jmarso

I only knew one guy who ever had to fly partial panel for real (in IMC). He was another P-3 guy in my squadron back in the day, but it happened to him flying a light twin on his own time. He said the training saved his ass. Most airplanes are so redundant now that if you toss a PFD screen or gyro on one side, the other still works fine, and there's also a tertiary 'peanut gyro' as a last ditch backup. Still, you just never know. Partial panel is great training for scan, too. Ironically, instructors often find that someone struggling with instruments then does passably well flying partial panel is- you guessed it- not looking at the attitude gyro enough when it works!

Heh. I got winged in 1992 so I'm a bit stale on the current goings-on in the training command. I will say this, though: the T-44 syllabus is the finest instrument training program anywhere in the world, bar none. You will NEVER be a better instrument pilot than you are the day you pin on those wings. I remember doing those no-heading NDB approaches (don't even know if they still train that stuff in these days of RNAV, GPS, and so on), asking the IP for a heading check about every ten seconds, trying to distract him so he'd keep his gorram fingers off that 'god box' in the armrest, looking for the next thing to fail on me. Good luck and congrats, by the way! Sounds like you've just about got it in the bag. Remember, your best day in the training command is like an average day in the fleet. ;)

Interesting. V-22 pipeline? That's the only one I can think of where you'd go to the HT's for intermediate. (I'm a former P-3 guy and VT instructor)

If trying to work out the geometry for intercepting final is using up too much brain matter when you are flying in the dark, there's a pretty simple way to simplify the process as well. From your present position, fly directly towards the boat. (Put the head of the TACAN needle at 12 O'clock.) Make a note of the ship's BRC and work out the reciprocal- you don't even have to do math. Just look at the compass card and read off the opposite heading. So if the ship is headed 030, one glance at the card will tell you the reciprocal is 210. At station passage (when you fly over the top of the ship and the TACAN needle swings), turn to that reciprocal heading +/- 20 degrees. Doesn't matter which direction you offset. In our example with the ship on a BRC of 360, the goal is still to line up on the 180-radial. So after station passage, turn to 200 and fly out to a distance of 10 miles. Since you are flying directly away from the ship at this point, you should remain on or about the 200-radial. At ten miles, turn left to a heading of 030, and start the process of 'pinching' the head of the TACAN needle back to 360 and thereby centering the CDI, establishing yourself on final. Depending on your speed, you may find the CDI already starting to center up in the turn. In instrument flying this is called a 'teardrop' procedure, and is one of the few forms of 'procedure turn' a pilot can use to reverse course during an instrument approach. Upon completion, you'll be established on the 180-radial, heading 360, and established on final, ready to dirty up and switch over to ICLS if desired.

Awesome! It's hard to go back to the radial menu after using the AIRIO extension.

Here's a couple of instrument flying tips to help get lined up behind the back of the boat at night. (Works for airfields, too- it's basic instrument stuff.) Switch over to TACAN and dial the final bearing (or BRC, whichever you want to use) into the CDI. Your end goal is to have the CDI centered with the head of the TACAN needle at 12 o'clock, on your final bearing. Now, when looking at the TACAN needle (or a VOR needle, or ADF, or whatever you are using), there are a few basic 'truths' you can use to orient yourself using the compass card. 1. You are always on the 'tail' of the needle, perspective wise. In a way, you can use the Compass card as a mini-map. The station you have tuned is always at the center of the card. 2. Unless you are headed directly TO or AWAY from the station, the head of the needle will always gradually 'fall' on your compass card, while the tail of the needle will always 'rise'. This is important. If you are flying directly TO a station (Head of the needle at 12 o'clock), and then it suddenly swings 180 degrees and points directly behind you, you just overflew the station. This is called 'station passage.' Due to a cone of uncertainty in the signal, the needle will get erratic and fluctuate just before station passage, then steady up again the farther you get from the station. 3. If you look at the tail of the needle (where you are) and read the magnetic heading where the tail is, that is the radial you are on from that station. For example, if you are flying a heading of 360, and the TACAN needle is horizontal with the head pointed at 090 and the tail at 270, you are west of the station, on the 270-radial. The bearing to the station is 090. 4. To get behind the boat, you need to position yourself on the radial that is the reciprocal of the BRC. So if the boat is headed north, you need to be south of the boat, on the 180-radial. So, depending on where you are, you need to fly a heading to make the tail of the needle 'rise' to the 180 mark. Say you are west of the boat, on the 270-radial at 10 miles. In this case, the tail of the needle is on 270, regardless of the heading you are flying. You need to turn to the southeast, about a 135 heading or so, which should put the head of the needle (at 090) at roughly the 10' o'clock position on your compass card, with the tail (at 270) at about 4 o'clock. As you fly this heading, the head of the needle will gradually fall towards BRC, while the tail rises towards the 180-radial. When the tail is about ten degrees off or so (around the 190-radial), turn further left to a heading of about 030. This is a good intercept angle. The head of the needle will continue to fall from about the 010 mark towards north, but it should be happening gradually. The CDI should be starting to center at this point. Continue easing left until you are on a heading of 360, with the CDI standing centered and vertical. Congratulations, you're on final! The trick at the end is to 'pinch' the needle to that final bearing so you don't overshoot and start oscillating back and forth through the final approach course. However many degrees there are between the head of the needle and the desired final bearing, your flight heading should be about the same number of degrees offset to the other side of the head of the needle. So in our example, once the head of the needle is at about 005 (and falling towards 360), your flight heading shouldn't be more than about 010. The head of the needle should be sandwiched in the middle of the top of the CDI course and your actual heading. Pinch it down gradually until all three are matched up. If it's a carrier approach, there should be little if any wind correction needed provided the mission is built properly. Of course. if you used 'final bearing' in the CDI, the TACAN needle will gradually fall off to the right as the boat plows through the water, requiring that constant right correction for lineup. Once you are lined up on final, you can switch from TCN mode over to ICLS if you plan on using that, and start fine tuning with the needles. This would be a lot easier to understand with pictures; unfortunately, I don't have any. Sorry.

Here's a simple one: something that shows the bearing between plotted waypoints. It's a key feature for positioning units, and it's missing unless you use the ruler to check it. Unless I'm missing something. Also, when you copy / paste a unit to ducplicate it, have the new unit highlighted to be edited rather than the old one. Can't count how many times I've messed myself up on that one.

Update: Hollywood was able to verify the issue independently and is working on a fix. In the meantime, if you are flying a Tomcat mission at night and need the radar, you may need to disable the AIRIO extension for that sortie and go back to the radial Jester menu. The remainder of the VAICOM profile (for radios and such) works fine. It's just the AIRIO that's the issue.

I found the problem in SP. Update: Nailed the problem down to the AIRIO extension. Hollywood is now aware of it and was able to recreate it on his own; oddly enough, it only shows up when a mission is set at 'night'. If the mission is set while the sun is up, the glitch doesn't appear. It is a weird one. He's working on a fix.

Sending a 'Mission Complete' message is something you have to generate; it's different than defining the mission goals. What I do is determine which conditions I want met for a 'Mission Complete' message to appear. It's important to note that the conditions you pick to generate a message can be totally independent from those that define the mission goals. You, the mission designer, gets to decide. The step after deciding which conditions will generate the 'Mission Complete' message is to create a trigger that uses them. Like other triggers, it can be more than one condition that has to be satisfied, or, if needed you can use the 'OR' function as well, to create alternate conditions for a message to appear. If you want to do something like have the message appear as the player pulls into the parking ramp or something like that, you can use a trigger zone to make that happen, just like you normally would for other mission events. In the 'Actions' column, do a 'Message to Group' or 'Message to Coalition', as appropriate, with the group or team choices being whoever you want to see the message. The make the message itself 'Mission complete' or whatever you want it to read. One thing I normally do is put in a delay for the message to appear; you don't want it to flash right as the final primary target is hit, or as you touch down on the runway or hit the three wire. Give the player a breather to pull off target, and maybe conduct a little post-attack BDA on their own. Depending on the circumstances, I usually delay the message for anywhere from 15 seconds to a full minute. Hope that helps! Happy gaming!

The mission is self made, part of a pack I'm working on. However, I was able to recreate the effect in other missions by changing them to 'night.' If you PM me an email address I can send you a copy of it to look at, probably sometime later today.

Been playing with a Rift-S and enjoying it, although the resolution isn't nearly as good as with a hi-res monitor and Track-IR. As others have mentioned, doing the 'Linda Blair' with a VR rig isn't as comfortable, easy, or efficient as using a properly programmed TIR. Another disadvantage of the VR deal is lack of easy access to the keyboard, although a lot of that can be mitigated by programming HOTAS buttons and using Voice Attack. Those issues aside, VR really rocks it. Once we get some true 2nd gen headsets with high res, and maybe some commercial means of clicking switches and throwing knobs in the cockpit in VR (I know there are some user-made ones already out there), VR is going to be the only way to fly.

ASW is a tough sell for DCS for the reasons listed above. However, some non-flyable versions of MPA aircraft like the P-3 and P-8 would be welcome for scenario building and immersion. Command MNAO is a much better game to play for ASW scenarios, although it's not a sim. Taking it one step further, with the carrier we already have, the carrier module coming, the Hornet, the Tomcat, and so on, there is tremendous potential here for more 'naval warfare' scenarios. What is currently needed are more naval assets such as warships, non-combatants, and such. Without an unofficial mod, the naval assets for a lot of nations in-game are virtually non-existent, and even for the U.S. it's limited to Perry class FFG's and the Ticonderoga class- no destroyers to be seen, Burke, Spruance, or otherwise. Last but not least, we need one good 'navy war' map. The Persian Gulf map is great for all the Iran scenarios, but Iran isn't anything close to a peer competitor to the U.S. in terms of naval power. A good cold-war era scenario is the order of the day, with a map of the North Atlantic (The GIUK gap or Kola Peninsula), or the South China Sea if we're interested in highlighting a more modern hot-spot. Just my .02.

Aside from the Tomcat and Hornet, my next choice for a USN tactical jet would be the A-7E Corsair- one of my favorite 'cold war' era jets. Followed closely by the F-4 Phantom, and a map of Vietnam / Yankee Station. Git some.

Run into a glitch with the AIRIO plugin. It's a weird one, and it's taken me almost a whole day to narrow it down to this. For whatever reason, when you take off with the mission time set to 'night' (as in after dark, red cockpit), you can't do anything with the radar. Anytime you tell Jester something, you get this message: "AIRIO: N/A; Radar in Lock State" The only command he'll reply normally to (regarding the radar) is 'Break Lock.' This results in a flicker on the display as he tries to comply, then it goes back to the way it was. The radar shouldn't have been locked onto anything to start with. During daylight hours, everything works fine. After rebuilding the same night mission a couple times and trying numerous 'fixes', I finally disabled AIRIO extension (and chatter as well, just to be thorough) and ran the mission again using the old Jester radial menu. Everything worked like a champ. Not sure if this is the result of the recent update or something that's been there all along; I don't build too many night missions. Anyone else seen this? More importantly, is there a fix?

...And, never mind. Figured it out, partially at least. It's something in the AIRIO extension to VAICOM / Voice attack that's causing it. I disabled the AIRIO extention in the VAICOM plugin, went back to the radial menu, and everything worked the way it was supposed to. VAICOM just released an update for AIRIO and chatter; it must have a bug.

Well, dug into it a little more. The findings are weird, to say the least. Went back to a previous mission that works A-OK and rebuilt this one from scratch using that one as a template. Long story short, this glitch only happens at night. If you set the mission time during daylight, radar works normally and Jester will do whatever you ask. Once it's dark, you get: "AIRIO: N/A; Radar in Lock State." So what naturally comes to mind is that this might be caused by some switchology snafu that happens between day and night, when you change around the lighting modes and such. Again, I don't know enough about the RIO seat / radar to know if things for the radar are set up differently somehow at night. Anyone have any ideas?

I'm starting to think it's some form of glitch or snafu where the radar thinks it's 'locked on' to a target, maybe in STT or something like that. I tried two different things with esentially the same result. 1) I gave the command 'break lock.' Jester acknowledged it as though he was in fact locked onto a target. The radar repeater flickered briefly to a different view, then immediately returned to what it was. Any subsequent commands on the radar other than 'break lock' were met with: "AIRIO: Radar in lock state" 2) I jumped in the back seat and manually switched to TWS mode. When I went to the front seat and then back to the back again, it wasn't in TWS mode anymore, and I couldn't change the range or anything. Admittedly, I'm a pilot and I spend zero time in the back seat; normally I can make the systems accomplish tasks by asking Jester. Could be this Group in the mission is borked. I've gone back to 'free flight' and a couple other missions in the pack I'm working on, and evrerything works fine. I'm going to experiment with some different loadouts to see if that matters (it shouldn't), and then maybe just erase the group and rebuild it. Since it's the 'player' group, it is critical to the mission. :p

Also, this is using AIRIO with VAICOM/ Voice Attack

Not sure what this means; I can't go passive or active, can't tell him to scan a given range or elevation. Not sure what is causing it in the ME. Other missions work fine. Possible loadout glitch or some such? Anyone encounter this in the past?

Here's a question based on a problem I'm running into in the ME: Night ready launch, good AWACS, everything seems fine. Any command I give Jester about scan range, elevation, or tracking a target, he comes back with "Radar in Lock State". What is 'Lock State' and why am I in it from mission start? Is this possible a glitch or bug having to do with the loadout? (2/2/4 mix of Aim-9 / 7 / 54C ) EDIT: Seems like it might be in the mode where it's locked on a target, but there is no target. If I give the command 'break lock', the radar screen flickers briefly to something different (the radar 'cone' in the display narrows momentarily) then it goes right back to what was before.

Been a while since I looked at an entry, but I'm guessing the encyclopedia has lots of information on the weapons systems, but absolutely nothing on the other stuff with the ME that I listed above., especially concerning what the AI will or won't do when, and with what loadouts.

Particularly for the ME and AI wingmen. Right now there are no less than three active threads in the ME forum concerning problems people are having with the ME trying to get AI units to perform various air-to-ground tasks, whether it's bombing a target from low level or conducting missile strikes on naval units. DCS isn't the only flight sim to have suffered from this issue, either, but it seems particularly bad in this game. It would be nice to have data (preferably in a table format) that lays out the following information: a) Which mission functions AI wingmen will perform, and when. For example, if 'ground attack' doesn't work on active groups, or to attack static objects, or what not. Or, if 'CAS' MUST be used in order to get an AI wingman to attack an active group like a SAM site or armor. Or, that a Perform Task "Search and Engage" order must come with a mission trigger in order for it to work. b) Which ordnance is suitable / allowable for a given task. For example, not everyone knows that cluster munitions work great on light naval craft like speedboats. Even those that do know, however, may not know that for whatever reason, assigning cluster bombs to an AI group means that they won't engage with Mk-20's on an 'anti-ship- mission assignment, because the game's AI 'just won't do that.' Or something like the fact that the AI will use AGM-65E to attack naval units, but for whatever reason will refuse to engage with AGM-65F. The devilish details that make mission builders want to hurl their computers through the frakkin' window, or worse still, abandon the effort completely. c) Flight parameters that a mission builder MUST use in order to make something work the way it's supposed to in-game. For example, you can't come in on the deck at 2000' and expect to make a successful GBU attack using LANTIRN, or that the best way to employ HARM is from a long-range standoff with a high-altitude shot, giving the missile extended range. Stuff like that. Such information would not only be a gold mine for mission editors, but also for folks who don't have an actual military background and are unfamiliar with some of these weapon types, their characteristics, and optimum modes of employment.

Got it working, based in a note I saw in a similar thread to this one. I guess the key thing is to use AGM-65E instead of F. With the E's they rolled in and sank the lot of them, no problem except for return fire, chaff and flares city, and a couple losses. This is the kind of stuff that needs go into the manual eventually, regarding the ME. Jeez!

Well, this is a SP mission, and the problem isn't that the boats can't be killed; it's that the AI group of Hornets refuses to engage them no matter what I try. I'm probably going to try substituting a different enemy unit and see if that makes a difference. As an aside, would it be something in the OSA's lua file that makes the game's AI not recognize them as a valid target or something like that? I'm not a coder or a scripter, I'm just trying to figure out what the issue might be. What I'm finding is that generally speaking, the AI overall in this game is very sub-par. Wingmen are about useless as well, except as missile sponges.