Flight Qualifications Campaign

[Redglyph]

Not sure what ED's requirements are, but I doubt they require four separate installers for one campaign ;)

 

I don't think the cockpit issue has anything to do with missing the event capture in this case, the fuel check takes a few seconds. It's more an issue of when it's monitored I suppose.

 

And regarding the shutdown procedure, it seems there is a checkpoint before entering the parking zone that verifies the configuration, and apparently triggers an error if that's not the same as before. So when it sees the CMSP is off and not in stand-by anymore, it triggers an error, which is incorrect in this case. It's possible to achieve the whole shutdown under 2 minutes, just a tad short if you want to do things carefully at this point in a cadet's career ;)

 

But it's probably better to wait for the author's comment on this.

[Sabre-TLA]

Hi sabre,

 

Looking at getting back into the a10c after a long break, just wondering if you have a package that includes the 3 phases and the interactive startup/shutdown missions?

Look forward to working my way through your training in prep for red flag. :thumbup:

 

Unfortunately not at this time. We want our packages to be available through ED's User Files section and it has a 100mb upload size limit.

 

This may change in future but for now it is as it is.

[Sabre-TLA]

The only big problem I have is the installation procedure. There are several packages, for example 4 in the case of the BFT, and for every single one of them you have to run an installer, type in the serial, the password, find the installation path, and the uninstall files will overwrite one another, the documentation files in different folders... It's really too tedious and as user-unfriendly as it can get. I don't like to have to install an additional program to provide the SUID either.

 

Could you please at least have only one installer, and point the default path correctly to the user's profile path? Or better still, since each installation program will put data in the Windows system directory and in the registry, which is usually not desirable, why not keep this simple and clean, and just provide a download link to a zip file once the package is paid? The result will be exactly the same, the user has access to all the files, but at least it would be easier to install.

 

That's certainly a good suggestion and was our original intention however to meet ED's contract requirements we ended up with the system we have. It's not ideal but it works. Maybe we can change to a better model in the future but for now it is as it is.

 

The documentation packages came out after the original campaign was released. The package size would be bigger than ED's 100mb upload file limit so we decided to release them as individual packages.

 

In the first qualification, I had some surprises. At the runway exit, I wanted to already run the "After clearing the runway" part, partly because 2 minutes is too short to shutdown everything once parked, and also because that's what was asked during the practice mission. It turns out that I was later reproached a missing item: CMSP to STBY. Of course, since it was switched to off after clearing the runway. Another 25 minutes lost.

 

It doesn't always detect the fuel check either, not sure why.

These are qualification missions so the triggers are testing for a specific condition. If you don't have the switch configured properly then the mission will consider that a failure. I can't tell based on your comment if you had the switch configured properly. The instructions say the CMSP should be OFF to pass the shutdown procedure. All the shutdown checks are done once the aircraft is stopped so you can start shutting things down as soon as you like.

 

For any button presses we recommend you hold the button for a 1 second count. The game engine appears to have issues detecting key presses less than that time.

 

Also, a little funny event: during the practice, an AI A-10 which is supposed to take off (and we have to wait for before taxiing on the runway) crashes into something and starts to burn at the start of the runway. It doesn't block the mission, but it's a little weird

 

Thanks for reporting that. Every ED game engine update seems to change the AI behavior so I suspect it could be the wingman crashing into lead issue that was reported earlier.

 

Make sure you are using the latest version of both DCS World and our download package to ensure you have all the current fixes.

 

EDIT: Just retested the practice mission and we didn't get the AI A-10 crash you reported. This is in DCS 1.5.2.49392 (latest version).

Edited February 7, 2016 by Sabre-TLA

[Gliptal]

Hey Sabre, I'm sorry I'm bugging you with this again, but are you sure refueling speed isn't under your control? By reading some expert users and threads around the forum it seems like you can actually set it in the editor, although it's GS there. 270kts seem to work for a 14000ft loiter.

 

I'll test myself in the editor and report.

 

EDIT: Apparently, setting the airspeed works if you use the "Orbit" option in the advanced waypoint actions, rather than drawing one manually with four waypoints.

Edited February 7, 2016 by Gliptal

[Sabre-TLA]

Hey Sabre, I'm sorry I'm bugging you with this again, but are you sure refueling speed isn't under your control? By reading some expert users and threads around the forum it seems like you can actually set it in the editor, although it's GS there. 270kts seem to work for a 14000ft loiter.

 

I'll test myself in the editor and report.

 

EDIT: Apparently, setting the airspeed works if you use the "Orbit" option in the advanced waypoint actions, rather than drawing one manually with four waypoints.

 

Good find! As part of our next update I'll change the tanker to be in an Orbit at 220 knots and see if that works better than what the AI is doing currently.

[AstroEma]

HI Sabre,

 

I seem to have a problem with the Manouvers mission: when doing the spiral dive, the instructor terminates the PO because I exited the MOA.

I did it twice and had the same problem.

 

What am I supposed to do?

 

Thanks,

e.

[Sabre-TLA]

HI Sabre,

 

I seem to have a problem with the Manouvers mission: when doing the spiral dive, the instructor terminates the PO because I exited the MOA.

I did it twice and had the same problem.

 

What am I supposed to do?

 

Thanks,

e.

 

You need to be aware of the MOA boundaries so watch your speed getting to the maneuver area. If you cross over the river then you are outside the MOA and will get a terminate call.

 

When making the spiral dive, be aggressive.

 

In our diagram we say a 60 degree bank with a 10 degree down angle. If that is getting you

too close to the MOA edge make a tighter bank (increase the angle).

 

The spiral dive triggers are checking for rotations through heading and dropping of altitude.

 

You can watch [ame=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5flDdAMhL0&index=1&list=PLOS_9ARrkqWeSBthQwP2NbA7syA_u0iAL]our video[/ame] to see how we did it. Ignore the text in the video it's incorrect. We will be recording new videos soon to replace them but this should at least give you an idea (and you can see where the river is in relation to our aircraft to stay within the MOA).

Edited February 8, 2016 by Sabre-TLA

[Gliptal]

Good find! As part of our next update I'll change the tanker to be in an Orbit at 220 knots and see if that works better than what the AI is doing currently.

I didn't test it thoroughlly yet, I'll see if I can find half an hour this evening to actually confirm this works.

[Bob Denny]

What is the best way to keep up with your updates? I haven't updated yet. I have them all.

 

I will add my vote to somehow make it easier to purchase, install, and update. I understand you're limited by EDs servers. It might be worth a trade off analysis or posting a small installer program that goes elsewhere for the "meat". An example is the Navigraph nav data service for flight simulators. It has an installer that allows you to configure multiple simulator and aircraft installations and then do a 1-button update/refresh of all of them. It also alerts for updates available. For DCS I guess people have multiple installations (beta, alpha, production, ??).

 

I feel OK making a suggestion like this because you are doing this as a business not a gift. I am totally fine with paying for the content, it is really great!!! People have no idea how well it's done (well till they use it ha ha), and how beneficial your instruction is. Bravo!!

[Sabre-TLA]

What is the best way to keep up with your updates? I haven't updated yet. I have them all.

 

I will add my vote to somehow make it easier to purchase, install, and update. I understand you're limited by EDs servers. It might be worth a trade off analysis or posting a small installer program that goes elsewhere for the "meat". An example is the Navigraph nav data service for flight simulators. It has an installer that allows you to configure multiple simulator and aircraft installations and then do a 1-button update/refresh of all of them. It also alerts for updates available. For DCS I guess people have multiple installations (beta, alpha, production, ??).

 

I feel OK making a suggestion like this because you are doing this as a business not a gift. I am totally fine with paying for the content, it is really great!!! People have no idea how well it's done (well till they use it ha ha), and how beneficial your instruction is. Bravo!!

 

Thanks for the feedback. We will take it into consideration. For now I recommend subscribing to our blog as any mission updates are posted there.

 

Alternatively you could go to ED's User Files section and sort by selecting the paid filter and sort by newest.

[Gliptal]

So, I just created a stupidly simple mission with the editor, and even by manually placing the waypoints (i.e. no orbit option) the tanker retains the ground speed set in the editor. 280kn @15000ft yield a nice 220kn indicated.

 

It's much simpler than I thought: the set speed in the editor on the missions (that is ground speed) is just too low for 17000ft. 290kt give exactly 220kt, at least over the black sea. The orbit speed must be changed too.

 

I've attached two .miz files, one with the right behaviour and one with the wrong one. I think in the area where TAC are located the difference between ias and gs is even higher (assuming that's even possible). Maybe try 300-320kt?

right.miz

wrong.miz

[Bob Denny]

Is it possible this is just the fact that IAS vs GS differ as a function of the altitude (air density)?

[Gliptal]

Is it possible this is just the fact that IAS vs GS differ as a function of the altitude (air density)?

Yes that's true. The point is on the Baltic sea 280kgs are exactly 220kias, whereas in the mission in the Vaziani area 265kgs are 180kias. I couldn't find a constant coefficient for the conversion. It's probably not linear, depends on the weather, and the general airspace as well. Getting it right in the TAC missions requires some fine tuning directly in the mission itself.

 

I just wanted to point out the waypoints are fine as they are, it's just the gs that is set too low in the editor at the moment. Why on earth would the editor only have ground speed as a setting out of all the possible options is beyond me, I guess it's some legacy from older versions of DCSW. This simulator is amazing for most things, but where it falls short it does so massively: I'm convinced it wouldn't be that hard to add an option that makes the tanker change speed and altitude to match the refueling's aircraft ideal setting.

 

But I'm digressing.

Edited February 8, 2016 by Gliptal

[Redglyph]

The documentation packages came out after the original campaign was released. The package size would be bigger than ED's 100mb upload file limit so we decided to release them as individual packages.

I see... that's quite annoying. All I can do is recommend using 7-zip (last version as of today is 15.14). It can create encrypted, self-extracting archives that are split to ensure a maximum chunk size if necessary, that solves all the problems.

 

I did a test on the BFT and it wasn't even necessary to split the files as the result was under 94 MB (7z has much better compression ratios than the old zip format). It's encrypted with AES 256, so it's pretty strong - provided the key has enough entropy, of course.

 

These are qualification missions so the triggers are testing for a specific condition. If you don't have the switch configured properly then the mission will consider that a failure. I can't tell based on your comment if you had the switch configured properly. The instructions say the CMSP should be OFF to pass the shutdown procedure. All the shutdown checks are done once the aircraft is stopped so you can start shutting things down as soon as you like.

As I said, I had this switch set to OFF but was disqualified because there was an erroneous check expecting it to be on STBY when clearing the runway. In the practice mission, it's specifically said to switch it to OFF at this point. :ermm:

 

I haven't checked the scripts, but my guess would be there is a check with the same expected values "before taxiing", instead of the updated values "off runway".

 

To avoid that, the user must not touch anything until parked. It's possible to get through, but it's not correct IMHO, in the light of what is said during the practice, and the checklists.

 

For any button presses we recommend you hold the button for a 1 second count. The game engine appears to have issues detecting key presses less than that time.

That's right, but I'm aware of this issue when sampling the switches, as said before, checking the fuel takes longer than one second anyway so it must be something else.

 

To be honest I didn't try to reproduce this since the mission takes quite a while, so I just checked the fuel several times to be sure, in order to pass the qualification.

 

Thanks for reporting that. Every ED game engine update seems to change the AI behavior so I suspect it could be the wingman crashing into lead issue that was reported earlier.

 

Make sure you are using the latest version of both DCS World and our download package to ensure you have all the current fixes.

 

EDIT: Just retested the practice mission and we didn't get the AI A-10 crash you reported. This is in DCS 1.5.2.49392 (latest version).

I'm using the same version.

 

That probably depends on the timing :/ Yep, the AI does funny things sometimes. Not a big deal anyway :)

[Bob Denny]

Thanks for the feedback. We will take it into consideration. For now I recommend subscribing to our blog as any mission updates are posted there.

 

Alternatively you could go to ED's User Files section and sort by selecting the paid filter and sort by newest.

 

OK, I looked at all of this and I confess to be confused, probably because I am a new user. Maybe you can look at this, which I have on my disk (not inside DCS, but in a separate "installation files" folder) after apparently downloading some updates (??). I have run the .exe files. The .miz are the updates but with the same version numbers on them. How can I tell what I have?

 

Edited February 9, 2016 by Bob Denny

[Redglyph]

I'm a bit confused about the landing / takeoff patterns, and general procedures.

 

To land, the BFT campaign and practice always mention the pattern altitude, and in mission 03 it seems happy with any altitude (probably withing some range) provided the pilot keeps that altitude when holding the pattern. 2000 ft AGL is usual, with a 8-nm glide slope, I think this altitude is given in the A-10C flight manual for ILS approach, for example. The mountains at Batumi don't make it easier because, if the pilot adapts the altitude or turns earlier to avoid a terrain collision, the mission fails. So 2000 ft might be a bit low there.

 

The pattern itself, at least in mission 03, is continuing over the runway, on a rectangular/oval course. This seems to be a good recipe for collision, as aircraft taking off with a 10-degree pitch intercept that course. Moreover, in mission 03 it seems that the F-15 and F-16 are taking off in the opposite direction (30) than the landing (12), which is strange (no wind?).

 

The altitude of the waypoints are 2500-ft high and about 6.3 nm from the runway start, which probably makes for quite a steep descent, coming from above the glide path.

 

EDIT: Looking at the mission description screen again, I realize 2500 ft is indicated as pattern altitude, missed that the first time!

 

I would expect such an approach on a small airfield with no ATC, but here I'd rather expect maybe 2 holding stacks with a path to the glide slope entry. And there must be some altitude levels to keep when taking off, to avoid those holding patterns, no? I know DCS's current ATC code is very rudimentary and erratic (more than once in this practice mission they granted me permission to land with F-15's still taking off, resulting in a near-collision once when an aircraft went on the runway during my landing, and several aborts from the ATC at the last second), I'm merely wondering what others' view were regarding those procedures. I'm also wondering whether the other aircraft shouldn't take off in the same runway direction.

Edited February 13, 2016 by Redglyph

[Shez]

I always fly the pattern at 2500 because I think it's mentioned somewhere in the dialog or the pre-flight docs provided. The ATC does suck. Apparently being worked on.

[Mick F]

Flying TAC11, I complete all the JTAC targets, then get a message to call end of VUL; after that nothing and if I fly past WP Charlie I get a mission failure. Instructions (or triggers) need to improve on this one.

[Gliptal]

Flying TAC11, I complete all the JTAC targets, then get a message to call end of VUL; after that nothing and if I fly past WP Charlie I get a mission failure. Instructions (or triggers) need to improve on this one.

If I remember correctly you get the "end of VUL" message only if you don't destroy all the targets in time: it's an actual radio call under the JTAC menu. Destroying all the targets should yield a "playtime is over" message.

[Mick F]

Odd.

 

I destroy all targets within the 15 minutes playtime for each JTAC but always get end of VUL even after that.

 

Very frustrating after an hour+ flight.

 

I've also noticed that the JTAC explanation messages are a bit random. I've flown this 3 times and the last time was the only one where it happened between WP1 and WP2. Previously it used to happen after the first JTAC engagement completed.

 

Thanks for the input though.

[Sabre-TLA]

Compare your flight to [ame=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4osYUWqlyQ&list=PLWdk-qE8kdAUJLRsVnx36eSdY8SmCOBql&index=2]Recon Stewart's video[/ame] and see which ones you missed.

[Sabre-TLA]

OK, I looked at all of this and I confess to be confused, probably because I am a new user. Maybe you can look at this, which I have on my disk (not inside DCS, but in a separate "installation files" folder) after apparently downloading some updates (??). I have run the .exe files. The .miz are the updates but with the same version numbers on them. How can I tell what I have?

 

 

The ones with 1.5 are for DCS World 1.5 (to differentiate them from previous DCS World versions as ED changed the mission file structure). If you have the latest downloaded copy then you are using the latest version.

 

If you still need help please email us at mapleflagmissions@gmail.com and we can help get you sorted.

[Mick F]

Compare your flight to Recon Stewart's video and see which ones you missed.

 

That video proves my point perfectly. The pilot checks out end of VUL as instructed and then doesn't know what to do and does't receive any instructions. He ends up checking back in with JTAC out of desperation and destroying the last target and then gets a triggered message.

 

He also states (52.15 in the timeline) he failed the mission a few times as there are no instructions given, either in briefing or inflight, on what to do.

[Sabre-TLA]

That video proves my point perfectly. The pilot checks out end of VUL as instructed and then doesn't know what to do and does't receive any instructions. He ends up checking back in with JTAC out of desperation and destroying the last target and then gets a triggered message.

 

He also states (52.15 in the timeline) he failed the mission a few times as there are no instructions given, either in briefing or inflight, on what to do.

 

That's because he checked out of the range accidentally before he was completed but proves that he could still complete the mission.

 

What part of this is unclear:

 

"This PO will require you to coordinate with Airborne FACs and Ground JTACs to destroy specific targets. You must kill all of the identified targets to pass this PO."

 

If you don't kill them all then you don't pass.

 

We will be updating the mission so we can add some extra dialogue to better indicate that you haven't killed all the targets before your vul period ends.

[Mick F]

What part of this is unclear:

 

Not sure the sarcasm is warranted Sabre :(

 

On the last JTAC he checks in at 34:22. He then gets an instructor message at 46:48 telling him to end VUL which is only 11:26 after checkin.

 

He hasn't destroyed the last target yet, but checks out. He then checks back in a few minutes later, drops a GBU12 and checks out accidentally before it hits. He then gets the egress message.

 

Point is that he doesn't get the 15 minutes playtime and gets no failure messages. The update will fix the second but the first should be fixed as well. He makes checkin calls on the wrong channels prior to 34:22; could this be starting the timer?