drPhibes

I know I've said this before, but vs. = balance achieved.

The NADIR system in the Gazelle doesn't use the last digit (1m) in the UTM coordinates, so it only has a 10m resolution. I made a UTM calculator spreadsheet for the Gazelle some time ago. I'll post it here when I get home from work. As for the elevation causing errors, that's technically true, but for low elevation angles (i.e. low altitude difference), the adjacent leg of the triangle is practically equal to the hypotenuse.

Because, with the exception of a few nice flying scenes (f14 vs. a4 over the desert etc), TG isn't really worth watching. I'm not saying that the Final Countdown is the best movie in the world, but it's far from as bad as Top Gun.

The easy way to check if you can use bonus points or not is to put the Viggen in your shopping cart and go on to "check out" (but not all they way to the payment details). Then you'll see how much, if anything, can be paid using bonus $. As a side not, I agree on the bonus system being pretty pointless. I have around 55$ I can't use for anything.

Does it have to be that way? In the Gazelle you can switch freely between the two positions in MP (at least until someone else joins you in the left seat).

Sorry for going into rant mode again (it has been happening quite a bit lately; I guess I'm getting grumpier with age...) but since people apparently spend more time looking at the model in the model viewer than actually flying it (hint: the canopy is something you look through, not at), get yourselves a parametric CAD application (like solidworks, or fusion360 which is free), learn the basics, and build a model of whichever plane you want to look at. Then you can look at beautiful curved edges until your eyes pop out. Or even better, start building models, and then you can obsess over minute details that will never be visible to anyone with the other rivet counters. [rant mode off]

Looks great!

You could also check out the FAA Instrument flying handbook here: https://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/handbooks_manuals/aviation/media/FAA-H-8083-15B.pdf (that have lots of other great aviation- and aircraft related books/manuals ; and best of all, they're free! https://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/handbooks_manuals/) TACAN is just a military VOR+DME, so anything related to real world VOR navigation will also be applicable for TACAN use in DCS (except for the frequency setting and the different a/g and a/a modes).

1. I have it mapped to the pinky switch on my Warthog. 2. You can drop laser guided bombs, but you'll need a JTAC or A-10C for laser designation. "Our" version of the F-5 can't carry a designator pod, and no such functionality is planned.

Because grass runways are currently not implemented in DCS. But they're coming!

An internal combustion engine is incredibly inefficient, with a typical efficiency of around 20%. So 4/5 of the energy you put into the engine is lost as heat. For a 1200HP engine that would equate to ~3,5 MW (3,5 million Watts for the non-SI folks) in heat loss. The specific heat of water is 4180J/kg °K, meaning that you need 4180J of energy to increase the temperature of one kg of water with one degree Kelvin. 1 Watt = 1 Joule/second, so ~4,2kW of thermal energy will increase the temperature in one kg of water by 1°K every second. 3,5MW will do the same to ~840kg of water. Every second. And the total coolant volume isn't anywhere near that; perhaps around 1/10th (wild guess; I don't have any manuals available here at the moment). So it doesn't take a rocket surgeon to figure out that there is an enormous amount of heat that has to be dealt with, and it is not comparable to a gpu cooler or car engine, which have huge radiators compared to what you can cram into the wings and/or fuselage of a plane. Is the modelling in DCS perfect? Probably not, but that does not mean that people should make wild assumptions on topics they know little or nothing about.

At least Meier Motors doesn't try to hide the fact that the G-12 used to be a Buchon: http://www.meiermotors.com/index.php/aircraft/messerschmitt-bf109/messerschmitt-bf109-g-12?showall=1&limitstart= (in German, but probably google translatable into something understandable for those who don't speak it). I assume that a complete rebuild history would be provided by Platinum Fighters to anyone considering buying this aircraft, so it's not like they're trying to fool someone into buying counterfeit goods.

The G-6 ("Black 8") is not a Buchon conversion. Being a restoration of a crashed aircraft, there may ofcourse be a Buchon-based part here and there, but it's not just a Messerschmitt data plate riveted to a re-nosed HA-1112. However, the G-12 (two seater) they're selling is based on a Buchon.

Are you flying against AI or multiplayer? AI uses a simplified flight model, which unfortunately always works in your adversary's favor. That being said, the Mig does have a higher top speed and thrust/weight ratio, so that should explain #1 and 3.

Looks great. Thanks a lot :)

The purchase price for the aircraft depends on who you're buying them from. When the RNoAF retired our last F-5s in 2007, 15 of them were offered to a company in Texas (run by the son of a former US presidential candidate) for approximately $700.000 each. The deal fell through, but two planes (F-5Bs in very good condition) were left in Texas. When they were finally sold in 2014, Northern General Leasing LLC paid $15.000 for each of them. But the Norwegian defense logistics agency have also been selling (and I'm not making this up!) former naval vessels (MTBs and a large support vessel) to Nigerian pirates, so their sense of judgment, and thus pricing, is a bit fishy to say the least. As for operating costs: I don't have any exact numbers, but to quote luxury car dealers: "if you have to ask, you can't afford it". $3-5000 per hour is an educated guess.

Meier Motors rebuilds classic fighters for customers. They don't own these aircraft themselves. The 109s in question are part of Hangar10's collection. They're also selling a P-51D and a Yak 9U through platinum fighters.

The disadvantage of both the F-5 and the A-4 is that you'll need to send a ground crew with a turbine start cart ("huffer") to every airport where you plan on landing. I'd go for something with an APU or electric starter instead.

Check out NASA's STRM data: http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/srtm/

100% April fools hoax. No doubt about it. But regarding how fast bullets spin; a quick back-of-the-envolope-calculation: My AR15 has a barrel with 1:9 twist (for the non-shooters: the projectile does one revolution for every 9" of travel down the barrel). 9" = approximately 1/4m. The muzzle velocity is approximately 1000m/s. With a twist rate giving approximately 4 revolutions for every meter, that would result in 4000(-ish) revolutions per second at the muzzle, which is 240.000 RPM. With a faster twist rate (1:10, 1:12 etc.) and a higher muzzle velocity, 300k is within reach.

Please post screenshots of the radar scope showing the difference between friendly and non-friendly aircraft with IFF switched on. I have done some tests with the IFF switched on, and all evidence suggests that the F-5's radar does not have an IFF interrogator. The IFF transponder is a separate piece of avionics, and does not have any kind of interrogation capability.

F-5 doesn't have a IFF interrogator, just a transponder. So you can't use it for identifying anything, but other aircraft can identify you.

Are you downloading through the module manager in DCS or the DCS updater utility? I've never heard of the "out of downloads" phenomenon before. Bind the key from the heatblur store to your DCS account (paste it in the "license check" in the profile/personal section on the main dcs site).

Those are all discrete ON/OFF functions for keyboard/button use. Go to "axis commands" for analog (axis) inputs. Edit: like this:

If you don't have NTTR there is no point in installing DCSW 2 yet, as Normandy won't be available until the end of April. The FC3 aircraft will work, but there probably won't be any Normandy campaigns for these aircraft, at least at release (perhaps later, but nobody knows if or when that might happen).