CBStu

In TIR I have increased the angle of the curves fairly dramatically. If I turn my head about 80 deg left or right, my view on screen goes to about 185 deg. I have also increased my 'up' curve but left down pretty normal. Before each flying session I check on the TIR screen that when I look up I go past two of the 90 deg lines and looking down I go past one of the 90 deg lines. I usually have to reposition my head set up or down a little to get both ends to be correct. Also, on that little display at the top right of the TIR setup screen make sure that the three green dots representing your track clip are centered L to R and UP to DOWN. Adjust the sensor sitting on top of your screen to do this. I use the trakclip pro mounted on my headset on the left side. Sometimes it gets squeezed in too close to my head so my forehead blocks it when I turn left. Mine is almost as far as it is possible from the side of my head. Also the sensor on top of my screen is offset to the left of screen center by maybe 4-5 inches. Since my wife is working from home due to covid, I notice that sometimes when she walks behind me it messes up TIR. I assume it picks up her movement. Even when she isn't here I sometimes get a problem w/ the sunlight illuminating something behind me. I have pinned a towel over a window or a door to block the sunlight.

I have to assume this is like the very first nav in a car so essentially stone age tech. One other problem is that it is set for up = straight ahead of the plane. Ok, that's one option we are familiar with but all the labels on the map must be set for north is up so 90% of the time they are at some crazy angle.

I haven't HUD slew but I do similar for radar attack page and Mav F. Radar I slew w/ the nub on the Warthog throttle. MavF I slew w/ a hat on my VKB stick. This actually works out well because the hat on the stick is right next to the weapon release button and I can easily move both w/ my thumb.

I am using a Warthog throttle but I think this could happen w/ any throttle. I was reading a thread about AB detents and remembered I need to fine tune mine. A couple months ago I had done the DIY mod to make the AB detent a push through w/ no need to lift the handle. I had done some tuning to get the physical spot to match the engine by flying in F2 view right behind the plane. I could move the throttle and watch for the engine exhaust to turn bright red. A curve of 10 did the job. But a few times since I had noticed, as I pulled back on the levers, the left would sometimes stay in burner longer than the right so today I fixed that by changing the curve to 9 on the left and leaving the right at 10. Good, that's fixed. But in the Caucuses 'free flight' mission I push to just before the AB and watch the engine page and I get N1 = 105 and N2 = 99. Then I go to full AB and the #s drop off. After maybe 45 seconds they settle to N1 = 92 and N2 = 97. Speed definitely goes up in AB and FF (fuel flow?) about doubles so it all seems to work out but what is w/ the N1 and N2 #s dropping off in AB?

I will now have to try playing w/ those. I fly a mission in Caucus where the goal is to destroy choppers parked at Kobuleti (I think). I always use the F10 map to help get me in line w/ the runway so the choppers are in a vertical string. The other day I thought I should use the moving map. Geez, there are a lot of things on that map aren't there? I zoomed my view, zoomed the map itself, and not sure if I ever saw the airfield or not. Went back to the SA page.

I am using the other clip-on sensor so I hope my experience will apply. First I have a couple of months ago radically increased the slopes to give more display movement per degree of head movement. So I don't need to move my head as much to get the display movement I want. This is in pitch and yaw axis. To make this a little easier to deal with I have a dead zone of about 7-8 degrees head movement before the display moves. This allows some inadvertent head movement to be absorbed before the display moves. Also I find the position of my headset (that the sensor is clipped to) is critical. I adjust it while in the TIR page before I start a flight. In pitch I can go a little more than 180 deg of display movement up and maybe 100-110 degrees of down movement. If the headset isn't placed on my head properly I lose some off the end of either up or down travel. This is pitch. TIR pitch by craig stuard, on Flickr Notice I have a lot more 'up' than 'down' curve. Here is yaw. This shows 2 things. 1- Note on the chart at the right I show 7.2 deg of yaw head movement (raw) and just 0.2 deg of 'game' movement 2- You can see my yaw chart at the left. I use a couple of clicks on the green 'UP' arrow, move the little circles some and then do a couple of clicks on the down arrow to move it back down. TrackIR setup by craig stuard, on Flickr With this curve I can look a couple deg more than straight back, maybe 190 deg in both directions. Finally here is roll. I found I apparently inadvertently lean my head sometimes so I have very little roll movement curve or the view goes crazy. TIR roll by craig stuard, on Flickr Edit to add. I don't have the 'limit' box checked and have never tried it.

W/ my wife working from home I notice another problem w/ TrackIR going nuts if she walks through the room behind me. Haven't pinned down whether color of her clothing makes a difference or not but some times it must pick her up, so my view goes nuts for a couple of seconds and then stops at some weird angle. Wagging my head brings it back.

Phantom, the ICLS localizer line (the vertical one) shows up quite far away. I haven't specifically checked this but it's some where in the 12 mile range. But the glide slope line (the horizontal one) only shows up at about 6.5 miles out on a straight in approach. Are you flying the included mission in either the Caucuses or Persian Gulf 'Instant Action' list? I fly the PG because the water is a nicer color but the missions seem to be identical. I just flew it to check things. By hitting active pause as soon as it starts and setting up tacan and icls, I see it starts 8.5 miles out at 2000 ft. The localizer shows immediately and staying at 2000 ft the glide slope shows at 6.5. In this mission you start lined up w/ the boat to do a pattern approach. I usually do it straight in so I need to fly significantly to the right to get the localizer centered. I use Banklers for practicing pattern approaches.

Not sure of the correct term but my TM throttle 'radar altm' still works although I am on stable. The switch is weird though. If I start a flight and it is in the forward or 'NRM' position to get the plane to go to RDR I have to move the toggle to it's other position and then back to 'NRM' to get the plane to switch to radar alt.

Thanks guys I will check into that. Now that you mention it I do remember something about gear down at <250 only, but I have never had anything go wrong when lowering gear at 350. Maybe you are correct that that specific damage isn't modeled.

I agree on the flaps during the break. I drop gear earlier though since it helps slow the plane. I am not sure how long your downwind is but the one at the boat is pretty short so I like to have as much done during the initial break as possible. As I mentioned, at the boat, we approach at 350. I drop gear and hook and flaps at the same time on the upwind but the flaps will not actually drop til the plane is <250. As Flamin says, in the break you are holding some back pressure on the stick. So when the flaps drop you gain lift which is pretty much what the stick back pressure is doing also. So flaps drop, in the break all you do to compensate for the flaps is release some or all back pressure for a few seconds. BTW, in a straight-in I don't drop flaps til 190 max and prefer to wait til 180.

I have a straight-in approach pretty much dialed in. But my pattern approaches look a lot like yours. Fortunately DCS doesn't seem to model flattened landing gear so my crash landings I can usually taxi away from.

From all I have read here they are having a lot of problems w/ the recent OB update. When they are ready they will put it out.

Try starting in the air. That is what I do and have never had those problems. This experiment will tell you if there is something missing in your procedure.

Flying an ICLS approach is very difficult. It takes a ton of practice. I started w/ straight-in approaches and can do them pretty well, now that I have done 1000+ of them. The FA-18 never settles to where you don't need to adjust the throttle. This is the way it is so may as well get used to it. Is the throttle response a little slower than IRL? I don't know, maybe it is. Doesn't matter though. This is the way it is. When I decided to get serious about carrier traps I realized the throttle on my VKB stick was too coarse. So I epoxied an extension onto it which helped a little. But finally I stepped up and spent the $250 or so to buy a Thrustmaster Warthog throttle. It is a revelation. Now, instead of having 1.25 inches of throttle movement off to full, I have maybe 5 inches. This is so much better. My summary; carrier traps are really hard to do so they require a lot of study, a lot of practice, and a really good throttle. There is nothing wrong w/ the DCS FA-18 modeling.

Thanks. I was curious because (I only fly in SP) a month or so ago I killed a friendly by accident and there was some message when I exited that mission. I think I was busted to a private or something. I haven't learned about IFF yet so was reading this thread.

Download Banklers mission. It puts you onto a boat but everything up to maybe 1/2 mile out would be the same as an airport landing. My procedure for Bankler is head for the boat at 350k and drop wheels and hook and flaps. The wheels and kook will actually drop but the flaps will not. Get ICLS and Tacan running. Pass the boat at 800ft and 350k. As you go over the smaller boat ahead of the carrier, chop the throttle to idle and crank in 30 deg of L bank and slight rear pull on the stick for the entire turn. You can crank in some up trim while in the turn but it is difficult for me to know how much. Your speed will drop and somewhere in the middle of the 180 deg turn it will get low enough that the flaps will drop. This will create a bit of a bobble but since you are in the 30 deg bank it is much easier to make a slight adjustment to counteract it. As you get towards a heading of 180 deg bring the plane level, start bringing in some throttle as you slow below 145 or so (final on speed will be about 130) and then let the altitude drop to 600 while on the downwind straight. You want to be doing your final up trim to get AOL correct. Also note your distance from the boat (tacan) which should be 1.2 nm. This was determined by how much rear stick you used in the turn. The final turn is my most difficult. Your distance from the boat will determine how tight to make the final turn. I am usually at maybe 20deg bank. To make things easier you can give yourself more time by going further in front of the boat or going further downwind. Bankler will down grade your score for the extra distance but who cares at this point. BTW this pattern landing is very difficult. I have done many, many 100s of them and I can get onto the boat maybe 80% of the time but half of those were actually more of a crash than a good trap.

I look forward to replies from users. From what I understand from reading here is that VR doesn't have detail as panton41 says. I believe it also needs more computer power vs a screen. I am only slightly interested. I fly right here in the living room and, if my wife says something I quick hit pause. Not sure I'd even know she said something using VR but that pause makes for a lot less of her being unhappy because I am there but not available. Her being happy means I can fly more w/o resentment.

Where have you seen this? I just looked through the TM web site and didn't find it.

I guess I am weird. I play stable only. I want to fly what ever is available and working. I have no interest in working as a tester. I keep seeing threads where someone is miffed that XYZ hasn't been updated. So? Is there somewhere that it is stated that ED owes us an update every X days? Seems to me that if X doesn't work in Y module, there are a LOT of other modules to fly. If plane Z can only be flown in OB, and OB isn't working well right now, I am sure ED is working their collective a$$e$ off to get it fixed. 2 years ago I got back into flight sims after being away for a long while. I started w/ X-Plane. Flew a 737 and their FA-18. Found DCS, flew both for several months, and then got the DCS FA-18. I haven't been on XPlane since.

Wow this is interesting. I haven't been using the MPVD for much at all. To me it may be multi colored (which should be a lot better than grey or green scale) but it looks pretty bad and the on screen labels for the off screen buttons are nearly invisible. I need to try some of the uses mentioned here. One thing I could use it for would be the SA page because that shows the coverage of the various SAM sights. I have been flipping back and forth on the right DDI between SA and radar attack which is a pain. OP, thanks for bringing up this subject.

That's the way it is and I hate it. I have enough trouble getting a lock w/ that crappy picture on the Mav screen. It would be a lot better if it stayed where it was so I only need a slight movement to lock up the next helicopter or truck. Before I got the slew working I just bore sighted the Mav like I would a rocket, hit a lock button and then fired. I can do that a lot faster than the slew procedure. I keep running one of the supplied FA-18 Caucuses mission where I am supposed to hit some of a bunch of helicopters parked at the air field. So much time is wasted getting a lock that I have yet to get through that mission alive.

I don't use the controls display so can't help w/ that. I will comment that the FA-18 seems to have very minimal nose down ability. If you go to F2 view and move to look at the side of the plane you can see a ton of elevator movement for pitch up and a lot less for pitch down.

I see references to using the speedbrake in that first 180 deg but when I do the Banklers carrier trap mission I have never needed it. Pass the carrier at 350 and 800 ft w/ gear and hook already down and flaps already set to full but they won't actually go down til speed drops to 250. Chop throttle to idle at the same time cranking in 30 deg bank and adding a slight pull back on the stick. Somewhere around 1/2 way through the break (why is it called that?) the flaps drop to full. You feel something happening but it's easy to correct for since what would be a huge balloon in straight flight just becomes a slightly tighter turn.