Chuck_Henry

I’m inclined to believe this is due to the DCS F-5 flight model being more “draggy” than the real thing. Mover, in his FAM flight video, noted during the break turn when he got the gear horn that “you wouldn’t slow down that fast.” He suggests that it may be due to the increased induced drag (compared to the T-38A he flies IRL) from the LEXs and slats, but that still doesn’t really explain the whole story since you can see F-5s in various YouTube videos aerobraking for nearly half their landing rollouts.

Sadly, the T-38C project died when IRIS pulled out of DCS years ago. Best you’ll find is the Milviz version for P3D. It’s pretty good; I’ve spent time in it, but P3D of course has its own litany of problems.

My apologies for coming off as hostile as I probably did. It was very shortly after release, thus my being foggy on the exact phrasing and who even said it. Only point I intended was that HB said 'no' for realism reasons and that you wouldn't even (at the time) consider it. The "deal with it" part thus being colored by my butthurtedness. It wouldn't be such a big deal to me if there were a high-quality throttle with a detent you can adjust to exactly match the F-14's in-game. But the Warthog, with its unnecessary weight, cheap internals, and useless TDC slew, can hardly be called "high-quality." And Virpil has since discontinued any version of its throttle with a detent. The audible sound effect is, at the end of the day, just a workaround too since you, A) certainly wouldn't hear it if you were wearing dual earpro and B) would also feel it. I'm glad you guys will reconsider your position on this, as the lack of such a feature is probably the one thing keeping me from fully enjoying the Tomcat module. Thanks for all you do.

That was C.W. Lemoine, and you have to bear in mind he mostly flew T-38s and F-16s. The Air Force break is an overall tamer maneuver than the carrier break. You enter at 300, roll, and pull while keeping the throttles where they are, using only G to bleed airspeed below 240-250 to drop the gear.

I'm very excited to hear this. The F-5E is probably my second favorite module right behind the F/A-18C. Pretty sure I still have more hours in the F-5, though. I feel like there are a lot of ways they could take this and still deliver a quality product. F-5N like the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps now fly would probably be the easiest since it only requires upgraded comm radios, APG-69 in place of APQ-159, a single MFD, INS, and anti-skid. It would, however, still only be an adversary trainer at the end of the day. F-5EM like Brazil flies would be the greatest capability upgrade, putting the F-5 almost on-par with 4th-generation fighters. It would, however, basically amount to a whole new module. F-5AT like Tactical Air Support flies would be really interesting. It's, again, only an adversary trainer but comes with a variety of advanced systems. The spec sheet from their website claims integration of a HUD, HOTAS, IRST, HOBS missiles, datalink, and even electronic attack. The cockpit includes the seriously sexy Garmin G3000, too, and would make IFR/IMC flying and navigation far more modern. I think I'd personally prefer the F-5N, but I'd also be willing to wait a few years if ED were willing to put the work in to produce the F-5AT.

I honestly think you're approaching the Case 1 with the wrong mentality. You shouldn't be aiming to replicate anybody's control movements. Like has already been mentioned, there are just too many variables involved. Also, the perfect Case I video already exists, in my opinion: It's up to you to hone your own technique. Focus on the numbers first. Level break, 600 on downwind, 450 at the 90, 325-375 at the 45 to roll out with a centered ball on the lens. What works for some people may not work for you, and vice versa. I personally never liked using only power for pitch. That's not to say I'm making a lights show with the AOA indexer, but minute adjustments are ok and will always give you more immediate results than turbofan engines (at least until you're in-close and need to be exactly on-speed AOA for the hook to catch a wire).

The FPM is in reference purely to what you actually see outside the jet. If you put it on the numbers, you're going to touch down on the numbers. It doesn't matter how the pitch ladder is trimmed at all.

If I remember correctly from earlier threads, the Heatblur response was basically "not realistic since in the actual jet you had to push the throttles outward and forward. There's a sound effect you can listen for. Deal with it." Pretty disappointing both in attitude and the outright refusal to give us a simple QOL feature that the F-5 and F/A-18 both have.

This is called a power carat. Neither the F-16 nor the legacy Hornet have this. The Super Hornet does, though, as does the F-35 if one of my jet friends is to be believed.

Only in the A++ and C+, as mentioned above. Even then, in very recent USMC Hornet squadron videos, it appears that they keep the 2 upper DDIs green and only make the AMPCD symbology white.

https://appadvice.com/app/ronnie-stahl-app-for-kids-who-cant-fly-good/1086478833 In the wise words of Ronnie Stahl, "You have to hit your numbers all the way down - 450 at the 90, 325-375 at the 45 - you have to hit those numbers to show up with a ball on the ****in' lens."

I’m unsure if this is actually a bug. It’s possible that the F-5’s attitude gyro tends to precess a bit more than others. Even the one in the F/A-18 will indicate incorrectly after some dynamic maneuvering. Maybe before pushing the throttles up, take a second to re-cage it?

I can't really complain about that. I don't fly either of those, but I've seen videos and those cockpits are in much greater need of re-work.

Yeah, it's starting to show it's age a little bit. At least they fixed the issue with the beacons turning the cockpit into a red-themed rave.

I've only noticed that with certain downloaded liveries myself, particularly ones made 2+ years ago.

Any word on a fix for this? We're over a month out from the bug submission.

8.1 pull isn't written anywhere that I know of; it's just a T-45 technique adapted for F/A-18 parameters. Again, just something to try and maybe play around with until you find the technique that works for you. In my own experience - the 1% G rule is for the *initial* pull. Along with the speed brake, it's to help you reach 250 by the halfway point of the break turn. Once you drop gear and flaps, all bets are off. You do what you have to do to roll out on downwind 1.1-1.3 nm on-speed. For me on a standard no-wind day, that's typically relaxing pitch (maybe even adding some forward stick pressure) enough to keep from ballooning (since the flaps just added a ton of lift) and shallowing my roll angle to 30-40 degrees. This is *really* where you have to just do that pilot shit. As far as just doing it visually - that *is* actually what you'd aim for when doing field landings when you can pick some sort of ground checkpoint to fly over consistently. But, as you were getting at, the whole point of this is to be able to fly the Case 1 pattern at the boat where you will realistically not have visual checkpoints.

Those numbers aren't necessarily gospel, but they are a good place to start. "Do that pilot shit" is what you want to end up doing, but that only comes with experience. You can only figure out where you can deviate from procedure if you know what "right" looks like. For what it's worth, T-45 students nowadays typically do either a 1% of airspeed G pull or a 17-unit AOA (on-speed for that aircraft) pull. The G technique has always worked pretty well for me in the F/A-18, but an 8.1-degree AOA pull should work, too.

I actually did mean increase, like just bumping a little power in as you flare and then taking it out so as not to get slow too soon (assuming you're flying the glidepath exactly at on-speed AOA).

If you don't mind me asking, then, what's your technique when it comes to performing a flared landing in the F/A-18? I know the T-38 and F-5 have "crack-shift-idle-flare", both from reading the AF training pub on it and Mover's first video with the DCS F-5E. I imagine you really have 2 options - land with power on the jet, or gradually increase thrust as you flare, then go to idle once you've arrested the descent rate without getting slow.

I've found it's only really possible to truly flare the F/A-18 by leaving the throttles where they are for on-speed AOA as you flare, as opposed to going to idle over the threshold and trying to do it all with pitch. The reason being that you're already trimmed on-speed, so any attempt to arrest the descent rate using pitch alone will result in getting slower than on-speed, as well as a huge amount of induced drag. You're not going to be able to hold the nose off when you're bleeding energy like that. A technique you could use is intentionally trimming faster than on-speed (maybe drop the gear and flaps, and don't even touch trim). That way, as you cross the threshold and go to idle, you'll be going from red chevron to amber donut in the flare, as opposed to amber donut to green chevron. EDIT: You can see this is what the Finnish F/A-18 does in that first video. Watch the AOA repeater on the nose strut. Totally red until completely in the flare, at which point it went to amber. How much of this is accurate for the real Hornet and how much has to do with the STILL BUGGED reverse ground effect, I couldn't say, though. In any case, when I want to pop wheelies on the runway, I hop in the F-5E. It's basically an older, less powerful Hornet, anyway.

When you're on-speed in the F-14, it lines up with the miniature aircraft symbol, not the FPM/VV.

Wayyy too classified, as incredible as that kind of module would be.

Depends on how bad the IMC is. If the ceilings are lower than 300-400 ft, you’re going to need a PAR to get safely below the weather and land. If they’re above that, then you fly a 3-degree descent based on distance from the TACAN. If you want to be at 0 ft at the runway, then you want to be at 300 ft one mile out, 600 ft two miles out, etc. So depending on where you intercept the final approach course, you’ll either descend or maintain your altitude to hit those checkpoints. Let’s say you intercept the course at 5 miles and 1000 feet. Hold your altitude until you hit about 3.2 to 3.3 miles out. At that distance, start descending at a 3-degree descent gradient. The technique I use is half the groundspeed and add a 0 to determine the desired VSI. That’s how you essentially build an instrument approach from scratch. You should try to fly a published approach whenever possible. You can find those on Skyvector.

Can confirm I have this bug, as well.