Raisuli

Mover is a freaking fetus. We're still not even sure if he's a viable fetus yet. That's how young Mover is. I do know his commentary on requirements for 'pilot' are a lot more lax than back when I took the flight physical. Qualified for NFO even with the crappy eyesight which surprised the heck out of me. The eyesight would have (probably) relegated me to riding on busses, though. Now I have 20/10 distance vision; former RO on the Nimitz took care of that 30-something years after that physical...

Ha! Interesting what people notice, because I paid no attention to the sound. I can't even tell you what it sounds like, and I flew it last weekend! I'm not saying it isn't important, just that it's not important to me!

I have one set up in a hardened shelter and take it out for a spin now and then. Can't seem to get the TACAN to work, AIM120s won't fire, and forget about GBU-24s, but otherwise it's a really nice change of pace. It's just plain awesome at Pyramid slaloming and can do maneuvers that would make a quail puke. Apart from which if you can manage energy in this thing a 'real' combat plane is a piece of cake. Probably the scariest bit is the difference between the external model and F1 view...where does that extra guy go?! Sorry you have buyer's remorse; that always leaves a bad feeling, but it can be quite a bit of fun for what it is.

No, the worst are the customers who wouldn't recognize a clue if you wrapped it around a LART and beat them over the head with it, then demand you fix their internal computer/networking problems because obviously it's all your software's fault they can't do anything. There is nothing in the (computer) world scarier than "my <insert relationship here> knows a lot about computers...". It's the people who think they know what they're doing that cause the most trouble. The second worst are the entitled gamers. I simply require HB to write their code to my specifications, which might change at any given moment. That seems eminently reasonable to me.

Deal. Come to think of it I've never taken off on a taxiway or landed a non-carrier plane on a CV on a server, but that was a full stop. Nice to know the rules.

Hula dancers? Tiki bar? This might be my new default start location!

Please pardon the potentially off-topic interlude, and maybe this belongs elsewhere, but the other obnoxious time is switching from F10 to F1 views, which can take several seconds. The sound immediately goes back to F1, but the map stays up long enough that more than once I had to wonder which way I would be pointed when I finally got the cockpit view back... Not sure if that's the kind of thing that will show up on a track; maybe an OBS video?

A switch would be nice. Seems like the commentary, particularly when it's time to work, is a Hollywood construct in the first place, but it a pilot/RIO pair would come to terms about cockpit discipline in the air. We should be able to restrict Jester to job-related comms and squelch the commentary. That doesn't seem overly difficult from a code perspective; just need a flag on the sound files, or even a sort into folders. Like everything, all it takes is time and the right place on a priority list. I'd like to think they'll go back and improve Jester once they get Clown written.

You found the secret indoor pool nobody on a carrier is supposed to talk about.

Zu-23 on a truck bed in a moving convoy; Sergent York would be green with envy. Pop a maneuvering F/A-18 at Maverick ranges with no trouble at all. Maybe they were popping me, because I'm an incoming fire magnet.

I use it out of pure stubbornness. It does seen the lightning is a better product overall, and maybe I should switch back. Far as I know the hornet is the only machine that uses ATFLIR and that would make it a RHSC in the time dominated world of development white boards. Besides, on those rare occasions when I drive to the seedy part of the airbase, desperately hoping nobody I know is watching, to engage in a sordid liaison with an F-16...

I've run into this with hot starts, so no helmet alignment. Haven't lost much sleep over it because it is, as they say, close enough for government work and I had any interest in reporting bugs here beat out of me years ago. I can set up a track for this easily enough and test it against a freshly aligned HMD.

So, I've found force trim is not my friend in a ground effect hover, or any kind of hover, really. It's really not my friend when it comes to anti-torque/rudders, and will take me for a serious spin sometimes and I end up full-boot to get pointed the direction I want to go. I can hold a dead hover at a fixed altitude if I use the auto modes, otherwise not so much. Working on using auto to get me stable, then turn it off and try to maintain that, and if I don't use the force trim I drift around but not wildly. All of which tells me force trim isn't what I think it is. Casmo needs to add a new item to his checklist after getting massively frustrated in the AH-64: Go get a book (currently SPQR by Mary Beard) and read for a while.

When I say 'I suck' getting shot down isn't the part I suck at. I could give master level classes in falling to earth in flames. Icarus was an amateur compared to me. So I do look with some awe at the youtube videos where people actually do well in MP. In the mean time I work on skills in SP, where my demise isn't met with glee by the score-padders.

Back when I tried on-line it would take about as long to cold start and get a mission plan together as it did to take off, fly into the TO, and get shot down. Then I got smart and stopped flying online. I did a cold start on the F-18 a few weeks ago just to see what had changed, but otherwise don't bother with it. It's very, very tempting to take those controls off the simpit because I simply don't use them enough to bother with it and I can interact with the aircraft by mouse the once or twice a year it might be necessary.

There's a can of worms question. There are a few things that might be possible to put in user files that would make updates more pleasant, but based on behavior ED doesn't consider it a priority.

I did get a rather unexpected bolter doing night time foul weather landings in mode 1, but nine times out of ten I'm in the wardroom sipping port when the LSO comes in with his whiny diatribe about my entirely hands-off approach. Hey, that's my carrier, and if I want to sip port in the wardroom I'm allowed.

I stand corrected! Says the guy with more than a few beauty shots as background screens. Of course those are environmental and exterior models, but that's a fuzzy line and I'm not wise enough to draw it. That will have to be left to the people who do this for a living.

Yeah, I have all of those, and I interact with none of them using a mouse Which brings up another question I've had for a while, and forgive me if I'm pouring chlorine triflouride on a sensitive subject, but... I don't fly with the panels open, so how important is it to model the avionics bays, or the flex in the hydraulic hoses when gear comes up and down (I'm not in external view zoomed in on the hydraulics when I lower gear, either). That kind of detail takes hours, not only for the models and textures, but the code to run them. The models take polys, and that combined with the code costs some number of cycles, and for what? So you know when you lower the gear a hose flexed by a few centimeters? The need for some of that goes right over my head. Sorry, I'll shut up now. Just can't get the you-tube videos of the F4U showing off a couple centimeters of motion on a part very few people will actually see. I'd rather fly the thing.

I'm a little late to this fur fest, so please pardon the really dumb question... I never click anything in a cockpit (well, almost nothing, but I also have a few hundred switches laying around), whether I'm flying something from FC or something 'full fidelity', so why the heartburn over whether a module is full fidelity or just pretty as long as the flight models aren't completely borked?

Set it up right on a compatible deck, works great. Day or night, good weather or bad. LSO is...well, they're grumpy anyway.

If you play from a desk make sure your ergonomics are at least reasonable. A joystick on a normal desk will murder your shoulder (and my shoulder was already murdered). If you're buying a rig for 'play' get a desk and a joystick mount so you can get it down to joystick level. Throttle is a little less critical.