rox

This guy is giving away the Tomcat, Harrier, F-16 modules and Syria map for free to who ever joins his stream today and is lucky enough.

I'm likely to attend, but will confirm on the day.

Only this for now

Confirmed for tonight. Please let the ground crew know that I've requested additional prop blades in place of the extra ammo.

I don't know why I went in here, but I wish I hadn't. Some of those views are 100% photorealistic.

Awesome and very useful Chris, thanks!

Here are some highlights from my perspective. Nothing as cinematic or interesting as the videos BluBear and Perf posted, but you can see me doing ground attack at and angle I had no right to fly away from with just a broken prop [4:20], Friar singing [5:30], instrument flying through clouds with appallingly set up rudder trim [5:47], and a fast bouncy one-engined landing and pathetic taxiing attempt with some incriminating comms chatter in the background [6:30]. Also friendly reminder to myself and others, nicely lined up targets like that are made for two separate (ripple) bomb drops in succession, instead of dropping the pair in unison. Oh and question for BluBear, when you make those awesome videos, do you record a track and then record? Do tracks work as they should in GBS (they're near-useless in DCS)? I figure that would be a much better workflow than directly recording in-game with the UI and other ugliness getting in the way.

Ah I see, I thought you can just pull a skin file from the game folder and edit it.

What program do you use to edit these skins Chris? Can't open the files in anything. I'm also confirming tonight.

I quoted my own post instead of editing.

Yeah sorry Nick, it was a situational awareness lapse on our part. From my end I saw four contacts, three turned out to be blue but I couldn't gauge the distance from the red one and was keeping more of an eye on Painless that on them, but they seemed well apart at that time. For the next 15-20 seconds or so Mick and I did a long right shallow climb turn around him, Mick then went in, missed, and at that time I think you might have been under me, I asked Mick if I should take a shot and got an affirmative. I hit him in the tail, which might have been already damaged a bit - I remember a stabilizer missing, but not sure if that was after I fired my shot or from before, and there were some bullet holes from before in the tail I saw from up close as I made my shot. He spun out a few seconds later. All the time I didn't see anyone on his six, nor did I notice being shot at (I'm sure I wasn't hit). I think our shallow climb took us above you and as we swooped down on him you were under us the whole time. At least that's what happened from my perspective.

I was actually translating that from Russian and had to resort to Google Translate because it couldn't possibly have meant what I thought it does. I was wrong lol.

Just rigged my flight gear back up after almost five months and will be there tonight.

This was a surprise birthday present, I had no idea that a random village near Zagreb hosts "one of Europe's most modern" helicopter simulators. The instructor was this great young guy who told me to "forget what I've experienced in games, this is a whole new level". To be honest, it was easier to fly this thing in this simulator with the big, long stick and pedals that trim properly, than it was to fly it in DCS on my stunted Saitek twisty stick. Of course, the "wow" mostly comes from the 6-dof hydraulics the whole thing is on, and although I haven't flown in a helicopter, given my experience in small planes I'd say the hydraulics simulate the whole inertia feel of flying quite well, but with a noticeable difference. The instructor's assistant set the winds for 30m/s for our first landing as a prank 🙄 . Also got to land on the Kuznetsov and nearly crash into the sea immediately after taking off again as I turned way too early and lost speed, the instructor bailed us out with probably centimeters to spare. These guys get crews from all over the world coming to train with them, they opened a bit earlier in the morning so they could fit me into their schedule. It's 130 euros for 30 minutes, but we stayed 45 due to the whole wind pranks and the instructor being a good guy. I need to make friends with these people so I can come here at 3 AM and fly for free. Does anyone know if DCS makes these maps for simulators like this?

They use those to ferry extraterrestrials from UFO crash sites to Area 51.

Seeing that 402 skins are all taken, does that mean I'd have to move to 485th or can I stay in 402th and use a generic one? (I'd prefer staying in 402th if possible as I've always flown it up to now, but if it's too much of a hassle never mind)

I flew the M2000C and F-16 a lot and both are relatively simple machines that I'd recommend as a first modern-ish, radar-equipped jet in DCS. Mirage pros: - easier than the F-16 - super quick and simple start up due to it being an interceptor - delta wing galore, this thing will go from light speed to stall speed within seconds after a hard turn - you're not just flying another american jet like everybody else - relatively simple radar (but more limited than F-16) Mirage cons: - only four pylons for air-to-air missiles, no Fox 3, no multi target capability - limited ground attack options (no T-pod or precision guidance beyond INS CCRP/CCIP which are not that accurate) - radar was a bit buggy in some aspects last time I flew it, but this might have been remedied with recent updates - weapon management is sometimes counter-intuitive until you get the hang of it F-16 pros: - ordnance galore - Fox 1, 2, 3, targeting pod, laser guided bombs, loads of hardpoints - multi target ability, can lock and fire missiles at up to six targets at once (low chance that you'll get them all but good thing to be able to do!) - cleverly designed inputs to streamline workload, few controls that do a great many things depending on what mode you're in, powerful when you get used to it - easy to learn to fly, also super fast start up. - Helmet Mounted Cueing System makes you kill things by looking at them F-16 cons: - harder than M-2000C when it comes to getting used to radar management (I'd say moderately difficult to learn overall, but easy when you get used to it) - still in early access as far as I'm aware, so missing implementation of some systems, though currently well rounded in what it can do - (I'm picking nits here) taxiing is harder than easy-mode Mirage, kinda veers off from where you want it to go often and narrow landing gear means you have to turn carefully and slowly. I'd say F-16 definitely offers more bang for your buck as it's way more versatile and powerful, but the Mirage is somewhat easier and faster to learn and fight in, and a bit more unusual of an airplane visually, being all sports car-like.

Is there a learning curve axis too?

Had a great experience yesterday, everything went smoothly apart from a few barely noticeable stutters/rubber banding spikes. Radio was a bit chaotic at times but I've seen worse. If we get shot down during the mission to the extent that we need to consolidate comms into one channel, I'm sure someone can move us around in teamspeak. The game minimizes really well for me and I don'0t have VR, for me it would literally be a matter of 4-5 seconds. Thanks for the links Tom.