jaylw314

IIRC, the A-10C interface was designed much later than the Hornet's interface. Ergonomics has become much more of a thing since the Hornet came out! Also, consider playing around with Joystick Gremlin. You can employ similar button functionality (modes and long-presses) as well as other functionality (button double-taps) to make your controls more capable flying other modules like the Hornet!

Not sure what your level of familiarity is, so forgive me if this sounds condescending-- Aside from ensuring your bindings are correct, you do realize the main indication that TMS Forward Long worked is that whatever is currently SOI will show up in the lower left of the HUD. If your TGP is SOI, and you do TMS FL, TGP should appear on the HUD. Sure, the wedding cake icon will appear where the TGP is currently pointing on the TAD and in the HMCS, but the HUD label is your main cue as to what is doing the pointing. Likewise, China Hat FL will only work if your TGP is not set as the current SPI (since there not be another pointer to slave it to). As to the key bindings, make sure you're not running the joystick through the TM TARGET software, and view the DirectX inputs through a joystick monitor or the window "USB Game Controllers" window to make sure you're not having a noisy button. If it's flickering when held down, it may not be read as a long press, but it's hard to imagine you would have TWO separate buttons doing that.

The hawg does take a fair amount of elevator travel to pull the nose up. I'm not sure why, but setting takeoff trim doesn't actually provide any nose up, it just centers the elevator trim tab. This may be why the hawg doesn't gently lift off the runway at rotation speed, you've got to crank the nose up fairly assertively. Think of that massive gun in the nose...

NOOO! Never use the ADI during takeoff! Well, at least not in visual conditions. You should always use visual cues outside the cockpit in visual conditions. Two easy options: Look at the top edge of the HUD glass, with my seating position it sits about 3 degrees below the horizon on the ground. On rotation, to pitch up 12 degrees I lift the nose until the edge of the glass sits at about 5 degrees above the horizon. Look through the bottom of the HUD or at the nose. Mine sits about 17 degrees down, so to pitch up 12 degrees, pitch up until the nose touches about 5 degrees below the horizon Obviously, the numbers above only apply to my seating position, but keeping your head up during the takeoff roll is important and more precise than the ADI. Also note the AOA indicator to the left of the HUD will be green when you're at the proper takeoff AOA--not precise, but quick and easy.

POINT track is a mode that is ONLY relevant to the TGP, not the Maverick seeker head. Once the Maverick seeker head is locked on the MAV page, it should, in theory, follow a moving target all the way through launch and impact. In practice, that's not always a guarantee, but you're just as likely to lock the Maverick on the wrong target accidentally in the first place. POINT track on the TGP is helpful if you're using it to cue the Maverick seeker head. The TGP will not follow a moving target unless it's in POINT track mode (and only from certain angles). As long as it does, you can slave the Maverick seeker head to follow, but the Maverick is not actually locked on in that case. You still need to switch to the MAV page and press TMS up short to attempt to lock the seeker head on target. If you do not do this, the Maverick will not launch, you'll get a "no lock launch inhibit" warning.

I think you are misunderstanding "camber," and are instead talking about the aircraft's nose attitude. Lowering flaps will indeed pitch the aircraft nose down (with some exceptions) with respect to the TVV or the direction of motion. Watch the TVV when you deploy MVR flaps, you will see the TVV slide up about 3-4 degrees (alternatively, keeping the TVV steady requires pitching the nose down). The plane can pitch up or down transiently and varies due to a number of design factors, but the aircraft will always pitch down compared to the TVV. My favorite exception is the Cessna 172, which pitches nose up (and climbs) a lot when you extend flaps, because the downwash over the flaps hits the horizontal stabs. If we had a HUD with a TVV and kept the TVV steady, though, we'd need a pitch down moment. On approach to landing, the pitch down moment gives you a better view than if you're pointing excessively nose high, like the Concorde. The aircraft pitches nose down for 2 reasons. AFAIK, #2 is more significant than #1 The wing chord angle changes. When you drop flaps, the wing actually gains some AOA if you draw a line from the leading edge to the trailing edge, so to fly the same AOA requires the rest of the plan to pitch down by the same amount The wing creates more lift, and more lift ALWAYS produces a nose down moment. For this, it doesn't matter that the flaps are at the rear--leading edge slats that create more lift will also cause a nose down moment when deployed When you drop the flaps to MVR, you increase lift more than drag. When you drop the flaps to DN, you increase drag more than lift. Hence, the pitch down moment is stronger dropping from UP to MVR than from MVR to DN. FWIW, camber is a description of the shape of the wing's cross section. Most wings have positive camber, and dropping flaps and/or slats actually increases camber. Positive camber produces more lift and drag for a given AOA, but also decreases stall speed.

If the goal is the minimum necessary for DCS, also skip the T/O Trim button, since the trim tabs default to neutral. What @Yurgon is referring to is that you are misunderstanding the Emergency Brake handle in the A-10C. It is NOT a parking brake--it is a valve that dumps hydraulic pressure in an emergency accumulator into the (left, correct me if I'm wrong) hydraulic system if its pump has failed. This gives you just enough pressure to use the toe brakes a few times. It does not actuate the wheelbrakes, and you'll find the plane will still roll downhill quite well with it pulled (as on some of the ramps in the Syria map). Since the A-10C has no parking brake or ability to use wheelchocks, once the engines come on to idle power, the only way to ensure you don't roll forwards while aligning is to stand on the wheelbrakes. I recall someone mentioning US aircraft do not request permission to start engines, that's a Russian thing (maybe European too?). It's perfectly fair to come up with a custom checklist in DCS, but I'd suggest having a better "cockpit flow", where everything is ordered in a way to move from one panel to the next in sequence, to reduce the risk of error or omissions. It's something NASA has been discussing in civil non-commerical aviation, where custom/homegrown checklists are the norm. I use the following flow for startup: Power panel Right Console CDU/EGI switch Lighting panel Radio panel APU/Engines start SAS Panel Left panel Center panel Right panel CMDS panel Then the remaining individual items: APU/APU Gen off Alignment DTS Load NMSP EAC On NWS On It gets the job done, can be done by memory, is faster than going through a to-do checklist and reduces the chances of errors. It would also, of course, be completely unrealistic as well as un-kosher for military use!

A couple of things: AFAIK the INR-P and INR-A modes ALMOST, but not quite, match up with the laser masking areas. The true indication of a masked laser is the "M" cue on the TGP and HUD. When you are close to the laser masked area, the "M" cue will flash, then turn solid when you are well and truly masked, and the "L" cue will stop flashing and turn back to solid as it turns off. I'm not sure how the IR pointer works, don't have much experience with it, but I assume when you are in "B" mode for both IR and laser, the "M" cue will prevent the laser from firing but the IR pointer fires okay as mentioned above Also realize the physical range of the TGP laser is 8.2 nm slant range, IIRC. Anything beyond that will not actually be designated by the laser

My understanding with flaps in the DN position, the MAXIMUM it will lift with aerodynamic pressure is to 15 degrees, and in the MVR setting, the MAXIMUM it will lift is to 0 degrees.

referring to TO 1A-10C-1, when at speed and flaps are in MVR, and FER is engaged, the flaps are driven all the way up to 0 degrees by aerodynamic pressure. When flaps are in DN and FER is engaged, flaps are only driven up to 15 degrees by aerodynamic pressure. It sort of makes sense if you look at the flaps, which are fowler flaps rather than simple flaps. There is a hinge that angles them down, but they also slide on a track AFT. In general, flaps cause more drag than lift as they're extended further. Once they've they're fully down and slid aft, they cause so much drag they're pretty tough for the airstream to push them forwards. In the MVR setting, they create more lift than drag and they have much less distance to travel forwards. You should realize that with the flaps DN and FER engaged, the flaps essentially remain extended (you're only getting them up to 15 degrees). That means technically your maximum airspeed is limited to 200 KIAS (flaps extended). I don't think your crew chief will yell at you if people were shooting at you, though

Given the issue with the FER keybind you posted elsewhere, it may be worthwhile to double-check or even clear out your keybinds? Something's happening that shouldn't be, and if there is one keybind issue, there could certainly be another elsewhere.

Not that I'm aware of. By "read-only" I just meant the waypoints can't be modified in the STRINFO and WPINFO pages.

That was kind of the point of the very next sentence that you left out-- "However, the content is pretty useful and good curriculum for what skills to learn and in what order."

The STRINFO page is a read-only info page selected by turning the PAGE knob on the AAP to STEER (or pressing FUNC then 0 on the UFC). It's not part of the WAYPT subpage In the WP menu, the WAYPOINT OSB brings up the WAYPT subpage. You can change and modify any waypoint here. If you happen to select the waypoint that is the current steerpoint, you'll see SP to the right of the waypoint identifier. If you go away from this page and come back to it via WP menu -> WAYPOINT OSB, it'll bring up the last waypoint you had selected. If you press the STEERPOINT OSB from the WP menu, it will send you to the WAYPT subpage, but it will automatically select the current steerpoint instead of the last selected waypoint. As an example, if waypoint 0 is my current steerpoint, I can go to the WP MENU -> WAYPOINT OSB and select waypoint 3 to modify it. However, waypoint 0 remains the current steerpoint. If I go elsewhere in the CDU and return to via WP MENU -> WAYPOINT OSB, waypoint 3 will still be selected even though waypoint 0 is still the steerpoint. If, however, I press WP MENU -> STEERPOINT, it will bring up the WAYPT subpage with waypoint 0 selected instead.

I HATE the Maple Flag A-10C training campaigns, but the first two have been updated for the A-10C II. They're terrible for the learner because the only way to progress through the campaigns is if you already know the material and have the proper skills, which is pretty demoralizing. However, the content is pretty useful and good curriculum for what skills to learn and in what order. Search online for the "TO-1A-10C-1". It's the USAF A-10C flight manual and has a LOT of the technical details if you're interested in the "why" behind the "how". Since it's a military document, it's not kosher to post or share even though it's declassified, but you can find copies of it online if you look carefully enough.

On a stabilized gun run, they're only experiencing 1G On the other hand, if they're maneuvering and pulling G's, a lot of stuff in the HUD ends up near the bottom!

In VR, I instinctively lean forwards during gun runs, and then the whole HUD becomes visible. I suspect they do that in real life, too, but I've never seen cockpit footage of the pilot during an attack run...

Hey, uh, I'm pretty sure that's just a shot from DCS run through some blurring and video filters

You're thinking of Goldmember from the Austin Powers movie Flickers tap to communicate as well as feeding or making nests. You can hear another flicker in the background tapping in response

FWIW, here are some screenshots from VR. I reset my VR position to the default position immediately before hand. This is the right eye: Here's the left eye: And finally, I moved my right eye to the centerline: As you can see, the top of the HUD is significantly below the horizon and the TVV and boresight circle are impossible to see without leaning down and/or forwards (although not quite as low as I recalled earlier without the benefit of screenshots). Here's the same starting view in 2D mode: To me, it's pretty darned close to identical, maybe the viewpoint is a tiny bit lower, but it's definitely not the case that the VR default view was made perfect at the expense of the 2D default view. Whatever change was made was made to both equally.

Just to be clear, I was pointing out that the new default position in VR is pretty close to what you're describing. It's not better for or unique to VR. You can't see the whole HUD display without moving your head down, and on the ground you can't even see your TVV. It's not the case the view was changed to improve VR. It's a change that makes this an issue for everyone. I thought I recall reading somewhere that this was done because it was a more realistic position, but I can't find that reference now.

The default position did seem to get significantly higher in VR. The HUD field of view seems to be from the nose to just above the altitude/airspeed text in the HUD. The boresight circle is only visible if I lower my head and lean forwards, and the horizon is at least 5 degrees above the top edge of the HUD. I used to lower my seat because it seemed so wrong, but in retrospect, the masking of the HMCS makes more sense. With a lower position, the HMCS would display over the upper part of the HUD, but with the default position, the masking is correct. So I suspect this was actually their intention--no idea if this is the correct position IRL.

The iron oxide is just the oxidizer in thermite, or essentially a source of oxygen. Aluminum will burn in oxygen, but it's just so danged hard to ignite. Magnesium is easier to ignite, but it's still no slouch. Ironically, racing wheel rims are sometimes made of magnesium alloy, and rims with failed tires are probably one of the easiest ways to get it to ignite!

That's garrulous and uncalled for. The calculated wind is on the LASTE wind page in the upper right (also in the STRINFO page). If you enter data in the LASTE wind page, it overrides the calculated value. I don't know whether the value in DCS is actually calculated from position and air data or just copied from the mission settings, though there is not a practical difference in DCS

Yes, well, it only ignites at temperatures where you're unlikely to be alive enough to be worried about it. Sparks from signal wires are not going to ignite it. I'd also point out that aluminum is the main ingredient in thermite, but we still make planes out of it