Lace

One of the reasons the A-10 engines were mounted above the wings was to more easily facilitate hot-pit rearms with less risk to ground crew. Go read some of the contemporary accounts of ODS, you will find plenty of examples of crews flying multiple sorties without leaving the cockpit. It was the very definition of surge tempo ops, and they were seriously expecting a much tougher fight than they actually received. With hindsight ODS looks like a cake-walk, the reality at the time was that the coalition were facing one of the most advanced AD networks and some of the most battle-hardened forces in the world, and a leadership who had already demonstrated an ability and willingness to use chemical and biological weapons against his own citizens.

Which is a much better way. There is no such thing as a stalling speed, only a stalling AoA. Fortunately AoA probes and their integration into GA glass cockpits is becoming cheaper and more common these days.

You mean like this? It does happen, but IRL there are procedures to follow and taxy speed limits so it is almost certainly far less common than an airquaker hurrying back to the runway after another hot pit rearm. The info I have states taxy at 20ish, turns at 10 (from the DED INS G/S).

There is no max landing weight for the Viper. If you can take off with it, you can land with it.

Most aircraft use airspeed rather than AoA for the simple reason that they don't have AoA indication. AoA is the only real defining factor in lift generation. The reason the approach speed changes with weight is to arrive at the correct AoA. You don't need to overdo the aerobraking pitch up either, or you risk a nozzle or airbrake strike, 10-13deg works ok, you just need to hold it for as long as the nose will remain controllable.

If you are having stopping problems you are not aerobraking or are trying to drop it into farm strips. It's really not that hard to land the Viper. Aero to 100, wheel brakes from 70-taxy speed.

Or just fly by AoA. Correct AoA, correct landing speed for current aircraft weight.

A large part of this (rotary shot down by fixed wing assets) is how people play DCS. Most missions and scenarios are completely unrealistic and written for player enjoyment. Look how many kills a DCS player will get, and compare it to real life combat pilots. Many DCS players will become an ace in one mission, with several hundred AA and AG kills within a few sorties. This is just not how it works in real life. Aircraft will be sent on a particular mission, and that is very rarely 'just fly around and find something to kill'. Unless downing a helicopter is an expressed mission objective it will probably be left alone, as AA weapons would be better employed against high threat targets. If for example you are flying a self-escorted strike mission, bumping into a helicopter is unlikely to prevent you from completing your mission, so you will not want to waste fuel, weapons or expendables engaging a target, while at the same time risk missing your TOT for the actual reason you are flying. Even a CAP mission is unlikely to waste time engaging rotary in a contested airspace, as the fixed wing assets present a greater threat. Let the SHORAD deal with the angry palm trees. The only time I can realistically see helicopters being engaged is like in ODS when everything else was stuck on the ground or hiding in Iran, and coalition forces had such numerical superiority that they could afford to spend the resources downing the odd helicopter. TLDR; The main reason helicopters don't get shot down by fighters is that the fighters usually have something more important to do.

Apart from the Spitfire, Mossie, 109 & 190s, Viggen, Mirage 2000, Gazelle, C-101 and (if you squint) the Harrier? The Typhoon and Mirage F1 are also on their way. Probably others I've missed. But, yes I agree a Tonka or Jag would be very welcome, and the AI units desperately need bolstering.

FC3 aircraft are simplified, but rely heavily on keybinds rather than clickable cockpit controls. For a VR user this is very inconvenient and make the FC3 aircraft far less accessible than the full-fidelity modules IMHO. You spend your time memorising keys rather than learning systems. The F-5 is a good shout, as is the AV-8B if you want multi-role and the novelty of naval ops and VSTOL. Don't discount the M2000 though, that was one of my first FF modules and it is a capable A/A platform with some A/G ability, though very little commonality with the American aircraft if you plan on changing aircraft later on.

Never done the full circuit but I've been on the karting track a few times.

Paul Ricard is my local circuit when I'm at my place in France, I regularly cycle up that way They used to do L39 flights from there too.

I know it is possible by modifying files. Let's face it, most things are, but its shouldn't be necessary, and surely can't be a difficult issue for your programmers to tie in the VR model with the wallpaper and music theme?

It's certainly possible to do hot-pit turnarounds during surge tempo ops, but that was kind of meant for a real Cold War turned hot scenario when the expected life of an airframe was no longer dictated by maintenance schedules or fatigue cycles, IYKWIM.

I think realistic refuelling and rearming times should be at least a switchable option. With a time skip function it would mean players are not sitting at their computer for 30-60 minutes (unless they want to watch the ground crew in action), but a realistic amount of time would have elapsed in the sim world.

Yep, looks terrible in 2.7. Way too dark and like a can of furniture polish has exploded in the cockpit.

Yes, it was important to maintain the element of surprise. The Apaches would have had a much tougher time if by the time they arrived at their targets ALCMs were already hitting targets across the rest of Iraq. But this is the Hind thread, no point in discussing what the Apache achieved in ODS, especially given it was the A model, and not the D model DCS is producing.

+1 Surprised to see that the MiG is still with us after 2.7 - I thought they would want to showcase one of their new halo modules rather than an older FC3 model. It would be nice if there was a VR scene to match the main menu wallpaper scene.

I'm having something similar, crashes sometime into second mission but in my case it is only crashing to the black screen in my Rift S. It used to do this occasionally with 2.5.6 but it is much more frequent in 2.7. Latest patch, and latest NVIDIA and Oculus drivers installed, and usual cable checks on the HMD but still no joy. System specs in signature.

That's the beauty of aviation in the UK - you get to enjoy both systems. I fly an imperial altitude (ft) on a metric pressure setting (mb/hPa). I measure fuel in litres and oil in quarts, and oil pressure in PSI. My logbook is in h:m, and the a/c log is in decimal minutes. DIstance is in NM, but runway length metres (and ATZ in NM). Cloud base is in feet, but visibility is metres. They even mix units within the same rule "you must not fly lower than 1000 ft above the highest obstacle within 600 m of the aircraft". It's all very simple really - you metric lot are missing all the fun.

Glad you enjoyed it. At least you 'found' some of the bad guys! Keep well ahead of the convoy and keep your speed up. Floating along at 20kts is asking for trouble. I find a low figure-8 clearing both sides of the road a mile or so ahead of the convoy is a good tactic.

Thanks for the detailed feedback. Much appreciated. A few points to counter. I deliberately set the AI skill to random in order to introduce an element of unpredictability and replay ability to the missions. In hindsight this seems to be a mistake as too many flights are either crashing or not properly engaging into the mission. I am in the process of rewriting the missions with higher AI skill levels which will hopefully fix some of this. Wingman fuel management - what can I say, even giving them an extra bag of gas they still seem unable to manage their fuel consumption. It seems more of a DCS issue than a mission issue as you say. Mission 1 - Noted about ROE, though a little tension and uncertainly was intended here. WRT to the MLRS in mission 3 - again with random skill sometimes they hit, sometimes not. I will add some feedback on the fire mission request. Also I believe abandoning the mission due to heavier than expected ADA is a realistic outcome. Mission 5 was a bit of a tough one. My intent was to have the SCUDs launching as the player approaches down the valley. They have a 7 minute prep time before firing so it was tough to get the trigger point right given the amount of variation possible regarding player GS and distance covered in that time. It worked in theory, but not so much in practice. Thinking about it now I will trigger the SCUDs at mission launch, then stop them after 600sec, and resume when the player flight is one minute out. That might be a better solution. I get that it was more a procession than a combat mission and certainly not one of the better ones. Mission 6 would have been better with AIM-7s, but unfortunately our pretend A-model Viper doesn't support them. I had intended to write full flight plans including times on/off station, friendly OOB etc. but more feedback from the AWACS could work in the meantime. Again regarding the general lack of direction - this is intentional to an extent. I was attempting to simulate a dynamic and unpredictable WWIII scenario where it was highly probable that much of the chain of command would already have been disrupted. The first casualty of war is the plan, and in my experience confusion is generally the order of the day. I can only imagine how bad it would be for real. I wrote these missions primarily for myself, but the feedback received on this thread has been really valuable in how to improve them and what type of missions other people enjoy flying. I have been a bit slack with missions 7 and 8 but I'll try to get them published soon. 7 is an airfield attack and 8 is supporting a USMC heli landing.

It's an interesting idea, but since the ordnance loading is already massively sped up from real-life, I think any changes in ground crew behaviour is inherently unrealistic anyway. Essentially you would be penalising those who use a broad variety of airframes, and rewarding those who dedicate all their time to one. I'm not sure about the night vision aspect either. I've never heard of night vision abilities improving with practice. Certainly you will become more accustomed to operating at night (pretty much all of my training was at night, because at that time that is when we would be expected to fight - I believe doctrine has changed in recent years), but I don't think night vision ever 'improves' to any measurable degree. I'm still not sure how any of this can be implemented without either offering some kind of fuzzy logic to the weapons systems, or helping crutches, which IMHO goes against the study sim nature of DCS. If I miss on a rocket pass it's because I didn't perform the attack correctly, properly taking into account aircraft coordination, range, wind, etc, not because my 'pilot character' lacks the necessary rocket skills. It works in a game like GTA, I just don't really see it working in DCS. G tolerance, stamina and fatigue may play a part, especially with the dynamic campaign - you cannot for instance just fly back-to-back 12 hour sorties without some serious degradation of combat effectiveness, but again I'm not sure how that would actually play out in the game. Maybe the contrast and volume of the world just fades over time making target spotting harder, and radio calls to be missed. Maybe the flight controls get sloppier and sloppier until you take a go pill or get a few hours sleep.

What stats do you suggest are down to the simulator itself rather than the player? Other than G-tolerance I'm struggling to think of much, without adding automatic helpers for gunnery, AAR, landing approaches, etc. The way you get better at DCS is by learning the systems and practicing. How would a set of RPG stats be implemented?

I think it was worth it on release day 1, but other opinions are available. What you have right now is a very capable and feature rich (if by no means complete) multi role 4th gen fighter. It can perform BVR and WVR A2A, deliver laser guided and dumb bombs, and fire HARM and Maverick with more realism than any other module, plus a fully functioning TGP. There are still some major elements missing, such as IAMs, HTS, ground RADAR, navigation planning aids (TOT, CRUS etc), BIT tests, ECM, pilot G resistance, HMCS is still missing A2G stuff, plus apparently some flight model tweaks (but having never flown a Viper IRL I am in no position to say what they are, if indeed there are any). Plus cosmetic stuff like the canopy lifting arm and locking arrangements not yet animated correctly, on non-foldable arm rests but that's minor stuff really.