Community A-4E-C v2.3 (May 2025)

[Calabrone]

Gunfreak, excuse me, but before installing 2.0 did you delete the old version and then put the new A4-E folder, because everything works fine for me in that configuration and I assure you that the 20mm cannons do not fire. I'm sorry that you can't solve the problem and I don't know how to help you anymore. Wet Feet!

[Calabrone]

On 2/2/2022 at 12:20 PM, Helles Belle said:

Gday @Calabrone, good to hear you enjoy the A-4. I think it is the aircraft that I get the most satisfaction with. That could be because it can be so hard to master, who knows.

Another reason I thought of, that has been mentioned by others before, that could be causing problems taxing on carriers, is wind over the deck. I experienced this today when playing around and it was hard to turn in some cases, but not impossible & once aware of the problem it can be countered.

If you ever want to jump on a MP server and tear up a carrier deck doing donuts let me know.

Thanks for the tip Helles. I love A4-E because it is challenging to master, and then I get excited when from 7000feet I jump on target, release at 4000feet and disengage at 3000feet. Maybe I'm silly or elated, but it gives me a great feeling, even if it's virtual.

[Stilgar]

Hi, where i can find the file with the chart of the airfields that i can see on the kneenboard?

[Calabrone]

3 hours ago, Stilgar said:

Hi, where i can find the file with the chart of the airfields that i can see on the kneenboard?

Hi. In the folder "DCSWorld/Doc/Charts" there is a PDF file called DCS_GND_Charts in which you can find all the information and maps of the airports of the Caucasus map. The airports of other maps I don't know where to find.

[AdrianL]

3 hours ago, Stilgar said:

Hi, where i can find the file with the chart of the airfields that i can see on the kneenboard?

See https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3312200/

 

Also 

 

[plusnine]

18 hours ago, Gunfreak said:

As I said. It's a bug. It will fire cannons with that button/knob configuration. 

i did some extensive testing this weekend and am unable to replicate your issue with the guns firing in the rocket position while not armed. if you would like to file an issue with some relevant video, we can look into it. i made a pretty thorough review of the gun code and do not see how such firing is even possible unless you modified your own weapon_system.lua.

Edited February 7, 2022 by plusnine

[toan]

Hi All, I discovered recently the A-4E v2.0 Mod, and it's amazing. Superb work.  Maybe this question has been addressed previously, sorry for that, but I'm looking for a Thrustmaster WartHog profile for this Mod. Rather than reinventing the wheel, is one profile available somewhere ? Thanks for your help, Toan

[Gunfreak]

2 hours ago, plusnine said:

i did some extensive testing this weekend and am unable to replicate your issue with the guns firing in the rocket position while not armed. if you would like to file an issue with some relevant video, we can look into it. i made a pretty thorough review of the gun code and do not see how such firing is even possible unless you modified your own weapon_system.lua.

 

I had rockets in the two outer pylons, and gunpods on the inner and belly. I had turned power on the gunpods, but had not turned on the pylons themselves. I had had my onbord cannon on safe. When i fired the rockets on single if i held in the trigger slightly longer than what is needed for the rockets to fire. The onboard cannons would fire(after the rocket was fired. Not at the same time as the rocket) this happened on two missions I made, one on marianas and one on Nevada.(on marianas I had 2 gunpods, 6 mk82 snake eyes and rockets, in nevada I had 3 gun pods and rockets.)

[plusnine]

32 minutes ago, Gunfreak said:

I had rockets in the two outer pylons, and gunpods on the inner and belly. I had turned power on the gunpods, but had not turned on the pylons themselves. I had had my onbord cannon on safe. When i fired the rockets on single if i held in the trigger slightly longer than what is needed for the rockets to fire. The onboard cannons would fire(after the rocket was fired. Not at the same time as the rocket) this happened on two missions I made, one on marianas and one on Nevada.(on marianas I had 2 gunpods, 6 mk82 snake eyes and rockets, in nevada I had 3 gun pods and rockets.)

AH! The PODS, not the internal cannons! This behavior, while not intuitive, is correct: Gun pods are charged and readied on on the gun pod panel instead - unlike other weapons, the station selection on the armament panel has no effect on the gun pods (the documentation in the kneeboard is misleading, which I've corrected for next time).

Similarly, the guns ready/safe switch on the armament panel has no effect on gunpods (other than that it is unwise to fire internal guns and gunpods at the same time if you want to hit your target).

You can, as others have indicated above, set the weapon selector to GM UNARM to set rockets to pickle to keep their firing input separate from the gun pods.

Edited February 7, 2022 by plusnine

[jurinko]

From A-4 manual regarding the stuck front wheel while taxiing.

[Captain Orso]

10 minutes ago, jurinko said:

From A-4 manual regarding the stuck front wheel while taxiing.

What manual are you looking at and where can it be obtained? I'd like to read the other points too.

[jurinko]

2 hours ago, Captain Orso said:

What manual are you looking at and where can it be obtained? I'd like to read the other points too.

https://pdfcoffee.com/natops-a-4e-f-g-skyhawk-complete-a-4g-edition-1973-pdf-free.html

[Calabrone]

11 hours ago, jurinko said:

https://pdfcoffee.com/natops-a-4e-f-g-skyhawk-complete-a-4g-edition-1973-pdf-free.html

I also have this manual, but here we are talking about a very accurate simulation and not a real A4-E and so you can find possible differences, that nothing take away from this fantastic module. Hi.

[Captain Orso]

12 hours ago, jurinko said:

https://pdfcoffee.com/natops-a-4e-f-g-skyhawk-complete-a-4g-edition-1973-pdf-free.html

Thanks!

[71st_AH Rob]

On 2/7/2022 at 2:17 PM, jurinko said:

From A-4 manual regarding the stuck front wheel while taxiing.

Although I have not found the exact paragraph that you quote above, the manual that you linked is for the Royal Australian Navy A-4 fleet.  The RAN operated a mixed bag of A-4 blocks and in all instances that I can find to Nosewheel Steering it specifies that it applies to the A-4F

In fact on page 6-10 it states:

TAXIING
1. Maintain directional control using nosewheel
steering (A-4F) and brakes (A-4E) as required.

Which would indicate that the A-4E in RAN were not upgraded to have NW Steering and would have used differential breaking instead.

 

 

[Helles Belle]

The RAN didn’t have the E model. They had what was known as the G model which was an F brought up to the specs for the RAN.

[Gianky]

There are several versions of the A-4 Natops around, from what I've seen so far, no A-4E had nosewheel steering.

[Koriel]

I love the realism wrt the nosewheel steering. As you can see in the following video, in real life they had probs on the carrier as well and needed a steering bar to help the A-4E on the cat. Since we don't have that help in the game I think it would be ok to have the option of a simplified nosewheelsteering. Either as a default option, or as in other modules with a NWS button.

 

 

[Armageddon666]

Hello.

First of all, congratulation to the dev team and community. What a great mod ! I've been flying the A-4E exclusively since the 2.0 release and I'm starting to know and handle that bird good enough.

Now I have a question, I don't know if this is a bug or not.

When I have the AGM-45 Shrike armed and ready to fire and that I aim in the direction of a battleship, there is no locking tone. First, I was thinking this was wrong because the ship has its radar running, is locking me and is firing missiles at me. So I was expecting the Shrike to be able to lock the ship’s radar source.

Then I tried to fire the Shrike at the ship, even with no lock tone. Guess what ? The missile tracks the ship and hits it perfectly. Boom !

Was it chance ? To better experiment, yesterday I started a mission with the unlimited ammo cheat on and 3 battleships in front of me. I managed to fire dozens of Shrike missiles to the ships and sink one of them. Each of the Shrikes I fired was tracking and seeking the ships perfectly. Although I had no locking tone while aiming at them (and yes I have the weapon properly set up and can hear the tracking tone).

At the end, it looks like a bug to me : if the missile does it job why is there no locking tone in the cockpit when I point my reticle at the radar source (like when I’m running on SAM sites) ?

I wonder if there could be other targets for which we cannot hear a lock tone but still can missile them down…

What do you think ?

[Calabrone]

Korie lthat actually wouldn't be a bad idea, but it would be great if they implemented, the developers or whoever makes mods, the guide bar on the cat. A beautiful dream, that would make this wonderful mod even more awesome. I love the scooter madly.

[RedeyeStorm]

On 1/14/2022 at 3:17 PM, plusnine said:

if you are locking up the brakes or over-castering the nose wheel, you're going too hard on your brakes (possibly as a result of throwing too much thrust in - remember the engine spool time is greatest at the idle end). if you bitch-slap those brakes, expect them to bitch-slap you right back by locking up or over-turning.

as is noted on the taxi/takeoff notes in the kneeboard, i recommend use of the controls indicator to monitor the nosewheel position and figure out exactly how, on your individual input setup you need to apply the brakes in order to get the turn you want while you develop your personal feel for ground handling in the A-4E-C. like a lot of things in DCS, some finesse is required, making too many or too extreme inputs in any one thing is what is going to trip you up.

 

Check the ‘specials’ tab in DCS menu, it already has the option to use rudder for steering.

[RealA4EPilot]

On 1/26/2022 at 5:12 PM, Skunk Cabbage said:

How should I set up my yaw, roll and pitch on my HOTAS to make the aircraft a little more stable in flight?  No matter what I do, or what setting I use the aircraft is a little too responsive for my old shacky hands. 

I am more convince than ever about the ground taxing. Please provide an "option" to use the new steering or not for us old shacky farts.

Welcome to the A-4 aircraft. The A-4 is highly maneuverable, and if you don't want it to drop off on a wing and start plunging toward the earth, you need to fly the aircraft. If you don't need to yank and bank and you're not at 300ft and 300 knots, engage the autopilot. Otherwise resign yourself to keeping your hand on the stick and flying the aircraft 100% of the time.

Taking a cross country in an A-4E was a piece of cake. Engage the autopilot at 2000 to 3000ft and fly the bird with the autopilot. Taking a cross country in the A-4B after we retro transitioned from the A-4Es was a real PITA because you had to fly the aircraft 100% of the time.

[RealA4EPilot]

On 2/4/2022 at 1:03 AM, Hiob said:

Jupp, and it works. They even added an instrument carrier landing quickstart mission.

I think this was another one of those NAVAIR AFCs that was approved and promulgated, but few if any A-4Es were modified. I flew A-4s from January 1965 to June 1972 and none of the A-4C or A-4E aircraft had either ACLS or ILS. The A-4 was transferred out of the last fleet squadrons in 1976. If any front line A-4s were modified they were probably Navy A-4Fs and Marine A-4Ms. Only way to know for sure would be for NAVAIR to check the logbooks of the A-4E aircraft.

[Koriel]

16 hours ago, RedeyeStorm said:

Check the ‘specials’ tab in DCS menu, it already has the option to use rudder for steering.

Actually all it does is akin to what the MiG-15 and the Yak-52 does. You apply brake through a keybind and whatever rudder is pressed will receive the brakepressure. 

What I am suggesting is to have a "cheat key" that will cancel the castering nosewheel and enable actual nosewheelsteering. 

I don't consider this a cheat. Heck, we fly a simulator on a PC. We don't have a nosewheel steering bar dude out there to help us. Why make things unnecessarily difficult?

[Weed89]

WHATTTttt????   you do not like making that PERFECT 3 wire landing...then heading to the parking position  only to fall off the side of the ship??   I was starting to think  not ALL  " A-4's forever"  was applying to only ME      ( my dad flew A-1 "SPADS   then went to the A-4's  )  Both brought him home safe ( a little shrapenal here and there)  every time....gotta' LOVE them both...i would LOVE to see a DSC  SPAD on the menu too   

    but the castoring nosewheel on DECK  reallly does SUCK !    seems to kinda sort it's self out on the ground.... but gets STUCK on deck everytime close to a Catwalk