Raisuli

It sounds like you're locked on to the ACLS; in autopilot CPL mode or manual? Was this 'live', or were you watching a track? Track files can end with hilariously wrong results; it's a known issue. See if you can reproduce it and save the track file. That will help.

Wow. Can 'o worms here... Laobi: We need more Laobi. Hope he's okay, even if not producing content anymore. The guy is brilliant. Ralfidude. Never fail to watch a new release, and because of him I learned how to pronounce Grzegorz Brzęczyszczykiewicz. Even if the video isn't DCS I'll watch it. He's pretty much good at whatever he does, and the instructional videos are all referenced. A-10 is on my short list, and the Zero to Hero videos are A-10 101. Nothing on the channel in a while; apparently he's been working long hours, but in my best Yenta voice: "So you have to work, why should I suffer?" He's near the top of my 'love to fly with someday' list. GVad. Even higher on my 'love to fly with' list, because he's pretty good at demonstrating what I'm worst at. Actually, I'm exceptionally talented at intercepting air-to-air missiles and even bullets, but apparently that's not the point of the exercise. Wish he did more, wish he did some specific match-ups that are kicking my butt. Jabbers: His Case 1 and Case 3 videos deserve the Pulitzer for DCS content, but he doesn't seem to do much DCS anymore. BogyDope/Tricker/Casmo/PSS: These are relatively new discoveries, and get checked frequently, particularly Casmo's AH-64 stuff. That's on my short list, too (played with trim last night). PHH did a plug for Inherent Resolve as a campaign for non-real-pilots, and it's in my shopping cart waiting for the next purchase (probably the F-4, maybe, hopefully). Reflected Simulations: Not a real pilot, so that level of realism is over my head. I have most of his campaigns on a shelf for the day I have time to learn the basics. From what I've seen actually being a pilot and understanding all that pilot sh...tuff is a prerequisite. Watched Tricker get an unsat in Speed and Angels, thinking all the things Paco would say to me... Air Combat Tutorial: This is the YouTube video library that covers some of Shaw's text descriptions, and worth the time Enigma: Yeah. My thing with online is I last just long enough to intercept the first air to air missile (or bullet). I'm just there to boost scores, so I don't bother. If I ever get out of the suck phase it's something I'd like to try, but so far I'm stuck at suck. Phil Style: Love the WWII stuff, but this is entertainment. I'm not up to the level of participation. 104th Mav: The reason I'm reasonably good with the F/A-18 radar, among other things. Love his content, and the beret... Redkite: Great tutorials, but some Redbull, please. That voice can get hypnotic! Grim Reapers: My court of last resort for training; some days it seems like Cap knows less than me, but he always manages to teach me something along the way. Their scenarios and war games run the gamut; you like them or don't, but in that case watch them or not. How can you not like Cap? The guy is a much better pilot than his commentary might make you think, and he can do that in pretty much every module on DCS. Some days he reminds me of a two year old who got into a bag of chocolate covered espresso beans. For someone who appears to be a professional game player he's guileless and has almost no ego; smack talking someone one second, dying the next and never gets upset about it. As opposed to... Growling Sidewinder: DCS celebrity, it would seem, with all the baggage celebrity implies. I know nothing about the guy, so I'll leave it at that. I'd love to get some GS time to get out of the suck phase, and if I wanted to donate a kidney I could buy it, I guess. I come and go on his channel, and have learned which videos to avoid. Tactical Blaise (Pascal): I run into this stuff now and then. Should bookmark it. Kortana: How can you not like someone who jumps out of airplanes and manages to fly them well in a game? Watching her level of focus and discipline with Cap, who is pretty much the opposite, makes me wonder what's going through her head some days... Spudknocker: At the risk of being negative despite his obvious knowledge I can't watch this, which has everything to do with the scripts and delivery and nothing to do with production or content. Dialog is one of my quirks. Content Providers: Wags/DCS/HB are all given. I've pre-ordered the -15 but don't watch the Mudhen videos because I have no intention of dropping everything to fly it when it comes out. Probably set up a few controls and cloud surf, then back to my normal stuff. I have every aircraft, but don't have the time to fly them all. Some of the others need to be checked out now that I know about them. Some I've seen and not terribly interested, which is true of most professional gamer channels.

I think in DCS there's a lot that doesn't go wrong that can out in the real world. All we worry about is PIO and plugging in; I can't count the number of times I've done something that would likely be catastrophic if this wasn't a game, and that doesn't even get in to mechanical failures. Having the basket fly through the pilot's head is an annoyance in DCS... Of course I still make my tankers invulnerable out of habit. I used to get so frustrated that the gun would accidentally fire (uncommanded, of course) and cause wing damage on the tanker. That's not a problem anymore, but just in case...

I discovered tonight I have a major problem, and maybe HB can help. Put a static F-4E in the hanger next to where I launch my aircraft and realized the graphics are pretty horrible. I have to wonder if HB has a model that perhaps replicated the -E and would do a better job of representing that aircraft in my hangar. Not that I'm suggesting they release anything, but such a nice map and such a poor model... You know...

Oh, I don't know. Started a campaign (I have a lot of them) and it began with needing to take a specific departure from Nellis and do real pilot stuff just to get to the range so I can do game pilot stuff. Started to learn the real pilot stuff, then decided it would be more fun, and a lot more frustrating, to finally break through and actually be able to AAR. Still don't know how to read a departure plate, but I can hook up to a tanker now. KC-135 is still the hardest, so I focus on that. I can land and take off from the Kuz, too. Need to figure out what my max weight is for takeoff, though. Eventually I'll look at another campaign again. I have a lot invested in them, might be worthwhile to actually do one. <edit> Worth a plug to say I would pay for a campaign that does nothing but teach the real pilot stuff so I can do campaigns... </edit>

Well, this answers a question I've been ignoring for a while. Thanks!

I wait until I'm on speed to activate, then I get really messed up in the crosswind turn! Starting to sound like my original theory (I'm being ham fisted) is the most likely! Back to work!

I've played with auto throttle in approach mode the last couple days. In anything other than Case III/straight in long final it's a nightmare. Is that to be expected? My guess is it's too far behind the jet to do overhead breaks or case I, but there's also the possibility I'm being ham fisted.

Starboard side looking aft. The weather decks were secured, but rules only apply to topsiders. This was as the storm was abating, so things are getting pretty calm now. Not much wind. Lots of sea state. There's 20' of freeboard on this thing.

I do have the A-4 community mod, I confess. Sorry, Reflected, but I have to draw the line somewhere! As far as I know that's the only mod. Used to have mil and commercial aircraft mods, but that started to cause issues and I dumped them. The F-104 mod is tempting, but so far I've resisted it.

Based on his last return he has power issues at home; wonder if his machine went casters up again and he quit trying. We certainly need him around here right now. I check his channel every week or so and hope for the best.

<RANT> ...which is what cracks me up when YouTube content creators whip out a couple mods and proclaim this aircraft superior to that aircraft in some performance characteristic. They're mods. Fiction. Somebody's idea of what the real thing might be capable of. In my world there's no point wasting time watching videos of mods; better to watch Star Wars, because we can decide once and for all if the X-Wing is better than a TIE fighter... </RANT>

Work ups, work ups, and more workups. Invariably there are some experienced crew, and some that 'haven't done that in a while', and quite a few newbies. I know where I lived transferring in from somewhere else doesn't buy you much because you have to qual, and the chiefs, who are supposed to be the old experienced hands, were...not. I suspect up on deck that's quite a bit different. When you get back out on the water it's brutal. Pretty much every department and division is doing their own particular things to get back into the grove; ORSE in our case, but nobody has it easy. The first time we went out to sea after the yard it took about a day for everything to end up on the deck (nobody knew how to secure for sea) and we ran out of things on the mess decks in days (they didn't know what to stock up on). I did notice there's not much institutional knowledge on the Kuz, and when/if it goes back out they'll have to start from scratch; and that's the whole boat. One of the other differences is when we get back from deployment there's always a yard availability to fix anything that's broken. After the '85 WestPac (all you Hornet drivers know about that one) we went to Hunter's Point for a few months, but all the ships got some TLC before returning to the grind. From what I've heard, and I don't know this for a fact, the poor Kuz never really got a decent break, and certainly not the care and attention he needs. I would be a little surprised if he deploys again.

I go to thinking about the original question as opposed to picking on a ship Seaeagle really likes, which was probably unnecessary, and got to wondering how much we really know about carrier operations on 'red' ships. Sure, there are some Youtube videos out there from the Kuz, and we can make a few WAGs (no not that one, Wild ...Aviation Guesses) about comms and procedures, but is it really possible to replicate the SC functionality without making that stuff up or just copying what we have on SC? For SC we've got NATOPS and people who have been there and done that from both pilot and deck crew perspectives. I imagine that depth of knowledge is lacking for the Kuz. It would be way cool to have it, just not sure it's available. And the cold hard reality is RedFor is woefully under-represented here. Some of those reasons have been mentioned, maybe there are more, but ultimately that's a business decision.

I've seen 25kt winds and no swells. I've seen 25kt winds and 40' seas. You get spray and some surface chop from wind, but the really big stuff is generated by pressure or, in the case of the Golden Gate ground swell, bottom contours. Went from Pearl back to Alameda (where the nuclear wessels are*) with some second year midshipmen who thought they were 'real' sailors...at least until we got close to the coast and that ground swell... *why do the idiots who write Star Trek have the Russian character unable to pronounce "Victor", which is an actual Russian name, because he replaces the "V", which is the third letter in the Cyrillic alphabet with a "W", which doesn't exist in Russian? Why did the Russian actor allow this to happen?

At that distance, with 4 targets, RAID will absolutely split them out for you, but against AI I'd recommend staying in TWS. A human might realize an F/A-18 can lob an AMRAAM at a particular distance, but I don't know that the AI takes that into consideration. If you can identify them on the SA page just use that information to lock the same target over on the radar. They're both top down and relative locations should give you the clues you need. It might help to decenter SA so you can range closer than the center view allows. Another option might be AZZEL; you can use relative altitudes; if the -27 is higher than the froggies and SA will give you that information as well. Another suggestion is not to drive straight at them. Flank a bit and that might help with separation, just remember the -27 can lob long range IR missiles and you'll never get any kind of warning prior to the sudden deconstruction of your aircraft. Keep them in the gimbal limits and just assume the -27 is firing missiles once you get in range and defend accordingly.

US ships generally don't spontaneously combust at sea. Well, other than the Forest Fire. And the Tuna Prize. Those weren't spontaneous. "In the shipyard" and "on deployment" are ever so subtly different, and having been in both situations I can personally attest to those subtle differences. Fire watch while sparks happen in reactor compartments is a boatload of fun. Modeling a Russian Swiss Army Knife would be even harder. As for self destructing, I think you've captured the reasons very well. I wasn't going to go there because it's not important, but thank you. I actually don't hold the shipyard accidents against it; trivial things, like not bothering to spend the money allocated to fuel the emergency generators to buy fuel. I'm sure there are reasonable explanations for all of it. The Miami and Bonnie Dick were malicious and intentional, with the incompetence coming only after fires were set without first getting a hot work permit. In a year and a half in the yards I don't remember a single real fire, just endless drills and a guy in a red hat waving his wife's vermilion panties at us. Probably a good thing we didn't get to charge the hoses, because nobody liked him. We did have a trim party while they were trying to calculate CB and meta-centric height after all the changes made in the yard. That was fun, until they figured out why their measurements kept coming up bollocks. Some people have a really deficient sense of humor.

Because to model the Kuz to full fidelity would require new fluid dynamics models to get the smoke and flames right, and an ocean going tug, and the feature creep would make the model uneconomical for a ship that self destructs regularly. I like the one we have. Would be cool to have deck crew in Russian uniforms and some equipment to give it a lived in look, but then I also want AF ground crew, huffers, generators...I'm pretty needy, really.

Couple things; first, it's not a ground object, second, no 'the' in front 'smooth land'. My wife tosses extraneous 'the' in front of things, which makes me think the author of this dialog is not a native Angrish speaker either Heliport SW of Bethlehem, SE of a-Doha. Stunning, awesome map! My new favorite! Can't wait to find out what you guys are going to tackle next! null

They're getting much better at densely packed, high performance maps. Maybe even to the point where central Europe could be done with the kind of detail it deserves. This would be a day 1 buy for me also. Heck, I'd kick-start it!

We've probably got another few weeks to wait, so this is what we're waiting for:

Interesting that Ramat David, while technically not part of this map (it's covered by Syria) is 'penciled in', but not modeled. Actually, more interesting, is now Normandy 2/Channel and Sinai/Syria have small overlap areas. Does lead to speculation.

Actually...three sets (at least), but the northern one, yes, then look on the eastern edge right before you hit all the condos. Seriously, those look really nice, and the views have to be amazing.

Yes, but the arrow is much cooler, and speaks volumes about the kind of day that employee must have had! I already like them!

Nevatim, F/A-18, Spots 20 and 21, takeoff from ramp or takeoff from parking hot (those are the combinations tested), click the green fly arrow, do NOT save, you end up in the air. If you takeoff from the ground hot and put yourself more or less in slot 20 it works. In another mission that was saved those slots worked fine, so it might be the saved game, it might be the other elements in the mission, something. I had to start new and not save it to get the results I had seen earlier. <edit> Added slot 1 and 25 (covered) to my test. All of them put me in the exact same place mid-air. It's an empty, default mission with just one aircraft, but not saved. </edit