Or this one
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Surely you can’t be serious!
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Please don’t call me “serious”!
(Is that how it goes?)
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I was taking a ride in a friend’s Traumahawk one time, and as we taxied by the Phoenix Air flight line, couldn’t help but utter WTF. Those guys have a very unconventional approach to corporate aviation 
Back OT, any Lear would be cool.
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So uhh after giving it some thought I’ll uhhhh take the grey one.
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Can I have the grey one in black?
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Osprey.
Osprey all day long. High speed transit plus hover.
Yes please.
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Yes, if CA included infantry and FPS combat then it would make transports better and it would certainly rock for the UH-1. Then it would be a little bit of Arma in there.
I’ve flown the Osprey in OFP/Arma and it suffered from the small map sizes. Better in EECH/AH. Always a fun bird, though, since the first time I flew it in EA’s LHX (remember that one? ) oh so many moons ago…
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Well, I didn’t have a dog in the fight, so a C-130 is welcome. I’m just happy there is more diversity in the types of airframes that will be coming (at some point) down the line. Looking at it objectively, I think the C-130 is a great platform that covers a lot of bases because it can be implemented in so many different capacities. I’m glad RAZBAM may handle this, they’ve released,IMO, quality thus far.
More over, I hope going forward we can see other countries getting a lot more representation (I’m sure it will come) and additional love given to land and naval units (again, I feel we are still at the beginnings of a great simulation platform).
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Indeed. It wasn’t my first pick (I like the C-27J)…but it would work well. Particularly in some advanced scenarios where perhaps a mission is designed around the capabilities of the C-130. Land at X airfield or unprepared strip, and 50 troops deploy from it, or an LAV or whatever it can carry. It isn’t hard to imagine flying a C-130 and being escorted by a friendly CAP.
Some of you old hands might remember the Jane’s F-15 mission where you had to escort the C-130 deep into (Iran? Iraq?) and then you just had to loiter above it while it did its thing. I still remember having the targeting pod or whatever looking at it…wishing it would hurry up and take off. Fun mission.
Anyway. C-130 seems like a big bite to take though. The systems will be fairly complex.
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Oh Lord…I still have my write-up…LOL…
The mission is to take my flight of 4 F-15E’s about 100 miles into Iran to help escort a Special Forces C-130 out of an airstrip. This mission is probably one of the best designed missions I’ve ever flown in any sim period. Whoever did the campaign/mission work on this particular mission really did a great job.
The mission briefing states that there will be a car working its way toward the airfield where a C-130 will be waiting to extract the Special Forces team. The briefing states that I’m to protect the car from enemy forces and subsequent to that to protect the C-130 on its flight back to friendly territory.
After considering the briefing advice I loaded up my F-15E with 12 MK-20 Rockeyes, 1 center-line fuel tank, 2 wing-mounted fuel tanks, 2 AMRAAMs and 2 AIM-9Ms. At the last moment I make a fateful decision and replace the two wing mounted fuel tanks with 2 Mark-84 bombs figuring that they have a huge blast radius and if I’m engaging moving vehicles a miss will be close enough. Little do I know how much I’ll regret this decision.
My wingman I give the same loadout, but leave the Mark-84’s off his airframe. Wingman 3 & 4 I outfit with basically a MIGCAP configuration: 4 AIM-7s, 4 AIM-9Ms and 3 fuel tanks. I intend to use 3 & 4 as an air-to-air element while me and my wingman concentrate on the ground work.
It’s a dark night when we lift off, but the stars are shining in the sky above:
I’ve not been giving my back-seater enough credit in my mission reports.
“You mean OUR mission reports…”
I’m sorry…OUR mission reports… He’s been doing an outstanding job, calling out air threats, missle launches, times to target and NAV points. Jane’s F-15 got the guy-in-back concept just right. I know when he starts yelling “flare, flare, flare” or “chaff, chaff, chaff” that its definitely time to make a move.
Here’s my backseater keeping an eye on the “big picture”:
With the center fuel tank empty just 10 minutes into the mission I punch it off to reduce drag on my already heavily laden aircraft:
The first enemy threat (other than the pesky SA-2 site that is always off to the left on ingress) is a flight of 2 MiG-21s. AWACS calls them out as two seperate singles and gives me a bulls-eye reference that jibes with my radar picture. Soon wingman 3 & 4 are chomping at the bit to engage so I release them and they fire off an AIM-7 each downing both aircraft. The MiGs get off a single missle which misses all of us.
My TEWS and A2A radar in Track While Search mode shows the 2 Mig-21s ahead at about 60 miles. I don’t understand why the contacts display a “27” over the targets because they are clearly MiG-21s. I’ve looked through manual and can’t find what exactly that number designates, perhaps it is their altitude in thousands of feet (?):
The two MiG-21s go down in flames just seconds apart as my wingmens AIM-7s find their marks:
Continuing along our path we get an AWACS call of 2 slow moving targets south of the bulls-eye at low altitude. Despite twiddling with all the radar controls I can’t get the elevation to pan down far enough to paint the targets so I take the flight down to 500 feet where we immediately lock up 2 helicopters. Despite being relatively stationary they are quite good at evading 2 missles that my #2 and #3 fire at them. They prove no match for AIM-9s though and are quickly dispatched without us even having to bear off from our waypoint track.
An enemy helicopter:
A near miss by one of my wingman’s missles:
Well inland the HUD FLIR image shows the rising terrain that the interior of Iran sports…so I engage the Terrain Following system and sit back and enjoy the ride:
Coming up on the target area you can see some shadowing on the ground radar from the terrain. In Ground Moving Target mode the Special Forces vehicle is clearly visible, as are a convoy of pursuing vehicles just to the east of it:
After designating the convoy using the ground radar and arming a pair of Rockeyes I start my attack:
The back-seaters view of the attack run. Notice the FLIR image in the left MFD of a few vehicles in the convoy:
The Rockeyes explode directly on target, setting 2 vehicles ablaze. It’s always nice to hear that “Boom boom out go the lights…” comment from the back-seater:
A second bombing run yields more targets. You can see the vehicles faintly in the HUD FLIR making their way down the road:
After several more attack runs the GMT radar shows no more pursuing vehicles. My concern, however, is mounting as I glance at my fuel gauge, currently showing a paltry 9435 lbs remaining:
Here you see the brakelights down on the road leading toward the airport, this is the Special Forces vehicle working its way toward the C-130:
While the Special Forces car heads for the C-130 I climb up to 28000 feet, set the autopilot to hold me in about a 15 degree bank angle orbit and reduce my throttle to about 50%. This puts me at about 240 knots and lowers my fuel consumption. Soon the C-130 takes to the air and I start working my way back south along my waypoint route.
The SF C-130 lifts off (finally!!):
A look at my instrument panel bears the grim news. I’m flying at about 240 knots, with a throttle set at 50%, giving a fuel flow of 3532 lbs/hr per side (7064 lbs/hr total). With a little simple math I figure at this power setting I have approximately 30 minutes of fuel remaining until I’m a glider. Looking at the right MFD you can see my final waypoing (waypoint 13) which is my home base shows an estimated time en-route of 30 minutes and 12 seconds, so I know it will be very, very close:
Matching the C-130’s speed he is running nape-of the earth while we maintain altitude for fuel economy. On the egress AWACS suddenly calls out new threats airborn and I release my #3 and #4 (who have a lot more fuel than I) and they quickly shoot down two F-5s.
Wingman #3 takes a cannon shot at an Iranian F-5:
At this point in the mission is where I make a critical error and decide that my fuel is going to be too close and that I need to “cut the corner” on some of the waypoints and fly a direct route back to my airbase. This route takes me over a corner of Iran, whereas my planned waypoints took my flight safely south over the Gulf before turning west toward home. As I settle on the short cut-course I see the SA-2 symbols on the TEWS and know I’m going to be in range as we cross the area. I figure with a full complement of flares and chaff I can spoof the missles easily without even jinking, but I soon learn the fatal error of my ways.
An SA-2 doesn’t fall for my chaff/flare packages and hits me dead center you can see my 3 wingmen in the back-ground:
I have no chance to eject and am killed instantly. I switch to my wingmen view and watch all three of them fall victim to the same SA-2 site in sequence. No airframes survive the mission and 4 crewmember are KIA, 4 are rescued. The mission is rated a success however because the C-130 safely makes it out of Iranian airspace.
I should have stuck to my planned route, the fuel was going to be close, but I’m pretty sure I actually would have made it. At the least I wouldn’t have led my 3 wingment to their fates.
Awesome mission though…great design!
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If Razbam can come up with an accurate turboprop simulation for the C-130… wow… that’d be quite an achievement from a technical point-of-view. As far as I know, apart from the A-29 Super Tucano no other turboprop is planned for DCS…
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Now that’s confirmed it’ll obviously will be ready in two weeks, just in time for 2.5 launch! YAY!
I can MAYBE understand doing something non combat that is relatively easier to create (biplane), but a C-130 seems like it would be quite the undertaking for something that would have less marketability than say an F-111 or A-6/7.
i wouldnt underestimate the marketability of a herky bird.
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The C-130 seems like a pretty easy choice, it’s already a popular AI unit, and people who like complex systems and manuals will love all the buttons and switches. I’d love to see one with refueling capabilites.
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It’s not that it wouldn’t be marketable, but if you’re going to spend that much time creating something, why not go for something with f-18/f-14 juice?
Edit:
DCS AH-64 by RAZBAM
DCS F-16 by RAZBAM
DCS C-130 by RAZBAM
dcs f-111 by razbam
I know which one of these my dollars would jump out of my pocket for first.