@komemiute, you gave away the simple secret to mastering any complex skill.
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LOL! 
That’s a compliment I haven’t heard in a loong time.
If it was a compliment.
Passed ground handling finally. Beer is on me!
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@komemiute It was definitely a complement. Thousands of self-help books have been sold with the promise of the insight you gave in one paragraph.
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I knew, I knew- I was trying to be funny. 
Also, thank you- 
you’re kind. 
I was going to say…you could always use the pause button, consult the line-by-line checklist, and unpause after each click or item. Some might call it a cheat…but I do think that two minute shut-down is a bit tough. The good news is, once you get through Basic and move on to the Advanced - it no longer grades your starts and shut downs…(whew!)…
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I’ll be attempting the takeoff and right engine shut down test this evening. Have a bad feeling I’ll blow the glide slope long before I have an issue with attempting to shut the bird down again in 2 minutes or less.
Did the basic course come with the practice missions as well as the “testing” missions? I can’t remember. If they do, I do recommend doing the practice ones first and nailing the technique prior to doing the full cold start to shut down missions. The practice ones are usually air start missions where you don’t have to go through all the steps prior to getting to the action point. They are good for quick practices before you dive into the full on hour long graded mission. They are included in the Advanced Qualifications campaign…but I can’t remember if they are part of the Basic one…
I’m not sure they come in the basic campaign unfortunately. The only thing that seems similar to that which I’ve seen thus far is on the first test where the instructor grades your ability to find all of the knobs and switches within a period of time after his call out, but I think that’s different from a real “practice” mission.
That’s what was super frustrating about that first test. Do the start up just fine, go through the entire taxi procedure and then miss a single switch in the shut down and you have to repeat the entire procedure all over again. Oh well, I guess it beats real life where I wouldn’t have been provided that many opportunities to pass in the first place.
Don’t beat yourself up. In reality you’d also be fresh off an intensive academic course where you’d spent the previous month+ learning the technical facets of the aircraft.
DCS aircraft can be frustrating to learn in the first place, and you’ve chosen to dive in the metaphorical deep end with a weight belt on while a Navy SEAL washout yells at you about your form.
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Yes, that is all important to recognize. Professional military pilots live and breathe these airplanes and systems because their lives depend on it, their wingmen’s lives, and the people they are supporting on the ground. I can’t think of any more motivational things than those to become an expert at your craft. Most of us are, at best, part time simulation fans who’s interests span multiple games and sims. So it is no wonder we aren’t the Ace of the Base in things as complex as DCS modules. I still don’t know how @Chuck_Owl manages to take it all in and THEN make awesome guides on it.
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perhaps making these awesome guides is his way of coming to grips with the material…
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Eh irl you aren’t timed to any standard to startup or shutdown, just the ridicule of your flight mates or the obvious reason if you being a limfac.
Also irl you are probly going a solid 10-20 minutes from startup to taxi, due to flight control bits, redballs, waiting for taxi time etc. it can be done faster, but that amount of time is the bare minimum budgeted, usually it’s more.
After landing it’s the same, if nothing happened you can ■■■■ down immediately, if something broke you are usually talking to somebody about it and working that for as long as it takes.
The way I think about it and flying in general, is that most things happen in a sequence. For example: after landing on the landing roll I safe my seat once below 50 knots. Then I don’t think About it anymore, as we roll into dearm I turn off the tacan, iff, and all my screens, as we taxi back to chocks I unstrap and put all my stuff in my helmet bag, as we pull into chocks I run the ins update and after the pilot turns that off I turn off the target pod and rwr, as soon as the crew chief is starting to signal us to shutdown I then turn all the radios off.
And that’s how you shutdown astrike eagle from the backseat lol
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You do make a good point here. There are certainly different levels of proficiency that can be had in DCS World or any sim and it’s up to the user as to how deep they want to go. I think that’s why originally I opted to purchase this module because while after reading Chuck’s guide I could do basic things like start up, take off, blow up stuff (to a degree) and get back on the ground I wanted to have a bit more background on things and become more skillful like many I see on ye ol’ Twitch.
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Ha! That’s pretty close to the truth.
I’ve always had this philosophy that you don’t really understand something unless you can explain it in plain terms to anyone. These guides are my own way of digesting all that information and structuring it in my head in a way that feels logical to me.
I do them for myself first… the fact that people may or may not read them doesn’t really matter much to me.
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Ha…that’s absolutely true. I remember when I first got my CFI, and as a zero-hour instructor I was as dumb, if not dumber (because of distraction) than my students. Thankfully, I hid it well and rapidly picked up knowledge because you don’t want to be asked something you can’t answer from a student. And nothing is worse than making up something to TRY to BS them and have them call you out on it (better to say: “I don’t know” than “Oh, that’s how the Fitzer Valve works”). After a couple hundred hours of instructing I felt like I was where I was supposed to be when the ticket was printed. Everyone goes through that. You just hope you don’t kill yourself or someone else during that learning period.
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“License to learn”. I used to hate that phrase. But it is so true.
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In programming (and IT sometimes) we use the help of the Rubber Duck.
Yup- you have a Rubber Duck on your desk and when you really can’t get to fix that problem (whatever it is) you explain it (the first time usually quite angrily) to the Rubber Duck.
When that idiotic piece or pathetic elaborated petrol can’t just get it- you go and break it down in smaller and smaller steps- simple and simple- dumber and dumber.
…until your gazed enough in the void and the void starts gazing back into you…
Usually that means you suddenly realize your mistake, blush furiously and realize that the whole time you’ve been actually angry at yourself rather than the smiling, docile duck.
…
whoa- I’m actually tripping balls now. This went intensely meta-physical.
Anyway- trust me it works. And it’s real.
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Not sure how exactly this just happened, but I took my 2nd exam (Takeoff & EFATO) and just passed on the first attempt. Ok, it was a qualified minus rating, but I’ll still take it!
One question, does anyone know if you only have to pass the exam once? Meaning if I take it again for practice and fail does it overwrite the previous passing grade and not allow me to do the next test?
Qualified Minus is Qualified…! I had some of those too and I took em’ and ran…LOL…
My suggestion on this is to just run each mission as a single mission instead of a campaign. I just moved the campaign files into My Missions folder and just run them individually so that I don’t have to worry about the campaign breaking at all.