Bahger

Gents, last night I made a file called Kneeboard in the following path: C:\Users\Admin\Saved Games\DCS\Kneeboard\AV8BNA (I made the aircraft sub-directory) and put in three proven kneeboard .png files but they still didn't show up among the stock kneeboard files in the Harrier I placed at Batumi for startup practice. Can anyone explain? I am out of ideas. I can use my tablet but I'd like the kneeboard to work if and when I go VR. Thanks!

These responses are very helpful, thank you. I got it started in the in-sim tutorial last night but am not sure I can repeat the feat! It baffles me that the tool tips are disabled and certain inputs advance the tutorial before I've read all the text. Re. throttle cutoff and parking brake, yes, these are the most troublesome issues for me. The brake is invisible behind the throttle and if you click the throttle by mistake after engine start it shuts the engine down. Does anyone know a key combo for the parking brake? One more question: I have the Warthog throttle which has a cutoff detent; is it still advisable to map the idle cutoff lever to a button or key press or is that not necessary as long as I remember to put the throttle in the cutoff detent before startup?

I will give it a shot. Thank you!

I am having problems. I can't follow the instructions to get the engine started by following the tutorial. Either I am missing something simple or there is a bug in the tutorial procedure. Plus the tooltip identifiers for the cockpit buttons do not seem to function in this tut. Can anyone suggest what I might be doing wrong or point me at a reliable, beginner's start-up checklist? Many thanks.

This is great; thanks so much!

Thanks very much indeed for the reassurance/clarification. I will now set about installing both a good template and the necessary mods. I am assuming by the title "static template" that these files do not include scripts that introduce moving ground and air traffic?

Sorry if this is a dopey question but are there any Nellis templates that require no mods (i.e. ones that use “stock” DCS objects only). I just want to populate the base a little with static objects and moving traffic.

Thanks once again. I am hoping to keep DCS un-modded for the time being; is there such a thing as a template that can populate an environment without requiring mods at all? If not, would the only choice be to populate individual missions with stock items in the Mission Editor?

Thank you! I have no experience of doing this; I was once very well-versed in the Mission Editor but I've been off the scene for four years now and this feature is new to me. Can you tell me, will I need various mods to get the least complex template to work properly?

I had been intending to populate Nellis and its surroundings with Razorback's excellent templates but the path he describes for putting the file does not exist in my (recent) DCS install: user/saved Games/DCS.../Template I may well be missing something very obvious here; can anyone set me straight? Thanks.

Interesting. I couldn't get Krymsk at all in Ch. 28 but had no trouble with Krasnodar Central on Ch. 40 and that was further away. Odd. Thanks for testing.

I can't get the two green lights on the RSBN panel for Krymsk while sitting on the runway at Sochi. Distance is about 120 km. I can't get Krasnodar Central either. I'm wondering what the distance limits are for this nav system or even if they are line-of-sight. Before I try to fly this IFR exercise I would appreciate some intel on this, as perhaps I am doing something wrong (although I have studied xJohnxx's excellent tutorial video intently...) Many thanks. Update: I flew the exercise and couldn't get Krymsk RSBN at all but I dialed in the NDB instead and then picked up Krasnodar Central, to which I turned directly after overflying the Krymsk NDB. I think the Krymsk RSBN must be out of service...

The L-39 is a jet trainer that a competent, non-pro civilian pilot could learn to fly in real life. It's a handful compared to a Cessna 182 but the kind of stick-and-rudder skills you learn in basic flight training can be applied to it. Front-line fighters are great fun to fly in DCS but it's essentially a fantasy and a lot of sim pilots don't even realise how hard they are leaning on all the electronic assists when they've never learned how to trim an aircraft properly or manually fly a coordinated turn using only the whiskey compass for heading, which every real-world fighter jockey -- and all civilian pilots, for that matter -- learn before anyone lets him loose in a front-line jet.

+1

The L-39 is a really well-modeled aircraft that challenges you to dust off all sorts of "analog" stick-and-rudder skills that you don't need in the FBW modules. With no autopilot you have to trim the a/c properly and with no HUD you have to do a proper instrument scan. Learning to fly realistic IFR in this platform in the Caucasus map is one of the more stimulating things I've ever done in DCS. These aircraft are like cars with manual transmissions; more involving to operate, often more viscerally rewarding and sometimes scorned by those who've never learned to drive one.

That's good to know. I think I'll go for it.

Quick question: I've never bought Samsung or any device that doesn't run on Windows or iOS. If I get this Samsung tablet, does its OS have a system of folders and files that is directly compatible with my Win 10 PC?

Yeah, I must confess I'd be unhappy with landscape-only when a lot of what I'll be looking at is checklists.

Thank you once again, Svsmokey. I just found this Samsung, which looks even better value for money...

The iPad is too expensive for me, considering I'm unlikely to use it for anything else. Can you, or anyone, please comment on the suitability of the Samsung, or offer recommendations? I know nothing about tablets.

I bought a Kindle for this. HUGE mistake. I will be RMA-ing it tomorrow. I've never had any need for a tablet before. I just want to mount it as an additional screen for flight simming and use it to display maps, manuals, kneeboard graphics, etc., in all common file foemats, in colour, that I can download to it from my PC. This Samsung looks like good value but I would really welcome comments and suggestions, many thanks.

This is above and beyond, Svsmokey, thank you so much. I have added all these resources to my L-39 documents file.

Quick follow-up re L-39 navigation: I am wondering how to dial in ATC frequencies when the L-39 command radio interface seems to involve two-digit numerics rather than frequencies. So far I have been unable to get a response from ATC AI in the L-39 either in Nellis or Caucasus but I can communicate just fine in the radio menu with ground crew. As always, I would be grateful for advice, many thanks.

This is very helpful, gents, many thanks. As it happens, Svsmokey, I just bought my very first tablet, a Kindle Paperwhite, for this specific purpose. Its "read only" functionality is fine for me, I won't need to do video, full-featured Internet browsing, etc with it. I think it may be more convenient to use this as a kneeboard but I will definitely look into the kneeboard feature and the excellent-sounding Kneeboard Builder. Thanks once again.

No, although my new PC can more than handle it and I will no doubt give it a try quite soon. For the moment it's old-school TrackIR with a widescreen monitor. Why?