PoorOldSpike

I'd like to test it out, is it a stock mission? I tried setting a SA-10 test up in the editor (below) but it wouldn't fire at me at any range or height even though I placed a Command post, Launcher and Radar and made them all "Excellent" quality.

Check it- I've been attacking this Rezky with Maverick 'F's', and it begins locking me up with its radar (ominous beeps) at around 7 miles and lets a SAM fly shortly after (terrifying rapid beeps). So because the Mav's lockon range is also about 7 miles I have to launch a single Mav and then immediately U-turn to get the hell out before SAMs start coming up at me a few seconds later. My point is that I'd dearly LURV to launch several Mavs in quick succession whoosh-whoosh-whoosh-whoosh at 1 second intervals before turning tail, but we can't do that because after every launch the Mav goes back to boresight, meaning we have to manoeuvre the locking triangle over the bloody ship and lock it up all over again which takes several seconds per missile, so to fire 4 Mavs would take around 20 seconds in the face of his incoming SAMS which would be suicide. Or am I doing something wrong. Feel free to post your comments, spiritual advice and death threats here, thanks..:)

Yeah it's just that I suspect some features of the Hornet might be disabled when stationary on the ground. To start airborne just select a mission where you're already in the air (or create your own in the editor) and see if the ails are working now.

Try hitting CTRL + ENTER to get this small joystick and throttle position indicator at bottom left (the diamond is the current stick posn) then waggle your stick to see if the ailerons are dead -

Your pic is a Hornet on the ground, are the ailerons still not working when you get airborne?

I suppose the advantage of auto-going back to boresight after firing a Mav is that we can then quickly engage a different target (eg another tank in a tank group). The disadvantage is that a tough target (eg warship, factory etc) needs more than one Mav hit to nobble it, so it can be a bit of a chore having to lock it up all over again.

The Maverick 'F' has got 3 fuse settings- Impact, Delay 1 and Delay 2 and I'm just wondering which settings are the best to use against ships, buildings, vehicles etc? On paper, the two Delay settings sound logical because the missile will penetrate the target and detonate inside it, but what if the target is too tough to be penetrated by a relative small missile like the Mav,(eg a concrete building or armoured warship or tank), will the missile break up on impact before penetrating and be wasted or what?

I seen it mate but it's all geeky stuff which is a friggin mystery to me, I might psyche myself up later to have a crack at it..:)

Hi guys it's stupid question time again, but how can I lose the 2 MFD panels and the map panel in the shot below so that I'll get a clear view of the ground? I've searched for MFD "off" and Map "off" buttons in the control settings and on the instrument panel but can't find any-

And don't forget we can create our own carrier mission from scratch in the editor in 2 minutes by simply plonking a carrier on the sea. We can keep coming back to it to adjust wind speed and direction and carrier speed and visibility to make it easier/harder to land..:) "Where do we get such men? They leave this ship and they do their job. Then they must find this speck lost somewhere on the sea. When they find it they have to land on it's pitching deck. Where do we get such men?" - Rear Adm George Tarrant, 'The Bridges at Toko-Ri'

Yeah the Editor is the best way to go, you can create a simple uncluttered mission from scratch in just 5 mins no kidding, keep it ultra-simple with no frills to start with, I do it all the time..:)

Just an idea, but try switching the radar off (with the pointed switch on the right elbow side panel) then back on again to give yourself a clean slate to start from.

Something about FRAPS to bear in mind is that although it usually captures all ingame sequences fine, it sometimes won't capture static shots of menu lists and hotkey lists etc, it all depends on what game or sim it is. Also some vids might not work ("format not supported") depending what format its in, and what player you're using, so you have to go into geek mode to correctly set the settings etc.

An idea- arrange with your multiplayer opponent to play a friendly non-competitive experimental game with you so that when/if the stars appear you can ask him what he just did, if anything..:)

I don't play multiplayer and therefore haven't seen the stars, but I seem to remember in some other computer flight sims and strategy games over the years that a star-shaped symbol on the radar screen indicated that the enemy had got their ECM jammers on to produce a "ghost return" or something like that to confuse your radar, dunno if there's a clue there?

1- FRAPS is free and works fine, you only need pay for the jazzed-up version with more bells and whistles on it if you want to buy it..:) 2- In fact strictly speaking we don't need FRAPS or any other brand of screen capture program at all, we can simply point our smartphone or camera etc at the screen and start recording, then download it to our computer, then upload it to youtube, I do it all the time with games and sims. Warning- the quality and definition is not as good with this method. 3- Why is DCS a "disappointment" to you? Do you mean F/A-18C? I paid 62 GB pounds (75 US dollars) for F/A-18C a couple of weeks ago, (I should have waited for the sale, duh) and considering the amount of work the programmers put into it I think it's a fair price but it's really for hardcore flight simmers who lurv having to click a thousand buttons to make it go. Other types (eg the free Su25) seem easier to fly.

After shooting a vid with Fraps and moving it to desktop, I then usually open it with 'Movie Maker' to crop out the bits I don't want. Then I upload it to youtube then pick up the link to post in forums. I haven't done all that for ages so am rusty which is why the definition of my vid was terrible, it's my fault not FRAPS or anybody elses.

Well I made this vid 15 minutes ago with FRAPS of my superb landing attempt on a carrier, but I somehow botched the quality (I'm not a geek), is the link showing ok in this post? PS- yeah I know I shouldn't have tried to be smart by flaring, and to rub in salt I was too slow reaching for the eject button (sniffle)..

Ah, but that'd make me a SAM/AA magnet and the poor natives would scurry indoors shrieking "Aieee, it is he who walks with danger!" Anyway I'm having some success with what other guys have suggested by using the F2 and snapview keys to jump to a look behind view like below after releasing the bombs, eat this Ivan-

In Flight Sim X we're told that a big framerate killer is civilian traffic so I keep the civvy traffic option set low in FSX. There's a civvy traffic option in F/A-18C too (and birds) which might speed up framerates if we disable it? Incidentally my PC is pretty high-end but it still gets hot when running F/A-18C and I hope I won't get overheating problems during a long session. PS- I haven't got DCS F-16 but I've seen youtube vids of it landing on a carrier in the sim, yet I thought in real life it's not a carrier plane?

Meanwhile we have to use chaff and flares

Build your own simple little mission in 5 minutes in the editor, just your Hornet against one enemy plane (eg a fat slow transport like the AN-30) then you'll have all the time in the world to test everything out without any clutter. I mission-build all the time to try out different weapon systems etc as I find it's by far the best way to learn. PS- and of course you'll know for certain your own missions are bang up to date, whereas older stock missions (and guides and tutorials) might have been created with earlier outdated Hornet versions.

Thanks, I wish Hornet had more hotkeys so we wouldn't have to keep fiddling with the cockpit switches. As for stability, I suppose it depends on what stores we're carrying, for example I'm finding that dropping a heavy bomb or launching a heavy A/G missile from one pylon unbalances the trim and makes the plane go into a fairly hard bank towards the still-loaded opposite wing.

I've probably misunderstood the opening post but it's worth remembering to click 'ENT' on the a/p panel each time we type in a set of numbers. PS- can i sneak in a question of my own and ask if there's a simple a/p hotkey that we can hit to keep our plane flying straight and level on its own whenever we hop out of the cockpit to follow our missiles and bombs etc?

Yes guys I'll have to consider forking out for a super-duper stick/throttle job, meanwhile I'll make do with Fitness and LTRM's suggestion of doing RCtrl-Enter to get that orange panel at bottom left below to see where the sliding throttle is set to, it's that small horizontal bar that slides up and down on the left edge of the panel-