Aluminum Donkey

Disabling the pitch damper doesn't allow you to turn tighter. What the damper does is reduce the pitch 'wobbling' (oscillating) by damping it out using the control surfaces. So, the plane flies more smoothly when making pitch inputs. Like the Flanker, it's on by default. The MiG is capable of a very high rate of pitch change, and it oscillates a lot without it, so it's normally left on all the time when the plane is being flown. That's why you hear the warning when it's off. The only reason to disable it is if there's a problem with the autopilot. But if you want, you can fly without it--L_Alt+9 for 3 seconds. The 29 is really 'hairy' in pitch without it :) AD

Thanks for the link. I'm not sure if the real ones pop-out suddenly or deploy gradually as AoA increases. Apparently, the PFM for this aircraft is being developed by a real MiG-29 pilot, so he'd know much more than me :) AD

You can't deploy the airbrake with the landing gear lowered. It's to prevent you from dragging the lower airbrake section on the runway surface--you have to press P to deploy the braking parachute after touching down, not use the airbrake. The airbrake also won't deploy when you're carrying the centerline fuel tank. The real MiG-29 is like this too according to what I've dug up. AD

You're right! It took me a while to sort this out, but that's exactly what it is. At about 10 degrees AoA, regardless of speed or G force, the LE slats deploy and there's a sudden increase of roughly 1g, and the turn tightens. Other people have remarked about this--and that's exactly what causes it. Not a bug or flaw in the flight model at all. Now, I'm not sure if the sudden deployment is how the slats work on the real MiG-29, or if they deploy gradually as you pull the stick back. But, that's what's happening. AD

Nope. Pressing Left-Alt +9 for 3 seconds disables the pitch damper, which a part of the autopilot that's normally always on by default. There will be a constant "beep-beep-beep" warning tone, and the red caution light will stay on--you have to mute it by pressing R_Shift +N. Now, the MiG will be very 'twitchy' in pitch response. Tiny fore-and-aft movements of the stick, especially at low speeds, result in the plane trying to bite its own tail off :) Pretty entertaining, but not well-suited for normal flight, including dogfighting. Pressing Y (or a mapped button) to disable the stick deflection limiter has nothing to do with this--its an entirely different function. It overrides the stick kicker--a device which bumps the flight stick forward when exceeding a certain AoA, about 25-28 degrees I believe. You have to hold Y or the button down to override it--in the real MiG-29, it's accomplished by the pilot pulling back very hard on the stick to force it past the limiter. So, the two functions are entirely separate. AD

Greetings, I griped about the 'jump' in G-force/turn rate before, but after spending more time with the MiG-29, it turns out that it's the leading edge flaps! At 10 degrees AoA, the LE flaps deploy, and G force jumps up a bit (maybe 1g) and the turn tightens quite a bit, even if you've only moved the stick very slightly. So, that explains the 'jump' when easing the stick back into a very tight turn. That's that--not a bug at all. I'm learning to love the new MiG-29 flight model--except I keep running out of gas all the time :) AD

Greetings everyone, I have converted my TM HOTAS Cougar from the crappy stock electronics to the excellent Leo Bodnar BU0836A USB control circuit. The Cougar still uses potentiometers for a variety of radar-related control axes, usually on the throttle. The dang thing keeps waking up my computer! I have my PC set up so that after 10 minutes, the screeen turns off. The Cougar wakes it up because of pot noise :) So, how do I stop this from happening without messing up anything else? In Windows 10 Device Manager, the Cougar now shows up as HID-compliant game controller. When my PC turns the screen off after a while, nudging the stick (or any axis or button on it) wakes up the PC. The option "allow this device to wake the computer" is permanently greyed out, and un-selected, but any input from the Cougar (including pot noise) wakes up the PC. I like my monitor to stay off at night, but it always comes back on due to small amounts of pot noise from the Cougar. Any ideas? AD

You kidding me, that was a hoot :)

Woohoo, thanks so much! I was figuring it was something like that right after I posted the message :) AD

A few people have brought this up, is it gonna get looked at? You reach 100% RPM at about 40-50% of the HOTAS throttle travel, and it stays there up to about 2/3 to 3/4 of the travel, and the rest, of course, is afterburner. So, there's a large dead spot between full Mil power and the beginning of the AB range that does nothing. Supposed to be like this, or something to tidy up in the future? AD

Looks like you might have the same button mapped to one engine throttle up/down. Are you using a joystick/HOTAS button? Or just the keyboard? One thing I've noticed with this latest update is you pretty much have to delete your existing joystick input files, and re-map all your axes, buttons and switches in DCS. Fixed some weird stuff for me. AD

Greetings Earthlings Has anyone had any luck playing with the damper? I know the key combo is LAlt+1, but all it does is press the upper left button of the 6 autopilot buttons. The light on the button stays on, and nothing happens, the plane doesn't handle any differently. Autopilot Reset has no effect either. I haven't had any luck pulling Cobras in the MiG, and figured the damper is the culprit, but I can't seem to turn it off :) Any ideas? Is this a feature to be implemented in the future, or am I ignoring/forgetting something? AD

This is happening to lots of people since the last update, myself included. Easy to fix--go into your Saved Games\DCS\Config\Input folder, delete the joystick config file, and re-bind in the sim. It will generate a new config file that will work properly. If not, delete the keyboard config too and try again. Worked fine for me. AD

You got it! Thanks for describing it in different words from my own. The pitch trim is fine; it's the roll trim that's FAR too fast and makes it impossible to trim out gradual left or right roll. If the real MiG-29 is like this, it's gonna p!ss off a LOT of pilots. The slightest tap of the roll trim makes the MiG roll one way or the other. It's far too coarse to be useful for anything. AD

Lots of remarks about very high control sensitivity. Welcome to the MiG-29 :) Our problem here is that everyone's using bench-top flight sticks. If your control stick were a foot long like in the real plane, that would be much less of a problem. What I'm not liking at all is the hyper-fast trim rate, specifically on the roll axis. It's impossible to just quickly tap the roll trim and trim out the tendency to roll left or right. I *seriously* doubt the real aircraft is like this, because there would be no point in having roll trim at all. Another thing is that the aircraft turn rate seems to change in large steps as you accelerate/decelerate through the speed range while holding a constant stick position. Others have commented on this--you pull the stick back and very little happens, then there's a large 'jump' in G force/turn rate. Anyway everyone, this is a fresh new PFM for the MiG-29, and the quirks will undoubtedly get ironed out sometime in the future. Peace and happy warfare AD

Yep, same here. AD

Just for the record, I'm not the only DCS fan who's neglected the sim for months now, but is nearly foaming at the mouth waiting to try out the MiG-29's new PFM. Let's hope it's well-done, and convincing :) It should be DCS World's best-performing aircraft, ever. AD

Hey, that's the best part of the sim! I've forgotten how many times I've been hosed down with cannon fire while admiring the fly-by view :) AD

Did you ever get a handle on this? Check your flight stick in Windows game controller config, where you can see button presses as they happen. You might have your stick set up to produce a pulse when the weapon release button is pressed, instead of holding continuously. Edit: Check that... if the keystroke isn't doing it, then there's something really weird going on. I'm at a loss as well here! AD

Ah, that's what you meant. Yeah, I'll be the first to admit the trim logic is pretty stupid... The 27 is a great handling aircraft, and I'm surprised the Russians would do something like giving it such ridiculous trimming requirements that are mostly arbitrary and greatly increase the pilot workload. Fighter pilots are supposed to be very good at what they do, I'm sure they don't need the machinery reminding them that their aircraft has changed its speed and now needs re-trimming :) AD

What wacky FBW logic? The Su-27 is barely a FBW aircraft, it has an analog system for pitch rate damping and that's it (and an AoA/G-limiter of course, like all modern fighters). It makes the Flanker much easier to fly, not harder. The MiG-29's control system is probably very similar. AD

I doubt that. Watched a few vids. Not necessarily 120+ FPS, but certainly not 0.25!! AD

No problemo mon

Your system is similar to mine. Grab latest Nvidia driver. Turn off SSAA. Leave MSAA at 4x, or try 2x. Set Shadows (left column) to Medium, set Terrain Object Shadows (right) to Flat. AD

Actually, I find I get great framerates with my relatively humble PC, even though I run mostly high graphics settings... Of course, I don't use a VR headset, and I'm not the sort that considers 120 FPS to be "decent" performance... I typically get 50 FPS or higher over heavily built-up areas, and for flight sims (and most games!) that's plenty. Better framerates are cool and all, but I *really* hope they iron out the stutter-on-weapon-hits problem. That's the REAL dealbreaker for me and takes most of the fun out of the sim. AD