streakeagle

And there is the end result: None of the combat flight sims ever released have been perfect or ever will be. Just a matter of finding the one that suits your needs best. The problem for me is that each one has key flaws that can't or won't be fixed. But I expected SF2 to keep improving and moving toward my ideal, instead it actually started moving backwards and at the moment is completely frozen "as is". DCS on the other hand, has improved quite a bit, especially in comparison to LOMAC/FC, and promises to continue making dramatic improvements for at least a few more years if ED doesn't go bust. For the moment, SF2 remains the superior sim for dogfighting. But as much as I love dogfighting, I want a whole lot more than SF2 currently provides. For me, DCS only has a few significant limitations compared to my ideal: 1. One small, flat map instead of modelling the globe (SF2 is equally guilty here). All flat maps are significantly inaccurate and if they cover a large enough area, become grossly inaccurate. To be fair, it has been stated that Edge can support a global model, but can DCS: World support it? Kind of ironic that the "world" is so small and limited when "World" is in your product name. I only know of two more maps on the near horizon: DCS:1944 and DCS: Nevada. 2. Planeset. I am not a huge fan of 1990s and later air combat. I don't want combat to be a pushbutton missile fest. I prefer combat in the 1960s with the diversity of aircraft and weapons ranging from small gunfighters to heavy weight gunless missile interceptors. It will be a very long time before DCS can compete in this category if it even lasts long enough to try. 3. AI. SF2 isn't exactly the gold standard for AI behavior, but in many ways exceeds what DCS is using. For my purposes, dogfighting in Battle of Britain 2 Wings of Victory is the Cadillac of air-to-air AI, at least for close-in guns. But DCS has done so many other things so well, that it is painful for me to go back and fly SF2 after flying the A-10C, UH-1H, and P-51D in DCS. Despite flying it for years, I can still have fun flying SF2, but I have even more fun flying DCS:World. The unmatched detail and accuracy of the UH-1H is enough to hold my attention for quite some time. If, I didn't have any other DCS aircraft, I could easily devote all of my time to mastering the UH-1H. But the P-51D is every bit as much fun to fly... especially in a dogfight. Both of those aircraft will take a back seat once I have the MiG-21bis. The F-15C AFM about to be released might get me to spend a lot more time in the F-15C. All I can do right now is sit back and wait to see what actually gets released and when I can get a hold of it.

I don't know if someone has posted this link before, but it sure is slick The F-35 should have been everything the F-16 evolved into, but with stealth: Small, agile, relatively cheap, very capable at both air-to-air and air-to-ground. But stealth inflates everything: size, weight, cost, and in this case deflates performance to F-4 Phantom levels. http://www.ausairpower.net/Analysis-JSF-Thud-2004.html

It would take some serious work to remap those old WoV skins to the SF2 F-105D

The only hi-res skins I recall are those made by easy kill. He has (had?) is own dedicated website, but posted some of his work here. I don't recall SF2 era releases, and I haven't tried to splice his SFP1 work into SF2. http://combatace.com/files/file/3636-f-105d-high-res-sea-1-1-4/ The website is here: http://www.digitalstrike.eu/ I would say that he did for F-105s what Sundowner did for F-4s. While I don't always agree with certain artistic choices of either one, they are both the best I know of for their respective aircraft specialty.

But I think SF2 isn't that far from accurate on jet vs jet 20mm/23mm/30mm cannon combat. MiG designers figured they could get kills with just 3 round fired down range with the latest 30mm laser ranged cannons. F-4s and F-105s were embarrassingly vulnerable to minor hits from flak shrapnel and small arms, much less direct hits from cannon rounds. Some of those aircraft made it back despite severe damage, but unlike B-17s, this was the exception rather than the rule. There are not many photos of heavily damaged survivors when it comes to Mach 2 jets. The F-4 received field mods that helped with some of the worst problems, such as retrofitting self-sealing tanks and armoring some key areas. Who buys a combat aircraft of any kind without self-sealing tanks (the lack of a guns wasn't nearly as critical as the other design issues with the F-4)? But the F-4 and MiG-21 were virtually tanks compared to the MiG-21s, which not only burned like Japanese Zeros when hit center of mass by even 1 or 2 rounds, but usually exploded violently. When you pack a plane that tight (i.e. all engine, fuel, and just enough room for the pilot and a small radar), there is no armor and a vital spot just behind the pilot that explodes almost every time one is hit. The loss rates for jets in Vietnam after being hit by air-to-air cannon fire leads me to believe SF2 is not that far off from reality. WW2 is a different story when you look at .50 cal, .30 cal, 13mm, etc. Plenty of cases where the airframes absorbed lots of hits, even on aircraft made of wood and fabric. But again, 20mm was devastating to fighters. In SF2, 0.50 cal fire seem way too lethal, lending credence to the idea that the whole system is a little bit heavy on the damage despite my opinion that jet-vs-jet might be close to dead-on. But DCS is just ridiculous. Have you seen what a single 20mm hit does even to just a non-critical wing or fuselage location? I can see my hits on the MiGs and Sus. Yet, I have to aim very carefully to cause fatal damage and to my recollection, always see a pilot bailing out. When the angles permit, I always pull lead and track back through the canopy... it is an instant kill in just about any other sim to hit canopy glass with a cannon. Yet that rarely if ever seems to happen in DCS. I enjoy flying DCS, but if the goal is high fidelity modeling, the damage modeling has a long way to go compared to engine and flight models.

I got plenty of rest, didn't leave the house too much, and my son mostly left me alone. So, I spent most of Saturday and quite a bit of Sunday flying DCS. For now, our big 7-year-old 46" Mitsubishi 1080p LCD TV has become my monitor, which really makes me feel like I am in the cockpit when the zoom is set just right. I mainly flew the DCS P-51D on Saturday. I focused on flying P-51Dx4 vs. Fw190D9x4. I got familiar with how the AI handles multi-bogey engagements and tried to get my gunnery skills up to the laser-death-ray skills of the AI. If my wingmen respond well, it is a race to see if I can get any kills. They stole some kills from me quite often. My best mission, I killed two Fw190D9s with really fast focused bursts, during which time the AI easily splashed the other two. On a typical bad mission, I would try to clear an Fw190 off my wing's tail, but the Fw190 would nail him fast, in the mean time another Fw190 would be lining up on me while I chased the first one. The tail warning radar can be very useful if it isn't being tripped by the ground or wingmen. If you hear that bell ringing, you know you need to do something about it. I also use the rear view mirrors extensively. They let me track a bandit that passes head on and I almost always see a little speck diving on me. With TrackIR, I can get disoriented while maneuvering violently and sometimes I can't find the bandit even when I know he is on top of me and about to shoot. But most of the time, I can keep track of my target and maybe even keep up to date on where the other planes are. I think it would be much better with a 360 degree dome or maybe an occulus rift head mounted display. I spent some time practicing startup/taxiing/takeoff with the P-51D. The startup is much simpler than the A-10C or even the UH-1H, but I can still have some trouble with getting it primed right and turning over. Taxiing in a tail dragger is a trip. I only ground-looped once, totally destroying the plane trying to turn too fast with too much speed. Generally, I have no problems though since it behaves a lot like the P-51D from Aces High, complete with the locking tail wheel. Simply flying this beast is a pleasure, getting to fight in it is an added bonus. The flying aspect could be exponentially more fun if I could fly anywhere in the world per MS FSX and have high-def mods for my favorite locations. I also enjoy the 6DOF cockpit in the F-15C. It looks great on my LCD TV. Guns only combat is a little too easy, but fun nonetheless after getting spanked so many times in the P-51D. I don't believe the F-15C should easily beat Su-27Sx2 in close-in gun combat. If the AI flew those aircraft as well or better than me, I should never really win since one should always get me if I try to get behind the other one. Despite the AI limitations, sliding in with the gunsight tracking correctly is just as fun as using the K14 on the Mustang. The dispersion seems to be too much for the 20mm M61. Also, the damage effect of the 20mm seems too little. Even taking the dispersion into account, I can see how many hits I am getting. In reality, one or two hits could be fatal and five or six almost always are against fighter sized targets. In DCS, 20mm seems to have the effectiveness of 0.50 cal and 0.50 cal seems to be about the effectiveness of 0.30 cal. Of course, I have gotten used to SF2's highly lethal damage modeling. But, I would argue that in the case of MiG-21s, it seems to match reality. I don't know what's realistic or not when it comes to helos, but I love flying the UH-1H. I have the Mi-8 and like it, too. But the UH-1H is right up there with the F-4 as my all-time favorite aircraft. To have it modeled to this level of detail/realism is simply amazing. I have gotten pretty good at flying it and transitioning to a hover, etc. I am not so hot at engaging well defended targets. But I am having so much fun just taking off/flying/landing that I am not too worried about my combat skills. I need to do the missions. The only one I tried was picking up people from the tall mountian peak... but I can't seem to land without crashing. So, my flying skills aren't quite all they could be either ;) Realistic or not, I still find DCS to be challenging, fun, and rewarding. While I still fly SF2 for the plane set and maps, I am pretty close to flying DCS exclusively.

I never got around to getting the A2A Mustang, but always think about it. What is it that the DCS Mustang does better besides the fully functional combat features? I love the DCS flight model. I love the clickable buttons. The K-14 gunsight is a pleasure to operate. I guess the only things I don't like about flying the DCS Mustang involve limitations of DCS World, such as the terrain and dogfight AI. I suppose the sounds in DCS World are a bit gamey/movie like: I shouldn't hear enemy planes tooling around at all. I don't fly MS FSX very often at all, unless the A2A Mustang's flight model and feel was known to be more accurate than DCS, I think I am better off saving my money for other toys/games. If A2A releases the F-104 and/or F-4 before DCS gets to those aircraft, I will probably buy those... but maybe not. SF2 is better for the combat until I can get DCS fidelity.

Found one panel light on ebay and used that to get a national stock number which corresponds to many equivalent part numbers: 6210-00-812-0243 On ebay: grimes aircraft A7075: http://www.ebay.com/itm/A7075-Grimes-Aircraft-Instrument-Panel-Avionics-Control-Panel-Indicator-Light-/131035890671?pt=Motors_Aviation_Parts_Gear&hash=item1e825903ef&vxp=mtr Now to see if I can get some of these at a reasonable price :) This part number gets results: MS25010A15A Complete brand new parts are about $23 each, a bit steep for me. Ebay has some of the knob parts in bags of 5 for about $2.50, but the shipping is about $40. Very tempting, and I could cheat and rout LEDs in the lamp covers to simulate complete lighting. http://www.ebay.com/itm/5-x-Lampholder-Aircraft-quality-MS25010-13A-NOS-/291011048033?pt=AU_Transportation_Collectables&hash=item43c19c3261 Readily available in California at $10 plus shipping per lamp: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Panel-Mount-T-1-3-4-Bayonet-Indicator-Lamp-Assembly-270-1930-0111-702-/321221463099?pt=Motors_Aviation_Parts_Gear&hash=item4aca4a8c3b&vxp=mtr

Someone probably programmed head bobbing or attempted to and connected the stick axis to cockpit position, or something similar. Typically, in the cockpit ini files, there are dummy instruments such as g-meters, that cause cockpit movement to simulate head bobbing due to g-load and or bank/roll/pitch indications. These can be safely deleted or commented out.

I have some Honeywell lever lock toggle switches coming in from ebay to do the YAW, ROLL, PITCH, and INT WING TRANS switches, these should be real close if not identical to the switches used in the real panel. I am in the process of building an order list for a variety of switches and knobs with a supplier to cover as many of the controls as I can. Now if I can just get my hands on a clear sheet to cover the panel.

How is your cockpit arrangement going? Please post photos when you are finished. I got all the left console panel photos squared up, resized, and pasted on to my wooden console. Could you take another photo of the left sub panel that is centered and perpendicular from a distance, but zoomed in to help minimize the perspective effects. Alternatively, if you could just post the original without the yellow measurement across the panel, I could make that work, too. What I need now is to get some switches and knobs mounted, then place some clear plexiglass or lexan about 1/8 or 1/4 inch thick to place on top. Is there anywhere I can buy those black knobs with 4 ribs that provide the lighting for the lables? Thanks, Stephen

The F-4 weapons delivery manuals are available for sale at eflight manuals, but unless they have been rescanned, the prices are kind of high for the quality of the scan and the hassle of the electronic copy protections.

From Belsimtek forums via Wags on DCS forums: Looks like the BST site is down, so I will re-post their news about the F-15C AFM. Note that BST is developing the F-15C AFM and Yoyo at Eagle is developing the Su-27 AFM. --- DCS: F-15C Eagle. Advanced flight model development overview Dynamics modeling experts at BelSimTek are completing work on advanced flight and engine models of the F-15C Eagle for the upcoming module for DCS World. The current model featured in DCS was originally developed over a decade ago and represents an earlier generation of technological potential and resulting model accuracy and performance. Despite exhibiting generally correct aerodynamic properties under normal flight conditions, by today’s standards the model falls short of increased user expectations, computing power, and experience gained by the developers over time. In an effort to meet these demands, we have begun to develop new flight and related component models as upgrades to some of the existing DCS aircraft. As the primary U.S. jet fighter in DCS and indeed one of the premier fighters of the world in reality, the F-15C Eagle will be the first DCS aircraft to receive this upgrade. The flight model has been through over eight months of development and is now undergoing initial external (closed beta) testing. The complete aerodynamics model accounts for the entire spectrum of mass, force, and moment interactions of the aircraft as a physical object subjected to airflow. Unlike the mathematical approach of the previous model, which regarded the aircraft as a single point of focus, the new flight model consists of individual aircraft elements carefully tuned to reflect their unique aerodynamic characteristics and joined together to determine the sum vector of the airframe’s momentum. Such an approach makes it possible to accurately recreate the specific performance of the F-15C Eagle airframe throughout the entire flight envelope, including critical regimes like high angles of attack, stalls, spins, as well as specific flight conditions such as ground effect. Additionally, a new engine model is also created on par with the flight model to provide more realistic and accurate performance, for example featuring effects like negative G loading. The flight control system is modeled realistically, for example including input authority coefficients dependent on speed and altitude scheduling, the Aileron/Rudder Interconnect (ARI), Control Augmentation System (CAS), as well as Attitude and Altitude autopilot modes. F-15C refuel DCS: F-15C refuel The new model significantly improves the entire flight control experience making special flight conditions like air to air refueling, landing, and edge of the envelope flying far more dynamic, exciting, and possibly even more challenging. Even straight and level flight loses the old feeling of flying on rails. We are considering the possibility of creating a complete avionics model with clickable cockpit and accurate systems modeling. This would be a major development however, so a final decision has not yet been made. The estimated release date for the advanced flight model for F-15C Eagle DCS module is end of November, 2013.

I am not having any problems flying latest patch SF2NA with minimal mods besides aircraft and associated weapons/sounds/pilots/etc. Flying North Atlantic, Israel, and Vietnam with no issues.

Real life may trump sims, but the "virtual" friends made over long distances through forums such as these can be all too real. Somehow, a little <S> or emoticon can almost be as good as having a real person standing there when you know the truly good intentions of the people posting them. Dave has had some rough times in recent years, I hope this latest event with his wife's father's health is the last one for a long time. Keep doing what you've been doing Dave... being strong and holding your family together! ...and taking care of CombatAce and its dwellers ;)

You can't bring WoI Expansion Pack content into SF1/WoX series... but you can bring SF1/WoX series content into WoI Expansion Pack game. It is a lot of work, but can be very rewarding if you aren't going to migrate to SF2, or want some aspect of SFP1/WoX AND SF2 updated aircraft (i.e. all the great F-4s and their cockpits). So, export stuff out of SFP1/WoV/WoE and bring them into to a WoI Expansion Pack installation and you will get what you are looking for.

The WoI Expansion Pack is unique. It provides a bridge between the early versions of SF2 and the SFP1 series. You bring SFP1/WoV/WoE content into the WoI Expansion Pack version AND you can bring some SF2 content (early lods that weren't locked away yet) as well. But: WoI does not support SF2 level RWR displays/indications and there are some bugs that TK never bothered to fix. SF2 was progressively patched beyond recognition, so much later lod content can't even be legally extracted and wouldn't work if they were. This unique install provides one interesting benefit: almost SF2 level game (looks and AI comparable to early SF2) AND multiplayer. At one time, I was trying to build a multiplayer install package for this setup, complete with all compatible SF2 models and textures. But I just didn't have the time and patience.

You cannot force anti-aliasing with an ATI 5870 in DirectX10. So, you should set the card to use application settings and then set the anti-aliasing to the desired level in the options.ini file of SF2, which you can find in the user folder for the game of interest. Apparently, you simply set the number to 1, 2, 4, 8, etc to match the option you want (i.e. 1 = none, 2 = x2, 4 = x4, 8 = x8). I hope this helps out!

Wags just posted details about Edge. Last item: maps can be projected onto globe. So, while DCS may not be set up to use the globe, Edge is.

Is it a normal X-52 or a Pro?

I just wish DCS would trade in small flat maps for a true globe. They don't have to populate the whole globe, just build the same maps they are already making on the globe at the right place so that navigation works 100% correctly. Then, as more maps are built, you eventually cover the entire globe.

Haven't seen a whole lot of F-16s go down during over a decade of continuous warfare. Even an F-35 can be destroyed on the runway. Numbers will overcome technology when the tech costs so much that the odds become outrageous. MiG-21s equipped with modern heaters and directed by AWACS/GCI are still a viable threat aside from their short range/endurance. There are not and probably never will be enough stealth aircraft in the US inventory to overcome the numbers we would face in a real all-out war. F-15s and F-16s have been adequate if not superior for anything less. Consider the money lost when an F-35 tries to do the A-10's job. F-35s will go down to AAA performing close air support. A-10s are about to be axed to keep the budget for the F-35s.

I had dropped all my backing funds due to the way they were waffling on the goods versus backing level. But given that they will probably make good on all the promised aircraft per funding level, I went back to the $40 pledge. Free: 1 plane of Bf109/P-47/Spitfire. $1: The other two of the first three. $40: All three plus Fw 190, P-51, and Me 262. Since I already have the P-51, that means I end up getting four aircraft at DCS level for $40 or $10 per plane... not bad. What remains to be seen is the actual quality of the simulation. I never cared for IL-2 flight models very much, though they did improve quite a bit toward the end. Now all I can do is wait to see when it is finished.