Steve Davies

Eagle drivers The missions are designed so that you don't need AB to make the timings. The key is to know your taxi, take off, push times and ToT, and to fly smoothly and at 350 knots during the non-tactical portions of the sortie. So, when you take off and head up the Sally Corridor, that first right hand turn to the north towards Sally Elbow has to be smooth and steady. If you took off late or want to cut the corner to make the timings more comfortable, then start your turn toward the elbow a little early - just make sure you use your eyes and your sensors to deconflict with other traffic. By contrast, if you wrench into a 4g or 5g turn directly over the golf course, your wingmen are going to lag and will then have to use AB. On the matter of airspeeds, as a flight lead that is up to you. The NTTR has no limits, so if you have to accelerate to 450 knots in dry power in order to close the gap and get the right spacing with another element (say, for mission 2), then do so. Just remember to stay out of AB and to give your wingman a little power advantage wherever possible. When you get to the marshall point, it's your responsibility to measure your DME from the push point, establish when you're going to push, and to make sure that your orbit is set up so that your western leg is established as the push time nears, and that your wingmen are stabilised in formation. If you don't get this right, they'll have to use AB. Personally, on the final western leg to the push point, I send them to line abreast, wide formation, and that sets up the Eagle Wall as we sweep ahead of the strikers. However, if you yank from the eastern leg into the western leg and then immediately push, your WAI are going to be all over the place and your 'wall' of Eagles is going to look more like an IFR trail recovery! The WAI is not that great, I know, so they are not the best formation keepers, and they won't use cutoff or lag that well. However, if you fly considerately during the administrative portions of the flight, you will be able to complete the missions. Matt and I are working to improve the campaign based on your feedback, and Matt has put an option to prevent your WAI from using AB into the next version of the campaign. I expect that will help. Stay fast and check six!

Thanks for the debrief, Zeke! KIAS is what the HUD shows in the DCS, IIRC. I always come down the Sally Corridor at 15k MSL, then commence a descending turn to the initial fix, aiming to reach it at about 4.5k MSL. It's a ten mile final from there, or you can fly up initial and pitchout to land.

Thanks. If the L suffix is wrong, I am more than happy to change it. Will check with one more source.

Great to hear, and thank you! Got it, thanks Buznee! Copy and thanks. Will be fixed in the next update. We now have dedicated thread in case you fellas find any more: http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=158838

Thanks for the feedback, all. I'll edit the missions and lineup cards accordingly, then Matt will publish them when the campaign is next updated. Blackeye, in military parlance, L refers to local time, Z refers to UTC.

We had the devs add a "select previous waypoint" function precisely because of this. :)

I don't have my setup to hand at the moment, but will certainly post it when I do early next week :thumbup:.

Humbled by the kind words. Thank you. Very interested in constructive feedback on this campaign. It'll help Matt and I fine tune the next ones, whatever aircraft or map they may cover ;)

Completely understandable that without the text, it would have been difficult to figure out what to do! :pilotfly:

Eagle pilots Just to back up Wags, a few things to be aware of: 1. In the F-15, there is no dedicated Bulls Eye steerpoint, so the community has a practise of always using the first tactical steerpoint as the BE - this is going to be the case on every mission, so don't forget it. This little BE idiosyncrasy is explained in full in the briefing documents that Wags has linked to. My advice is to read these very detailed PDFs in full before you step to your jets 2. This campaign was not really made for you to just jump in and fly. It is supposed to be as close to an actual Red Flag as is possible in a commercial flight simulator. That means that you have to read the briefings before you fly the sorties. If you do so, you'll know whether or not you should be editing your steerpoints or moving the BE around (the answer is no, of course) 3. The briefings tell you what your callsign is, and they tell you who the other players are and what their callsigns are. They give you everything you need that you would get in a real RF briefing, to include objectives and ToTs for all the players 4. Each mission has a lineup card. Use the card to review your steerpoints, callsigns, ToTs and RoE. When we were creating the campaigns, I actually printed these out so that I could refer to them without having to ALT-Tab out of the sim Enjoy!

Hey, Stang Great to see you still posting here, albeit as infrequently as me! And thanks for your continued support :thumbup:. Yes, the FighterOps days seem like a lifetime ago. Where does the time go? From next year, it is likely that I will have a regular column in CA. As for right now, I'm writing a two-part article for Combat Aircraft on F-35 IOT&E, so expect that in the Jan or Feb edition. Take care.

Thanks for the feedback, Bart! Just for clarification, I don't work for ED or have any involvement in the sales of their products! Great to hear it! Did you get the first or the second edition? :thumbup:

Yeah, the whole thing really resonates with the reality: http://www.fjphotography.com/GreenBats/

Thanks. It was already set to allow embedding, so no idea why it would not work. Replaced with a simple link.

I don't claim to be a video guy, but this might help to get some of you in the mood. :pilotfly:

I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you :helpsmilie:. I spent a few years beta testing for ED, so they're all buried the other side of whatever permissions structure the forum has. As a mere mortal now, not even I can access them!

Thanks for the write up, Beach. It's probably worth explaining a little more about the genesis for the Red Flag campaigns and the way in which they were created. It was Matt's idea to create the campaigns (there are two: F-15C and A-10C). We thought that I could write a fictional narrative and associated mission briefings centered around attending RF, while Matt could employ his fiendishly good mission building skills to make the narrative come alive in the air. Before we started, we went to an expert who had attended multiple RFs, including as overall mission commander. He gave us the insight that was required to create something that is as close to the real thing as you can get. At an unclassified level, the expert gave us a typical plan for the overall two-week exercise, described all the 'evolutions' that take place during an RF, outlined the typical learning outcomes, and showed us the way in which they are administratively and tactically run. He talked us through the range space, showed us where and how the 'war' is 'fought', and gave us scenario outlines that we could use to create an RF in DCS. It's this insider knowledge that, in my mind, makes these two campaigns so unique and exciting. From there, Matt and I sketched out the broad plan for the 12 or so missions, defining objectives, components and mission flow, before Matt set about actually creating the sorties in his usual 'balls to the wall' style. I test flew the missions and then wrote the narrative and put together the mission planning materials. After that, we created the custom radio scripts and Matt put in the triggers, ensuring that the missions fly and feel authentic. And we test flew again to ensure that they were not too difficult... but, as Beach says, there is no quarter given for buffoonery. Beach hasn't really discussed the supporting documents that come with the campaigns, but suffice you say that for the F-15C campaign, we ended up with 26 Pages of tactical briefings These are short summaries that you can read before each mission if you don't want to spend too much time going through the narrative. These briefings are presented on the mission summary page before each mission, so you don't have to have anything open other than DCS. 100 pages of narrative and briefings This amounts to about 22,000 words and was designed to really draw you into the campaign, help you suspend disbelief, and give you all of the details you'll need to successfully complete each mission. It contains the fictional narrative, tactical summaries of what happened 'the day before' and what is expected to happen 'today', as well as very detailed briefings for the forthcoming evolution: mission flow, timings, players, goals, radio call signs, tactical plans, threat assessments, motherhood briefings, mission administration and so on. It is also illustrated, with lineup cards for each mission that you can print and use, and maps of the NTTR airspace. The use of the tactical briefings means that if you just want to fly and have fun, you can do that. But, if you're like me (and like the real life guys flying RF), the 100-page version will ensure that you'll spend as much time (if not more) reading the briefings and planning in the mission editor than you will actually flying... :joystick::smartass: What I believe we ended up with the is the most rounded, most authentic, and most engaging of any of the campaigns I have flown in the DCS suite. Of course, you could accuse me of bias, but you can make up your own minds... For me, the most satisfying thing about the missions Matt crafted is that they really do push home the importance of operating as part of a large force, which is one of the fundamental objectives of Red Flag. If you go out to the range space as a singleton, you'll die quickly and you will fail the mission. If you lose SA early, you will die and fail the mission. If you violate your range space, you will fail the mission. But if you work with the other players, hit your ToTs, stay on station for your vul times, fly the CAPs properly, maintain SA and do what the mission plan asks of you, you'll likely succeed. I don't care that this is a simulation of, er, a simulation - as Beach says, flying back down the Sally Corridor having completed a mission gives you a real sense of accomplishment. Anyway, just wanted to make sure that you guys have a complete picture of what's coming your way.

Great guy. RIP, Jim.

Thanks!

Not so. Installer worked fine. The patch itself introduced new blocking bugs. I agree that no-one should feel obliged to heap praise on ED for doing their job, but these blocking bugs were found by the tester team, and none of them were obvious. Also, I am not the world's biggest technophobe (but not far off it), but don't you need an installer to actually, you know, install the patch? As an aside, I also note that despite your criticism of the LII pod modelling in the sim, you never responded to my comments about the data ED used to model visual acuity... http://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=1191449&postcount=51

True, it is not yet implemented. ED have not said whether it will be in the future. One hopes so.

Outstanding work, Shu!

Great work :) A similar module for the pre-programmed freq selector dials on all three radios would be fantastic!

IRL, it increases/decreases the friction applied to the throttles - so they move with greater ease or difficulty, according to your preference. With Warthog, this very conveniently located dial is actually an axis of its own, which means you can assign it to any function that can be paired with an axis (zoom view, rudder, brakes etc.). Meanwhile, the Warthog's actual friction control is located elsewhere. Very clever thinking.

I don't believe that it has an end date.