FeistyLemur

Well, I guess it felt more precarious than it looked when I recorded it. And there was some bounce on touchdown. Now that I've done a lot more landings I feel much more comfortable with it. Decided to try the fc3 aircraft after all, boy are they easy to land in comparison after learning with the 21 first.

Have you done the missile tutorial, it's pretty helpful. You need to be in the right mode for the right type of missile, this was my most common problem at first. The ir / sar switch in the top left. Make sure you know what type of missile is on each pylon.

I was in your boat last month. I hadn't played a flight sim since I'd have to say Janes F18. Absolutely recommend it, DCS is awesome. TrackIR is awesome and a good hotas setup makes it so much better. It can be expensive and addictive, but DCS has so much depth and such complex aircraft to learn with full interactive cockpits it's very rewarding.

You know though, most of the dogfight documentary movies I've watched say early missiles were so unreliable they fired every missile they had just trying to hit something and then went home often. Shooting down 6 planes on a sortie wasn't exactly a regular occurrence by the look of it or something that probably even happened. The entire air kill tally for the Vietnam war is quite small.

I've had some problems with crashing in Windows 10 that I didn't with 8.1. Not a lot, I've had 2 CTDs in flight, and had it hard freeze to the point where I had to reboot the system because I couldn't end the task even with task manager. Also I've had numerous "DCS has stopped working" boxes pop up on exiting a mission.

Would be interesting to know what a real military pilot would do in that situation. I'm guessing an R3R or an R3S were not that expensive in comparison to modern missiles. Dropping a 1 million dollar missile probably would not be so good. Also dropping something full of tnt in the middle of the countryside for convenience might not be so good.

I decided to give the FC3 aircraft a try after all to see what it's all about. Predictably I don't enjoy them that much. The performance of the F15 and Su27 is incredible, but the flight characteristics just don't have that amazing feel of realism the controls of the mig21 provides. The radar is pretty insane. The mission that was up last night while I was on was not mig21 friendly at all. Tons of flat land and stand off fighting. I took an SU27 up to have a look and just so many fighters painting me from all directions friendly and non friendly from huge range as soon as I came off the runway. The typhoon should be a lot of fun. Can't wait for some full realism modern fighters. The Mirage 2000 is starting to sound kind of interesting as well. Just give me the F14 and I can die in peace after that probably. The hornet should be great too. I had a lot of fun many years past with Janes F18.

I know I've seen the seeker start tracking other planes rolling past down the taxiway when I forgot to turn the missile master arm off after landing before. Yes I've long since been given a desk job in Siberia in my virtual mig21 pilot career.

Well, any advice from me is of limited use as a complete novice. But on my last flight I could see some long range fighters were tracking me over the lake, so I turned around and beat it pretty much at highest possible speed back toward the base and very low. Then went around to the side and came back, and that's when I did actually get a shot at something over the lake. Still got shot down, but I did get a radar lock and see 2 contacts. I really hope the unannounced planes from Leatherneck are direct competitors to the Mig21 so maybe the 1960s era can be more alive. I'm kind of hoping for the phantom and the F5 at this point. My problem is I don't know if I really want to play the FC3 aircraft because I like full simulations with clicky cockpits. I love the su27, but I don't know if I want to fly one that's not full detail. I'm pretty excited for the F14 and F18.

I just saw you there actually. I managed to take a couple more shots but I didn't get any more kills. I'm pretty sure I hit something with an R3R, and I think it might have been an a10 because it looked like it survived, I know I saw an explosion but didn't get a kill. Other than that I just got shot down buy aim120s. I got a head on lock with something over the Krasnodar lake and got hit just as my own missile was launching, managed to eject and the chat said i was killed by my own R3R. I know the kill I got earlier was a lucky find because a low ambush was exactly what it was. I was lurking by the lake and saw another battle up above and jumped up from below to ambush. The other mission that was on there earlier was over the mountains, so at least there's someplace to hide on that one. The 51 server finally came up on the mig21 mission but there's no one at all on the server.

I managed to actually get a modern fighter I think. Sadly I don't know what it even was. I was on this 104th server flying close to the Krasnodar lake when I saw someone getting shot down high above, so I pulled up and looked and it was 2 enemy contacts left. Assuming I didn't have much chance I used full afterburner and went right at one and locked and shot it down with a radar guided missile. Whoever it was was surprised a mig21 managed it because they commented wow good job. Then after that I almost snuck in another. I saw someone up high and I identified him and shut my radar off and went full afterburner. After a few more checks with radar i got antsy and locked him and just went right after him from behind, but someone else shot him down from above as he went spinning before I was in range and I saw another contrail approaching him. So I headed off to base to land, pretty excited to return to base with a successful air to air kill for the first time.

Having trouble finding a mig21 beginner friendly server to try playing online. There was this 51 korea 1965 one that seemed good but I can't find that one anymore, it looks like its now 1954 and excludes the mig21. Mostly all I've found so far is a flying wall of f15c out over flat open land, or sea, slinging aim120's at anything that gets near.

Well, there's really a lot of controls and what ones you want will be subjective to some degree. If you have the x52 pro you should have tons of buttons to choose from. The training missions are good because you'll see what switches you're using commonly and then you'll see what you want. I tried to layout my stick as close to the in game stick as possible. Radar lock, trim up/down, sau on/sau cancel, release fuel tank on the pinky button. Wheel brake on the pinky lever. Beyond that select pylons 1 2 3 4, fire missile and gun are on the stick itself. My throttle is all engine and gear and a couple view controls and of course the slew radar range up and down to be in line with how it's controlled in the real plane with the mig21's twist throttle. All the other stuff is keyboard. Choosing the layout is kind of an ongoing process that you'll finalize as you get comfortable. Getting it perfect off the start just isn't realistic. You have to play, figure out how you like to play and what will be most convenient for you.

You'll get a feel for it as you do the training missions. The radar operation, radar filters, air/ground mode and missile mode, all the toggles on the asp i believe its called in the center. Such as shooting/bombing mode, giro/missile mode etc. The Master arm for missile and gun modes, pylon selection of course, the engine forced air restart is also nice to have. Everything you need for takeoff and landing is also nice. Such as all the gear commands, flaps, drag chute operation. Obviously what joystick or HOTAS you have limits you here. But personally even when I was using my simple TM t flight stick, I tried to use the same controls that are on the actual plane stick. So radar lock SAU missile and gun, trim of course. Also if you don't have a hotas throttle id probably make sure to have the radar target range up and down slew on your stick along with the lock on button. If you have a basic joystick with limited buttons I would say focus on weapon firing controls weapon selection, radar targeting and lock on, trimming, and leave everything else for keyboard binds. I completely redid all my keyboard binds and layed it out like an imaginary toggle switch panel. Example, q-a w-s e-d represent toggle switches up and down, all the way down the keyboard. Then I prop it up vertically with two old hard drives so its vertical right under the monitor.

Good excuse to order MFG crosswinds.

It's a fun challenge though to land with 2200l of fuel and 4 missiles.

Here's my progress after one month of DCS. It's not perfect, but this is what my acceptable landings are at right now. I've had some that were much smoother than this, but this represents the minimum of what I can pull off 95% of the time now.

In addition to a formation flying mission someone made and listed here, I've found the basic cold start mission out of Nalchik is actually quite useful for formation and group finding practice. It has a group of 2 mig21 which takes off roughly the same time as you and then flies back and forth across the map till they run out of fuel and land. I find it useful for finding them with radar and practicing catching up and entering formation with them, with a bit of cheating using the F10 map since they are AI and can't tell you where they are or coordinate with you.

I guess till then I'll have to pretend my wingman keeps drinking all the cooling alcohol from his radar on every mission.

Sure is better than my early landings. Most of them ended with no wings or ailerons. Tube shaped aircraft sure do scrape those off good when they roll down the runway. My problem with hard landings has always been fighting the urge to back off the throttle and let it fall onto the runway. Below 340km/h it drops like a stone. It really is a matter of powering it into the tarmac with a very low descent rate for the best results. At full flaps and 340 - 350kph it has a ton of lift and the nose is extremely low allowing you to really see the runway well. Most of the time I set it down really smooth now, But I got a warthog with a 75mm extension and that makes it leaps and bounds easier. Still once and a while, especially if I'm tired I mess up and squash my gear and have to do a go around. Then hear the unwelcome sound of the ATC saying "check your gear", yes, I know i pancaked my gear thank you Mr Air traffic controller.

I just did the first mission of stillness in time staying at 90% the entire time and my wing man still ran out of fuel half way and ejected. Can seldom keep them alive. I managed one mission where all 3 came back alive and thought it was a miracle.

It seems like my wingman or my entire flight goes bingo fuel and ejects not 5 minutes later almost constantly, usually when I still have well over 2000l of fuel. This is on some of the various campaigns. The stock campaign for one, the over the hump adapted campaign, single missions. My wingman seems like menace to the defense budget.

I hope so too, because I'd like to add some rotary encoders to my panel project for those controls.

That's also a good idea, I ordered a bottle of that stuff. Paint places can't go by a cmyk color it seems so as far as replicating the game color, the best i could figure would be to print out a whole bunch of shades close to it on a laser printer and pick the one that replicates the look the best, since printing isn't accurate, then get them to use that printed sample to match. Or I can just use this model paint and do the same thing and get the greenish color instead of the bluish color in the game. Or maybe both just to see which I like better. The good news is custom spray cans are a common thing at some autobody places here after all, so it's actually not a problem to get a can of automotive grade custom paint for 20 dollars. You can even get catalyzed one use clear-coat spray cans with an activator apparently.

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. And what virtually kills you can too. For what it's worth it's extremely rewarding to feel your competency level start to improve in the mig21 when you start from scratch in it. Fond memories of rolling it off the edge of the tarmac into the grass to get stuck and not even being able to figure out how to taxi the first time I did the start up tutorial and was like, screw this I'm taking off now. Or having my pitot tube freeze because the tutorial neglected to mention the pitot tube heat switches.