Raisuli

All I can say is I have to get up at oh-dark-freaking-ridiculous to catch my flight home, and if there isn't a patch ready by the time I get there I might leave a nasty surprise in BN's litter box. Of course I still have that quarter that it will get subjected to change, just to hedge my bets. I've still got, roughly, a mole of skills to learn before I have the current patch mastered so it's not like I'll be reduced to twiddling my fingers. New throttle should arrive in a couple days, too!

I might buy an E, but not an F. There's only one of me, and I'd rather have the 800 or so pounds of gas than the empty seat. That extra seat is one of a few reasons I don't fly the -14 as anything but a lark, and will probably not fly the -4E. As for bringback, I've landed charlies on carriers with most of fifteen thousand pounds of gas; about 38,000 on the checklist, with no trouble at all. Realistic? If this game were realistic the LSOs would go red and free the moment I radioed for approach; that's how much they love me. They'd probably have something to say about the F-16s and F-15Es I've landed on the deck when it was lobster night in the forward wardroom, but in those cases they didn't even give me a debrief. For the record, the only bird farms I've ever been on were tied to the pier. -65 and -70, in both cases I ended up in an EOS after the MMR tour (they called away a security alert on -70, and that's where you go when you don't want to deal with security alerts). Saw both decks, but they're just big flat fields of non-skid in port, so I know nothing of carrier flight ops other than watching from a distance. Also, for the record, the carriers in this game have very sparsely modeled main machinery spaces.

Jeeze, I was so busy taking pictures of it I didn't think to look for it in game. Now I have to go into the past and check it out!

I fly home on the 19th, but given the complexity of the release I won't be shocked if it gets pushed out a little. They're awful brave making a prediction two days in advance; around here good deeds get alpha-strikes! Of course I half expect someone to knee-jerk the "Unable to duplicate and no track file included" label on this post...

That was it. Was doing night ops in the F-16 and the AoA indicator was probably dazzling. AoA never turns off on the -16 and bright lights are not a good thing for me, so I turned it down. It's an axis in the sim pit, so down on the F-16 means down on the F-18, and down means red. Learned something today, which makes it a great day. For my next trick I'll go take some pictures of the sun. Also got 668 knots on the overhead break this time, and the landing was sketchy but not as bad.

Correct. Bright, full-on red. Nothing orange about it. Not even amber. Should have grabbed a screenshot, because maybe I'm just senile. <edit> Added a track as long as nobody laughs at my horrible landing. I was more worried about screenshots of the AoA indicator. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Looks like: 2023.10.13 Red AoA Circle.trk

Gear goes down, doughnut goes from amber to red and stays red. Looked for switches in NVG mode and didn't see any, fast and slow are right, just the circle in the middle... What am I missing/forgetting? Didn't think the -18 had many surprises left (I suppose one falls into the 'not many' range)...

This is a bit like Christmas. No, you can't open your presents yet! Of course nothing is as good as the anticipation, but I am looking forward to new toys. Won't make me a better pretend pilot, but I can pretend I'm a better pretend pilot by pretending my problems are all bugs. Then two weeks go by and I can continue to amuse myself with the people asking for the next update, because nothing is ever enough! So, carry on with your testing and let me know when Christmas comes, because I'll be off working on muscle memory one task at a time. Only about sixteen thousand tasks left to master. Oh, and version three of the sim pit, because I just ordered a new throttle. I'll get the new seat when I'm a little closer.

No glide slope, which might be due to that conflict, but I do get direction. 277 feet per mile, call it 300 feet. Multiply miles by three, add a couple zeros, who needs glide slope? Navy pilots are so studly they don't bother with precision approach equipment for ground bases. A Navy pilot can land a kite in a hurricane-strength crosswind with zero visibility to the deck while it's snowing. Uphill. Only wimpy Air Force pilots need ILS anyway. Pah!

Yeah, cuz, you know, I've been doing touch and gos in an F-16 at Tel Nof the last few days and the concrete is still kind of soft. You would think by now it would have plenty of time to set, especially with all the crosswind I have dialed in, but my aircraft still pulls to the left. Makes take-offs with a full load of ten CBU-97s challenging, even if I manage to find a place to put them before I land. --- So, off topic, but seriously? The F-16 can carry ten (10!!??) 1,000 lb class CBU-97s, and still have room for 4 AIM-120s, an external fuel tank, and a TGP? My dad's 'heavy' bomber only carried 8,000 pounds of bombs! Ok, it could carry them a bit farther, but their idea of accuracy was all the bombs fall on the right country! Come on, it wasn't that long ago was it? Was it? Come on...say something...

If you're a naval aviation guy the answer is semi obvious, because there are really only three full-fidelity ship capable aircraft. Oh, and the overweight wanker. It doesn't have a launch bar, though. The next question to ask yourself is whether or not a particular period of time gets your motor running. Then what kind of pilot you are? A real pilot, or one of those kids who play in the dirt? Then whether or not you really care about country of origin And whether you want full-fidelity, or FC3 Right now the F-18 is hands down the air frame I have the most hours in, by an order of magnitude, and the reason I got into DCS, but I own them all. Lately I've been flying the F-16 for no particular reason, other than it's cool. The rest I might have controls configured for, and I might be able to take off and land, but I probably can't find where I'm going. What should you buy? None of them. Do the two week test drive, take notes, watch tutorials to get the basics down, and then decide where your hard earned bongo bucks should go after you've got a few hours of flight time behind you.

Apparently I'm a little behind the curve; I can't fly more than one aircraft at a time and I don't fly any of them to their limits, so I'm a lot less concerned about models and a lot more concerned about the world around them. Weather, because every time I start a mission the same cloud is in the same place every time. More targets, regardless of fidelity, because the idea is to blow them up. At that point I don't really care if the wire harnesses are laced or zip tied Less detail in modules, because see above. I have quite a few hours in the Ka-50 III, and none hours staring at the playboy centerfold behind the access panel. When I see developers proudly showing off cartoon Amphenol connectors on cartoon avionics behind cartoon access panels I start to wonder what cool things that might actually be visible could have been done with that time Better maps, because I do see the terrain I fly over and I'm bloody sick of desert Dynamic missions, because that's what I do when I'm not just flying 1v0 or landing practice or improving consistency to burn off a bit of stress If they made modules out of some of that; real time weather, for example, I'd be happy to pay for it. Object bundles with ground equipment and personnel. Dynamic missions. Those are a lot of work and I don't feel entitled to my lunch for free.

They sit on the other side of the building because I quit writing real code decades ago. There's one in whose office I sit all the time because somehow I ended up responsible for finding all the bugs in his code. The good news is he also collects actual parts from real airplanes (as opposed to my fake airplane collection) so we also have other things to talk about. Despite their best efforts I still refuse to go into QA. Voice acting, as I understand it, is much more complex and difficult, not to mention time consuming and expensive, than people realize. Not as simple as asking your buddy to speak a few words into the boom mic on his headset...

Land based IFOLS and arresting gear in general would be a really cool (and limited utility) low priority, which makes me wonder why they took the time to model the hooks. Maybe the hook was easy? I'm sure that was an informed decision, just don't know the criteria for it.

Radioed the Big Stick, got 'Not authorized to land' back. I've never seen that response before...not even sure when it showed up, because this isn't my first timehere...last time I got no response at all. Now I wonder what else they've snuck in under the radar. Ignored the twit behind the radio because that is, after all, my carrier. Got the IFOLS on approach, but I was a little flat and died spectacularly in a ramp strike. Maybe I should move all those aircraft away from the aft end of the boat while I do this. But...me. A little obsessive at times, and that's not going to stop me. Now that the F-16 has a movable hook, and there's no arresting gear at land bases which makes me wonder why they bothered, I'm going to find out just how poorly modeled the undercarriage is! Sure, I'll have to do a repair to get the hook back up, but I have to do that with the F-15E, too. I know there's enough deck to get airborne with a slick jet! That or I just switch slots, but I see no reason not to get as proficient in the F-16 as I am in the F-18 (which isn't very according to the LSO, but I ignore him, too). (It would be seriously cool if they got women to do voice work for things like LSO, A2AR, ATC, RIO/WSO/Gunner, etc, but that's a different topic for a different thread) Besides, Wonky and Mover did it, so it must be okay. No, I won't do that on a multi-player server. You're not likely to find me on one of those anyway (and I use the -18 around bird farms out of respect for the spirit of the game and other players), so problem solved. As long as the selective realism crowd stays off my single player server everyone will remain happy

This map has its charms despite being a desert, like (almost) all the other maps. In general I'm not a fan of Vegas, despite having been there too many times. Zip down Las Vegas boulevard from the north at mach 1.25 around 100' AGL with the blower lit, slide under the Strat, hang a 9.2G left turn at the Mirage, and blast down to the south side of McCarran (they renamed it after a different corrupt senator lately) dodge all the signs, pull another hard left and circle over the international airport, then back up north, with nothing but shattered windows and car alarms to mark my passing. That gets adjusted a bit for the F-18, but the net result is the same. It's almost as much fun as bombing a certain individual's house in Damascus, and at no point does ATC radio and tell me they have a number for me to write down when I have a moment for potential pilot deviation flying over four runways at very low altitude without clearance. Head over and land at Groom Lake, which isn't allowed. Two ridges to the west is Craters of the Moon National Security Area, the most bombed real estate on earth, followed by Pahute Mesa, one of my favorite places to park bad guys. A little farther is Tonapah Test Range, also not a place anybody gets to visit. At the speeds I 'drive' down the strip I don't even notice the goofy names, or the low res textures, or the cartoonish colors. The rest is pretty much like every other map. Potential target areas separated by runways. <edit> I should add there's no urban area on any map I like to watch bombed more than this one (did I mention I don't like Vegas?), so any time I want a mission where BadGuys(tm) are attacking a city it's usually here. Of course then the challenge is to attack the raiders rather than join them...but maybe that simulates the conflict pilots go through in combat. Sort of. In an extreme way. Maybe just one 2,000 pounder on that tower over there? Okay, two. Don't want to unbalance the aircraft. </edit>

Really? I had a guy in the barracks at Great Mistakes (A school) threaten me with a blanket party if I didn't wear green on St. Patrick's day in, I think, 1981, and I haven't worn green on that day ever since. Of course 42 years later it's more a tongue in cheek habit, but that's where it started. That was also the year my lead petty officer threatened us with BadThings(tm) if we didn't 'voluntarily' contribute to the CFC. I never gave them a penny, even when the XO on the 85 west pac made me sit in his office to listen to his threats. Different people respond differently

I can flare an F-16 in beautifully even when I do overhead breaks at mach 1.25 now. It's not quite as graphic as blowing asterisks up, but it's kinda fun. Still working on refueling the Air Force way; I totally get where people complain about the visibility of the lights on the KC-135. New and shiny stuff? I'll be long dead of old age before I can master all the old and dirty stuff. Of course I still have to go do carrier ops and refuel my F-18 to keep the muscle memory. I still tap in too much throttle to taxi the F-16 because it takes off where the F-18 grudgingly starts to roll... In the mean time I'll try to remember to pitch a 4YO ASDL3 fit because $featureSet didn't get included in the goodie bag ED gives us when it arrives.

Real jets hit the ground with 750 feet of vertical descent and the outboard wing panels like it.

I was at dinner with a bunch of cow-orkers at a restaurant in Omaha a couple weeks back and a guy I've worked with for sixteen years put A-1 on his $80 steak. Of course I was the only one who defended him, and pointed out that everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Even if it is dangerously stupid. <edit> Should have added that A-1 is a 'steak sauce' that's got enough flavor to overpower anything you put it on. Put it on a steak and you taste sauce. SWMBO didn't know what it was either as we collectively gave him a hard time about it... </edit>

I expect that dream might coalesce into an actual cartoon aircraft about the time ED releases the core code needed for it to fly.

You were correct; it was, as GrEaSeLiTeNiN said, the need to turn that knob to 'GRND CREW', which is also why I didn't see it in bindings. Radios are generally the last thing I learn in aircraft; in large part because I get tired of ATC granting permission to take off only to deny it once I start rolling and re-grant about the time I rotate. In helos I typically take off where I am because I can. For me radios are the lest important part of the flight. MilSim? I've been in the mil without the sim part. Not a place I feel driven to revisit... One radio at my right elbow and the other on my left wrist and having to select between them with a knob? That's a bit clunky! Does explain why I wasn't able to find an equivalent to COM1 and COM2 in the bindings, though. So, yes, definitely a bug which ED fixed after a few minutes going through the manual and Chuck's guide with everyone's (hugely appreciated) help. It's just amazing how they do that!

Intercom. That's a mystery; don't see a key binding for it either (just the right wall power switch). Some digging will be required. Radio works; I got permission to do a bunch of things in English and in Russian (set up a red KA-50 on a red base to test that), but ground crew menu and rearm/refuel window gets no response with the door open or closed. Tried all four ways. So far blue/blue and red/red comm menu-ground crew-rearm/refuel and the regular rearm/refuel window (key binding) I use everywhere else gets crickets back. Intercom might be my last hope, but it's odd that this is the only module where none of that works (the only module I've tried, and I've only tried it on a couple) I'm liking the bug theory more and more, like the bug where I don't pay enough attention to descent rate and end up in a pile of burning wreckage. That one used to get me all the time, but as I started paying attention ED secretly fixed it in the middle of the night. Hoping they do the same with this one.

Well, I am a newb and not the brightest bulb on the string, so... Blue KA-50 (USA) on a blue base. Attempt to rearm/refuel, I get no response from my somewhat prickly crew chief. Same KA-50 on a blue DDG, same cold shoulder. Same on a CVN. Same on a CTFB Kuz. It's like everyone is sharkist or something and won't even let me borrow a rag to get the bugs off my canopy. Does the KA-50 have to be red to get refueled, or am I missing something basic, which is my first inclination. Or is it a bug? I like bugs. Those make it someone else's fault when I prang the nose gear landing on a submarine.

This is how it's done. Changing of the guard airshow. Ran into this looking at old scans of slides; it's a bit of history...