Andrew8604

I wish this was listed in a Known Bug List somewhere and officially addressed with a statement similar to this, at least, "We are working on these multiple night lighting issues. Will take extra coding and time." At least then we'd know we've been heard. The sunlight is shadowed so well. I don't see why multiple light sources cannot also be shadowed appropriately when the Sun is not shining. I find it most annoying in the Huey with nav lights set to flash and beacon on. They flash inside the cockpit when the light source, the beacon and the nav lights, are in positions (exterior) where they should not be able to illuminate the cockpit/cabin.

Thank you, Cobra and the rest of the Heatblur Team. It is really nice to see--and hear--the real people making these modules. I hope you'll share more behind-the-scenes info. I think it gets us in a happier mood when we see what you guys are working on and see your efforts. I know everyone here wants to get their hands on the most accurate and impressive F-14 possible, ASAP, and I think they want to help improve and perfect the module if there's any way they can. I sure do. But, for me, up until I saw this video, the people who make these modules has been a frustrating mystery...I've felt in the dark. It is so good to see and hear from you and see that you obviously really care about putting all you can into this module, and getting it right. I hope you will accept feedback from us about any problems or bugs (if any arise) and fix them quickly. Because, from my point of view, there has been a pattern amongst all modules of bugs being found and reported and seemingly never being fixed (waiting a year or more feels like never). I don't mind getting a product early and finding and reporting bugs. I don't think others do, either. What's tough is when the effort to report them seems to go no where, or not even noticed. As well, I don't know the proper procedure for reporting them...and no easy way to see what has already been reported. Please, at least try to let us know why they can't be fixed or can't be for so long. But I'll keep positive (because I don't intend to be negative at all). It sounds like for the F-14, here, you intend to release it as nearly bug free as possible. Thanks! It looks like it will be utterly awesome! I'm pre-purchased and waiting for the day.

I hope you can incorporate this idea of having an option for tone of language to suit the different tastes of us users here. Something of 1, 2 or 3 in excitement levels. Preferences are always nice.

In the Huey for DCS, looking a the throttle grip, if the word "Throttle" appears to be on the top-center of the grip after you twist it as low as it will go, you are probably still in "cut-off" and the engine will only spool up to about 35% or less and not light off--EGT will not climb. Twist the throttle up toward full throttle and then back down (probably after releasing the starter button to try again). If it now stops with the word "Friction" appearing top-center, you are likely at IDLE and can now get past 40% N1 on the next try and can successfully start the engine. It looks like if you crank it to 12% and the EGT does not climb, it may still be in cut-off. Otherwise, if you have it at the IDLE position, around 11% it will light off and the EGT will climb rather quickly into the green range, around 400 C. The N1 will make it past 40% then, and you should have a successful start.

Thanks for the info, Sandman1330. I laugh at myself a bit. I just realized I had it stuck in my head all this time that the twist grip throttle is spring loaded like that on a motorcycle. But it's not, is it? I mean that wouldn't make sense...take your hand off the collective and throttle would go to idle. ha ha. I don't think that would be good. I've only flown a real helicopter once. That was an OH-6. What a thrill that was! I didn't mess with the throttle, so I didn't learn that. Had more than I could handle with the collective, cyclic and pedals. The pilot let me transition from forward flight into a hover. I actually did it...until I fell behind the machine trying to hold it in hover. Every time I changed one control, it affected the others...or more accurately, it caused a need to adjust the others. The Huey in DCS seems a little easier in that regard...or maybe I'm just getting better at it. :) I have 33 hours now and about 120 landings. DCS isn't very good with the logbook, but I've been trying to keep track manually.

This thread is old, but the problem still exists: The UH-1H is set by default at start up to the bottom of the Kollsman window scale, 28.10 inHg, in an attempt to have it set to QFE. Suggested Solution: Provide a global preference setting in DCS for "Default to QFE" or "Default to QNH" or a 3rd option "Default to 29.92". Aircraft modules will then need to respect this option so that they default the aircraft's altimeter setting to the preference selected. Obviously, though, for NTTR the QFE setting is probably never going to work unless the Kollsman window scale in a non-US aircraft goes that far.

I've had the same problem as Kang [not Kang, I meant Frag]. I think you have to twist the throttle far enough for the throttle-stop button to pop back out, or else click it to pop it out. And then return the throttle to idle. Otherwise, for whatever reason, the engine will only spool up to 35% N1. Is that authentic to the real aircraft? I don't know. I'll do further testing to pin it down exactly what happens, if I can. Or unless someone else already knows the exact answer. I might try reading the manual again, too. :) BTW, real pilots, how far of a twist is full throttle? Is it about half a rotation of the grip? A little more than or less than 1/2? Maybe only 1/3rd of a complete rotation?

You're not the only one, Frag. I wish I could participate in testing and suggestions of airport traffic control and aircraft approach and landing patterns. I have air traffic control experience, but I'm sure I'm not the only one, either. As is in DCS 2.5.3, it seems that there is a complete lack of air traffic control. Essentially, only one aircraft can use an airport at any given time and departures have priority over arrivals, even those arrivals with critically low fuel (which is backwards). For instance, there's an F-86 on a 3-mile final to runway 8 at Creech (in NTTR map), but an F-86 on the airport ramp starts up and is ready to taxi. The F-86 on final breaks off the approach and circles around to wait for the taxiing aircraft to take off! Are you kidding me? Often the circling plane will lower and raising the gear repeatedly as if indecisive--"I'm going to land...no I can't...yes, I will land...no, going around...etc". And sometimes that circling plane will decide to fly into a mountain in clear and unlimited daytime conditions. It does all this while the F-86 on the ground is taxiing to the runway for minutes. Only after the F-86 gets airborne will the aircraft in the air resume trying to land...and if there is more than one in the air trying to land, chaos sets in. I haven't been able to determine the logic behind which aircraft gets to land when. Sometimes flights of aircraft will circle to fuel exhaustion trying to figure out who gets to land...with lots of use of afterburners. The way it should be is that taxiing aircraft are given limitations. Taxi and hold short of runway. Arrivals keep arriving and should be sequenced and spaced with adequate intervals. After an arrival passes a taxiway intersection where a plane is holding, that plane can cross the runway. There's time before the next arrival. If an arrival has to go around, it should continue flying a standard pattern, not circle on or near the final approach path. Departures can line up on the taxiway short of and clear of the runways waiting for a space in arrivals to use the runway for departure. I have a scenario with nine F-86F's operating into and out of Creech: four departures and 5 arrivals. Plus the departures fly a wide circuit up toward Groom Lake and return to become arrivals as well. I gave them generous spacing so that they will actually conduct takeoffs and landings without conflict. But when I fly amongst them in a tenth plane, I can sometimes interfere with the "clockwork". I spawn the arrivals about 10 miles out and descend them and slow them in steps to about a 5-mile final where the AI takes them in to a landing. I time the departures so they don't make an arrival go around. It all takes over an hour to play out and gives the airport a feeling of activity which is more interesting to fly missions out of. When inbound, unfortunately, I have to look at the F10 map view to find out where the traffic is because "ATC" tells nothing. There should be a custom ATC for each controlled airport in each map...well, just Nevada NTTR, I guess, because I don't know ho they do it in Caucasus and Persian Gulf areas, and Normandy didn't really have ATC back then..."The wind is out of the West at 10. Land from the East." So I make an overhead approach at 450 knots at Creech. ATC tells me "Cleared for visual, contact tower". Tower tells me to check landing gear, cleared to land." As I streak over the runway at 2000' AGL, 450kts, tower tells me "go around, runway occupied." I know it's a lie because I'm banked 90-deg in the break turn to downwind and can see the whole empty runway below. ha Most of the jets in DCS should normally make an "overhead approach" in visual weather conditions (in the US, anyway). Even the C-130 can make an overhead approach. That's where they over fly the runway in the landing direction about 2000 feet above the runway at 250 to 450 knots and "break" to the downwind, descending to pattern altitude and speed and circle the pattern to land. When the weather prevents the visual overhead approach, then they will have to do an instrument approach...ILS, GPS or other non-precision approach or PAR. PAR is a precision approach directed by a controller on the ground by use of approach path and glide path monitoring radar and issuing a string of verbal commands to the pilot on the radio to which the pilot need not reply. Pilot compliance is seen on the radar scope. In addition to this, AI "pilots" in DCS seldom fly smoothly and often cheat physics. I don't care if they fake physics as long as they fake it believably. And then there is wind and runway selection. I guess they refer to wind differently in Europe or Russia. On the weather definition page in the sim, the arrows point to where the wind is going, not where the wind is coming from. The speed is apparently in meters per second, even though I have it set to English units and it claims "kts". So, double that and you get approximately knots. So set it to 6 kts in the mission editor and it will blow a 6 meters per second or 11.66 kts in the sim. At Creech you can set the wind to 15 kts out of the West and ATC will still tell you to taxi to runway 8. I'm not taking off with a 15-knot tailwind! I'd like to know what rules they've applied to determine runway selection for departures and arrivals. It should be less than 3 kts is considered calm wind and use airport designated "calm wind" runway...which has to be Rwy 26 at Creech. It is the longest runway and there are mountains to the west that interfere with approaches to Rwy 8. Otherwise, the runway most aligned into the wind. So, wind 240 @ 15kts, means Rwy 26 is the runway in use.

I'll 2nd this! A-4B is essentially the same as the Argentinian A-4P/Q, as most of you probably know. However, as much as it may look the same on the outside, I don't know what instruments and systems the A-4P might have had different from the A-4B. Same with the A-4C. The A-4C has a radar in the nose. The A-4B does not have a scanning-type radar, not sure if it had something similar to the F-86F or just nothing, basically just a fixed, depressible sight (DSL). So which version to make for DCS? Depends on where it will be used. If for the Falklands, then I'd say the A-4B/P/Q. If for a 1965-67 Vietnam Map, then I would say the A-4E or F. And if for the Persian Gulf Map, then the A-4M/KU. My favorite Skyhawk--possibly favorite aircraft of all time--would be the A-4E with the J52-P-6A. But I also have a great affinity for that A-4B and its simplicity!...and that dirty old, single-spool J65-W-16 engine it had. I would frown a bit on the A-4M because it would seem too close in time period to the AV-8B N/A we already have. I believe all the Skyhawks have the same wing and tail plane...A-4F and later having split-flap spoilers. The J65-powered Skyhawks had a smaller engine-air intake than those with the J52's. Three different noses for the A/B, the C, and the E-and-later, as radar and avionics were added. Whichever Skyhawk you make--if we should be so lucky as to get one at all--I'll buy it! Maybe if you had an annual license requirement for the A-4 of $19.95 per year. Maybe then a lot of people would try it. If they didn't like it, they don't renew and aren't out much money. Alternatively, offer a non-expiring license for $119.95...I'd take that...if something like this is what it would take to get the plane, I'd go for it. Real fans of the A-4 would pay $300 for it...as long as they could get prompt results from reporting bugs and inaccuracies. Then you would have an invested beta-testing team...dedicated to making the A-4 the best module.

The AV-8B has what appears to be the same problem but only with the GBU-12 (Mk-82-based) and GBU-16 (Mk-83-based). Does this mean it is not the 'fault' of either aircraft module?

What does that mean, "a problem with the new 3D model"? The 3D model of the Mk-82 series bomb? Are these same Mk-82 weapon models used on all applicable aircraft in DCS? Because it does seem to be only the Mk-82-based weapons--Mk-82 LD, Mk-82 SE & GBU-12. It occurs on inboard and outboard wing pylons and centerline pylon, but not on the MER (multiple ejector rack). While other bombs are correctly placed on the pylons, including the BDU-50LD--the blue "dummy" Mk-82's. But we can't place five BDU-50LD's on the MER...or I suspect we would see them standing too far off the MER ejector mounts (the opposite error). So, I was thinking maybe the bomb racks have "mount position coordinates" relative to the aircraft 3D (visual) model and the bombs (and other stores) probably have "mounting position coordinates" relative to their 3D model. I was thinking that for the Mk-82 series, this "mount position" might be in error...if it works like that. And since nothing else can be mounted on the MER, the Mk-82 LD's probably look fine there because the mount positions on the MER might be in error to match perfectly the error on the Mk-82 LD's. So, when the Mk-82's get fixed, the MER will probably have to be fixed, too. Maybe the TER's on other aircraft that use the Mk-82's, as well. Any idea when this might get fixed? I understand there are probably a lot of other issues that need fixing, too.

SP. Never tried online...just haven't gotten to it yet. Never tried a campaign...just haven't gotten to it yet...or I'm afraid to get my butt kicked all the time because I'm not good enough, ha ha. I can't bear the thought of a smart teenager or a man with a gray beard and a beer putting 20mm through me from 4 different ways while I'm trying to find the Master Arm switch. :) I like learning the aircraft and making my own missions that go at my pace...where I usually survive. The detail of the aircraft, scenery and the versatility and freedom of the simulation are what keeps me. I would really, really love AI that knew how to fly the various aircraft, though. AI that flew correctly and realistically in formation flight, too. That's one of the most painful-to-watch parts of the sim, when a pair of AI planes in formation makes a turn or approaches an airport for landing. Anyone ever heard of the overhead break to the landing pattern? If you were bingo fuel, would you light off the afterburner to get home quickly? So many basic rules are needed in the AI...and it would seem so simple to implement compared to the systems and flight models of aircraft. If paid-for modules are what drives excellence in the sim, then I'd pay money to get some real intelligence in AI. We need an Enhanced AI module.

I ran across this, too. Does it do the same thing in the real aircraft, I wonder? :)

I HEAR you guys!! And I agree so much! AI pilots, AI aircraft and AI ATC is very poor. It's so frustrating that so little is ever done to improve them when we get such fantastically detailed aircraft to fly like the MiG-21bis, F/A-18C, A-10C, F-5E and AV-8B (to name a few). It just can't be that difficult to make improvements on AI. Maybe it's money. Maybe there needs to be an "Enhanced AI" module for $70. We can talk and talk and talk on here, but is anyone who can make a difference even listening? AI wingmen will do things like call bingo fuel. You tell them RTB. They say "roger" and light the burner and fly home at 10,000 feet! Afterburner on and off with speedbrake! While I head back to the same base 15 minutes later at 33,000 feet and economical power setting. I make it with fuel to spare. AI flames out and ejects 20 miles from the field. No threats the whole way. AI needs to be programmed with the concepts of optimal climb speed, optimal cruising altitude and speed for distance and fuel remaining, and don't use the afterburner. (In the advanced waypoint settings, does restrict afterburner "on" mean they will not use the afterburner?) Also optimal letdown distance and speed. And AI needs to know how to make an overhead approach and pattern. ATC needs to know how to vector for the overhead approach and sequence traffic in the pattern and on the airport. Planes in the air circle (and crash into mountains) because one on the ground is taxiing to a runway!! If a plane does hold short of a runway while taxiing, it holds at the edge of the runway, not the hold lines. A KC-135 on a perfect downwind at 170 knots turns base and goes 100% power to accelerate to 300 kts, overshoots final and has to make a 270 back to final. What the heck?? Mig-21 turning to line up with runway seems to overshoot, lights the burner, cycles the gear 3 times and makes left and right turns...then impacts a low hill. What the hell is the stream of instructions going to it? Mig-21 flies for 30 minutes at 140 kts with afterburner on and high AOA at 1000' AGL to dogfight something like a P-51! It's absurd! The flight models AI use are of poor realism and over-performing. The AI Mig-21 with afterburner on at low altitude has a specific fuel consumption of something around 0.5 lbs fuel per lb-thrust per hr, it seems. Reality is probably closer to 2.0.

I'm FULLY with you on this F-105 !!! I would expect there are many more Vietnam-era aircraft fans out there than is apparent. The F-105D, in particular, is THEE quintessential Vietnam-era strike aircraft of the first half of the Vietnam war. I divide the Vietnam war into two periods, 1964 to 1968 and 1969 to 1972. From about 65 to 68, it was the F-105D making strikes to Route Pack VI A, the Hanoi area. From about 69 to 72 the F-105 was replaced by the F-4E making the strikes. There are already plans, I believe, to make the F-4E. The F-105D is a great aircraft, much maligned as ineffective and even "boring". "Look how many got shot down. It was a terrible plane! It couldn't dogfight like an F-16. Who would want to fly one?" Are the usual arguments. I cannot believe that there is not enough data to make a very good simulation of the F-105D. True, it is not the best aircraft. But it was the best aircraft in the world, at that time, to do that job. I don't buy the argument that Republic has destroyed all the data. Flight manuals exist. Pilots who flew the F-105D still exist. F-105D's that really are F-105D's exist in museums. Read first person accounts of flying the F-105D, "When Thunder Rolled" by Ed Rasimus and "Thud Ridge" by Jack Broughton. Then tell me you don't want to fly the F-105D. I somewhat felt the same way. I read those books. They changed my mind! Are the devs saying that there are data for lift, drag and moment curves for many sections of the wings and stabilizers in various densities of air at various speeds provided by manufacturer test flights that they use to make up the flight models of various aircraft? Is that how they made the F-86F and the P-51D? Or are they saying there is not enough data about how the flight data computer and/or flight control augmentation systems worked? I think if they want to make an F-105D, they will make an F-105D...if they can sell enough copies to make it economical. I have no idea how many copies of the F-5E were sold or how many of the F/A-18C were sold. At $70/copy, I would buy every version of Vietnam-era aircraft the developers produce, provided it is at least at the level of the Belsimtek F-5E in detail. And I would buy a 1960's-era map module for Vietnam Theater of Operations, which would have to include Thailand, Laos and North Vietnam. So, F-4E and/or F-4B/C/D, F-100D, A-4F, A-6A, A-7B ... I await you. I'll probably have to wait forever, but I'm ready to buy when you are ready to fly.

Yes, 21153 seems to have fixed the ME crash problem. Thanks!

What fix? I still have 21107. No update offered to me. Oh, if I run the updater from the start menu, it asked if I want to update to 21153. I'll give it a try.

...and then ME goes and works for 15 minutes without any problem...Show Models "off" and I did not touch the icon.

Show Models feature -- the little "tank" icon at the bottom of the ME screen--not selected. It still crashes, seemingly randomly. I can't repeat an action that causes it to crash. ME just seems to crash at some random time of between about 5 seconds and 10 minutes! Version 2.5.3.21107. But I was able to create a very simple new mission by making frequent saves after every step. I ran the mission and flew for 1.33 hrs without any problems. And for the first time in a quite a while, my flight time was added to my logbook correctly! :) Usually it shorts me by an hour or so, and I have to edit the logbook file to keep my times true. I was probably cheated out of 100+ hours of time until I realized this. But, maybe it's fixed!! ?

I may have just learned something here! :) Grimes, your link to Mission Editor Wiki in your 'signature' seems to be broken. Is there such a wiki or user manual that explains the purpose and usage of all the Advanced Waypoint Options/functions? Such as Orbit: You mean the racetrack pattern will stretch between current waypoint and next waypoint? And scripting: there's another whole world I know nothing about. :) I'll try to look around the ME Forum as well. Thanks.

Now upgraded to version 2.5.3.21107 in the hopes this has been fixed. Not fixed, yet. Someone verify for me: Am I mistaken? Has the ME map view for NTTR always been more limited in range than the F10 map view when flying a mission? If so, how did I place starting points of AI aircraft well off of the map in ME? (I scratch my head) In ME, the farthest northwest coordinate I can see is: 39-47'-25" N -- 120-23'-53" W, which is about 30 NM WNW of Reno Stead Airport on the Map view. That's beyond the limits of the satellite imagery data, I understand, but we used to be able to view out beyond that, I believe. Anyway, in Summer update #9 version, I was able to place 3 flights of aircraft north of 40 degrees North latitude. I cannot see the location where I placed those flights now. Additionally, out to the east, I can no longer see Grand Canyon VOR (GCN) in ME. I can, however, still see it in the F10 map view while running a mission. Thinking of the possibility that my particular mission was corrupt, I opened up a new mission and the problem is still there. My intent in placing AI flights so far north was to have them begin from beyond detectable range by the E-2D/AWACS and possibly be detected by CAP aircraft radar sweeps.

I can't zoom all the way out and view the far northern reaches of NTTR map. In the previous version a few weeks ago, I placed AI aircraft far to the north west near Fallon NAS. Now, editing the same mission in ME with this version, I can't slide up the map far enough or zoom out wide enough to see those aircraft I placed. Updater offered the update to 21016 a few days ago, I took it. Actually, it appears I placed the three flights of AI aircraft about 10-20 miles north of Reno, NV, as their starting point inbound toward Tonopah.

I like this idea. I was just thinking that I would like the BQM-34A as a target, to practice using airborne radar and GCI on a target that doesn't try to avoid being shot at. Even when you tell an AI aircraft to not react to threats, it still seems to do it. I searched for the BQM-34 and found this thread. I think I'm right with you on this idea. The BQM-34A is pretty basic, not terribly laden with details...no landing gear, just a large parachute for recovery. No cockpit or instruments to construct. Should be comparatively simple to make. The real ones are either air launched by a DC-130 Hercules or ground launched (MQM-34) using a RATO motor. But that doesn't have to be simulated. Just have it begin at a fly over point. It doesn't even have to exactly match the performance or range of the real BQM-34A. But it would be nice if it got close to it.

I wish this answer had been easier to find. I think it should be in a basic DCS World FAQ somewhere. Now I have the problem of not enough disk space for the update to be downloaded. Eagle Dynamics folder is taking up 214 GB of my 250GB SSD. In there I have DCS World 15, DCS World 2 OpenAlpha and DCS World OpenBeta. Can I uninstall DCS World 15, which I never use anymore? When I run its Uninstall, it says "Are you sure you want to completely remove DCS World and all of its components?" No, I'm not sure! I just want to remove 1.5. But I can't be sure of what YOU are going to do, Uninstaller Utility! Can anyone advise if the 1.5 uninstaller will ONLY uninstall files in 1.5 that are not needed for openBeta? Same with the DCS World 2 OpenAlpha...will it ONLY uninstall 2 Alpha and not affect OpenBeta? (I'm running it on Win 7, if that matters). Thanks.

I would agree that coding the systems simulation would be difficult. First you have to know those systems well to code them. The fire control systems--multi-mode radar and lead-computing sight/HUD combined with different missiles and a gun. I'm impressed with the Viggen. I still haven't mastered how its navigation/targeting system works. The Swedish panel doesn't help, either. :) But this is why I think older planes without these complex systems should be easier to develop. Such as the Grumman F9F-2 Panther and Douglas AD-4 Skyraider. Not any more complex than the F-86F Sabre, I would think.