punk

From everything I have read, they left them alone. Override was for emergencies. The only thing I can think where it might help is to try and confuse opposing aircraft of your true energy state, which will change based on the wing profile, so how effective it would be is beyond my paltry knowledge. Of course, this being a video game, there is no telling if an advantage will be seen as peculiarities seem to crop up differing from the real world and million dollar airframes are not at risk.

I know you can use google to download things, I have downloaded stuff others have posted to their pages, but not sure how to do it. There is another site a lot of people use that I wouldn't for a long time, but finally gave in to and registered, but I can not remember the name for the life of me right now, when it comes to me I will post if someone else doesn't first or you find an alternative. Best of luck with your build and to echo my man Dino, thanks for posting.

Just a side note Mumbles: If you make a complete canopy to scale it would need about 10ft of clearance, so unless you have high ceilings it might not be a great idea. Even making it in halves would be a big job and look funny. That thing is huge. :thumbup:

Hmm, I have an old vrinsight FMC/CDU, is it possible to make a profile to use it as the flight computer in the back seat? I know they are way different, but it would be nice not to have to use the mouse to type stuff in.

Pacific Coast Air Museum in Santa Rosa CA has one still technically operational Tomcat, as in it has its engines and equipment for flight, though it probably will need plenty spares by now. At least it was so the last time I saw it a few years back. They rotate aircraft for open displays, so check their calendar or go during an airshow or something and you can sit in her. Let me tell you, it has the best over the nose viz I have ever seen in any other aircraft I have ever been in. It fit like glove too, like it had been made for me.

I simply doubt that new upgrades were never made to A models after the A+ or Bs were introduced. Planes still went in for maintenance level services where they were stripped down to the bones and rebuilt with any new upgrades added at those times. I am more curious about the story I read concerning the old engines. "Through extensive in-service engineering analysis, the Navy installed a low cost, but very effective means of alerting aircrew of impending catastrophic TF30 engine failure. This cockpit warning light alerts the aircrew to a sudden rise in engine breather pressure [an indication of impending engine failure] in time to reduce engine power and safely land the aircraft. This new system greatly increases aircrew awareness and further contribute to safe F-14A operations." This was in an article on www.globalsecurity.org I believe.

Must have been a misprint in my book then.

I thought there was a 2.75 inch Zuni rocket as well?

They are listed in one of the Jane's books as being used for FAC(A) target marking. Never found any operational accounts about them being used though, but my reference materials are few.

The pilot can fire all weapons and the radar can id contacts and prioritize them automatically if need be, I wonder where does this idea the pilot can't fire some weapons comes from? The RIO handled Radar primarily giving pilot headings and other tactical info, thus the name, Radar Intercept Officer. They also did most of the navigation and handled communications among other tasks. I bet many of the necessary tasks will be able to be masked to joystick, I just hope you won't need to be in the back seat for them to function.

Yeah, much of the specifics for the AWG-9 are still classified at certain levels as well as much of the actual tactics employed. The supplemental NAVAIR 01-F-14AAA-1.1 has the majority of the performance charts and required tasks are broken down for the Pilots' and Rios' methods for things like Airspeed Position Error Corrections, Servoed Altimeter Residual Error Corrections, Altimeter Position Error Corrections, determining takeoff speeds/distances and other performance issues like critical engine failure speeds, field lengths, climb performance, single engine performance and then goes into climb and decent calculations, cruise and endurance as well as landing calculations. It also has the flight's mission planning and combat performance charts. None of it concerns weapons use or anything, just the tasks for successful flight ops. Much is for pre/inflight info and corrections, good stuff, though I don't know how much of that stuff is really needed in DCS.

I have a question about this whole Steam vs DCS site purchase thingy. What's up with it? I am new to DCS and am waiting for the F-14 to come out before I start. I have seen that the DCS e-site says something about steam bought products being incompatible. What does that mean, what is the difference, why is it there, and what do the majority of players use/do?

Just my guess, but it seems to me that it might take a day or two from the feel of it, especially if bought after office hours since I can't make out whether it is something they will send or the company they're using for the commercial transaction will do. I am just talking out of my butt, so don't take this idea as gospel. I get it that it's a PIB if you are going to make an immediate purchase, hope they get a better idea later on to avoid this kind of snafu.

Their website says this if you read the description on the cards, not sure if this is new or was missed: "Please pay attention: due top the way giftcads work in our store, you will first be issued only a giftcard for the amount of money you paid. However we will send you a second giftcard to compensate you for the rebate. In order to use the full amount of your giftcards, at the checkout, you will have to enter both codes of the giftcards you received with this purchase. "

It has been discussed a little, yes. https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=194755

:thumbup:

I had planned to build the back seat as well Mumbles. I want to try and get my son to play a game with me, I like sports and flight sims, he likes FPS types and Xbox ones. I will probably make them separate as he said he would try it out. It would be nice to have one behind the other but might be a bit impractical. Will see when I get that far. Probably will make them modular, just in case. Time will tell. Handsome grand son Alicatt, I remember my son at that age, he'll be 18 in a couple months. Time flies by so fast.

Thanks Mr. Dackard. For myself, I completely understand and look forward to the info when it becomes available. I am sure most of us are all looking forward to the release of HB's li'l kitty. While I have a few cockpit items, it would be very difficult to base an entire pit around those few dimensions. I wasted my time in the real cockpit when I tried video recording as I took measurements instead of writing them down. Unfortunately, I hit the pause button and did not get one measurement recorded lol. Murphy's law for you.

Hi Mumbles, You may be right, but I am going to wait and see if Heatblur releases the dimensions they made using laser scanning technology later as they have said they will since I am not in that much of a hurry to actually start the build this year. I am still collecting items that go inside so it will be a long term project in my case. Thanks though, if you start your own I hope you will post about it. Tomcat pits are definitely few and far between. Salute, Punk

Yes, it is.

I think white is best unless you plan to use NVGs or something. Red light is better when you need to worry about your night vision, but you are watching a monitor so really, what is the point other than verisimilitude? I would rather be able to easily find what I am looking for.

While you say this jokingly, it actually is more truer than it seems. Remember that RIOs spent over a year learning the basics of the job and at advanced schools like Topgun they learned to perfect their training to the point that that is a much truer statement. In Bio Baranek's books he covers only a little bit of the training, but he did emphasis how much of it required memorizing complex mathematical tables related to converting scope data into headings and speed, alt, closing, and offset rates among many other tasks. He went on about getting his first down for not studying the offset tables enough or the math involved if I remember right. Those are the kind of things I would like to learn more of, but there are so many parts about this stuff that is classified. Hopefully there are some people who might know a little about these things from a theoretical POV who can teach the rest of us about how to put this kind of info into use to guide the front seater to an advantageous firing position well before visual range. That would be really cool to learn. Another thing I am curious about is all the different settings could be refined or fine tuned when trying to clear up background clutter, weather, and other problems like total numbers etc. that crop up in finding and or tracking contacts and such. Maybe one of the more clever fellows out there will decided to create a RIO training syllabus or a club or school to figure things all out.

Ah, thanks for clarifying that a bit, Sir. I was seriously lost.

I am confused by all of the excitement. Is it that they are going to make an F-14 grip or that they set up the US website to buy their products from? (I am guessing it is a new site based on a snarky comment on the EU site fishing for new info. Based on those replies, I don't see how it could be the first item then... more confused than ever) And, why do they have like a half dozen different choices for what looks like the same exact grip? Can someone help an idiot out with all this stuff?

Sorry, I do not understand your question. The letters IIRC are just text shorthand as far as I know given the forum context.