Raisuli

That is a sure thing, and I'd wager even the people with strong opinions would take what they get. The good news is the developers did such a good job with the Mirage 1 we can all be hopeful they'll continue that trend with the F-104. I should really get that thing out and enjoy at least one froggy evening! Amazing the amount of knowledge around here, though! Holy crap, these guys have forgotten more about the bits and pieces that go on various models than I ever knew! There's one at the air museum down the road; now I have to take what I've learned here and go check it out again!

I'm not engaging anything. AP is off. I'm chasing after some whack job in an F-14 that never tells me when, or in what direction, she's about to turn. I'm six inches (for very short values of 200 feet) off her starboard aft side and she turns into me! I should see if I can get OBS to run one of those hops. I'd do a track, but it would be a really long track. Actually...I have a few of those. Besides, that would disclose what a suck job I do at formations.

I want the version with 4 AIM-9X, 6 AIM-260, and 12 GBU-24s all carried internally, carrier capable with VTOL, entertainment system, wet bar, hot tub, billiard table, and of course a five piece bath, but no cell phone service. And metallic chameleon paint. As an alternative something that looks more or less like an F-104 and flies. Since DCS is really all about me I think it's past time the F-16 isn't the sexiest aircraft flying anymore.

It IS a deadly beast, but with enough hours and some luck pilots occasionally survived flying it.

As long as you don't carve your initials on it with the sharpened end of a toothbrush...

Nope. Straight and level. Relatively level. The darn AI is bugged and keeps changing altitude. That or I'm changing altitude, but calling it a bug makes me feel better about myself, even if it isn't true. It's also pretty random. More than once I was just holding position off the AI's wing. I know where the way points are because the AI changes direction at every one. Virpil, no third party software involved - everything is mapped directly. Crosswind pedals, but my feet are on the floor. Thrustmaster throttle.

I learned AAR on the Syria map, no clouds, no wind. The tanker air-started at Ramat David at 25,000 feet and ~300 knots and turned in Turkey. The north-south ish heading also meant no sun in my eyes. The good news is there is no geopolitics on my maps so no concerns about airspace or twitchy neighbors. Put some music that helps relax you at low level in the background, because if you're anything like me once frustration starts to set in you get tense... Then take breaks. Once in a while my breaks were measured in days, but that helps, too. When you get too frustrated go do something fun. I read history books starting ~600 AD of the area I was flying over. That stuff is just nuts, but it's also amazing what happened in all those little towns you've been overflying... <edit> I seem to recall turning wake turbulence off for a little while. I think the first time I heard "Transfer complete" was when there was no turbulence. I turned it back on right after that because I didn't want to get used to it. </edit>

Executive Summary (lots of words here): Calm head and silk hands. You have to get ahead of the aircraft, and that means nulling your input before the plane has time to react in some cases. If you wait until the nose is where you want it's already too late... I've got a long and extensive relationship with your AAR problems. Thousands of kilometers traversed, numerous KC-135s have had catastrophic wing spar failures due to the repetitive pitch inputs by the pilot. Many long track files of a dead-on steady basket right up until I'm a plane length or two away, then suddenly aerodynamic forces, combined with cosmic rays and intervention by space aliens, set it on a wild ride. Probes centimeters from drogues yet unable to connect. It was all me. Including the bit about needing to 'gain a little bit of altitude' and suddenly wobbles happen. I tried trimming, I tried throttle (not really; you use throttle for pitch on landing). I tried using auto-pilot to keep things more steady. Every bit of that was me induced oscillation. I still fight with it, and (worse) still cross control (apply roll while trying to adjust pitch and vice versa). It took a few days of nothing but hours of AAR with no wind, zero dead zone and 20 curves to get to the point where I can say confidently I'm going to hit the basket. It might take a couple tries, it might not be pretty, but it will get done. I'm still learning; every hop I launch, tank, do a long formation flight with an AI lead, tank, then land. Or launch, tank, dump, tank, dump, tank... I'm down to 15 curves (trying to ween myself) and can still hit a tanker in a turn with a bit of wind dialed in. It's not always pretty; the cross controlling bites me still. PIO bites me still. I can go from <2000 to three bags full in one go, though, so I'm getting there. For what (little) it's worth, the KC-130 is the easiest tanker for me to hit, but I can do all four now. I do like how the KC-130 calls 'break away' just as I'm about to hit the basked, or how the Il-78 voice sound eerily familiar...

This makes me wonder if your stick is centered. Try calibrating the beast; if your OEM has a utility great, otherwise try the Windoze calibration. <edit> Or noisy...that will do it also... </edit>

I started working with real computers on a PDP-10, so...yeah. So that makes the Vigen and the Tomcat reasonably close; F-14 went into production in '69 (remember some guy walking on the moon that July) and introduced in '74, when the last Skylab module was launched. Yes, my search-fu is still working. Ish.

Drat. Now we're back to the whole SkyNet conspiracy theory, which might be more fun to joke about but it doesn't fly very well. Aren't the Viggen and Phantom pretty much the same era, though? Viggen is only 9 years younger than the Phantom, produced about that much longer according to my five second on-line search done in lieu of being an actual expert. The Phantom was a bit more ubiquitous which is why it's still flying, but the Strolling Bones (Rolling Stones) are still playing so age must not be everything... Sorry if I'm asking dumb questions; I'm a bit of an aviation nerd, but not obsessive about it...

I can't get to instagram to look at the link, but if the module spans eras and types that would dovetail nicely with Iron Mike's comment that there was a delay so they let a little feature creep into the project. After all, no good deed goes unpunished...

Thanks! I was just curious!

At the risk of sounding snarky, which isn't the intent, how many languages do you speak, and which of your non-native languages do you use daily in your school/work environments? Just curious is all.

Personally I spend an enormous amount of time looking at the chute graphics; heck, I eject on the runway so I can stare at it laying there. Sometimes I set up a chair and an endless line of AI aircraft so I can watch the chutes deploy. That's about 80% of my game enjoyment, so it would make sense if HB put a ton of time into the chute and not worry about trivial stuff like flight models and getting SkyNet integrated into Clown, AKA Jester Jr.. Oh, and internal equipment bays. I don't fly the KA-50, I stand around and marvel at the equipment bays. That's the other 60% Seriously, we need to get the VA to record a few iterations of lines from the Terminator series. SkyNet, after all... Can you imagine the posts after he says 'Your terminated' when an AC is shot down, or 'I'll be back' when he punches out? Terminator predates Flop Gun by a couple years, so if his lines are mid-80's pop culture...

So, pardon while I extend that question, is the underlying structure still aluminum? Did they use something capable of handling higher heat, or a special alloy with a higher tolerance for plastic deformation at high temperatures? Is the airflow (or lack of it) enough to keep those temperatures under control? I've always looked at those heat resistant panels (shingles?) and wondered about the materials science behind managing the temperature gradients. Intuitively just having the afterburner flame that close they'd get hot, but intuitively there's airflow around the skin of the fuselage, and that's not necessarily true! Intuition often leads to bad assumptions...

Reading their notes I get the feeling, though this might be completely off base, that Jester II will improve significantly on the original even if the voice overs don't change. The F-14/Jester was a serious step forward in technology, and the anticipation for the F4 is pretty intense. I try not to anticipate so much that nobody could deliver on it, though, and will continue to patiently wait for the release. It's not like I don't have a hanger full of modules to amuse myself in the interim...off to embarrassingly crash another AH-64 with my ham-fisted driving. That or it's horribly bugged. The latter sounds far better than the former...but the more I practice the smaller the bugs become...

Iron Mike has already said Skynet will be included with this module. Maybe not in those exact words, but he has used all of them at some point. Looks a bit like HB is living up to their reputation for excellence. Still needs the in-flight entertainment system and I don't see a tap for adult beverages anywhere, but I'm sure those will be in the finished product. For the record I'm a bachelor starting Wednesday and the week before September I'm off work, so what a perfect time to release a new module. Just sayin'...

You could hear that? I know his hair is amazing, but I only saw it Still made me laugh. You might be thinking about McAuliffe at Bastogne. I can't believe he called me pretending to be a military pilot in the comfort of my home office without the endless layers of military stupidity and limitless BOHICA moments a game. Heresy. For that he has to add detailed modeling of the engineering spaces on the super carrier so I can go laugh at the watch. And eat a sandwich in the control room.

There is no where on the map on which the stadium was placed where you would not be nervous... My dad and I used to laugh at his aerial gunnery book where it talked about high altitude, high speed precision bombing by the B-24. "Every bomb in this picture is in the target area". Yup. Every bomb hit the ground. Hi precision. About how I fly helicopters.

This got bought first day, looked at, and put on the shelf. I finally pulled it up just because I was completely sick of deserts, and it's becoming my goto. Just enough big airfields, lots of room for boats, and if you space your AAR resources right you can go anywhere you want. Kind of like the real world, and I might tank off a KC-130 or -135 here, an S-3B there, and and Il-76 down there... It helps that I create my own missions, and I've done some formations on the west side at low/mid altitude and the views are stunning. For me, at least, it's been a pleasant surprise how much I enjoy the map. For my next trick I'll come up with some scenarios to fly. The nice thing is I completely ignore geopolitics. Good guys over here, targets over there...

You start hot at Nellis with three bags and a couple A2A missiles for looks. I didn't add any of the ground fluff I usually put in as eye candy; pretty bleak! Zero wind, some cloud for decoration but they should be no factor, sun high in the sky. All four tankers run ~200nm race tracks. That's good if you have trouble hooking up, and bad if you need gas badly. This is NTTR, though, so lots of airfields. My usual, obsessive, stubborn method is tank, dump, tank, dump. If all you're doing is A2AR drop the bags; shouldn't need them. No TACAN on the tankers; never works for me and data link/radar should solve that problem for you. There's a formation flight in there; fly over the TACAN to trigger it. I usually put an F-14A as lead (big, nice to look at, just enough smoke to find it easy), but replaced it with an F/A-18 in case you don't have the -14. Small, hard to find, but if you do it right she's right there in front of you. It's a slow, 460nmi run, but watch out for terrain! Details are in the briefing. Button numbers, frequencies, all of it. My missions have set rules for frequencies, especially tankers and AWACS, so if I know the call sign I know the freq. Nevada - Formation - A2AR.miz

SHHH!! It's supposed to be a secret! I do own a pair of original Serengeti Drivers - the ultimate aviator glasses. Bought them at the Navy Exchange in 1982.

I hear ya! I read that partly for education (some of them really know what they're talking about, and no idea where they get those references!) and partly for humor. On the other hand, good for them! It's always nice to be able to talk about things that interest you with people who share that interest. And who knows, maybe the Mk 47 motor will impart an extra furlong per fortnight at burnout! For the record, there's an F-14 in front of me in a different window. Paused. Eye stretching exercises. Very serious business. Keeping an eye on Jester!