Flight Qualifications Campaign

[Sabre-TLA]

I would rank BFT09 as one of the more difficult missions to master but it is passable in it's current state however we will try and make the mission less frustrating in the next update.

 

Recon Stewart has done an excellent set of videos of the missions so you can compare your flights to his. You can view the videos

.

[Buznee]

Thanks, right now it is unpassable for me. I keep getting the issue on the second approach where I am told to hold pattern altitude and at the same time told that I am above glidepath. I try to follow the glidepath down and then I am failed. I have 2 tracks I can provide. Is there a way to bypass the campaign to go to the next mission? I really don't want to fly this one again and know that I am proficient...

 

UPDATE: okay, figured it out.

 

in the logbook.lua file just set the completion to 75% and add an entry for the next mission. Done. NO MORE. haha.

Edited December 30, 2014 by Buznee

[Sabre-TLA]

Sounds like you are not holding the pattern altitude until within 5 nm of the runway. Once the tower gives you clearance to land then you should make your descent (if they don't clear you then you have to stay in the pattern at the pattern altitude).

 

The Glidepath messages should come after that.

 

This post shows you how to manually advance the campaign.

[Sabre-TLA]

I just realized that you may not be aware of the practice mission package that you can use to perfect your technique before trying the qualification campaign mission.

 

The package is available here and your campaign mission key will unlock it for installation.

 

The practice missions are single player standalone missions and usually have additional tips or hints and are nearly identical to the qualification missions. It's a good way to get prepared for the qualification missions.

[Buznee]

Thanks for the details! I was not aware of the practice missions!

[Buznee]

Happy new year Sabre and everyone else! I am on my last mission

(low level flying) and need a little bit of help. Basically you are told to fly a trailing close formation which I do. On occasion I am told by my wingman that I am too close or too far. I'm sure this is because of a limitation within the DCS engine but my wingman goes full throttle and full airbrake in a few points during the flight which make it impossible to keep constant distance from him. Also why does he slow down to 130 kts? I end up having to put my landing flaps down to be at a comfortable attitude. Then without warning he accelerates to 250 knots. This happens a couple of times during the flight. This is not good formation practice for the lead. Very dangerous to be doing these kind of things. I recommend modifying this mission so that the speed changes are more reasonable and the wingman informs you when he throttles up or slows down. Something like slowing to 130kts with full brake in 3-2-1. Also for some odd reason he keeps telling you to hurry up which makes no sense to me since you are following him so its really up to him to get you to the waypoint on time. Am I wrong? I ended up failing the first checkpoint time saying I got there too early but I was behind my wingman at the appropriate spacing. So basically it's my wingman's fault but he blames me. Also I failed the flight because I was told that I was above the max altitude which doesn't make sense because I was directly behind the wingman at his altitude, am I supposed to fly below him. Does he inform you of the max altitude limit? HELP =/ Thanks again.

[Sabre-TLA]

It appears the AI behavior has changed somewhat since the mission was first created.

 

I think you can still get to the waypoints on time if you plan your takeoff as close to 06:30 as you can and make a clean rendezvous with the FE. He will fly to the MTR entry waypoint as soon as you are in formation range.

 

Also we noticed that the AI pilot changes altitude more than previous. To not fail the altitude restriction let the FE fly his altitude but you need to stay within the 500' to 1500' low level altitude restrictions.

 

As for the FE speed changes - that's hard to predict as the AI is controlling that and I've seen different behavior in different test runs. I think his speed is determined by the time of your rendezvous and the times he is scripted to try and get to each waypoint.

 

The formation testing is counting how many out of formation or too close formation messages are generated. If you get more than 10 then you will fail the mission. Best to try and stay as close to him as you can but it is acceptable to fly left or right off his wing instead since we can't actually test if you are in trail formation or not (but it's easier to see the FE's maneuvers if you are right behind him).

 

Plus practice, practice, practice. Eventually you will be able to fly close to the FE even with his speed changes as you pick up the cues (like popping airbrakes - I immediately throttle back and pop my brakes too and work to avoid a collision).

 

We are updating this mission for the other aircraft so we will provide an update to this one as well to make it more passable.

[Sabre-TLA]

Similar to our successful A-10C Basic Flight Training Qualification Campaign we have released a version for the A-10A.

 

A-10A Basic Flight Training Qualification Campaign

 

This campaign has many improvements including updated graphics, additional voice overs and improved feedback results. Many of the enhancements are being propagated back to the A-10C campaign and we hope to release the updated A-10C version soon.

[Igneous01]

Any plans to finish the KA-50 version? I'm really looking forward to some proper training :)

[Sabre-TLA]

Yes the Ka-50, Huey and Hip are on our roadmap but I can't say when they will be ready.

[kontiuka]

So, will these be official DLC campaigns at some point?

[rrohde]

  kontiuka said:

So, will these be official DLC campaigns at some point?

 

That's what I am curious about as well...

[Sabre-TLA]

We hope to.

 

ED has some details to work out but we would certainly like to see our campaigns on ED's storefront.

[Buznee]

fantastic news!

[DWaldie]

I've just started the training missions and working through the start-up mission. Is there a script available to cover what the instructor is asking? It would make practicing much easier rather than trying to keep up with him.

 

Am I also right to assume that the mission documentation is mission summary page and map for each of the 12? Daft question: how do I access them?

Edited January 25, 2015 by DWaldie

[Sabre-TLA]

There is a practice mission package where you can practice the start-up and other missions from the campaign available here.

 

Your mission key will unlock the practice package for the campaign.

 

We also offer interactive start up and shutdown missions where the IP will call out the switches and you have 10 seconds to enable them. If you miss, the switch is highlighted to help you remember.

 

A-10C Interactive Start-up

A-10C Interactive Shutdown

 

The documentation should be found in the docs folder:

C:\Program Files\Eagle Dynamics\DCS World\Mods\aircraft\A-10C\Doc

 

It contains the A-10C Amplified Checklist which lists all the required switches for start-up, shutdown and other useful information.

 

I believe there are links from the Start Menu, MapleFlagMissions, DCS World, DCS A-10C, Campaigns to the documentation as well.

[anirothan]

TAC17 bug

 

Hello!

First of all I would like to thank the creators of the Qualification Campaigns for their amazing work. I'm going through the Tactical Training right now and I've just done TAC17 - Deep Interdiction with SOF. It seems that there is a bug that made the FE give me a U mark.

 

I've killed the truck target, got FOXTROT code word, killed one AAA-truck on the road towards the east and another one to the west, got the ROMEO code word, then got the ZULU code word and fenced out. Then proceeded to do a successful AAR. After that, on my back to base I suddenly get that CHEVY is hit and then CHEVY requests CSAR and the FE says I failed the mission. However, according to the mission log CHEVY had already landed and shutdown even before I did the AAR and there is no actual log of it getting any hits or going down :huh:. The way I see it I passed with a Q mark no matter what the FE says :D .

 

Not sure, but perhaps the issue has to do with the fact that I took my time in the AAR and made several contacts even after the FE giving the OK to RTB - just to practice my poor AAR skills. Not sure if the engine deallocates units after some time they shutdown and that fires damage and death triggers. If this is the case, then this is probably an engine bug. Ignoring damage, maybe by checking some flag, after successful egress or landing should do the trick.

 

DCS v. 1.2.14, TT Campaign v. 1.0, track file: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1206362/tac17-wtf-failed.trk

[Sabre-TLA]

Thanks for the feedback. We didn't see that in testing but it could be that the engine deactivates units after they shutdown and that triggers a dead condition which would result in the failure if you haven't landed already.

 

Technically since you disobeyed the order to RTB an Unqualified rating would be justified. :smilewink:

 

I'll investigate and see if I can account for this behavior in a future mission updates.

 

Glad you are enjoying the missions and earning your Combat Mission Ready status. :thumbup:

[anirothan]

  Sabre-TLA said:

Technically since you disobeyed the order to RTB an Unqualified rating would be justified. :smilewink:

 

Well if you reaaaallly want to get technical :smilewink:, the order was "once you feel you have enough gas, RTB", so I interpreted that as "you can continue AAR and RTB at your pleasure". Also, in the previous TAC16 mission, I took my sweet time in the AAR similarly and got a Q just fine.

 

P.S.

I found some time today to replay the track and had my camera on CHEVY. I can confirm that after some time it lands it vanishes into thin air and I get the taking hits and csar messages.

[Sabre-TLA]

Ok since the FE wasn't specific I'll give you that. :lol:

 

I checked the mission logic and it's a simple addition of some flags that will stop the check for Chevy dying after it passes the safe egress point.

 

It's disappointing that the game engine removes the unit after some shutdown time. I think that should be up to the mission designer and we didn't put a group deactivate trigger anywhere.

 

I'll check the other missions to see if this use case can occur elsewhere and update those missions accordingly.

 

This is good feedback as we don't always find everything in testing so please keep reporting anything you find that can be corrected.

[Digger55]

Just started these training missions and was wondering if there was a way to set the start point on the ground for each section? Seems all of them are in the air except for a few and I miss the startup procedure practice. Shutdown is well known at this point..:D

[Sabre-TLA]

Sounds like you are playing the practice mission package (those are all in-air starts).

 

The campaign has the ramp starts. You could play the campaign as practice and then just restart it when you want to formally try your qualification.

 

If you want to practice the start-up and shutdown sequences we have some specific practice mission packages for that:

 

A-10C Interactive Start-Up

A-10C Interactive Shutdown

[Digger55]

  Sabre-TLA said:

Sounds like you are playing the practice mission package (those are all in-air starts).

 

The campaign has the ramp starts. You could play the campaign as practice and then just restart it when you want to formally try your qualification.

 

If you want to practice the start-up and shutdown sequences we have some specific practice mission packages for that:

 

A-10C Interactive Start-Up

A-10C Interactive Shutdown

 

Oh, thats right I have those also..forgot what I bought..lol

Thanks, you just justified the purchase of those..:thumbup:

[Beast]

Are there any training missions for the TTQ or just the campaign? Also could you recommend any additional reading material?

[Sabre-TLA]

No practice missions as we decided that since the Tactical Qualification was combat oriented that having practice missions would remove the "fog of war" and uncertainty feeling that is present in real combat operations. It may make the campaign harder to pass first time but when you do succeed you will have truly earned the Combat Mission Ready status.

 

As for reading material there is alot out there depending on your interest. A-10s Over Kosovo by Christopher Haave and Phil Haun was very inspiring as well as Warthog by William Smallwood. The Osprey books are a good reference too. Combat Aircraft 98 A-10 Thunderbolt II Units of Operation Enduring Freedom 2002-2007 is a good recent reference. Combat Aircraft 111 A-10 Thunderbolt II Units of Operation Enduring Freedom 2008-2014 is coming out in August 2015.

 

For CAS and JTAC training there are many online air force manuals, documents and books as well as videos. Just search for CAS, JTAC, A-10 Training, keywords.