Scytale

This is great. Is this at Murmansk?

that was terrible

Agreed. Note that it doesn't really describe even what A-LOC is until the results section, when it seems to be defined for methodological reasons more than anything else. One comes away with the impression that there is a thing called A-LOC and that maybe it's worth keeping in mind, but nothing more. The comment about the typo is more a comment on the journal than the authors: one would expect poor grammar to be caught if not in peer-review then by the editors.

Without comment on the quality of that study itself, that there is an egregious typo in the title is not encouraging

Goose, while what you've learned is correct, it is very generic and unfortunately it can be argued with, even within the scope of what you've learned so far. Without even considering complex issues of airframe structural analysis, there are many factors to consider just about solid mechanics. 1. A stress-strain curve of the kind you show is usually generated in lab under very specific, canonical loading conditions. For example, a steel bar put under simple tension. But in many engineering applications, the stress state, becomes far more complicated: you can get up to three distinct normal stresses and another three shear stresses on an element. From the loading conditions they've applied, an inexperienced (or uninformed) engineer might think their element is safe from failure, but there may be characteristic directions in the element that suffer very high principal or shear stresses. Even then there are questions about how you predict for failure. For example, do you use a Tresca condition, or von Mises? 2. Even if you understand your stress state very well, the failure mode may not be due to yield, which is a kind of shear failure. (It also depends on what you define as failure, but that's another discussion.) Materials also have other properties that may be critical importance: fracture toughness, directional strengths (such as in composites), corrosion resistance, and in particular (especially in the context of airframe design) fatigue characteristics. There are also geometric considerations such as corners in the airframe (which you may have come across already as 'stress concentration factors'). 3. Safety factors vary from close to 1 up to values greater than 2. Just 'guessing' 1.5, even because your lecturer told you that aircraft applications feature factors like this, does not give a reliable answer. 4. A lot of machine element design, such as for rivets or bolts or linkages or (especially) welding, relies on heaps of empirical data, which has constants here and there which you have no real way of theoretically designing for. 5. Heaps of other things I can't even think of right now :( edit: the upshot of the above is that using the yield strength by itself tends to overestimate the strength. There are a whooole lot of things that work together against the designer.

That is at once the most brilliant and stupid thing I've seen this week

Thank you near_blind and Stuge for the comprehensive replies, they are really appreciated!! These comments make me feel much better about approaching the Su-27, particularly the note that their 'tactics have been borne out of necessity'. Your replies also help me understand and clarify what it is I'm asking (!), and you have answered that too: I wanted to know if it's conceivable for Su-27s (and F-15s) to behave the way they do in DCS in the hands of players. I guess I understand the answer as "yes, given a storm of unrealistic factors which are present in DCS". (Correct me if I'm wrong~) Thanks again. This is food for thought.

So this excellent guide made me think a bit. I haven't touched DCS in a while mostly because I haven't yet got around to getting a head tracking system, and that really limits really playing on MP servers. But there's nothing stopping me from learning avionics, very basic BVR engagements, weapons handling etc in the interim. I was asking myself, "do I want to really get into the F-15C or the Su-27?" This guide really made me want to go with the F-15C, but in the interest of fairness I wanted to see if there was a similar guide for Su-27. I did see one or two, but it struck me that a lot of the Su-27's particulars of tactics in DCS seems a little game-y, at least from what I could see on the forums. I mean things like switching on radar for split seconds at a time to get IFF on IRST contacts (which to me seems very odd), and things like this. Now obviously all of DCS is "a little game-y" to put it mildly. But in the descriptions from the manual here, things like cranking in particular, and the use of ARH in the manner recommended here and across the F-15 forum seems more informed by reality. I can't pretend to know anything about real air combat, and I think I know that high altitude, high speed is a good 'initial condition' for an engagement for an F-15 in reality while in game this isn't so. But in the approach used here - cranking, waiting for pitbull etc (dependent on SA), is that at least a rough approximation to reality? Is it any better an approximation than the techniques that Su-27 pilots would use in DCS? I know the two planes have different strengths and the different approaches for them play to those strengths, but does either individual approach even slightly resemble its real counterpart? ...Is the approximation bad enough that there's really no point in me even asking this question? (and is this thread appropriate for it?)

This was excellent, I very much appreciated the Pulse-Doppler explanation and the easy to understand sample engagement. I understand cranking so much better now!

Also having these problems.

Glad it went well. Belated comment here, but my upgrade went swimmingly and the Win10 beta drivers for my X-52Pro worked better than the Win7 ones (as in, it didn't BSOD on system shutdown!)

I'll be keeping an eye on this for sure!

As a new user of the X-52, it worked fine prior to using the profiler. When I started using the profiler I got all sorts of issues, but upgrading to Win10 (as I've been meaning to do for a while) and using Mad Catz's beta drivers fixed the problem. I'm now a very happy customer. At first I felt pretty meh about the detents, but they've grown on me, perhaps like a fungus. But seriously, I don't mind them at all.

For the record, this seems to be a problem in all A-10C training missions where you take off from Batumi.

Just for the record, I ended up getting the X-52 Pro and it's exactly what I wanted. No problems so far, got the STT software and drivers working too, though I needed to finally upgrade to Windows 10 to do it (Win7 would cause all sorts of wonky issues including BSODs). I just have to make sure never to unplug the stick while the computer is running, but as far as workarounds to annoying issues go, it's not much of a concern. Next up I have to get TrackIR. I'm left-handed, and my whole life I've flown thus, until I got this stick. So looking around the cockpit was easy in a non-HOTAS setup because I could just use my (free) right hand to do so. I knew in theory when I learned to fly properly this would no longer work as well, but I didn't realize just how annoying it would be. The mouse thing on the throttle of the X-52 does not suffice. I'm also flying like a total dipstick since my right hand is unused to handling a flight stick. I see this as a good thing because it gives me a very good reason to just practice simple flying and systems handling in the A-10. Maybe if I feel good enough I'll attempt a mid-air refueling, which I never did even when I was flying left-handed. In any case I want to produce stable, coordinated turns and most basic maneuvres with excellent proficiency by the time I order the TrackIR. Thanks again for your advice everyone, it was considered seriously and proved very useful.