FightingFalcon

Hey not at all. The more useful information I can get the better! And you always give me loads of good replies (including in this thread) so I very much appreciate that! Also thanks for the tip about the J-11, I didnt even know I had this aircraft to fly! Ive played a few missions now using the R-77 and so far it seems like a great missile. Wow thanks for going through and providing such an analysis! Lots to think about here. And yes the evasion ability of the enemy shocked me also. Thanks Ironhand. The tactic you describe above Ive watched quite a few videos on (possibly from yourself actually) and ive used that tactic successfully via an F15C. I took him out exactly as you describe, with the two missiles. However simply changing the bandit to an F16 and it's a different story. Thanks for the track, I will get it watched ASAP. Yeah a few people have said the 73 is probably the best IR missile in the game. I do have quite a high kill rate when I use these also. How did you come to this conclusion? Thanks to everyone who posted.

I didnt actually save the track at the time, are they saved automatically anywhere? I DO have the Tacview file though should I upload that? EDIT - Please see attachment. Just extract the zip. I had to make it a zip otherwise it wouldnt upload. Tacview-20190804-173204-DCS.zip.acmi.zip

Not unusual for a bogey to avoid six radar locked missiles? Thanks for the tip about the fuse timers. Yeah you aren't joking there, ive been running more tests and the R-27 is so easily fooled its hilarious, wheras it takes a lot more to fool the AMRAAM. Totally different league of a missile it seems. Yeah he was notching and chaffing but I also was notching and chaffing and found it much more difficult to evade his missiles. Yeah I have found some posts however some of them are over a year old and I don't want to reply and be accused of thread Necroing. And to be fair I didn't find anywhere discussing this exact thing so I thought I would make a new post.

Thanks for the tips Exorcet :)

I have employed those methods before in different missions, however it doesn't change the fact this F-16 was able to avoid six radar locked missiles, at least 3 of which were within the 'guaranteed' kill zone. Perhaps this is normal DCS behavior, I just find it hard to accept. I could understand it if I lost lock, or if I fired all of them outside max range etc. I'm sure there is some logical reason, most likely something I did wrong.

Just tried the exact same mission and simply replaced the F-16 with an F-15 and downed him within 3 shots!

Thanks. I tried the ET and it avoided them as well. Thats a different missile though, so you need to carry two different missiles to be competitive against just the AIM-120? Yes that is true, and if in real life the American missiles are superior to Russian then there is nothing I can about that. In which case I will simply switch to F-15 and start learning that instead.

Been doing a lot of testing recently in mission editor. Just flew a mission with myself in an Su-27 loaded with 6 R-27ER missiles against an F-16a with 6 AIM-120b missiles. It managed to avoid every single missile I launched at it (all of them)! I launched my first missile halfway between the maximum and the halfway distance marker as ive learned this normally ties in with the range the AIM-120 is launched at. I didn't expect this first missile to hit but my aim was to make the enemy go defensive. Anyway so I launch the missile then crank to the right while also decreasing altitude, then I swing back left and as I go past the centre point I launch another missile, and continue cranking to the left and decreasing altitude, then swing back to the right, launching another missile as I pass centre. I repeat this process until I have zero missiles remaining. I ensure to keep my radar lock on at all times, making sure to not go outside the lock zone. I am confused as to why SIX radar locked missiles didn't hit. I also have a couple of additional related questions. 1. When I radar lock a bandit and launch an R-27ER. And then launch a second, or third etc R-27ER, while keeping the radar lock, do all missiles that are still in flight keep tracking? Or is it just the last missile? 2. It seems that the AIM-120 is an excellent missile both at BVR and ALSO WVR modes. This one missile can be launched BVR and then when WVR it immediately goes "Pitbull" so is actually in this way more dangerous. It seems the R-27ER is a BVR only missile. So a bandit armed only with AIM-120s is capable both at long AND close range whereas an aircraft armed with only R-27ERs might as well have nothing when in close range. Is this correct? If so, do any of the Russian missiles have any advantage over the American ones? I'm starting to think Russian aircraft / missiles are seriously disadvantaged in this game, and that the AIM-120 is overpowered in comparison. Thanks for any input.

This forum members are brilliant, such helpful replies, thanks so much guys!

OK thanks.

Thanks for all the knowledge sharing guys, as always much appreciated! Some real talent in this thread. Looking forward to watching your video Zeagle, remember to share the link with us.

Ah ok thanks for explaining that, now I understand what you mean.

Just a couple of additional questions please Draconus, 1. When I open the comms menu and select ATC and I get the list of airports. Are those airports ordered from closest to furthest away? 2. After all the airports names there are numbers. Mozdok says (4.55 / 137 / 41.6 / 266 MHz) what do these all mean? 3. When I select an airport and request inbound and they give me the heading and the distance, should that distance they give me be the same as the distance that comes up in my HUD when I select to RTN to that airport? In other words, can I match these numbers up to make sure im actually waypointed to the airport that I just contacted? Thanks!

Hi All, I feel this may be a terribly newbie question but ive tried searching online and also on the forums as well as through the manuals but I cant find anything that explains what actually is a beacon. My DCS files include a PDF entitled "DCS World List of all available beacons" with a massive amount of information, which I can see does cross reference to the little circles with the dotted lines spread throughout the map in mission editor, so can I assume these are the beacons? From tinkering with the mission editor I can see that beacons are spread throughout the map, and I can only assume they communicate with the aircrafts onboard radio? Ive seen the worlds TACAN and NDB being used but unsure how these relate. Are there any newbie friendly guides explaining this from the ground up? Such as what they are and how I can use them or how they are useful to me? I also see from searching the forum that there are beacon mods that have been created, do these improve on the standard beacons? Thanks everyone.

Thanks for all that. What do you mean by "exercise your SA"? Thanks. Interesting to see how people have different methods. I keep hearing about this word "pattern" what does that mean? Is it in relation to landing?I have heard in used as "pattern altitude" but unsure exactly what it means or when I need to use it. Thanks again guys for taking the time to share your knowledge with me!

Where are you quoting this information from? Ive searched the SU-27 manual and cant find what you have posted. What is an "RW Thing"? From what I can see there doesnt seem to be a "series position" in this aircraft currently. Its either single or in pairs, with no way to tell which state its currently in. Is this what you mean when you say the sim is hog pog? What is the "PVI-10PE2" Again I found no mention of this in the manual. I searched the keybindings section for "interval" and found nothing. Perhaps this is the function thats related to the "SERIES" position that currently isnt actually in the aircraft? Just trying to understand what you mean here. Some of the tech speak and abbreviations are still new to me. Thanks.

So Ive just completed this mission successfully, although probably not technically correct as I have about 20 minutes experience with the SU-33. But when you land and come to a stop isn't there meant to be a message saying mission completed or something like that? I was quite surprised to see no message pop up or no confirmation that I had landed successfully. I switched everything off and closed my wings (so cool) and opened the cockpit but still nothing :huh:

Ok thanks!

Well maybe I'm using it incorrectly then. And I appreciate you sharing your years of experience! So my latest process that works for me is roughly this: 1. Open the comms menu and contact an ATC for whichever airport I want to land at. 2. Set my navigation mode to LNDG and cycle to the waypoint representing the airport I contacted above. (I still find myself using F10 to make sure my waypoint is at the correct airport - is this considered cheating?) 3. Look down at the HSI which will tell me the orientation of the runway, and follow the yellow arrow to intercept the glideslope (or manually fly to the glideslope box using the HDD - this part isnt an exact science for me yet) 4. One way or another I will now be lined up for the runway. My course arrow and bearing pointer will now be aligned. 5. As I come in to touch down on the runway, its here that I use the flight director circle as it helps to guide me correctly onto the runway. I don't see how the HSI is more useful in this final decent than the flight director? What is your opinion of my steps? If I can streamline anything please say. Thanks.

Your flight director must behave a lot better than mine! Ive followed that thing up and down and up and down and round and round once too many times to ever trust it again! I find when landing, its range of movement gets very small as you get close to the runway, so I can use it successfully.

Hi, I believe this to be best described as a bug. In the SU-25T when you switch the salvo mode, you can clearly see the switch moving. When you switch the salvo mode in the SU-27 there is no switch that moves. I have zoomed in to all areas of the cockpit while I change the salvo, and nothing seems to move. However the more serious issue is that there is no way to tell which salvo mode you are in, due to not being able to look at the situation of said switch. There is also no indicator on the HUD or HDD that I can see. The salvo mode definitely works as Ive tested it. It appears to default to launch singly or will change to all at once upon pressing LeftCtrl+V. So the function is there. These issues were also discussed in below thread, however I didn't want to reply to that one as Im not sure what this forum considers as a 'necro'. https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=169939&page=2 Thanks.

Thanks for answering all my points Ironhand, much appreciated. I definitely have a much better grasp of things now. I'm just going to ignore the flight director circle (except when on glideslope about to land) and use the HSI instead. Ah ok cheers AeriaGloria.

Yeah I think its a bug too. Hopefully the developers notice this post and consider fixing it.

Wow thanks for the helpful replies guys, very useful! That's a really kind offer Zeagle, I'm in the UK though so not sure how that would work time wise? Anyway I read over all your replies guys and loaded DCS up again for another go. I think its starting to make more sense now, but I have some more questions that are now in the forefront of my mind to ask lol. 1. Am I right in saying the digital number on the HUD is in KM, however if I press F10 and draw a line, that line is in Miles? 2. When I choce the RTN flight mode, and I cycle the next waypoint, is there any way I can tell which airport these waypoints are referring to? I like to radio in to ask for landing permission and im never sure just how this ties into each other. 3. The "Bearing Pointer" on my HSI seems to always direct me in the same direction as the flight director circle, and as you said AeriaGloria this directs me to an intercept point of the glideslope. In the mission I just flew this intersected the glideslope very close to the runway, so it didnt give me that much time to make the turn and line up to land. Isnt there a function that directs me exactly to the start of the glide slope (glide slope capture point), other than watching for the box on the HDD? 4. When you radio a tower for landing approval, what makes them give you the runway number that they do? Mozdok has 26 and 08 for example. Is it simply a matter of whichever side of the runway you are coming from or is it random? EDIT: Further testing shows it doesnt seem to matter which side I approach from. They still give the same runway number but Im not exactly sure why. 5. Do you need to radio ahead to an airport to ask for landing permission in order to get the "ILS Landing" information on your screen? And by that I mean the capital letter K at the bottom left and funny looking R on the bottom right? Oh and one last question and I really hope I have this right as it will be a real 'lightbulb' moment if its true. I could have sworn someone posted this as a reply above but I cant find it now. Anyway, regarding the "desired course arrow" on the HSI - Am I right in saying that it lines itself up exactly parallel to the runway that you are trying to land at? With the point of the arrow dictating the side on which you land? Thanks so much guys. Sorry for so many questions. I do have the manual up on my screen / pages printed out and I try to test things myself but sometimes I just really need to ask questions to get that info into my head!

Does this thing have a clue where its going? So basically I'm really struggling to bring the SU-27 into land. The problem isnt so much landing, its going from say 100 miles out, navigating to the RTN point and then following in for the landing. My issue is that I follow the flight director (I think that's what its called) and It honestly seems like it has no idea where its going. Ive just came off a mission where I set the bird on route follow autopilot and it literally flew one way, then the other way, then back the way it was, over and over again, all the while getting further AWAY from the airport! I was just sitting there looking at it wondering what in the heck is going on! A lot of the time the Autopilot actually just randomly flies you into the ground, whats that all about! When I try it manually, the little circle moves up and down and up and down then all the way to the right then all the way to the left, like it's just taking me on a while goose chase. Sometimes I catch a glimpse of the airport Im meant to be landing at, but the director steers me right on past it. Yesterday I followed it until I ran out of fuel and at no point did it get me anywhere near the glideslope for the runway. This is driving me nuts. Why isnt it directing me properly onto the runway? I mean how hard is it to just tell me which way to turn instead of taking me round in circles and up and down. So frustrated. My process is to choose RTN mode which I believe should navigate me to the beginning of the glideslope. I literally just keep my bird inside the green circle in the HUD and it takes me everywhere but where I should be going. I have also tried LNDG but that doesnt get me anywhere either. The only times I have had success landing is when I create my own mission and just make it a straight shoot right onto the runway. I have no issue landing the bird perfectly most times. Thanks for reading.