CBStu

I certainly don't claim to be a trapping master but...I get AoA set in the downwind leg and don't touch trim again. Doing the final 180 turn, you need to increase speed or the loss of lift caused by the bank angle will drop you too far. I primarily use throttle to control altitude but will also roll out 5-10deg of bank for a few seconds to help maintain high enough altitude. It has been several years but I have watched live over the shoulder trap videos in real FA-18s quite a bit. One thing I noticed is that throttle is being moved almost constantly. To me it is a dance. Throttle is moving, stick is moving through the entire 180. Note also, that as wings go level, you need to pull back on the throttle or you will quickly be high. I start pull back at the same instant I move the stick. IE, if your bank has been about 30deg, pull on the throttle as you get to 25deg. If you wait until 5 or 0deg, you will go high. I love Banklers and use Shift+R to reboot for another flight as soon as I see the score. It seems to be a perishable skill. If I have been doing a lot of land based missions I notice it takes me maybe 5 tries to do a halfway decent trap.

I just adjusted the curves. I flew the 'Free flight' and went to F2 view and placed myself following the plane. I watched the jet exhaust. It is very obvious when AB kicks in. I kept moving the curve and trying again until the AB kick in matched the AB detent in the throttle.

If you have used the Auto Pilot during the flight make sure you have turned it off.

TKhaos, that is an excellent suggestion. One change I made was to reverse those two commands. Made sense to me that the upper button of the 2 -Shift-is for fast forward and the lower -Ctrl- is for standard speed. Also, not sure if all keyboards have this, but my LShift key has an upward pointing arrow on it so, in my mind, it is kind of natural to be the fast forward button. BTW I use fast forward a lot. Some missions it may take me 3-4-5 tries to succeed. Some you need to fly 75-100 miles before doing much. FF is a godsend to get you to the action.

I use the VKB Space Combat stick. I set it up to kind of replicate an FA-18 since that is what I fly the most. But it works for other aircraft too. BTW, no VKB software.

I usually don't bother to set trim vs weight. Every once in a while on the carrier I get a popup that says trim needs to be adjusted. I just keep adding trim until the popup goes away.

I understand it is nice to have all the backround visuals perfect but.........jeez, take off and you won't see them anymore.

Say that the DCS FCS is at fault. OK. People have been bitching about it forever. OK. So keep bitching about it, and keep trying to compensate for it when you drop full flaps at 250, and keep on bitching. Or wait to 180 to drop flaps and problem is solved. Jeez, easy decision for me. Oh and BTW, it is only a problem doing a straight in approach. Never even feel it in the break.

I don't see ballooning as problem at all. On a straight in approach wait until 180-190 to drop flaps. Go half if you want and full soon after. On a boat approach you crank the plane over to 30+deg bank and when the flaps drop you don't even feel them. Also realize that when fully configured on speed you will be flying at 130 to 140k depending on weight. So as flaps come down at 180 or so speed will drop further. When it gets to about 150 start bringing throttle. This whole thing is a balancing act getting lots of stuff right that is going on dang quickly. Be sure your trim button is easily accessible by your thumb because you use it a LOT. Also L Shift + R is your friend. If your approach gets screwed up just do that for a restart of the flight.

I have not had luck w/ similar. I used to pause a mission for dinner or something, but coming back 30-40 minutes later and it would not restart. Maybe your hybernating your PC is the difference. I will try that next time.

Now that you mention it, I do remember seeing that rudder trim knob. I have never used it though. I do my roll trim on the 4 way button on the stick.

I use roll trim pretty regularly. Some weapon loads are not symetrical so the plane tends to roll. I trim so it days level. Don't worry about keeping track of the amount of trim. Say you drop one bomb and now the plane rolls right. Trim left so it stays level. Now you drop another bomb, the plane is symetrical weight wise again so your previous left trim has it rolling left. Trim right to level. Landing is a whole other thing re trim. My recommendation is find a flight where you can do landing practice to an airfield. Start at 10 miles out at maybe 3000ft. Pull throttle to idle. As speed drops below 250 drop landing gear. Now you get new symbols in the HUD so pay attention to the E bracket. Trim to the E. As speed keeps dropping to 190 go to full flaps. Now things will change a bunch so re-trim to the E. As speed gets down to 145 or so bring up some throttle. You will end up at about 135 (depending on plane weight) and use the throttle to control disent and left or right stick to control lineup to the runway. There are a lot of youtube videos to show how this is done. I often have a video on the web that I can pause and switch back to dcs which I had paused to try to do what the video just showed me. Pause and switch, pause and switch between tutorial and DCS. Also, when you mess up, L SHIFT-R starts your flight over so do 5 or 10 landings in a row.

I just finished Bold Cheetah. OK, I tied on a few missions but...Anyway, this is a really enjoyable mission. I like all the communications from the guy/lady in the sky. Ads what i think is an extra bit of realism. Thanks a bunch Sedlo.

Another option if you have extra on your stick is set the throttle slew nub for some functions and set your extra stick control for other slew functions. This way you can choose which of the basics slew speeds works best for which function.

You look at the stick when you are trimming the aircraft?