Community A-4E-C v2.2 (October 2023)

[Calabrone]

Just thank you for creating this wonderful module. Wet feet!

[nairb121]

Is anyone else having trouble with the CBU-1 and CBU-2 dispensers with V2.01? CBU-2/A and CBU-2B/A on single racks are almost 13,000 lb (looks like it's already reported on the GitHub issues page). I'm also having another issue where the bomblets (seems to be in all variants), instead of dropping out of the dispensers neatly, burst out in all directions (frequently hitting and destroying the plane). I don't see this one reported so I wanted to check if I'm alone.

[Biggus]

I've had this mod installed and briefly played with it for about a year now, but since this latest patch I've given it a really good look and I am utterly blown away with how impressive it is.  It's an incredible little plane and I would really like to thank the devs for all their hard work.  Last night, I was tasked with clearing out a convoy that my friend in his Hind was unable to engage safely.  I laid a stick of Mk81s along it with the wonderful computer designation mode and it was glorious!  Well done, guys!

[Gianky]

On 3/3/2022 at 3:37 PM, Alpenwolf said:

I myself refrained from including this legendary Cold War aircraft only because it's a mod. Featuring a mod means you'd have to make sure that everyone has the mod and they all have the latest version of it. In addition, I'd have to keep on updating it myself on the server's machine after every update. And if I'd forget doing that while the server's running with players having the latest update, but not the server itself, I'd end up having endless problems. So, it's not the mod or the A-4 itself that are the problem, but merely the fact that a mod in its nature brings its own workload and problems with it. That's all.

After the latest A-4 update quite a few things changed and it really looks very tempting now. Therefore, I decided to design one mission for the A-4 and have it run occasionally. Who knows, maybe I'll design another one if the community asks for it. We'll see.

@AlpenwolfI understand the hesitation, as demonstrated by the update posted above, including it in your missions implies additional work in maintaining them.

Anyway, I wanted to thank you for the Arab - Israeli war mission, I enjoyed it a lot (even though I managed not to drop a single bomb... I remapped the weapon release button on my stick that very day and costantly pressed the old one while in your server.... do'h! ); one question, since it was the first time on your server: the description says that dot labels are active, even though it specify "(local)", but I didn't see them during the mission, despite pressing shift + F10... did I do something wrong or were they disabled?

 

On 3/3/2022 at 3:53 AM, RealA4EPilot said:

Hi, Gianky,

Yes, it did depend. I can't remember the exact terminology, but there were areas in South Vietnam that were so infested with communist Viet Cong that they were almost free fire zones. The Navy A-4s never were in direct contact with the troops on the ground. The only radio in an A-4E of the time was an AN/ARC-27 which was an AM UHF-VHF radio. I believe troops had a VHF FM radio. The FACs could talk to us and to the troops. I don't recall working with a ground FAC, but I know that the Marines had some FACs with frontline units.

There we two different classes of FACs fast movers in something like an F-100F in the high threat areas of South Vietnam, but most FACs were in slower prop aircraft. I do remember one mission off the Independence where we ended up in a stack over a FAC along with a flight of A-6 Intruders from the Indy. We were loaded with either 250lb or 500lb bombs. The FAC was working a tree line next to a stream and calling us in one at a time.

All of a sudden he announced that he was taking fire from the other side of the stream and wanted to know if anyone was in position to roll in. The A-4s were all out of position but an A-6 called, the FAC fired a rocket with a white phosphorus warhead where he wanted the bomb and cleared the A-6 in Hot. All four A-6s were loaded with five 2,000lb bombs. When the bomb exploded, the FAC went wild . . . "Holy <profanity>! What was that? Do you have any more?" The Intruder driver told him he had 4 more and each of the three remaining A-6s had five of those bombs.

The FAC had each of the A-6s lay down a stik of bombs 50 meters down the tree line from the last bomb impact. A total of 20 tons of bombs tore the trees apart. If the Viet Cong soldier survived, I am confident he was more circumspect about choosing his targets after that. That wasn't the only time on a close air support mission that some Viet Cong soldier had the sky fall on him or her because a FAC was targeted.

 

 

 

@RealA4EPilot thank you for your answer and for sharing another sea story with us!

If you can/want to answer, I'm wondering what was the usual loadout for CAS missions? Did you load bombs and rockets (Zuni or FFAR?), did you use the MK4 gunpod, napalm bombs or SUU-7 dispensers?

I'm asking because, aside for the historical interest in everything aviation, I'm almost done with the only A-4E campaign that I found and I was thinking about creating my first one with this little gem as a protagonist, and I'd like to be as accurate as possibile within the limitation of what DCS has to offer.

[Calabrone]

It's all right. Gianky. Thank RealA4EPilot!

Edited March 10, 2022 by Calabrone

[Alpenwolf]

6 hours ago, Gianky said:

@AlpenwolfI understand the hesitation, as demonstrated by the update posted above, including it in your missions implies additional work in maintaining them.

Anyway, I wanted to thank you for the Arab - Israeli war mission, I enjoyed it a lot (even though I managed not to drop a single bomb... I remapped the weapon release button on my stick that very day and costantly pressed the old one while in your server.... do'h! ); one question, since it was the first time on your server: the description says that dot labels are active, even though it specify "(local)", but I didn't see them during the mission, despite pressing shift + F10... did I do something wrong or were they disabled?

Glad you enjoyed the mission.

Dot labels are off. Not sure why it says otherwise.

The mission kicks off again for round 2 this Saturday, around 1900 zulu if you're interested.

[Gianky]

Thanks for your reply, Alpenwolf, I'll gladly give it another shot, even though no labels is a deal breaker for me (can't see squat without them in my Oculus CV1... can't really understand why people insist for not having them, it's not like DCS is comparable to reality vision-wise, not even at top resolution...).

[tmitch2315]

I'm  having a problem getting DCS world to see my A-4E-C 2.0 download on this computer.  Does not show up on the list.  I did the install exactly as outlined and have the same download on another computer and its runs fine from the same location on C drive.  Is there a number I can call or can someone do a screen share to see what the problem amounts to. I have checked security settings, etc and both computers are set the same.  I'm missing something but don't know what it is.  New to this game and everything else runs fine on DCS.  This was free, of course, but I don't want to have this problem if I purchase something.  Happy to pay for help if it can be made to work.  I was refered to this forum from the main one which was "a-4e skyhawk install issues"Thanks

[razo+r]

It does not show up in what list? In the mission editor? If yes, did you disable the historical filter?

[tmitch2315]

It does not show up on the bottom of the DCS fighter main screen that lists all the aircraft so its not available to use.  On my other computer it is listed on the bottom of the main page and can be clicked on to start using.  Thanks for your response.  For some reason DCS is not accessing the file I installed on this computer.

[=475FG= Dawger]

This file

occasionally causes an Integrity Check failure. Deleting it *seems* to have corrected it although I have only a few days of data with it removed.

It took several days with the A-4E mod installed before this cropped up both times this has happened. I have no correlating events to point to why it happens when it happens.

 

 

[One Eyed Ross]

Well, almost 250 hours in, and really, really enjoying the A4.  The new update is great, having the M77 cover more area.  And the CB2 changes work wonderfully.

Thanks for all you guys have done, and continue to do, with this.

 

[HotTom]

A little help please.

I can't get the ILS (ICLS, MCL) to work. I set the channel listed on the kneeboard for the airbase, turn on BIT and release it back to ON, nothing. In BIT, it shows it calibrating but the lines disappear when it goes back to O). I haven't seen any complaints in the forums so I must be doing something wrong.

Suggestions? Thanks in advance.

 

HT

 

[Gianky]

@plusnine is it still necessary to delete the input bindings when updating from 2.0? Is there a way to save the old bindings, despite deleting the files, so as not to have to bind everything again?

[joey45]

From 2.0 > 2.1 I don't think you need to delete the old key bindings.

[Tshark]

You can keep the old key bindings.  Plusnine confirmed this with me on Discord and the upgrade has worked flawlessly with the old bindings.

[Gianky]

Copy that, guys, thank you both! On to 2.0.1!

Edited March 12, 2022 by Gianky

[plusnine]

unless you've done super-extensive bindings, you shouldn't need to do much. a few switches were inverted or behavior changed; the main things that had alterations that would affect most people's bindings are the fuel system switch default hotkeys.

[Gianky]

Thank you, plusnine, I usually bind only the real aircraft HOTAS functions when the module have a clickable cockpit, just added a few things for the A-4E (like the chaff/flare dispender), I updated Saturday and, so far, everything seems to be working normally.

[scoobie]

Hi. Can you actually refuel drop tanks in flight?

I can fill the internal tanks no problem, but drop tanks remain dry forever, no matter how long I'm hanging from the basket. Silence, no transfer. Tanks under pylons 2 and 4. "DROP TANKS" switch set to "FLIGHT REFUEL". What am I doing wrong?

[JNelson]

1 hour ago, scoobie said:

Hi. Can you actually refuel drop tanks in flight?

I can fill the internal tanks no problem, but drop tanks remain dry forever, no matter how long I'm hanging from the basket. Silence, no transfer. Tanks under pylons 2 and 4. "DROP TANKS" switch set to "FLIGHT REFUEL". What am I doing wrong?

You should be able to set it to flight refuel, however if you are on the 2.0.0 version there was a bug which prevented you from using the fuel after you set it to flight refuel. Try upgrading to the v2.0.1 version if you are having issues.

[Gianky]

2 hours ago, scoobie said:

Hi. Can you actually refuel drop tanks in flight?

I can fill the internal tanks no problem, but drop tanks remain dry forever, no matter how long I'm hanging from the basket. Silence, no transfer. Tanks under pylons 2 and 4. "DROP TANKS" switch set to "FLIGHT REFUEL". What am I doing wrong?

There are two switches you have to operate to refuel the drop tanks, one is the one you're referring to, on the left console, right behind the throttle; the second one, the "Fuel Trans" switch, is on the right console, near the end of the cockpit, behind the MCL controls: it's a two position switch, you have to put it in the forward "bypass" position; once you have the "Drop tank" switch in the "flight refuel" position and the "Fuel trans" switch in the bypass position, you can refuel the drop tanks.

[JNelson]

51 minutes ago, Gianky said:

There are two switches you have to operate to refuel the drop tanks, one is the one you're referring to, on the left console, right behind the throttle; the second one, the "Fuel Trans" switch, is on the right console, near the end of the cockpit, behind the MCL controls: it's a two position switch, you have to put it in the forward "bypass" position; once you have the "Drop tank" switch in the "flight refuel" position and the "Fuel trans" switch in the bypass position, you can refuel the drop tanks.

You don't actually want to enable the bypass otherwise the fuel flows from the external tanks straight into the fuselage tank skipping the wing tank. You should leave this switch off so the fuel is pumped into the external tanks and gets forced into the wing tank the normal way.

[scoobie]

(I am on v2.0.1)

Thanks, guys, for reasurring me that the drop tank AAR does work - thanks to this I kept pushing.

Finally it worked! I must have messed something up about my Stream Deck, which I normally use for AAR switches (among other things).
This time, for a test, I clicked the in-cockpit switches with the mouse (instead of pressing Stream Deck buttons) and bingo - everything went okay, drop tanks filled!

It's seldom the case that Stream Deck bites me, hence it wasn't my suspect. I thought I might have botched the mod's installation on my PC or that it's a bug in the very mod etc.

Thanks again, I'll invesigate the problem on my side, but at this time I know my Scooter is 100% healthy

 

[Gianky]

3 hours ago, JNelson said:

You don't actually want to enable the bypass otherwise the fuel flows from the external tanks straight into the fuselage tank skipping the wing tank. You should leave this switch off so the fuel is pumped into the external tanks and gets forced into the wing tank the normal way.

I hadn't try it in 2.0.1, but that's how it worked in 2.0 and how the 2.0 manual tells you to do it.

EDIT: NAVAIR 01-40AVC-1 (15 November 1968 edition, changed 1 March 1977), page 1-20, under the paragraph called "Fuel transfer bypass switch" says «Air refueling of the droptanks and fuselage fuel tank (bypassing the wing tanks) is possible by placing the DROP TANKS switch in the FLIGHT REFUEL position, in addition to placing the fuel transfer bypass switch in the FUEL TRANS BYPASS position». Not sure if that was the normal procedure to refuel the drop tanks, I didn't read the whole NATOPS, but I assumed it was, since it's the same that was reported in the A-4E-C 2.0 manual.

Edited March 17, 2022 by Gianky