F-15C Training Missions!

[N22YF]

On 5/21/2021 at 6:47 AM, Krazuul said:

I'm struggling to complete mission 7, because with the new cloud system it's pretty much a complete blind landing.

I have the same problem with the Huey solo landing training mission.

It looks not like the video posted by you on February 21.

 

Could you look into that problem?

 

Alright I looked into it! Turns out this is due to a bug currently in the OpenBeta 2.7 release: 

Hopefully this bug will be fixed soon, but in the meantime, I added a patched version of this mission to work around this bug (by using a weather preset instead of manually setting cloud parameters). Please try this version and let me know if you still have problems! https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3313014/

[StElmosFire]

On 12/5/2020 at 5:08 PM, ia_pro1691 said:

Overall, these missions have been fantastic! Exactly what I was looking for to get started in the F-15C. I'm new to DCS and FC3 was the first "module" I purchased. Couple of suggestions for improvement would be either another "advanced landing" mission that isn't quite as crazy with the cross winds and such to practice the instrument approach with little to no visibility, or toning that down just a bit in that mission. I've yet to successfully get this one done. I'm also still struggling to consistently find contacts on my radar, especially at extended distances like 40+ miles. I know they are out there based on RWR, I'm scanning from 0 to 40-50K feet in different aspects and still can't seem to get any blips on the radar. This isn't specific to your BVR mission, but just playing in general. A longer, more detailed and maybe somewhat slower paced BVR and Radar lesson would be great. 

 

Also, I can confirm Ozmadi's statement about the tailgating F15C. I did some high G, high speed maneuvering through the mountains a bit and both it and the F15E that was off to the side couldn't keep up and never rejoined, but it was a bit of an issue.

 

Yep, that is tough 1a_pro. Thanks for your input and I agree that the extra challenging low approach needs a bit of work. My suggestions are to slow it down by starting 20 miles from the Initial Approach Fix, advising them to slow to 250kts immediately, then 160kts/gear and flaps down at the outer marker.. Then check the times and speeds as it goes. It seems like the speed from the Outer Marker inbound to landing is very fast. Then in our training world the weather should be held to a 200 foot ceiling and at least half the runway insight. I flew to 200 and the windshield was covered with StElmosFire and nothing was in sight. In the real world a normal hand flown approach would be 400 and 1 mile and then on training day we would have to hand fly one to 200 and a half mile. That would be good stiff practice. I love these training missions and only mean these comments to be constructive. One more thing, the cross bars on the ADI were black and did not show up so I had to fly it as a "raw data" approach instead of a flight director approach.. Thanks N22YF for your great , fun effort for us to train on and fly.

Edited June 8, 2021 by StElmosFire
Corrected a mis-statement. HSI should have been ADI

[StElmosFire]

On 12/8/2020 at 7:24 AM, Ozmandi said:

I was finally able to land mission 7

The first time I got so excited I forgot to apply the wheel brakes and ran off the end of the runway, but hey I landed

I've successfully landed it 3 times so far. 

 

I agree with @ia_pro1691 maybe breaking that mission into parts A and B would be better: Part A would be without the crosswind and rain and part B with the crosswind and rain. 

 

 

Overall I am learning how to operate and fly the F-15 with your missions, so great job!

 

Yes indeed, N22YF is doing us a great service by making these training missions. I would like to leave a few bits of constructive comment that may help. On the hard challenge approach and landing some bugs appeared. I crashed at 5000 ft abeam the marker. Surprise, I crashed into the approach lights at the start end of the runway but I was at 3000 ft and the runway is at 1553 there.

Careful, when you taxi into position for departure on the unarmed relocation flight use the left side of the runway or your wingman will plow into you. That will cost you. At mission end I received this message: "You have committed Fratricide. You have lost all your combat scores."

 

[N22YF]

23 hours ago, StElmosFire said:

My suggestions are to slow it down by starting 20 miles from the Initial Approach Fix, advising them to slow to 250kts immediately, then 160kts/gear and flaps down at the outer marker.. Then check the times and speeds as it goes. It seems like the speed from the Outer Marker inbound to landing is very fast. Then in our training world the weather should be held to a 200 foot ceiling and at least half the runway insight. I flew to 200 and the windshield was covered with StElmosFire and nothing was in sight. In the real world a normal hand flown approach would be 400 and 1 mile and then on training day we would have to hand fly one to 200 and a half mile.

 

Thank you so much for all your feedback! I'm away from my sim computer for the next week or so, but I'll look into your spacing and speed suggestions when I have a chance. But if you follow the instructions from the previous lesson to throttle back to get to on-speed AOA after passing the initial approach fix, you should be at 160 kt with gear and flaps down at the outer marker regardless - see my flythrough here (the outer marker is passed at 3:51):

 

 

Also, you should be coming out of the clouds at about 500 ft AGL (as you can see in that video). Are you running OpenBeta, and if so, are you using the latest version of the missions as described above?

 

23 hours ago, StElmosFire said:

One more thing, the cross bars on the ADI were black and did not show up so I had to fly it as a "raw data" approach instead of a flight director approach.

 

I suggest using the flight director cross on the HUD rather than the director bars in the ADI in general, since that allows you to keep your head up rather than looking down at your instruments (not that it matters in an instrument landing, but handy when you do have visibility).

 

23 hours ago, StElmosFire said:

On the hard challenge approach and landing some bugs appeared. I crashed at 5000 ft abeam the marker. Surprise, I crashed into the approach lights at the start end of the runway but I was at 3000 ft and the runway is at 1553 there.

 

If I'm understanding what happened right, this is not exactly a bug - the problem is that the DCS F-15C has no way for the player to adjust the altimeter setting, so depending on the weather, the altimeter can be wrong:

I just noticed this discrepancy in this mission recently, and plan to adjust the weather conditions so that the altimeter reading is accurate on my next update of these missions.

 

23 hours ago, StElmosFire said:

Careful, when you taxi into position for departure on the unarmed relocation flight use the left side of the runway or your wingman will plow into you. That will cost you. At mission end I received this message: "You have committed Fratricide. You have lost all your combat scores."

 

Thanks for pointing this out! (Luckily there's no combat scores in that mission to lose!) Which version of DCS are you running? I'll look into this and see if I can replicate it and find a workaround, but it's possible this is an unavoidable AI bug in the current DCS version, and we'd just have to wait for ED to fix it.

[StElmosFire]

I am running 2.7, not beta. If you taxi into left side of runway for takeoff there is no problem.

You are doing a great job N2YF and we only want to make it better. Is there a way to change the panel lighting so we can see the cross pointers on the ADI. They seem to be black and unlighted. It should make a big difference in our flying to see and use it.

Edited June 9, 2021 by StElmosFire
Clarification

[N22YF]

2 minutes ago, StElmosFire said:

I am running 2.7, not beta.

 

Thanks! (If you're running 2.7, then you are running OpenBeta. The latest stable release at the moment is 2.5.6 - specifically, 2.5.6.61527.3. You can see this here: https://updates.digitalcombatsimulator.com)

[StElmosFire]

OK sorry I didn't look before. I am running the stable release 2.5.6

[MAXsenna]

OK sorry I didn't look before. I am running the stable release 2.5.6

Get both!

Sent from my MAR-LX1A using Tapatalk

[StElmosFire]

On 2/16/2021 at 8:45 AM, draconus said:

By all means it's not perfect and I indeed fly in a forward slip. I don't know if jet fighter pilots would coordinate in this descent - probably yes - neglect on my part. The wind at higher altitude is considerable but near the ground is not at all that bad - so no need for crab. You'll notice me checking the HSI from time to time just to make sure I'm on the right path.

We would just fly the required crab angle all the way to flare and then align with the runway for touchdown. I am new to DCS but have many years flying.

[StElmosFire]

On 6/9/2021 at 3:19 PM, MAXsenna said:

Get both!

Sent from my MAR-LX1A using Tapatalk
 

I will! Briefly, what is the advantage of getting the beta?

[MAXsenna]

I will! Briefly, what is the advantage of getting the beta?

Well, today you don't need to, if you updated though, as they are exactly the same build.
Stable is stable, latest "public" release.
OpenBeta makes you voluntary beta user/tester, but fixes and updates are more frequent.
Lately it seems that most user mods and stuff is heavily geared towards beta, like in this discussion, so if one is on stable, on must wait longer.
New modules released, are "always" released in early access and to beta first.
So I cross my fingers for an update to beta next week, that will include the Hind and the Marianas.
If you do multiplayer, most servers will be on the latest OpenBeta.
I'm sure others can chime in as well.
Cheers!

Sent from my MAR-LX1A using Tapatalk

[StElmosFire]

34 minutes ago, MAXsenna said:

Well, today you don't need to, if you updated though, as they are exactly the same build.
Stable is stable, latest "public" release.
OpenBeta makes you voluntary beta user/tester, but fixes and updates are more frequent.
Lately it seems that most user mods and stuff is heavily geared towards beta, like in this discussion, so if one is on stable, on must wait longer.
New modules released, are "always" released in early access and to beta first.
So I cross my fingers for an update to beta next week, that will include the Hind and the Marianas.
If you do multiplayer, most servers will be on the latest OpenBeta.
I'm sure others can chime in as well.
Cheers!

Sent from my MAR-LX1A using Tapatalk
 

Thanks so much MAR-LX1A. I am a very NEWBOY but getting educated fast. I will go OpenBeta ! 

[MAXsenna]

Thanks so much MAR-LX1A. I am a very NEWBOY but getting educated fast. I will go OpenBeta ! 

Glad to have you here.
I obviously need to change the name on my phone. Just kidding.
I'm Mats BTW.
Cheers!

Sent from my MAR-LX1A using Tapatalk

[StElmosFire]

4 minutes ago, MAXsenna said:

Glad to have you here.
I obviously need to change the name on my phone. Just kidding.
I'm Mats BTW.
Cheers!

Sent from my MAR-LX1A using Tapatalk
 

Looking at your helmet, should I go VR too?

[MAXsenna]

Looking at your helmet, should I go VR too?

Haha!
That's supposed to be a joke. I got that one in 97. Can't believe no vendors ever copied that design.
Anyway. I don't do VR (anymore), yet. Technology has taken leaps, but still not good enough for me, and I like switches. I used in DID's EF2000 that supported it natively, and I could map everything on my TM F-22/TQS/RCS, and even had hardware voice recognition card that totally worked.
My perfect setup would be a clean room with a transperant globe around my pit, with projectors on the outside, and NVIDIA still supporting stereoscopic drivers, and support in DCS of course. But when I eventually go VR, I probably won't return to real life.

Sent from my MAR-LX1A using Tapatalk

[N22YF]

3 hours ago, StElmosFire said:

We would just fly the required crab angle all the way to flare and then align with the runway for touchdown. I am new to DCS but have many years flying.

 

Different aircraft have different optimal ways to perform a crosswind landing, due to differing handling characteristics. For the F-15C, the prescribed procedure is to hold the crab through touchdown.

[N22YF]

Alright I uploaded an updated mission set to the user files (same link)! This update fixes issues caused by that weather bug, and also I adjusted the conditions (QNH) so the altimeter reads more accurately on the instrument landing challenge. This update requires version 2.7 for a few missions, but hopefully most people have upgraded by now anyway.

 

On 6/7/2021 at 9:23 PM, StElmosFire said:

Careful, when you taxi into position for departure on the unarmed relocation flight use the left side of the runway or your wingman will plow into you. That will cost you. At mission end I received this message: "You have committed Fratricide. You have lost all your combat scores."

I looked into this issue - I believe it's this bug: 

I was able to work around it by putting a truck in front of the wingman which drives out of the way only once you get close to the runway, preventing the wingman from starting his taxi until you're about to take off anyway. Hopefully ED will fix this bug soon and I can remove this workaround Thanks again for pointing out this issue!

[=DROOPY=]

Much thanks for all your time and talent N22YF! Much appreciated!

[Paulski]

Thanks for creating these. I am new to DCS and these are very helpful. Keep up the great work!

[Johnspar]

Hy guys. I'm Giovanni from Italy.

I'm trying to find the correct folder to copy the training missions. Does anybody know which is the folder?

I send two photos with the game folders.

Second question: I've to copy the whole folder as it is or I've to copy the single files of the single mission?

Thanks in advance and I wish you a nice day.

Giovanni

Here the second photo.

Thanks again

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[N22YF]

17 minutes ago, Johnspar said:

I'm trying to find the correct folder to copy the training missions. Does anybody know which is the folder?

I send two photos with the game folders.

Second question: I've to copy the whole folder as it is or I've to copy the single files of the single mission?

 

Hello Giovanni! Did you happen to see the provided instructions?

Quote

To install, place the whole folder "F-15C Training (by N22YF)" into your Saved Games missions folder, which is typically in a location such as
C:\Users\[your user name]\Saved Games\DCS\Missions\
or
C:\Users\[your user name]\Saved Games\DCS.openbeta\Missions\

[Johnspar]

25 minutes ago, N22YF said:

 

Hello Giovanni! Did you happen to see the provided instructions?

Yes I saw that instructions. I made several attempts. I've put all the single missions files in several folder of MissionEditor folder but no mission was visible in the game. That's the reason I ask  specific suggestions about the destination folder.

Do you see one that can work?

[N22YF]

26 minutes ago, Johnspar said:

Yes I saw that instructions. I made several attempts. I've put all the single missions files in several folder of MissionEditor folder but no mission was visible in the game. That's the reason I ask  specific suggestions about the destination folder.

Do you see one that can work?

 

They do not go in any "MissionEditor" folder. The folder with the training missions should go in the destination mentioned in the instructions (that is, in your Saved Games missions folder). For a specific example, if your Windows username is "Johnspar" and you're running stable (not OpenBeta), that destination will typically be "C:\Users\Johnspar\Saved Games\DCS\Missions\" for English Windows installations. I'm not sure how other language versions of Windows translate these folder names - for Italian, it may be something like "C:\Utenti\Johnspar\Giochi Salvati\DCS\Missions\" instead. Hope that helps!

[Johnspar]

11 minutes ago, N22YF said:

 

They do not go in any "MissionEditor" folder. The folder with the training missions should go in the destination mentioned in the instructions (that is, in your Saved Games missions folder). For a specific example, if your Windows username is "Johnspar" and you're running stable (not OpenBeta), that destination will typically be "C:\Users\Johnspar\Saved Games\DCS\Missions\" for English Windows installations. I'm not sure how other language versions of Windows translate these folder names - for Italian, it may be something like "C:\Utenti\Johnspar\Giochi Salvati\DCS\Missions\" instead. Hope that helps!

Thank you again. I'll try and I'll give you a feedback.

Have a nice evening.

[MAXsenna]

I did it this way!