fatchance

Thank you for this. This makes it very clear.

Two questions. Why is it so hard to center the ball? What is the best way to manage the engine to get the most power.

much past 500ias means right around 500ias on the air speed gauge in the cockpit. I'm mostly trying to keep the ball centered to max out the speed so maybe 510ias is the max speed I've reached. Can someone else try to get a faster speed and post it?

I agree the sounds in the video posted are very much like the P51C I have heard a few times at the local airport. I'd like to see it as a mod. The stock sounds are very good and might be more accurate but the powerful and aggresive sound of the modded sound just seems more to my liking.

I tried and tried to get the plane into a state of compressibility where the controls start to lock up. I never get much past 500ias and maintain very good control especially at lower altitudes. At higher alt's it's very hard to get the ball centered for some reason. Is that because it's still in beta? I also find the engine has no power at 40k down to maybe 25k. I think that's probably my ignorance of high alt engine management though. PS I love the P51 and I don't get all the critical comments about DCS's decision to add it. I can spend hours just practicing take offs and landings. I have had to un-learn many ham handed habits I've picked up with other high end sims just to land and take off. THANK YOU DCS!!

I loaded it on my work laptop 128mb video cause I'm away from home. I just wanted to look around the cockpit and flip some switches. The game opens but thats it. The most success I had was getting into the mission editor once. I cant wait to get home and load it on the main rig.

A-10 Cuba was my first sim and it spoiled me big time. So many sims bought after were a let down in the sensation of flight department. The graphics got better and better but it wasn't til IL-2 that I felt something close. I really don't think that the "feel" was surpassed until Flaming Cliffs came out. There was a mission where if you loitered long enough some Cuban SU25's I think came patrolling by and if you caught them right they would engage in a guns only dogfight. The multiplayer stuff was pretty psychedelic too.

What are the pro's and con's? My hardware is as follows: gigabyte ep45ud3p E8400 4gigs ram Geforce 8800gts 640mb Rosewill RP600V2 600watt PSU CH Hotas I'm going to keep XP on the original SATA 80gig drive and install Win7 on a 2nd SATA drive. This way I can easily go back and forth. Thanks in advance for your advise.

POLL: vote for discrete commands vs. toggle commands I wish I could issue a HOTAS command and know exactly what I just asked for. IRL you'd know which position you flipped the switch but in the sim you don't. In my experience this really causes a problem for me with autopilot. There are many other instances also such as weapons mode [ground moving, ect], laser standby, hover mode, cannon status, where you only know when it's too late or you looked at the button. I know this is a study sim so everything needs to be as close to reality as possible but there are some concessions that have already been made[zoom for example]. In my non-combat living room for example.....When my Audio Video remote turns on my system to watch a dvd I want my receiver and tv to go exactly to the correct inputs and not just toggle to the next input which might have me looking at xbox and listening to the radio!! This way my wife and kids can use it without calling me at work all the time. I vote for discrete commands.

Thanks to all. I need to digest and experiment before getting back with results but I wanted to thank you all for your input. What an amazing sim! I've not been so sucked in since the IL2 demo came out 8-9 years ago!! WOW

Maybe I'm not explaining myself correctly. I trim almost constantly. But I will try to see if you guys are right about FD and trim. So far I've had best success eliminating the problem by pressing "susp" in ABRIS and turning the PVI800 off. Then I'm not fighting the AP for awhile. But this is not a reliable solution to the problem. The problem that most frustrates me is in the yaw axis. Intermittently the helo will actually want to pivot in place even though route mode is off. The rudder is centered in the trim window. It will happen intermittently when I'm in hover mode, I have a target locked up and turn to target engaged. Another clue is that I sometimes notice a small diagonal line at the top of the HUD when this is happening.

Einstein, "I only want the stabilization aspects of the AP to function period." I should have said I only want the AP to provide Stability Augmentation damping and Attitude holding. FD turns off Attitude but leaves Dampening. This is good but I'd like both Attitude and Dampening available. Are you saying FD deactivates all steering cues demanded by the NAV systems? Is there another way to deactivate the Nav ?

Sorry for double post: EUREKA!!. I think I understand whats been making this bird so hard for me to control sometimes. It's the NAV system/systems doing stuff that I'm not in control off. After INTERMITTENTLY fighting with this bird for 50HRS I'm pretty sure that whenever the helo seems to have a mind of it's own it is because I'm being flown not just by the AutoPilot but most especially the NAV AUTOPILOT. I have tried to turn off waypoints and the Route switch is in the middle position. I also make the DT/DR switch placed in middle position. I only want the stabilization aspects of the AP to function period. It always seems to happen at the worst time just when I'm lining up a shot and the helo gets a mind of it's own. I think it might be related to the way I make my own missions an where the waypoints are close to the fighting areas. Can someone make a checklist or suggest how to free me of the influence of the NAV system when I'm fighting? I love this sim!!!!!

EUREKA!! How can you disable all NAV related Autopliot EUREKA!!. I think I understand whats been making this so hard for me to control. It's the NAV system/systems doing stuff that I'm not in control off. After INTERMITTENTLY fighting with this bird for 50HRS I'm pretty sure that whenever the helo seems to have a mind of it's own it is because I'm being flown not just by the AutoPilot but most especially the NAV AUTOPILOT. I have tried to turn off waypoints and the Route switch is in the middle position. I also make the DT/DR switch placed in middle position. I only want the stabilization aspects of the AP to function period. It always seems to happen at the worst time just when I'm lining up a shot and the helo gets a mind of it's own. I think it might be related to the way I make my own missions an where the waypoints are close to the fighting areas. Can someone make a checklist or suggest how to free me of the influence of the NAV system when I'm fighting? I love this sim!!!!!