Pyroflash

Easiest way to prove this: Take two fans. In one fan, remove the electric motor (you will need to drive a rod through it or something to ensure that it stays on the casing). In the fan with the electric motor still intact, start it up while holding it. You will notice some torque from this. On the fan without the electric motor, simply blow some air through it so that the fan blades move. You will not notice any torque whatsoever, except that caused by friction (note, jet engines have a lot of oil in there to prevent the effects of this friction). Because in a jet engine, nothing cemented to the airframe is driving it, you will see no torque. The "opposite reaction" you speak of isn't that the airplane spins around, but that the burned exhaust gasses slow down due to their impact with the turbine blades. Remember that there is a LOT more going on here than rigid body physics.

Turbine engines don't produce noticeable yawing forces. There is no torque, no P-factor, in the A-10's case, no SSS, no ASS. So really, the engines produce a negligible impact on the yawing moment of the aircraft UNLESS they are not producing the same amount of thrust. An easy way to think about this is: In a propeller aircraft, your engine is driven by a crankshaft which operates by the motion of an engine. As this crankshaft rotates, so does your propeller. This produces torque in the opposite direction of crankshaft rotation. In a turbine, things operate a little bit differently. Hot exhaust gasses are ejected out the rear of the engine, causing the spinning of the turbine, which causes the compressor and fan blades up front to spin. The turbine drive shaft is not mechanically cemented to any other force producing engine. It is free spinning, hence no reactionary movement on the rest of the aircraft. What can happen however, is that one side of the aircraft can be loaded more than the other side. This results in a larger skewed horizontal moment, and more importantly, a larger drag index for that side of the aircraft. That means that one side will accelerate slower (to a degree) than the other side. So in reality, asymmetrical loading DOES produce a yawing moment, but not in the way most people expect.

Not to derail this too badly, but IMPO, the biggest difference between DCS and "professional simulators" isn't the level of detail in the aircraft itself. It isn't the game engine, the AI, the ATC, or any of those things. What it really comes down to is the lack of cockpit realism. How many of us fly at a desk with nothing more than a HOTAS Warthog, a TIR, and pedals? How many of us never bring along proper unique aircraft documentation on a flight? How many of us use paper charts? There are a whole slurry of different reasons why DCS is, and will continue to be, less realistic than "professional" sims on the market, least of which are the aircraft. Trust me.

Err.. Yes, but let's not start THAT argument up again. There is a time and place for thrust vectoring in BFM, and it DOES help in those circumstances. It does, however, result in a similar situation to pulling a cobra. Low speed regimes where it would pull an edge generally mean that, unless the other guy is in the same boat, you are not going to survive long. On the other hand, thrust vectoring doesn't make you any less maneuverable. You just have to know when, and how to use it to your advantage like any other tool.

Cobra, useful for pointing your nose across the turn circle for a fox 2 if you HAVE A REALLY GOOD REASON. I say really good reason because you will have lost all of your energy, leaving you the equivalent of a peeled grape in BFM. Trust me, I am basically the master of peeled grapes. I am the WHITE WINE of air combat. I know what not to do. That being said, there are situations that require solutions, and sometimes the cobra can be a useful solution. It's all a game of analyzing, cross checking, and re-analyzing. Just keep in mind that the Su-27 can't accelerate like the Eagle. If you lose that much energy, you better have some room to get it back in case whatever you were trying to do didn't work.

To clarify on Skate's remark: DCS World is a core for integration of many modules (you may be more familiar with the idea of DLC for a game). These modules, such as the A-10C, UH-1H, P-51D, Ka-50 BS2, and FC3 "plug-in" to the DCS World core. This ensures that all modules are kept compatible with each other. As long as you are logged into the DCS World server browser, you should be able to make a mission with any given assortment of player controllable aircraft, regardless of whether or not you own them. Upon hosting the mission, any player can hop into these aircraft slots and fly whatever is on that particular mission. You will be able to see them, and interact with all of the different modules even if you only own one of them. This however, is very different from how the original releases of A-10C and Black Shark handled it. Previously, you needed particular versions of either aircraft that may or may not be compatible with each other depending on the patch number. If you still have these outdated standalone versions installed (A-10C 1.1.1.1), you will need to update to the DCS World core structure with the A-10C/Black Shark/FC3 modules before online compatibility can be guaranteed.

I don't think that you've been around that long, some I'll let you in on a little secret. This has happened every single time that a new major release comes out. It happened with FC, FC 1.2, FC2, FC3, BS1, A-10C, and now, the Steam release of DCS world. Fear not, however, as this hysteria will soon die down. People that play this game for instant gratification won't enjoy it. Even the "airquake" servers take at least a substantial amount of time to get airborne and do something. Adding to the fact that people who won't take the time to learn the basics will either: A. Get shot down upon reaching a target. or B. Never reach the target because of their navigation incompetence. Give it a month, you will see that it will return to pretty much the status quo. Except that the community size will have increased significantly due to Steam DCSW integration. Also remember that the Su-25T is free. So there should be a steady influx of new people who are waiting to buy a full fledged module (and or FCS) so that they can play online.

The A-10A does indeed have an autopilot. It was included as part of the -1 LASTE upgrade to the A-10A fleet. Though it still isn't anything special. It has the same basic functions as that of the A-10C (i.e. no route mode, no auto throttle, and no climb/descent settings (excepting path mode)).

It may, but it doesn't really matter. The standalone is the same product as that of FC3.

Interesting. The T-6-IIB is a very capable aircraft. Not only that, but currently, trying to do everything from IQT to MQT in a high performance fighter is a bit interesting. With the addition of this, and the upcoming VEAO Hawk, it should level the training environment out pretty well.

kk, thanks much

What about my friend, who initially purchased A-10C on Steam, but then purchased it again on DCS.com to get DCS World integration. Now that it exists as the same product, is there any way that he could say, get a refund on one of them, or in lieu of that, transfer one of the purchases to someone else (not me, I already have A-10C on DCS.com)? I have some friends who would like this game, but can't be convinced enough to spend money on it. This would be the perfect opportunity to allow at least one of them a chance at it. This is, assuming, I can get this friend to part ways with his redundant copy.

I hear the new "Nevada" map is going to include Alaska as a DLC. Jokes aside, I'm sure someone will make a Bering Strait map, seeing as how it was (especially cold war), and still is (fairly certain both sides still send stuff probing up there every now and again), a major point of contention between North America and Russia.

One word: Offset. If you don't have any offset, you aren't going to be able to accurately judge range or closure, and will likely end up overshooting. With offset, the line of sight change will help your brain figure out how much faster/slower you are going. Managing those overshoots from there is a matter of judgement and experience.

Yes, it is possible to control the ground forces from the heli. In the mission editor, under the "Miss" editing section on the left, there will be an icon with two flags. click on that and make sure that "pilot can control vehicles is selected".

Well, to be fair, so is a keyboard. Being able to hit the right keys while blindfolded, however, may be a challenge for some.

I can confirm that the A-10A AFM is not in DCS as of this 1.2.5 patch. Either that, or something borked on my update. Or, possibly it is, I didn't do much testing. The only thing I had time to test was that it stuck to the runway like a pig. I couldn't get it to flip no matter what I did. Also, it seems to be pretty docile when compared to the A-10C. Control movement appears to be instantaneous and the stalls are not as bad as the A-10C. I didn't fly the FC3 A-10A at all, so if something changed, I wouldn't know. At this point, however, it does not look or feel like an AFM is implemented.

As for Groove's post, what is really only tells us is that there will be, at some point, an Su-27SM. It does not tell us when we are getting it, or even for that matter, who is making it. All I am saying is that it is likely that ED will be making a DCS Su-27S at some point because of the extensive EFM work that they will be putting/have put into the project. Or maybe they have made the executive decision to transition the current Su-27S in FC3 into an Su-27SM when the EFM gets released for it. By the way, I would not be opposed to this decision. I think it will greatly widen the scope of what that aircraft will be able to accomplish. The alternative to these, however, is that they scrap (limit to an increased fidelity FC3 product) all the work they have/will have done on making an EFM for the Su-27S. Of course, there is one option that we have been missing all along. In his 07 May update, Wags said: What he really failed to mention is what exactly the "shallower learning curve" is. This does not necessarily mean that we will, at any time, get a DCS anything out of either the Su-27 or F-15C. It could, in fact, mean that we might be getting something somewhere in between DCS systems fidelity and FC3 systems fidelity (I made the exception of systems fidelity, because the assumption is that we will be seeing a DCS level FM). Additionally, for all I know, it might mean that we will be getting a full up DCS level aircraft, but there will be increased amounts of difficulty options to make them accessible to newer players. The bottom line is, really, until this is released, only the DCS developers know anything about what is going on.

It can be read in the myriad of announcements about giving the Su-27S an EFM. http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=105800&highlight=SU-27+AFM While this does not specifically say that these will be made into full DCS modules, I have a hard time believing that they won't. This is particularly because a LOT of the systems stuff has to be accomplished before doing any sort of accurate EFM (Check me if I am wrong about this). In light of this, I don't think that ED would just "throw away" their hard work. It will, however, probably take a lot longer than a year, because ED has stated that the F/A-18C will be the next official DCS aircraft. Plus, the SU-27SM could be a 3rd party aircraft. I don't, however, think this is true as I believe that ED has said that they would personally be developing a few of these aircraft down the line, but I forget where this may have been said (could be pure speculation). It is my hope that ED will be doing both. This is, of course, simple speculation after all. I am not in any way, shape, or form, qualified to roadmap ED's work, and as such, my statements should be taken with a rather large grain of salt (i.e. don't hate me if it doesn't happen this way). Also This is not advisable, as you would probably die.

I believe this has been reported before, but yes, it still needs to be fixed. It is kind of annoying when your Su-33 goes through the carrier deck and gets stuck.

Looks like your controls may have been remapped. Try resetting them to the defaults and see if that works.

Nice video.

Be careful on this. Because these are renders, much like photographs, they are subject to some optical illusions (optical focal distance, etc.) that can sometimes be unrepresentative of true proportions. You are, however, most likely correct given your background, and it is worth looking into.

I've never read about any F-35's exploding due to lightning strikes. Link to an article about this accident please? On another note though, aircraft simply don't go flying where there is any sort of convective activity. Sometimes they get caught in it, where there isn't much of a choice, but in the vast majority of cases, stuff just goes around it. Lightning strikes will cause considerable damage to most aircraft, and is extremely dangerous regardless. Mostly the damage comes with the associated convective cells though, which tend to rip aircraft to pieces.

No aircraft wants to fly in storms. I don't know why the F-35 is so special.