Don’t get me wrong - I love my Hornet. I’m just greedy.
I have a flight sim buddy with whom I play occasional co-op. I think the Tomcat is going to get us pretty good.
The real argument is going to be who gets to sit in which seat. I’m pretty sure I’m more interested in all the radar stuff, but I’m also pretty sure I’m better at carrier landings. >.>
And I’m sure you’ll be able to swap seats.
Now that I am 20 hours in I thought I would post some further impressions on IL-2, the thrustmaster 16000m and throttle combo, and the factrackNoIR for anyone interested:
The joystick and throttle combo is fantastic. The stick itself feels great, although I am too terrible a pilot to really discern much difference in the accuracy of the tracking relative to standard joysticks. The buttons and slider all feel good.
The throttle I am less enthustiastic about, but it is still a great piece of kit. I think I would prefer the round throttle as opposed to the flat slide that this thing has, and to make matters worse (as another poster mentioned above) it is hard to increase the throttle incrementally without it jerking. I will need to apply some oil to it. Other than that it works great, I love all of the various buttons and switches and so on that’s on it. More than enough buttons to keymap to my hearts content!
Using the PS3eye camera and FaceTrackNoIR really appealed to me as it’s cheap and also doesn’t require any weird hacks like IR filter or something attached to my headset or anything like that. Fortunately it works fine. It isn’t very accurate and I have to fiddle with the curves everytime I load up as where it places my face seems to change each time. Nevertheless, it lets me look in all directions without using a hat so I am happy. One day I will upgrade, but might as well go to full VR and skip the more pricey/effortful head tracking options.
I am really loving IL-2, going through a career mode at the moment with the LAGG-3 and almost full realism (turned on unlimited ammo because it’s very much needed!). Figuring out how to work radiators / propeller rpm, the supercharge engine, fuel mixture, and so on was great.
I am beginning to realise that the plane isn’t very good, a 109 can outpace me in almost all circumstances, and the Yak-1 might be the one to try next. I figured starting with a heavy sluggish plane where everything is done manually will help me appreciate the luxuries of the next planes I try! Although I did try a Mig-3 and could barely take off or land with it, wow what a dud that plane feels like.
MiG-3 is not a dud, its a thoroughbred racehorse. Very skittish and temperamental on the ground and going slow. Once up in the air where it belongs, going high and fast its a beaut.
I apllaud your choice of LaGG-3 for your first ride. It’s the lacquered coffin as they called it. Tough but slow and sluggish. Outclassed in every respect by its german adversaries. You’d be almost better off in an I-16.
Ah, that’s nice to know. I will fly her on some actual missions. I read a great comment on youtube that said (my paraphrase): “A Mig-3 will try to kill you twice during a mission, and at least one of those times will be during take off or landing”.
Well, I am getting shot down half the time!
Base model YaK-1 isn’t all that great either but the late model is sweet as can be. The base model La-5 (the machine Lavochkin made to atone for his sins in the LaGG-3) is ok, but the refined -FN model of it will finally make flying red easy-mode. It is faster, climbs and turns better and hits like a mule.
If you truly want the ‘spank me fritzie!’ masochism simulator experience, try an early model Il-2 }-) One of the most satisfying campaign moments I’ve had with Il-2 is getting a fokker to overshoot my big lumbering sturmovik and then rearing up to put a devastating blast in his wing root, watching him plummet helplessly into the birch woods of mother Russia as I fight the big heavy plane back to normal flight conditions.
TLDR; Flying red is hard, flying blue is easy-mode for pussies.
So I’ve been practicing my carrier landings with the Hornet. I had been concentrating on avionics and bombing until now and finally got around to getting serious with coming home. First of all, great fun! I don’t know if you will ever fly fast jets, or if they will add carrier operations to IL-2 (Hellcat please!), but one thing really stood out. Minute adjustments in throttle control are sometimes a must. The warthog throttle really showed its mettle here (pun intended). Pre-oiling the 16000 kit, I would not have been successful. After, it should be fine, although the silicon grease I used still left a very slight stickiness. I think you could probably find a better oil.
Also, there is a screw right underneath accessible when you push the throttle all the way forward. That controls friction. Loosing that won’t require you to open the casing (although that is really easy) and should help a bit. In my case, it wasn’t enough, but I suspect there will be some variation from unit to unit.
More fun with the DCS mission builder:
This thing is free and after you set up the scenario, you can just watch it play out in the excellent graphics engine. You don’t have to fly. This is great fun pitting different systems against each other to see what would happen. DCS has modeled a ton of systems from WW2 to modern, including infantry, tanks, planes, helicoptors boats, etc.
My son asked me to set up a flight to go after an aircraft carrier. Cool! A few clicks and 4 hornets armed with Harpoons were going after a Russian carrier. That didn’t go so well and they were shot down immediately without getting a shot off.
So we copied and pasted the flights until there were 16 hornets all armed with 4 harpoons each. This time a number of Hapoons made their target (awesome watching the carrier shoot low flying harpoons down with gatling tracers as they came in). Some smoke, but no sinkage. Is this thing invincible?
So we put three destroyers next to the carrier and had them attack. I’m not sure if they were WW2 boats or not. That was so cool! Battle royale. Water was spraying everywhere, the hornets were coming in, dropping like flies and the destroyers were hitting the carrier over and over with their big guns.
Turns out, the carrier was not invincible and eventually listed and sank. I have no idea how you would take one out in a real mission though.
Anywho, thought I’d share to the forum. Great stuff.
Edit: I used the word cool too many times.
That’s because it is.
The dudes over at mudspike have been having the same fun and then discussed it at length. A good read if you like this stuff.
The TLDR is that you attack a carrier group from multiple vectors and saturate it with a large volume of incoming missiles. Blue stuff actually isn’t all that good at this, the reds have far better toys in the Tu-22M3 / AS-4 combo. Those missiles are big and fast meaning a regiment of backfires actually has a fair chance of murderizing a flat top if they really want to. Unless the flat top has a CAP of tomcats and hawkeye up of course :D
Killing carriers with air was something we never really had to worry about.
Our side was preparing to use subs for that. Antiship tomahawk and/or Mk-48 ADCAPS to the keel. There always were the soviet helicopter carriers of the Kiev and Moskva class that were a problem. The big battlescruisers are another.
I was thinking of creating a “Final Countdown” style mission / campaign where an aircraft carrier goes back in time to WW2 and a bunch of Hornets wreak total havok on the Nazi’s.
Questions: Is the Normandy map any good? Currently it is on special along with WW2 assets. Could I plop a modern aircraft carrier into the channel and add hornets to a furball of 109s spitfires and 190s?
Edit: Looks like modern assets can be put in. Really really tough purchase call. As much as I would like to let the imagination run wild, it seems any investment into WW2 flight stuff should go to the IL-2 crowd.
yes and yes and yes it should. if its either or. Ka-50 vs the nazis is fun too, or harrier, or hog…
Flash sale on the Viggen right now until the 30th. 60% off at $26 usd
thats a better spend than dcs:ww2 imo
I’m not seeing a discount on either steam or their shop. Do they regionally price (I’m in Australia) or require you to login or something?
Yeah they just had a summer sale around the end of June where Viggen and a bunch of other stuff was cheap. I’m not seeing any discounts now either (also in Au).
This is the discount you are looking for:
It’s straight off the modules’ developers own shop. The license slots into your DCS account, so no worries.
Apologies, I should have linked. Thanks Schurem.
I did pick it up and it is glorious!