Andrew8604

Vought F-8J would go well with an A-4E Skyhawk on an angled-deck, Essex-class carrier. Although an Essex-class carrier appears to be in-works for the F4U-1D Corsair, the much modified angled-deck Essex with steam catapults is almost completely different, externally, other than having the same hull. CVA-11 Intrepid, CVA-14 Ticonderoga, CVA-19 Hancock, first group with starboard elevator more aft and CVA-16 Lexington, CVA-31 BonHomme Richard, CVA-34 Oriskany and CVA-38 Shangri-La second group with starboard elevator more forward. Since the F-4 Phantom and A-6 Intruder could not operate from the angled-deck Essex carriers, the F-8 Crusader and A-4 Skyhawk were the primary air arm of those ships during the Vietnam War. Ironically, the large EKA-3B Skywarrior could operate from these carriers. There's a nice color picture on Wikipedia of an EKA-3B refueling an F-8J from USS Hancock in 1972. The Community A-4E-C is almost good enough...loads of fun to fly. It needs to be a full module so that it can have a radio and work with SRS and do inflight refueling, including being a buddy refueler. Also, DCS needs to add 57mm and 85mm AA guns, which should be fairly simple. Until then, the WWII Assets' 88mm Flak guns can do as a proxy. I use them now in single-player missions for the A-4E-C. Anxiously awaiting the F-8J and, hopefully, its Essex carrier! And AI versions of the EKA-3B Skywarrior, E-1A Tracer (AW), SH-2 Seasprite helo.

For who ever else reads this thread, I'd like to revise my criticism of the TrackIR 5. I was finally able to figure out my tracking issues. The TrackClipPro has 3 LED lights on it. They MUST be seen, individually, by the IR camera at all times or tracking stops. I realized my tracking issue when looking up and to the left was because two of the LED lights merged in the IR camera's view. I figured out a positioning of the TrackClipPro so that the LEDs will never merge. If you want TrackIR to work for you, you have to figure that position out depending on where you place you IR camera unit. Now TrackIR is working much better with no "dead zones" of tracking.

I like the A-10A in DCS. It's the first plane I flew in DCS, 3 years ago. I find its systems much easier to operate than the A-10C. It is a simplified module compared to the A-10C. And it lacks a "clickable" cockpit. So what functions there are, have to be utilized via keyboard or programmed to joystick/throttle buttons. I wish they would make it a clickable cockpit and add some of the systems to it without making it so complex as the A-10C. I'd buy the A-10A again if they would do that. In my opinion...in a nutshell, the A-10A is more of a "gun, rockets & dumb-bomb" aircraft you navigate in the daytime by pilotage. The A-10C is more of an all-weather, "smart-bombs & missiles" aircraft with INS/GPS, waypoints and infrared sensors.

Thank you for your advice. It wasn't a light source interfering. It wasn't the curves. But thank you for encouraging me to take another look and figure it out. What I realized is that the 3 LED's of the Track Clip Pro have to be seen individually at all times or head tracking stops. When I started to look up and to the left, I realized two of those LED's merged and the tracking stopped. I also discovered that the Track Clip Pro can be adjusted in more ways than I thought. I managed to reposition it so that no two LED's will merge in any head position needed. It works far better now!! I spoke against it too soon. I am still a little disappointed with its clip design for clipping on head sets, but it is working very well now. I'll just treat it very tenderly. Thanks again!

If the F-18 is your major motivation, you can get that and learn the steps it takes to start it up and get going with no weapons and just practice flying from point A to point B or remaining in the landing patterns for touch and go's. You want the basic setup of the nav system so your HUD will work right. Just follow the checklist in manual. I make a condensed version of the checklist of just the things I really need to set for the flight. It may be a challenge to fly the F-18 at first, but as you get better at it, you'll be happy. You can just use the weapon mode for Mk-82 500-lb bombs and carry only about 4 of them. Too many and the extra weight will make flying a little more difficult. Don't lug Sidewinders on the wings unless you just can't bear flying without their cool looks. :) You can also load the F-18 with no weapons and no pylons...clean wing configuration and it flies even better. It looks pretty sharp all clean and sleek with the included Blue Angels skin. Once you can refuel from the C-130 inflight and land on the carrier, you can pin some wings on yourself. :) I have over 300 hours and in flight refueling is still a major challenge for me. It takes very fine movements on the flight controls. If you want someone patient to fly with, let me know. Although, I have to figure out the online voice communications. I don't have Skype, I use TeamSpeak.

You can fly with just a joystick...or a flight yoke. I flew with an expensive, all metal PFC airliner yoke for a while, along with CH Products rudder pedals and CH Throttle Quadrant. On jet fighters, rudder is not used that much, but on the ground taxiing...but the throttle is. You're going to want a throttle to vary engine thrust minutely all the time. I guess your AV8R-01 has throttles and twist rudder to get by with. I don't know if it would be good enough for inflight refueling. Someday, if you're up to spending a $1000 or so, get the Thrustmaster Warthog HOTAS stick and throttle package. They are very high resolution, with hall-effect sensors, not potentiometers. No jittery noise at all in the electronic signal to the PC. Also the Thrustmaster TPR rudder pedals. That's if you really get enthusiastic about this sim. I have all three and am happy with them. I used to just look around with a mouse (actually, I got used to a trackball mouse, so I can just move my view with my thumb and not have to have a surface to slide a mouse around on). TrackIR 5 is a piece of junk, however. I just can't recommend that thing. I have that and am able to get it to work but not at all as needed for air combat maneuvering. It just does not seem be able to track your head through the full range needed. You need to be able to look up without the view flipping around at zenith (straight up). And you need to be able to look up left and up right in a turning fight. I just can't get mine to do that. It freezes or wigs out. Still, TrackIR is better than mouse view, for casual flying around and ground attack missions. Just not for dogfighting. I would get VR goggles but am concerned with the pixel resolution in them. I already have a 43" 4K monitor. 3840x2160 makes it just a bit easier to see the aspect of an aircraft at a greater distance. If they ever get 4K VR goggles, I'll be sold...if it's under $2K. ***My criticism of TrackIR 5 is overly harsh...see my other post below for update.*** F-15C is $7.49 right now. A-10A is the same. So that's $15. FC3 is $10 more. I would say get FC3. That's what I did a couple years ago. I still have only flown the A-10 and F-15, but someday I'll get around to flying the others. I'm trained in feet and knots. I just struggle with metric cockpits. :) Don't forget, there is a free A-4E Skyhawk Community module that's a lot of fun to fly, too. Possibly more so than the A-10 and F-15, if you like fixed-adjustable bomb sights. If you're a HUD-CCIP fanatic, you may not like the A-4. The A-4 comes with a lot of old-fashioned 'dumb' munitions, though. And its working radar, authentic to the real aircraft, is not very useful, just as it was not very useful in the real aircraft. Sort of funny, but cool. :) It has a working navigational computer that'll get you to a waypoint...pretty cool for 1950's technology! You're going to get so many detailed modules that you won't know which one to fly. LOL

Hi, Apache. So, you want to fly the Hornet? It is a cool jet. Fairly easy, when you get the hang of it. But there are some concepts of flight that are helpful to understand about it, first, I think. Might seem overwhelming if you are really new to airplanes...never flown a real aircraft, never flown other flight simulators? You might want to start with the A-10A...not the A-10C, because I find its systems complicated. I have much more fun with the -A version. Very quick to get going and get flying with it. The A-10 Warthog flies more slowly than the Hornet, so easier for a new pilot, I think. The aircraft modules are on sale right now. You could get just the A-10A for $7.49. Might as well get Flaming Cliffs 3, for $25 though. It's a package of 7 aircraft modules that includes the A-10A, plus the F-15C, Su-27, Su-33, MiG-29A, MiG-29S and Su-25...worth it, if you are interested in any of those other jets. I believe they all have simplified systems, though. Their 3D models are of good quality and detail but not all of the switches in the cockpit and systems work. Which is good if you just need to learn how to fly an airplane around the sky, first. The A-10A has plenty of different weapons to hang underneath the wing and the 30mm gatling gun, so it's a lot of fun to play around with, too. Have you found someone to fly with online yet? Andy

Something like this added to DCS Updater:

DCS.exe has 15.2 GB of my machine's 16 GB but appears to only be using 8.5 GB actively. Is this a memory leak? CPU usage is 15% on 4 of 8 cores. The other 4 cores are near 0%. Other than IE to this forum, nothing else is running. And IE only has 90 MB of the RAM. Yes, had to 'kill' DCS in Task Manager. Only way to get out of it. Lost my work...which I couldn't save. Do frequent saves...I told myself this before, but I just never listen to myself. grrr. :) Auto save to a temp file would be nice. V2.5.5.41318. Maybe this is a buggy version. I'll update to latest v2.5.5.41371 which seems to include many updates/fixes to Normandy map. How do I only update to stable versions? It would be nice if the DCS program would alert me, upon start, that I am running an unstable version. I mean, if the last stable version was 2.5.5.39384 and the new latest stable version is 2.5.5.41371, and I just launched version 2.5.5.41318...the program should alert me..."You are running an 'unstable' version. Please upgrade to version 2.5.5.41371." That is, if the version I am running has a known error that could cause a freeze, crash or memory management problems that could lead to loss of ME work. Then, if I choose not to upgrade, that's my problem. But if the 'latest' version only has feature updates then I often skip it if it doesn't affect the modules I'm going to run at the time.

ME locked up. Trying to save a newly created mission in the Normandy Map. File functions stopped working. I can still move around and zoom in on the map, but cannot select any of the placed assets, not place anything new. I maybe have two-dozen assets placed, most of them are static objects. I can change map views "MAP", "SAT","ALT". If I try to exit, it warns me I have unsaved changes and asks if I want to save them. I click "YES" to save them. Nothing happens. If I click "NO", nothing happens. All of the tools on the left and on the top no longer function. I guess it will be Ctrl-Alt-Del to Task Manager and kill DCS...and lose all my work. ME had been working fine in Nevada map, yesterday. No changes to updates or mods since then. Seems it is Normandy that is broken or one of the assets I added that froze it up. Everything worked ok until I tried to place a ship in the English Channel...then it locked up before I could even select which ship I wanted to place. Now, I cannot place, select or delete any items.

So, I get the impression that the damage model for use of WEP is that once WEP is used, a timer is triggered that will fail the engine in x random minutes. I don't think that is very realistic. If that's how it is modeled. Seems like you should be able to get away with using WEP, but sometimes you don't...depending on how long you use it, not that you've used it at all. If use of WEP means loss of aircraft, then what's the point? Then again, there might be ways you operate the engine where, yes, if you operated a real engine that way it would "blow" it every time. Take a listen to a very experienced pilot who flew a racing P-51, with a damaged engine...Hoot Gibson...skip to 54:30 in the video. I know racing engines are highly modified and they push them well beyond WEP, but just the sense that pushing the engine a little too hard doesn't automatically mean ka-boom.

Exactly!! One Vintage 1942 and one Modern day. I don't know if there is a limit on size of an area of open ocean due to coordinate system numerical limits in DCS. If that is not a problem, it is 1028 nm between Wake Island and Midway Island. Maybe make a map that covers everything from 165 E to 168 W Longitude and 15 N to 35 N Latitude. From 165 E to 168 W (which crosses the date line at longitude 180) along 15 N, the distance is about 1570 nm. Along 35 N, the distance is about 1330 nm (because the Earth is spherical). The distance from 15 N to 35 N is about 1200 nm. 1.9 million square miles! That ought to be enough room for a hunt and seek carrier battle. That includes Wake Island in the far southwest corner, Midway Island to the northeast of middle, and Johnston Island in the far southeast corner. Those little 1 to 3-mile-wide islands are pretty much the bulk of the dry land. Modern Wake I. has a 9800' runway. Modern Midway Is. a 7800' runway. And modern Johnston I. is closed, but a runway large enough for a B-52 still exists. Midway is an atoll, so the area of light blue shallow water is about 5 by 7 miles or so. About 45 miles WNW of Midway is Kure Atoll (about 5 mi wide) with Green Is. with a small airstrip. About 90 miles ESE of Midway is a larger atoll about 15 x 8 miles with a scattering of islets. Attached is a map of the chain of reefs, banks and shoals that lead from Midway to the Hawaiian Islands. I think many of them are visible from the air as patches of light blue sea. As far as that is to the SE of Midway, Wake I. is to the SW...but, I believe, with nothing but blue ocean out that way. And so, this is pretty much the area of sea in which the Battle of Midway took place in June of 1942. If someone could just start with an F4F-4 Wildcat and A6M2 Zero. ProfileofHawaiianChain.pdf

I have a similar thread to this, last post of 11/20/19, "WWII Pacific Theatre Planes and Maps". So I agree with you. I think Midway might be the best map to start with because that seems to be the most well known carrier battle. If it's possible for them to create a 1000nm x 1000nm map, that would be great. It should be relatively quick and easy to make because it would be about 99.99% water...unless the Hawaiian Islands were included. Plenty of room to patrol for enemy ships for hours... and maybe find nothing. It would be really cool if AI could be made to pilot scout aircraft in search patterns and when they find something, to radio the information back, either by voice or by keyed code over HF radio. Just make it Morse Code for simplicity. Complete with radio signal propagation and interference simulation. Then we have to learn Morse Code...or include a cheat option that simply displays the text on the screen. Anyway, for a Midway map, just one US Navy carrier type, the Yorktown Class. On the IJN side, I don't know if any of their carriers were of a same class. I could look it up. And the escort ships on both sides. Of course, one could put modern ships and aircraft in this map and have some nice long stretches of sea and sky to fly in. For the aircraft: US Navy: F4F-4 Wildcat, TBD-1 Devastator and SBD-5 Dauntless (I think it was the -5, I could be wrong there). On Midway Island was some TBF Avengers, and I'd have to research what others. But mainly those first three...starting with the Wildcat, and then it's adversary, the A6M-2 Zero.

The F4F-4 Wildcat should be the first of these planes made, I think. If you want a Midway map, the F4F-4 is the plane. Here is a link to a good video on the F4F Wildcat. We have the I-16, "piece-of-junk" that I enjoy trying to fly. :) It's a well done DCS module, though! It's a really more interesting plane to fly than what your first impressions are. I think the Wildcat is similar--short and ugly, with a similar windshield and crank-up landing gear-- but better. It can go over 300 mph (500 km/h). The Wildcat would make a great DCS module. We have no WWII carrier planes, yet. The F4U Corsair will be the first, but it wasn't a carrier plane until late in WWII. Nevertheless, I'll for sure be purchasing the Corsair when it's ready. The second, then, should be the A6M-2 "Zero". For a Midway map, the Yorktown class carriers should be made. There were 3 of them...all were at Midway for that battle.

Historically, although the Saratoga (Lexington Class) served WWII from beginning to end, it appears it never had F4U Corsairs on board. So, I don't know why it was being made for DCS. But it did have F4F Wildcats, SBD Dauntlesses and TBF Avengers right after the Battle of Midway. It's first battle was Guadalcanal, I believe. After the Battle of Coral Sea, Saratoga was a one-of-a-kind carrier. The Essex Class was the only one to carry Corsairs. 24 Essex class carriers were built. 17 of them were in time to serve in WWII. Several of them served in Korea with a more powerful version of the Corsair, the F4U-4. The Essex ships had some variations. 6 of them had a "short bow" and the rest had a longer, "clipper" bow so that they could carrier a pair of quad-mount 40mm AAA guns instead of one quad. Post WWII several of the ships were modified with angled flight deck, revised island structure and stack, revised arresting gear and more powerful catapults, including some steam catapults. Those with steam catapults could carry the F8U Crusader...they were from about 1957 through 1972. For WWII and Korea, all were straight flight deck with original island structure, except Oriskany, CV-34, was originally built with the updated island, but only served in Korea and later. So, if the 3-D model of the Saratoga (or Lexington, they were essentially identical) is already built, then they should release that to be used in DCS. It For a Battle of Midway, a Yorktown Class carrier should be made. After 1942, only Saratoga (CV-3) and Enterprise (CV-6) survived to sail with otherwise all Essex class carriers (CV-9 thru CV-21 and CV-31 thru CV-34, 36-40, and 45 & 47). And then there were the 9 light carriers of the Independence Class (CVLs) and 50 escort carriers of the Casablanca Class (CVE)...and a few other smaller CVE classes. I would say, it depends on what PTO map (or maps) is made. I mean, the Midway battle area is practically all water except for tiny Midway Island. I would think that would be a very easy map to make, unless you include the Hawaiian Islands. Similarly, an Iwo Jima map and Guam/Saipan/Philippine Sea map are also 99.9% water and should be pretty quick to make. And with those 3 you could have some 5 million square miles of oceanic airspace. A fourth such map might be Okinawa. Here, one of the aspects was intercepting Kamikazes before they could reach the fleet. In DCS, the Kamikazes could be AI aircraft. I think starting off with a Midway map of significant water area, at least 1000 x 1000 nautical miles, would be a great idea. Then make the Yorktown Class carrier and the Wildcat, Dauntless and Devastator aircraft. There are Wildcats and Dauntlesses still flying today to draw information from. If we can have an I-16, we can have these aircraft.

I've flown the various jets in DCS and the P-51, I-16, Christen Eagle, and Bf-109. A lot of fun. But there's an entire group of radial-engine carrier planes missing. These are the primary 7 planes, as I see it... Fighters: (all of these have flightworthy examples today) F4F Wildcat (I'd prefer the FM-1 version) F6F Hellcat F4U-1D Corsair (in works by Leatherneck Simulations - YES!) Torpedo Bombers TBD-1 Devastator (don't laugh, this is a cool, historic plane, just as is the I-16) - although there are none left, I think a pretty good approximation can be made with available data. TBF Avenger (I think I prefer the TBM-3 or 3E version) - there are many of these aircraft flightworthy with videos of them on YouTube. Scout/Dive Bombers (both of these have some flightworthy examples) SBD Dauntless (I think I'd prefer the SBD-5 version) SB2C Helldiver Here's a pair of YouTube videos to get you interested... Flight Deck Crews: Landing and Re-spotting Catapulting off a US Navy Carrier 1944 Both films take place on the USS Sicily CVE-64 (I believe). And for adversaries (from my point-of-view) - Just the carrier-based ones. (If there isn't enough data to make these flyable, then at least as AI aircraft) Fighters A6M Zero-Sen "Zeke" (at least one flightworthy) Attack Aichi D3A Type 99 Dive Bomber "Val" Nakajima B5N Type 97 Torpedo Bomber "Kate" Nakajima B6N Tenzan Torpedo Bomber "Jill" Yokosuka D4Y Suisei Dive Bomber "Judy" ...there are many more land-based aircraft, too. As well, there should be at least one Pacific Map of a vast range of ocean and some famous islands. I suggest a 1,000 x 1,500 nautical mile area of the Philippine Sea/Marianas, covering Guam, Saipan and Tinian; Truk, Yap and Palau islands. It should be relatively quick and easy to create as it is about 99.9% water. But would provide a vast area to patrol and range out with WWII carrier battle groups. ...no GPS, no INS, no TACAN, very few landmarks. Just pilotage, dead reckoning and radio-DF for navigation. More detailed area maps could follow. Ships Essex-class carrier in WWII configuration. Cleveland-class light cruiser Sumner-class destroyer Casablanca-class escort carrier. (50 of these carriers were built) Fletcher-class destroyer Buckley-class destroyer escort And, of course, an array of IJN ships.

Oh, I definitely did not forget them!! Just figured I type too much, too long. :) I want to see CVE's, too. And the CVL's. But then I'll want a Battle of Midway map and the TBD Devastator, SBD Dauntless, F4F Wildcat and F6F Hellcat, SB2C Helldiver and TBF/TBM Avenger. And then, too, not to forget the USAAF planes. But it'll will be 2030 before we get any of these, I'm afraid. Unless there's some way to get several developer teams into full-time, high gear. And they'll all have nothing to do unless there are IJN carriers, which seemed to have been built in pairs (2-ship classes). And all the escort ships. And, of course, the A6M Zero, D3A Val and D4Y Judy dive-bombers, B6N Jill torpedo bomber, B5N Kate attack bomber, and B4M Betty land-based bomber. Actually, I think a Philippine Sea map would be good. A vast expanse of ocean about 1400nm x 1000nm, that contains Guam, Rota, Tinian, Saipan, Truk, Ulithi, Yap and the Palau Islands. Still, it would be about 99.9% open ocean and shouldn't be a huge download. This was the site of the largest carrier battle of WWII, in 1944. It involved 221 combat ships, including 24 aircraft carriers and 12 battleships, and 1,350 carrier-based aircraft and another 300 land-based aircraft. Around 700 aircraft were destroyed in the battle, but only 5 ships sunk. In DCS, this could serve to simulate long-range battles at sea (in any time period) in which operating off a carrier is the only option. Although the map would contain several islands with airfields, too. Maybe a map with two options, 1944 or 2010 or so. The difference being mainly in radio navaids and paved runways. Perhaps also it could be a map with realistic, large weather systems with realistic clouds.

Are bombs detonating right off the bomb rack or dispenser pods a known problem? Keeps blowing up my own aircraft.

Are there any A-4E-C squadrons or multiplayer groups to join?

I just fired rockets with the weapon release button and guns with the trigger at the same time. You have to set the weapon selector to GM UNARM, with the appropriate Station Selector switch(s) to READY and the Master Arm to ON and the GUNS switch to READY. For guns and AIM-9, sorry, haven't tried that yet. I seem to recall guns will fire when set to READY even with Master Arm to OFF. Otherwise, with Weapon Selector set to ROCKETS, both the guns and the rockets want to use the trigger. I don't remember which one wins out. And that's as is (or was) in the real A-4E, according to the NATOPS manual.

I don't think it was so much of negative criticism as an observation. But yes, the A-4E-C flight model is perhaps not on par with the paid, full modules. Nevertheless, at this point it is what this Community team has been able to do with it...or else no A-4 Skyhawk. So, I'm very glad to have what they've made. And it's impressive. I love the detail in the 3D modeled cockpit. It makes you want for all those things to work...most of them do! Doppler radar for drift angle and ground speed, automatic dead-reckoning navigation computer and an impressive array of external stores and ordnance...including the Lazy-dog Launcher. It makes a cool pyrotechnic display on the ground. :) All if you appreciate technology from about 1960, as I do. But no UHF comms because they can't get it to work outside of the full module. The F-5E-3 is a great professional-level module, I think because it is a fairly simple yet versatile aircraft in real life. The A-4 Skyhawk is another such simple, versatile aircraft...for carrier ops and the surface strike mission! The Skyhawk's primary original mission was nuclear strike. I was really surprised to see the operational multimode radar in this module. It's too bad it's not very useful...however, it may well be exactly as useful as the real one was in the real aircraft. I have read pilot accounts of also being able to use the A-4's radar for air-to-air search. It could not lock-on or direct air-to-air weapons, but it could help find your tanker at night or in cloudy weather, they said. But I have not been able to detect other aircraft with this radar in this module...another limitation of the module's situation, I think. In-flight refueling is something that is greatly missed for the A-4...as well as it acting as a tanker. You can't act as a tanker in any other aircraft in DCS. This A-4E-C can carry a "buddy tanker" refueling pod on the centerline store. But it doesn't function, at least not yet. Another feature that I'm sure this team tried to make work but haven't been able to figure out, given the limitations of not being a full module. Flight model as it is, I still enjoy the module...probably because it's easy to fly! If you are new to DCS and find some of the aircraft too challenging to pilot, try this A-4E-C. Also, the A-4 Skyhawk, clean and free of external stores and pylons, had pretty good performance and thrust-to-weight. The Navy used it as a MiG-17 emulator for dogfight training. The prototype once held the world's speed record for a short time in the mid-1950's...having taken it from the USAF's new F-86H Sabre. The XA4D-1 prototype set a world speed record of 695.163 mph on October 15, 1955. Which is impressive for an attack aircraft...just before Marty McFly arrived in the Delorean time machine ;)

At the least, I'd like to see static vehicles for various airbase ground support equipment. It looks as if the new supercarrier will have some of these. Right now, the A-4E-C module has a portable starter cart/pod with hose that connects to the correct place on the aircraft. I would like to see this type of ground equipment for all aircraft that require it. It could be static objects with dynamic hose interaction, or dynamic vehicles. Some way that you can see the ground support equipment and even an animated crew chief and 1 or 2 other ground support personnel giving hand/arm signals. They would have to be linked to individual modules, too. This would make it feel more like a "live" airbase instead of a "ghost town" airbase. But at least more static US Air Base ground support vehicles that we can place in Mission Editor...especially US vehicles from different periods in time. The F-86F would probably not be serviced by the same vehicles as an F-4 Phantom. Although a Phantom II might use the same equipment as an F-5E. Some of these static object appear in NTTR Map, but we don't seem to be able to place them where we want them. They are Map objects, I guess.

I would guess you mean Essex-class carriers? Not CV-7 Wasp or CV-5 Yorktown, which were sunk before the Corsair came into the picture. (CV-5 sunk in June '42, CV-7 sunk in Sept '42...VF-12 carrier qualified in the F4U in April '43). So an Essex-class carrier in late WWII configuration. CV-10 Yorktown or CV-18 Wasp. I would think two Essex-class models would fit the bill for all 24 units except Oriskany. There were 10 Short Bow and 14 Long Bow versions, which I think mainly differed at the bow and a small difference in length of flight deck. For the WWII era, I would say a short-hull version so that one 3D model could act as CV-9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 16, 17, 18, 20 & maybe 31, just by changing the number and the name at the stern. According to Wikipedia, the F4U-1D "was a prominent participant in the fighting for the Palaus, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa." But mainly as a fighter-bomber or Kamikaze CAP. Prior to that, the Corsair was mainly land based in the South Pacific. Of course, in DCS you can fly them in the Persian Gulf, if you want. This version of Essex carrier would probably serve for a Korea-era, too. Although, I think many of the AAA guns were removed by that time and more powerful hydraulic catapults installed for jets, like the F9F Panther and F2H Banshee. The Corsair of that time was the F4U-4, I think, with four 20mm guns instead of six 50-cal. Also, the AD-4 Skyraiders played a big part. Since DCS has none of those aircraft, the Naval Aviation portion of Korea will have to wait a while. For the Vietnam Era, there were 7 extensively modified Essex-class carriers that could operate the F-8 Crusader and A-4 Skyhawk. CVA-11, 14, 16, 19, 31, 34 and 38. These 7 had two, longer, C-11 Steam catapults, JBD's and an angled flight deck, as well as a modernized island structure. So, again, one 3D model and 7 numbers and names. Of the other ships in the class, some were modified with angled flight decks but only given hydraulic catapults, and others retained the original straight flight deck, so with a minor exception, they could not operate jets in the 60's and 70's (they did in the late 50's, though). In summary, one WWII-version 3D model with 10 possible hull numbers/names and one Vietnam-era version 3D model with 7 possible hull numbers/names. Of course, some appropriate escort ships will be required. No Aegis cruisers ever escorted Essex-class carriers. I think an Iwo Jima and Okinawa map would be good. Wouldn't it be fairly easy and quick since the land area is very small? They would be like 99% open ocean. How hard is it to model that? A Solomon Islands map would be more work. Umm...there's no Zero's in DCS. No coordination and cooperation means a rag-tag mess of planes, ship and maps.

Question: How difficult would it be to include an option for the module where we could choose dirtiness level of the windshield/canopy from 0 (perfectly clean) to 3 (dirty as it was)? Don't take me wrong, I'm just simply asking if that is feasible to do. Giving us users plenty of options, really makes us happy. :) Regarding criticism of the MiG-21... I shelved the MiG-21 for several months (so many other modules to fly), but just dusted it off this week and after some re-familiarization, learned how to fly in close formation with an AI F-5E! Something I hadn't been able to do very well in other aircraft. It isn't that bad, it's just challenging compared to an F-15 or F-18 with a velocity vector displayed in a HUD! The F-5E has been pretty challenging, too. Actually, the MiG-21 is very detailed and I'm happy with it. I had a PIO problem with it in pitch, but after flying a couple hours in formation, that problem magically went away. I had previously adjusted the joystick response curves because it was just too squirrely for me with straight response. I adjust that for all the modules, not just the MiG-21. I'm starting to think that what I thought were problems with some of these modules were really just my lack of piloting skills. How good can a "pilot" be if he/she switches from plane to plane every few weeks and has only 25 hours flight time in each of a dozen models, as I have? I only have 14 hours and 22 landings in the MiG-21. An AI MiG-15 gives me fits in combat, though. I think there is more to being a fighter pilot than whipping the nose around the sky and pointing it at your adversaries. The F-5E feels like about as much of a "dog" in a turning fight as the MiG-21. The F-15 is easier, I think because of its excellent thrust-to-weight ratio. I'm NOT a fighter pilot! I have a lot to learn about energy management and BFM, I think. One problem (of many) is with DCS. If you follow its ATC instructions or an AI aircraft, it directs you to a runway that is not aligned with the wind. So taking off in the MiG-21 on the assigned runway with 10 knots wind at your back can make you roll down the runway too fast and blow the tires (well, that may be too sensitive in this module, I don't know). I take off into the wind, even if the AI plane goes the opposite way. AI really, really needs some basic attention.