New Fish Here

[Charly_Owl]

Hello folks,

 

I've been lurking in the forums for quite, quite a while and after hours of flying prop-driven aircraft simulators, I've finally decided to make the big jump to flying the A-10C. I have all the hardware necessary, I just lack the training to fly this aircraft.

 

I've begun doing the training sessions, but I rapidly feel completely overwhelmed by the quantity of things to remember. Especially during take-off procedures.

 

For prop-driven aircrafts, everything feels so much simpler. You have flaps, mixture, prop pitch, rudder/aileron/elevator trim, oil/water radiator levers and landing gear controls to remember, your RPM limits, your oil/water rad limit temperatures, your stall/takeoff/landing/cruise speeds, and you're pretty much good to go.

 

For the A-10C, however... boy... I don't know where to start. There seems to be too much information at once. I thought I'd just "do" the training sessions, but I feel like I need to read the whole manual to be able to understand everything what the IP is talking about. All these systems... 'gives me the helluva headache.

 

Do you have any advice on how to learn to fly this aircraft methodically? I thought the learning curve on Cliffs of Dover and the DCS P-51D was steep, but I was clearly not ready for THIS. I don't know if I should just read the manual, and only then, once I'm done with those 700 pages, take the training sessions... Any tips? How did you guys go through all this stuff?

 

Anyhow... I'm willing to put the time it takes.

Edited September 3, 2013 by Charly_Owl

[IonicRipper]

Thats what I did (read the manual.)

 

I skipped some bits like the CDU though.

[TaliG]

Try to press as many buttons as you can in less than a minute without breaking it :D

[Tetra]

It's a study sim, so, true to name it needs studying :) Just keep running the tutorials for a start until you get more comfortable with each component and keep the manual close by to look up the things you don't get. It's much simpler to focus on one thing at a time and get a good basic understanding of how it functions rather than run head-long in to it and try and grasp it all in one go.

 

In my opinion first step should just be to get comfortable with flying it, ie. no weapons, no navigation, no radios, just the absolute bare bones, throttle, stick, flaps and speed break, and rudders, learn the basic flight gauges and the HUD info you need to accomplish that. Just get comfortable with how it handles as a jet and not as a weapons platform.

 

Once you are at that stage then just start focusing on specific tasks such as navigation etc. Run the specific tutorials for that task several times until you get it. Depending on what gear you have also learning your hotas layout is essential for getting to grips with everything faster, not to mention getting a grasp of the cockpits control layout, ie. switches etc.

 

There are tons of brilliant tutorials on YouTube and here on the forums that cover pretty much everything you could need to know. Don't get overwhelmed, it seems like a ton of info to begin with but you will rapidly pick up all the info you need. Aside from it being an immense amount of fun to fly and operate the learning process is really where the joy is with this sim.

Edited September 3, 2013 by Tetra

[Flagrum]

For prop-driven aircrafts, everything feels so much simpler. You have flaps, mixture, prop pitch, rudder/aileron/elevator trim, oil/water radiator levers and landing gear controls to remember, your RPM limits, your oil/water rad limit temperatures, your stall/takeoff/landing/cruise speeds, and you're pretty much good to go.

 

Gosh, that sounds complicated! In the A-10C you just switch on the turbines and that's it! :smartass:

 

Hehe, well, ok, before that, you have indeed to do a bit more. But it is really not _that_ hard. I began with the startup procedure in general. I watched the many available vids on youtube, did the startup training mission, etc. and tried it by myself. I also tried to understand what I was doing and after that, it wasn't so complicated anymore at all. So I read up about the systems as I encountered them at the startup in the manual and here on the forums, and ofc watching youtube vids. Step by step I learned more ... (and still do every day I take her out for a ride [that sounded wrong now, didn't it?])

 

There are atm one or two active threads that deal with "what to learn next". I suggest you look them up for tips. edit: http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=111826

 

edit2: And yes, I suggest, you DO read the whole manual. At least once now. Not necessarily word by word, if it gets too complicated for you at the moment, just skim briefly over that chapter. But at least so that you get a feeling for what is in there - so you can easily find the relevant parts when you later have to look up something. This will give you also a basic idea of the purpose of every component.

Edited September 3, 2013 by Flagrum

[PFunk1606688187]

Lemme put it this way, I never ever worry about the A-10 overheating like a prop plane. The word "radiator" is meaningless to me. If things are getting hot I must not be flying fast enough. :P

 

Flying the A-10 is really simple. Its bloody delightful actually. Engaging in combat operations is not as simple, but the flying bit is a breeze.

 

There's nothing harder about the A-10 over a prop plane I think. Even the tricycle landing gear is a huge improvement. The speed brakes make it almost impossible for you to screw up a landing approach speed while the auto retracting flaps mean you're never going to break those by accident either. The AOA indexer is my favourite. You don't even need to worry about calculating your landing speed, because it'll always tell you whether you're too fast or slow because you're gonna be on the right AOA.

 

Understanding systems is a whole separate thing to flying the airplane. If you learn to fly before learning to kill stuff you should have an easier time. You don't want to be fighting your speed alt or attitude when trying to remember HOTAS commands.

 

In general if you can fly a prop plane proficiently there should be nothing to make piloting the A-10 harder other than learning some new concepts, most of which involve having to not bother with X Y or Z that would need to be monitored on the P-51.

 

EDIT. I thought of another way to characterize the A-10. Its a 21st century avionics suite slapped into a low speed Jet from the 1970s designed to emulate the best qualities of a rugged German prop plane from WW2. If you look at airshow photos of the cockpits its insane. There are patching jobs done to things in there that look like one of the disasters my grandfather used to do to his piece of crap motorhome. Its delightfully kitch. :D

Edited September 3, 2013 by P*Funk

[badger66]

My suggestion is learn to start it and go flyin ..... get comfy , slowly do other easy stuff like learn radio's , rockets , guns , mav's CCIP , CCRP ..... proper airfield manners , landings and takeoffs ..... take your time . I was learning this A-10C for months before I ventured into LGB . After a year , I still haven't done ILS landings .

 

Rome wasn't built in a day .

[Hamblue]

As noted before, concentrate on starting up. There is an in-game tutorial that's pretty good. The first time you get the thing running and ready to taxi you'll be grinning big.

After that taxi to the runway and fly the bird. Practice takeoffs and landings until you get proficient. (shouldn't take long if you fly prop sims):pilotfly:

 

Once comfortable, start looking into other parts of the plane. Conquer one part at a time. Should keep you busy for quite a long time.

 

Welcome aboard and Good Luck

[Skall]

Pretty much echoing what was said here. Learn how to start her up, take off and land. Forget navigation, CDU, TGP, TAD, weapons, countermeasures, etc. Once you can fly the pattern and land her at will, start learning one system at a time.

 

Even then, don't expect to learn a system 100% though move on when you feel you can use the system's primary function without tripping over yourself. Some of the more obscure functions of some systems will require you to learn how others work and that won't become apparent until after you've learned 70-80% of the functionality across all systems.

 

I suggest you start with navigation, TGP and the TAD. Since you'll be itching for combat, go through the guns and rockets tutorial which will throw a lot of jargon at you. Read the manual to fill in the details.

 

Slightly contradictory to what I said above, I would also recommend blowing through all of the tutorials in sequence. Don't try to absorb everything since it is practically impossible. Instead just follow the instructions to get a feel for what she can do. You'll start to run into common subjects (CCIP/CCRP modes, SPI, SOI, etc). Then, when you go back to study each system in depth, you'll have an idea of how that system ties into the others.

[Crypstik]

Im in the same boat, ermmm make that same A10. Keep going over the tutorials until using your controller and setup becomes second nature. Also check out youtube for tutorials and tips on various systems. Plus if you can print the bible and read til your eyes bleed.

 

Practice, practice and then practice some more.

 

Ive just about got my hands trained to the HOTAS and following the tutorials over and over for around 2 weeks has mashed the content into my brain.

 

Good Luck