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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.

As I understand it, it gains us some IFF, BRA, and possibly aircraft type data without having to lock onto it. But then I wonder why couldn't you launch onto it? You can already technically mad dog an AMRAAM at them if you so chose.

I can only speculate. I have noticed that if you change the values, you get 2 chaff for every 1 flare. It also seems like we drop two flares every click. Might be related, but not sure why. Maybe because two engines?

It's not exactly an absolute. All the radar does is point the direction for the Sidewinder to look in for a target. Neither the Sidewinder nor the Radar makes any real attempt to correlate their data. It's left to the pilot. Sidewinders are relatively simple creatures. They see a heat signature, they lock onto it. Consider the scenario of two targets in close formation, one behind the other, the one in back on afterburner. The radar would have no trouble spotting the cold one and would likely be the one it targets. The Sidewinder looks there and may not even see the intended target, but would see the afterburner flare where it expects a target to be. It would signal the pilot that it has acquired a target, because that's what it does. I mean the damn things will lock onto the sun for crying out loud.

I make very few trim adjustments myself, the only times I do are payload asymmetry or I'm landing. My experience has been the plane basically flies itself, though I did have to very carefully calibrate my stick and deadzones to make sure of that. But that was all I had to do. I believe I have a small deadzone set in game. Payload is the biggest reason why it will start rolling one way or another if it's not balanced between each wing.

Throttle kinda defaults to a locked state in the game, as there's a detente there IRL and putting the throttle past there would promptly flameout the engine. Since most of our throttles won't have that detente, RShift+Home will set the throttle to idle and then your throttle will work through the range of Idle to Mil/Max (depending on your afterburner detente setting). RShift+End will set the throttle to off. For the left engine, it's LAlt+Home and LAlt+End.

Technically I have the Saitek X-65F, but I voted for Saitek X55 or X56, as the X65 has an almost identical layout to those HOTASes.

Seems to be the case for the version we have right now. Based on what Wags has said, the proper OBS capability didn't make this patch, but it sounds like it's already on the 9X internally. We can probably expect it next patch. This video is rather interesting as it also demonstrates something that pilots will have to consider, especially for something like the 9X. The missile that missed appears to be your second shot which came off the right wing, opposite the targets. Given you were firing at the edge of boresight, I suspect the nose of your Hornet blocked the LOS for the second missile, and by the time it shot off ahead of your nose, the target was too far off boresight. Meanwhile, the third missile was immediately able to see the target, having an unobstructed line of sight and was just able to see it. Not sure that will have a huge impact in most situations, but could foil certain snapshots.

The info it gets is only directional data which the AIM-9 then uses to look in the indicated direction. The seeker head is gimbaled inside so it will physically turn its seeker to look in that direction. It then uses its own internal logic as normal to acquire a target, which may not always be what the radar is locked onto. The Sidewinder doesn't know the exact position of the target the radar is locked onto, only which direction the target is in.

Based on Wags' mini-update and his mention of flare rejection, it appears the (IMO) main advantage of the 9X is not yet in. In the real world, the 9X is very good at distinguishing between flares and its locked target. Dropping flares after a launch of a 9X may be very ineffective, though you can still drop flares in anticipation of a launch to prevent the lock in the first place.

Barring some bugs like that with the bombs, I find the pipper doesn't handle sudden movement very well. If I hold the pipper over the target for a second or two before firing, the shots are very accurate. I've been able to take out trucks with short 30 round bursts with consistency like that. I expect this has something to do with the computed point of impact having to be adjusted. Trying to snapshot with a flick has proven a very low probability shot. Stable speed also helps. As for A/A, the only case I have seen this is with a moderate range shot against a maneuvering target, often one that is losing energy in a climb. By the time the bullets reach him, the target has changed direction enough that the bullets skate past the nose. I've started watching the foresight cue and taking those kinds of shots once the lines are inside the target. It seems to help. Honestly I think it is quite accurate, it just isn't able to account well for acceleration or jerk. At least that's my observation.