Kippy

In the last few weeks, I've been picking through my brain thinking of a potential next theater for DCS. As Strait of Hormuz is steadily inching closer to release, I thought it may be a good time to make a strong suggestion. I present my suggestion to the DCS community: DCS: Kaliningrad Oblast. Whilst brainstorming potential maps, I decided there was one primary prerequisite that would allow a map to sell well: Being a site of plausible real-world conflict between "interesting" countries. Kaliningrad Oblast is exactly that. I do not wish to discuss the probability of such a conflict within this region, or hypothesize why or how it could happen due to the extreme political nature, but military conflict between interesting countries could occur there, and you can take that to the bank. Kalinigrad Oblast would make a great DCS map for a few reasons. A map presenting a plausible battlefield between major world powers would sell well. Kaliningrad Oblast is home to many pieces of modern military hardware. Territory nearby Kaliningrad Oblast is home to many peices of modern military hardware that are angry at the pieces of military hardware inside Kaliningrad Oblast. This region is the site of many military operations in the current world. Rivet Joints love snooping around Kaliningrad. To support my claim that this map would be great for realistic scenarios and DCS World, I've provided a few satellite graphics of military hardware within Kaliningrad from a source of mine who helps us create missions for my virtual squadron. These satellite pictures were retrieved from an open source and analyzed by 163rd VFS Staff members.

An Alaska map would be the bees knees. Being around the Anchorage area absolutely blew me away after spending all of my life used to the calm hills, lakes, forests, and fields of the American Midwest. I would love flying my DCS aircraft in this region. However, I would get pretty bored pretty fast, as I did with NTTR. You see, many DCS users are looking for theaters with real world action or very plausible real world action. I doubt that the more casual crowd of DCS users would purchase DCS: Alaska, which would eliminate a healthy portion of potential sales. Eagle Dynamics is a business and thus will make decisions as a business - looking to maximize profit margins, keep current customers happy, and attract new ones. The best bet for them would not be a theater like Alaska that the causal crowd might consider "boring." In my opinion, if ED is interested in the big bucks, they should look at three possible locations for the next maps: Kaliningrad Syria & Iraq Korea In conclusion, awesome suggestion. Just not a step I see ED taking though.

+1 It's the small things like this that make simulators all the more enjoyable

I'm not sure how difficult this would be to implement due to the changing nature of runway condition in real life. Perhaps add a check box in the mission editor somewhere to enable different airfield textures? Whatever way they decide to implement it, I'm totally for this. Great suggestion! +1

I ran into something along these lines last night whilst flying with a good friend of mine. He had an Igla fired at him from nearly directly below him over the target area, and did not receive a launch warning. I however, was 5 or 6 miles from the target area with my tail facing the target and DID receive a launch warning. I'm wondering if perhaps there is a legitimate reason I got a launch warning and he did not, or if it was a bug.

I much prefer having a yoke to a stick in larger aircraft. The yoke, by nature having a larger range of motion, allows for much smoother pitch and roll adjustments. I can very precisely "fine tune" my pitch and roll with yokes. On the flip side of this, if I need to make large movements with the yoke it can become pretty tiring. Fighting tough winds in the 152 is fun, but it will wear you out real quick. Hand cramps galore. I love stick when in gliders. A yoke in a glider would just feel wrong. Or really any aircraft that "move around" a lot. But for airliners, a yoke allows you to be precise. And it feels like you're actually flying something, not playing with a toy. Also, when the autopilot is in command, it will of course move the yoke and throttles with the actions it takes, giving the pilot some visual feedback beyond the instruments of what the autopilot wants. Airbus thrust levers don't move with the autopilot to my knowledge, and I know for fact the sidestick doesn't. I'd call that a design flaw for any aircraft that limits the pilot like Airbus aircraft do. Also, new Boeing's (since the 777 and 737NG family) come with multicolor FMCs. Though you will only ever really see the colors white and magenta. Looks much nicer than Airbus MCDUs imho.

Huzzah!

Not a fan of Boeing huh? Did you ask your MCDU if you can have that opinion? :lol: Jokes aside Boeing builds some fantastic jets, Airbus builds some fantastic jets, McDonnell Douglas built some fantastic... .... uh. But remember, no Douglas, Boeing, or Airbus jet is as nice as the Ten Eleven. That thing was like a Swiss Watch. [/banter] I think we could use a few airliner models to populate the skies of the NTTR and Georgia, and soon Hormuz.

Hey Derockgt, I'd be happy to do some F-15C work with ya. Shoot me a PM and we can get something together if you'd like.

Heya folks, first and foremost I'd like to thank you all for the replies. I'll just go right down the list and address a few things. SHaDoW STeP BG - I totally understand the nature of flying lone wolf. Now, I don't want to convince you to do something you don't want to do, but trust me that when I say that there would be no obligations or responsibilities involved unless you wanted to undertake a few things yourself. At the end of the day, virtual squadrons should be about having fun, not doing chores. Concerning time zones, I personally tend to fly on Saturday and Sunday mornings, which might work for your European time zone. If you're interested in flying with me or with the other guys, shoot me a PM. I'm definitely interested in flying with ya. Gladman - Thanks for clearing that up, and I apologize for being the dense guy that I am. As for collaboration with other squadrons... I'm 100% on board! It would be great to do some training and ops with like minded pilots from other squadrons. As we potentially look at moving forward with the 163, I will keep in touch with you and establish some links with CSG-1 for sure. StandingCow - Our scheduled flights are at 8pm EST on Fridays. But we do a lot more flying than is scheduled - usually we all hang out in teamspeak every night and if people are around, we organize a flight. As for wonky hours, we sometimes fly into the wee hours of the morning on weekends as well. Lots of F-5 action in the Fishbed v Tiger server late at night on the weekends for us.. It's a blast! As for Japan, that would be strange to work out, considering they're currently 14 hours ahead of us. It seems like no time would really work best. If we fly at 4pm EST, it's gonna be 6am there... If we fly at 10pm est, it's noon there.. That might work, actually.. We'd have to get in touch with that guy and see what works for him. But other than that, We fly at basically all hours throughout the week. Like I said, we just hang out in Teamspeak, and when we have the guys, we organize a flight and take to the air. Coxy_99 - Interesting.. who do you fly with? lasvideo - Awesome! We'd love to have you flying with us. I think you'd fit right in. If you're interested, shoot me a PM. We can set up a flight or two and see if we've got the "right stuff" for you. And as a side note for anybody interested, feel free to drop into our Teamspeak server at any time for a chat. IP: 163rd.teamspeak3.com

Gladman, I appreciate you reaching out to me. But the four of us looking to kickstart this deal are all Hawg drivers. To make a play on an old phrase.. Every pound for air to ground.

Myself and a few buddies are considering formalizing our A-10C squadron, which right now is more of an "agreed weekly get-together" than a squadron. But of course, a virtual squadron is just a club for imaginary friends without pilots. There's already many virtual squadrons out there, so we wanted to make sure there was some interest from the A-10 drivers before we pay fees for a website and make a big deal here on the forums, to only have one or two guys be interested. Myself and all my buddies are A-10C guys. After learning the A-10, we got bored of the DCS meta "fly on autopilot for 25 mins, blow up non moving urals and tanks, fly 25 mins home" type of missions. So, we established an objective for the 4 of us. "Make engaging and realistic A-10C missions." So the 4 of us did just that, we drafted some CAS missions in which maybe one of us would sit out and act as a player JTAC, or we'd have some unexpected Troops in Contact call during an air interdiction sortie, just something other than the boring meta of shooting at non-moving stuff. We've been flying these missions for a few months on Friday nights, and we've had a blast. But now we're wondering if any "outsiders" want to get involved... So, before we jump the gun on a website and other tasks, I simply wanted to poke the DCS community with a stick and see if I get a response. While reading through some threads here on the forums I came to an observation... there was a disproportionate number of guys who WANTED to fly in a squadron and guys who DID fly in a squadron. It became pretty obvious that nearly everybody wants a squadron to fly with, but a lot of guys don't. Upon asking why, I seemed to get the response, "because I have nobody to fly with." So in August we explored the possibility of putting together a formal squadron. We wanted to base it on a real life squadron for simplicity and realism factor, so we sat down and thought about which squadron we wanted to emulate. The 303d? Eh... The 25th? No, they're based in Korea. The 45th? The 47th? (We figured all the Moody AFB squadrons had been rightfully claimed by another, unnamed prominent A-10C DCS squadron), etc. Since I'm from Fort Wayne, IN, and see their jets nearly every week, I was screaming "163!" the whole time. We couldn't agree on what squadron to base our group on, So we said "screw it, just find a squadron with the best looking jets." Yeah, well, your nose art might be a generic shark, or the mouth and tusks of an actual warthog, but the 163 has got snakes. So I asked a DCS community contributor atomtomgo who made a fantastic 303d skin pack to produce one for the 163d. And boy did he deliver. So we decided on the 163d. [/useless information] All that aside, my proposal. We are potentially aiming for a hopefully big demographic of DCS guys. A-10C guys looking for semi-realistic operations. Realistic radio calls, formations, basic briefings, missions, the whole gig, but we don't want to be realistic to the point that it's a chore. We're not asking you to dedicate your life here, maybe one or two nights a week of flying some missions with some buddies. Truthfully we're a bit pessimistic with the pending release of the F-18, but one of us thinks that the F-18 release will sweep all the "non-dedicated" hog pilots out of the running ;) So I'd just like some input from the community. Are you interested? If so, let us know! If you're not interested, don't just skim through the thread and leave, let us know why. And don't be afraid to be rude, if you aren't interested because there's 30 other groups already doing what we want to do, then tell us that we're dumb. That's the whole point of asking. Looking forward to some input. Thanks for your time.

Flying the DCS A-10C from August 2014 to now, I've never noticed a difference in the behavior of the trim. Like others have said in the thread, as you get back into the groove you'll probably find it easier to trim than before. One thing I'd like to advise is not to go "trim chasing." Chasing the trim back and forth, never quite getting it right... is only going to frustrate you and take up your valuable time and attention that could be spent doing other things. The A-10 has an autopilot, use it man. Most of the time the autopilot is off, you're likely maneuvering, a time when trim isn't really all that much of a concern, or you've taken damage rendering the autopilot inoperable, and in that case you'd probably want to get hands on with the jet rather than let it coast on it's own. I used to chase the trim wheel up and down in the C152 only to end up failing to hold my altitude and screw up my perfectly balanced trim by needing to climb or descend again. Just get the trim "close enough" and don't be afraid to get a little handsy with the jet to make sure it's doing what you want it to. With some aircraft, trim is really important. With the A-10, I say just get it "close enough." Being a military aircraft, not only will airspeed changes and all that other fun stuff throw your trim around, you also have big payload changes as you release ordinance.. No point in chasing the perfect trim down only to drop a bomb 30 seconds later and then have to do it all over again. Hope you're enjoying your return to the A-10 bunraku.

Target audience, target audience, target audience. It doesn't matter if a dev is from Europe, Asia, or the Moon. It's about the target demographic. If the majority of the customer's intent on buying the module are American, you can take it to the bank that a dev would cater to that American audience. However, I don't really know. DCS has a strong international community and is a mixed bag. We'll see...

We really, really need this. Any aviator is well aware of the dangers of forces like wake turbulence and just how serious these forces can be. These few images can allow a pilot to visualize wake turbulence and understand just how powerful of a force it can be.

Hey MRaza, let's take a step back and analyze what's going on with your situation. In order to improve your low altitude combat, we should first talk about when to be low and when to be high. When should I decide it's time to get low? You should be low when the mission requires it. As a general principle, the A-10 stays lower and slower to allow the pilot a good view of the battlespace and to increase their situational awareness. This is incredibly important when absorbing information, making sense of it, making a decision, and enacting it needs to be an especially efficient and fast process. Being low allows the pilot to make decisions and get kinetic quickly during times when it matters. The classic example of this is Close Air Support. Another good time to be low is when you're in a target rich environment with no AAA or SAM threats. The classic example of such an environment for Hawg drivers is a load of Urals, IFVs.. just generally things of that sort that won't chew you to pieces. It's important to know that the gun should always be your first choice of weapon as an Hawg driver, all other options are simply backups for when the gun won't do. Choosing to use the gun when applicable will allow you to save your valuable Mavs and GBUs for potentially more important targets. Of course, you do not want to be low in a threat environment that's too mean. Any presence of surface to air missiles or AAA should be an immediate sentence to no less than a 10,000ft AGL hard deck until those threats are confirmed neutralized or you've departed hostile airspace. When should I decide to be high? Flying low sometimes simply isn't practical to the mission. Most any time when your actions are not time sensitive or when you're not employing the gun is a good time to be high. The best example of a "high altitude" mission is an air interdiction sortie where you're striking briefed targets (such as buildings or fortifications) with precision munitions. Higher altitudes also provide needed protection from AAA and light, tactical SAM systems. Now that we've discussed when to be high and low, let's talk about ways to improve your performance once you're in the weeds. Low altitude etiquette Rule number one of the two biggies when flying low with the Pig: You are not a turtle. Get your head out of the proverbial shell and look out of the cockpit. When circling a target area low and slow making gun passes, the targeting pod is simply little more than dead weight. You are going to have to find and engage your targets visually. This means you need to be good at maneuvering the jet while looking out of the cockpit. If you do not have Track IR, good luck with this. You will need it. Also, it will help a lot to bind view zoom to an axis on your stick. If you have a TM Warthog, I recommend the friction lever. Rule number two of flying low with the Pig: Yes honey, those six Mavericks, 4 GBUs, and full fuel tanks do make you [look] fat. In order to get good performance out of the jet, you're going to have to lighten up the payload. A-10s hardly carry more than two Mavs in real life as far as my understanding goes, which makes sense because those suckers are heavy and the racks produce quite a lot of drag. I recommend carrying only two AGM-65Gs. Carrying 4 GBUs is fine, but try to stick to the smaller GBU12s and GBU38s. Fuel is heavy! Lighten up the fuel load. There's no reason to carry more than you need plus some decent reserves. Those are really the two big ones, but there's plenty more... Ultimately, you will get better at performing at low altitudes as you do it more. Hope this brief post gave you some food for thought MRaza. -Kip

Now now, RIOs are more than just self-loading baggage, mind you.. ;) I think we're all excited to get a feel for the F-14's flight characteristics. Let's hope wrestling the Turkey through the air is good fun.

I'm totally for this. Small things like this really increase the immersion.

Suite 7, you say?

Small touches like this are neat and really do enhance the sim. It would be nice to see this apply to all aircraft, like the Mig-21. If the player enables the visor, drop the pilot's visor in the external model of the aircraft. If the player disables the visor, have the visor on the pilot's helmet in the external model up. There are already arguments of the visor in both states of up and down for a lot of aircraft I think. (I can only speak for the A-10 and the F-15 in my experiences, and they both do) But given this is such a small thing, it would be pretty darn low priority I imagine.

While I'm certainly not against a 50s era Korea map, and that may certainly be easier to develop than a modern Korea map, I think the guys flying the Korean era jets are a minority compared to the modern jets, and would still be a minority even with the theoretical release of such a map bolstering the popularity of the Korea era jets. There's plenty of great reasons to develop a modern Korea map if possible, here's a few: - The A-10C guys such as myself would love it. A-10s from the 25th are always ready to Fight Tonight and fly over Korea every day. I hear them constantly on the Osan freqs. - The soon to be F/A-18C drivers will love it. In the event of any hostilities between the US and the DPRK, the Navy's aircraft carriers and their air wings would be a vital component of US forces. - The Korean peninsula is the site of a very real, very possible conflict. While there are no shortage of realistic scenarios to be dreamed up in the Caucasus map, as Georgia is NATO leaning, (and I think there are talks underway to join NATO) The Korean Peninsula has been dominating the news headlines for nearly the last week and a half from the date I write this post. Mission designers looking to create realistic scenarios pretty much have their work cut out for them. - It has a pretty diverse range of terrain. Along the west coast there are wide coastal plains that rise into some serious mountains and hills as you go east. Dozens of small islands dot the western coastline of both the North and the South. I'm sure there's a few hundred more. Those are just the big ones I can think of. I have no doubt that we've all seen this video nothing short of a few dozen times, but every time I come back and watch it again, I get this strange yearning for a Korea map. ;)

Hey nikitatattoo, if you're looking at taking a dip in the pool for the first time soon, I'd recommend the A-10C or the L-39C/ZA for your first DCS module. Both of these aircraft are absolutely great and handle quite well, giving you an awesome opportunity to experiment with your newfound knowledge of flight. I've used the DCS L-39 to teach a few friends of mine about some of the basics of flight before. It's a hoot! And of course, the free TF-51 is a surprisingly good aircraft to learn and practice these things in as well. It can be hard to deal with torque though in high performance prop planes as a new aviator. However, I'm a firm believer of jumping off the deep end and learning the hard things straight away!

I have no doubt in my mind that Heatblur will do a good job with the AI RIO in the back seat. Oh and, I'm absolutely down to be a full time RIO for somebody. I'm actually equally as interested in working from the back seat in the Tomcat as I am the front. Maybe I have a few loose screws...

You could, for the sake of something to do, tune to tower's radio freq pretending it's unicom, key up your mic and make traffic calls to yourself as if the field was uncontrolled. It does sorta seem dumb to talk to yourself, but I do this some nights when I feel especially lonely. Such are the woes of flying single player. EDIT: And yes, it does seem the PAPIs are still non-functional.

This mod should be integrated ASAP. It adds life into airfields of DCS, something we've been missing.