Why do so few people only do VFR flights?

[Bond 42]

I don't have any RL experience in this regard, but according to quite a few books I read, "bad weather", however that is defined, doesn't prevent air assets from taking off and doing the best they can to do their job and support the troops on the ground, including the very situation described here a few posts ago where the airfield might be covered in bad weather while the AO might be relatively clear.

 

 

 

Just now I'm reading "Flying the F-15E in the Gulf War" and the point is made numerous times that refueling at night in bad weather was almost as dangerous as crossing the border into Iraq and attacking targets that were heavily defended by anti-air assets.

 

 

 

Of course everyone is free to choose their preferred environment in DCS. Personally, I think being able to fly in bad weather and low visibility makes me a better sim pilot and also helps me learn, and appreciate, many of those systems that are hardly ever needed when flying VFR in a well known area. But each to their own.

 

 

 

I do understand Snipers point of view since I fly real life myself.. But I have also flown missions overseas in real life also.

 

Yurgon, is correct.. We do try our best no matter what the weather to support our ground assets. So flying in weather/low vis "sand storms" did happen.

[CoBlue]

The last thing I want to do is fly IFR in something that I want to have fun in and make it feel like I'm at work. Also, if the weather is bad IRL, you won't have an air support so why do it here? This is from my real life experience. IMO IFR needs to be left to someone that wants to fly approaches on FSX.

Telling people to go to FSX to fly approaches is a little over the top!

We have a weather engine & last time I checked all military pilots are IFR rated, also allot of flying is done in IMC at least in northern Europe.

 

Seems like you haven't thought of this scenario:

The weather is IMC at your airport, but above it's clear & the bandits are coming to bomb your airport....what are DCS pilots supposed to do? sit there & say, we can't scramble coz we can't do an ILS, so we might as well be bombed?

Every DCS pilot should at least be able to preform an ILS IMHO.

War doesn't care if its bad weather!

 

It would be great if we could limit the weather coverage on the map by distance, so we can have IFR at one airport & clear weather at another.

Edited July 10, 2016 by CoBlue

[MBot]

The dynamic weather system in DCS is beautiful. However the UI and creation pipeline is unpleasant to use.

 

1. The position of the pressure centers needs to be editable in-editor, preferably via mouse dragging including positions well outside the map boundaries. You can text edit the miz for this but it's a pain.

 

2. More weather symbols on the weather map to give feedback to cloud coverage and precipitation. Most mission authors are looking for a certain weather feel and better 2D or even 3D feedback would be appreciated. Perhaps an additional slider for humidity bias would help creating wet weather which is darn difficult to do now.

 

3. Minor but the default pressure deltas for generated weather is slightly too much. It would be nice if these would be slider adjustments and not text box only which is slower and encourages round numbers too much.

 

The dynamic weather system is a very nice idea, but it is fundamentally flawed. It misses essential elements such as multiple air masses with distinctive properties (temperature, density, humidity), whose interraction is the cause of weather fronts. And it has some things plainly wrong, such as wind increasing as a function of distrance to the pressure area center. While a new UI for the dynamic weather would be a welcome addition, it will not fix the flawed system.

[112th_Rossi]

Recently did a bad weather IFR landing in the L39

 

yFulK4G959M

[Kerrija]

Recently did a bad weather IFR landing in the L39

 

yFulK4G959M

 

Nice video, but you really have to be careful with the glidepath. You just kept happily descending even after the command bar hit the top of the instrument.

 

If you want to fly IFR, you have to stay vigilant :joystick:

[BSS_Sniper]

Telling people to go to FSX to fly approaches is a little over the top!

We have a weather engine & last time I checked all military pilots are IFR rated, also allot of flying is done in IMC at least in northern Europe.

 

Seems like you haven't thought of this scenario:

The weather is IMC at your airport, but above it's clear & the bandits are coming to bomb your airport....what are DCS pilots supposed to do? sit there & say, we can't scramble coz we can't do an ILS, so we might as well be bombed?

Every DCS pilot should at least be able to preform an ILS IMHO.

War doesn't care if its bad weather!

 

It would be great if we could limit the weather coverage on the map by distance, so we can have IFR at one airport & clear weather at another.

 

I didn't mean to sound rude. Have you ever reread something later and thought to yourself, "oh, that didn't come across as planned"? That just happened. lol What I mean is that since this is a combat sim AND I can pretty much bet that most people don't know how to fly IFR, it probably isn't the best place to do it, not to mention that it would be difficult at best in most of the aircraft and impossible in some. I've also noticed that the ILS in here doesn't really work that well, unless it really is set to put you in a 2000' per minute decent, which we know it shouldn't be. I don't think DCS is the best place for it, for many reasons, mainly because it isn't set up for it like some others may be.

[grunf]

I didn't mean to sound rude. Have you ever reread something later and thought to yourself, "oh, that didn't come across as planned"? That just happened. lol What I mean is that since this is a combat sim AND I can pretty much bet that most people don't know how to fly IFR, it probably isn't the best place to do it, not to mention that it would be difficult at best in most of the aircraft and impossible in some. I've also noticed that the ILS in here doesn't really work that well, unless it really is set to put you in a 2000' per minute decent, which we know it shouldn't be. I don't think DCS is the best place for it, for many reasons, mainly because it isn't set up for it like some others may be.

I think you're underestimating the people here :D. I'm sure most people would be able to fly IFR from point A to B, and land, even though it may not be the perfect by the book procedure.

[snowsniper]

I have most fun flying real approach and departure charts in challenging weather

no matter the aircraft. It's really rewarding.

 

you can easily find SID STAR charts for Sochi, tibilisi, (international airport )

google "sochi jeppesen chart" and you've got it. snapshot in a png file and it's in your kneeboard.

you can make real flight plan with free skyvector site also https://skyvector.com/

 

You would say for a civilian flight like that go back to fsx or Xplane.

no thanks

nowadays I need high level FM and system now,

not a crappy plane without ground effect, witch FM is in a small txt file only.

 

The only think a bit boring in DCS is that all aircraft have very different nav system.

such a pitty we can't use a simple VOR or NDB khz in all aircraft.

for exemple on NTTR very difficult to do real departure and nav for exemple SID "Mormon mesa" or "Dream4departure", on Nellis without a Tacan aircraft.

[Yurgon]

What I mean is that since this is a combat sim AND I can pretty much bet that most people don't know how to fly IFR, it probably isn't the best place to do it, not to mention that it would be difficult at best in most of the aircraft and impossible in some.

 

Well DCS isn't called a "sandbox" environment for no reason. ;)

 

I don't currently fly other flight sims so I can't compare their IFR representation to the one we get in DCS. But I do think it makes a lot of sense to train IFR procedures in DCS. Maybe that's not realistic, and I'm sure few people would get them right according to RL rules and regulations.

 

But I wouldn't want to be in a position where I have to eject over enemy territory just because I can't find my way back home at night with a low ceiling after getting my CICU and some other instruments shot to pieces. If I've still got TACAN or some kind of FM homing or a wingman to help me, I think it's part of the immersion to try to get back home or to the closest divert field and get that piece of scrap metal on the ground with the virtual pilot still alive. :thumbup:

 

Besides, I've had ferry flights in bad weather that were a lot more immersive than some full-blown, complex combat missions because it was just so much fun concentrating on flying the bird, especially if it's something like the Huey that's not really well suited for the task. I think that's the great thing about DCS, that we can choose what we want to do in it. Then again, I don't fly aircraft in RL, so flying through clouds on a windy day with an array of navigation and autopilot systems making sure I'm exactly where I am supposed to be isn't something boring to me. ;)

 

If missions/campaigns were more realistic, with 2+ hour ingress and egress and multiple AARs on the way, I'd probably get bored a lot quicker. OTOH, that would also require quite a bit of instrument flying, which would be quite interesting. :)

[Bond 42]

The biggest problem I see is having certain aircraft unable to put in, for example an ILS frequency and tuning the course.

Unless I just don't know the keyboard commands but in the F-15 I'm unable... And I'm guessing that's the same for all FC3 aircraft? If we can at least tune a VOR/Tacan/Loc in all aircraft it can work...

And like Sniper mentioned, the Nav-Aids need to be checked/fixed from what they currently are to make them accurate if they are not.

 

Picture is a real life example of flying a mission and returning to base, only to find a sand storm blowing in. Low fuel, divert is too far.. Shoot the ILS.

If we can add "IFR" weather to certain areas on the map so you can fly your missions, etc, but get to do an instrument approach at the end could be fun, and realistic.

 

[Vitormouraa]

Well, time ago I did a very nice landing (at least to me) at night, with almost zero of visibility. After that I realised IFR landings, especially when you don't have good visibility, i.e you don't see the runway anyway, it's not so difficult as I used to think, with practice you can do everything. I really like to do IFR landings, especially in the A-10C, even though the DCS is a little bit limited when it comes about IFR/VFR landings and that kind of thing, I like it, here is a track of it, if you want to check it out, I tried to record and post the video here, but I had a few problems with recording and the .mp4 file..

 

EDIT: I watched the track again, I recorded that using 1.5.3, weirdly after the landing, I went to the grass, but actually I landed perfectly, on the centerline, that's a bug I am sure.

A-10C Hardcore landing.trk

Edited July 21, 2016 by Vitormouraa

[PilotBRoberts]

Paradox. You seem to have good ideas and are on the same page as me. I too would like to do some more challenging flights with actual people. I've read Viper Pilot. What a great book! If you are interested in doing some flights and or missions with the prerequisites you mention I'd love to join up!

[lmp]

The only think a bit boring in DCS is that all aircraft have very different nav system.

 

Really? Diversity is boring? :unsure:

 

I would say it's the other way around, if all aircraft had similar nav systems, now THAT would be boring. Right now the A-10C with it's ILS, TACAN, mission computer etc. provides completely different navigational challenges than, say, the MiG-15bis with it's OSP-48 "instrument approach system". Sure, it won't do a fancy STAR, but back in the 50s if you were a MiG pilot, you were expected to perform IMC landings relying on NDBs, marker beacons and a radio altimeter.

[Aginor]

Really? Diversity is boring? :unsure:

 

That confused me too. But I guess snowsniper just used the wrong word, he isn't a native English speaker I think.

[snowsniper]

That confused me too. But I guess snowsniper just used the wrong word, he isn't a native English speaker I think.

 

thanks for the comprehensive word.

 

of course I love the diversity of system, for exemple a 21bis RSBN box is a lot of fun...but you can't do it on Nevada.

In the same way, there is only a few "tacaned" airfield on CAUCASUS : five or six maybe ?

In the recent F5 you can use UHF for homing in Nav mod, but has anyone found a ndb in 215 225 250 or 275 mhz ?

only the F86 UH1 gazelle mi-8 can use a 0 to 1000Khz NDB.

can't use it with a tacan Aircraft.

 

In real SID STAR, you often do the standard approach and departure in relation to the NDB position. in a M2000 you have to put a waypoint on it first or use the Tacan if available.

 

and yes I'm french ...so sorry for my english and confusion of what i 'd like to explain.:megalol:

[Looney]

In my wing, we're setting up PAR approach procedures to "talk" planes down onto the runway using LOTATC's PAR function.