Surely this map deserves its own topic! Kudos to Ugra Media for bringing such a beauty.
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There was a time, in technical war Sims long gone, like A-10 tank killer, Stealth, etc. That I would happily sit for weeks learning the systems and fly in real-time, sometimes for literally hours to the mission target to blow stuff up…
Now I look at DCS and despair, and only fly around sightseeing in the TF-51 and gawping at the scenery…
I just can’t imagine summoning the dedication nowadays to learn these aircraft and put them to their proper use.
Sigh…
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I see it kinda like real life - you don’t know how to do every single thing the plane can do, but you learn in phases. So I’ll start by learning how to start the plane up and fly it around, then the basic BFM and short range missiles stuff, then how to bomb using dumb bombs, then the radar stuff (if fitted)… keeps it interesting and you can go to another module and come back later.
I still don’t know how to do Mavericks in the Hornet or Viper - and until I see some need for that in the online servers I play on I probably won’t invest the time in it 
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I know that this is going to sound like putting the cart before the horse, but diving into a campaign that interests you is a really immersive way to learn a module. I had been procrastinating learning the Tom Cat, but bought Reflected’s Fear the Bones campaign and it was really fun. It’s one of his lighter ones with a lot of cheesy 80s Top Gun humor, which was right up my alley. But the missions are just difficult that you actually learn how to fly the jet. And Paradise Lost (IMO, his magnum opus) is similar, but takes it up a couple of notches in the Huey. You have no choice but to learn.
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I hear ya… Quick/Instant action missions for me. If I am more than 10 minutes from the target area it is too long.
I gave up trying to ‘master’ any of the modules long ago.
I just focus on a couple of ‘niche’ areas of buttonology and focus on that. e.g. I haven’t done any air-to-ground in either the Viper or Tomcat, it has been A2A only with both of those, likewise I have only done anti-shipping in the Viggen. The closest I have come to trying to ‘learn’ a module is the A-10C, but that is really only so I can employ all the ordnance and that is what I use to scratch my CAS/mud moving itch.
The rest of my modules… barely scratched the surface. but that may change. See next post 
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Well, I did it. Bit the bullet (i.e. caved) and got the map. I had enough ‘points’ to take USD15 off the price which kinda compensated for the current exchange rate.
Does mean I have to uninstall the Kola map before I DL it (backing that up now as I type this) until I can do some hard drive tetris and migrate DCS to a SATA SSD.
Time to finally get some hours up in the Phantom.
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You will not regret it. Orbx was out-Orbxed by Ugra.
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Ah Australian internet 
about on par with how long it took the allies 
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I don’t really do the study sims, just no time to learn and play but I do use and fly a lot of the FC aircraft… got this map too. Sure, wish mission makers and campaign makers made them for the FC aircraft. JMO
Stationed in Germany for 5 years during the cold war I love the map. But all I can do is sight see. I do wonder if anyone knows if there is a map with names of the map in game. Trying to find cities or areas there in map but can’t. Would like to find the big farm fields where my companies mission was. a DIP mission. DIE IN PLACE… seriously our mission was to fan out and slow the Soviets as much as possible, but we were just speed bumps. We were to die within the first day or two. lol
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Outside of large cities like Frankfurt, Berlin, Kassel, Leipzig etc. You won’t find many recognisable towns. They are in the right location and the style fits for Germany but they don’t look anything like the real thing. I think that’s just outside the scope of DCS. If you tell me where you were stationed and in which area those missions took place I can mark the approximate spot on the DCS map though
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Silly question, but couldn’t you use the Lat Long in game to mark places of interest?
Either load a waypoint in the AC or drop a smoke marker in game?
I know that you might not just know the coordinates of some field that you haven’t been in years, but wouldn’t Wiki or Google maps be able to accommodate you?
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Second this. Playing a good campaign is the best way to learn the airplane. Fear the Bones is great!
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@Derbysieger created a sandbox mission and took us on an excellent guided tour Saturday. It has dynamic spawn points, which means that you can spawn any aircraft. So for instance you could spawn the FC aircraft A-10A, F-16C, or GDR MiG-29A. The early Warthog seems a good choice.
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Yes, but I also look at that and think back to the late '90s. There was a free update/upgrade to Flanker or Flanker 2 and it was a 30Mb download (note: Mb).
There was no way way I could DL that with the dial-up connection I had. Our service was set by the phone company to auto disconnect after 3 hours continuous use and even with a download manager it was going to take over a week to get a file that might not have worked (the DL manager was a bit hit and miss stitching files back together).
Solution: I had a friend in Melbourne who had recently got cable internet, so he got it for me burnt it to CD and mailed it to me in less time than it would have taken me to download it.
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Yeah, I remember that update - my Dad downloaded it using the internet at the Uni he worked at and brought it home 
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