Pocket Sized

Here's hoping we actually get an update this week :(

I think he meant you might be on to something. I've noticed the same thing, if you just look at the rounds through the gunsight as they come out of the guns it looks like fireworks, they spread out a LOT.

+1

Question about the harrier! Is top speed usually limited by engine power/drag or Vne? The harrier has lots of power [citation needed] and is designed for subsonic flight which makes me think it might start acting up as you approach high subsonic speeds. At the same time, it has swept wings and a flying elevator so maybe it doesn't mind high Mach numbers?

If you dive from 40k at M2.0 you can do an ASL flyby at 1200+ kts IAS. Even just doing a zoom climb to 45k and then diving back down gives similar results. IMO a FBW pitch oscillation at such breakneck speeds would be an excellent deterrent to keep people from exceeding Vne :joystick:

ED cannot add the APKWS to the A-10 even if they wanted to. Unless they got a contract to model a later avionics suite (not gonna happen) they have to stick to weapons used by our avionics suite. The APKWS has been discussed a few times before and it's always the same answer, same goes for the AGM-65E (laser maverick). Sorry, but sometimes realism sucks.

As I said earlier gun ammo has a massive and very noticeable effect on takeoff + landing. Also the elevator has very little down deflection available meaning it will require a good amount of forward stick to stop nose rising in an aft CG landing flare.

Nose = detonates on contact Tail = slight delay (tens of milliseconds) to allow for penetration, good for taking out underground targets. Nose + tail = no idea.

See my post about gun ammo.

They didn't. IRL if you go from 0 to 8 G immediately you're out cold. End of story. The Sim has a stick pusher implemented, just look at the virtual stick during high AoA/G maneuvers. If you yank the stick back immediately the stick pusher doesn't have time to react and you Over G. If you apply G SLOWLY as you would have to in real life, the plane will keep its wings on just fine.

Try it again with full and then empty gun ammo. It has a huge effect on center of mass, especially noticeable during takeoff and landing.

Something I noticed last night, I was teaching somebody the ropes of the A-10A and for some reason you can ride the chopped tone all day long. I did some more experimenting and found the A-10A matches very closely with most of the videos/manuals. Especially the A-10A vs F-16. More testing is needed but the A-10A definitely has a more resonable reaction to stalling... mostly small roll oscillations with lots of "mush" as you'd expect from such an airframe. Also, is the A-10A -1 allowed to be posted here? They're essentially the same airframe but I haven't heard anything about the A-10A -1 being restricted. I've read it and it definitely talks about the great post stall behavior.

They definitely should. The P-51 only has it implemented in yaw and the 190 in roll. I've gotten the 51 up to 35,000 and dove, the TAS shot up so fast I didn't even realize anything was wrong until I heard my elevators tear off.

Yeah, but it's not worth the flameout risk IMO, not to mention the extra fuel consumption. I can easily get to M2.15ish without touching the nose cone.

Quite often I pull to the chopped tone in DCS, sometimes sustaining it for a few seconds. Not quite as long as some HUD videos show, but then again I'm using a cheap plastic joystick instead of a floor mounted metal stick. The -1 mentions light buffet near the stall, which is currently simulated to some extent. In the airshow videos they show the plane briefly being pulled well past stall AoA at the end of each "gun run". This matches the Sim very well, you can pull all the way to 20 degrees as long as you don't stick around. Edit: reread your post, we don't know if the pilots were pulling more into the chopped tone.

Weird. I always load DTS as soon as the ground crew is done arming me, which is usually WAY before the CDU is done. I also turn on the MFD's, CICU, and IFFCC before the APU is up to speed. When the generator comes online they all light up simultaneously. Never had this issue before.

IRL you would try to recover and probably punch out if you're not recovered by 3km or so. As for how to recover: Idle engines as soon as you see the nose uncontrollably pitching down. Turn on direct control Attempt to rock the plane back and forth using full stick deflection Apparently extending gear/flaps can help, not confirmed If your engines die while trying to recover, you're dead.

It would make sense that the 120s prevent flutter. If you look at the wing during ground ops the wingtip tends to twist (leading edge going up and down) which the mass of the 120 would dampen. I guess it would reduce fatigue in the wing structure caused by flexing.

"Slight differences"... the ZA has an internal gun, more pylons, and an almost completely different cockpit.

TL;DR start with the P-51. It may not always win the knife fight but it won't try to kill you as much as the other two. P-51 is good at high altitude and can put up a good fight at low altitude if the pilot knows what they're doing. All other things being equal, the Bf-109 always wins at low altitude. 190 will generally lose against the P-51 at all altitudes. Not sure about top speed, but in a dive the Bf-109's controls lock up, the P-51's and 190's don't. P-51 will lose control surfaces if you go too fast (5-600 MPH true airspeed) The 109 has an advantage in cooling, so it can stay at higher power settings without blowing the engine. (Good for low/slow dogfighting which is where the plane shines) The P-51 has the advantage in situational awareness because of the bubble canopy and 3 axis trim (you can focus on things other than flying) whereas the 190/109 require constant lateral input to fly straight depending on speed. P-51 has LOTS of gun ammo and can carry tons of rockets so it's a good ground pounder... until you get intercepted by Bf-109's. The 51's guns shoot marshmallows so you need to lay on the trigger to actually kill another plane. The 109 has a center mounted cannon that will destroy your plane in less than 5 hits. Once I hit a 51 3 times and took the back half of his fuselage off. P-51 also has a MASSIVE range/endurance advantage over the other two, but that also means you're heavier. Unless you plan on flying for an hour or more, take less than 50% fuel. Don't bother with the drop tanks unless you're flying like 500nm per sortie.

AFAIK Su-33 PFM is coming first because it would only need a bit of tweaking to adapt the Su-27 FM. I thought it was coming before the F-18 tho, would've been nice to practice carrier landings in the 33.

Practical engine limits: Never exceed 1250 km/h indicated or Mach 2.1 indicated. Don't go 0 G for more than 1 or 2 seconds, negative G no more than 10 seconds. To restart, press E and dive if possible. If you flame out at high altitude it won't restart until you get down to ~20k feet. Press E again once it's going. If it dies from over speeding you can usually restart it without losing altitude. If you flame out at low altitude and low speed... RIP.

Wait, so you pressed S and the nose went up then back down without you touching the stick?

The G continued to increase because yes, lots of inertia. But also because the stabilators deflected down which, for a fraction of a second, actually INCREASED the planes coefficient of lift. Sometimes you can see this if you watch the G meter carefully. Move the stick back and the needle will twitch downwards a bit, then swing upwards.

Did your nose go up or down? Center your trim before pressing S. Trust me, it's not scripted. Were you low on fuel? It gets really tail heavy and loves to "deep stall" when close to empty. Also, what sort of load out were you carrying? Wingtip stores move the CG even further aft. (Deep stall = nose goes up and won't go back down, term comes from the F-16)