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What moves should a noob learn first?


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Hi, as a budding Spitfire pilot who has now got the basics to a reasonable level, I'd like to start practicing some useful manoeuvres. I had a go at dogfighting the other day and failed to keep my energy up, lost control many times, etc. As you would probably expect.

 

So, I would imagine that there are a variety of manoeuvres that need practice to be effective in the sky.

 

What do you think?

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First, make sure you don't pull too hard one the stick. And then also make sure you don't practice against the AI, but rather against a friend. AI is a bit tricky as it doesn't obey the rules that a human player has to consider.

 

As for the maneuvers, get creative. Aerial combat is dynamic. I mean, if your enemy is in situation A, it doesn't mean that the maneuver B does always work. You have to improvise many times and adjust your maneuvers accordingly.

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Here's 10 for free, in generally increasing levels of difficulty/ mastery:

1. Get straight and level flight nailed. Trim, trim, trim. You shouuld be able to fly hands off, look around the sky and not need to keep adjusting your nose attitude.

 

2. Learn the varous level, climb and descend "attitudes" of the aircraft so you can fly visually without needing to refer to your instruments. Get used to these attitudes with your head looking sideways out the window, or twisted to look behind you.

 

3. Master level, co-ordinated turns at various boost/ RPM settings. You should be able to complete gentle 360 degree turns without more than a few % change in altitude or airspeed. Co-ordinated turns need to be done with minimal "slip" indicated.

 

4. Advance to max-rate turns. Target 20 to 22 seconds to get around a full 360 degrees, without significant loss of altitude or airspeed.

 

5. Master max rate turning with your head facing backwards so you can keep your eyes on your six o'clock

 

6. Learn to fast-roll from a wings-level position into a wing-down position at the max-rate-turn attitude, kcking the rudder in to speed up the roll

 

7. Learn max climb speeds and the attitudes necesary to achieve max climb rates

 

8. Max rate climbing turns (upward corckscrew)

 

9. Get proficient at upwards rolls without stalling at the top (not for use in combat, but purely for airmanship purposes)

 

10 . Similar to upward roll, learn how to complete clean stall turns


Edited by philstyle

On YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/philstylenz

Storm of War WW2 server website: https://stormofwar.net/

 

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There's one single rule for DCS Spit.. Pull hard, like 12 Gs, and after that pull some more. It IS as easy as that..

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Settings:

2.1.x - Textures:High Terrain:High Civ.Traffic:Off Water:High VisRan:Low Heatblur:High Shadows:High Res:1920x1080 RoC:1024 MSAA:4x AF:16x HDR:OFF DefS: ON GCI: ON DoF:Off Lens: OFF C/G:390m Trees:1500m R:max Gamma: 1.5

 

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Here's 10 for free, in generally increasing levels of difficulty/ mastery:

1. Get straight and level flight nailed. Trim, trim, trim. You shouuld be able to fly hands off, look around the sky and not need to keep adjusting your nose attitude.

 

2. Learn the varous level, climb and descend "attitudes" of the aircraft so you can fly visually without needing to refer to your instruments. Get used to these attitudes with your head looking sideways out the window, or twisted to look behind you.

 

3. Master level, co-ordinated turns at various boost/ RPM settings. You should be able to complete gentle 360 degree turns without more than a few % change in altitude or airspeed. Co-ordinated turns need to be done with minimal "slip" indicated.

 

4. Advance to max-rate turns. Target 20 to 22 seconds to get around a full 360 degrees, without significant loss of altitude or airspeed.

 

5. Master max rate turning with your head facing backwards so you can keep your eyes on your six o'clock

 

6. Learn to fast-roll from a wings-level position into a wing-down position at the max-rate-turn attitude, kcking the rudder in to speed up the roll

 

7. Learn max climb speeds and the attitudes necesary to achieve max climb rates

 

8. Max rate climbing turns (upward corckscrew)

 

9. Get proficient at upwards rolls without stalling at the top (not for use in combat, but purely for airmanship purposes)

 

10 . Similar to upward roll, learn how to complete clean stall turns

 

Perfect. That's a good shopping list. I will be busy for a while. Thanks.

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Here's 10 for free, in generally increasing levels of difficulty/ mastery:

1. Get straight and level flight nailed. Trim, trim, trim. You shouuld be able to fly hands off, look around the sky and not need to keep adjusting your nose attitude.

 

Not being funny as a noob myself but is this possible in the Spit? Man I can't trim her and the way my Warthog stick is placed on my desk I had to take a break from flying because the constant stick pressure got my tennis elbow going.

 

I have actually had to turn rudder assist back on just so I can fly her and enjoy without pain, seriously.

 

Sent from my SM-G965F using Tapatalk

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Not being funny as a noob myself but is this possible in the Spit? Man I can't trim her and the way my Warthog stick is placed on my desk I had to take a break from flying because the constant stick pressure got my tennis elbow going.

 

In my opinoin, yes it is.

I also use a warthog, but I have mine on a mount that places it between my knees (lesss arm/neck/back pain).

It's easiest at cruise settings and at a bit of altitude, i.e. above 10,000ft.

The controls are super sensitive in the spitfire, so at low altitudes with thick (responsive) air it's harder.

Also, at high boost and RPM the engine is pulling the thing through the air so hard that trimming out is a lot more difficult. Relax the engine, then relax the air-frame.

On YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/philstylenz

Storm of War WW2 server website: https://stormofwar.net/

 

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The controls are super sensitive in the spitfire, so at low altitudes with thick (responsive) air it's harder.

 

I tended to think like that, but, it's IAS that dictates the "stiffeness" / "efficiency", and at same IAS you should get the same feel...

Flight Simulation is the Virtual Materialization of a Dream...

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In my opinoin, yes it is.

I also use a warthog, but I have mine on a mount that places it between my knees (lesss arm/neck/back pain).

It's easiest at cruise settings and at a bit of altitude, i.e. above 10,000ft.

The controls are super sensitive in the spitfire, so at low altitudes with thick (responsive) air it's harder.

Also, at high boost and RPM the engine is pulling the thing through the air so hard that trimming out is a lot more difficult. Relax the engine, then relax the air-frame.

 

Glad to hear it is not just my old body that aches after a long session in the Spit. Man it is the only plane that actually hurts to fly.

 

I spent a few days ago building a bracket for my Stick to place it center, but the desk layout is jut not right and was very uncomfortable so went back to stick on right hand side of keyboard method. Currently investigating other options.

 

I find the trim very strange in the Spit, if you slow down you pitch up which seems a bit out of whack to me, but somebody posted in one of my other threads that as she slows, her tail gets heavy. I think it is just going to be a lot more practice.

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Watch this, first attempt, just now:

 

 

 

Any (pertinent) comments?


Edited by amazingme

Specs:

Asus Z97 PRO Gamer, i7 4790K@4.6GHz, 4x8GB Kingston @2400MHz 11-13-14-32, Titan X, Creative X-Fi, 128+2x250GB SSDs, VPC T50 Throttle + G940, MFG Crosswinds, TrackIR 5 w/ pro clip, JetSeat, Win10 Pro 64-bit, Oculus Rift, 27"@1920x1080

 

Settings:

2.1.x - Textures:High Terrain:High Civ.Traffic:Off Water:High VisRan:Low Heatblur:High Shadows:High Res:1920x1080 RoC:1024 MSAA:4x AF:16x HDR:OFF DefS: ON GCI: ON DoF:Off Lens: OFF C/G:390m Trees:1500m R:max Gamma: 1.5

 

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Maybe one general hint (that applies to all airplanes in DCS really):

 

Learn to actually do less. When I started learning the ropes with the Spit in DCS, I constantly overdid turns by pulling too hard and too quickly, engine settings too high, etc. The result was I wasted energy and degraded the structural integrity of my plane very quickly ending in ripped off wings or broken engines. So forcing yourself to do things slower is a big part of flying energy efficient and "clean". I still do it today when I switch over from another sim and I require time to acclimate to DCS. So try not to mix sims, it messes with your head.

 

To the high G turns and whatnot:

It's related to how stick forces are modelled in the game. DCS in general limits you much less than other sims. This results in your pilot being able to pull enormous Gs at times because the game does not limit the deflection speed (exception being the 109 which was a hot discussed topic at the time). Other sims start to reduce the input once your airspeed increases. Technically, the DCS approach is more correct but it leads to weirdness due to the virtual pilot being a big green mountain of muscles going "HULK PULL!" on the stick.


Edited by arglmauf
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Maybe one general hint (that applies to all airplanes in DCS really):

 

Learn to actually do less. When I started learning the ropes with the Spit in DCS, I constantly overdid turns by pulling too hard and too quickly, engine settings too high, etc. The result was I wasted energy and degraded the structural integrity of my plane very quickly ending in ripped off wings or broken engines. So forcing yourself to do things slower is a big part of flying energy efficient and "clean". I still do it today when I switch over from another sim and I require time to acclimate to DCS. So try not to mix sims, it messes with your head.

 

To the high G turns and whatnot:

It's related to how stick forces are modelled in the game. DCS in general limits you much less than other sims. This results in your pilot being able to pull enormous Gs at times because the game does not limit the deflection speed (exception being the 109 which was a hot discussed topic at the time). Other sims start to reduce the input once your airspeed increases. Technically, the DCS approach is more correct but it leads to weirdness due to the virtual pilot being a big green mountain of muscles going "HULK PULL!" on the stick.

 

Pretty much this. Also, very few people fail to take into account the short "throw" or travel of our desktop joysticks compared to the long control columns found in the real warbirds. This is where most of the weirdness comes from, and why people do joystick extensions in DCS.

 

More travel = more sensitive or finer control inputs.

 

Another solution is FFB. Once you try it it's very hard to go back to a regular spring stick.

 

What MOST people use though is curves. I personally dislike them and didn't use them even before moving to FFB, but they do make people's lives easier.


Edited by OnlyforDCS

Current specs: Windows 10 Home 64bit, i5-9600K @ 3.7 Ghz, 32GB DDR4 RAM, 1TB Samsung EVO 860 M.2 SSD, GAINWARD RTX2060 6GB, Oculus Rift S, MS FFB2 Sidewinder + Warthog Throttle Quadrant, Saitek Pro rudder pedals.

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  • 1 month later...
Hi, as a budding Spitfire pilot who has now got the basics to a reasonable level, I'd like to start practicing some useful manoeuvres. I had a go at dogfighting the other day and failed to keep my energy up, lost control many times, etc. As you would probably expect.

 

So, I would imagine that there are a variety of manoeuvres that need practice to be effective in the sky.

 

What do you think?

 

Practice vertical turns, i.e. loops. When you can loop well you can fly anything else you need. All the standard aerobatic maneuvers are good practice for aircraft control but dogfights are mostly vertical turns.

 

Air combat is maneuvering but it's not maneuvers so much as it's pursuit curves. Use lag pursuit to get behind the bandit and lead pursuit to close the distance and/or take the shot.

 

The barrel roll, a loop and roll together, is a common result in air combat, learn to minimize your forward travel in practice. In a dogfight you'll see barrel rolls in a rolling scissors, fly the maneuver with lead/lag pursuit in relation to the bandit.

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