emko

I bought it 2 weeks ago. Haven't had any problem. I fully understand that you are p1$$3d off. Or at least I would be if I bought a piece of software for entertainment which I couldn't enjoy for a year. But from my experience (I'm a software developer) I can tell you that even 1st level customer support people (who are trained to deal with angry people; at least in bigger companies) would react better if you are polite. If you have a serious problem and you are directed to a SW developer/tester, the more simple and terse you should be. Some of the customer support people even have profanity filters which directs angry mail into spam. Please, contact the ED or Leatherneck support, give them at least one another chance and be nice.

Neither I have the Nevada map yet. But if you look at the real world map https://skyvector.com/?ll=37.798933458736066,-116.78082275001327&chart=301&zoom=5 there's not really any enroute NDB. There are couple of VORTACS though and you can tune them (VORTAC = VOR+DME (can't be used in F-5) combined with TACAN (can be used)). NDBs in the real world are being phased out quite quickly and even the more capable radio beacons can become an awful scarce in some areas. Since the F-5 doesn't have any advanced navigation system (GPS, INS...) the ADF has its use. E.g. if you want to locate a unit, they can transmit a simple message/beep over the radio and the ADF shows you a direction to them. The UHF antennas can be quite small so it's possible to manufacture a handheld UHF radio. You can't really have anything like portable NDB (well, in fact, you can; but look how large it is: http://www.southernavionics.com/portable-ndb).

May be this was my problem. I'll give it a try.

You can! Just not to the station you want. ADF stands for "automagic direction finder". In simple English a device which shows you a direction where a radio station is. The "radio station" here in my oversimplified definition is the interesting part. They can broadcast on many frequencies and bands. Navigation NDBs (non-directional or omni-directional beacons) which are commonly used as ground-based navigation aids are long-wave radio stations - the Kobuleti near NDB is one of them. It's transmitting on frequency 335KHz. The only trouble with F-5 is that you can't tune it's radio/ADF to such a low frequency (the 335 on the F-5 radio is not 335KHz but 335MHz! 1000x higher frequency). It's the same problem you have with a smartphone - there's usually only a VHF radio there (some 80-110 MHz) and you can't tune e.g. 1071KHz station which is in the MW band. (Hey, that's my favourite station! But I can catch it only by using my car radio. If I commute to work by a train (usual case, I'm too lazy to drive) and the only thing I have is a smartphone, I'm out of luck and I have to read a newspaper. Sad but true...) So if you want to use an ADF for your mission, you can manually add a radio station in mission editor. You unfortunately can't use the Kobuleti near NDB because it broadcasts in a different band than you can tune in. Another question is what you want to use the Kobuleti near NDB for. It's a low-powered beacon with very short range. It's in the same place where a middle marker would be in USA. In the Eastern block it's not uncommon to use NDBs in place of outer marker (distant NDB / far NDB / what it's called in proper English?) and middle marker (near NDB). It's good mainly for ILS approaches and there is no ILS in F-5. ;)

I also don't have the NTTR. But the miz file is just a zip file with "wrong" extension and you have a bunch of text files there. Every text editor which understands a LUA code can open and syntax-color them. Then it's easy to see which actions / triggers / units were set.

Did you flip the 'Navigation mode' switch? See Chuck's guide, part 12 - ADF Navigation Turoial, switch 5. The ADF in F5 works, I'm actually preparing a mission where you have to find a unit using the ADF so I have tried :) . Edit: Beware that the frequency of the UHF radio signal is measured in megahertz. 399MHz is freaking high frequency. Normally the NDBs (omni-directional beacons used for navigation) are some 200 to 1700 KHz (or up to 500 in USA). You can't tune them in F5. What you can do is open the mission editor, put there a trigger zone and trigger a 'Radio transmission' action. If you set a correct frequency, you can then tune it from F5.

That would be nice, thanks!

I've tried and gave up. I just create the laser beams manually through a LUA script. Every time I tried the AI JTAC refused to lase the target even if a group of vehicles was explicitly assigned to him and he was told to lase them. I hope somebody will be more successful...

Still faster than placing everything manually so yes, it's quick in the terms of "not that slow" :)

Hello, first, sorry for necro-post. Shame on me! Is there a way a mission creator could add the preset via a lua script? If I want to create a mission I certainly don't want to ask user "hey, could you please edit the XXX.lua file?", although the edit itself is darn simple. Thanks!

40yo? Rookie? Nothing to be embarrassed. Really. 2 years ago, I had a chance to put my hands on controls of the real world C172. (The guy who let me to do so was a CFII so technically it was 100% legal ... at least in our country ... and we stayed in a class D airspace so we had another pair of eyes watching for the traffic.) The feeling was very different. I've played flight sims for 20 years and I was lost. In the sim you have situation awareness solely from your eyes or eyes+force feedback stick. IRL you feel the plane by your ass. That's probably the reason why the real world pilots say "pants in the seat". The guy even told me that he couldn't properly land an aircraft in FSX because he wasn't used to the very different feel for the aircraft... The Chuck's guides are invaluable. And overcontrolling a helicopter in simulator is so easy... Just watch some youtube videos from DCS Huey pilots. Almost all of them overcontrol her.

Did you check that your radio is switched to "PRESET" mode in the cockpit? The default mode is "MANUAL" which ignores the preset button and uses whatever frequency you have tuned via the manual tune buttons.

Yes, it's a bit sad that there is very little single player content for F-5, but the module is unfinished anyway - I assume more is coming with the final version. And I've heard that somebody is developing a campaign as a paid add-on (will not be included in F-5 package). I currently know about only one another mission - https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/2033062/ which puts you into a role of self-escorting strike fighter. It puts more emphasis on action, the mine is more about planning, precision and technique. In this particular aircraft you can use the flashlight key shortcut. Simulates a pilot having a torch and pointing it where your mouse cursor points (in the "crosshair mode" - the mode where you can switch buttons). Night starts will be easy :) . You can contact the ground controller via the communications menu under the F10 option. You don't have to be on a particular frequency. Finding a target without him is not impossible - it should be visible on the F10 map (beware that other threats are not there; only the target - you'd have an intel data about it anyway...). However the ground controller can give you vector not only to the target but to various other points mentioned in the briefing. He can also arrange dropping a light bomb over the target for you so you can see it like it's a bright daylight. If you can't access the comm menu, check whether you have radios turned on (the F-5 has only one comm radio) or try pressing the "nose wheel steering" button during flight, it should bring the comm menu. This is even a real world idiosyncrasy that the button has also a communication function during the flight. And BTW sequel to this mission should be coming next week ;)

EU version of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0YRM-tVSKk :D

It should hold your stick and pedals in position assuming you have force feedback joystick. If you don't, it sets "a new center". Like in the forward flight - move your stick in the position which is needed for flight. Hit the trimmer button and release your stick (so it moves to the center). Your stick is centered (you don't have to apply any pressure) yet the cyclic is in forward position. Unlike other simulators (like FSX, X-Plane) you don't have to hold the trimmer button. Just click it and center the stick - you have less than a second to do it.

Yes, they are. But ADF is important too. Can you imagine the moment of joy when you calculate your distance to a beacon correctly and your flight path to it doesn't look like a question mark? :D

Sad... Is it just because it's not modeled or the real world Mirage (the one specific you based your model on) doesn't have it?

+1 :-D F-5 does not need the dump nozzles, it has afterburners.

It's useful mainly for GAR-8s because their launch envelope is not that great. So you can aim at the target, when you hear the "tracking" sound you can uncage the seeker head and aim your aircraft in a way that the missile will fly into its envelope even if it wouldn't if you launched straight to the target.

I'm glad you've enjoyed it :-) . Yeah, IFR in this aircraft is not easy and frankly, flying IFR in this aircraft in civilian airspace would be illegal. The Cessnas based at local municipal airport are better equipped than this... I'm already working on another mission but beginnings are hard and for me, making even a simple mission at a quality level I can make public is matter of days. I'm constrained by time and hell, I underestimated the Lua scripting. Like the script where the ground controller gives you vectors to various points ... although the function itself is couple of simple DCS API calls and basic trigonometry (in plain C/Java/C#... it would matter of 1 hour including coffee and cigarette breaks), in this case it took me whole evening until I dug everything from documentation and tested it... I'm planning to do whole campaign but I'd like to learn on single missions. Therefore I'm asking for feedback and criticism - the more the better ;-)

I have similar experience. For me, it depends on the size of the target and its flight pattern. Large aircraft TU-95 can be detected even from 40nm when they don't maneuver much and you approach them from behind so they don't "move" in the radar screen much. OTOH if I had a Mig-15 which maneuvered, it was a little bit uneasy to lock them on 5-8nm and then keep the lock. Maybe that the radar behaves so IRL as well?

Hi, yesterday I created a mission where a flight of 2 F-5s has to attack an insurgent camp in a tight valley as a midnight surprise. Since this is a very first mission I made public, could I ask for some thoughts, feedback, ideas and criticism, please? This is a night attack during a "not the brightest night" and F-5 has neither INS/GPS or NVG, I put there "a ground controller with radar". He/She would vector you to initial points/target/base/alternate airport and will relay your request for a light bomb over target to ease the attack. Hope that scenario like this is at least a bit real :pilotfly:. Download link: https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/2077059/

NDB? GHz? They are usually 190 KHz - 1 750 KHz (or up to 535 KHz in USA).

You can't have atmospheric pressure cheatsheet created beforehand, this changes with weather change :) . ATC will tell them if you contact them (they tell the QFE) which is OK for landing. For take off, you can set the altimeter manually - just look up the airport elevation above sea level. The default setting (if you or the mission creator doesn't change it in the mission editor) is 29.92 in Hg (American aircraft) 1013 hPa (mostly European aircraft) 760 Torr (Russian aircraft) That's "international standard" and if somebody says "Flight Level" it means altitude with THIS setting. For low level flight or take off / landing you need to set it according to the local weather. Don't know if the weather in DCS can be different for each airfield or is for region. When you create a mission, leave it in the default setting. If you have mission from somebody other, just look to the editor or ask ATC. You can also check if the DCS doesn't set the altimeter for you during mission start - if the weather doesn't change, the atmospheric pressure and therefore the altimeter calibration should be the same. And QNH can be calculated from QFE, you just need to know the aerodrome elevation.

I have the same problem with TAS, RS works fine.