New guy

[PFunk1606688187]

Oh of course. Its better to read the manual in detail than to learn disparate elements of the systems as taught in a fragmented practical ad hoc environment.

 

Its really just a shame that with all the detail in the manuals we're left wanting for how to apply it. Even without the tactics the CCIP element itself is demonstrative of the limitations of the available information. While we have an interface explanation we have no indication of even a training context application.

 

Without even taking into account the very relevant tactical context, the basic application of general dive bombing is basically bread and butter Air to Ground knowledge yet is generally a discipline thats absent from most people's thinking even if they make ham fisted attempts at doing it. Its like being told to solve a math problem but being given none of the basics of the math necessary to do so.

 

So I believe fully consuming the manual provided excellently for me learning better when I encountered the right tactics from others, but without being lead in the right direction the manual alone left me wanting and hardly able to progress further than being another TGP4LIFE dilettante.

[StrongHarm]

Agreed, and well said. I continue to encourage people to read the manual because subsystem familiarization is the logical first step in learning any aircraft. It saddens me to see people skip this step and try to work backward from procedure to system. I imagine that a lot of the enjoyment and wonder are lost. The math analogy is a good one; working from procedure to system is like memorizing calculus theorem before you understand continuous function or basic mathematics. My persistence may be a residual effect of my 'data crusade' in my work. I'm a Business Intelligence Architect and I panic when I see a company focus on indicators without cleansing and governing the data behind them. I guess as far as hang-ups go, it could be worse. :)

[PFunk1606688187]

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=117350&page=3

 

This just reminded me of this thread and this thread I'm linking is directly relevant to what I mean when I talk about the limitations of the provided documentation.

 

Beside the obvious broad detail provided about something extremely important to attack aircraft (dive bombing) thats absent from the DCS documentation, the poster in post #30 at the bottom of the page says something I didn't even realize thats central to my complaint:

 

Well I've only played DCS sims, but I can say that the A-10C tutorial doesn't tell you how to properly enter a dive like a real pilot would. It's just completely absent from any of the material that comes with the game. How is anyone supposed to know this stuff? The tutorial says, "enter a dive" and so my first reaction is, "okay, a dive -- that means down," and I proceed to do a negative G pushover, not knowing any better, and of course not being able to feel how uncomfortable it is since I'm in reality sitting stationary in my house. I'm just grateful to have a few military aviators hanging around the forums to fill those knowledge gaps

 

So we see that DCS is even trying to instruct us on how to do things without explaining how to actually do them, that is to say fly the actual airplane.

 

So on this level the documentation is extremely insufficient because everyone who learns to fly in an air force learns how to fly a dive bomb when they get introduced to an aircraft that contains a system for doing so. To have one without the other is basically inconceivable, except in a computer game. Even the essentials of an overview of bombing, handling the aircraft in combat maneuvers, and the like is missing. If sim pilots don't even know you don't push negative Gs without running to the forums then thats a gap. Flying the airplane is 1000% more important than using systems and yet the manual fundamentally fails to instruct on this topic.

 

Lets get back to earlier, when I had forgotten the full measure of the manual, and I was being told that the manual does an excellent job of reading like a military manual that explains systems. Yes, it does, but it also in the later part begins to look like something that goes beyond this scope. Page 486 is called Flight School which is no section of a military systems overview I've read and it seeks to:

 

provide you with the requirements and our recommendations for flying the A-10C after you have completed the Startup and have a good grasp of navigation and the principles of flight. Flight School will cover each phase of a sortie, from taxi prep to engine shut down, and it assumes that all aircraft systems are working properly (no failures).

 

This section fails to indicate that the sortie in question is likely nothing more complicated than a ferry mission given the total lack of any combat in the chapter. Then we get to page 507 and the tantalizing title of Combat Employment. Yes, now the good stuff and I can see in my head the nugget simmer rubbing his hands together in anticipation... oh... no nevermind. This section doesn't explain combat employment of weapons, it explains the adjustment of systems during the combat phase and general ideas such as, breaking off at the minimum range in a gun attack, meanwhile giving absolutely no indication of what such a range would be or the tactical factors that inform such a range.

 

It does what the poster above said, it assumes a thing is happening and yet that thing is not explained at all and yet that thing is the very action (such as a roll in to a dive) that pilots will practice week in and week out to accomplish.This chapter should begin with an overview of how weapons are employed, discussion of the bombing triangle and factors in flying the aircraft during all of these types of attack. This section is totally lacking any discussion of airmanship even though thats the heart and soul of all forms of aerial combat. This section of the manual reads like it could have been written by a RAND planner from the late 50s jacked up on systems with no knowledge of air combat.

 

Maybe thats a bit ungenerous. Its not horrible, it gives a few minor pointers, explaining CCIP is more accurate than CCRP, advising on the actual range to shoot rockets at. Overall though it does nothing to explain flying itself and so the nugget is left with only one explanation of how to enter a dive in the whole manual and its from our ferry mission:

 

To decrease altitude, push the stick forward and lower the nose of the aircraft below the

horizon. As you pitch down though, you will increase your airspeed. To maintain current

airspeed, you can reduce throttles or open the speed brakes.

 

Meanwhile the section on CCIP bombing, a largely visual experience, starts like this:

 

Having configured your profile and possible inventory settings for an unguided bomb delivery, we will now discuss delivery HUD symbology....

 

Yes lets discuss the HUD symbology. :huh: