Theodore42

In the Viper the correct procedure is to land in the crab. Aside from that, do everything normally. It should straighten itself out on its own. I think the max crosswind component is 25 kts. There is a page or two on it in the HAF manual. I did a really old video on it, before all the landing gear updates, but I cover all the info from the manual. I drank too much coffee so I sound like a crazy person. EDIT: Everything different from the video makes landing in the crosswind EASIER! Current version of DCS is much easier than depicted.

Ya I also think the MP was too high with RPMs too low. 2200 RPMs at 50MP, when the engine blew, is gonna break something. But at the beginning of the clip, 2800 RPM at 50 MP, should run fine. Keep the engine set to "maximum continuous power" which is 2700 RPMs at 46MP and then don't mess with it until you need military power, which is 3000 RPMs at Full Throttle. The DCS manual has this info on page 32. But you can dl the irl manual and in the back it has a bunch of charts for engine settings. Search the internet for "North American P-51 Mustang Pilot Training Manual" and it should come up. The charts are for fuel consumption when planning a mission but it has a bunch of safe combinations of RPM and MP if you want to get a feel for how to run your engine at different RPMs and MPs. Those charts have also been posted on these forums if you want to search here. Asking about engine settings always brings out the nerds. I notice that your rudder isn't completely trimmed. The P-51 is VERY sensitive to rudder trim, so focus on that instead of worrying about throttle settings. If you are accelerating or decelerating in the Mustang then you are also going to need to be trimming the rudder. I don't know of any other aircraft like that and it affects the Mustang's speed a lot.

If you're talking about an IR missile dogfight the Viper is pretty weak. Anything that has a high instantaneous turn does really well. If you're talking about guns only then the Viper is pretty strong. Also, AI abilities seem varied across all the aircraft. Humans too, of course. Probably the F-15C is the strongest AI vs the Viper imo. As for PvP, many players generally think the F-15C is strongest vs F-16 because it's an angles fighter with acceleration that keeps up with the Viper. Also the M2K is up there in PvP, but the M2K AI seems kinda weak relative to most other aircraft.

I can't help but to notice there are quite a few upvotes on these posts, especially for this forum. The Phantom is a recently released module that's been really popular and the MiG-21 is the natural nemesis of the Phantom. There really needs to be a way for players to get into the MiG-21 to fight the Phantom. I've got several modules that people call "trash" and "incomplete" or "out of date," and they're never as bad as they're portrayed. But in my experience the MiG-21 is the oldest, least updated, and the most deserving of a pedanticist's criticisms. I'm absolutely willing to put up with a lot of small errors and missing features for the sake of 3rd party developers, but the two things that need updated for sure are the FM and the sound. FM - too much turn rate at low speeds - needs to be fixed. I'm fine flying the MiG-21 like you're supposed to and that does evade the problems with the FM most of the time. BUT if you ever get into a rolling scissors with a Phantom you're gonna get a crazy advantage. I'd like to see a 21 with an updated FM do a rolling scissors with a Phantom to see if it is valid option or not. Sound is archaic. Maybe it was even when it was released, which was forever ago. Updating those two things I think would go a long way to making the MiG-21 a viable competitor to the Phantom.

I did a video describing and demonstrating the USAF Viper demo (from the AFMAN). The flight model is a out of date but the current FM makes the maneuvers MUCH easier! I'm going to do another one when the Viper leaves EA. Because I'm bad at quoting posts apparantly:

It's a great aerobatic aircraft. If you want to do a bunch of snap rolls or spins or maneuvers from Aresti notation, then this is what you're looking for. It showcases the standards of ED's flight model. Competitor's products won't even do the right things when making normal inputs for aerobatic maneuvers. Search Youtube for "Yak-52 aerobatics" and if that looks like fun then you should get it.

Both ED and RAZBAM lose money from this. They both hurt when DCS users get refunds. Sounds like some Machiavellian <profanity> going down would be more fun to watch if we knew what was actually happening. But there is a really high chance they'll sort it out since there is so much money on the table.

They fixed a few minor bugs fairly recently, so it isn't completely abandoned. There is a wish list though, which implies they CAN add, or at least modify, SOMETHING, if they wanted to. I posted a landing gear update request there just now.

Hi! I'd like to request that the Yak-52 get the updates to the new landing gear model that is being implemented to other modules. This is an amazing module. I wasn't expecting to like it and just bought it because it was on sale and I had been flying the Extra 330 in a competing flight sim. SO GLAD I DID! These are the reasons I think the Yak-52 should get the updated landing gear: 1. The Yak-52 is a great training aircraft. I didn't buy this module because it is a trainer. But DCS is a PREMIUM simulator. The kinds of people that are attracted to DCS modules are going to do all the checklists, checkouts, training flights as described in the manual. I had an unexpected blast learning the Yak-52 and flying it as a trainer. 2. The Yak-52 is the only aerobatic aircraft in DCS. It excellently showcases ED's commitment to the flight model. I had no idea how inferior DCS's competitors were until I bought the Yak-52. It does what it should! I make the same mistakes real pilots make, and I can correct them based on advice from real pilots to real pilots. None of these things I experienced playing on the competing sim. 3. Warbirds are hard to fly. In the most sophisticated flight sim on the market, they are the hardest. As soon as I took off the first time I recognized the value of this trainer. The low speeds and complex (but still easy) engine management make learning energy management easy. When everything is so slow the wisdom of certain actions becomes obvious very fast. You can't get this level of feedback flying a warbird. imo the biggest hurdle people have learning warbirds is understanding how much energy you're losing from your choices. If you fly dumb in a warbird you just lose. If you fly dumb in a Yak-52, you are either overspeeding or stalling. 4. DCS is an environment created by it's modules. The second terrain released was the Nevada Test and TRAINING Range. Training has been part of the DCS vision from the very beginning. 5. The La-7 will be out soon. Wouldn't it be nice to promote a Russian trainer, profit, hype a 3rd party's module sales, then increase your sales back again? A virtuous cycle of $$$ 6. Squadrons, streamers, and online players do training missions together. Getting people to play with others or stream to an audience creates an external, social motive to keep coming back to DCS. And the shallow learning curve of a trainer minimizes the frustration factor. 7. The aerobatic nature of the Yak-52, the multiplayer aspect of DCS, and the competitive nature of people that like airplanes massively expand the Yak-52's e-peen factor. 8. The Yak-52 just has weird landing gear. People see the Yak-52 in the game for the first time and they think, wtf is wrong with that thing? So people are just going to be looking at (and judging) the landings more than other aircraft. If the Yak-52 looks realistic on a botched landing, people are going to remember it. Landing out in the Yak-52 is really fun. I like to find small fields in Normandy and see how short I can land. In the DCS Pantheon of aircraft the Yak-52 has a clear and distinct place! Adding the new gear model to the Yak-52 will add much more value to DCS than it will cost imo!

I saw on the History channel an interview with a fighter pilot who fought in the Pacific. He reported that the Japanese were "excellent stick and rudder pilots" but that they didn't have the training to jink vigorously or to fly in any non-standard way. This gave the Americans a skill advantage. So, in that pilot's opinion, the ace AI would be exactly accurate to the Pacific Theater

I think in the 20-25k altitude the P-51 has more BHP that pretty much anything. The P-51 is strongest sustaining high speeds. So at high altitudes fly to your instruments, mostly the climb indicator. If you climb too fast, you burn off your speed too fast, and you get less altitude for the energy used. And since you're going fast things have a problem keeping up with you. But if you end up going slow or getting into a furball then the P-51 isn't going to be as strong as other aircraft. When you hear people say the P-51 uses "boom and zoom" tactics, they mean flying higher and faster than your enemy, diving down on them and "booming" them, then "zooming" up and away with your excess energy and superior airframe. If you deviate from these tactics then the P-51 tends to not be as strong. Of course flying online is whatever you can get away with while having fun; I'm just describing the tactics behind the design. As for the fuel, the manual says to keep 25 gallons in the fuselage tank for better turn performance which is about 76% fuel. If you fly the aircraft as I described then 76% fuel is fine for performance but if you want to do crazy maneuvering in the P-51, a lot less fuel helps. (20% is still like 500 lbs or something).

A lot of people seem to not be adjusting to the new landing physics so well, but I think it's great. I took the opportunity to learn the "Tennessee Waltz" maneuver - driving up the runway in a side slip on one wheel. I got some cool external shots of the aircraft bouncing around on the runway. It looks pretty realistic to me. At the very end of the video the Mustang bounces a little on one wheel and then it bucks across the runway. Looks just like something you would see in old wartime aviation crash films. Good new technology

I read the reason ED modeled the Mosquito's undercarriage physics first is because the Mosquito's gear is really stiff. So now that ED is expanding to more difficult gears to model, there does seem to be a lot of janky-ness with the Mustang's wheel physics now. New features are always like this and they always get polish eventually. As for the issue of stopping, I'm really not feeling it. The tail wheel seems much more prone to lift up and break when it thwacks the ground. But I chalk that up to the new janky wheel physics being too mushy. As far as coming to a complete stop, I'm not feeling inhibited in any way. It does sound like too much messing with the brake axis. Try doing the opposite of what you're attempting to do, just to make sure you understand what's going on. If you get unexpected results they will probably point you in the right direction.

TF-51 Cuban 8, Immelmann, and Hammerhead.

I'm not sure OPs methodology is sound but I've noticed the EM charts for jets with afterburners seem to indicate the max sustained turn rate is at or near the G limit, not the corner speed.

The dogfight was recorded on December 14 on the open beta build so I think it is the current M2000. This is the ace AI, so it flies extremely efficiently but doesn't take into account the advantages of the specific matchup, although it does choose 1 circle vs 2 circle based on the matchup well. Players aren't going to fly quite as efficiently, but even inexperienced (bad) players are going to dodge bullets if they've ever seen someone line up a tracking shot behind them and gotten splattered. And there's a good chance players will dodge snap shots as well. Generally, a thrust to weight ratio fighter is going to be stuck seeking guns solutions in the form of snapshots. To maximize the kill chance for snapshots vs a player, get them as low on energy as possible and then set up a snapshot at about the range I made the kill in the video (imo atm). Any closer and it gets hard to roll the crosshairs over the target. (The M2000 is half the size of an F-14 so it's a lot closer than it looks.) If a player target is far enough away, and low enough on energy, anticipate that they will jink at the snapshot and be ready for it. Winning the snapshot becomes more of a question of how good you are at mechanics in FPSs or MOBAs rather than how well you understand BFM (How good your reactions are). But the timing leading up the moment of the snapshot requires good BFM. From Shaw, Tactics and Maneuvering, paraphrasing from p67-71 [Lag Pursuit Roll]: Use a barrel roll to move from lead pursuit to lag pursuit to prevent an overshoot. [Lag Displacement Roll]: Use a barrel roll to move from lead pursuit to lag pursuit to increase distance. In the video I use the terms a little arbitrarily, and the distinction is kinda arbitrary anyway, but these are some of the most powerful maneuvers you can use in an F-16. Shaw is published by the Navy so it's free to download, or you can buy a hard copy on Amazon, or wherever. The M2000 can't use its turn radius to defeat an F-16 because that blows all the M2000's energy and it takes a lot more time to get that energy back than the Viper. At that range I wasn't risking an overshoot, I would have done a lag pursuit roll and been fine. The ace AI knows that and doesn't try. It is always efficient. Here is what would have happened: When I noticed the M2000 blowing his energy on a turn, I would have mirrored his turn to zero out the Heading Course Angle. Then I would have pitched up and done a barrel roll over him. I would end the roll on the far side of him in lag pursuit. This adds a lot of distance to your flight path and keeps you behind the target, which is going really slow and has no energy. The Viper can add energy much easier, but doesn't have to in that situation, because the Viper still has all the speed it needs vs a target that has just blown all his. The right and left switching is the AI trying to make a one circle fight. Another way to think of it is that he is trying to create flight path separation. The AI did this maneuver against me successfully at 1:11 in the video. You can see him move away from me and then back, creating enough flight path separation for the rolling scissors, neutralizing my advantage. In other words, he put himself onto my turn circle, even though I was behind him, and won by converting my tail chase into a one circle fight. I went out of plane, so it became a rolling scissors rather than a flat scissors, which is the correct counter for the F-16, but he still neutralized my position. IMO the really doom part of the video is at about 2:25 when I'm too close to him and we're doing those barrel rolls around each other. ANY player, no matter how bad, would have made a MESS of that, and ANY player would have a shot at winning there. The MAIN WEAKNESS of the AI is that is completely lacks aggression. At 2:25 it looks really cool for a YouTube video, but the target is really just dancing with me. A player that close would have thought KILL KILL KILL and done something crazy agro. The AI in DCS is great for studying the philosophy of BFM but the AI will never get a sudden KILL insight. Bad players do all the time, and it often works, even at the worst times. !!! DISCLAMER: This is only what I think is right at the moment. I learn by reading Shaw, imitating what I read in DCS, reading Shaw again and probably picking up only ONE thing, going back to DCS and doing and UNDERSTANDING that ONE thing; and then repeat.

I started recording my dogfights and saying the BFM that I was doing so I could remember what I was thinking when I played them back. I thought the videos were cool so I uploaded them to youTube and they were kinda popular. But I stopped narrating because as my skill improved there was just too much for me to think about and also speak at the same time. I tried uploading the dogfights to music but that just isn't as popular. So here is a new form of video, I pretty much analyze everything I'm thinking about. It's my first attempt but it's --MOSTLY coherent. (!)

Keeping it green is for repositioning or other non-combat missions to maximize engine life. But the Mustang is a weapon of war and weapons break when you use them. IRL this means that the P-51 engine had a lot more maintenance than her GA contemporaries. In DCS it means nothing The hottest the engine gets is during the climb, so your description of the oil temp being pegged to the red line during climb out sounds about right. As long as the needles don't stray INTO the red then you're ok. If left in AUTO this almost never happens, unless you're running max power at very low speeds. Far more likely you will blow your engine overheating the aftercooler rather than overheating the oil or coolant. (there is no temperature gauge for the aftercooler btw) Once you get the hang of being ok with the temps always being a little too close to the red, but never in it; the next issue you will have is that now you suddenly need to be closing your radiator doors because they are making too much drag. If you get into "normal" dogfights, like you see in the movies, you're going to notice the radiator doors are always open, even when you dive into a low yoyo and get going really fast. All that drag! When your mentality gets to this point, leave it in AUTO and instead fly faster and less aggressively. The Mustang is for "boom and zoom" tactics, you boom the target, then you zoom away, up, and sustain that speed as long as possible, because no matter how good your opponent is at climbing the Mustang will have less drag at high speeds. So you always have an advantage when going fast. And if you leave radiator flaps in AUTO while sustaining high speeds, they will always be mostly closed, compounding your advantage. But like graffspee said above, the Mustang's AUTO doesn't transition between those two styles well. If you insist on getting into a knife fight in the Mustang then you can expect the radiator doors to be gaping most of the time. I can't honestly say there aren't opportunities to manually min/max drag in those situations... but in my experience, 99% of players would be better served keeping trimmed up and flying the ball rather than thinking about micromanaging radiator flaps.

The Viper can out accelerate anything between 300 and 400 knots... Unload to less than 1 G and you go from 300 to 400 in about 2 seconds. Use the Small turn radius at 300 to get geometrically behind the bandit, unload 2 seconds to accelerate... that's the idea behind a low yo-yo btw. You can also out accelerate anything between about 350 and 500 while pulling about 3-5Gs. If you get the hang of unloaded acceleration between 300 and 400 and loaded acceleration between 350 and 500 then you're going to be hard to catch. Also, oblique (climbing) turns = bad; slice (diving) turns = good, especially vs the Hornet. The first step to learning BFM is to understand turning circles. This is just the radius of the turns that you and the target are making. They change depending on your speed and the targets speed and the relationship between those two speeds over time, and the geometric relationship between you and the target. When you're learning just notice that this is happening. The second thing to learn is the jargon for the geometric relationships between you and the target aircraft. The angle between your course and the target aircraft is lead angle and the difference between your course and your target's course, Heading-Course Angle. There are many different names for those two ideas but the concepts are universal. Learn to use your speed to manipulate the radii of your turning circles to control the lead angle and HCA between you and your target. The third step is to understand that you will kill the target and that this is not a dance to look cool. Don't worry, you will automatically look cool when you kill the target. The Fourth step is to study the Basic Fighter Maneuvers, because now you understand the geometry you're trying to manipulate, the acceleration (technique) by which you will do it, and your intention to kill the target. If you skip the first 3 steps you will only be practicing formation flying and will be unable to perceive how to utilize BFM to get the kill.

Another:

Don't worry about the rudder unless you want to make a kill in the 3/4 inverted pass position (for style points). Read for free from the Navy: Fighter Combat: Tactics and Maneuvering by Shaw. You want chapter 2, which it looks like you've already read; and chapter 4 is what every F-16 nerd should read. It is about 1v1 vs the thrust-to-weight ratio fighter (you) vs low wing-loaded fighters (them). Also, the MiG-21 is a thrust to weight ratio fighter, all be it a different era, but you're gonna want to read chapter 3 for some tips on dealing with other fighters like the F-16. The trick to converting knowledge into kills: You have to want to get the kill. As irrational as it sounds, 99% of the time people jump into a sim 1v1 they end up dancing with the enemy rather than killing them. BFM is basically a dance and if you do it "right" everyone ends up equal. So BFM when you want the kill is about getting an advantage, and you get an advantage by FEELING it, by wanting the kill. Then you have to take what you KNOW is a risk, using BFM, to increase your advantage. I posted a really long and specific list of things to do as a Viper pilot in this thread: And if you have any questions, I DO like talking about how much better the Viper is a dogfighting than anything else! And a lot of other people here do too, don't worry

Ok you guys might be disrespecting the F-15E a little too much on the STRIKE EAGLE'S forum!!!! It can't pull it's nose up quite so fast but the engines will still push through any beep-beep, beep-beep like it's nothing: