Raisuli

With sites like the Patriot or SA-10 there's more than just a launcher. There's search radar, tracking radar, command posts, meal trucks, air-conditioned recreational trailers...ok, these aren't Air Force so the recreational trailers don't need air conditioning. But you get the idea. Make sure you have (at least) one of everything when you set up your battery, in general, then work from there. This makes me think there's something missing; tracking radar comes to mind immediately.

After watching NineLine's Normandy 2 videos it's pretty apparent he's a few lines short of a brief. Maybe SevenLine. With the hype around Normandy 2, Sinai, and the Strike Eagle all building up at once ED is getting the easily twisted into quite a knot. At the very least I think we're owed some popcorn.

Unless Heatblur has a better crystal ball than most software companies they don't know, either. They have a schedule and a plan and only then find that irritating issue that forces them to completely re-write the bit about...whatever it is. The last 10% of the work takes 90% of the time, then some customer comes back and asks why something doesn't work and they scratch their heads and wonder how they could possibly have missed that... If it helps, and it usually doesn't, that sort of thing is frustrating for everyone concerned, especially the people behind the IDE.

Encoders. Let's talk about encoders for a second (I know, off topic). The same encoder, using the same sketch, will behave differently between two modules. I tested this with course and heading using the F/A-18 and F-16. On the F-16 they behaved as expected. On the F/A-18 they did virtually nothing. Worse, sometimes they 'lock in', and I've verified using the serial port output from the card that's not what's being sent to DCS. I've spent quite a bit of time fiddling with encoders, and might have a sketch that works finally, but it extends the down time on the pulse, blocks reverse outputs, and forces the pulse off. So far it works reasonably well in testing, but I need to finish the MLU on my simpit before I can really put it all together. It's nerve wracking, and worse knowing two different modules react to inputs differently. Encoders seem to be the worst, though, so back to momentary switches for some things. And yes, I have the same problem with antenna elevation. I've moved zoom off the grey slider on the throttle, so that's going to have to be the answer because anything else is redokulous. I'd love to see 'Button Tune' in the control setup to help us fix things like that.

The F-5 is pretty wonky on takeoff and landing; the NWS has too much authority for high speeds. If you're pushing rudder pedals around with NWS active you're probably over-correcting. The rudder on the ground has too little authority, so the transition is a gentle nudge with NWS and full rudder with without. Then you get close to rotation and the whole aircraft is bouncing around and acting squirrly...welcome to the good old days! There's no checkbox for this. Just like formation flying it's practice, which is a polite way of saying a lot of frustration is involved. It sounds like your setup is working (taxi is fine, flying is fine). It's the transition that takes a bit of finesse. As Rust Belt said line up on the runway and roll straight for a plane length or two with no inputs to make sure everything is good, then brakes, mil, no brakes, blower. Unless you have a nasty crosswind you won't need NWS; by the time the drift is bad the rudder will handle it.

The Hornet radar is one of the best, and while it seems I have to literally conduct an in-person introduction between the radar and the huge Vogon spaceship that's only a few thumb widths away I've also got dead-on instant locks at 80 thousand legionnaire paces when the DL told me where to look. My best advice is to start with this from 104 Maverick, because this is where everything started to come together for me: <edit> This is an excellent explanation by Growling Sidewinder of the problems air-to-air radar have to solve, and why the solutions aren't always obvious: </edit>

Hate it when I submit a reply and everything vanishes. Then I don't know if I should try to type it all out again or wait and see if the reply shows up... You don't want my 3D files anyway. This was my first real project, and if I did it over I would probably end up with the same number of parts but I would have executed them differently, not deleted the boolean elements, and it wouldn't be an embarrassing mashup of imperial and metric measurements. The things I've done since are much cleaner. This proved to be extremely helpful, though: The screens, complete with controller boards and IR remotes, that I don't ever plan to use, are here: https://www.ebay.com/itm/352685415817 The power switch is: https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/633-JB15LPF-JB The tactile switches are pretty generic Chinese switches I had in a drawer Then a PC board, JST connectors, etc, etc you probably already have under control. A couple notes; I removed the back of the MFDs, which are really there to allow users to slide in whatever graphic they want. They're also pretty big and put the whole thing off the surface of the screen. My replacement is 2mm and has holes to mount the MFD using the same screws that held the back on, but you need to get a little careful with replacing the cable stress relief and some places where the panel needs relief for circuit boards. There is also a need for some standoffs to make sure the circuit boards don't move around. I can post a picture if none of that makes sense. None of the drawings I found lay out the location of those screws, so a pair of calipers and a calibrated eye helps. Also, I used electrical tape to mask the screen below the MFD so the backlight won't shine through. Just makes the whole thing look cleaner.

I use roughly the same size screens oriented the other direction, then use the 'blank' space at the bottom to house the control panel. The pushbutton is power (and lights up), the four holes are the menu, +/-, and source buttons. They don't get used much so I need a paperclip to push them and the whole thing is a little neater. The control board gets screwed on to the back so everything is nice and tidy.

Well, certainly not within range. AG and master arm on, yes. As far as I know (which means I'm probably wrong) I had the switches set the same for every attempt, but sometimes it aligns and sometimes it doesn't. Now that you've said that I'm going to test it I really don't want to orbit over my target area while the bombs align. You know, draw pictures in the sky, get on the guard channel and ask the local air defense to hold fire until I'm ready...

Pretty sure this is a meatware bug, but when I air start and hit the JSOW they start to align. Sometimes it will get to about 7:something and the alignment notification goes away, but the HUD still shows alignment is bad. If I re-select JSOW the alignment starts from the beginning, then ends abruptly. Quit, restart mission, JSOWs align normally. I can't find much about the alignment deciding my mission is hopeless (it is) and giving up on some iterations, but not others. Is this a DCS thing or a me thing? If it's a DCS thing then I won't worry about it. If that's up in the air I'll create a few track files and get those posted.

Yeah, I think the point is made. On the F-18 the raster doesn't clear; every trace is persistent, so the screens have pretty much everything that's ever been displayed. Turns them in to blobs pretty quickly. Frame rate is a little better. I suck at flying a bit smoother than before.

I worked below the waterline on things that weren't carriers, but I do know back in my day they used dog bones (because I asked); metal connectors machined to break at a certain tension. Pretty sure the reusable holdbacks came after I got out. Go much farther into the past and you're into bridles, and the hold back was aft of the aircraft. Look at the nosewheel of an [A,F]-4 and tell me that's not going to come off if you launch the aircraft with it... Which brings up the whole box of ramen with the F-4 naval variant coming down the pipe. I'm assuming the A-4 just magically gets a holdback and everyone tries not to look. I've never sent one off the pointy end; maybe I should just to see how they manage it. The last bridle catcher came off in 2012 or thereabouts according to my search engine, and most of the newer SCs never had one. The French just toss theirs into the ocean anymore. As for the OP question, I'm not entirely convinced that's on the list. There is such a thing as too much time spent in the weeds. You get that technical and they're going to call away sweepers just as you think it's time to hit the rack...

Jilted again. Left standing in a snow storm with my credit card in hand and nothing to use it on. Of course this is the pre-order, so it's not like we have to wait two more days to download, but there's something satisfying about knowing all you need to do is download on release day. Ah, well. Back to simpit 2.8. Might get that done before the actual release.

I've never really been happy with the method I used to get the Cougar MFDs mounted in my simpit. It's clunky and I broke a screen trying to take them out once (left DDI; it's still messed up). Rather than just make the same mistakes all over again I did some blending. This isn't perfect; I could split one part and handle the taper on the MFD, but...not a big deal. This replaces the base with one about half the thickness, so the MFD is closer to to the actual LCD screen. The big button is power, and lights up when the screen is on. The four holes are menu/+/-/source for the LCD. Those don't get used much anyway. The LCDs are generic 7" ebay screens with controllers. I have three new ones and two originals that aren't broken, but only 4 MFDs. I used electrical tape on the LCD below the MFD so it doesn't back-light anything. This is a test item for the part that holds the MFD. It's red because that's what was in the printer and I don't use it for much, but you can see it uses the original screws to mount to the MFD. There's even cut outs for cable clearance and stress relief for the cable. This is the back. I cut the control panel cable and re-connected it to my control panel, which is really just a group of switches and the LED. This will connect with HDMI and 12v power, so three cables. I'm still trying to decide how to get this in my legacy sim pit; I want to re-design the MFD part to angle the screens better and maybe move the UFC to the center. Still debating. Yes, red. It was a test item that didn't need tweaked. I'll make one black, one green, and one blue so they're all different. In any event, not a bad way to mound screens behind an MFD.

Much like Navy aircraft don't have the equipment needed to perform ILS on ground bases, the F-16 (actually all of the non-US Navy aircraft in DCS) lack the equipment to communicate with a carrier. It's simply not there because those aircraft are not involved in carrier flight operations. The cost and weight aren't needed, apart from which the F-16 is not built for carrier operations. The undercarriage (landing gear) isn't built for that kind of punishment, and while the airframe might be able to handle a bridle, the nose gear certainly couldn't tolerate a launch bar. DCS models aircraft as they are, which is why that option isn't available in game. COULD they add it? Sure. They COULD model phaser banks and photon torpedos, but choose not to for reasons they've gone into ad nauseum. This isn't secret squirrel stuff. It's simply not available for the F-16 in DCS. That's the best answer anyone can give on this. Sorry.

I wasn't in the Air Force back then, but it's interesting how much <profanity> I heard second hand about the TF30 without anyone bothering to explain the reasoning behind the decision to use them. It's really amazing how much I've learned around here, because those decisions were so 'obviously' stupid at the time, but the people making them weren't. Something didn't add up. Absolutely ridiculous how much knowledge is on these boards. Thanks for all that!

That's the holdback bar. In my day they used dog bones, but I guess the Navy got tired of having to find homes for all the boneless dogs. If the Air Boss sees that got left in the track someone is going to walk funny for a while, especially with the troubleshooters just standing around doing nothing about it. Completely off topic, but now I wonder what they did with the left-overs after a launch. I imagine a snapped dog bone would make great FOD in an engine.

This just won't go away, will it? Which doesn't mean I haven't landed an F-16 on a carrier and all that, but you're not going to get CV ops done. Last time I checked you couldn't get the CV to respond on the radio, apart from which that cute little dainty undercarriage just isn't designed for 750 FPS of descent. The Air Force specialize in flaring out on tens of thousands of feet of concrete and think the Navy is nuts for wasting so much training time on landings. Air Force hooks are about two thirds the size of Navy hooks. Can you catch a wire? Probably; I just haven't taken the time to find out yet. It might even stop the aircraft, but again that's a DCS thing. There's nothing wrong with it, just like there's nothing wrong with grabbing a bit of tea while pulling 9g. Neither of those will happen in the 'real world'. In the real world you have to ease up to inhale once in a while, but us sim pilots are so awesome we breathe normally under those conditions and pull 9 in that rate fight for minutes at a time. Our G-suits don't even feel like they're going to break something important. Of course 'dying' and immediately hopping in another aircraft doesn't happen much in the real world, either. I broke every window in Dubai yesterday after forgetting about the lack of a g limiter in the F14, so I practiced slaloming buildings at mach 1.2. I even shot the eye of the Sail, but that was an F18. Around here reality doesn't apply. <edit> Fixed a typo and AF hooks are 2/3-ish. Was thinking a third smaller. </edit>

...and then watch this. It was difficult not the reach into the screen and throttle the host near the beginning, but it got a lot better. I'd love to see campaigns like Zone 5 and S&A for the bug, but they give me incentive to get better at real airplanes and be a cowboy.

Not to hijack the thread or anything, but there are an enormous number of bindings missing. Ok, quite a few. I stopped counting, but eventually I'll come up with a list. First I want to attack the .lua and see what I can add myself. And more than a few missing axis.

Neither can I, but I think the Chair Force has figured out that 'Return Precontact' actually causes the spar bolts to loosen a little every time they say it. Probably some kind of resonance with their radios, because after enough of them a wing falls off. In flames. This is what I'm down to. Much like crashing on a carrier there's no magic throttle setting, so stroke the throttle and back off the stick input before it has a chance to do anything. My formations with the tanker look really good...from Mars. Where I sit there is still a long way to go. I'm just fortunate that Israel, Lebanon, Syria, and Turkey don't mind me failing to refuel while the tanker flies a straight line though their air space. As for the people who can refuel an F/A-18 inverted using only their keyboards and mice for input I think it was all just computer graphics...

I have all the modules and most of the campaigns, and would have to look at the list to tell you which ones have never been used, or only used for seconds. Mostly because I can't remember what all of them are. It's less about 'gosh I want to fly that' and more about 'gosh I want to keep the DCS economy healthy'. My play time is limited, so I can take off and land most aircraft and totally suck in them, or I can pick one (generally the F/A-18, which is what got me into DCS when you could buy, but not fly it) and know what most the buttons do even if I still suck at it. At least I can bounce on a carrier, which is a lot of fun even if the LSOs hate me. Besides, it takes about an hour to map all the controls for each aircraft. It would be so nice if DCS had a better way to code that in a text file; I know all the controller and button IDs My simpit cost more than all the modules combined, so I can't complain about cost. I wanted one of those since I spent my time flying the arcade-like WWII sims in the 90s, and probably have more hours doing design and build work than flight time, for that matter.

The Navy and I never got along well, even when I was in it, so I don't worry too much about what the LSO thinks. I pay more attention to my own performance (pathetic though it might be) and work on consistency. So far I'm consistently pathetic. It is nice to know the LSO has a hotel oscar for me, though. Some of those landings felt like they should be better than a C.

I could have been a plank owner on that one. Of course that would have cost me two years and...seriously, being a galley slave really isn't the way to go about it.

Be very, very careful what you wish for. Especially on a Navy boat.