Ok I tell you my trick.
What you have to do is have a precise idea of how your head is turned when you look at a panel you are interested in and “flatten” the curve of the TIR around that point.
It would be feel a “slow-down” around the “panel-of-interest”.
It takes a bit and it can be quite personal, but usually since you only look at panels with your “head down” the rest of the TIR behaviour doesn’t feel too much off.
Hope I made sense.
While it makes sense, it also sounds like the kind of things you could spend literal days trying to accomplish! Also, as different cockpits have different switches in different places it’s a nightmare if you want to go from a prop to a jet in one session.
I believe there’s a key to toggle the sensitivity between high and low, isn’t there? Maybe I need to map that one to a HOTAS button to make the process a bit easier…
How much time have you put into fine-tuning your trackIR curves and settings?
A little effort there goes a long way. In general my TIR is pretty stable looking inside the cockpit, but looking up or going over my shoulders it starts to get a lot more sensitive. It took a few hours of cumulative play-time to get used to but I feel pretty comfortable both heads-down and heads-up now.
Well… it takes me roughly an hour per profile. And it easier than it sounds really.
You create areas where the mapping slows down only where you realise you have a need for it.
I have three IIRC.
Jets, helos and Elite.
I was surprised how well the Jets profile works for literally all my jets.
Helos is a bit trickier as I basically have an non-specular one.
Flying mainly the Huey I sit on the right- so it slows down mainly to the left up/ and left down which isn’t perfect for the MI 8… which literally flies amazingly well with the Jets one.
Elite is… well for Elite but works stellar (eh!) for Arma too.
Before dissing I really suggest a little try.
A bit of a trim to the profile goes a long way.
Back to the '105! As a reader of “When the thunder rolled”, “100 missions North” and “Thud Ridge”, this is a first day buy for me. It might even snatch me away from the current “Project Cars” kick I am on.
I never in my life imagined the Thud as a contender for DCS. It accelerates slow, it does not turn and you see nothing behind you. A dog fighter, it is NOT. But if you got to take out a target… Oh what a magic carpet ride it is! I cant wait to be supersonic 100meter off the deck.
Now only one question remains… Where is my SEA map?
Thank You komemiute! Also your TIR trick is very good. So thanks for that too.
I was about to “spin into the overhead” until I saw the 
- still need I should probably task another blood pressure pill.
Somewhere on the web there is a great description of an USAF operation over North Vietnam where they fooled the North Vietnamese into thinking they had a bunch of F-105 coming on a strike mission when it was in fact a bunch of F-4s equipped for air-to-air. I’m sure many of you know the details.
Hmmmm…
I’ve been trying a “One size fits all” approach…mainly because I’m lazy.
I’m using FSXA. For GA, the simple profile I’ve set upwards well - straight ahead and down to the instruments. But not for “heavy metal” COMAIR and Business jets where you have an overhead panel and a pedestal that goes back to your elbows. No need to see past ± 120º laterally (That would be “two points abaft the beam” for the nautical types).
So I need to slow it both upwards and down & right (Pilot seat) - and upwards and down & left (helo pilot)?
Any settings suggestions? Or should I kick to another post?
Thud story… dad said that they were way up North nearing the target. He was leading a flight of F-4E laying chaff behind some Wild Weasels. Off his 2 o’clock low a SAM detonated in the face of a F-105. He said that it was a huge fireball with black smoke, but miraculously the Thud emaerged on the other side trailing fluids and smoke. It slowly turned out of the package and headed home. He found out later that they limped to Da Nang.
Yep - that is what I was thinking about…Operation Bolo.
Well, quite literally you have to get into the game, put your head in a position that allows you to reach the intended panels and Alt+Tab to the Track IR software.
Around that position you will have to flat out the curve as to give you a slow-down movement.
That’s literally all of it.
If you are in the Thud you cant fight nobody in a MiG-anything. Unless of course you are Major Leo Thorsness or Capt William E. Eskew of course… I AM NEITHER.
In Vietnam Thuds had lucky days but they were generally MiG fodder. Maj Thorsness was later on shot down by a Fishbed and spent the rest of the war in a POW camp. He never flew again.
While Dogfights did an episode on Thorsness, here is the rest of the story…
Skip ahead to the “Medal of Honor” part of the story.
What a pair on this guy!
Sadly I just realized that Leo Thorsness died last month (May 2017). May he rest in peace. A real hero.
I think a Thud could BnZ a 17, as in the events described, but the 21 made that a lot harder with it’s speed and ATOLs. Dad told me that by his first trip over '68 they knew not to turn fight the MiG-17 and 19 in the Phantom.
One of the keys to his success seems to be getting low and fast– outrunning the Migs - he mentions it twice.
Two lessons from that:
1 - Know your aircraft–what it can and can’t do.
2 - Disengagement is often the right choice - fight on your terms, not theirs.
This last reason was lost on Maverick in the film Topgun (tragically ignored at the 1986 Oscars) - the “gutsiest move I’ve ever seen man” debrief scene germane. Having been part of a Navy Tomcat squadron at the time Topgun was released, I can tell you with some authority from all the ACM briefs and debriefs I attended, there was no “Gutsy Move” - when you didn’t have the advantage it was “select zone 5 and extend”
Shouting “run away! run away!” (as in Monty Python and the Holy Grail) was discouraged.
A great man and pilot - I mourn his passing - Tanks for the article.