Buren

Cobra, is the F-14 manual going to be 'print-ready' for release or is it going to be a draft "beta" in the same way as it is currently for the Viggen? Many thanks.

I have a hunch feeling that the next aircraft is going to be either the F-111 or the Panavia Tornado. Both excellent aircraft, altough I have a slight preference for the former. Either way, I am really excited for the Tomcat -- 2018 is going to be great for DCS, can't wait for the release.

I remember from the book "Eleven Days of Christhmas", that B-52s used to fly in 3-ship formations for mutual ECM support in 1972 at least. I am not sure about present day practice.

A short news sequence from last year about the russian air operations in the Middle-East, featuring a focus on the Mi-24P. Of particular interest are the loading of the cannon, the glimpse into the troop compartment and the fact, that the russians still use (or used at that particular time & place, at the end of 2015) the original, unmodified configuration of the Mi-24P in frontline service. (full-length wings, retractable undercarriage). EDIT: Whoops, I meant to post this in the Mi-24 thread. Mea culpa, please move post accordingly, thanks.

Just squint harder. ;)

Honestly, Wings over Flanders Fields is the markedly superior WW1 sim product (vis-a-vis RoF). Unfortunately, it does not have multiplayer (currently), but I am more of a solitary type of simmer (as many others in this hobby). Also there are relatively frequent paid addons/updates, but it's currently available iteration (which came out a few weeks ago) with all of the previously released stuff has a reasonable price taking into consideration the huge amount of content included. The focus is on the extremely well developed and historically researched dynamic campaign... DCS, from my experience and impression of playing it as an end-user, presently has a focus on aircraft operating procedures and system management. Stuff, which are not important for WW1 aircraft. Basically, the latter are motorcycles with kites attached. There is simply not much onboard equipment to simulate. Also, there were literally several dozens/over a hundred types of different aircraft, with frequent equipment changes in units, not to mention period assets (buildings, ground/sea units,) which would require additional work. Note that Rise of Flight and WoFF reached their current amount of content after oh-so-many years. I am content that DCS focuses on WW2≤Contemporary aircraft. There are modern/current generation alternatives for WW1 air combat; i.e.: if you want to fly WW1, you don't have to dust off the Red Baron series from the early-mid '90s...

In my opinion Rise of Flight and especially Wings Over Flanders Fields already cover the era generously; frankly, there is no need for DCS to step into this period (at least for the time being) -- as mentioned above, I'd rather see the current projects expanded and enhanced. I'd suggest you to try out the aforementioned games if you want to fly in the era of the First World War.

Damn, I thought they were working on the Space Shuttle...!

Never use Wiki as a primary reference. It is good for starting researching about something, but not as a final say and not for reliable citations. Look what books they cite and see if you can get hold of those. I based my information on technical orders (there's none in english). Try finding Yefim Gordon's MiG-23/27 book from the Aerofax series. It is out of print and available for outrageous prices -- but the internet is a big place, with a lot to find. But take Yefim Gordon with a grain of salt. In the past, some information he provided turned out to be false or inaccurate. There's discussion about this in other threads (especially in his MiG-21 book and why it is not good to use it as only reference). Also, Yefim Gordon is probably not a real person, but a pen name for various russian writers writing/translated into english. The best sources are technical orders/offical manuals of course... but you have to be proficent in (technical) russian/etc. to understand them, as most of them are not translated into english (or at least not shared -- see MiG-21bis manual, which was I think the translation (by an american intelligence service) of a captured arab (?) manual and was available first on the old pre-LNS MiG-21bis website)

False. Only the pre-series/test series MiG-23S had seperate radar display. The radar information was displayed on the HUD from the next batch onwards.

At least with the upcoming Hormuz map, some of them (i.e. F-5E, F-14A, Mirage F1) can be genuine OPFOR for more realistic PvP scenarios (and yes, I know most of them are tinkered with and do not match original specifications in their current form... but that's not that big of a deal to me). I would also like to see more full/high-fidelity Soviet/Russian aircraft in the (preferably near) future, though.

There were definite plans for the MiG-23 and Su-22, all for variants used by the Hungarian Air Force (specifically the MiG-23MF and Su-22M3), before the Team reformed into Leatherneck Sims and the old lead member took leave (due to in-team dissension as far as I could tell -- but probably that's still too sensitive a case and would lead to bitter off-topic discussions). There are no current information regarding old plans, but probably everything in the internal roadmap was rethought.

What would be a comparable aircraft to the attack-variant Viggen in role/capabalities? (not in aerodynamics/avionics) I'm thinking about the Su-17 family from the soviet side and probably A-7 from US side? It would be good to know for the inescapable stand-in/squint harder scenarios.

You guys might want to look/ask around here: http://www.shipmodels.info/mws_forum/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=4708&sid=c9d6a1074f66b1302328dbea49ca50d0

Yeah, but it would be probably much faster to actually learn russian, than to wait for the *finalized* aircraft manual. (I'm looking at you, Mi-8 )