It seems that the FCS BIT RESTRT fault has become the bane of my existence; once it gets shut down, there’s no bringing it back, no matter what procedures I follow to reset it. Going to assume that this is just a bug that hasn’t been fixed yet.
I’ve also been coming back to the carrier 7-10,000lbs overweight with no ill effects, so I’ve no idea what’s going on there.
Are you holding the FCS Consent Switch up when you run the FCS IBIT?
You should be pressing the FCS Reset button, followed by holding the Consent Switch to up while selecting the FCS IBIT.
Red-Green color deficient…I could do the work but no CO in his right mind would ever sign my OOD letter.
Although, on USS GUAM I was one of the 3 CDOs on deployment.
Me - Um…the Skipper does know I’m Restricted Line, right?
Senior Watch Officer (Air Boss) - Yeah, he knows…but he trusts you so…don’t worry about it…you’ve got plenty of SWOs in your duty section if you ever need to get the ship underway. (Which I almost did once. Dragging our anchor in high winds.)
You should be at least bending stuff and/or blowing tires…not to mention getting on Air Departments bad side for all the extra maintenance they need to do on the arresting gear engines, replacing cables, etc.… as well as the airwing guys that live under the wires.
A jet trapping is loud enough when your stateroom is below the three wire without an overweight trap making it worse. (Which is why I tried to live under the forward CATs/JBDs…the rumble of the jets going to mil power is like a lullaby. ) 
I’ve watched @Gunnyhighway slam into the deck with what had to have been a solid 5000 ft/min descent rate, and only bent the gear. There’s quite a bit that’s wonky with the F/A-18 damage model at the moment, which will hopefully be fixed eventually. My matra is it’s better to learn to do it right when you can, rather than when you need to.
I can attest to this. In my continuing learning of how to land this bird (on land I might add), I seem to constantly be putting my aircraft down on things outside of the pavement with no ill effects.
No sim has really modeled getting your ass chewed out for that unapproved pass or other related Things a Pilot Should Never Do.
I’m fine with them leaving the landing weights more forgiving so that we can trap back without having to spend time with a fuel dump. If I realize I’m overweight, I drop stores. Maybe model tires blowing, but I don’t want to have the plane blow up.
Wow! 
I usually abort my approach if I am above 900 fpm sink rate, I didn’t even know the Hornet would survive more than ~1000 or so.
Edit: Do we have any real life numbers what’s a realistic (although not allowed) sink rate the Hornet can still survive?
Found this video:
That’s a 20 feet drop which should be quite a bit over 1000fpm, almost 2000fpm actually. Pretty tough, I guess that could already be a major problem.
Of course it depends on the weight as well, But my estimate would be: If they tell the pilots to make it 800 you can probably do ~1500 in a pinch without utterly destroying the aircraft, but not much more.
Man, that slow motion hurts
Do we want a high fidelity sim with accurate physics and damage model or a video game where we can do whatever we like with no simulated consequences?
Dumping gas goesn’t take all that long, and you can/should be thinking about aircraft weight during the transit back to the carrier.
Maybe an option for a more rapid fuel dump would be a better compromise?
Initial startup is fine; it’s after shutting down and powering up again. I follow procedure and it takes 2-3 minutes before giving me the “RESTRT” message; I’ve tried the remedy procedures in the NATOPS but can’t clear the “RESTRT” message or get a successful BIT. Controls remain locked and inoperable after this.
This is Russian sim, we use delta wood – strongest material known to man! I’m sure that it’s just not fully modeled yet is all, as @near_blind says.
I find it quicker to just kick in the burners and make a few fast passes. I figure ED will do it how they want to do it, regardless of what we want. 
In August we plan to bring the AIM-120 and AIM-9X to DCS: F/A-18C! As you can see, the Hornet can carry a lot of hurt.
The Slammer death truck is nice and all, but it’s kind of putting the cart before the horse with the radar in it’s current state. Is ED going to push out tracks, LTWS, the HOTAS Castle hat shortcuts or range bumping? Or even basic stuff like ACM acquisition times or the radar’s propensity to drop STT during even moderate maneuvering?
I understand development takes time, but I’d much rather see the radar work as intended with Sparrow than jump directly to a half baked AIM-120 implementation.
Well…it is virtual fuel and you don’t really have to pay for it. 
If you want to do things the way the fleet operates, you try to be “Max Trap on the Ball” - maximum trap weight as you roll out on final. Does everybody make that number exactly? No, but they get close. Max Trap on the Ball gives you the most go-arounds (bolters, wave-offs) if you don’t trap on the first try, with out hitting a tanker.
So if you are going to be too heavy, you dump down before coming in on the upwind into the break. (Night is different because of the Marshall Stack but the same theory applies - Max Trap on the Ball)
Re: Dumping fuel…during “the Big One”, the Cold War, the guys in my squadron (and likely other squadrons) would save about 1,000 lbs of gas and then dump it as they flew over or Soviet “tattle-tale”, usually a Krivak…showing the “love” to our commie friends. 
As a Mirage and Flanker pilot, I can only agree to this wholeheartedly.
EDIT: this was a joke, as in: postpone the AMRAAM
For myself, I’m not a"rivet counter" but I prefer as real as it gets (hmmm…I think I heard that before). That said, DCS does have a simpler mode for physics (and radar I think).
BTW, to make an extra-difficult mode, try flying a helo–especially the Hip–using rudder pedals while sitting in a rolling office chair on a wooden floor…hard to tell who is side slipping, the helo or me.
Radar work wont stop or be put on hold by this, it will continue to be improved and refined.
Is the bug related to respawn scripts took in consideration?
https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=216142
