Holden McGroyne

I am sure I tried unchecking fullscreen and it made no difference, but I will give it another go. I was not aware of left ALT and enter though. Thanks.

Hi all, I got locked into DCS when I start the game, Windows key does not open the desktop, win and tab wont cycle open windows, I cannot go to another app while DCS is running and have to exit the game altogether which is a pain if I just want to move to different room on teamspeak or grab a file for another player. Any ideas how I can change this?

You have to remember that getting the probe in the basket is just the start of the procedure. If you only lightly nudge the basket and get the contact message, any decrease in speed from you is going to see you fall out. You have to get contact and then push forward a few yards to ensure there is some room for change in length of the hose before you fall out. Also, if you are too close to the tail plane of the tanker and too high in relation to the fuel pod, thus in danger of clattering the underside of the tanker tail, the hose will disconnect. It's just practice and getting a formation picture on the tanker. Keep at it, it gets easier with time.

Your speed control is hampering you big time. At one point there, you all down but at 317kts. When you do the break, chop the throttle, drop gear at 250, maintain 1% of airspeed as g. When you got about 180 its, start to feed in flaps. Now, trim for AOA on the downwind leg once your speed is 150kts and don't touch the pitch on the stick while doing it. As you turn, your nose will drop, do not worry about the AOA in the turn, only the VV and maintain the VV with throttle. As you roll out on final, there should be no need to adjust pitch with the stick, only use the stick for direction and the throttle to align the VV on the threshold. Now keep making little commits with the throttle all the way down to keep the VV on the centreline of the runway and do not flare as you reach the ground. Chop the throttle and if necessary, chuck out the air brake as you touch down.

Yes, you CAN use the AP to make life a little easier, but if you plan on using a tanker as a regular thing in missions, you will be doing yourself a mischief by learning to tank with AP. There is no substitute for trial and error, practice, practice and more practice. I get that it's hard, I feel your pain guys, I have spent hours and hours trying to tank and I am still not perfect, it is a diminishing skill that fades really quickly. It's all about picking the right reference point (never the basket) and making small moves of the stick. If it helps, let go of the stick with the whole hand and just lightly grip it between two fingers and thumb, so lightly in fact that you feel like you are "thinking" the plane into the basket rather than actually trying to shove a burning stick up a moving cougar's balloon knot! :D

I find the best speed for the Hornet when tanking to be about the same as the tanker, if not I overshoot or drop behind too much :D

Turning the HMD on is for me as simple as ensuring I have started the airframe fully and turning the HMD brightness knob. As for the AOA, with gear and flaps down, when you get the AOA over a certain value and the E bracket shows up, you don't need to know the number, you reference the E bracket, if the VV is in the middle of the E bracket, you are at 8.1.

I can see it at 0.7, but it is just a coloured line, no definition, certainly not enough until it is a bit late to do anything about it anyway.

I had this last night on A2A with my flight lead 0.8NM off my wing, 1000ft altitude separation and over the water, therefore nothing in the way. I turned back in toward lead and even though I closed into parade formation, my TACAN still said 0.8DME. Clicking X and back to Y cleared it, but I had to do this a number of times during the remainder of the flight and it was making me have trust issues. I have seen the TCN disappear due to ground feature interference, this is different, the TCN DME is still visible, it just doesn't change value, even when it is absolutely obvious that the distance between the two aircraft is significantly changing.

That, I was not aware of! Nice one thanks :)

Very kind of you Bonedust.............#CandygramforPongo!

Fair enough, I thought that would be the case.

When this beauty drops, am I going to need to buy the module if I just want to jump in the back seat and act as RIO for a friend?

Sounds good to me, I am UK based and fly about 1930 GMT for a couple of hours. Would be great to join a server (I am new to DCS) to fly the Hornet with others. What is the name of the server and is it on stable or open beta?

I get where you are coming from, I also play Elite Dangerous and that forum is quite toxic with folks not appreciating that beta means "not finished"! Many thanks, I will give that a read.

Thanks Panther, much appreciated. Realised after I posted this thread should be in the general or newbie crap questions section! Apologies to all.

If I download the open beta instead of the stable version, do I need to set up all my controls again and pay for the modules too? I absolutely love this Hornet, but it seems everybody is playing MP on the open beta.

I have got 2.5.3.23225 I guess that is stable, not open beta.

Thanks, I will check when I get home later one. I have no idea, I thought I was running the open beta, certainly it says Beta on some of the modules......See, told you I was a DCS newb :D

I only bought the F-18 day before yesterday and I am still getting to grips with it. I am also a DCS newb, so please forgive me if this is considered a stupid question. I have got the startup sequence down to about 5 minutes, no warnings or BIT errors etc., have managed a carrier take off, landing (4 attempt) and brassed up a couple of Mig29s, so I am not too bad on the module, however, what do I need to do to setup JHMCS? I know where the brightness knob is, but when I turn it, I am getting nothing when looking away from the HUD like the OP. Have I missed a step somewhere, what do I need to have enabled to get it to run?