Lace

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.

Of course fighters were (are) built with neutral or even negative stability (especially with the advent of FBW computers) but your claim that it was not possible to fly any aircraft hands off without George helping was just plain wrong. And taking a nap is inadvisable even with the autopilot on, they are pretty poor at RT and collision avoidance I don't, and being a fighter I doubt very much that it was designed to be positively stable.

Sorry but that is just wrong, any aircraft with positive stability which is correctly trimmed will fly hands-off. No auto pilot required.

The live weapons loading revetments on the Golf apron should have the aircraft facing outwards (i.e. to the SE away from the runway) since they can be loaded with live ordnance on these parking spots and any negligent discharge will be in a 'safe' direction. It can be seen quite clearly in Google Maps. Google Maps Although thinking about it now, with 2.7 aircraft can be spawned anywhere on the ground (with any heading) so I guess the point is moot.

A little Mi-8 mission for anyone who's interested. A basic convoy escort with a surprise or two. About 45 mins playtime. Low unit count and very frame-rate friendly. MI8 CAU 08 APR LC SP Convoy Escort IED.miz

What can I say, Jester just bugged me. Besides, no self respecting fighter pilot needs self loading ballast nagging them from the back. Anyway, back to the Hind.

Best is a matter of opinion and entirely subjective. I tried the F-14 in two 'free-to-play' weekends and was completely unenamoured by it. The Hind on the other hand was an instant day-one pre order for me.

DCS is the game I wished for as an 11 year old! I have a 9 and 7 year old. The 9yo likes to fly aeros in the Yak, and the 7yo just likes crashing from what I can tell. For all it's complexities, it is still possible to to just enjoy flying around without having to spend hundreds of hours in the books. This was what 11 year old me was playing: On a serial link between two PCs in my parents attics, AirQuake before there was even regular Quake! Edit - I'm 42 to answer the OP.

Mate, it was a joke. I don't see any need for a virtual iPad in DCS. As an aside though, much of my flying IRL is very close to an EW range which regularly NOTAMs GPS jamming - so it definitely happens in peacetime too! Paper backups a must (and still a legal requirement in the UK).

My comment was tongue-in-cheek. I have no issues using the hardwired kit in game. I was just making an observation that despite the multi-million dollar navigation suite in modern military aircraft, navigation and planning is done via iPad, just like us lowly GA pilots.

How many hours do you have IRL Zhukov? Not disagreeing with you, but you could apply that statement to pretty much any vocation (driving, cooking, coding, etc.). It took me about 10 hours before they let me loose on my own in an aeroplane, and 22 hours before I was allowed to drive on my own, so no, the actual art of stick wiggling is not that difficult compared with things many non-pilots do day-to-day. For many wanabees the limiting factor is not ability, it's usually financial or medical (or marital!). There is an adage regarding pilots and experience: After 100 hours, you think you know it all After 300 hours, you know you know it all After 1000 hours, you know you will never know it all. You can teach...

Why? The whole point of destroying bridges is to cause horrendous routing issues for the enemy. To cause supply lines to back up stall advances making them easy targets for area bombardment. However, it would be nice if the amphibious capabilities of ground units was modelled. Pretty much the whole WARPAC arsenal had wading capability for that very reason. Some deployable pontoons would be nice too.

I passed on the F-14 for this very reason, but somehow I feel the Hind will lend itself better to an AI pilot/CPG given that it is a less complex and less dynamic platform. Flying as CPG I imagine it will be possible to have the pilot fly the planned route, perhaps hovering behind a treeline on request while weapon systems are prepared and then pop up for delivery, or perhaps flying as pilot I can just order the CPG 'weapons free' and allow them to allocate and engage targets as they see fit. The fact that the Hind fulfilled plenty of other roles too mean that the CPG is less essential than the RIO in the 'cat. They are only absolutely necessary when using ATGM AIUI. I think the two-crew requirement for the Hind is more about redundancy/survivability than workload.

I am a pilot IRL, not as a profession but for personal enjoyment, for fun. I enjoy taking the wife, the boy or the girl away for sightseeing, or to visit somewhere new, practice an aerobatic routine or even just have a pointless bimble on a CAVOK day. But I am relatively limited in real life. I am never going to be able to fly an F-16 in combat (too old, too blind, too tall). I am never going to fly Red Flag, or fly carrier ops in a Hornet, or support an infantry column in a Hind. With DCS I can attain a reasonable level of proficiency in these aircraft in the safe environment of my home, and even though it is immersive and intense (especially with VR), I know that everything I do in game is ultimately free of consequence. I also know that flying in real life has very real consequences. Do I think I could jump in an F-16 if someone let me, start it up and take it for a spin based on what I've learned from DCS? - very doubtful ( I have circa 200hrs on type). There is too much to learn, limitations which don't apply to the simulator, emergency checklists which nobody on here learns because you generally just blow up when hit and mechanical failures are rare. Real life has rules, procedures, ATC, weather, all of which take up valuable brain processing power. Could I sit in the back of a D model and throw it around the sky for a bit? Of course, but so could my 9 year old, it wouldn't make me a real Viper pilot. I use X-Plane to practice some of my real-world flying (given Covid restrictions I have been spending more time and money flying my laptop this last year than any real aircraft) and it is genuinely useful if you can use the same aircraft you would fly IRL. For example, If I am taking up a PA-28 (a type I don't have many hours on) a bit of time in XP11 can let me practice my scans and checks etc, but I can't say honestly that any simulator I've flown has helped me with the actual stick-wiggling art of flying. The reason is that while it is possible to fly 'by the numbers', there is still very much an element of 'feel' to visual flying. That is the one thing a static simulator can't convey. As Ikarus above correctly states, simulators are a valid method for maintaining and recertifying instrument flying procedures, because instrument flying is very much heads down and watching the numbers, and very much not about 'feel'. There is a reason airlines invest $millions on simulators, it allows them to practice emergency situations which present too high a risk to do 'for real'. They do not use these same simulators to train ab initio pilots - for that they use real aircraft. There is a good reason for that. QED. TLDR: Lots of hours in a simulator make you a good simulator pilot. A simulator can help a real pilot maintain proficiency, but it will not make a non-pilot a pilot, IMHO of course.

It's definitely a powerful editor, and quite a learning process. I did manage yesterday to write a nice little convoy escort mission which involved disembarking an EOD team from an Mi-8 to disarm a roadside bomb. Sadly no animations, but the mechanics of it worked. It seems that what is generally required is a bit of lateral thinking.

Indeed. They aren't just going to rock up to the ground crew and say "Today I fancy 1547 for my GBU-12".

I thought they all just used ForeFlight on their iPads for nav IRL anyway? Can we have a virtual iPad instead?

Surely this is something established well before stepping to the jet? Codes would have been allocated during briefing based on likely deconflictions and/or spoofing and set by the ordnance teams during loading. I can't imagine IRL it's something the pilot has much control over?

^^^ That's great info, thanks!

This was the intent, but I'll play around with the Escort function and see how much use that is.

Thanks, I think I follow that. I'll give it a go this evening and see what happens.

Care to elaborate?

Would it be possible to have individual weapon/pylon weights displayed, (perhaps even with drag indices?). I see a lot of asymmetric loadouts IRL, particular with the Viper (that is my main fixed-wing DCS a/c), it would be good to see how balanced (or not) these loadouts are during mission planning. For example, JDAM opposite LGB in the same size class probably wouldn't make much difference, but I imagine AGM-88 and CBU-87 would - in this case is it better to put the AGM-88 on the TGP side or the HTS pod? I know we can work this out either using weapon databases or through trial and error, but it would be useful to have the information readily available during planning. On a similar note, weapon info 'tool tips' boxes would be nice too. I know the AGM-65D is the small EO, and the G is the big one, but new users may not and when I jump in my Mi-8 after a while off it would be nice to know immediately whether I need the S-8KOM, S-8OM, S-8Tsm or S-8OFP2 rockets loaded, without having to go back through the manuals. We don't all know all weapon types for all aircraft.

And helicopters...?

It would also be nice if we could have a 'western' AI as part of the English cockpit too. AFAIK it is a requirement for Yaks on the UK register to have this gauge replaced (or blanked), along with the metric ASI and altimeter.