Hangar door & Repair tow off grass

[bluepilot76]

Hi,

Two small things I would like to see changed..

 

1) It would be better if the hangar door did not open immediately the mission was started. Its a nice effect, I would like to savour it! Also I think those bad boys would take a longer time to open. There is no hurry- its going to take 5 minutes to get her up and running anyway!

 

2) Often in a shot up landing you end up on the grass. All very well that the ground crew come and fix it, but it would be nice if they would tow it to the nearest bit of concrete too! As it is you remain stuck.

 

Best Regards

Bluepilot76

[Eddie]

1. Real world, the HAS doors will be open before you (as a pilot) have even left the nice warm briefing room. You can't start a jet with the doors closed.

 

2. Good idea, hopefully one day it can be modelled. (although not before repair can be enabled/disabled at individual airports by the mission builder).

[KLR Rico]

I've found I'm much more likely to stay on the runway if I land a damaged plane gear up, so for now that's what I've been sticking with. Getting towed off the grass would be nice though, or at least have the plane magically transported to the nearest taxiway/parking spot after a repair.

[Eddie]

It depends on the damage Rico.

 

If you have a blown main tyre or a main gear fails to extend at all, you should be performing a belly landing. With a nose gear failure you shold still be lowering the main gear, and then holding the nose up for as long as possible on roll out.

 

If you have a left engine/left hyd failure differential braking should be enough to keep you in a straight line.

[bluepilot76]

OK, good points, is that definately the case in a time of war though? I would have thought it is a good idea to keep the doors shut until the last moment? Yes the engines cant start with the doors shut but what about the APU? that takes a little while to spin up..or is it just totally unrealistic to have the thing starting in the hangar at all?

 

Anyway as missions do start in the hangar I would still like to see the doors open a bit slower and maybe not the very second that you press the pause / break. By the time Ive centred the Track IR and waited for the stupid zoom thing to finish the animation is over which is a bit of a shame.

 

Never thought to stick her down on the belly. quite a good idea that! Maybe not if theres a lot of others needing to land after though..

[sobek]

Yes the engines cant start with the doors shut but what about the APU? that takes a little while to spin up..or is it just totally unrealistic to have the thing starting in the hangar at all?

 

You wouldn't run a car inside a garage with the doors closed either. I assume that the reason why they don't do it is out of a certain distaste for asphyxiation. ;)

[Eddie]

OK, good points, is that definately the case in a time of war though? I would have thought it is a good idea to keep the doors shut until the last moment? Yes the engines cant start with the doors shut but what about the APU? that takes a little while to spin up..or is it just totally unrealistic to have the thing starting in the hangar at all?..

 

It all depends, do you mean an actual hangar, or a hardened aircraft shelter (HAS, pronounced HAZ). In the former, it would be very unrealistic to even run the APU. In a HAS, it'd be very realistic to start the jet inside, it's what they are for.

 

You have to open the doors regardless, it's one of the very first things the ground crew will do. Even in a scramble, the ground crew will run straight out to the HAS, open the doors and start removing pins etc while the aircrew are still getting their kit on and find out why they are being scrambled.

 

Although it's worth noting, you can't always start a jet inside a HAS, especially modern jets with GPS based nav systems (normally at least). HAS require GPS repeaters to be fitted so that the jet inside can receive the GPS signals needed for nav system alignment. For this very reason, while we kept jets in a HAS when not flying while we were in Italy for Libya, we dragged them out on to the ramp areas outside the HAS when they were going up.

 

IRL you'd also NEVER taxi a jet in to a HAS, pilots taxi in front of the HAS and then turn the jet round (with the help of marshallers) so the ground crew can push it back in to the HAS after shut down.

 

Anyway as missions do start in the hangar I would still like to see the doors open a bit slower and maybe not the very second that you press the pause / break. By the time Ive centred the Track IR and waited for the stupid zoom thing to finish the animation is over which is a bit of a shame...

 

Yeah, as a game feature it would be quite nice I suppose. But what would be even better is the doors opening like they do in modern NATO HAS by sliding to the sides rather than swinging outwards on hinges. All the hinged HAS doors I've seen are opened/closed by hand (brute force to be more accurate), whereas modern NATO HAS have electrically operated doors. The claxon that sounds when the doors are in motion would be nice as well.

 

Never thought to stick her down on the belly. quite a good idea that! Maybe not if theres a lot of others needing to land after though..

 

If others need to land, they should either divert or wait. You're the jet with an in flight emergency, so you have priority. Now, if you have an emergency that is not a threat to your ability to fly, then you could allow other flight members to land first (up to your flight lead), but that's down to judgement. It's not like there is long to wait in DCS, it takes 3 mins to repair and then another couple of mins to get engines started so you can taxi clear. I assure you it takes much longer to clear a crashed jet from the runway in reality.

[Eddie]

You wouldn't run a car inside a garage with the doors closed either. I assume that the reason why they don't do it is out of a certain distaste for asphyxiation. ;)

 

That, the fact that there are no blast vents for the APU exhaust like their are for the engines, and jet exhaust is bloody hot. Not to mention the fact that a HAS is loud enough when a jet is starting up inside it. You don't want to do anything to make it any worse.

[Snoopy]

When I was at Osan we would run the APU all the time in the HAS but we were required to have the blast doors open and the front doors open at least 10 feet.

 

We also did maintenance engine runs in the HAS, front doors had to be fully opened.

 

For our normal first launch of the day pilot would step to the ACFT, all doors fully opened by me (aka the crew chief). We would start APU then both engines, check hydraulics, check the brakes then taxi infront of the HAS to finish the launch.

 

During exercises we would do 100% of the launch inside the HAS.

 

 

It is a big no no to run the APU in any maintenance hanger besides a HAS.

[bluepilot76]

Some nice information here.

 

So it sounds like running the jet in the HAS is not that unlikely. As it is its not every mission in DCS that starts in the HAS and in fact many that do do tend to be early morning ones. So thats all very real and good.

 

So yeah, I think it would be great if the doors would open a bit more realistically!

 

With a claxon and flashing light would be awesome! But I wouldnt want to ask for too much!

 

Paulrkiii:

In your scenario where the jet gets started and taxiied out for the rest of the checks, would the pilot not start the alignment untill outside?

[bluepilot76]

It all depends, do you mean an actual hangar, or a hardened aircraft shelter (HAS, pronounced HAZ). In the former, it would be very unrealistic to even run the APU. In a HAS, it'd be very realistic to start the jet inside, it's what they are for.

 

I mean a HAS. I never saw the sim start in a maintenance hanger. I wouldnt expext to run it in there either.

[bluepilot76]

IBut what would be even better is the doors opening like they do in modern NATO HAS by sliding to the sides rather than swinging outwards on hinges. All the hinged HAS doors I've seen are opened/closed by hand (brute force to be more accurate), whereas modern NATO HAS have electrically operated doors.

 

In my mind the HAS in Georgia are probably the old mechanical ones. I see it more like NATO come into Georgia for some peacekeeping or whatever, and they have to deal with what there is. So old soviet airfields that havent probably been used for 20 years....so lumpy runways, grass between the concrete, knackerred old HASs etc. If you look at the airfields in GE they are generaly in a bit of a state!

 

So I dont mind if the groundcrew has to use a bit of brute force to get the old doors open. Even more reason why they shouldnt fly open like a fast thing going fast on fast day.