Some Tomcat love:
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I know me too!
Flew mission 4 of the big show, a solo ‘radar calibration flight’. Once again climbing proved to be embarrassingly difficult, even without a squad to try and catch up to. There will certainly be no ‘speed and angels’ type AARs in my future.
The sunrise was amazing, don’t think I’ve ever flown a mission in DCS at this time of day.
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How’s your engine settings and speed on the climb? I get best results with +9 boost, 2850rpm, maintain pitch to around 160mph if my memory serves. And rudder trim. Lots of rudder trimming.
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This might be of help too, if you haven’t watched it already. Reflected is saying +12 - 14 boost, 2900 rpm.
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Does that still work?
Asking because the video is 9 months old and they recently changed the cooling model, didn’t they?
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Good question Troll. I think that it deserves testing! Back into the Spit tonight.
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I’ve found that managing my AI wingman adds to the workload. But keeping track of them is I guess part of the process in the real world. It’s just a different process with a ‘Bot’ on my wing.
Climbing out (all my observations come from either the Hornet or Harrier) works if I go slow until he’s in position.
And I have to keep my IAS and altitude low until this happens. Could take 20+ miles if something gets funky on his takeoff. Then if I make a climb that is efficient for me he stays put fairly well.
Changing formations is another thing (with the AI I’m not sure the fomration really matters, except Trail, which has a purpose):
He’ll be in close, in echelon, lookin good there Dilbert. “Go {something else}”. He banks a little, gets where I expect him to be - then spots a rattle snake in his cock, which distracts him, thus dropping waaaay back; kills the snake and has to hit burner to get back to that spot.
So my first move after the command is to bring my throttle back to near idle until he sorts it all out.
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Hey thanks guys!
Trimming helped a bit, Derbysieger mentioned that too. I think I was at about 2850 +9?
But honestly I think this is a case of 20 (or 30?!!?) years of playing flight sims to “get to the good parts” catching up with me. It was all ‘sure sure sure, formation flying, yeah yeah yeah coordinated turns, when can I do an immelmann?’ Always the flight/squadron lead, forcing the poor ai to follow my every move, whatever form of autopilot + time acceleration to get to action.
Now when I’m interested (and also kinda forced by DCS) in flying these missions more realistically I’m finding the most challenging parts are what I used to think of as the easiest/simplest.
But I’m into it, hopefully I’ll improve a bit more and it’ll become less frustrating.
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They still don’t seem to have sorted the lighting in 2.8 
This is inside a hangar. When I got out airborne and at the right angle it looked better (not much) - but still too uniform throughout the 'pit
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Pretty sure that’s just the low graphics settings and possibly being on the wrong map - AFAIK only the Persian Gulf map featues the fancy new lighting.
First one is definitely weird because it looks like the sun shines through the hanger and aircraft, really strange. Both seem too bright but htat might be a combination of gamma setting, the low graphics settings and the old F-5E textures as well.
If you look at newer modules and fly on the PG map, the lighting and textures are much much better.
Compare:
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well I don’t really want to have to always fly on the PG map - and there aren’t many campaigns or missions for it. Still a poor state of affairs imho after this has been an issue for so long. There are always excuses and “buts” - these are the things that motivate me to fly some other sim.
As for my gamma setting, you can see that the world outside is fine in shot 2 (I’m on the Syria map). If I turn it down for the aircraft it will be too dark outside.
There’s always something to spoil the enjoyment. I just had to redo all of my controls for the two L-39 models because it threw up a load of red flags - loaded the exact same profile from 2.7 just to see what would happen and all was fine. But I’d spent the time I wanted to use flying the sim sorting this out instead.
Don’t want to come over as a whinge, but I’m so fed up of these longstanding problems - if I’d not spent a small fortune on the sim I would leave it.
I just wanted to post that the issue was still there but now I feel hacked off again and think of giving up on it.
btw I’m using high graphics settings - always have for DCS in both 2D and VR - not worth bothering with otherwise. Only shadows are lowered.
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Well the lighting will come to the other maps as well, it just takes time, the F-5 is also rumored to get a big update sometime in the near™ future, it’s one of the oldest DCS Jets and it shows. Just look at the F-16, the P-47D or the Mosquito - the cockpits are on a whole other level when it comes to textures and lighting
However if you fly VR you are going to have to make compromises. I won’t fly without cockit shadows but I do have SSAO and SSLR turned off and it’s a subtle but very noticable difference if you turn them on (also has a pretty bad effect on performence - so that’s why I have those turned off).
Shadows on low and cockpit shadows off are my best guess as to why yoru cockpit lighting looks so weird compared to what I see in the sim.
F-16 example:
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I think if anything it is harder to get the temps up.
I didn’t have time to fly one of the Big Show missions, but did the cold start on the Channel Map instant action, took off, turned to heading 060, climbed to 20K at 170 IAS and joined up with a flight of Mustangs with power settings of 2900 / +12 and only got the radiator temps to 90 (far below 125 max), oil 75. The oil pressure runs pretty high around 120 so you need to hit the oil dilution button every now and then. In fact on the ground, I waited a good 15 mins trying to get the rad temps to 60 with RPM at 1000, but it wouldn’t budge passed 40 until I took off. I tried holding the oil dilution button to get the temp up, but it only helped a little. So ride her hard and put her away wet.
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I think that it’s a VR thing. The aircraft interiors still seem a little bit washed out but it better than MSFS.
Hey Johnny, if you want to get rid of that VR mask, check this out.
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Mission 5 of The Big Show, meeting up with the B-17s coming back from Schweinfurt.
Climbing was moderately more successful! Most of that had to do with me (inadvisedly) being promoted to wing leader on this one, so there was less pressure to catch up to anybody. Still, managed to keep it mostly on course with a steady (albeit slow) rate of climb. Rudder trim helped, as did picking a climbing speed and sticking to it. Things got a little dicey as I got up into the thinner air, seems like you have to move the throttle up as you climb to keep the boost where you want it?
Getting ready to take off
Looking back on the wing, lot of responsibility!
Leading the way
Finally figured out how to get rid of that thing!
Some more of that EAW feeling
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Yes, that is generally the case with all WWII fighters, especially with the Spitfire and P-51. The Spit is best at medium altitudes of 12.000ft-25.000ft but is still outclassed by the Bf109, even without MW50. At low altitude it is faster than a Bf109 without MW50 but outclassed by the FW190A-8.
The P-47D is an exception here as you basically are at full throttle all the time unless you are down low in the weeds for longer periods (in which case you should ask yourself why the hell you fly the best high altitude fighter on the deck lol).
With the P-47D, once you pass ~7000ft ASL you use the boost to keep the manifold pressure up and the amazing thing is that it is continuous. You can set Climb power by adding boost once you’ve passed 7000ft and it keeps your selected MAP with very little adjustment until you get into the high 20ies.
At very high altitude you can push the boost to 25.000RPM which makes the P-47D an absolute monster above 30.000ft
Edit: forgot to mention, since you fly in single player vs AI you shouldn’t have much trouble with any german fighter when flying the spit. My comments about the Spitfire being outclassed by the Bf 109 without MW50 (above ~10.000ft) and the Anton when you’re down low only apply to humans who know what they’re doing. The AI does not use the specific strengths of the different WWII fighters to its advantage, it just tries to outclimb or outturn you and with the crazy turn fighting abilities of the Spit this makes fighting AI an easy affair.
When I fight Spitfires in the Anton for example I do one pass and then run to extend away from the spit. If he follows I extend until I can turn around for a head on pass. In the Bf 109 I just climb away and re-engage with a huge energy advantage. Fighting Spitfires is a game of patience and the AI sucks at it
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Teddy in the Med on a winter’s day. 15kt winds, a pitching deck, and Bears. Practicing my intercepts before I’m graded on them in Speed and Angels.
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Hey thanks that’s some good info! I’ll keep it in mind on my next climb out (and also when I try my hand again at the other two allied warbirds).
Yes I noticed I was doing suspiciously well against the ai but I am totally okay with that for right now 
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