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I have added a check ride section that allows you to take a "check ride" type flight exam in your chosen aircraft type. To take a check ride download the latest FBO version here, start the mission, choose your aircraft type from the "New Player Aircraft" radio menu. Then go back to the radio menu and pick "Flight School" and select "Enter Check Ride Mode". This will put your aircraft into the flight exam mode. In the flight exam mode you can first practice all the skills necessary via the radio menu to pass the exam (short field takeoff, power on and off stalls, steep turn, etc). Once you think you have mastered all the check ride skills you are ready to take the check ride exam. From the radio menu choose "Take Flight Exam" and follow the pseudo examiners instructions as they guide you through the exam. You must perform the skills within the examiners listed aircraft performance limits in order to pass the exam. You exit the check ride mode via the radio menu.

If you spawn airborne in the UH-1H and the wind is blowing at 7 knots and coming from between 45 and 145 degrees, the aircraft makes a violent yawing motion to right just after you spawn in. The aircraft then quickly returns to the heading you spawned into. The yaw is much less pronounced the closer the wind is to coming from between 45 and 145 degrees. When the wind is coming from 90 degrees the yaw is the most severe. I have seen this behavior between 1000 ft and 3000 ft AGL Caucasus map Example here However, if the wind is blowing at 10 knots the wind range for the violent yaw is between 36 and 59 degrees. Other wind speeds may have different yaw inducing ranges.

Thanks for the heads up on the WWII asset pack information. In this mission, all targets are dynamically spawned via scripting and not included in the actual mission file. I have tested the missing WWII asset behavior on an install with no asset pack. In this case, the WWII era spawns are substituted with a non WWII era type and have a missing bitmap skin. It does look very funky and is a modern type target vs a WWII era aircraft. Its not the optimal behavior but the mission does still work. More testing by users without the WWII asset pack is greatly appreciated. Also, any advice on a way to identify if users have the WWII asset pack installed prior to spawning a target would be appreciated.

This is a single player mission and is for all the current maps. This is the first mission I have shared with the community and constructive feedback is very much appreciated. I wrote this mission so I could easily select any airplane in my hanger via the F10 menu. I hope other people find it useful too. This mission allows you to select any aircraft (if you own it) in the game via the F10 menu and fly either air to ground or air to air missions. The enemy spawns are always in random locations and are historically accurate random targets based on the players current aircraft service life. Since DCS is short on targets for certain decades, you can extend the service life of your aircraft via the preferences menu. For aircraft of WWII era you are required to have the WWII asset pack for any enemy spawns to work correctly. If you don't have the WWII asset pack, you can extend the service life of your aircraft via the preferences menu for 1950's era targets. All aircraft and scenario changes can be made without restarting or editing the mission. Just select a new aircraft and spawn type from the F10 menu. Then use F10 again for a new mission as solo or with a AI wingman. The wingman can be selected to either lead you to the target or follow you in formation as you find the target. The wingman is helpful if you decide to turn up the difficulty or spawn bombers with escorts. There is also a flight training menu that allows you to practice your basic airmanship. In flight training you can spawn on final approach, fly the pattern, follow a formation, saddle up to a tanker, attempt a carrier landing, etc. The mission spawns in a TF-51D but feel free to change this in the mission editor to whatever starting type aircraft you want. You can also move the starting aircraft to any airfield on the map in the mission editor. I think this flexibility keeps the game fresh. You can download the missions here: Caucasus Marianas Syria Persian Gulf Nevada Normandy Channel Please let me know what you think.

Hot vs lot is not a typo. The term "parking hot" comes from both the mission builder and scripting. It means engines running. In the mission builder if you spawn an aircraft "Take off from parking hot". The aircraft spawns with engines running from the parking space you specify and will taxi to takeoff. If you spawn "Takeoff From Ramp" the aircraft spawns from the main ramp, starts it engines and then will taxi. You can't spawn aircraft with engines not running from parking in mission editor. You also cannot spawn engines running from the ramp in the mission editor. Via scripting you specify engines running or not and parked or on runway in the first waypoint. To spawn with engines running at parking: ["route"] = {["points"] = {[1] = { ["action"] = "From Parking Area Hot", To spawn with engines not running at parking: ["route"] = {["points"] = {[1] = { ["action"] = "From Parking Area", To spawn from the runway with engines running: ["route"] = {["points"] = {[1] = { ["action"] = "From Runway", When you spawn as hot the aircraft will taxi after 20 seconds, if taxiway is clear. Missing hot and the aircraft has to start its engines before it will taxi. If another AI aircraft is on final approach or the runway is occupied. The "From Runway" spawn will wait to render AI until the runway is clear.

I couldn't really find much help for scripting spawning aircraft into parking spaces hot. So I decided to document what I have found for others. I have only tested this on the Nevada Map. For other maps your results may vary. First take note of an airbase in mission editor. When you zoom in you will see the particular parking spaces listed for each airfield on the map. Of these parking spaces not every aircraft type can park in every space. This is true in mission editor and also true via scripting. You can use the mission editor to find available spaces for a particular aircraft type by creating an aircraft type take of from parking hot. There is a drop down of available spaces. There are two parking variables available for the groupData ["units"]. These are ["parking"] and ["parking_id"] both can be used for parking in a desired space. The friendlier one is ["parking_id"]. Use it like this: ["parking_id"] = "G20" The value for ["parking_id"] uses the same value that is printed on the map in the Mission Editor. If the aircraft can be park in the space in Mission Editor, you can park in that space via scripting when you assign ["parking_id"] the same value. The other variable ["parking"] is numeric and matches a ["parking_id"] as printed on the map in mission editor. For instance the variable ["parking_id"] = "G20" , might be the same parking space as ["parking"] = 185 . Use either one of these variables or both. The variable ["parking"] seems to take precedence if you include both. You can find these ["parking"] numbers by parking an aircraft in the mission editor in the desired space, saving, and then opening the mission script file inside the .miz file to find the value. A couple of things that tripped me up which might help you. Spawing Incrementally. Don't even bother trying to spawn a group of similar aircraft by incrementing the variable ["parking"] + 1. This fails because the ["parking"] spaces on a given airbase probably are not sequential for a given type of aircraft. If you do this, unexpected behavior will result. The way I solved spawning a group of same type aircraft is to create a table of known available parking spaces and increment over it to spawn the aircraft: parkingMap = { "E13" , "03" , "02" , "01" , "06" , "F163" } ["parking_id"] = parkingMap[1] , etc Only One Time I have found you can only spawn aircraft into a given parking space one time. For instance if you created the above table parkingMap, then you decided to iterate over that table multiple times to repeatedly spawn aircraft. This will fail because you cannot keep spawning into ["parking_id"] = parkingMap[1] multiple times. If you do this, you will experience the next concept. The Main Ramp If you spawn an aircraft into the same space twice or use a ["parking_id"] or ["parking"] value that does not exist, the aircraft will spawn into the parking space which I am calling the "Main Ramp". Every airbase has a Main Ramp and its location is different on each airbase. Every aircraft "seems" to be able to spawn to the Main Ramp on every airbase regardless of the length of the runway. I found some airbases with Main Ramps that are actual ["parking_id"] spaces which you can also spawn repeatedly into. Other Main Ramps might just be the approach end of the runway or a taxiway. You can use the Main Ramp to spawn aircraft repeatedly into the same spot. For example if you were to iterate over the above table parkingMap a second time, every subsequent spawn will be to the Main Ramp. This behavior happens regardless of what value you assign to ["parking_id"] when you attempt to spawn a second time in the same space. Stacking Aircraft. If nothing is blocking their way aircraft will start to move 20 second after spawning. If you stack aircraft on the Main Ramp or something is blocking their way as they spawn, aircraft won't queue up and pull out one by one. If you stack multiple spawns on the Main Ramp, as soon as an aircraft moves there will be a crash. Remaining spawns will just stack up and nobody moves, just like ORD. Only So Many Some aircraft types have a lot of available parking spaces, others not so many. Too many waiting or taxing aircraft will just gum up the works. Eventually nobody will move, just like ORD. Hope that helps!