Kirk66

Not a 172; a T-41! Or better yet, an O-1 Birddog and an 0-2 Mixmaster. Cool skins, lots of cred, neat weapons. Or how about an L-4 for the Normandy map (sorry, thread creep...) The fact that I've flown all of these IRL has nothing to do with my comments...:^) Vulture

You can hear the pilot's teeth rattle as he is shivering! Hilarious! Now THAT is realism! Vulture

Have to jump in on this one. Anyone who thinks it's "historical" to have a filthy canopy on a fighter plane is disrespecting all the crew chiefs who really owned those planes! Not only would you not see such a disgusting canopy on a plane being prepared for a combat (not training) mission, unless you were under immediate attack no fighter pilot would take it that way! If my canopy was damaged, I would insist that it be replaced, or if necessary fix and clean it myself! These were not old planes - most were only a few months old, so while the paint may have been scratched up, the canopies would still have been in good condition - no stress cracks, yellowing, etc. As far as keeping a canopy clean - my 30 year old glider (LS6) has a huge single piece canopy, and with proper care, it is still optically flawless. Not hard to do. PS - yes, I have seen guys BFM a bug on their canopy - lots of laughs in that debrief! Now, what would be realistic is starting off with spotless windscreen and canopy, and as the mission proceeds (especially at low level) start adding bug splats on the windscreen - and perhaps a little oil from the prop governor. Low altitude over the ocean? Salt spray will fog your windscreen pretty fast if the water is choppy. After landing during refuel, that should be cleaned off. So - Historical? No. Go for the clean canopy, or kick your crew chief's a** until he cleans it! Kirk Big believer in Plexus tm canopy cleaner!

I haven't yet had a chance to try the DCS RB 75s, but way back in my USAF career I trained on AGM-65As and Bs on the F-4. Remember these were the TV versions - NOT IR - and had a real problem finding the target in the black & white video; especially the non magnified A versions. I remember a particularly irritating mission when I was trying to lock up a bright orange school bus (with a TGM-65A captive training missile) and while I could make out the bus in the video clearly - and out the window - the seeker just saw a grey bus against a grey asphalt road and refused to lock on. I'm sure the kids in the bus enjoyed our repeated passes on them! As far as lock on range, I remember the limitation being the size of the target. It had to be a certain minimum size (relative to the gap in the crosshairs) to get a lock. Of course you could lock a building outside firing range, but a tank-size target required you to get a lot closer before you could be sure you weren't locking up a "tactical bush"! (plus this was before HUD seeker boxes, so it was all up to the video) So the ranges you see on that WSEP report reflect the ranges the aircrew were sure they were locked on to the actual thing they wanted to hit, not the range at which they could lock the missile to anything. Of course, the AGM-65D with it's IR seeker changed everything and made the Maverick actually useful, before that it was really pretty useless against anyone with a can of paint... But a lot of fun. Hope this provides some context. I would say lock on as soon as you can, but don't shoot until you can see what you are shooting - then the ranges may make more sense. Cheers, Vulture

Seems to me if people REALLY want fair fights, the Allied side should have P-51Hs, Spit 14s, P-47Ms, Tempest Vs, and even F4U-4s and Bearcats - Those are the Allied contemporaries of the Dora and Kurfust. I hear a lot of whining - if you want a realistic fight, pit 2 Ks (one old pro and one total newby) against 12 experienced Mustangs and see what happens - that would be realistic. If you just want to see who is the best pilot - then go cutthroat: 1 v 1 v 1 v 1 with the same plane; everybody else is a bad guy, "fight's on" at the merge, and last pilot flying wins! (We actually used to do that in F-4s - you learned real quick NOT TO TURN!). Vulture

A bit OT, sorry, but how about a Bf-109F4 or G8, and an FW-190A-5? The K4 has got to be the ugliest of the 109s, and the Dora was really only used to defend the 262s... (half roll, unload, accellerate out of the fight ;^) C'mon, they are all fun to fly! Vulture

Wow, OK, I stand corrected. That is almost as odd as the "push to read the fuel in one of your tanks" setup! That does sort of explain why the radio box is located just above and in front of the throttle box; relatively easy to reach to flip the T/R switch - still, not ideal when trying to make a break call, I would think! Spit electrics must have been designed by Lucas... Then again, the WSO in the F-15E uses his feet to key his radio - left foot for radio 1 and right foot for radio 2, so whatever works... Cheers! Vulture

Chuck, great work! But I'm not sure if the label on Page 27 indicating that the button in the throttle lever is the bomb release button is correct. Radio push-to-talk are traditionally on the throttle. This Mk of spit doesn't yet have bomb racks - so why use the throttle button? I've been trying to find a good reference with no luck so far (in fact, found a questionable reference to the button supporting your "bomb release" label). But how else would the Spit pilots use their radios? Toggling the switch on the radio box? In a dogfight? Really? Also, on the same page, the "Indication Light Power Switch" should control the gear-up warning lights and horn - when the throttle is retarded with the gear up, the horn should sound (and light come on); the switch allows silencing the gear up horn (at your risk). Not surprisingly, this is still a feature on modern jets - the F-15 has a little button next to the gear handle that does the same thing! Anyway - great job; cant wait to try out the Mk IX! Vulture

I find it interesting that in all the media bashing of the F-35, no one has noticed that it is probably the safest fighter ever built - over 10 years of flying, almost 200 delivered to several countries, production lines in several countries, and not a single one has crashed or hurt anyone. Sure, a few engine fires - on the ground, I think 2 airframes lost? Compare that to ANY other jet - Harrier, F-15, F-16 (!), F-4, etc and it is astounding. Sure wish I could get my hands on one.... Vulture

Great video; working with that radar display at low alt in iffy wx would have been challenging! As a SAAB car owner in a previous life, I can only guess that the radar was done that way just to be different! Or perhaps the planning charts had dark colors for land and white for open water? Kirk

Beautiful work - I'm really looking forward to playing with this system and aircraft. A question (and in no way meant as criticism!): I every A/G radar I've used in my career, land was always bright (more reflectivity) while water was dark (less reflectivity - especially in calm conditions). Ships, structures, etc were brighter due to being more reflective that the ground/water around them. That was my experience in the mapping radar in everything from the T-29 (basically the B-36 bombing set - showing my age!) through various F-4s to F-16s and F-15Es; on both direct view scopes and digital displays (including SAR maps). So did the PS-37A intentionally invert that convention, with bright water and dark land/targets? A war story about using a basic radar to dig out information from varying RCS: In the F-4Es APQ-120 (digital display of raw radar data), you could watch an F-5 orbit (at around 20-30 miles with a good radar) in search (no lockon to avoid triggering his RWR) and tell when he turned inbound by the size of the return - when it got real small he was committed on you! You could also use the radar's sidelobe to see how far apart your leader/wingman was when line abreast (completely out of the radar search volume) - he would show up in the clutter and could be locked on to, range read out on a cockpit display. We used it to calibrate our eyes to maintain the desired 6 - 9k ft separation while in combat spread. All that fun is gone from the newer magic radars. The APG-82 AESA radar in the F-15E is simply amazing; I can only guess what the F-22 and F-35 can see! All you have to do is turn it on (and not even that in the F-35, apparently); the radar does everything else - no more RSI (Radar Scope Interpretation) needed! Cheers, and bravo on a magnificent model! Kirk

gos, Ok, that kinda makes sense - and I'm recalling the colors from (old) memory. What you guys are doing is amazing - I'm totally impressed, and I've been working on state of the art fighter simulators for 20 years... Hi low vs slow fast makes sense when you understand the basic concept of AOA. Funny that some current jets just show the AOA units, and you have to relate the number to what you want for the condition of flight (F-15E comes to mind, 22 units for approach - in the HUD, various for different turns, no indexer lights at all). The F-16 (and other) AOA "staple" is a popular solution... Cheers! Vulture

Beautiful work. Very similar tech to the F-4Es I used to ride around in - and we often worked with A-4s (usually Marines) at Red Flag. And we often flew DACT against the Mongoose A-4s - stripped down with the big P-408 engine - and those were REALLY tough to beat! Any chance...? But I don't understand the description of the AOA iindexer lights: "Angle-of-Attack Ladder Per the design of the AoA system in the A-4, it will highlight when you’re on a stabilized on a 4-degree glide slope by showing the amber circle. If you’re descending too steeply (more than 0.5 degrees above glide slope), the green carrot will light up to indicate that you should accelerate. If you’re too shallow (more than 0.5 degrees below glide slope) then the red carrot will light up indicating you need to slow down." In every military jet I've flown in, the standard US AOA indexer lights show just that - your approach (usually) angle of attack: red up chevron for too slow, green donut for on-speed, and yellow down chevron for too fast. They NEVER had anything to do with the approach glide slope; the jet doesn't care what angle you are coming down at - it just cares about the AOA. So you can be low or high on an approach and be on speed (donut), or you could be right on the glideslope (ILS needles centered on the ball) and be fast or slow. What the AOA indexer allows you to do is not look at the airspeed indicator while judging the approach and correcting for high/low. The F-4 added an aural tone that made it even easier, BTW. So unless the A-4 had some weird Navy system (always a possibility) - perhaps there is some confusion? By the way, they appear to work correctly in the video - a really steep approach starting fast (red ^: slow down!) transitioning to a steep on speed/slightly slow final (green O/yellow down chevron). Looking forward to trying it out! Cheers, Vulture

I've been working on military fighter simulators for the past 20 years, since I retired from the AF as an F-4 WSO. No current military fighter sims use a moving platform - it simply does not work in the dynamic environment of a fighter. Instead, G-seats, G-suits, seat shakers (for aerodynamic buffet), and the best visuals the mil can afford (surprisingly not that good...) are what works the best. Personally, I like a g-suit and buffet cues - g-seats are a bit hokey, IMO. It helps to have a full cockpit, and to wear all the gear. Some AFs do that, the USAF usually does not. I would recommend spending the time and effort (and cash) on the best visuals first, then on controls, then on a buffet seat (sub woofer?). Motion is a dead end. Now if you were building a 737 sim, a 6 DOF motion base would work great! But you would need a big room... Vulture

Every USAF jet I was in, if the cockpit panel dzus fasteners were locked in, the slot was horizontal. If vertical, it was unlocked. Easy to see if a panel was just laying in place and not secured down. Not fun to unload and have a panel fly up in the cockpit! A swiss army knife was perfect for securing the odd loose dzus. Maybe we need that capability in DCS? Virtual dzus panels? Kirk

No, QFE is not used in the US. Perhaps in the days before radar altimeters (or GPS) some airlines used it, but in the 50 years I've been flying in the US (civil and military, and overseas) I've NEVER had to use QFE. Kirk PPL before I could drive a car, power and glider commercial, 20 years F-4 WSO in USAF.

um. the times the F-5E went against Mig-21s (and others) they did quite well. Look up the Ethiopian vs Somali conflict. F-5s totally slayed the Migs... I know which plane I would want to be in.. and I've been fortunate to fight both in friendly combat (in F-4Es). Kirk