CBStu

I just use the mouse to work the cockpit lever so I am not sure what buttons would be needed. But I know it takes one roll to pull the lever out and 2 clicks to rotate it. Could each of those be assigned to keyboard buttons? Set them so you sequentially hit three buttons that are located right next to each other to do the three actions.

This is interesting. I can certainly imagine many scenarios where a plane might return to the carrier w/ a bunch of unused ordnance. Is the weight limit an absolute or is there a fudge factor allowed?

I haven't tried an assymetric load but have landed on the heavy side. I fly SP mostly w/ the provided missions. I like to choose them looking for a nearby airfield so I can practice landing if I survive. I haven't done any serious experimentation but I do notice that when I am heavy the AOA w/ a <1000 ft/min descent rate has me up in the 145-150k vs more usual 135k airspeed.

I got a new PC last December. All I can remember is that getting DCS going on it was pretty painless. I remember dreading it and then it was simple.

Is this also the reason why one mission doesn't have the enemy planes show up in the F10 map view like every other mission?

For me head tracking is so far superior to any type of mouse or button or whatever it isn't even a contest. I have TIR5 and would not even fly if it died. Fortunately I could afford it. If it's too much for you, look real strongly at the DIY equivalents. I have enough to control w/ switches on the throttle and stick and dealing w/ moving my view by finger control ruined the experience. Maybe triple monitors could work but they would be a lot more than TIR5.

Not sure if this will work for you as my controllers are different from yours. My solution is to use the slew as you are now for the radar. Then use another 4-5 way hat for the MavF. I am lucky in that my VKB stick has a lot of those hats so I slew the radar on the throttle and slew the MavF on the stick. This actually works very well because the hat I use on the stick is right next to the bomb button. One other option for the Mav F is to use crosshair by leaving it's location on the screen alone. Aim the plane like you would w/ rockets and then fire the mav. It's crude and no where near realistic but it will work.

Do you guys fly around in F2 view a lot?

I am really surprised how this has been done. I have never been able to fly the ball because the ball is way too small to be of any use to me. Suddenly the flols thing popped up. Dang does it have to look like a cartoon and be so huge. And it gives no lineup info at all. So I still never use it. ICLS works fine for me.

Agreed and I want to add a little to what I said in my posts above. My comment about almost constantly tapping the stick right to keep the bank correct was referencing the final 180 deg turn which is all done at on speed AOA. In the first break turn you are at higher speed and pulling back on the stick to get the proper G. For most of that turn the plane is slowing and the throttle is at idle. So there is no 'altitude is controlled by throttle'. Your altitude will be affected by both bank angle and by how much G you are pulling. IE; while the g is decreasing throughout the turn because your speed is dropping, at any given small portion of the turn where G is nearly constant, your altitude is controlled by bank angle. If you see you altitude is increasing, increase your bank a few degrees, you will lose some lift and your altitude will either stop increasing or settle depending how much you change bank. If altitude is dropping flatten your bank a little.

When I started carrier traps I did straight in only. That was hard enough. Use an included mission where you start about 10-12 miles out at 3000 ft. I used to start the mission and immediately hit active pause so I could set up the tacan and the icls. I don't need the pause any more. Then go live, chop the throttle to idle and drop gear and hook once <250knots. Bring in a little up trim as speed drops further so you are starting to get the VV centered in the E bracket. You have to bring the trim in slowly because otherwise you start to climb. Wait til 180knots to drop flaps to full. This will eliminate the ballooning you get from flaps at higher speed. Once flaps are at full, bring in more up trim while watching air speed continue to drop. Your ultimate AOA on speed will be in the 130 range depending on weight so as speed drops start bringing in some power at 145 or so. Since your approach to the boat is at 9-10 degrees to the right of the boats heading to line up w/ the angled deck, the boat is constantly moving to your right. So I keep the VV just to the right of the boat super structure and the VV is to the right of the icls localizer line. At about 1.2 miles out I move the VV over towards the center of the deck. At the 1.0 - 1.2 miles out you can start to see the lines on the deck and will notice that you appear to be to the right of a good line up. Don't worry. In that last mile the boat moves further toward your right and line up will be good when you hit the deck. I did several 100 of these straight ins and felt pretty good as I could 95% get the plane on the boat properly. Then I tried pattern approaches. This is a whole other world. 6 months or so, several 100 pattern approaches, a couple of threads here that have helped a bunch, but I am still elated if I can get a score of >60 in Bankler's training mission. BTW, if you don't have Banklers mission download it.

Agreed. For both throttle and aileron many small inputs wins every time. But it takes a lot of practice. Some times I am concentrating on one thing and suddenly realize I need to look at something else too. Coming onto the downwind and I find I am at 600 ft. Or at the same place, something is working right.....I find I forgot to drop the gear. Sometimes I try to correct it and other times I hit L Shift-R.

I read in a thread here that the FA-18 definitely has a tendency to increase bank angle on it's own. So I just keep doing small right bank inputs to the stick. I don't hold it, just quick small taps to the right, almost constantly through the entire 180 degrees turn, while I watch bank angle in the HUD. I also watch very closely on the downwind how far I am from the boat as I go past it. I use that to determine how much bank to use. 1-1.2 miles = closer to 30 deg. 1.3-1.5 miles = maybe 22-25 degrees.

I use Bankler's and just hit L Shift + R to restart it after I see my grade. You could also do that w/ the provided mission you are using.

My VKB Space stick is 4 way + push. It is very hard to move it accurately to the left though because it will usually do the push first. I don't use it for weapon select though as I do that on the TM Warthog throttle.

What are your flaps set to? There have been many, many threads on uncommanded nose up after takeoff in the FA-18. I'd search them to see if any of the comments apply to you.

I don't understand. In the included 'Fighter Sweep' mission I have taken to loading two harms. As soon as I get my climb stabilized I set up the harms and always have the little square around the target showing on the HUD. I used to wait til I hit my goal of 20,000ft (that is the 4 Migs altitude) and then launch them. Recently I started launching at about 15,000. Are you saying it knows the line of sight location of the target but not the distance? They always appear to loft to me watching their smoke trail. Also they always both hit from both heights and distances..

An interesting question. I always use full burner. I assumed that was correct. But I usually come out of burner at maybe 220.

I have separated slew functions to different controls. The little tiny nub on the TM warthog throttle works fine for me on the radar attack screen w/ the 'hold tdc depressed to slew' unchecked as Harker mentions. I have also found that it works better if you just slide the pad of your finger across it rather than try to actually move it. For the MavF I slew that w/ a 4 way + depress switch on my VKB stick. It happens that the 4 way is right next to the 'release ordinance' button so works very well. The advantage of separating slew functions is you can tune each switch to work well w/ that particular weapon.

Somewhere in the overall settings there is something like 'synchronize hotas settings on start'. I know this will have my plane pop up w/ the flaps down if that is where I have the switch from the last flight. Haven't tried it w/ zoom but maybe......

I think there are some glitches here and there. I see weird stuff happening w/ targeting cues and figure maybe I have done something wrong. Sometimes if in AA I hit the AG button and then the AA button again. And vice versa. Some times after I fire my last 120C and switch to a 9X I have a hard time getting rid of the 120c targeting cue.

Me too. I have 7-9 degrees dead zone in both directions on all three axis. So there is actually a total dead zone of 14-18 degrees. I then have a pretty steep curve to get enough movement of the view. For instance I can look backward maybe 5 degrees more than straight back both to the left and the right. TrackIR setup by craig stuard, on Flickr This is yaw. You can see in the chart to the right that, when I snapped the screen shot, my head was moved 7.2 deg but the game was looking just .2 deg to the right. The only time I have problems clicking buttons are the ones hidden by the stick. I tried removing the stick but it looked weird so I just put up w/ moving my head around like I would need to in a real plane.

This is really weird to me. I usually have to turn down my HUD and both DDIs when flying the included missions. At the start all of mine look more like the HUD Noluck's pic. What settings could we compare to try to figure this out?

Be glad you can see his videos that well. I am on a satellite and I can only run youtube at 720 and even there it sometimes has to pause and catch up.

W/ some tuning it actually works quite well for the 'radar attack' screen if you go to the options on the main DCS page before you select a plane or mission. Options- click 'FA-18' on the left- and then 'Special' across the top. Then unclick 'Realistic TDC Slew'. TDC skew by craig stuard, on Flickr In the normal controls screen I have the TDC set up like this; TDC w SCG by craig stuard, on Flickr I use the TDC on the throttle for the radar screen. I found you don't try to move the tiny nub like a hat switch. You just slide the pad on your finger across it rather than trying to move it. As I have it set, it works quite well to designate missile targets on the radar screen. I use a hat switch on my stick for other slew like for a Maverick F.