Rick50

Sounds like a great way to introduce kids, spouses and visitors to the basics of helicopter flight! Give 'em an easy entry, and get them Hooked On Helicopters (TM) !! Sorry, no idea how to contribute or help, but I support it!!

Wow, cool effort!!

No idea, but if you are talking about real WW2 manual for the Corsair, by all means that will help you! And share the linky too, if that's ok in these forums ( I mean I think the Corsair is probably not restricted by ITAR .... but....)

Well, if we ever get an A or C Eagle, we could hope that it included an optional "Streak Eagle" for those just wanting to punch holes in the skies like the test pilots did, maybe even one set up like that ASAT with an appropriate missile and maybe a satellite target too? It would be awfully "niche", but one can dream!

Is there different types of CFT's for the Eagles ?? I mean, they probably all have the same shape... but are there different configurations? One version that only carries fuel. Another that allows for many 500lb class ordnance. And yet another that maybe has hidden capabilities built in? I ask because I'm realising it's been a very long time since the first CFT's and the Strike Beagle was teh hotness!!

Whoa... I had NO idea that the Corsair could even get anywhere near that kind of payload!!! I'll bet it was risky as all h3ll, but downright amazing! Curious how such a heavy load would impact performance while carrying? I mean the cross section drag probably wasn't that much different, but such a heavy load probably meant more AOA / Alpha while in cruise, and that probably had a big effect on drag, reducing range and cruise speed I'm guessing. And... I wonder if his fuel load had to be reduced to handle such heavy weight, and how much THAT impacted combat radius. Just occurred to me: any loss of power during takeoff, could have tragic consequences for the Corsair driver with such a loadout! Mind you, I've heard that all sorts of very risky, very "iffy" configurations were being tried all throughout the war... heavy bombers way over their design weight, wings collapsing shortly after taking to the air... Anyways, thanks for sharing! Bring on the legendary Corsair! (when ready and stable... )

What about a map stretching from Baku to China's Xinjiang province? Say it includes the tops of Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan, a tiny bit of Kashmir region, all on the bottom of the map. The main focus for the map would be Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and the north part of the map would be Kazakhstan. Certainly too large for DCS today... but in future, when say Korea or Vietnam maps are practical, or maybe even before that (maybe?), and when global map is working, there could be all sorts of value for the region for fictional but plausible scenarios, with opportunities for red on red (equipment wise I mean) when people want a change of pace from Spamraam duels!

Xilon, your arctic circle idea is a great one for many reasons. I doubt it would be currently possible, with memory leaks, and the absolutely VAST area that must be. So maybe not today or in 6 months (or even in 2 years really)... ...BUT... I think with a fair bit of patience, this will likely come to DCS eventually. Why? Well because great choice. Because improved coding styles to make much larger terrains practical in DCS. Better hardware in the hands of virtual aces, better hardware for DCS creators/developers. Possible future improvements to the programs to create the terrains with improved workflow, and terrain data optimisation... AND... DCS Global Map. Whenever that might appear! No, I've no idea how far along that project is. Might be a really long ways off. Or maybe in near future. BUT, I believe that long-term, this, along with more emphasis on Cold War/Korea/Nam and WW2, is the future direction of DCS development. Along with already established goals of improvements to AI and virtual persistent dynamic campaigns. this actually makes me wonder if the dynamic campaign system may be affected by the future of a global map? combining the two would be incredibly awesome... but it may drain a LOT of hardware resources to run on a global map. Dunno.

The end of year videos from ED show many upcoming projects... and in the last year or two I think they hinted at an Afghanistan map, I believe that might be currently in development. This would be of great benefit for the Apache, Hind, Hip, Su-25, and many others too! At the very end of the video, there is a set of coordinates, for part of Afghanistan, and the gunsight for the Phantom which is about to release soon..

I agree it would have value... but I'm talking about PERCEIVED value before someone buys. I'm just saying that many (some) might overlook it.

Sounds like shock absorber dampener settings might be wrong for carrier landings. They could look into the coding for that... try new values. A good example from racing would be Baja desert racing trucks or Motocross motorbike racing: big jumps, relatively soft landings, despite big air! As for non-carrier warbirds, maybe some were bouncy in real life themselves... remember, performance aviation was still very new in those days, and they were trying to engineer an awful lot of things all at the same time, as fast as humanly possible. wouldn't surprise me if a sub-team might have struggled with shock settings for quite some time on some aircraft.

I thought so too, back in time, in a different sim. But one day the campaign told me I had to do a Recce flight. It didn't go well. About a day later, I had to do another photo recon flight, I wasn't liking the assignment, but I was bound and determined to push through the campaign to the end, and doing so meant doing the recon flights. I picked an A-4 Skyhawk... quick, but NOT fast. I put more than an hour figuring out loadouts, strategy, map waypoints, figuring out my actions for this, for that, for the flight. Upon realilsing I'm being intercepted, do I climb, or do I descend to gain speed? Do I ignore the interceptor and just hope to maintain enough speed to keep them from getting too close? Drop tanks? cannon shells full load, or empty to rely on raw speed for defence? Do I ditch the Skyhawk for something with afterburners and supersonic ability? Or do I use the light Skyhawk with a tight fuel load, and hope that firewalled dry thrust might be enough? Do I turn aggressively away if intercepted, or carry out the mission while minimising AOA to preserve enough speed to keep enemy from getting too close? I opted for the lightest Skyhawk I could manage, just enough fuel to do the mission. No armaments, I didn't want any temptation to try shooting down an enemy jet... that would let another get close for shots, and me by myself is not good for 3 on 1 engagement. Gentle turns, as much airspeed as I could wring out of the airframe. Dry throttle to the max. Clean airframe, no pylons to slow me down. Mostly level flight. Not on the deck, but not too high either. I wanted to be able to dive for the deck if an SA-2 came at me. Talk about intense... flying telephone poles launched in my general direction.... Migs trying to get at me. I thread the needle, gently but really tense. No wingmen to save me. I get the pics. Gentle turn to go home, not too hard a turn, gotta keep that airspeed pegged as high as possible. Oh crap, a Mig is gaining on my quickly.... a minute later I'm sprayed with giant green tracers.... I pitch up and roll, again gently to keep my speed, but enough to ruin his aim, throw the trace off.... another burst. misses... gentle manoeuvres, he's in full burner and I'm dead meat!! Wait, I haven't seen green tracers in a minute... look back... he's RTB !! Must have burned all the way to Bingo fuel and had to disengage! That flight caused me to go from thinking recon fliights were not-fun drudgery to some of the most fun I've ever had in a simulator! Became on of my favourite taskings! A later flight had me bring maybe 50 cannon shells, and I managed to get a target of opportunity, without sacrificing raw airspeed... aim was great, and it went down in flames. No he was not doing full ACM, just an unlucky rookie caught by surprise, and me with just enough shells to connect and do damage. Dodging SAM's in later missions.

you are reading too much into that post I made. All I was trying to say is that the F is really getting a lot of sales, foreign and domestic USA sales, regular and specops capabilities. That's it.

The 3d models seem to be often the first thing done, often at time of announcement. Ok, maybe the "first draft" 3d model!! And I'm sure they'll tweek it and make incremental fixes, improvements to geometry, material surface improvements and such even after release day. But, most of the time, an announcement often has a few screenshots of a nice model with good textures. But the flight characteristics, the radar modes, the radio modelling, the RCS calculation, the landing gear shock absorbers, the fire control modes and functionality, the behaviour slow and low "dirty", the transonic behaviour, fuel burn rates at different altitudes, air densities and weight need to optimise to be close to reality... I think almost all of this comes later. And while in dev, occasionally they might throw us a few more bones in the form of a couple of screenshots of the model! My point is that screenshots don't really tell us much about the project's status, only that the artistry is this good, and you can expect it to look somewhat like this, so make sure your credit card will still be valid when we finally send it to the store for you to buy!

No indications, sorry. Based on dev time from past projects, from initial announcement to available for download from the store, it can range from 1 to 3.5 years. This is probably affected by a great many factors. It's also VERY difficult for us outsiders to estimate, as I've failed quite badly a couple of times to give an accurate estimate. When did project ACTUALLY get started? Most of the time I think it starts when they tell us "yea, we've decided to make THISS!!". But a couple of times, I've wondered if dev actually started a year OR MORE before the public announcement. Subject complexity: an Apache Longbow is more complex, more systems, more weapons systems, than say a P-47. This means slogging through more documentation, more communication with Subject Matter Experts... and then a LOT more coding to meet the increased complexity. Resource Allocation: Are 3 workers on it, or 30 people? Keep in mind, Eagle usually has multiple projects in development at the same time, and so as one project finishes, those workers can be moved to speed up the current project. And as a new project gets approved, workers can be sent to get started on the new one. So the amount of people on a project will fluctuate, rising and falling as time goes on. As outsiders we have no clue. Just my opinion, for the CH-47 I think you can expect AT LEAST a year from now, meaning fall of 2024.

Keep in mind that ED's been around continually since the earliest combat flight sims that had any semblance of realism. And they've grown dramatically. They've made a few mistakes, AND LEARNED FROM THE EXPERIENCES. They know what they are doing, better than anyone in the business. They know when they are ready to sell to paying customers. It can't be rushed, that way leads to madness.

No problem! I wouldn't know the coding side. I'd expect it was probably possible with some messing about with code, maybe not so much with the Hercules itself, but maybe by making the Abrams values much lighter, say 15 tons, but still with same armor values... but I dunno, not sure how easy or difficult such a mod would be. Maybe you might ask someone with ground vehicle mod experience to create one of the new generation of light tanks, the US Army has selected the Booker, which has a 105mm cannon (though optionally could be given a developed 120mm). But it too is too heavy at around 40 tons, but a mod could "pretend" that it could ride Hercs and maybe the upcoming Chinook. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_tank https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M10_Booker

I'm sure it could be done. But you'd probably have to remove the turbine and transmission. Then the turret off, and remove the gun from said turret. Maybe take the tracks onto pallets. Might need 5 Hercules flights to move one Abrams. And probably another two, one for munitions and another for a fuel bladder to get it running. And one more for the tank crew, their gear, their food for 2 weeks, and a mechanic crew to put it together. Wait, one more for a heavy mobile crane to assemble it, along with jigs and cradles to lift it all. Even then, I'm not all that confident of weight of the turret, or the main hull. They are probably under 20 tones, but I don't know that to be factual with the latest Abrams variants. Abrams M1's were always MUCH too heavy to ride in a Hercules, but today's are pushing 72 tons, while most Hercules are limited to roughly 20 tons as a practical cargo weight limit, AFAIK. Maybe they can lift more, but still nowhere near a fully assembled Abrams. I believe for practical deployment of Abrams, look to C-5's, C-17's, An-124 and Antonov 225 that's no longer with us. The A400M, as impressive as it is, can only manage about 40 tones max. You need a lot of plane to move such heavy tanks like that. When Canada needed Leo2's in Afghanistan, we hired some An-124's to move them.

You need to chill. And grab a grip. I get that you're frustrated, but you've got no skin in the game. They do.

So help us with the question you raise: which year would you choose for a VN map? And why?

Yes, I made a human sacrifice, I skipped lunch on Saturday... not sure it helped!

Its not my idea, nor is it an original idea... but I think we need Soviet era fighters, full fidelity. Fulcrum, Flankers, Fencers, Froggies, Floggers 23 and 27... maybe a Backfire and even a Beagle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilyushin_Il-28 Why? Simple: so many aircraft are being developed for DCS right now, and its time we had some great Red Air power !! Russia needs representation, but also we need worthy adversaries too. Yes, it's complicated to put such aircraft into DCS, But 3rd parties could do it. Then there is the Flying Fort, Super Fort, Strato fort, Hustler, Aardvark, Intruder and Scooter. Mitchel, Raider, A-12 Avenger2 The Flying Burrito, and just maybe, the Nighthawk and BONE? Black Hawk, Littlebird / Loache, Cobra. USMC Twin Huey, Puma, Antonov Cub Antonov Colt, So many others have already been called DIBS on already!

I agree about the winch. Maybe not for Early Access launch, but for the time after the major components are all working well, absolutely! Doing CSAR missions, ship boarding ops and such. Of course I think it's also important to get a nice "sling load" system get developed, with decent physics, considering how incredibly important that is to the core use of so many Chinook fliights/missions, be it artillery deployment, airframe recovery, deploying Humvees, Chenowth Fast Attack Vehicle, or their modern Polaris RZR equivalents, and jeeps (maybe the Mutt?), fuel munitions and food resupply, or setting up FARP's. Come to think of it, maybe it should have fast ropes for specops raids.

Yea, as amazing and inspiring as the Canuck Starfighter was, we can't ignore the heavy price paid. Back in the late 1980's I was told a story about the very early days of Canadian Starfighter service, back in the 1960's, mum's new husband, of one day on the flight line, saluted the pilot. He blasted down the runway at CFB Cold Lake in Alberta, Canada. Just as it lifted off, had a flameout. It dropped fast, all that weight, tiny wings and now decelerating, so pilot ejected. Chute opened nicely, by this time half the base was watching... and then watched in horror as he gently descended right into the inferno of his plane... there was no wind to carry him away, and he wasn't' able to steer away. Many years later I read about it in a book about the Canadian Starfighters. Later, when Canadian Starfighters were deployed to West Germany, they would fly very low. Treetop level. Often at night, no NVG goggles, just well adjusted eyes and a bit of hints from clear skies star light. One such pilot clipped the top of a church steeple, and crashed fatally. I've heard stories of Starfighters come in to land at CFB Lahr (Canadian Base in Germany), while raining, and ending up spinning on the runway, facing sideways. I think all Starfighter pilots weren't just "sky warriors", but had to treat each flight like they were test pilots in a crazy machine!

Ok, so looking at the wiki page, it seems as if there's a LOT of new operators of the F variant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_CH-47_Chinook That's a lot of recent sales, especially considering the unit cost being quite high, being bought by countries that don't always have a lot of money for military purchases. I think part of the reason for the sales, is that many have extensive experience with the older airframes and see the flexible value in them, and want to retain the capabilities for their nations. Deploying to remote locations, this heli does many things, including being a mobile crane in a pinch. Then there is it's high value during natural disaster relief, whether for one's own country, or to help another country. I think that sometimes, when nations who are in conflict with each other, send help, it can have a thawing of tensions, the opportunity to work together to save a people from suffering. Such events are not easily forgotten, at the national and local level. The C-130 Hercules has also been used in pretty much every single disaster relief event since it entered service, so it's nice to see both these airframes enter DCS as full modules!