Minsky

It's just a heater switch.

The "A-10C II" is just a name ED made up for marketing purposes. As far as I'm aware, there weren't any sub-variants of the A-10C. The jets gradually received several software and hardware upgrades as part of the Precision Engagement program, and that's about it.

There's nothing to fix: just untick the wristwatch icon in the middle of the bottom panel.

They started using the Litening II on the Bagram-based A-10As in October 2003. The first "Charlies" arrived to Bagram in November 2007. The HMD actually had its operational debut during OEF, in December 2012. If you're really into this topic, I would recommend getting the two Osprey books mentioned above.

Ah, apologies then, thought we were talking about the real helicopters! Guess it's similar to operating the speedbrakes on certain jets: hold the button for X seconds to ensure full retraction. A nuisance, but one gets used to it. Although in the Apache I don't bother retracting the searchlight until shutdown. There is no harm in leaving it OFF but extended, neither in DCS nor in reality. Only the certain precautions for having it ON (and none of them matter in DCS). In spite of all that, I would be lying if I claimed I've never pressed F2 to figure out where the heck my searchlight is pointing before moving it to the desired position

It should be noted that the F10 view in DCS is a major resource hog. Combining it with the main game view might push many systems over the VRAM/RAM limit. That's one of the reasons why we have these blurry map photos in the kneeboard, instead of a full-fledged F10 map. @Bernhard Strobel you can try this in the meanwhile:

It's not critical to anything, so why would you need to know that? You put the switch into retracted position and forget about it. On the Apache this switch is a combined on/off/stowed switch. On the Chinook you have the additional filament switch for that extra peace of mind. Even the fast fliers, where the additional drag and speed restrictions related to extended lights are of much greater concern, don't have that separate indication.

Chinook uses the searchlight as a taxi light.

WWII Pacific Pack: https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/news/newsletters/efb74b9a7ab1067e51ff6f796b07a4b4/

Yeah, because naming them "Helipad GDR 27" instead of "H" surely helps with decluttering and readability

I see that Ugra is persistent with cluttering their maps with the generic helipad icons?

The deck crew definitely has its issues, especially in multiplayer. Can't argue with that. And populating the deck is even more of an art form now than it was in the days of yore when AI pathfinding was our only concern. Yet, I believe you're exaggerating saying that all old missions are now bugged and that the deck must be completely empty for the crew to function at all. Here's one of my old missions, created long before the crew introduction, and hasn't been edited since. My AI wingman and I were able to follow the directors and launched from cats #1 and #3 without any issues. Recovery also went uneventful. Perhaps the stars just aligned for me.

Both are correct: (But to disconnect "by the book" one has to press the NWS button, of course.)

Ah, great, glad you catered for that!

I mentioned that as a precaution, in case the OP heard somewhere that one can turn on the exterior lights to salute, and tried to apply that to taxiing.

Just keep in mind that magnetic declination may vary significantly in different parts of the same map. That difference could be as big as 15-20 degrees (Kola).

IIRC it only has a quickstart guide. There are couple features still missing, and several non-critical bugs await fixing. Guess Deka just being honest and don't want to say it's done until it is indeed 100% done.

It's not a map's bug, but the aircraft's feature limitation. DTSAS can only hold so much data in its memory. You get this message whenever one of the waypoints in your route is further than ~245 nm from the starting position. If you have further questions, the A-10C forum would be the better place to ask.

Binding the refueling door open/close command to an easily accessible joystick button was the first thing I did when learning the AAR in this aircraft

It shall be noted that the inability to build our repaints upon the default liveries is only part of the problem. The other - and much bigger - part is that locking away the aircraft's model made the repainting prohibitively difficult to anyone who value their time and mental health. ModelViewer is a lot more than a mere "instant texture reloader". It gives us ability to preview different texture channels and material layers, and see how they react to various environments and times of day. It allows playing with model arguments. It permits much easier and precise camera control. This list goes on and on, but I'm sure that ED, and anyone who ever tried to make a proper livery, are well aware of all that. And that's why teaching the Mission Editor texture refreshing will not solve the problem we have at hand.

NineLine solved the OP's question. Not their fault that this thread later got hijacked by painters

Just tested this in a simple SP mission, and it works fine. - Do not use the radio menu "Salute" command. - The "Exterior Lights Master Switch" hotkey doesn't work as a salute substitute. - Use the "F-14 Pilot" > "Catapult Salute" hotkey command (defaults to Left Shift + U) when ready to taxi. If done correctly, the yellow message changes to "Awaiting salute gesture". Press the salute hotkey again, and after a brief "Awaiting permission" message the brown shirt will hand you off to yellow shirts for taxiing.

You're overestimating the F-4E and underestimating other sims. Those sims have quite a few ultra-complex aircraft, plus all the effects I mentioned, and more. We can easily have both too, if ED opts for a sensible implementation instead of a NASA-grade weather simulation. For example, one can equally believeable imitate airframe icing by increasing the drag or by calculating every icicle. The former is a sensible approach. The latter is insanity.