bfr

Agreed. A lot of things in fancy jets are there because it ultimately makes the pilot's job easier or increases awareness. I struggled with the F-14 at first because of the lack of information in the HUD (oh what i'd give for even the Sparrowhawk HUD as an update!), and the F-4 is even lower tech in that regard. I literally tore a wing off because I got a bit grabby and there wasn't a computer in the middle to say 'no' (and I lost count of the number of spins I ended up in!). To get a mental picture of BVR contacts then you're relying on the (usually AI) guy in the back telling you or you have to hop in the back to look at the scope. Even the way the front canopy is structured (and it'll be similar issues on an F-4) caused occasional problems with visibility at key moments because of the struts in your forward eyeline that just aren't an issue in a Hornet or Viper.

Pretty proficient on the Hornet and have kept up with things on the Eagle as they've come out. I'm OK on the Viper, but a bit behind in some areas. Tomcat & Viggen I love to fly but not to fight in (just never quite got to grips with learning the Viggen systems and never really got on with Jester in the F-14). Clocked a fair few hours on the Harrier when it was new, but that mostly gathers dust now and it'd be like starting from scratch to get back into it (especially as a lot of things were added/changed since I moved onto other things). Same story with the A-10.

Or have a game of dare in multiplayer where each player positions themselves along the runway at the farthest point from which they think they'll be able to take off from the remaining tarmac.

I'm expecting something slightly tougher than the F-14, which was definitely a shock to the system having come from the more modern jets. Especially how it would quite gladly let (and often willingly assist) you kill yourself and your RIO if you got a bit heavy on the stick.

Yes, they blink and the eyes move around like in the video. Thats in-game footage. Do the eyes widen just before you slam into the ground because you were too busy looking at (literal) eye candy and not looking where you were going?!

The reason I suggested it isn't is that there are examples of modules that are a long way from being feature complete that have ended up as available on trial. Its Razbam's product though at the end of the day and their commercial decision if they want to offer that option or not (much like they haven't participated in sales much lately, even with mature products like the M2000 and Harrier).

That isn't all that relevant (e.g. Apache has been available on trial for ages). It's a publisher decision as much as anything else as to whether a module goes into the trial programme or not.

Are you running any mods and/or is the recording without explicitly hitting RCD mission-specific? Certainly on mine it only records when you tell it to (just checked now and the last files in the folder are timestamped from July when I was intentionally tinkering around with the RCD feature)

You can. Hell, I can remember often enough having to go in and clear double mappings DCS itself creates by default.

Its impressive in terms of frame rate boost but also obviously not a free lunch. The slightly less crisp cockpit text I could just about cope with but (and its a while since I last tried it so it might've been fixed since) the ghosting/smearing in external views was a complete no-no.

Aye, my bad.

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.