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

[Hiob]

6 hours ago, Skunk Cabbage said:

I have been playing around slowly with the Skyhawk.  I decided to set up the radio with a few ogg sound files for radio chatter.  It works great!  However, the radio volume knob does not appear to be working. I cannot lower the volume.  Is it a bug, or am I missing something?

Also, I'm somewhat of a disabled old fart.  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.  

 

Thanks!

 

 

I‘m not THAT old (I believe), nor are my hands shaking yet  - but nevertheless, I reduced the saturation of the roll axis by almost 50%, too! Pitch and roll are ok (I think I put a curvature on pitch). You can reduce the response to trim too - in the special options menu.

[Copprhead]

4 hours ago, Skunk Cabbage said:

Is there a place to go back to the last previous build? 

Previous releases are available here:

https://github.com/heclak/community-a4e-c/releases

[Hiob]

12 minutes ago, Skunk Cabbage said:

I love this aircraft, but after the latest build of 2.0 I am finding it too difficult to handle.   I wish there were options for those like myself who need something a little less challenging on the ground and in the air.  Even a fly-fishing purist needs to put a worm on the hook sometimes.  I am moving on.......

That‘s a shame. Whilst I agree that a Nose Wheel Steering, as a special option, would be helpful (and welcome). Everything else regarding the controls can by tuned. And there are still a lot of options/missions to have fun without the need of ground handling. While I like the simulation aspect of DCS (including cold start and taxi), we often skip those due to time issues. That doesn’t take away the fun in dcs - at least for me.

Well at least I hope you stay with DCS and just jump into another module.

[Victory205]

On 1/13/2022 at 7:50 PM, ExA4K said:

I don't recall that there was any appreciable pitch/power coupling and there was negligible difference between the 2 variants.

Like your recollection, mine is that the longitudinal stability (speed stability in pitch) was slightly less positive than depicted here - in that it was easier to hold a constant aimpoint with smaller pitch inputs while using power to get to and hold optimum AOA.  However, the aircraft was definitely positively stable.  It will be interesting to reassess the approach stability in the sim if the slat positioning can be corrected on approach as there's obviously an interrelationship with high AOA, high drag, and high power setting.

Directional stability-wise, the TA-4 was definitely not as positive as the single seat model, thanks to its longer nose and bigger canopy forward of the COG.  Nose high, low speed departures during BFM were fairly much a non event in the A-4 but had the potential to get a bit more sporty if mishandled in the T-bird.

 

A-4s Forever!!

 

On 1/14/2022 at 2:40 PM, JNelson said:

 

Hi, thanks for the feedback both. I was aware that there is a pilot restriction to 360 deg/s in the NATOPs what I was referring to was the A-4M which our SME one time offhandedly mentioned a hydraulic limit, I haven't actually checked this claim since it's not applicable to the E.

I will take a look at slat deployment, the pitch stability and sensitivity of the elevator.

As for the slats it is possible to lock them like the blue angels however this must be operated on the ground so I doubt you accidently triggered this feature.

If either of you fancy helping tune the last bits of the FM closer, discord is a really good platform for discussion, this thread will unfortunately get buried by people asking questions about the NWS and stuff. If you change your minds you can join here: https://discord.gg/XxCGSwZf7h, once you are in the server I can invite you to a testing private discord if you don't wish to stay in the main discord.

 

Thanks,

JNelson.

I finally got the slats working, and yes, they are way off schedule as A4K mentioned. Now that you mentioned it, the T did suffer from directional instability, and would tail wag in turbulence. It was completely restrained to yaw, no roll coupling.

The slats are where we need to begin. They seem to be airspeed driven instead of AOA, and until that is on schedule, the rest is going to be problematic. 

There is too much pitch/AOA sensitivity to airspeed changes in the landing config, and far too much speedbrake drag. Gear drag seems a bit low, but looking at idle descent rates, it appears that overall drag even with speed brakes retracted is a  excessive. The landing config is more challenging than it needs to be.

Did you head over to discord? 

[DmitriKozlowsky]

A-4EC_2.0 can trap just fine on small deck like Kuz 2017. But in v2 wheel brakes and steering are poor to ineffective. Attached is track of trap on Kuz 2017. I trapped, at ramp went to full power,. after arrest, went to idle and applied wheel brakes. Did no good. Aircraft just rolled forward, neither wheel brake nor wheel brake steering did any good.

A_4E_C_Kuz_trap_wheeBrakeFail.trk

[DmitriKozlowsky]

Example where there is no crash, but deck handling of aircraft is poor to marginal. 

A_4E_C_Kuz_trap_poorDeck_hnadlingl.trk

[Calabrone]

Oh Yeah ! This is a problem!

[jurinko]

While wheel brakes feel weak, with the wing spoilers the plane slows down like MiG-19 with the drag chute. Air brakes are extremely effective; while other planes can land with them extended, with A-4 I tried that once and quickly shut them not to fall off the sky despite full power.

It has been my top favourite module for many weeks and I look forward to it being further improved. 

Edited January 31, 2022 by jurinko

[DmitriKozlowsky]

9 minutes ago, jurinko said:

While wheel brakes feel weak, with the wing spoilers the plane slows down like MiG-19 with the drag chute. Air brakes are extremely effective; while other planes can land with them extended, with A-4 I tried that once and quickly shut them not to fall off the sky despite full power.

It has been my top favourite module for many weeks and I look forward to it being further improved. 

 

I am talking about taxiing in confined space of deck.

[Hiob]

30 minutes ago, jurinko said:

While wheel brakes feel weak, with the wing spoilers the plane slows down like MiG-19 with the drag chute. Air brakes are extremely effective; while other planes can land with them extended, with A-4 I tried that once and quickly shut them not to fall off the sky despite full power.

It has been my top favourite module for many weeks and I look forward to it being further improved. 

 

Landing with extended airbrakes is realistic procedure though. As seen on many historical videos. That doesn't say of course if the drag is modelled accurately.

[DmitriKozlowsky]

The problem is that nosewheel castering is messed up. Wheel braking is sporadic and unreliable, and to me, unpredictable. It works, then it does not. The aircraft is either stuck in a deck loop or worse, won't pivot. In other words, taxing in current build A-4E-C 2.0 kind of sucks.

[joey45]

I just taxied just fine.. Have the control window up... Also how are you taxiing..?

[DmitriKozlowsky]

I taxi carefully. Very slowly on deck. Using wheel brake toes on my pedals. The only way to taxi in current build of A-4E-C. What is messed up is front wheel castering. It often gets stuck on an angle and will not reorient. If I pivot on using differential brake to the left, the front wheel gets stuck in that orientation after toe brake is released, and aircraft deck loops. Other times, TRK available above. Trap on carrier, with throttle at max as it is supposed to be. As soon as aircraft is stopped, throttle back to idle, nbut aircraft lurches forward when wire is unhooked. The aircraft rolls forward, with engine on idle, and wheel brakes fully applied, and totally nonfunctional. Aircraft wont stop or turn, so it taxies off the deck.  TRK attached and it shows. Right now taxing and wheel brakes are messed up.

Edited January 31, 2022 by DmitriKozlowsky

[Hiob]

I think I read somewhere, that there is something off with the friction parameters for surfaces. Maybe the problem isn't really the A-4?

Edit: Also, back in the day, the deck crew would reorientate the free casting wheel for the pilot or even just push/pull the aircraft in position. Since that is not possible in DCS (atm), I would advocate for at least a special options tab  "control helper" tab for the A-4. But it's getting repetitive. Either the devs want to, or they don't. It's really up to them.

Edited January 31, 2022 by Hiob

[plusnine]

DCS' ground handling has proved a challenge to work with. We're testing some changes to our end of the ground handling code in the hopes that some users who are struggling with the current braking setup will have an easier time in the next release.

In the meantime, the most important is not overdoing *anything* and giving yourself less to correct: If you slam the brakes, they will get their revenge by over turning. Several small inputs with fine throttle control are the way to do it - remember that throttle, too is a lagging indicator, so it's easy to put more in than you need and cascade into a series of too-large inputs.

[Hiob]

11 minutes ago, plusnine said:

DCS' ground handling has proved a challenge to work with. We're testing some changes to our end of the ground handling code in the hopes that some users who are struggling with the current braking setup will have an easier time in the next release.

In the meantime, the most important is not overdoing *anything* and giving yourself less to correct: If you slam the brakes, they will get their revenge by over turning. Several small inputs with fine throttle control are the way to do it - remember that throttle, too is a lagging indicator, so it's easy to put more in than you need and cascade into a series of too-large inputs.

I'm confident, that it'll improve over time. Everything you wrote is correct, it comes down to training. Nevertheless it's a ton harder on a carrier

[Helles Belle]

If you find yourself with the nose wheel ‘stuck’ left/right try bouncing it by tapping the brakes on/off. It will come around.

I also find riding the brakes with 70% throttle works, and try to keep moving at a slow speed, it’s then more of a case of not applying brakes in the direction you want to turn but using less brakes in the direction you don’t.

Of course this is problematic if you can’t map the brakes to an axis and only use the keyboard.

[jurinko]

How to refuel mid-air without external tanks? AAR works with tanks attached, but clean A-4 takes no fuel despite "you are taking fuel" message. In despair I tried all combinations of air refueling-pressurizing-external tanks and bypass wing tanks-normal switches but no success. 

[DmitriKozlowsky]

I am sorry I cannot get past the non functional deck steering of A-4E-C 2.0 . Its just the worst and its AFU in SC LSO speak. Its just terrible. Funny thing is that turning on Simple Steering option in Special Options does not actually return old fashioned rudder pedal steer. Anyway I don't use that option. There is no practical way to accurately line up on cat with this aircraft right now. But other then then ground steering, no complaints on this module. Especially since its a freebee.

A_4E_C_Supercarrier_deck streering_AFU.trk

[Helles Belle]

@DmitriKozlowsky what are you using for the brakes - keyboard or pedals with individual axis.

[DmitriKozlowsky]

Pedals. Its just works badly. More then once, when I trap in A-4E-C 2.0, I go to full power at ramp, then after aircraft is stopped, I throttle back to idle . I have HOTAS, and hold down toe brakes. I can see their application power in controls overlay. In SC those brakes magically do not work!!!!! With engine at idle, and brake applied, as soon as damn hook is released from wire, the aircraft shoots forward (like an arrow) and wheel brakes don't work. The aircraft rolls off the deck. If I am lucky the front gear caster will lock on an angle and aircraft just deck loops for a time, and winds up on front cats. Its BS! Its fouled up!! 

[Helles Belle]

Interesting. I don’t have SC, so I don’t know if it’s just related to that carrier.

I have a simple mission I made in ME with the normal carrier, the Forrestal & the Melbourne side by side. I can launch and retrieve from all without problem. Taxing is tricky with the current A-4 version & it took me a lot of practice. But I can do a 180 degree turn on even the Melbourne.

I sort of know what you mean when you say it shoots forward after a trap. I have to get off the power and on the brakes quickly as when the wire releases the aircraft sometimes wants to jump forward. I have found to use that to my benefit. If I’m switched on, I can keep the role going to clear the landing area.

The only problem I occasionally experience is when I trap, sometimes the nose pitches up as I come to a stop. But I put that down to me either being too fast, too high or both on approach.

I’d be happy to get on one of the MP servers one day and just taxi around and do some circuits with you if you like to see if we can figure out what is going on.

[DmitriKozlowsky]

I already posted TRK files. There is nothing more to be said. Its a problem, and hopefully they cad address it.

[STABROSS]

Hola 

Ha sido un Mod tan bien creado y ejecutado , que ( opiniòn personal ) , se les puede perdonar a los creadores , cualquier pequeño error que hayan tenido 

Mi màs sinceras felicitaciones por èllo y ànimo a seguir adelante , yo estoy disfrutando lo indecible con el vuelo de tan increible aparato 

Actualmente he creado y hosteado una misiòn de arranque , despegue desde tierra y apontaje en Carrier , con los compañeros del Escuadròn E69 y no vean còmo disfrutamos con èllo

Saludos

[silverdevil]

30 minutes ago, STABROSS said:

Ha sido un Mod tan bien creado y ejecutado , que ( opiniòn personal ) , se les puede perdonar a los creadores , cualquier pequeño error que hayan tenido 

Mi màs sinceras felicitaciones por èllo y ànimo a seguir adelante , yo estoy disfrutando lo indecible con el vuelo de tan increible aparato 

Actualmente he creado y hosteado una misiòn de arranque , despegue desde tierra y apontaje en Carrier , con los compañeros del Escuadròn E69 y no vean còmo disfrutamos con èllo

estoy de acuerdo. es bueno que los desarrolladores hayan hecho esto y todo de forma gratuita. el español no es mi primera lengua por si suena infantil