=475FG= Dawger

All NWS, regardless of the specific model, is meant for low speed only. The proper technique is to line up straight on the runway and accelerate as quickly as possible to speeds that allow the rudder to become effective at controlling the direction. Brakes are to be completely avoided on takeoff. On landing, rudder is used to control direction until it is no longer effective and you should decelerate as quickly as possible through the brief period of rudder ineffectiveness and safe taxi speeds. I never flew a jet that allowed any NWS use above 80 knots and the more modern stuff automatically reduces sensitivity and eventually shuts it off based on airspeed. The DCS F5 is old and not quite that fancy but it is a pretty easy jet to control on the runway.

Trim is not used to fly the airplane. It is used to neutralize control force required, mainly to prevent pilot fatigue. Trim is essentially unnecessary in DCS/PC flying. Fly with neutral trim in all axes for a while. After that, use it only to center the stick/rudder pedals in steady state flight.

More of a sound issue than anything. If you have to hold the starter to keep it turning, the starter is doing the turning and should catch on fire if you do it too long.

Fixed it for you.

Walk before you run. Learning the basics against a non-maneuvering bandit is the first step. Yes, the opponent will definitely respond to what you are doing. That is why it is a constant loop. Boyd used Observe, Orient, Decide, Act (OODA). My personal version of that for BFM is Predict, Maneuver, Evaluate and all three are occurring simultaneously at the speed the fight is changing. As to my videos, they are generally aimed at a specific subject pertinent to my group at the time I made them and not anywhere a full set of BFM. I just happened to have one on pre-merge lead turns. (because it is extremely useful) TBH, if you learn how to do pre-merge lead turns, you are going to win the merge against 90% of your human DCS opponents and get a shot opportunity about 75% of the time. DCS AI is actually better pre-merge than your average DCS player. This one weird trick will go a long way but once you master it, I can certainly help with what is next. Cheers!

Cold, close aboard merges make me pull my hair out. That is not something you would EVER use in a fight or in learning. It has only one purpose and nothing to do with what you are doing now. You should be maneuvering well prior to the merge or you will never achieve the desired result. You should be constantly predicting where your opponent will be in the future and maneuvering to put your aircraft there a split second after your opponent arrives there. That is the essence of the thing. Predict, maneuver, evaluate, repeat. Boyd’s OODA loop. You can set a aircraft to fly in a straight line and not maneuver in the mission editor. It doesn’t need to be a tanker. Another F-5 is the best choice at this point. Here is a video on the subject I made a few years ago. it may help.

Again, you have to start at the beginning. A lead turn and pulling lead are two completely different things. Lead turns are actually flown almost exclusively in lag. Fighter pilots have a disparaging term for lead turns flown in lead because the result is you put the bandit in your rear hemisphere. You really have to start at the beginning. Its easiest with a competent BFM instructor but you can accomplish much of the fundamental skills and knowledge with well organized study and some simple mission editor creations. It is a fair amount of work and you really have to want to learn the fundamentals, but if you skip a foundation in the basics its hard to truly understand what and why you are doing something. BFM is extremely simple, in theory. There are only two maneuvers and all you are trying to do is attain a trail formation (separation determined by the weapon) for enough time to employ the weapon. That is all there is to it. So you start from the beginning. In this case, the beginning is joining in formation on a target that wants you in formation. If you can't join in formation with a friend who wants you in formation, you will be hopeless trying to do the same to a hostile aircraft. While this is obviously true, the vast majority of DCS players don't have the first clue how to do formation joins and intercepts. They immediately assume military air forces of the world spend countless millions of hours and huge sums of treasure learning and practicing these skills for airshows. Two simple drills. 1. Joining in formation on a turning, friendly target. A nice gentle constant turn (less than 4 G). You need to be able to quickly slide into formation using geometry, not throttle. If you find yourself in a tail chase using afterburner, you don't understand how to apply pursuit curves to solve your angle and closure problems. 2. Practice joining into formation on a target coming straight at you. If you can't slide into a close trail formation (less than 300 feet separation) on a target flying straight and level without ending up in a tail chase in after burner, your issues will revolve around creating turning room and flying proper lead turns, which are a slightly more advanced pursuit curves laboratory. Once the two above drills are extremely easy to do, you are probably ready to start diving into Turn Circle Offensive BFM.

Proper BFM works against the AI. You may or may not actually get a shot but BFM works. Its pretty simple minded. It reacts to what you are doing. If AI seems to be stuck doing the same thing, its because that is what you are doing. BFM is a deep subject and you are jumping right in the middle fighting dissimilar opponents without a good foundation in similar 1 v 1 BFM If you are struggling against an easy similar bandit, you need to start at the beginning of BFM. That would be some very basic formation joins and intercepts combined with study of basic concepts. ( Pursuit Curves, Lead Turns, and follow on BFM) Good luck. However, don’t get discouraged. 99% of DCS players are generally clueless WRT BFM and mastering the basics properly will make you a killer.

My 6000 hours in jets begs to differ. When you go to idle is entirely dependent on the engine, but you always get to idle prior to touchdown. The speed brake is an error correction tool on final, not a "procedure". Quite a bit of flying is not written in some procedure to be slavishly followed. You do have to do some pilot stuff that isn't spelled out for you on paper.

When they is too fast and at idle already or need some throttle to keep the engine spooled, they put the speed brake out. Its that simple.

The most common hurdle for new pilots to overcome is over controlling. Doing too much creates problems. The easiest way to overcome this in DCS is to start by doing nothing. Since airframes and lives are free, takeoff by slowly advancing the throttle but don’t touch any other controls. Observe what the aircraft does. Add in one control axis, the rudder. Practice using just enough rudder to keep it straight. Next add aileron to rudder and practice keeping the wings level while going straight. Lastly, use all three axis and you will be successfully airborne. You will quickly learn less is more

Turning off Auto is useful in certain situations, mostly fighting human opponents. I was flying with auto off a bit in Alpenwolf's server because the flaps coming out in a high G break would spike the G and snap the wings right off under certain conditions. Against AI or the average opponents to be found in the popular servers now, just leave auto on and call it good.

You are misreading this. The DCS trick is the practice of turning off the automatic flap scheduling in DCS in order to prevent energy bleed.

DCS trick

It is more a love for PvP air combat and the available titles are pretty sparse. At some point, I will stop visiting here as so many others have done.

The problem is that it sometimes does. However, I don’t think it matters for me any longer. The good DCS PvP servers are all gone. There is no evidence ED plans to address previous poor decisions that ruin modules with no customer recourse. I have no intention of even bothering to update my DCS install.

Thanks for summarizing my point. However, I don't think its going to have any effect, as subsequent posts eloquently demonstrate.

The current garbage can Cold War servers attracting all the attention are burning through players like there is no tomorrow and will eventually fail. Hopefully, soon. Maybe then we can relight the afterburners in the real thing.

The assertion was "A windshield alone, absolutely produces more drag than a bubble canopy." not bluff body versus streamlined.

How do you know this? Where is your testing of this theory that proves this assertion? Which is the entire point. There is no data. No one actually knows. They are just making the assumption because it "looks" true.

Again, a visual of wind tunnel testing of a car does not produce data. It produces a “feeling”, a guess, a presumption. Bubble canopies are well known to produce more drag than their more streamlined counterparts. They are an aerodynamic concession to improve pilot visibility and freedom of movement. This increased drag isn’t all from parasitic drag. The exaggerated curved shape of a bubble canopy itself produces induced drag. So using a streamlined canopy as a control, both the bubble canopy and no canopy produce more drag. How much more for each? We have some data for the bubble canopy in the form of loss of top speed, although this data isn’t perfect in the case of the P-51. We have no data for canopy removed flight. How do you propose to quantify an unknown and unknowable quantity of drag change between two untested cases?

That’s a lot of talking to get nowhere. There is no data on the drag differences between no canopy and canopy closed. Assuming there is a huge drag penalty based on looks is not valid. In the absence of data, the flight model should be left alone.

Yes, I am suggesting that it is possible. Bubble canopies are proven to increase total drag when compared to other canopy installations. Removing a bubble canopy removes X amount of drag and this value may be greater than the amount Y of drag added by not having any canopy. Grafspee has it correct. We cannot know if the total drag is higher, lower or equal without actual flight or wind tunnel ( real or sophisticated computer modeling) testing.

These are both assumptions that the change in drag post canopy opening results in an increase in drag. This may or may not be true and the magnitude of any change is not knowable without actual flight testing or some very sophisticated computer modeling. Is drag different after opening or ejecting the canopy? Yes. Is it more or less drag? Unknown as is the degree of change.

Where is your data on that? It is likely a lot less impact on speed than you think. Bubble canopies produce drag themselves, especially at speed. The result of removing it might be very close to zero. And there is no data. We do know the birdcage canopy is faster than the bubble, contrary to what might appear logical visually, so the assumption that this can be inferred accurately is false.