paradoxbox

Thank you, that is good news.

Not trying to get on anyone's nerves here, but is any progress being made on this flight model? I like the helicopter itself but as others have mentioned it's got some glaring issues. It's been a pretty long time since release but I haven't seen much in the way of changes to the flight model. Willing to wait patiently but would like to see some occasional progress even if small and in bits and pieces over time. Any news?

Update: DCS was for some reason using an old serial number for Combined Arms. I sold that copy and bought a new one recently with a new serial. Updating the serial again seems to have cleared the problem for now.

I tried to update and run DCS for the first time in 3-4 months today but got an error message once DCS loaded: Invalid serial number with the serial number of some module I have installed. All my modules were purchased here on this site or on steam. What's going on?

Not meant to be an inflammatory post. I love helicopters and have both the Mi-8 and the Huey and I fly the hell out of them. I don't do much combat, mostly I stick to transport/medevac and cargo missions, as well as SAR missions. With the current promotion allowing 60% of the price to be paid with bonus points I would be able to buy this module for around $28. But I am debating whether to buy this module or something like the L-39 or one of the other light jets. I have the M2000 and A-10 already. Any pros/cons to win me over or hold me off?

Try flying on the BigBird Virtual server, it's hosted somewhere in Asia and is usually up 24/7. It has a number of invulnerable targets you can use to make sure you're doing your bomb runs right, as well as a very large number of trucks, AAA, SAMS of varying lethality based at a few airfields. Also has a slow and low flying tanker just for A-10 pilots as well as faster ones for F15's and Russians. All aircraft are available to fly but PVP is not allowed on the server, it's free flight with weapons allowed on AI only. TFP also hosts a pretty good mission with ground targets far away enough from the AI air targets that you won't be slaughtered.

The thing that prompted me to post this thread was a pair of failed attacks in an A10 and an M2000C - both were flown at about 30 feet off the ground at relatively high speed. I am guessing DCS SAM's are far able to lock onto targets flying far too low, I don't think they would have even been able to see me at that altitude in real life, but that's the hand we're dealt so I want to deal with it however I can. Grunf if I tried a strike on this particular airfield like you did in that video they would pulverize me a million times before I even got close. The defenses are very strong there. Maybe I need to start using more Maverick H's.

Anyone have any good sources, books or advice about performing SEAD missions in jets not meant for the role? Specifically I'm thinking of something like A-10's, Mirage 2000C, etc. as this is the current limitation in DCS which I fly the most. I have a book called Viper Pilot which is all about wild weaseling, fantastic book so far, but I would like to know more about how to deal with advanced sam sites without all of the fancy ECM gear wild weasel aircraft usually have. Have a lot of trouble with SA-8's and SA-11's. There is one online server that has some SA-11's at a base near a mountain range, I figure terrain masking can be used to creep up to that one then fire mavericks and duck back behind a mountain, but another base has Rolands and SA-8's and the surrounding terrain is totally flat, there is nowhere to hide. The distance to the nearest mountain is too far for a dive toss / buddy lase too. At the moment it can be killed with SU-25 anti radar missiles but I have enough aircraft and systems to learn and it feels weird shooting Russian equipment with Russian equipment. It also doesn't seem that realistic, that particular base is crawling with AAA and SAM's, in real life they'd turn the radars off the minute they saw an anti radar missile coming in..! Too easy with the anti-radiation missiles. Thanks in advance!

Slightly drifting from the original topic but how do you erase mark points if you have made so many that you're getting close to the end of the alphabet? If you want confirmation that you've set a markpoint, keep your TAD page up, the mark point you just made will instantly appear on the screen. You can also create mark points using the cursor on the TAD screen. Probably a really good idea to map those mfcd buttons to a key or button. If I remember right, it will not show up on the hud until you change the knob to Mark or Mission (depending on how you created the mark point) and the right CDU knob is set to "STEER". If I am given a target while airborne but don't have exact coordinates, I usually make a general quick markpoint with the TAD and slew the TGP to it until I find the targets. One thing to be careful of - don't change steerpoint/markpoints if your TGP is slewed to the markpoint or the TGP will immediately jump to the new markpoint location. Very bad news if you're tracking a moving target. (Any way for markpoints to automatically follow moving targets the TGP is tracking?)

Awesome posts guys :) I am glad to see that there are others like me who really enjoy not only the combat aspects but the other aspects, which actually make up 99% of flying anyway. Tonight I decided to see if it was possible to fly an ILS approach using mark points set into the CDU on the A-10C. Well, it worked! There is no glideslope, so you need to know your minimum safe altitude around the airport, but the ILS bars and the HSI both work to give you localizer-style information. Here's how you do it if you ever get into crap weather and need to land ASAP but the field has no ILS. In the A-10C you set your left CDU knob either to flt plan or mission to start with, and the right CDU knob to STEER. Down below the HSI you'll want to set it to the STEERPT mode. I tried it with ILS mode but that slaves it to a radio frequency, so I guess STEERPT mode is the only one that works. Let's say you either navigate to the field using a VOR/TACAN, ADF or the moving map. You are able to locate the field and overfly it, but visibility is too bad to see it more than a few hundred meters. Line up your aircraft with the runway you want to land on. You want to keep the hud aligned with the runway carefully, then use the hud cursor to set a mark point some ways down the runway, either at the TD zone or at the very end. Mark points are set by pressing LCtrl+Right arrow key by default. Then you want to switch to "Mark" mode on the left CDU knob. You can enter a name using the CDU keypad if you want, this can be datalinked to your team mates if you have other people with you so it might help if you name it APPR or something similar. Now select the steerpoint that you just created. Set your HSI to the correct runway heading (make sure it's the actual rwy heading and not just the abbreviated number, this could cause you to go off the localizer path - set the HSI heading while you're flying down the runway on the initial pass) Then fly the approach like you would normally fly an ILS approach. Keep it in mind when going around whether you set the markpoint to the TD zone or to the end of the runway so you can accurately judge your descent. If you're bad at math and forgot your slide rule, the HUD should display a time to target at the current airspeed. Use this to manage your descent rate in FPM once you are sure you're clear of any dangerous obstacles / mountains. I use 3000 feet AGL for flat areas, more for dangerous terrain / places where I know there are towers. (If there is a way to get glideslope info, I'd like to hear it from anyone!) I flew this approach on a server tonight with my head locked down looking at the instruments and I was able to fly a perfect approach that would have been good enough for 200m visibility or less. It was fantastic.

I like that idea grunf. Considering we're generally all flying planes with 1980's or at best 1990's tech in them, GPS was still not that common and if your MFD or INS went out you just lost your "insta-nav" and had to rely on old fashioned radio navigation to get around. The other thing is, while mission planners may try to avoid launching flights in bad weather, this would be a huge issue for ground forces on your side, because the enemy ground forces sure won't stop attacking just because of some bad weather. They'll hit harder than ever if there is no air support available. In the book Viper Pilot I'm reading now the author describes a mission during the 2003 invasion of Iraq where a sandstorm started to engulf the entire Arabian peninsula. All airbases were shut down one by one by the sandstorm. This is what I think happens to most pilots who get into trouble, isn't it? They start out in VFR then get into bad IFR conditions where there is either no published approach available for the desired divert field, or the pilot just doesn't know how to fly IFR. In the book, the author explained how he set a mark point on the ground above the threshhold of the runway, then set the ILS cues to the mark point to make an impromptu ILS approach which saved himself and a flight of 9 other F-16CJ's that had the same problem of not having any place to land. The visibility was down to 1/4 mile by the time they had all gotten down. The other thing is if you have mavericks or a TGP you can see through fog anyway and still attack targets. If you have an A-10 that means you can also buddy lase for an M2000 or other aircraft who can't see the targets but are carrying a bomb/missile mix. (Depending on how bad the visibility / fog layer is anyway)

I've started getting into DCS more and more over the past year but, after spending a little time on multiplayer servers it has sort of gnawed at me. Not a single server has IFR conditions and maybe one out of a list of 50 will ever have night missions. What's up with this guys? Especially A-10C pilots.. and other high fidelity module pilots. The Huey, Mi-8, Mirage and probably others are all capable of IFR flight and some of them are capable of all weather, night / day combat.. why isn't anyone doing it? Doing a canyon run with NVG's before attacking some ground targets in the A-10 is pretty exciting. There are also mods that enable NVG on the Mirage and MiG-21. Night flights are some of the most intense fights you can do, DCS has a pretty good representation of real night flying, everything is dark as hell except around cities. IFR really makes you brush up your game. If you can't navigate and fly in IFR conditions, how can you really be effective in the sky? Get out there and practice real world airmanship folks..! Not only weapons simulation. Learn to fly a precision approach in crap weather, or refuel at night with nothing but vague directions on where to find the tanker. Super fun stuff.

Steam's sale might still be on so you should check steam as well.

Does the manual in the docs directory get updated each time there is a major functionality change in patches?

I would also like some advice on bombing. With the MK-20 rockeyes armed, they never seem to detonate (Fuse setting problem? Advice wanted here..) But when I am in CCIP mode, the bombs do not seem to be very accurate even if I am in a stabilized dive during release. With CCRP mode the bombs just miss completely.