Spiceman

Thank you! Yeah, I’ve done a similar workaround in my mission. It’s not a bad workaround, I just have to make sure my human helo pilots land close enough to the right place so that the troops look like they’re actually emerging from the helo.

Is there a trick to being able to transport troops across water? I'm trying to pick up troops at Al Minad and transport them to Kish. It all works great if the troops just get dropped off and have no waypoint at Kish. If I give the troops a waypoint to go to once they're dropped off at Kish, the mission breaks and they won't get on the helo at Al Minad. Missions attached. V2 has no waypoint at Kish and V3 has the waypoint at Kish. You can see that in V3 they won't get on the helo at Al Minad. Cruise_CSAR_v3.miz Cruise_CSAR_v2.miz

Has anyone used this lately? Does it work? Can you describe how to install it?

There’s a bunch of functions not mappable. Air Source is another one. I have a home pit too, and yeah I’d like to at least be able to map every switch used in a cold start.

Question... is there any way to have the JTAC only message a particular group?. I have a large mission where the ground attack is only one small part and I didn't want the JTAC messages showing up for everyone.

Looks OK. Maybe remove that whole ECMD line just for the hell of it.

Are you exporting the HSD or the ECMD? The ECMD (in the back seat) never changes to the TID.

Yes... both of them... perhaps we both blew greasy water out of a padeye? It was a fun way to spend my 21st birthday.

Here’s how we maintained the cockpit.... a Tomcat has two types of inspections, phase (based on flight hours) and calendar (based on days). Generally speaking, the phase inspections were you’re wear and tear/fatigue type of inspections on the airframe, and the calendar inspections were more functional... strategic vs tactical if you will. Corrosion was a big factor. The 14 day inspection was a wash job. The line shack would bring out their trash cans, wash sticks, turco (soap) and wash the jet. When deployed this was their in-port fun. The 56 day was a spot-paint job. The 210-day was the big one. Full paint job. This was the one where we’d pull all the control boxes and bring them into the shop. We had bottles of Freon (before it was a class A controlled substance) and we’d take the faceplates off and use the Freon with acid brushes to clean the backlighting connectors on the underside. Then we’d spray the boxes innards (moving parts like the rotary switches) down with the Freon. Then we’d touch up the paint. For nicks, we’d spray some paint in the lid from the can then touch up the nicks with the paint and an acid brush. For really bad ones, we’d mask off the lettering with masking tape, or we’d get that whiteout tape from the yeoman that use it for their typewriter mistakes. We’d mask off the letters and paint the whole faceplate. If the lettering was trashed, we’d paint over it and etch out new letters by hand with an awl. You can see evidence/examples of every one of these things in the HB cockpit and it is absolutely realistic. I’m sure the USAF had higher aesthetic standards and I have no doubt they would replace faceplates that looked like ours. We visited Air Force bases, they showed us their jets (I had an F-15 crew chief at Nellis I made friends with give me the grand tour of the F-15 and their maintenance operation). They ran a Cadillac operation compared to us and that’s all good. Our cockpits ran the gamut... we had newer jets with 162xxx bunos and they looked great, and we had jets with 160xxx bunos and they looked every bit like the HB cockpit. Every 210 days the 162xxx jets took a step towards looking like the 160xxx jets. And by the end, they all looked like that. So while the HB cockpit is definitely a well-worn older cockpit, it is most definitely realistic. I’m not weighing in on the argument of make it look new or not, just explaining how they get that way and that it’s perfectly normal looking from a realism perspective. I personally like the HB cockpit because to me it feels like home, many more jets looked that way than looked shiny and new. P.S. while most of our jets looked like the HB cockpit, I can’t for the life of me remember ever seeing a gripe written up on an aesthetic/readability issue. Not that no aircrew ever thought about it, I’m sure, but more than likely they were scared to death of the endless ribbing they’d take for it in the ready room. A good skipper looked after the maintenance guys, and not wanting to create work for them. I saw one JO make a joke about fat fingering the log book after a flight and padding the hours, and the skipper overheard it and tore him a new a**hole in front of everybody. P.P.S. If there was one thing in the cockpit that I would suggest addressing it’s that here and there, there’s a little rust. We weren’t big on aesthetics, but rust A) rarely forms and B) would be taken care of. I can see how a museum piece might get some rust, but in the real world, the canopies are open and aired out all the time, the ECS dries any moisture, etc. and you will never find rust in a cockpit or anywhere else on a Navy airplane.

Oh you do... if you’re out on patrol you want to be in PD Search with a wide scan for the earliest possible detection. You’ll want to switch to RWS when you can, though, to start building SA.

The countdown timer on the TID will flash when the Phoenix is sent the active command. I would guess that HB will implement this when they have access to the missile in flight and can model the AWG-9 sending commands to the missile. A pit bull indication is irrelevant currently. Personally, I simulate it now myself by considering the Phoenix to be active when the timer hits 30 seconds.

Anyone having issues after the OB release today? I can't get SRS to connect to the game.

Holy crap, it’s beautiful. I can put the CAP on a touchscreen, my life is complete!

I can’t comment on what is modeled, but I can describe the system... For the AWG-9... the AWG-9 can be run without cooling air or the liquid cooling turned on. We could safely run it on the ground for as long as 15 minutes without cooling air or liquid cooling. You could run it in Stby or XMT, you’d simply ignore any DPs (bit failures) related to liquid cooling or waveguide pressure. If we needed to verify good coolant flow (bring up the flycatcher for the transmitter and watch the bit flip when the pump is turned on), we could switch the coolant pump on and run it safely for at least 5 minutes, without cooling air. Verifying good waveguide pressure is much more of a pain on the boat. There’s no cooling air on the flight deck aside from the huffers, and so you’d have to get one of the blue shirts driving the huffers to come help you, and they love to tell you to F*** off (airwing vs ships company thing). So we’d usually take our best shot at a fix and the aircrew would just have to test it after startup and, if it didn’t work, we’d have to take our next best shot at a fix after startup and before launch. As far as the Phoenix goes, it’s basically the same thing. There is no harm in having a mix of As and Cs as the Cs simply didn’t have the QDs and therefore wouldn’t engage the QDs in the Phoenix rail. It’s no different than having some things plugged into outlets on an electrical circuit and some outlets not having anything plugged into them. There is no disadvantage to putting the coolant switch to AWG-9/AIM-54 all the time. In real life it’s not the correct practice simply because you’re running the pump for no reason and increasing the chance that it will break when you actually do need it. I highly doubt that AIM-54 pump life is modeled in the sim.

I had the same issue and it took me forever to realize that I had to highlight the joystick in the top left box there before I clicked on the firmware button. Sorry I can’t give a better description, I’m not near my PC. I’ll post a screenshot when I get to it.

It should use the altimeter setting for the synchro output that drives the altimeter in the cockpit. The digital output that goes to the IFF system to report Mode C to air traffic is pressure altitude referenced to 29.92. I guess the question is which one of those is the one that is shown on the TID? I'm not sure what good pressure altitude would be to the aircrew, other than informational to know what you're reporting to air traffic. EDIT... oh wait, I see what you’re saying, that the synchro output is also pressure altitude and the altimeter makes the adjustment based on the Kollsman setting. That does make sense. So it follows that the altitude on the TID would be pressure altitude. Well now I’m wondering what the F10 map shows since the OP said the TID matches F10.

Yeah, that’s a bug, they should match. The altimeter is driven by the CADC unless it’s in STBY mode, where it acts like a normal barometric altimeter like in your basic Cessna. Did you enter your own ship altitude during alignment, or was this an air start? The CADC should be driving the altimeter to read the same altitude that it’s sending digitally to the AWG-9/TID.

Lord, the possible scenarios are endless. Give a scenario... what are you going against, what type of mission are you on and what are your rules of engagement? Basically, though... you use the Phoenix the way a boxer with a longer reach uses that advantage. You get the first shot and can get the bandit defensive while you press the fight. As you get closer, maneuver to your advantage against that defensive bandit and take an AIM-7 shot if he’s still alive. Keep pressing. If he survives the AIM-7, maneuver for the AIM-9 shot. If you’ve done all that badly, or if he’s really lucky or good, you decide whether to use your escape window and get out of the fight, extend and re-engage, or worst case scenario get yourself into a gun fight.

You don’t see Tomcats taxiing with the canopy open much, not because they couldn’t, but because there wasn’t really a need to. The Tomcats ECS kicks ass, it’s like a hurricane in there. So aircrews were usually looking to lower the canopy sooner rather than later, to either get warm or get cool.

No, haven’t seen it. The number one reason I’ve seen for this is the ACM guard being up. Lots of guys assume it’s part of fencing in and it’s not. It’s about the only thing that will lead to a hot trigger in front but not in back.

It doesn’t surprise me if AWACS could pick up a missile, depending on the missile. An AIM-54 size missile doesn’t surprise me at all. Yeah, you’re AWG-9 is communicating to the Phoenix, but not via Link 4. It’s communicating via missile messages sent from the AWG-9 via a modulated CW output.

Check that the ACM guard is down

That's a fine strategy. In the future, when HB can talk to the missile in flight, you'll know when the Phoenix has gone active and that would be the perfect time to PTT your primary target to get a visual status via the TCS and to have him locked for any follow-up shots. If he's dead, hand the radar off to the pilot (dogfight modes) and get your eyes up and out as well to find the second guy.

That's kind of last ditch, and you really shouldn't still be carrying your Phoenix with a bandit at 10 NM. In the real world that was a great option for the ROE most guys were under, which was return fire or VID required. In the world we live in with DCS, typically you're Phoenix should be long gone by the time you close within 10 NM.

Use the Phoenix' range to your advantage... shoot at 40-50 NM and it will hit him before he ever has the chance to command his missile active. It's pretty doubtful he'll be content to stare in the face of your PTT in the first place, and there's a good chance he'll be too busy maneuvering to get a shot off at you. I'll shoot a couple videos of what I would do and post them up.