Schwarzfeld

Honestly I just gave this mod a shot, maybe its my rig - but I see better FPS with the stock propeller textures... might just be my setup, will need to do some research. I do use a GTX 1070 8GB on an i7 with 32GB DDR4 RAM, so I'm... I dunno. I'll whip up a no-normals cockpit texture set and see what that does. FPS hit appears to only really happen when the sun is low on the horizon and DCS is computing a ton of shadow work. It ALSO seems that 1.5 is STILL behind the performance curve on handling shadows and graphics smoothness overall vs. 2.0, maybe thats just me...

You are absolutely right, and it is indeed like IRL. That being said, the Spit lays on a new level of challenge here with the shopping cart tailwheel. If you are having trouble landing a spit on a calm day, practice the following: 1. Relax 2. Take a shot of tequila 3. Maybe take two 4. Relax some more 5. Practice taxiing at high speed up and down the runway till you can do it straight by gently dancing with your feet 6. For a landing - Float, float float your boat, gently down to about 10 feet, aileron to place the acft left - to - right on the rwy, feet to keep the nose aligned with the rwy heading - the straighter you keep the plane on final approach, the easier it will be to keep it straight on rollout 7. Stop your descent 8. Let the plane settle and pull back gently as needed to assume 3-point attitude 9. Let it touch and dance it straight with your feet 10. F'kin relax 11. Throw aileron INTO the wind (adverse yaw) 12. Gently apply wheel braking as speed decreases (you'll feel when its time to use brakes, its when you lose rudder authority on rollout) 13. You ain't done flyin the plane till its parked with wheel chocks and the prop stops 14. Go have another shot Here's my blustery day in a 190, I absolutely don't think I could ever do this in the spit though due to the tailwheel not being lockable:

Alright gents, since I rather pride myself on taildraggers in specific (sim and the real ones too!) and the art of flying them, and since this one in particular is a handful... ... whats the heaviest crosswind you've ever safely landed your Spit in? I read conflicting data here and there, one reputable source claims that the RAF imposed a 10 knot max crosswind limit on their spits during wartime (understandable) and of course these things frequently flew from round grass fields. I've gotten the 109, 190 and 51 up and down safely (e.g. the plane was undamaged and re-usable, it was not a "pretty landing" LoL) in a max of 37 knot crosswinds in DCS 1.5 and 2.0 - the Spit... I had serious issues coping with 20 knots this morning in the Spit. Lets see videos and tracks... I don't have any in the Spit yet that I'm willing to share in a heavy crosswind because... ouch! LoL

Totally depends on the ground crew; I have cleaned many a warbird canopy during my time volunteering at a prestigious flight museum in my area for years. That being said, the canopy in the DCS spit likely is modeled after an in-service Spit during WWII - which means the ground crew did not have a bottle of Plexo as we do today, and did not have much time to do their job - spits often flew multiple sorties a day. As such, the dirty canopy is something of an authentic, historic touch - I myself would be happy to touch up the textures and clear them, I'm a texture artist. Not sure how popular the mod would be, but its really just a matter of flattening the specular channel for the cockpit glass, really, and re-saving as a DDS texture.

I'll likely never have as many flight hrs as you do, but slowing on the prop is a pilot's-call-thing and/or owner of the plane's-call thing as far as I'd hazard to guess. I've got more time building sports cars than working on planes, and while engine braking a car is a bit different than prop pitch braking in a plane, if I owned that plane, I'd not want that done on principle unless it were a life or death emergency. I also wouldn't let someone engine brake my built-motor sports car, because thats what brakes are for. If its your machine, you do what you want, and everyone flies/drives differently, sims are great for that too. As far as people whining about how the DCS Merlin (Spit edition) engine is somehow too fragile vs. the P-51D's model of Merlin as seen in DCS, I think we can all agree (I hope) that its failure to operate the engine within its specified limits at speed/altitude per flight manuals... ... arguing over what, how and why to use prop pitch is like arguing over how specifically to land plane X at airfield Y in crosswind Z - everyone is gonna do it their own way - its like sex, it works best for everyone in their own way.

.... the whole purpose behind the obscene amount of supercharger boost available in these WWII piston props had less do with the ability to turn & burn (few could, the Spit was one that technically 'could') than it did with the boost being there to allow them to fly at altitude and therefore accompany bomber formations, and also gain altitude with which to dive on an opponent. You'll notice any of these aircraft can safely be taken off of even a short field without the use of anything near full throttle. If you've any experience building sports car motors, you understand the concept of minimum RPM for boost or nitrous/water-meth injection; the motor needs to be moving a sufficient volume X of air already at ambient pressure, and getting it combusted and outta the way before you start feeding it additional atmospheres, or in the case of nitrous, simulated additional atmospheres, but effectively the same thing. Prop pitch is indeed maxed out for landing per these planes' flight manuals for that reason mentioned above, go-around, its to set you up for faster throttle response. It is absolutely not common practice to decelerate the aircraft on it's prop (to my knowledge, in my world, anyway), thats like engine-braking in a sports car - its really not a good habit unless the engine is expendable. I personally use that mod I linked above and those ranges marked on the gauges appear to correlate to the Spit's specified engine RPM and boost limitations in general, and I've never experienced any engine failures at all in DCS. You guys both sound like you could use some practice controlling the airspeed of the plane using the stick, not the throttle. Pull up to decrease speed, push down the nose to increase speed, and use the throttle to control your climb or descent angle. This applies less and less the higher the power to weight ratio of the acft in particular is, but the fundamental holds true regardless. Some1 is correct, reducing engine RPM by varying the prop pitch is not a top speed aid; that just throws a ton more stress on the motor and it gets hotter. You should be able to hit max speed at full prop pitch (as you set at take off and landing) by running the throttle up to max continuous RPM - though you will reach it more rapidly if you throw boost up to max climb or max T/O. Either way, this argument is really kind of pointless and glosses over some really core fundamentals of flying, in my opinion.

... its a really good idea for all of you discussing this topic (if you have not already, and are not a licensed pilot already) to go spend the money to log at least one flight hour with an instructor in a fixed pitch prop aircraft, then do the same for a continuous pitch/manually adjustable pitch prop aircraft (preferably one with forced induction if you can afford it) to experience it for yourself first-hand. Flying a fixed pitch prop (what we all learn in starting out) we find that our particular prop just has a sweet spot where it works 'just right' or everything just jives. Outside of that RPM range, its jittery, unhappy, lossy in power, or tends to get out of hand quickly, and we feel like we don't have good 'grip' with the throttle during a descent, say. So, do yourselves a favor and go try it in a real aircraft, it will vastly improve your flying in DCS across the board, my two cents.

Check out this mod on ED files, its got color-coding (like the P-51 has) indicating Max Continuous in green, max climb in purple/blue, and max T/O in yellow: https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/2291919/

Beat me to it. Well, I suppose I can do the delete-normals channel mod for the cockpit, let me know how the prop mod helps out. If that does the trick, there's no sense removing graphical fidelity from the cockpit textures. I have a 1070 onboard with oodles of RAM and an i7 so I don't see many FPS drops, so I had no idea this was an issue till I read this and tested it lol

If someone else hasn't already mentioned it, the propeller texture is one culprit, the other is that - if you dig into the cockpit textures folder - you'll notice this is one of the only (aside from the MiG-21 I think? I could be wrong) cockpits I've seen in DCS which has both a Specular and Normal Map texture channel (on top of the normal diffuse and alpha) built into the entire forward instrument panel and the vast majority of the rest of the cockpit. For alot of PCs, even high end, all that additional normal mapping especially, when coupled with other acft rendering, AI, the propeller texture rendering, the terrain, exterior lighting etc - is the straw that breaks the camels back. I understand WHY ED chose to do normal mapping on the Spit cockpit, it looks great, but honestly with the normal map removed (flattened), the Spit cockpit gets much higher FPS right outta the gate and honestly doesnt looks THAT noticably different. I could make a quick mod (or someone else could?) which replaces all cockpit normal maps with a flat texture (e.g. the entire Normal texture map is the same purple tone, meaning no relief mapping)

Have you performed a clean install/update & integrity check on your DCS installation? I cannot reproduce this issue on my install, mods or no mods.

In a turn, keep the ball in the middle with your feet, keep the stick as neutral as possible to achieve the turn you want, and remember that you are not flying an F-16. The best way to gain altitude is to pull back on the stick; the best way to lose altitude is to CONTINUE pulling back.

Looks like he tried to modify something and it barfed, if I had to guess he deleted/moved/renamed some Normal or Spec files, and or the diffuse texture file for the instrument (usually named "pribors"). Disable all mods, run updated one more time for 100% integrity check and execute the simulator, should work just fine...

Concur, repeatable same error here on my 1.5.5 Spitfire.

Myself not having logged any flight time in a real aircraft this powerful with a tailwheel, I honestly can't say, but having learned in a low-wing loading acft (the Spit is definitely one of these, relatively at least) I can honestly say when you flip that thing upside down your whole world changes so either don't spend much time there inverted, or be prepared to re-learn your controls.

Hiromachi - I've attached for download my own personal SweetFX settings in a JSGME-ready folder, just drop this folder into your JSGME mods folder, enable it in JSGME, and it should work just fine in both 2.0 and 1.5. DCS SweetFX 2.0 ReShade 1.1.0.zip

Mod works fantastically, thank you for the hard work - I'm having a "doubling" issue where I click and drag the twitch chat window and move it across my screen, however every time I click and drag it creates a new chat window. Perhaps an error on my end?

Apologies if someone already posted this, but with all my sound mods uninstalled and on a clean 1.5.5 build, the Spit cruises at altitude with jet engine sounds heard from within the cockpit. I'm in the process of trying to pin down the sound file or LUA at fault and modify it, just wanted to throw it out there...

That sounds about right for a low wing loading, high powered kite flying inverted....

So, I recently added an X-56 (I also have an X-55 which is on the workbench getting #2 throttle re-wired right now, alongside a pair of Saitek Combat pedals also getting re-wired) to my Obutto R3volution Cockpit over the Holiday, as I'm kind of a junkie for trying all the peripherals money can buy. While I learned real life taildraggers in a Piper Cub, the DCS spitfire is HOLY LORD difficult when it comes to the lack of tailwheel lock. Given the pneumatic brakes on the Spit, I did what I always do for the MiGs/L-39, and at first I assigned one toe brake axis as the stick brake lever so I can modulate the brake as an axis during taxi/rollout braking etc. The X-56 - talk as much smack as you want about it - has these two little thumb sticks, one on the stick and one on the throttle, which are actually X and Y axes that can be discreetly mapped and despite gripes about Saitek's recent quality assurance fails, are quite good. As such, I figured out a way to map my X56's Joystick thumb stick as a pneumatic brake "lever", and it works BEAUTIFULLY, as it is the closest you're going to get to the actual stick lever in a Spit. This same method should work for all the MiGs, and the L-39 etc - here's my mapping - I HUGELY recommend you try this if you use an X-56, as this allows you to issue very fine and modulated brake inputs with your right thumb as you steer with your feet. Now when I taxi and rollout on landing I look alot less drunk!

Stupid question perhaps but is there a way to enable this feature for those of us streaming single player flights in DCS? Or would it make more sense to simply fly my solo stuff by hosting my .miz on a private server with no one else aboard to enable Twitch2DCS connectivity?

Yep, thats by design. Here's a shot of my beloved A-6E, note the black anti-glare paint just fore of the cockpit. The anti-glare paint ahead of the cockpit is hugely common across almost any aircraft, unless the nose is specifically designed such that it is not visible by the pilot in flight. If that nose were painted in regular paint you would be full on snowblind half the time you were doing important stuff like shooting at folks, taking off, landing, etc etc :)

This isnt unique to the Spit, this happens to literally every acft module I own in DCS. Real shame because recording tracks is kind of... I dunno, important? LoL I haven't been able to watch a track and take screens/do videos with it for almost a year because of this bug.

Bump? I've checked out in real life in taildraggers flying real airplanes and there's no way this tailwheel shopping cart physics thing is correct here... Bueller? LoL

... took me three go rounds to get a good t/o and ldg. Something aint right, the tailwheel on this simulation of the Spit can't be right. It never straightens out. Other than that, beautiful simulation to fly.