Useless DCS vs. A2A Thread

effte · February 14, 2012

As long as it's done in a realistic way and the air quake, casual, and time limited flyers have the option to switch such things off, they'll have nothing to moan about then (well not as much anyway).

As if that will stop them... :helpsmilie: ;)

159th_Viper · February 14, 2012

I'll mention this one to some of our pilots and see what they say in response.

Let us know - Pilots of Old Warbirds, that is. I'm not really interested in current airframes insofar as it relates to this particular discussion.

@effte

Valid points - let's see where the future takes us :)

Eddie · February 14, 2012

Let us know - Pilots of Old Warbirds, that is. I'm not really interested in current airframes insofar as it relates to this particular discussion.

Who d'ya think fly's for BBMF. Hint, only a couple of old crusty pilots are permanently assigned. ;). Although they are amogst the best maintained airframes on earth, the same applies, as I said, you'd be surprised how few systems are essential for flight. And the limits before which a problem becomes a show stopper.

Although, OT, flying a Typhoon in the morning and a Spitfire/Hurricane in the afternoon is certainly up there in the 'World's best job' shortlist.

SimFreak · February 15, 2012

Let us know - Pilots of Old Warbirds, that is. I'm not really interested in current airframes insofar as it relates to this particular discussion.

@effte

Valid points - let's see where the future takes us :)

Before taking aircraft, you check maintenance records paying especial attention to previously fixed write ups, outstanding write ups that are minor and not grounding or due inspections. If maintenance fixed something from previous flight, you halfway expect it to fail / not fixed and prepare for that experience. If aircraft had major issues (engine / controls related) then certified pilot takes it for a test run before that aircraft signed of for general pilots use.

What I'm trying to say is that keeping / adding maintenance issues from a flight to a flight is silly. It's like saying that you don't have ground folks to fix your airplane and you're 'dumb' enough to take aircraft that is grounded.

leafer · February 15, 2012

What I'm trying to say is that keeping / adding maintenance issues from a flight to a flight is silly. It's like saying that you don't have ground folks to fix your airplane and you're 'dumb' enough to take aircraft that is grounded.

Exactly.

tintifaxl · February 15, 2012

Viper,
...

In an online simulation of a combat environment, quite a few people would appreciate it. Seen the online wars going in RoF and Il-2? With actual attrition rates for planes and sometimes pilots as well, as well as maintenance downtime for combat repair and all the general logistics of an effective war-fighting unit? Great fun.
...

I can see merit in this, if we had an dynamic campaign with limited ressources where the player can decide when an aircraft is up for maintenance and thus loses an operational aircraft to send up in the skies. Maybe in the same manner as F4s campaign with wear and tear added.

I for myself would of course always chose a plane with no wear to fly a mission, if possible :D

effte · February 15, 2012

The work-around to the lack of dynamic campaign has in other sims been mission-generators, with the persistent world in a database outside of the simulator. This of course assumes detailed event-logs generated by the simulator, in order to use for updating the game-world database.

Anyone care to lift the idea to ED, to create those detailed logs for the benefit of third-party campaign generators? I have a feeling this could be done in LUA world...

I for myself would of course always chose a plane with no wear to fly a mission, if possible :D

Ah, and the REMF brigade have an XO! :P

Cheers,

/Fred

EvilBivol-1 · February 15, 2012

The work-around to the lack of dynamic campaign has in other sims been mission-generators, with the persistent world in a database outside of the simulator. This of course assumes detailed event-logs generated by the simulator, in order to use for updating the game-world database.

Anyone care to lift the idea to ED, to create those detailed logs for the benefit of third-party campaign generators? I have a feeling this could be done in LUA world...

Ah, and the REMF brigade have an XO! :P

Cheers,
/Fred

It's been discussed before, but generally a combination of the debrief log and LUA exporting can provide enough data about the mission-end state of the world for a mission generator to re-populate it accordingly for the next mission. What is missing is a single application to gather this data and a mission generator that can use it to place units on the map. Theoretically you could even track destoyed world objects (like bridges, buildings, runways) and then blow them up again at the start of the next mission to simulate a certain level of persistence.

Edited February 15, 2012 by EvilBivol-1

Boberro · February 15, 2012

Theoretically you could even track destoyed world objects (like bridges, buildings, runways) and then blow them up again at the start of the next mission to simulate a certain level of persistence.

Do you have such plans to make it so? It'd be great feature no doubt!:)

effte · February 15, 2012

Before taking aircraft, you check maintenance records paying especial attention to previously fixed write ups, outstanding write ups that are minor and not grounding or due inspections. If maintenance fixed something from previous flight, you halfway expect it to fail / not fixed and prepare for that experience. If aircraft had major issues (engine / controls related) then certified pilot takes it for a test run before that aircraft signed of for general pilots use.

What I'm trying to say is that keeping / adding maintenance issues from a flight to a flight is silly. It's like saying that you don't have ground folks to fix your airplane and you're 'dumb' enough to take aircraft that is grounded.

First you are saying that defects do carry over (which quite frankly is hard to argue against), then you say it is silly for them to do so?

I have to admit to not quite following your reasoning there.

Keeping (or even adding) maintenance issues is certainly not silly. Keeping grounding issues would be - unless you're recreating a warfighting scenario where aircraft may well be put back on the line with issues which would normally render them aircraft on ground.

There's wear and tear, there are grounding issues, there are issues which have to be fixed within a certain calendar time/flight time span, there are issues which can be deferred for an indeterminate time period. Repairs, scheduled maintenance/replacements (flight time or calendar time)... I think we need to keep them apart to have a meaningful conversation. If one person is talking about grounding issues and the next person is talking about normal wear and tear, common ground or even understanding will never be reached.

Aircraft with unservicabilities could certainly be used to create some added depth and interesting missions! Especially in the high-tech birds. "Sorry bud, but your GPS is out*. Make sure to get that INS synched in flight every now and then". Or even throw virtual hairdryer pile-its the curve ball of flying using ded reckoning and pilotage. Now that could be fun, ten virtual hot-shots taking off to fly low-level sorties in A-10s using clock, map and compass... I'd love to watch that from behind a virtual radar screen with a cold one in hand. Of course that is what we'll be getting with DCS-purple-smiley-51D... :D

*) In operational use, inability to rely on GPS would be my expected scenario.

effte · February 15, 2012

It's been discussed before, but generally a combination of the debrief log and LUA exporting can provide enough data about the mission-end state of the world for a mission generator to re-populate it accordingly for the next mission.

Thank you for the feedback!

Cheers,

Fred

Frostiken · February 15, 2012

And for the record, I'm 200% in favour of further fault/failure modelling and persistent wear & tear etc. As long as it's done in a realistic way and the air quake, casual, and time limited flyers have the option to switch such things off, they'll have nothing to moan about then (well not as much anyway).

Then tell Wags to get cracking on DCS: F-15E and then get with me and you'll have so many realistic failures you head will explode :D

genbrien · February 15, 2012

Then tell Wags to get cracking on DCS: F-15E and then get with me and you'll have so many realistic failures you head will explode :D

Not sure I want my F-15 to do this :music_whistling:

GGTharos · February 15, 2012

F-15E's don't have this problem, and only a F-15C's had the longeron defect.

Not sure I want my F-15 to do this :music_whistling:

Eddie · February 15, 2012

Then tell Wags to get cracking on DCS: F-15E and then get with me and you'll have so many realistic failures you head will explode :D

Sadly I have about as much influence over such things as a drunk tinfoil hat wearing nutter in Nevada has over US Govt policy.

Besides you're an AV tech, all you lot ever do is hit ctrl-alt-del and re-load the software while saying big words to impress everyone and then run off at the first hint of oil/grease/fuel. People wanna know what the real workers get up to. ;)

SimFreak · February 15, 2012

First you are saying that defects do carry over (which quite frankly is hard to argue against), then you say it is silly for them to do so?

I have to admit to not quite following your reasoning there.

Keeping (or even adding) maintenance issues is certainly not silly. Keeping grounding issues would be - unless you're recreating a warfighting scenario where aircraft may well be put back on the line with issues which would normally render them aircraft on ground.

There's wear and tear, there are grounding issues, there are issues which have to be fixed within a certain calendar time/flight time span, there are issues which can be deferred for an indeterminate time period. Repairs, scheduled maintenance/replacements (flight time or calendar time)... I think we need to keep them apart to have a meaningful conversation. If one person is talking about grounding issues and the next person is talking about normal wear and tear, common ground or even understanding will never be reached.

Aircraft with unservicabilities could certainly be used to create some added depth and interesting missions! Especially in the high-tech birds. "Sorry bud, but your GPS is out*. Make sure to get that INS synched in flight every now and then". Or even throw virtual hairdryer pile-its the curve ball of flying using ded reckoning and pilotage. Now that could be fun, ten virtual hot-shots taking off to fly low-level sorties in A-10s using clock, map and compass... I'd love to watch that from behind a virtual radar screen with a cold one in hand. Of course that is what we'll be getting with DCS-purple-smiley-51D... :D

*) In operational use, inability to rely on GPS would be my expected scenario.

I'm saying that with proper ground crew you shouldn't have issues. And in war environment, you will not take broken jet; you're going to become liability and cause more harm than good. During military action, attrition to maintenance is already calculated.

And what would be carried over?

You over-G aircraft - it's grounded.

Hard landing - grounded.

You use WEP - inspection is required

You use military power for over 5 minutes - inspection is required.

If some folks into thrills of section-3 of dash-1, make options of "hanger queen". Fire during engine start, lead on sparks, engine fail on takeoff, gear fail to raise, asymmetric flaps, oxygen seal fail..... yeah fun!

effte · February 15, 2012

I'm saying that with proper ground crew you shouldn't have issues.

If you are not limited by available airframes, maintenance crew, spare parts, time etc etc etc visavi the desired amount of aircraft flying.

This will never happen.

And in war environment, you will not take broken jet; you're going to become liability and cause more harm than good.

Half true. You won't take one - you will be assigned one. As I said before, the aircraft flying without some kind of squawk in the maintenance logs are easily counted. There's always something - big or small. How much will be determined by operational requirements and available resources. Small requirements - large resources - only small squawks. Large requirements - few resources available - you go flying with things which would normally mean grounding the aircraft.

This is all planned for in advance, so it's not a question of bending the rules as much as applying a different set of rules. There are people who work solely with figuring out how to do wartime repairs.

I have to follow a three-feet high stack (or maybe six feet, don't want to think about it really) of safety instructions in parts of my work. All of them state, on the very first page, that they only apply in peacetime. First shot fired, and they are at best guidelines and will be the first thing to go when the firewood runs short.

During military action, attrition to maintenance is already calculated.

That bit you got right. And all of the above is taken into account. The equation invariably ends up with fewer airframes on the line than you'd like to have. Soooo... keep the jet with a couple of snags on the ground while they are worked out and tell the grunts that sorry, CAS isn't available in your area today - please cancel your appointment with the enemy as we can't figure out how to get power to pylon three? Or just go flying and do what you can without using anything requiring power on pylon three?

You over-G aircraft - it's grounded.
Hard landing - grounded.
You use WEP - inspection is required
You use military power for over 5 minutes - inspection is required.

No.

All of those can, and most certainly will, be overruled (albeit not without due consideration) if the aircraft will really make a difference.

You have to realise that the mindset in peacetime aviation is one of never taking a risk if it can be at all avoided. You're not going to ever risk losing airframes or pilots due to not performing maintenance when you would be able to do so. Hence, full inspection after an over-G or hard landing is a no-brainer. For a given amount of Gs registered, you know that you will find squat diddley 99% of the time and the remaining percent of the time you will have a few fasteners loose. Yet, you ground the aircraft pending inspection to make sure that in the case where the fasteners are loose, they will be repaired prior to next flight as it will be horrendously expensive if a few more flights are done where said fasteners may result in a cracked rib. It's not worth taking that risk just go get another practise flight done. That flight can wait, it' a nuisance at worst.

Now, if lives depended on getting that aircraft in the air within the next hour?

While papers are written on these matters (and I've had the dubious pleasure to write one or two myself), it's really quite simple. In most walks of life, you do an analysis of gains versus risks. Is the time saving from jumping down that three foot drop versus taking the stairs ten meters away worth the risk of spraining your ankle? Probably. What happens if the drop instead is six feet? Suddenly, the detour over the stairs sounds like a better option, doesn't it? If your kid is below that drop, standing in a puddle of gasoline and just found a box of matches.... ? Suddenly, the drop could be nine feet and you'd jump without even considering the stairs. Broken ankles heal. The gain far outweighs the risk.

It is the same thing in aviation. If lives can be saved through getting the aircraft airborne, you accept risks which would never be considered otherwise. The only difference is it is infinitely more complex and is approached in a much more systematic manner.

Even in peacetime, snags are accepted if they are not deemed an undue safety concern. That's why you have MELs. Binders (literally) full of lists with items which can be broken with the aircraft still deemed airworthy, perhaps for a limited time or perhaps with restrictions - but definitely, no doubt about it airworthy. Then you have more binders telling you how to deal with those deficiencies in everyday ops. And that is in civvie world... if you have ever been on a commercial flight, you are almost guaranteed to have been on an aircraft flying with a few MEL'd items.

Yet, you insist that air force aircraft will not go flying with snags.

Summary: Item A is broken. Job B needs to be done. Do you need A to do B? Yes or no? If yes, find another jet for job B or it's not happening. If no: Will item A being broken affect your capability in any way while doing job B? If no, all is fine. If yes, deal with those limitations and go do the job.

Edit: I'm stuck doing nothing at the moment and bored out of my skull, so I amused myself by beating this dead horse to a pulp. Don't expect further replies on the matter unless you come up with something interesting.

Edited February 15, 2012 by effte

SimFreak · February 15, 2012

When ATO tasks your unit with something and you can't support it due to maintenance, another unit that is able will be tasked. Simple as that. I don't know what SPINS you're used to operating under.

effte · February 15, 2012

And there's always another unit available, with the capability and availability you're lacking since you grounded half your fleet due to minor snags?

The real world called. They wonder where you are and if they can join you, as things seem to be much better arranged there - wherever it is! :)

SimFreak · February 16, 2012

And there's always another unit available, with the capability and availability you're lacking since you grounded half your fleet due to minor snags?

The real world called. They wonder where you are and if they can join you, as things seem to be much better arranged there - wherever it is! :)

My world? I'm a pilot in USAF with 500 'combat' hours. I think I'll make this my last reply.

effte · February 18, 2012

It's good to know from a hardened RHS 'combat' veteran that over-G'd tankers or transports are never employed as CAS in todays environment.

Now, where were we? Talking about maintenance of frontline aircraft in war-time, I think?

Thinking better of it, it's coffee time. :)

Impact · February 18, 2012

I dont think that A2A and ED are fighting over customers. But competition is always good. At least they dont sue each other for patents like Apple does with everyone.

Frostiken · February 18, 2012

My world? I'm a pilot in USAF with 500 'combat' hours. I think I'll make this my last reply.

And I'm a maintainer with a very lowballed estimate of over 5,000 hours in/on/around F-15s. I can't count the number of times we've done something on the maintenance side with tacit MXG approval due to real-world demands.

Before we blew the snot out of Gaddafi, we were literally told 'QA has been pulled from the line, get these aircraft ready now'. Do you seriously think your by-the-book 4-5 hour-long Level I Over-G inspection is going to not be mostly pencil-whipped when that jet is needed?

I don't know if you're really a pilot or what you even fly, but 99.9% of pilots are unspeakably clueless about what happens after they get out of the seat. Unless you're the MXOO (and even then...), your personal experience in this regard is fairly meaningless.

Additionally, I'm not really sure what your point even is. I suggested that, as part of a dynamic / extended campaign, the fundamentals of maintenance could be implemented as a sort of resourcing strategy game. Every aircraft would start the campaign basically as all aircraft do - a few quirks, but basically all solid (generally speaking, all aircraft are greened-up as much as possible before deployment). Randomize their MTBF stats across all systems, and then track them throughout the campaign. If you treat your jets like shit, they really are grounded for maintenance in some capacity, so you start the campaign with, say, 12 aircraft, and as you get shot up, the pool of good tails drains. Eventually as systems fail, maintenance gets spread thin, maybe that radio fail ended up being wiring so you have to go out with your UHF radio sounding like crap, since the coax line to the antenna has the conductor shorted to the shield causing lots of interference. Maybe you have $x,xxx,xxx available for munitions, and as you drop costly munitions you use that up (or the mission creator could specify what is available), so you can't just pickle off three-dozen Mavs each sortie and drop CBU-107s like it's chaff.

Regardless, this was all idle speculation. I'm not really sure where you got the impression that anyone said having GAA/GAB/GACs was a good idea, since generally speaking that would just be an annoyance as it would mean you end the flight as soon as it started, which serves no purpose at all.

Edited February 18, 2012 by Frostiken

Rikus · February 18, 2012

A2A

You fly with the P51, and how you punish the engine, for the next flight, it will be like that, is awesome.

Awesome aerosoft airports, lot of ILS, VORS and NDB, REX 2 and other...

Greetings

Weta43 · February 18, 2012

"lot of ILS, VORS and NDB, REX 2:"

Is it a 'renovated' P-51 you're flying ?

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