bfr

Also don't forget holding TDC Depress (I think) before you try and directionally slew if you have 'realistic TDC slew' enabled in settings.

Seemed to behave fine for me with the video feed kicking in properly 30s or so prior to impact (I could override the weapon OK so the DL pod was working fine both ways). I took control of the track just after you launched, although you did still seem to be in active pause at the time of launch and for a bit after.

I grew up a couple of miles away and lived and went to school under the approach to there (some of their radio nav gear was in a shed at the bottom of the school field). You could basically stand at the bottom of the runway on departure/arrival days (was a public right of way). Would agree. Vulcan is an astounding thing in the flesh but would suck as a DCS module.

Only one I had to hand with any juice in it was one i'd flashed to an open source build based on Android 6. Worked fine though.

If I remember i'll try and fire up a really old one later to confirm, but I definitely had it running on a tablet with a very old version of Android at one point in the past. As for size, I was fine using one that was about 8" but it boils down to personal preference in the end which is acceptable/not.

My experience was that it'll follow the laser like an LGB if its on, which was awkward as i'd forgot I was carrying them (had a mix of standard JDAMs and LJDAMs) and had already slewed the pod post-drop to line up another target and the LJDAMs ended up going where I was pointing. With laser off they seem to behave like any other JDAM. What i'm not sure about is if the laser breaks lock/switches off mid-attack whether it continues like a standard LGB on its current trajectory or if it tries to fall back to striking the GPS coordinates. One to try out I guess.

I'd agree for day-to-day use then some of the cheap ones are awful. As I said though, if you're only buying one for a virtual cockpit then anything with a well-behaved screen should do just fine. I have considered going the Streamdeck XL route and will see what discounts the post-Xmas sales throw up for them. Especially as I think it'd have a non-gaming use case for me. I don't think i'll be springing for 3 of them though I agree that physical buttons are better when you're reaching and trying to do something in a hurry with half an eye on something else.

Me too. I assume it might be possible to enable it in single player, although haven't tried as yet.

It is exactly that. Only the Navy ever bought them (hence the Viper also only got the A version).

You don't really need anything remotely special for the job in hand though as the apps aren't doing anything that demanding. If its for dedicated use with DCS then pick one up second hand or get something like an Amazon FIre in the sales for next to nothing (last I checked you can still load Google Store onto them). If you're going to use it for other stuff then the value case changes again versus adding a mini-monitor. I tend to end up just using my regular day to day tablet (which is quite recent, but I know it'll be charged when I want it) but i've had the DCS UFC app running before now on an old Samsung tablet that is about 10 years old and came with something like Android 4.4 on it. The only real negative with DCS UFC is it doesn't support the Strike Eagle yet, but does fine for most other jets. The only connectivity issues i've had with it was when I rebuilt my PC and the firewall was blocking the port initially. Being able to swipe to bring up other control panels can be a big plus. Out of interest, what are you using for UFC on your additional monitor setup? Last time I looked into that then the only option that let you actually interact with what you sent to a secondary Windows display was Helios (I do viewports of the MFDs via DCS to a second monitor but obviously you can't actually click anything on them).

There are apps for Android that'll provide the UFC interface that you can fully interact with. It also means your graphics card isn't having to drive another display.

Same here. I found in most scenarios it was just quicker, easier and more reliable to cut out the middle-man and slew and lock the Mav directly. The pod to missile handoff just seemed too prone to error (a mix of me being ham-fisted and cocking up the sequence of inputs, and the stars not all aligning for a successful handoff).

Its unsupported software and has been for quite some time. Occasionally blindly retrying would meant it worked for a bit (and then usually tie itself in knots again) but if you're having issues with it then they're not magically going to go away. IIRC with the 'now click a button' thing in the Windows calibration, you can just click 'next' on the Windows UI to advance it instead? For as long as I owned CH stuff (which admittedly didn't include pedals) I don't think I ever did the calibration via CHCM and just used Windows calibration.

As far as Gremlin goes (I have no knowledge of JoyPro), it does allow you to have different mappings for the same aircraft tied to what mode you're in. For instance, I have a Virpil TM3 and use the 5 position dial control to set modes (usually equivalent to being in Nav, A/A & A/G). In Nav then I might have momentary switches bound to things like gear, flaps etc but the same switches will work things for the TPOD in A/G. Similarly my trigger will be bound to the wheel brakes in Nav but cannon/pickle in A/G or A/A. So it can make a limited number of inputs go a long way.

Thanks for the clarification on why the order is the way it is.

Also, the sequencing behaviour AFAIK doesn't care about the bomb types particularly. So 5 GBU's in one pass might well be unrealistic, but it becomes more realistic if you swap that loadout of GBU-12s for dumb bombs or JDAMs. And yeah, i've found the station order the bombs come off to be curious too (always assumed it'd be in a fashion that wouldn't unduly unbalance the jet, or at least with some symmetry to it) but have no real world knowledge to say if its how it happens for real or not.

Shoot first, leave the questions to the Board of Inquiry later.

Yeah, i've had that experience too. Would be interesting to know if there is a genuine bug or I just haven't read the manual enough and there is some criteria i'm not meeting when it doesn't work.

I don't think there is a single magic button to re-centre during normal flight. I think it happens if you fluff a landing and retract gear and flaps but no idea if that re-centres aileron trim as well as elevator trim. Best you can maybe do if you're struggling is use the control inputs pop-up as a guide as the current trim position appears as a +. Although it can be hard to precisely pick out if its very close to centre as its the same colour as the rest of the pop-up and gets obscured by the diamond.

Same here. Never been an issue thus far. Mind you, I don't select CDES when i'm programming JDAMs from the TPOD (didn't see the point/need) so maybe that behaves differently if you do.

I meant officially user-flyable jets, but it does indeed seem odd that the -C is on the available weapons list for AI B-1Bs (and equally odd the -A isn't)

When you say FLIR do you mean the targeting pod or the weapon screen showing the feed from the missile itself pre-release? Where were the expected and actual targets in relation to one another?

It would be interesting to know a bit more about how the system works if you indeed do have to un-designate. I assumed when you pushed the Xfer button it just sent the spatial data of whatever was designated at that time to the weapon and that was the end of it.

SDB was on the 'you will eventually get' list for the Strike Eagle. And like you say, we'll almost certainly not see them until a later suite gets added. I can't remember if ED were going to add SDBs to the A-10II or not as well. I vaguely recall seeing a post that they might've been out of scope for that, which would be a shame as the A-10C IRL is/has been updated to carry something like 16 of them.

Yeah. I only really use the C, which you can only use on the Hornet. Cluster weapons, with the exception of the -97/105s, generally are a bit underwhelming in DCS even if you get them on right on target. Only A & C on the Hornet. A only on the Viper. In real life the B was trialled by the Navy but they never actually put them into service. No idea if any of the AI jets can carry them, but certainly none of the player-flyable jets can that i'm aware of.