Ground Crew and Arming/Servicing Suggestions

[Andrew8604]

What ground servicing equipment is required for the F-5E? Start cart? Does a single cart provide both electrical power and engine starting air?

 

Whatever equipment is needed, can it be shown around the F-5E? Although, it would need to be placed clear of the aircraft so it could taxi without the equipment needing to be moved. And don't want it to be placed where other equipment might already be.

 

Can hoses and cables be shown on the ground and connected to the aircraft when they are connected, and laying to the side of the aircraft or stowed on the starting equipment when not connected? This way, a look to the side might confirm ground equipment is disconnected before you start taxiing the aircraft.

 

Same with fuel truck and/or fueling hose.

 

Presently, refueling and reload takes a fairly short amount of time, I think. The pit crews at the Indy 500 (or other automobile races) aren't much faster. :smilewink: But those pit crews don't have to attach things like 500-lb bombs to bomb racks and safety-wire their fuses so they won't blow up the plane they are attached to. But for game play, or those with limited time, waiting so long for loading/refueling can be a problem.

 

How about an option to choose "Fast Re-arm/Refuel" or "Realistic Re-arm/Refuel" speed? Being able to re-load and refuel in a minute is not very realistic, I think. In reality, I'd imagine it would take at least 30 minutes for a real ground crew to do this, depending on load out selected. Watching your plane being loaded with no visible crew or activity around it for 30 minutes...well, I suppose that would likely generate "bug" reports. But if you could show the ground crew personnel and equipment around the aircraft--even if shown in a 'static' position at each station--that 30 minutes would seem to go a lot quicker. Maybe with a count-down timer 'hovering' over each activity so you know how much longer it will be. For example, show one crewmember with the fuel hose, refueling the aircraft--maybe 7 minutes. At the same time, maybe 3 crew members are at the wingtip loading up a new AIM-9--4 minutes. While another crew member is at the rear of the aircraft loading in a new drag chute--4 minutes. Then the three ordnance persons move to the other wing tip and load that Sidewinder--another 4 minutes. They would just be static figures in a fixed pose and would 'jump' from station to station...but it would be something. From there they move to each of the 5 pylons and spend about 5 minutes at each--weapons have to be lifted to and mounted on pylons, cartridges have to be loaded, arming wires connected, safety pins installed. 5 minutes would be quick, I think. Would have to assume a multiple ejector rack would already have all its bombs attached, or that could be a long time. Additionally, might add the random, rare chance of the ground crew having to pull a weapon back off the plane because they found some sort of defect with it...just an idea.

 

I know many people would choose "Fast", but there are nuts like me who want to wait the full time. Doesn't seem like it would take too much more programming to have the option.

 

After arming, bring the air hose and electrical cable to the plane for engine starting.

 

Safety pins: normally, I think the aircraft is loaded on the ramp and safety pinned. Then they taxi to the arming area near the runway--away from most personnel and structures--where the safety pins are removed and the aircraft is then armed and ready, under control of its cockpit weapons control panel.

 

After flight, they need to stop at the arming area again, I think, to have safety pins re-inserted for remaining munitions, and pylons that could still be jettisoned by cockpit switches...but that jettison function is intended for flight use. Don't want them jettisoned on the ground.

 

Also, at some point, safety pins are installed into the landing gear, I believe.

 

Are there plans to add any of this to the F-5E module...or do some of these have to be added at the overall DCS World level?