bfr

I tried going up against merchant vessels just as a test run and had similarly mixed results with MED profile. I think only once I got both missiles to acquire and hit but other times they went long, circled and self destructed. Incidentally, is the moving target tracking for the TPOD meant to work with ships? I ended up using Paveways to finish the job on one pass but had to manually keep the laser on track as it wouldn't lock a moving target like I have done with land vehicles?

The only one I can think of is (or i've always assumed it to be) a nav radio marker. Makes a racket for a couple of cycles as you pass over it and then stops. And you'll probably hear it again as you come into land and pass over it.

Just come across similar. Set up a mission over Nevada with 4 static targets and a player controlled Hornet. Stalls at the 1/60 World Preload stage consistently but loads immediately if I change the aircraft to AI controlled. Changing the plane back to player controlled causes the problem to reappear.

I must admit i'm surprised there aren't more land-based missions/campaigns for the F-18. After all, pretty much every export operator of the Hornet never has their planes go anywhere near a carrier.

It would be interesting to know from the OP as to what aspect of the Harrier they were struggling with. If it was the avionics side then they'll probably hate the Hornet as well. In terms of learning to fly the 18 v 14 (versus learning systems), I agree with others that the 18 is much more forgiving whereas the 14 bites back quite hard if you stray over the limits.

Thanks, i'd wrongly assumed it was something you could do before even getting in the jet (which of course it may well be in time).

Possibly, it just wasn't terribly clear. In the bug feedback thread then i'm sure some people mentioned using PP mode so I assumed it might be something I was simply missing seeing.

Which assumes the only fault can be with your buddy-lase/JTAC. I haven't found JTAC to be particularly unreliable, nor have I found self-lasing with a TPOD (I also own the Harrier) to be infallible.

As a slight aside, is there any guidance anywhere as to how you set up preplanned targets? Is it in the editor somewhere?

I've had several goes with the GBU24 from the F14 (using JTAC rather than LANTIRN) and its always seemed to not pick up the laser and just glide long. GBU10 has been pretty much flawless though. Is this a definite game issue (someone alluded to it earlier without going into detail) and not just user error?

I was going to ask about this. Are there any things one should be doing to help Jester not lose lock so easily in BVR scenarios? I set up a test mission with an Il-76 flying an orbit as my 'target drone'. Jester sees him, locks him up, Phoenix away and then he loses the plane on radar not long afterwards despite me having continued onward towards the target, straight and level.

Cheers, i'll take a look later. I'm about a million hours logged away from taking it near multiplayer so not worried about any clash with that!

Equally flying based on feel/"seat of your pants" IRL rather than looking at speed/alt gauges is probably much more doable because the seat of your pants is actually getting some feedback. And as you note, an awful lot of things in the cockpit are between quite and incredibly hard to read. I'm reminded of doing the cold start training mission and struggling to make out (even on full zoom) with certainty the markings of the position on the BIT dial on the RH console. Although i'll try an earlier suggestion someone made of sticking the console lighting on to see if it improves things.

Isn't it just pressing the ACM button on the radar page of whichever MFD you have it up on? This should toggle it back to RWS. Not sure if there is an equivalent way to do it via HOTAS mappings though.

Yes, the 18 can be "on rails" as you put it. Although I find it can also be like driving a big truck sometimes and other times like being a bee. So its rewarding when you can get the very best out of it. I definitely don't think it lacks character, its just where the extremes of its character lies that may not appeal to some. By comparison I had a love/hate thing with the SU27 in FC3 especially because sometimes it was an absolute joy to fly and then suddenly it'd basically be hellbent on killing you. Then you have the good old dependable SU-25 which is just looking for an excuse to kill you as soon as you try and push it.

You could well be right. As the panels froze then the only failure indicators available to tell me what was broke were the warning lights on the RH vertical panel.

Indeed! I expect its not a tough fix (i've flown planes in P3D/FSX that successfully factor in altitude to whether the pilot can breathe without oxygen systems available or not) but also probably just down near the bottom of priorities. On a similar note, the same flight I had the breathing on the ground issue i'd previously lost one of the generators to ground fire. The effect of this was all the MFDs and HUD totally froze (no buttons worked, the displays were stuck on what they showed at point of failure). No idea how realistic this is as I would've expected them just to go blank rather than fail in the manner that they did. Got down OK with a mix of the analogue backup instruments and the seat of my pants.

I wasn't aware of that. I shall have a look later. Cheers.

I suspect the whole obogs thing is a bit buggy anyway. I completed a mission the other day, landed in Dubai taxied off the runway and started sitting things down. After killing the engines and opening the canopy I switched the oxygen systems off. I then proceeded to start blacking out until I quickly turned the oxygen systems back on.

Also make sure you're not hitting responses whilst the JTAC is still talking. There's a point around the 9 line being read out where you can prematurely declare IP Inbound but it sends you down a dead end in terms of the radio interaction logic (the correct response doesn't come up on the list until it's finished talking and will never come up if you cut it off).

That's my experience of it too. The test scenario I had involved using a Predator as FAC and then flying in the rough direction of the target and releasing when I guesstimated it'd be about close enough for the bombs to reach. Run this same scenario numerous times now with all the GBU variants and my hit rate is pretty much 100%.

I'd agree. Whilst this ought to work OK with the setup I have currently (I haven't as yet tried it but in theory I should be OK), it does seem a bit mean to force a multi-press on everyone when they might not have the controller hardware to easily support it.

If you mean the Yas Marina circuit then it is in there now (I tried to land on part of it the other day :music_whistling:)

I tried it myself last night for kicks with GBU-16s, and observed the same as you that it almost works.