It has been a long time since I flew the VEAO Hawk. I’ll have to fire it up and compare the two. I have a feeling the Just Flight Hawk will come out on top for all things except weapon deployment.
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The early days of 3rd parties developing for DCS may have been like that, but ED has since become much more cautious. Hence why there was a large influx of developers right when they opened up to 3rd parties, which has since mostly ceased.
Has always a part of the community losing the point… Only like someone say… “we can make Su-57, F-35, etc” to get Hype and the forums explode… The VEAO close remember me the first 3rd party ED times, with IRIS building a “War” vs RAZBAM about with team has more module plans over the table (F-14, F-15E…), the time pass and finally “nothing”, only smoke.
Not bad build civil aircrafts, has a very learning process to starting teams, has similarly some days to build utility and transport aircrafts (remember the sh*t storm buildes with 3rd parties and ED started to build “trainers”).
Other point show by DCS, the 3rd party require a very solid planing and programming develop teams and solid objetives to reach a well module complete. I supuse, ED can change the game rules and demand to all new 3rd parties build a “community” module or similar with SFM before reach to the 3rd party status.
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I fired up the VEAO DCS Hawk followed by a flight in the Just Flight XP11 Hawk for a quick side by side comparison. I didn’t delve into the weapon systems because I feel that would really be unfair (DCS is obviously far more geared towards that side of things).
From a simple cold start, the two are very comparable. The big difference is in the flight model. The VEAO flight model is nowhere near that of the Just Flight version. While the VEAO Hawk feels like it is on rails, the Just Flight Hawk feels alive. That was just a very quick look of course. I’m sure there are further differences.
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I am so glad I let you sell me on it. The Just Flight Hawk is easily the most enjoyable fixed-wing model I have flown yet. The only parallel might be the F-5 in DCS. Thanks for comparing.
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I always liked the looks of the Hawk and was hoping that at some point the DCS version would receive some bug fixes to make the purchase worthwhile. Guess that’s not happening now.
Never know, someone else might step up to the plate and do it justice. It is a pretty popular aircraft after all.
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There are a host of significant differences between the Hawk and T-45. But that’s where I would take it if carried any hope of return on the investment.
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I’m sorry to read this but not unexpected.
From the Hawk store page: Hawk T.1A for DCS World
Attention! Starting DCS World version 2.5.4 this module will be unavailable! Please use DCS World version 2.5.3 or below!
I guess we have come far enough in third party development to see the first aircraft removed from the game. I can’t say I was ever happy with the Hawk but I don’t know if I was ready to say goodbye tomorrow lol
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Bye Hawk! 
I bought it for 15 bucks or so, and flew it, like, three times, but it is still sad to see it go.
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Pity really, but understandable.
Does this mean that any missions using the Hawk will have it replaced by a generic Su-27?
One issue with DCS though, is that while there are simple aircraft (eg Yak), it’s arguable there aren’t any simple models of those aircraft. Even the Yak has a lot going on, by flight sim standards, compared to simpler models on platforms like FSX and Xplane (eg. Carenado models). If those platforms only allowed products at the level of say, PMDG or A2A, they’d be nowhere near as prolific, as simpllifed aircraft create a friendlier ground floor for developers to build and sell aircraft.
To wit, if the Yak was released on Xplane or FSX, it would be considered a top-tier product, even though it’s a far simpler aircraft than say, a 737 or F-16.
So, does this mean they’ll quietly keep a version of 2.5.3 around for the two people who still want to fly the Hawk?
To be clear, as a Hawk owner myself, It’s hard to overstate how “meh” I am about seeing it go. Would have been great if it had advanced beyond a glorified Alpha state, but the writing has been on the wall for a while.
I feel the ideal replacement would be the L-39, no? They both perform the same general roles: rich-nation-military transitional jet trainer, poor-nation-military attack aircraft.
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That is kind of DCS’s thing though. While I honestly wouldn’t object to more rudimentary models like the A-4, ED seems to have staked their reputation on doing everything balls to the wall. By extension, even though something like the Yak-52 has a lot going on, it’s still objectively less than the A-10C or F/A-18C.
Sure, but in regards to old missions or missions that haven’t been updated yet, it’d kinda suck to have a crash for no reason because the asset isn’t there anymore.
I think either a L39 or a C101 will do.
Btw I just flew the C101 a bit after a loooong pause. I really recommend that little plane.
I’m really interested to see how the EFM for it turns out tomorrow
Wait, that’s still the SFM in the current beta??
It flies great! They have tweaked it well then.
Are we really certain of the stated complexity of 3rd-party models made for DCS? I don’t doubt that much is happening under the hood. But we all get predictable, repeatable damage, even in ED created planes (ex. Tailboom loss in the Ka50). Some of this seems like marketing to me. And if I don’t understand what makes a DCS model, I am equally ignorant of payware X-Plane models. Can I claim that one is more advanced than the other?
Honestly, I find it doubtful, though DCS does have the added complexity of being a combat sim where FSX, XP, P3D, etc. aren’t. Where I think DCS tends to do well is more in simulating systems, scenarios, and combat; systems by and large is always going to be the trickiest subject to do accurately due to complexity. Goes double for anything involving combat systems, especially if you’re trying to do them as close as you can get.
Does all that justify the “it’s so hard to do” label? Dunno. If it’s a really open ended system where 3rd parties basically have to build their own sim within a sim and not just plug numbers in, then I’d imagine it’d be fairly hard. If it’s a “here’s the flight model system, how it works, the numbers for your various values, etc.” then most of the difficulty is then shifted to systems modeling. Given how a lot of folks have said that DCS’s flight model takes a lot of effort to understand, it’s either very complex or it’s very convoluted with poor documentation. Given the way most programmers are, I’d bet on the latter rather than the former!
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