RustBelt

Bonus points if someone does it and actually correctly recreates what parts are plastic composites and what parts are actually polishable metal and what parts are not easily polishable fancy exotic metal.

Don’t forget the backwards wind directions. Who cares where the wind is going. Pilots need to know where the wind is coming FROM.

I’d rather they did the full fancy pants F-5N with the pretty screens, or the F-5S that has a radar worth a damn and can shoot AMMRAMs.

fourth thing: Once you're above about 75-100 kts, use stick not rudder to hold centerline. The drag from the big tail and spoilerons will keep you in line.

Oops! your right Yea, but stainless steel one way death taxi to mars though!

Yes. It’s been a thing since day one. DCS has a very odd way of thinking about lights and lighting. It’s sadly not as simple as just changing a value, there’s whole layers of creative work arounds to make light behave in DCS. aka: wait for Vulkan next neverween.

Stop flying the Tomcat like the Hornet. It doesn’t have FBW to wipe your buns for you. You must be the feedback controller in the Tomcat. Which with a spring centered joystick, is hell.

Any cockpit of any airliner in the United States. They make NYC subway cars seem pristine.

Heres a little experiment for you and others who question the phoenix speed down low. We’ll assume you’re a roughly average sized human. Extend your arm fully horizontal out to your side. That length is the diameter of the Phoenix. Now get in the passenger seat of a car, and have the driver get up to say 60mph (100 KPH) now put your whole arm out the window perpendicular to the direction of travel parallel with the ground. That force that’s probably doing something terrible to your shoulder right now, that’s about 1/24th the amount of force a phoenix experiences at low altitudes at 60 MPH. Now consider the actual release speed if the Phoenix from the Tomcat is about 4 times the speed you were going. And drag increases at the cube of speed. Now explain to me how the Phoenix “ONLY” going one and a half times the speed of sound for a sustained distance is “slow” at low altitudes.

DO IT!

The first thing you're supposed to do is go fly the thing. Worrying about go through the motions diagnostics for systems that aren't actually modeled to fail is like 1,000th in line well behind Fly a carrier pattern well, win dogfights, and closely behind install a DCSbios driven fan for wind the 20 seconds the canopy is open when loading in and out. Guess what, the fire loop tests in a PMDG 737 aren't real either. You're complaining the clickey knob on your little tykes Cozy Coupe dash doesn't connect to anything.

Put the steppers on a separate dedicated stepper drive board connected to the Arduino. You'll be able to realize much finer stepping, and some more power. Running as a DCSbios controller you could use the auttothrottle flag to "disable" the throttle output so DCS doesn't KNOW the throttles are moving. But when you come off autothrottle the levers are where they belong. But that makes it a fully dedicated DCS peripheral.

No linkage. No two engines operate perfectly the same (especially without a FADEC system) so there will always be a bit of split to keep the thrust balanced.

Skip VR. It's just a headache and eyestrain you pay extra for.

They might mean Acceleration (or even Jerk) not speed. Remember English isn’t the teams first language.

The Tomcat also lacked a data bus (until the D) so miles of wire to wrangle for every single thing to other thing connection. That just eats man-hours.

Make a forming block with a resin printer and heat shape a lexan or acrylic sheet for the emergency cover. Alternately just dimensions and a guide for others to make their own forming block. Don’t lock yourself to 3D printing alone. CNC, cutting patterns for router/dremel other print methods are all doable if someone is already on the DIY train. a strong hair dryer or a heat gun is all you need to lay clear sheet plastic down nice and pretty. hell thin enough you can just cut the sheet in 2D and glue it into submission since it’s not a compound curve. That just needs a print out pattern to do.

Jam Yesterday, And Jam Tomorrow, But no Jam Today, Never Jam Today!

Donated, because we live in the boringest of boring dystopias here in the USA.

For oversized pieces the best method is to make a 45 degree scarf joint and use a plastic epoxy. (Or ABS slurry if you still print ABS/like hating printing) I really wish slicers just had that option in them to modify the print file on the fly. You’ll get better strength if you arrange the different sections of the part to mismatch the X/Y printing lines. Edit: Also, use clamps. Clamps are your friend. Better glue up, better strength.

“I once caught a fish this fast.” It’s all fishing stories. Their plane is best plane, and facts just get in the way of that narrative. You don’t have to tell the truth in a podcast. edit: also it’s been seen before that a lot of the best “fighter pilots” have some level of ADHD, so assume un-reliable narrators when dealing with how great their plane is by qualitative impressions. ADHD is a hell of a drug.

Lighting is a constant fight in DCS. My guess is as usual “Waiting for Vulkan” because anything else would be constantly chasing their own tail. Refer to the disastrous 2.5 lighting upheaval.

The implemented FFB in the Tomcat is tuned to direct motor FFB sticks like the Brunner, Rhino, and the old Sidewinder FFB2. The feel is good even through a backlashey 20+ year old FFB2. Bobweight could be stronger, But then so could the FFB2. Using a system like you described will need a translator to convert the DirectInput FFB info to your Control Loading system. Or completely ignoring the Very well implemented FFB Heatblur has written and going full self coded reading from DCSBios. I can HIGHLY recommend the VPForce KITS which are cheaper than a prefab Rhino, and also readily available as oppsoed to a year back wait list. Anticogging and everything pre solved and DirectInput native.

Voice acting is readily available by hobby semi-pros like myself Spud, and many others on the internet. Devs think everything is "hard" but most of the time I'm convinced that is just their way of saying "I don't want to".

The thing you aren't taking into account is the people who would do the clean cockpit textures are tasked with other stuff across 3(?) other active projects plus the Tomcat and Viggen? It's as much schedule availability as actual work time. Of course, they also were sure nobody would ever go through and change all of Jesters recordings and well.......Hobbyists don't work to EU work hour regulations so......ya know....