NeedzWD40

Front seat or back seat? Aircraft running or still starting up? Does the WPN>UTIL menu show IHADSS as being on?

Issue still present as of DCS version 2.9.1.48335.

Thus the AH-64D and the lack of automatic chaff dispenser can be laid at the feet of McD.

From what I was told, the auto option was rarely used. Too many false positives from the system. May have changed over the years, but CMWS was a persnickety little piece of kit according to the grapevine. Counterpoint: within DCS, we have the luxury of a known and clean/reliable EW environment. With all the RFI and EMI in the real world, the false positive rate could be so much higher that auto dispensing would waste the entire bucket 30 seconds into the flight. Even within DCS I get a lot of false positives in a complex environment, so auto dispensing would be thoroughly useless to me. In addition, the utility of chaff against more advanced threats is suspect and I've been told the primary reason for chaff buckets for aircraft like the AH-64A and AH-1F was as a counter to the Shilka, which was seen as the primary threat against those platforms. It's a gray area of course because a large chunk of this falls into tactics and procedures, to say nothing of EW. This leaves a wide berth for anecdotal evidence and how it should be taken.

I'm trackin' what you're puttin' down, but at the same time, I wanna just say the AH-1G/Q/P/S/E/F exist. And the AH-1J/T/W. Those had a little doohickey that was exclusively for dropping M18 smoke grenades. And the funky inboard pylons so they could drop bombs from the inboard stations.

Hey now, let's not blame Hughes for McD's design decisions! They just used what the US Army gave them!

The hoggit wiki is the best place to start as they update the commands frequently. As for the landing event, it wouldn't help much since the unit would return on the ground on the event's trigger. inAir also works with more than just aircraft, so you could use it to check if a cargo crate is in the air or on the ground for example.

Within DCS, for the AIM-54As it is, for the AIM-54Cs it kinda sorta is and isn't. I set for a large target size for active at ~26 TTI, then hold as long as possible whether I'm STT or TWS. For the AIM-54C there's a kind of gray area where if you break lock before it starts diving, it won't ever dive down on the target. I've seen that a couple times when I've had to break and go evasive with a missile still in the loft. Is it accurate behavior? Don't know. The AIM-120s behave similarly where if you shoot and break lock before it dives/goes pitbull, they'll fly off to oblivion.

if(Unit.getByName("unitname")) then if(Unit.getByName("unitname"):inAir() == false) then return true else return false end else return false end You'll need another condition for initialization otherwise the condition will return true if the unit starts on the ground, like a flag once the unit takes off.

You overlofted. This has happened to me a couple times recently as well, sending my missile to the moon. I brought the nose down for closer targets and the missile gets in the basket every time. This is where I'm usually missing, as the AI's magic awareness means they turn cold and dive as soon as the missile is a set distance away. I've been using AIM-54C Mk47 almost exclusively as well, since the mission has been sniping high value assets from far out, where occasionally I've had to leverage a missile or two on a fighter. Shots have ranged from 90nmi to 20nmi, with a hit rate of around 70%.

Can you get a track of the behavior? Alternatively, a recording with the controls indicator up? What's your step-by-step startup process?

Setting up as in setting up flight members, callsigns, etc. or setting up as in selecting a datalink to receive data? I'd expect the real SMEs to have a better answer, but: If the former, then normally that's already preset by your DTC and you'd already have the info available and set for your mission circumstances. Ie, assuming you're working with a full ARB, you're already going to have each flight (and probably others outside your battalion) in your directory and presets assigned. Since you've got 4 radios on tap, that means you can technically work with 4 different flights without having to alter presets, just by using the rocker. Since each crewmember can independently send data, that means you might have the pilot updating HHC on position and FARM, while the CPG is updating the flight members on targets he's found with the FCR. It really depends on who's doing what and at what time; it would behoove the CPG to do certain datalink tasks while the pilot is flying them en route, while it'd be kind of a di- poor move for the pilot to expect the CPG to be getting FARM reports while he's trying to lase a target. In the latter case, assuming no DTC is available, we're building on the fly, or however you want to call it, then it again comes down to whoever's not busy. More often than not, that's on the CPG's side during the initial startup. So if we assume that the CPG is busy with updating the wayroute due to mission changes mandated by an outside entity, then nothing says the pilot can't bring up the COMM page and alter a preset to work with newly assigned datalink members or data. Since we're not working within the rigid confines of an older aircraft where crewmember responsibilities are more divided, it really comes down to context and situation.

No, there's still a constant uncorrected error that builds up over time. 114Ls are generally fine if your INU is mostly fresh, figure a ballpark estimate of about 1 meter a minute of drift after alignment. It's a pain, but you can reset both INUs in-flight when you need absolute maximum precision. You'll get some errors in the system, like with rocket pylon elevation and a BAL LIMIT error from 114s, but they'll work perfectly fine after the INU heading has been updated. Don't do an INU reset if you're using attitude hold, however.

I've been in a few hops here and there but haven't seen this behavior. My countdown and active timers retain the usual behavior.

Nominally a Blue side aircraft using GPS for INU updates to stay accurate, so if it's placed on the Red side, it can't access GPS because the scenario is assuming GPS is locked away. Ditto for a Red side aircraft on GLONASS put onto Blue. Also, INU accuracy degrades more rapidly than it should, so you see the errors much faster.

Try turning on Unrestricted Satnav in the mission options.

Tagged as WIP by the team, latest issues are still being addressed:

Still unreliable as of OB 2.9.1.48111. Will eventually stabilize but really struggles for the first moments.

If you're given grid coordinates, you can use the TSD > SHOW > CURSOR INFO to display the current coordinates of where your cursor is pointing. This in conjunction with the CAQ can get you in the ballpark for a defilade/remote missile shot. You can manipulate virtually all TSD functions with the cursor, so this can be done without having to take your hands off the controls. It's not even necessary, however; it just gives you a cue on where to aim and an estimated impact timer. If you have some idea of the relative direction of the target(s), you can put the centerline over there and launch.

The FCR offers a little bit more flexibility in conjunction with the 114L, but not really in terms of passing more specific data to the missile. For example, the FCR can provide an alternate target to the missile in event that it cannot find the primary target (thus our "2ND TARGET INHIBIT" option to tell it not to do that). The missile search modes can differ between FCR, RFHO, and TADS sources, but I'm going to guess within a DCS context that these aren't modeled.

There's still a chance that the missile won't lock onto the intended target, depending on what the seeker grabs (which can get into complex sub modes that I won't go into here). If vehicles are moving close together, it might grab a vehicle in front or behind the target indicated by TADS. Currently the problem is a bit exacerbated by excessive INU drift, but even if your INU is under a fresh reset state, it's still a potential issue depending on target separation.

A little bit more on this: while you can't specify that the UH-60A land on a ship (it will snap the landing point to the nearest airfield/FARP), if you have the final waypoint somewhere near the ship or ships, it will automatically land at the closest one to its final waypoint. On the other hand, I had no problem starting the UH-60A on any carrier, though cruisers, destroyers, and frigates were off-limits (even though a UH-60A would land on them).

Currently, there's no way to specify where a helicopter or appropriate fixed wing aircraft start on the LHA-1. The only way I know of is via group ID; that is to say, the lower the group's ID, the first in the stack. So if you've placed a group of 4 UH-1H on the deck, then 4 AH-1W, the UH-1H will be at the first four spots, then the AH-1W will be at the last four. The only ways around this would be to late activate groups, use addgroup to fill spots, or use static objects to block off the first series of spots. Full deck with UH-1H at start and player controlled with AI AH-64D, followed by 4 cold started AI AV-8: 4 player controlled AV-8 with AI wingmen, runway start, with 4 AV-8 cold start: Late start player AH-64D with cold start AV-8 at the back (only two more spots available with this arrangement) Order of operation: 1A & 1B only used if group is present at mission start; these are used by the first and second group units. 1C through 6 are then used for every unit/group afterward in descending priority. 1R through 4R are only utilized for AV-8 runway starts. A1 through A4 are utilized for all AV-8 ramp starts, hot or cold. Position "3A" is never used at any time. Additional example: blocking off 1B via static objects, filling remaining spots with 2xUH-1H, 1xMi-8, 4xAV-8

Extremely limited right now, but by default if an AI AH-64D Blk. II is placed in a mission, it will automatically be added to the members directory and you can get some rudimentary reports like PP and FARM, provided you know their default mission frequency (ie if the AI unit is set to use 225MHz, you'll have to use the UHF radio, or if it's 127.5MHz you'll have to use VHF, etc.). Everything else is WIP.

This is the answer. It's not a case of "always" or "never". There are times to go low and hover in the weeds, the same as there's times where it's better to stay high and mobile. A desert example might be staying low and hovering behind a sand dune to sneak up on and engage a air defense site. Sometimes the terrain allows for that, and sometimes it doesn't. Likewise, there's little point in doing that if the threat can't touch you like a SA-15, SA-19, etc. can.