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I appreciate the transparency, and hope that the negative comments don't deter such transparency in the future. It's something I feel very strongly for in gaming, and I can appreciate that pivoting can be difficult at first. I know some are impatient, but I'm happy to have it be delivered eventually and right. Time, Quality, Cost, pick two. In this case, I'm pleased that ED chose Cost and Quality. My opinion may not be shared by others, but for me I'm happy to have a module like the F/A-18C. It has taught me so much about how fighter pilots actually fly and fight.

The F/A-18C will ultimately have two flavors of targeting pod, the LITENING and the ATFLIR, with LITENING just being the first one implemented. Not sure if the LITENING can be cheek mounted? Unsure though. I know it's typically centerlined IRL. ATFLIR, the second targeting pod, is planned and will be cheek mountable definitely.

By default, DCS assumes that flares take twice as much space as chaff, hence why you can trade one flare for two chaff when rearming with the sliders. In the real Hornet, however, its flare cartridges are the same size as its chaff cartridges, allowing it to carry 60 flares and 60 chaff, which is not currently modeled. I expect it's very tightly coupled and needs some work to allow the Hornet's 1:1 ratio without affecting other modules.

The F-16 may possibly make it by the end of the year, but I wouldn't expect until Q4 at the earliest.

But do I really want to take the red pill this time?

It's all placeholder. OK after 10s isn't normal though may be now. Quality counter is not supposed to be that fast. And so far as the sim goes, you need only trust that it is fully aligned as the INS as currently implemented is always fully aligned. You can literally just flip the knob to NAV and it will work perfectly. Alignment just isn't currently implemented fully and is largely static.

"But Director, that's the Spin Recovery switch! The Master Arm is on the OTHER SIDE of the cockpit!" "I don't care, it's got a cool safety cover, caution stripes, and a pretty red light. Just like, paint Missile Arm on it or something"

The HUD is off, too, but all that's nothing compared to the left DDI and all its cautions telling you it's obviously a Hornet on the ground before startup (with the canopy open). At least the weapons page is set to AUTO mode and QTY 1, which does fit what happened in the movie. Still, for such a brief couple seconds of footage, I imagine there wasn't budget for it.

Yeah, a lot of missions no longer show up on Instant Action. ~~ I expect it's a bug.~~ You can still get to them though, just from the main menu, click MISSION, then select the F/A-18C module from the left and the missions will be there displayed by their file name. Edit: It seems it was done intentionally and is not a bug. The note on it is just a bit buried at the end of a very long line of changes to missions in general.

Same situation here, numerous instant action missions are missing, at least from the F/A-18C module. A lot of the practice missions (Maverick, Snakeyes, AIM-9X, etc.), Valley Run, all the Carrier start missions (Carrier Cold and Dark, etc.), and so on. As a note there exists a workaround (or was this intended?). The missing missions can still be accessed if you select MISSION from the main menu, then the F/A-18C module. The missions will be listed by file name.

If the alignment time is accurate, then it's perfectly possible for it to align without delaying you during a full startup. I start the alignment right after the AMPCD is powered on, before I even do the left engine, then go through the rest of the startup procedure while that's going on in the background. It's usually right at OK by the time I'm ready to taxi, so all I have to do then is go to Nav and pop the parking brake. It doesn't do anything really right now, but I like to be ready for when it does. I like my HUD nice and level and my pippers right on point.

I think what most are looking for is an absolute axis for a radial dial, as most are not spring loaded but many have center detentes. Without the spring we can't replicate the functionality anyway, but if it had an absolute axis we could use our existing hardware to "dial" the desired elevation. It's probably more awkward than it sounds, since the elevation will have to be commanded until it matches the input, functionality the Hornet natively lacks. Still it would be nice given right now those dials are just too awkward, given you push them up and they just sit there when you release, meaning just more up.

I came. I saw. I enjoyed. I mean it makes me appreciate the Hornet more, but it's still awesome. This will be interesting to master.

In this context, it's a cue on the HUD indicating that a release with your current weapon and flight parameters means that the weapon will not arm itself before impact (hence dud). Like dropping clusters below your VT height setting.

Basics are fairly simple. The plane practically flies itself and is easy to takeoff, fly, and land. The fly-by-wire makes departures almost uneventful as well, as it's very capable of recovering for you, even if you do somehow get it into such a state. Basic A/A and A/G you should be able to pick up without too much trouble. A lot of the more advanced features are not really required for basic operation. Once you're in flight, you can flip the master arm on, select bypass on the countermeasure dispenser, select your AMRAAMs, Attack Radar, and make sure your TDC is mapped and you're basically good to go hunting. You can then learn the other systems one by one at your own pace, and there's a wealth of content for this, like the massive manual in the forum or Wags' videos. No real option on trialing that I'm aware of, but Wags videos and others will give you a very good idea of how the Hornet flies, as well as explain how everything works. By no means though do you need to know everything about the Hornet to fly one.