P-51 solo take-off mission

[9./JG52_J-HAT]

Hey everyone,

Just want to make sure it is right. I just downloaded DCS World and the P-51 module. Then in game I selected sim difficulty and turned off auto rudder and take-off assistance. Then went to the solo take-off mission, where your engine is already running and tried to fly the Mustang.
I took off as per manual directions, no problem at all. Went around and landed her again, no problem at all. I read the pilot manual before doing it, so I tried to match the procedures. But it all felt too easy.

Am I missing some difficulty setting here? I didn't even have my trims configured.

Thanks for any advice.

[9./JG52_J-HAT]

Apparently it was just this one take off that was too easy. If you are just a bit sloppy, don't expect to make it. Managed to crash the plane many many times after this one.

[Remon]

Beginner's luck. But don't worry, it'll get easier. Just don't forget to lock the tailwheel by pulling the stick back, one of the biggest mistakes I've made.

[9./JG52 Jamz Dackel]

Beginner's luck. But don't worry, it'll get easier. Just don't forget to lock the tailwheel by pulling the stick back, one of the biggest mistakes I've made.

This is a must..

[9./JG52_J-HAT]

I was thinking about this. My stick was a bit forward even with it centered. When I hit ctrl Enter I could see my tail wheel wasn't locked after the first flight. I finally managed to make it again and again and again until I crashed trying to just power back up after landing :)

On for more trials and see if I can also fly her. Thanks!

[9./JG52_J-HAT]

I'had never really flown the Mustang, even in 1946. But wow is it hard to fly. I asjusted my curves as per numerous posts I read but it's like I can't really manouver her. The Dora just gets behind me everytime. And evrytime I try to make any manouver it just snaps. I am beginning to add rudder to these movements to prevent that, but it seems I can't outmanouver nor run away from the Dora.

Any tips? The youtube Videos I saw showed basically what I tried. Merge, climb and try to come down on the Dora. After some manouvering you should be behind her, but I can't complete a single manouver without losing lift in one of the wings.

And then there is shooting... I tried the shooting training with the friendly P-51 but I won't even comment haha

CloD just became so easy all of a sudden.

[vranac]

I think it's only sensitivity of controls that's bothering you. You just have to get used to it.
I'm using CH joystick and I think it has the longest throw or travel when compared with other commercial sticks. And I'm using something around 1/3 of it.
I saw many pilots flying on DCS P-51 extended their sticks just because of that, to have more precision with it.
I didn't saw much benefit from applying stronger S curve also except for the rudder so I left them almost linear.
I have to say that I don't like that approach to the controls and I prefer that one in Cliffs because we are flying with joysticks and I can imagine problems that people
with short throw joysticks are having/ will have.

Like you mentioned I also like that you have to use rudder to execute good maneuver but that is also needed in CloD especially if you're flying against a good pilot.

That fw190 AI is very, very good not only in shooting but in maneuvering also, very aggressive and responding to your every move. Even if AI have SFM it's very good.
I remember AI crashed into me few times in scissors trying to get in position to shoot at me.

I have to say I'm new to this and maybe have 30 h in DCS and most of that was landing and takeoff practice but I think flying against that AI is a very good training
for any flight sim, tactically wise.
Here you can download my tracks and see the maneuvers that I'm using. I'm sure that there is a lot better pilots out there with more practice but you can see the basic moves.
Just be patient and be gentle with your joystick, x52 is good and has long throw also.

http://www22.zippyshare.com/v/86486829/file.html

Another thing that I don't like is the lack of convergence setting because I use to shoot at short distances.

[9./JG52 Ziegler]

Is it just me, or does the P-51D feel different when flying that dogfight dora mission?
Every other "mission" I can fly it smoothly and relatively (for the amount of time I have in it) well. But as soon as I cue up that mission against the dora, it seems to get awfully touchy/squirrely?

[9./JG52 Jamz Dackel]

Is it just me, or does the P-51D feel different when flying that dogfight dora mission?
Every other "mission" I can fly it smoothly and relatively (for the amount of time I have in it) well. But as soon as I cue up that mission against the dora, it seems to get awfully touchy/squirrely?

I don't see why anything should be different m8..

I think its just the flying style your adapting when in combat

[9./JG52_J-HAT]

Thanks for the inputs. I'll watch your track, vranac, thanks.

I managed to finish my first sortie without dying and the Dora crashed. Manouver kill, maybe, or he busted his engine. He got a few opportunity shots on me and made some damage (elevator, fuel tank and generator from the report). I had to flee as my engine started overheating after sometime fighting the Dora. The AI is very good indeed.

When I try the solo take off mission the plane handles very well too, but I guess it's becuse the manouvers aren't as hard there? Both missions have empty fuselage tanks...

I reduced some of my curves now. I have full linear on rudder (from the beginning) and set the stick to 15 and deadband to 1. Now it's responding better but I still need to get used to the stick. The short throw of my joystick makes every input very ampflied in game. I prefer the "joystick approach" too.

Taking off is now getting "easier". I can take off without worrying about crashing and managed some without rudder trim. Landing I'm still ballooning sometimes (the one small bounce), but aside from that, going ok since the frist try.

I also noticed failures due to G effects and sudden pulling of the stick are very present. Try diving on a ground target and pullig out suddenly after strafing and you lose a wing haha.

And tracking is something I need to get used to. I don't see the contacts when not zoomed. Even when at around 2 km. I noticed at 5 km there isn't even a dot. I hope it will be different in WWII 1944, as that is crucial.

All in all, good fun and preparation for DCS WWII.

What I still think is weird is the modern setting. It feels like MFS with guns, bombs and rockets to be honest. But that's why we will have WWII 1944!

[9./JG52 Ziegler]

I don't see why anything should be different m8..

I think its just the flying style your adapting when in combat

Yeah,prolly some of that and I found some conflicts in the controls for the "game"settings versus the "sim" settings. When I got my new pedals, I only mapped them in the sim part. They were doing some other duties in game setting besides rudder and brakes! That wasn't helping. :salute:

[9./JG52_J-HAT]

This ctrl Enter function is really handy. I found out I was centering my stick to th left, hence always trying to bank or crossing controls (I don't use centering in the stick).

I had something weird happening now... I shot the Dora to bits... some three well put burst on the fuselage while he was at the top of his zoom... coolant and smoke out of the engine and I am thinking with myself, he will be down soon, just keep your eyes on him. Five minutes later he was still fighting me as if nothing had happened... could still climb like crazy and kept on B&Z me until I got on top. Everytime he managed to equal out again. After some 10 minutes of fighting my engine stops from overheating. Without being hit once. I was trying to keep her cool but at these last minutes took the eye out of the gauges...

I ditched and exploded (landing gear down but as engine was dead I head no hydraulics.. too late to pull emergency release when I realized) and he flew on leaving his black and white trail from his engine behind.

Edit: I watched the track again. 20 minutes of fighting. The gear came down but I descended too hard. Is soft ground modelled? I mean, if I land on a field with gears down will I break them?
Turns out the Dora wasn't smoking from his engine, but from the right wing root. AFAIK there's nothing vital there. So I don't know why it smoked. Is there a way to see this?

The engine got hit from underneath and the cockpit too, but no fatal damage apparently:

65176518

And I need to start switching fuel tanks every 5 minutes of fighting to even it out. I had right wing full and left half full.

[vranac]

I saw someone posted some log files of DM and it looked very detailed but I don't know how to enable that.
Visual DM is not so good in DCS, it was built for more powerful modern weapons and those bullet holes are just generic ones I think.
Let's hope that devs will pay attention on this for DCSWWII.

[Foul Ole Ron]

Thanks for the inputs. I'll watch your track, vranac, thanks.

I managed to finish my first sortie without dying and the Dora crashed. Manouver kill, maybe, or he busted his engine. He got a few opportunity shots on me and made some damage (elevator, fuel tank and generator from the report). I had to flee as my engine started overheating after sometime fighting the Dora. The AI is very good indeed.

I don't think the damage modelling for the AI Dora is done yet so he'll keep going beyond what should be possible whereas if the player gets hit the damage is modelled very precisely. Hopefully this is something that the DCSWW2 devs are going to look at. And as the AI flies very efficiently it can make knocking him down pretty tough but at least it's a good challenge. If you can get a good burst in at the harmonized range of ~300 yards you can do him some serious damage.

[9./JG52_J-HAT]

I managed to make him rtb with similar damage a couple of times more. And once I hit him real hard, took his tail off, his second tail sprouted out and then I set him on fire. I am getting the hang of shooting now, but the Dora pilot really flies well! He climbs like crazy!

[Dutch]

As soon as you spawn, climb. Climb like your life depends on it. Which it does. :D Avoid the head on attack from that Dora thing whilst climbing, then climb some more. Then once you've got some angels, hunt for the thing because he's very very small and difficult to spot. Look for his shadow on the ground, but don't forget that you might be chasing your own shadow. Then go get him.

As if I'd know....I've only shot him down twice in about fifty sorties.......:(

[ATAG_Knuckles]

Just downloaded this, so stay tuned, lets see what kind of ninny I can make of myself

:D

[9./JG52_J-HAT]

Thnaks Dutch! I'll try climbing more. I am having a real difficult time seeing it, which obviously makes me not amnouver properly. I am using the F5 key sometimes still to even see where he is...

haha yeah Knuckles, if you've never flown it, it's gonna be fun :)

[Foul Ole Ron]

You could download the demo version of tacview - it'll show the kind of maneuvers and curves the AI flies and how he keeps his energy up. Any flights you make in DCS the tacview track is automatically saved.

Also I wouldn't bother too much with the default instant action 1v1 vs 190 mission. You start off too close to the Dora and it doesn't give you enough time to manually open up both your rads fully and get your sights dialed in for 300 yards. It's probably a good idea to edit that mission and start off a bit further away so you can get fully set. There's no point trying to fight the Dora with your rads on auto with all those steep climbs it does.

[ATAG_Knuckles]

O.k. So I'm gonna have to program about a gazillion keys, good lord. I'll need a few beers for this

[9./JG52 Ziegler]

Yeah Knucks, that's the pita about the thing, that whole interface and having to com e out of the sim to change things, but once you get it all set up it's quite a hoot.

Course I love the huey too! :thumbsup:

[Remon]

Or you can get the 1.2.7 open beta, where the controls can be changed in flight.

[Injerin]

Or you can get the 1.2.7 open beta, where the controls can be changed in flight.

This is the way to go fellas, Download the BETA. Its alot easier and the improvments they made are very good.

[9./JG52_J-HAT]

Wow, glad they changed that. I don't know if it's normal, but I get loooong loading times just to refly. Everytime after a crash I wait minutes to be able to try again. Is there a way of reducing this? A refly button maybe like in CloD? And of course, when you need to change a single deadband for an input, these loading times apply too. That's why this change is very welcome for me.

I noticed there's is a number of crashes I need to get "used" to the Mustang after flying CloD long enough. After playing CloD for hours I crashed three times just taking off...

[9./JG52 Jamz Dackel]

This is the way to go fellas, Download the BETA. Its alot easier and the improvments they made are very good.

Oh yes, music to my ears

[ATAG_Bliss]

One thing that makes a world of difference in DCS is running it on an SSD. Not so much for performance, but the loading times must be 10x faster now. :thumbsup:

[9./JG52 Jamz Dackel]

One thing that makes a world of difference in DCS is running it on an SSD. Not so much for performance, but the loading times must be 10x faster now. :thumbsup:

That is the only annoying thing but tbh, once Ive eradicated the having to exit to change options annoyance (D/L now), it wouldnt be such a pita

[9./JG52 Jamz Dackel]

Hmm,

Gave up on this already when I couldn't see an option to add the p-51?.. It wasn't there and apart from buy it again couldn't see any possible way to get it showing..

On top of that, for some reason, though they could be related who knows, I couldn't just load all my bindings again that I have saved from the vanilla version..

Gave up already, hopefully it wont stay a BETA for long

[ATAG_Snapper]

One thing that makes a world of difference in DCS is running it on an SSD. Not so much for performance, but the loading times must be 10x faster now. :thumbsup:

Yes, I just noticed that on my new PC! :thumbsup:

I haven't flown the 1.27 beta, I think I'll just wait until it becomes the next update. It's great you can now add/change joystick settings on the fly. Bliss, do you know if the beta resolves your issue re ID'ing your peripherals properly in the GUI?

[9./JG52 Jamz Dackel]

Yes, I just noticed that on my new PC! :thumbsup:

I haven't flown the 1.27 beta, I think I'll just wait until it becomes the next update. It's great you can now add/change joystick settings on the fly. Bliss, do you know if the beta resolves your issue re ID'ing your peripherals properly in the GUI?

Does that happens then Snaps? I never noticed this before

[9./JG52 Ziegler]

Thanks Remon and Injerin, I'm downloading the beta 1.2.7 as I type. :thumbsup:

[ATAG_Snapper]

Does that happens then Snaps? I never noticed this before

Yeah, on my old PC with a normal 7200 rpm hard drive I found the load times for DCS took a long time. On my new PC it's installed on an SSD and it certainly loads in much, much quicker. Other factors which may or may not be making a difference:

Win 7 64-bit vs Win 8.1,
old CPU i7 920 2.67 ghz vs new i7 4770K @ 3.50 ghz,
faster RAM in new PC (both 12 Gigs old/new)

[9./JG52 Jamz Dackel]

do you know if the beta resolves your issue re ID'ing your peripherals properly in the GUI?

:thumbsup:

[Screamadelica]

One thing you can also try when flying against the FW190 Dora is reducing your fuel tank levels in the loadout section, you are flying with full tanks which causes some handling issues when throwing her around the sky. Try around 40% to 25% fuel capacity, as you don't need the full 8 hours flying time. :)

[9./JG52_J-HAT]

Thanks Screamadelica, that's a nice tip. I got the hang of it now already and am relatively competent.

I was trying to take off in formation but I couldn't hold her straight on the runway. Turns out my rudders had 5 in the dead zone... I turned it to 1 and adjusted the curve to 10 and now it works.

I also tried a quick mission with "enemy fighters". I just can't seem to catch that Mig-29. I think the FM is bugged... and where is the chaff and flare buttons so I can evade the missile? :)

[ATAG_Knuckles]

So I downloaded the P-51 only 15 bucks, I think I'm spoiled from CloD, Doesn't really compare, Took over a day to get everything mapped, didn't have any problems with take off or landing, except my first landing, which I did a "wheel" landing, however before the tail settled it did an abrupt 90 deg left, which no amount of rudder would correct, Just wondering if they have modeled too much torque in the engine at idle.

Dont think an idling engine would pull you off like that, next landing was a three point which was fine, but you know , I havent see too many P-51 do 3 point. Humm

I have looked around at some of the flight/campaigns, dosent really look like there much to do with this :flying2: