streakeagle

I bought an MSI GTX 1080 for $470 from NewEgg last spring and want to get another one so my son's PC can run an Oculus Rift. I was astounded to find my exact card going for around $1,200. Maybe I should sell my card and give up gaming for a while, then buy 2 when the prices come back down... if they ever do. This must be heaven for nVidia and AMD since all of their cards with good bitcoin performance have sold out like crazy. I wish a thousand deaths to the digital currency market so that I can afford to keep building decent flight sim PCs.

As a dedicated air-to-air fan, I would have preferred the JA-37. But the AJS-37 has unique advanced systems that are interesting to figure out and employ. While it can be employed as a fighter, it has only a very basic radar search, no tracking, no BVR missiles, just AIM-9s and the option to use gunpods. To truly enjoy this aircraft, you have to fly it on strike or anti-ship sorties. Low altitude passes can be used to accurately lay down retarded bombs. Rockets are very accurate, too. The Mavericks and antiship missiles are fairly easy to employ and have a great chance of hitting if aimed properly before firing. It is absolutely amazing to have a sim where you can fire and control a command guidance air-to-surface missile. The training, instant action, and regular missions give you plenty of opportunities to try all of these systems out. I like it so much that I may buy the AJS-37 Red Flag campaign.

These websites provide perspective on what it takes to avoid an "egg": http://www.krepelka.com/fsweb/learningcenter/advancedflyingskills/aerobatics.htm http://www.chegg.com/homework-help/questions-and-answers/illustration-shows-airplane-loop-fairly-low-speed-son-pilot-air-force-loops-500-mph-jet-pr-q10996085 http://www.planeandpilotmag.com/article/loop/#.WmgD6lUrJhE http://www.hooked-on-rc-airplanes.com/aerobatic-maneuvers.html

Imagine that air is a fluid like water. Now imagine that in water, your radius of turn is determined by the position of your rudder regardless of speed. If gravity didn't interfere, you held the stick back at a fixed angle, and you didn't stall before making it past the top of the loop, you would in theory make a perfect circle in spite of the speed changes. In reality, air is a little more "slippery" than water and a lot more than a car turning a circle with a fixed steering wheel position, but the principles is essentially the same. Somewhere online there must be a video of a stunt plane performing a perfect circular loop with both an outside view and a cockpit view so you can see how the pilot moves the controls to hold the circle. Before high thrust:weight ratio fighters, you simply dived to build up enough speed to hold the circle before stalling. You will find that competition pilots use a combination of a visual reference and seat of the pants feeling to maintain a constant force/perfect circle. It does take practice to very the stick pressure at the right rate to hold the circle.

It is possible to see the g load at the top of the screen via the debug mode. I don't know what is/isn't possible with modding the normal on screen data since I rarely used it and never modded it.

Was the original question how to turn using a g-meter? Traditionally when using the word "turn", this implies a flat turn. So more important than the g meter is the rate of climb indicator. For a given speed and g-indication, you have to maintain a certain bank as described above. But you don't need a g-meter at all to perform a level turn. Bank as desired and pull back on the stick just enough to hold the rate of climb to zero. As long as the rate of climb is zero and the angle of bank is constant, the indicated g must remain constant as determined by the angle of bank as discussed above. This has a nice graph of bank vs g load: http://avstop.com/AC/FlightTraingHandbook/loadfactorsinsteepturns.html

This pdf has an excellent section describing radial g and shows the vector geometry that takes into account lift and gravity to determine the resulting radial g: http://www.flightlab.net/Flightlab.net/Download_Course_Notes_files/8_Maneuvering.pdf In a flat circle, the radial g is parallel to the ground, and therefore perpendicular to gravity. So you wouldn't think gravity would have anything to do with radial g, but it does! Since the aircraft has to maintain 1 g parallel to gravity to keep the circle flat (no altitude change), the aircraft must bank at a certain angle to split its lift vector between holding altitude and providing radial g. This presents a problem when analyzing aircraft performance: If someone says an aircraft can sustain a 9g turn, is it 9gs of force on the wing or 9gs of radial g? Generally, when they say a 9g turn, I would expect that to be indicated g, so the actual turn is the radial g of a triangle using the Pythagorean theorem (c^2 = a^2 + b^2) where the indicated g is the long side of the triangle. So for level turns, the actual radial g used to determine the turn radius and turn rate (deg/sec) is: square root ( (indicated g)^2 - gravity (1g) ). For 9g, the radial g is: (9^2 - 1^2)^0.5 = (81 - 1)^0.5 = 8.94. If we choose (or observe) the indicated g and we know the turn is flat, there is a unique angle of bank that satisfies this condition that can be solved for using trigonometry. The trivial solution is at 1g, your bank must be zero degrees to fly level, so your radial g is 0 giving you a turn rate of 0 and an infinite turn radius. At the same time, it is impossible to fly a level turn at 90 degrees of bank because 100% of the lift vector is going into the turn leaving no lift to provide 1g to maintain altitude. But for 9g, the angle of bank = arcos (1g/9g) = 83.6 degrees, which is pretty darn close to 90 degrees when you are in the cockpit.

I don't understand the original question of "how do you turn on the g-meter". In the sim, it is always on. In real life, it will be one of the loads on a circuit breaker switch. The accelerometer always shows you the actual load on the aircraft, so in level flight you will see 1 g. But the 1 g of lift is canceled out by the 1 g of the earth, so you fly level instead of pitching up in a 1 g loop. So if you pull 2 g per the meter, you will start pitching up in a 1 g loop, but as you approach 90 degrees, gravity is aligned with the drag vector and perpendicular to the lift vector. At that point you will be pitching in a 2 g loop if you can still maintain 2 g while climbing vertically. At the top of the loop, if your meter still indicates 2 g, gravity will now add performance, pulling you into a 3 g loop. The 2 g you see through the entire loop is what is indicated on your instrument. Its purpose is to show the load on the wings so that you don't break them. Radial g is the actual acceleration parallel to the lift vector that acts on the radius of the turn or loop. You must use trigonometry to solve determine the radial g taking into account the angle between the lift vector and the pull of gravity. Radial g determines the actual radius of the turn. So, holding constant indicated g through a loop produces the egg in the diagram. You need to hold constant radial g to make a true circle.

The input and output forum and its home cockpit sub forums are the places you want to be: https://forums.eagle.ru/forumdisplay.php?f=96

To the best of my knowledge, DCS does not inherently recognize any USB gauges. What DCS does do is allow exporting of its parameters so that they can be accessed by other devices including software supporting gauges. To get precise and accurate information on how to integrate external systems with DCS, you need to see the appropriate forum on Eagle Dynamics' home page. There are some serious experts with home cockpit building that can answer just about any question you may have.

Absolutely. The Game Loops increasing is a response to low fps, not caused by it. The game won't work right if the game loops too slow. It messes up the flight model and AI. So when the fps gets too low or when there is extra cpu processing power available, the game automatically runs its loops faster.

Game loops do not lower fps, on the contrary, when the fps get low and the cpu is underutilized, the game loops more frequently.

Prior to Wings Over Vietnam, Gephard had released the DRV (Demorcratic Republic of Vietnam) terrain for SFP1. ArmourDave had already released an F-105D for SFP1 was working on releasing a major base... when TK blindsided everyone with the release of Wings Over Vietnam. ArmourDave had invested so much time and effort into making a proper Vietnam expansion for SFP1 that he got very angry at TK for stealing his thunder with this surprise release. ArmourDave, who had done so much for SFP1, completely left the SFP1/WoX community after this happened. WoV's big change beyond the new terrain was adding in carriers and basic carrier operations. But TK's view system with its stock head positions were optimized for allowing the virtual pilot to see the control panel which made carrier landings quite difficult since you couldn't see over the nose with the view position so low if you were on glide slope at the correct AoA and speed. This problem was further complicated by the lack of ILS support for carrier landings. Overall the plane set was outstanding, greatly expanding the number of flyable and AI aircraft compared to SFP1. Besides the F-105, the F-8 was the big win, plus a half finished A-6 could be flown by the player. Unfortunately, like nearly every patch or release in the SFP1/WoV series, the gains were partially canceled out by bugs. The AI pilots went stupid compared to the very lethal SFP1 Service Pack 2a enemy pilots. But the worst problem was issues with the flight engine. Transonic flight behavior was broken bad. So WoV went through some quick patches to get rid of the worst bugs. However, the dumb AI pilots would remain until Wings Over Israel was released years later, a precursor to another surprise release: SF2.

I had none of their games starting with Rise of Flight. But having an Oculus Rift and knowing that BOM/BOS supports VR as well or better than any other flight sim, I bought Deluxe BOM and Deluxe BOS from the website. I almost bought the Steam Version, but only the first game was available as a "Deluxe" package. Up to now, Aces High 3 has been my best VR combat flight sim. But after trying BOM/BOS last night, I would say that BOM/BOS is at least the equal of AH3 in VR implementation and it is a generation or two ahead in graphics. This series is clearly positioning itself to truly replace the original IL-2 series as the dominant WW2 combat flight sim.

Aces High 3 is free. You can play offline, though you will have to learn how to create offline "staged missions". They recently reinstated free user hosted arenas. Of course the game is really meant to be played in the massive pay-to-play arenas, but at a cost of $0, it is an excellent survey sim with so may different aircraft to fly as well as some tanks. I spend some time flying Aces High 3 as a paid subscriber. It works very well with VR (I have an Oculus Rift). IL-2 Cliffs of Dover was patched up and re-released on steam for about $19 during the winter sale. It is limited to a Battle of Britain plane set, but the graphics looks great. The go-to WW2 sim right now is the IL-2 Battle of Stalingrad / Battle of Moscow series, which happen to be on sale right now ($24.99 each for the base games). This series is shaping up to rival the original IL-2 in covering a vast plane set and has great graphics. I don't own either one for a variety of reasons, but I have heard nothing but good comments about it from people I know and trust. The developers also recently announced that they intend to slowly create a new WWI game around this same series because their existing WWI product, Rise of Flight, has gotten a bit dated. My sim of choice is DCS World. If you try out the free Su-25T and TF-51D and discover it runs good enough on your machine, then consider getting Flaming Cliffs 3 which is on sale right now for $18. It is a great price for the A-10A, Su-25, F-15C, MiG-29, Su-27, and Su-33. Carrier operations with the Su-33 are fun. But DCS World is at its best with the full-blown study sim add-on aircraft. If you like that sort of thing, wait for sales and buy one or two aircraft as time and money permit. I bought into the SimWorks Studios F-4B for FSX, so I also fly some FSX with TacPack. While FSX Steam Edition can be found on sale for very little cost, good addon aircraft aren't cheap and neither is TacPack if you want any kind of air combat functionality in FSX. SF2 is a little dated, but is still a nice upgrade from SFP1 and is fairly cheap if you only buy one of the games. If I were you and my machine specs were good enough, I would get either Il-2 BoS or Il-2 BoM for WW2 flying and DCS World/Flaming Cliffs 3 for jets. Of course Ace High 3 is free, so you should try that one, too.

I don't do beta installs, so it may be a week or two before I can fly this. I wasn't going to buy the early release. But I couldn't resist the idea of flying a Harrier with what will probably be the best possible flight model on a PC. I will never fly it as an attack aircraft, just not my cup of tea. I would have preferred an earlier AV-8A for the challenge of the flight model or the AV-8B+ for the air-to-air radar. But this will still be one hell of a fun aircraft to fly. I will of course use it for air-to-air the same way I fly the AJS-37 Viggen. This will be a great aircraft to enjoy VR flying with the Oculus Rift. VR really works well with helos, so it should be great with VSTOL, too. Lately, I have been trying to rotate frequently between every aircraft (I own them all). The Harrier will probably get a few nights of dedicated flying time before I go back to rotating.

Up until a few years ago, I had a fair number of old D&D figures... mostly the original "official" figures made by Grenadier for the original AD&D with some Citadel and Ral Partha figures. When I was moving, I dumped anything I considered to be dead weight, and those figures were among the tabletop game related stuff that was dumped. I still have the original books, though. While I loved the figures, I never had more than grid squares marked up to show walls/doors to use them. Certainly nothing even close to what you posted above. It didn't stop me from enjoying looking at them though. I appreciate the post, both for the quality of your work and the memories those photos bring back to me.

94 years is a remarkably long life. I hope she enjoyed most of them. I can only dream of flying a Spitfire or any other fighter plane for that matter, so I envy her for that.

I hope the pilot doesn't get in any kind of official trouble that goes on his record and affects his career. But in this modern PC world, I suspect there may be some penalties. My private submarine sailor groups on facebook suggest that the pilot will get free drinks at the bar for the rest of his life from any other sailors that know who he is and what he did :)

Whether discussing range or endurance, early jet engines were thirsty and did not provide much power for the amount of fuel consumed. The theoretical range listed on wiki sites is clean and hi-hi-hi... ferry range. In actual experience, the F9Fs had some serious problems with time on target with any useful ordnance load during Korea. The F2Hs were significantly better, but were in short supply in Korea and still vastly inferior to prop aircraft. When you consider the cost of using a Skyraider to using an F9F or F2H, the only thing you lose with the Skyraider is speed. It can carry more than a B-17 and can get there with enough fuel to hang out for awhile waiting for ground support calls. Whether you are talking about an A-1 Skyraider or an A-10 Warthog... you need air superiority and decent SEAD to avoid losses. But if they are properly supported, no fast jets can do a better job.

I recently bought and read all of the Osprey books on Skyraiders, F4Us, P-51s, and F9Fs over Korea. The F9F was always short on fuel which degraded range, endurance, and payload. The F2H had much better range in comparison. But the prop aircraft were far superior to these early jets. F9Fs and F2Hs did fly some attack sorties, they mainly provided top cover for F4Us and Skyraiders due to their endurance limitations.

They have some screenshots on their Facebook page. F-80 model in development. F9F in the air. A bridge target. They already had the carrier/F9F available, so this makes sense. But it is like they never announced that they were shutting down after eightlein said he was leaving the team. I was black listed for disagreeing with 05 on the SimHQ forums before YAP3 was released, so I don't have any YAP products beyond YAP2, and may have missed the last bonus material/patches for YAP2.

Over a year later and despite the announcement, YAP not only continues to be available but appears to be developing a Korean War product. So was the announcement an advertising trick to bump up sales? Or did they just change their mind and keep going because the money was still rolling in?

The A-4H is essentially an A-4F without the hump and 30mm cannons in place of the 20mm cannons. So the A-4H should be better than the A-4E.