Sideslip

SU-25T, absolutely. The 25A I'm pretty sure is a bug. They hardly point left at all to the point that if you didn't have the visible convergence of the two beams in front of the cockpit, you couldn't even tell. The SU-27 on the other hand doesn't light up the runway whatsoever. If you have pictures showing otherwise than please share them, but there are so many bugs in DCS that it's hard to know whats real and whats not. Pictures are hard to find but in this one if the lights weren't straight you would see an obvious difference in brightness between the lights. Here is another one where both lights appear equal, suggesting the camera is within both main beams, and this is far right of the left light.

If you look closely (at 1:10) there is a flash at the moment the smoke appears. There is probably a different fuel used for the launch than there is for the remainder of the flight. I don't know much about it but some possible reason are: - Less efficient but cleaner burning fuel at launch to make it harder to find camouflaged launchers by air or possibly ground forces. - More powerful fuel used at launch to get the missile to controllable speeds, again possibly less efficient - Cleaner fuel at launch to prevent creating a thick smoke hanging around blinding ground personnel - Maybe actually more power fuel used after launch that may be somewhat toxic or too damaging to the launching equipment It's hard to tell as the video doesn't really show a long time after launch, but I would be surprised if the white smoke didn't hang around for at least 2 minutes. It doesn't feel like the smoke lasts more than 30 seconds in DCS.

If you are both using the left side there is no collision. Same reason why you drive on the right (or left) side of the road.

Pointing slightly to the left is different then only to the left, which is what was both shown in DCS and that in-cockpit SU-27 landing video. If on a MiG it illuminates in front and left, then sure I guess that makes sense. Just because MiG and Sukhoi have done it for decades doesn't make it normal. It's normal for MiG and maybe most Russian aircraft. It is not normal for the rest of the world, which makes it unusual. Of the hundreds of aircraft designed, how many do that exactly? Even the SU-25 light is straight. If all they needed is for the light to illuminate more of the sides why didn't they just mount them on the main gear pointed straight? Or in the wingtips like the SU-25? It's not unusual to look out the side to gauge their height, and it's fantastic to see the documentation detailing their procedure. But it is unusual to point a nose wheel landing light way off to the left. It's not a few degrees on the SU-27, it's way off. The question of whether the light is supposed to be straight or not was answered in the first two pages, no one is questioning that anymore. I'm sorry if it somehow offends you that I consider it to be unusual.

I wasn't intending to suggest using your rad alt for the flare, just to judge height when a couple hundred feet. How do pilots land at night in the hundreds of aircraft that don't have a side light? I can't imagine needing that light for the flare is what I was really saying. By the time you flare, especially if you have taxi lights on too, the runway will be illuminated out the sides just as the su-27 landing light is doing there. The only practical use that light has is from 1000 to 100ft, for which as I said you have a radar altimeter. And much much more important than your apparent height is your approach angle to the runway, which that light will not help you with at all. I just find it a very strange design choice.

The music can be a little loud, mine if just off entirely. But one setting you definitely want is "hear like in helmet". It will muffle the sounds of the engine while things like bitching betty are loud and clear as that would play through the speakers in your helmet. Even then you may want to lower the master volume a little bit as DCS is loud in general. Rockets, explosions, jet engines, alarms and cannons tend to be loud.

Just in case it is a problem somewhere in your config files, try going to UserName -> Saved Games and move your DCS folder to the desktop. When you start DCS it will create a new folder there with all default settings. If you can't see multiplayer servers then there is at least nothing wrong in your config folder. If you are using Steam, you could also try doing the same with the Config folder in the DCS main folder and try to verify integrity of the game so that it re-downloads all the defaults.

I don't know if you can find the charts online, but you can calculate your own Vref (landing speed) anyway. Load it up to max gross and find the stall speed with flaps and gear down. Vref is 1.3 X Vso (stall speed in landing configuration). If you know the stall at max gross you can estimate it for all weights by multiplying the stall speed by the square of actual weight divided by max gross. Vref = 1.3 X Vso X squareroot(weight/max gross) So making up numbers here, but say Vso is 250kph and max gross was 20000kg: Vref @ 20000kg = 1.3 X 250 = 325kph Vref @ 16000kg = 1.3 X 250 X squareroot(16000/20000) = 290kph The only other important V speeds are Vfe Vle and maybe Vne. For flaps and gear you can do what I did. Fly around lowering and raising them while increasing speed until it breaks. After testing I settled on 400kph for landing flaps and gear extension in SU-25. Above 350 the plane shakes like crazy with gear down but I didn't have a gear problem until over 500kph. For Vne you could just dive at the ground full AB from 10000m until the plane falls apart, but really are you ever going to encounter Vne? This isn't real life we are talking about. The rest of the V speeds really aren't as important as one might think in a sim environment. Approach at what's comfortable, rotate when it wants to lift off, V1 is almost meaningless in a plane that can take off easily with 1 engine and likewise with V2. Vmc is also not much concern with centrally mounted engines. It has afterburners, it's not a fat lethargic airliner that was designed to use 10000ft runways. And what the heck is Vgx? Gear extension? That is Vle or Vlo. I do wish better manuals were provided with FC3 aircraft. The SU-25 one is almost a joke. The few weapons that are described seem to have had their blurbs written by pulling a stat out of a hat. One cluster bomb it states the maximum dispersion and the other states the altitude and airspeed for release.

And that's probably what they really do as I would think there would be two separate switches rather than a 3 position switch. The taxi light might give just enough illumination of the runway. Maybe ED could change it from "Off-Near-Far" to "Off-Near-Far-Both" if not a separate on/off for each light.

Ah that's interesting. I never really thought you needed a side light to judge your height or flare, I mean the plane has a freaking radar altimeter. I'd be much more concerned about the runway. I hope all Russian airbases have a good supply of fuel for the backup generators as I'd hate to try landing that thing with no runway lighting or ILS. Real landing lights can light up reflectors from several miles away, but not this thing. Of course they'd probably just park vehicles along the runway.

That looks pretty similar to the light in the sim. Notice how it does absolutely nothing to illuminate the runway. He switches it off once he has landed. Of course you don't technically need a landing light to land at night provided the runway is illuminated, but from the real life video I don't understand their reasoning at all.

So if they are just leaning over to look out the side window it doesn't make much sense for the beam to be aimed that far left. As you could see in the videos, the light was centered in the window with the head in the middle. If you were to lean over the light would be in the wrong place.

Ah those Russians and their crazy ideas. Clearly their pilots can't fly straight with all the vodka they drink to keep warm in the winter so they thought ahead and pointed the lights crooked too. Or maybe it's because they use ex-circus midgets that can't see over the dash so they have to look out the side. If that is true to the real aircraft, that's one heck of a slip to fly down to the runway. It's not the same aircraft but I'm not sure the SU-25 even has enough rudder authority to do that. What do they do if the wind is coming from the left? Is there a permanent right crosswind in Russia?

Same as the SU-25A unfortunately. Actually in that case it's both landing and taxi that are aligned to the left, but the wideness of the taxi light makes it less noticeable.

IRL taxi lights and landing lights aren't about brightness but focus. A taxi light is meant to light up a wide area close to the aircraft while landing lights are meant to aim much farther into the distance. That might make the taxi light look "brighter". I know it is correct on both SU-25s, though the 25A is misaligned.

Oh don't get me wrong. I by no means think that Thrustmaster is the standard. But the TMWH has been out for years and as such there are some products that already use it's dimensions for mounting which allows a greater range of compatibility for a new product if it uses said dimensions. I think the high end sim community is probably very small and there is no sense in making the amount of choices for the consumer even smaller. And I don't think there are as many people with Logitech 3d pros and X-52s that intend to mount them. As far as sim cockpits go... I mean, you built a cockpit. I don't think a single one of those people care if they have to drill new holes. It's about the other 90% that can't build a cockpit or don't have the time/resources to do so. And really, mounting holes don't have to have any impact at all on the button placement or aesthetics of the top. Like not whatsoever.

Well if you are designing your base to be 10mm thick I guess it is...

I just want to point out that it is really trivial for an engineer to design the throttle to use the same mounting holes as another device like the tmwh. You only need to make holes with the proper internal support in the right locations, the holes don't need to be at the extremities of the device. This is even easier if it bolts on from the bottom only as it doesn't affect the appearance. Standardizing attachment methods and dimensions is never a bad thing, and makes life much easier for the end user. I've got a mount for the x-55 and while if/when I get a VKB I will drill the required holes in the plate, it would be much less hassle if it were just a simple swap. It is the same principle as the development of their new sticks which are intended to swap out of all bases. It's even the same principle as DCS World in so far as all modules and aircraft are intended to work within the same framework so that netcode, graphics updates, weapon changes and multiplayer communities are all tied together regardless of which product you buy (if they ever merge the damn version). Imagine if the A-10 guys couldn't play with the su-27 guys or the upcoming f-18 as they were all different games. Compatibility makes purchases more likely. I could rant for hours about lack of standardization.

Then do what real pilots do and match the RPM. I have the X-55 and the SU-25 has no such issue with %RPM not matching. Only issue is if the friction is set too low and over 90% RPM the right throttle will tend to slowly fall forward ending up with 90% left and 95% right. But again, in a real airplane it is not uncommon for the throttle to be asymmetrical. Unless you are talking about 1 throttle being at 100% and the other 50% when full throttle on both sides.

I don't know either, but they are hydraulic so I wouldn't really expect too much noise. After all, do you hear the ailerons and elevator moving normally? They are hydraulically assisted.

So have I. It's really irritating and seems to be almost 50/50 chance of it happening. Yet yesterday I managed 3 times to get a pair of cluster bombs to release perfectly. There's no rhyme or reason to it so until it gets fixed, ccrp just isn't reliable. Though considering it's been at least a year that the su-25's engine animations have been reversed (probably the easiest thing in the whole game to fix), I think we'll be waiting a long time.

The controls are not reversed, only the animation of the turbines.

The waypoint is really just to get you to the target area. How you choose to proceed when you get there depends on the threats you face, the targets you're attacking, the armaments you have and the risks you are willing to take. The SU-25T's shikval is really not that great for finding targets as you have to already be flying towards it giving you a limited time to engage and avoid enemy fire. If you can first identify the threats by getting them to fire, you can then eliminate them from a safe distance with guided missiles and then go in closer using rockets and bombs.

I'm not sure how low you were going. I mainly fly the su-25a as I find it's a challenge to engage your targets without the help of a TV system. I have my fov bound to a zoom axis on my x-55 throttle and while I fly around at 100 degrees, I make attack runs at either 75 or 50 degrees. I have the privilege of having a 1440P ultrawide that fills about 60-70 degrees of RL fov, and despite all that sometimes I can't spot a huey until the last 3 or 4 seconds. Generally, to have a good chance of seeing ground targets I have to fly at 1000m or bellow. The LOD levels aren't perfect, but they are better than they used to be. You may notice the changes to the models as you come in, but I don't think it has much effect on their visibility. As mentioned above, if you don't know where to look for the targets, you have a much better chance of spotting tracers or SAMs.

Oh and I think the new map is supposed to have a better lighting engine as well as sharper textures, so that might bring an improvement. We'll have to see.