flood of variables air combat has. Even teamwork can ascend to an art. When teammates always know what to do in unison. Like a group of ballet dancers or ice skaters. Or a master aerobatic team. Where calling the end result "procedure" just sounds ugly. Even if coordinated effort does always require planning. Now, in real life, procedure in the narrow sense has a very important function that is absent from a simulation: to preserve human life. A simulation frees us from this limitation, giving freedom to experiment much more freely with what is possible. Now, this is only my view, and I definitely leave room for others' opinions as well:)

C'mon what Max needs is love and understanding and support... Sure Max's dogfight skills are taking baby steps right now.. But I don't think the landing was bad (unless your goal is to achieve full competency of IRL procedures. Not everyone loves procedures. Some concentrate more on maximizing combat action and effectiveness on the battlefield. Procedure rarely equals combat effectiveness. Some aspects of this simulation are optional. I think they should be kept that way, not indoctrinated into people.

Max I admire how gracefully you took a thing of beauty and transformed it into something dirty...

Hey there Ace of Harts! Since I managed to stumble on this forum today.. I can share some thoughts on dogfights. I love them. Even if I nowadays fly mostly on BVR servers, I crave dogfights and sometimes try to get into one even if there's significant risk. The reward (high adrenaline dogfight that ends with a juicy gun kill) is easily worth it. I'll even take on two fighters at once without me having missiles, if i can surprise them. Just adds to the excitement. Fuel presents biggest problem to survival, dogfighting really consumes fuel fast. Dogfights happen quite often in the DCS BVR environment. Missiles like to miss. People's situational awareness is limited. So is their ability to effectively scan the sky for bandits. Russian planes are able to search and track targets without giving off a warning. Tall mountains make reliable radar scanning of valleys impossible, giving great cover, leading to close encounters. AWACS also causes close encounters in the form of providing directions for intercept while your own radar is off(although these are often lethal to an unsuspecting high-flying victim) The gun is your only weapon that, if your firing solution is optimal, will kill your target with 100% probability. A missile can always miss. Even the best dogfighting missile, the R-73, is pretty much useless in a one-circle dogfight. You are better off getting a snapshot with your gun once you manage to get the advantage.. unless the target attempts to escape :) You say you're a perfectionist and seem to like to study the subject. I am the quite the opposite. I like to do it by instinct, analyzing only when necessary(if i fail miserably and don't know why), or if it benefits someone else, like when trying to teach or explain something. I am not a bookworm by default. This has no doubt slowed my progress in some areas, maybe you will learn faster :) being a bookworm helps with learning hard facts that help you. If you want 1 on 1 training, I will gladly provide some. Guns only, heatseekers, or BVR. With attempted constructive feedback of course :) Don't be turned off if someone says dogfighting/guns are useless, obsolete or whatever. To this day, owning all DCS modules, the most beautiful thing the sim has provided for me are still 1 on 1 guns only dogfights against an opponent that is of approximately my skill level. Such beautiful long dances, chases going to extreme altitudes, continuing with a vertical white double helix contrail (like DNA!), all the way down to <10m altitudes, perhaps only ending in a draw when both participants run out of fuel at the same time. :D

I like your post Winchester :) Some suggestions.. You can lock a friendly with f15 radar and not get the cross on hud. This happens when target is using an ECM jammer and is outside burn-through range. The "death zone" term i find confusing, maybe "blind zone" is more appropriate? Also, the concept is difficult to describe with words..maybe think of blind "cones" projecting up and down? Last but not least: EWR(Early Warning Radar) is a ground-based search radar. What you have on your fighter is RWR(Radar Warning Receiver). Cu in the sky :D

I just discovered this post. Quite a fun read, thanks :) To answer what I was doing... It was a kind of a combo effort: 1) I was really hoping the mountain would provide enough cover from Max and the incoming missile, until I could turn into him to finish the job. 2) In case it didn't, I was hoping the notch will save me, as it did. Sometimes if I see on RWR that the AIM120 is about to hit me, I might make a sharp pull up in combination with the notch. In this case I didn't have time since I just came out of the sharp left turn. I just heard a "whoosh" of the missile going from left to right. I didn't realize the missile was so close. In other words, I got lucky :D

Hello all! For starters, I am a veteran pilot but an ultra first time newbie when it comes to 3d modeling. After an inspired full day's studying/working i managed to create a simple static building with 3ds max, export it into DCS, and even make the collision detection work! But now I hit a snag: FC3 aircraft including the Su-25T don't want to collide or in any way make contact with my new building except at very low altitude! This is unfortunate since I'd like it to be able to receive for landing both helicopters and fixed wing aircraft, including the jet fighters! Is there any way to get around this? All the high fidelity aircraft seem to function perfectly with it. Also any tips on how to transform the building into a FARP(how to define where the landing pad is located) would be very welcome. Otherwise i guess i'll just have to try reverse engineer the thing... Note: my building is at the moment 2,5 km high. Thanks in advance! -Stuge