DCS Academy

Are you interested in learning the principles and physics behind what makes military fighter aircraft able to perform the way they do?

Are you looking for a group of knowledgeable people who can answer deeply technical questions about military airborne operations?

Are you interested in being one of the best military aviators in the DCS community?

Are you willing to put in the required effort to learn this knowledge, train these skills, and acquire these abilities?

If you answered "yes" to all of the above, then you're probably ready for DCS Academy!

What is DCS Academy?

DCS Academy is a small community of DCS players who are interested in learning about fixed-wing military aviation "the right way", starting with aviation first-principles and working up to fighter tactics and concepts of operation for participating in airborne warfare.

Aspiring helicopter pilots have their own rotary-wing pathway as well, starting with basic/civilian helicopter coursework by our FAA-certified helicopter instructor and moving to US Army-inspired utility and attack helicopter training.

Who teaches at DCS Academy?

DCS Academy instructors are members of the DCS community at large who are interested in improving the quality of DCS pilots. Here is a list of some of the qualifications the instructors have:

1. Real-world commercial pilots,
   
2. FAA CFI or CFIIs,
   
3. FAA-certified rotary-wing instructor,
   
4. former military pilots or NFOs/WCOs,
   
5. retired military crew chiefs,
   
6. current or retired JTACs,
   
7. current or former military airborne operations trainers,
   
8. current or former/retired civilian airspace controllers (ATCs),
   
9. current or retired military air intercept controllers/air battle managers,
   
10. Chuck from Chuck's Guides.
    

How much does DCS Academy cost?

DCS Academy is free ! We wanted to improve the quality of pilots in the DCS community without locking it behind any type of paywall. The instructors all volunteer their time and expertise to improve the DCS community as a whole.

Does DCS Academy have its own server?

Yes! We supply our own servers and have a realistic implementation of the NTTR map where most of our training occurs, just like the real-world (in the USA at least).

When does DCS Academy offer its classes?

Classes are offered by instructors as their availability allows. Just like you, they are busy people with full-time jobs, families, and a life outside of DCS.

In general, you can expect classes to be offered around the same times you have availability (USA-based). There isn't necessarily a regularly scheduled time you can find each instructor unless their personal lives lend themselves to such regularity. The DCS Academy Discord typically has instructor availability published a week or two in advance in each instructor's classroom/channel.

What does DCS Academy offer that other places do not?

DCS Academy is focused on teaching principles first, which makes the advanced concepts easier (or possible!) to understand. As a consequence, it opens up possibilities for advanced, real-world military training in a variety of topics. We have the requisite people with the associated knowledge to teach you real-world military tactics, techniques, and procedures.

What we will not be teaching the public at large is anything that is classified or sensitive. Note the difference between the instructors' knowledge, skills, and abilities; versus what they will actually teach you.

Is this where the AIC training moved to?

Yep! The AWACS/GCI/AIC training that has been offered since March, 2019, has been incorporated into DCS Academy’s advanced (Phase II — A2A) training.

Sounds great! I'd like to sign up!

Hold up. Let's talk a bit about expectation management and skills, knowledge, and abilities (KSAs):

In a community for a technically challenging subject like study-level military flight simulators which are open to the public at large, the KSA vs. population distribution is best modeled by the Power law

DCS Academy is decidedly targeting people who want to be at the top, which means that based on a random sampling of DCS players, there is likely a considerable gap in knowledge, skills, and abilities from where each person is and where they want to be. Check yourself before you decide you want to invest your time in this effort and to forestall against the Dunning-Kruger effect.

Lots of people like to talk the talk; DCS Academy makes you walk the walk, and we'll quickly find out what you can and cannot do.

Everyone who signs up for DCS Academy needs to either take classes in basic aviation (Phase I) or test out of them to be graduated to Phase II where you get to fly your fancy F/A-18C or F-16C.

Phase I training takes place mostly in trainer aircraft (the C-101 or MB-339). You are expected to be active to prevent skill and knowledge atrophy, and so the instructors can monitor your progress.

Phase II training is where all the "cool" stuff happens, but you must have the requisite basic aviator skills or you'll embarrass yourself and hold up everyone else's training. There are several pipelines in Phase II like: A2A, A2G - Strike, A2G - CAS, and SEAD.

We've already had a few students progressing through the beginning levels. The quality of their flying and airborne operations is considerably higher than when they started, and considerably higher than most people who have not gone through the program and who have joined in on AIC training. This has opened up interesting advanced AIC training simply because the class isn't bogged down by people who didn't learn the basics of aviating enabling the class to focus entirely on employing advanced concepts.

This is at least some evidence that DCS Academy is serving its purpose and allowing for interesting, advanced, real-world training you can't get anywhere else (short of signing up for the US military). We’re eager to introduce more advanced concepts to the DCS community!

Okay, I’ve checked myself and I won’t act the fool. Where do I sign up?

Start with this Discord link, read the channel topic, pinned messages, and check the #announcements channel:

https://discord.gg/MM9UyN5

I want to help out as an instructor. How do I sign up?

Follow the same Discord link and post that you’d like to be an instructor. We’ll give you a brief interview then ask you to make a course on any topic of your choosing to demonstrate that you’re able to plan at least one course.

When you’re ready, the other instructors will take your course, provide feedback, and then you’re free to offer that course or any others you desire.

Do DCS really needs two flight schools?

Why don't we bundle our efforts and do something together?

Do DCS really needs two flight schools?

Why don't we bundle our efforts and do something together?

What is the other school?

What is the other school?

Take a look at my signature. :smilewink:

OpenFlightSchool.de is the other school.

We begun to translate the content to english but it's growing slowly because there's only a few translators at the moment.

I've contacted Ryan & Mike for a cooperation. We will see.

^ Your website looks great! I know it's a work in process but it's clear you have an exciting project.

I'm just a humble instructor. I feel it would be fair to say, the guys who are spearheading these projects are dedicated DCSers who are providing a very valuable service. Flying with other players is extremely rewarding but hard to break into, projects like this can be a great opportunity for experienced and new players alike.

I'm kind of a mid level guy, I'm out there pounding the pattern with Level 0 cadets most of the time, rest of the time I'm learning. Currently learning how to do ATC.

We've started operation Saturday Yoga, which is our Saturday morning (for North American pilots) ATC sessions. I'm handling Laughlin, and typically a very experienced (IRL) controller is working out of Nellis.

Cadets submit VFR flight plans, after studying sectional charts. They make all the radio calls appropriate for controlled and uncontrolled air spaces. Some are practicing formation flying en route. Approach and departure procedures are realistic.

So far it's been lovely weather, although it does occasionally rain (or snow) in the desert, so the cadets are going to be learning ILS and TACAN approaches. C-101 has been a superb training platform for all these activities.

Good preparation for some of the more advanced operations you might encounter in DCS, and if you're at all interested in real life aviation, it gives you a general idea of what real flight training is like. So far it has been great fun.

Do you offer anything for the Single-Player player? A training syllabus? Manuals etc?

I could be interested, no problem starting from level 0: I am able to perform radio management and basic maneuvers, but I think it's always best to start learning from the basis if you have good teachers. Only two problems: 1) I'm not english native speaker; 2) I do not have c-101 and I'm not a mods supporter (even if l'm italian and I appreciate mb-339 I'd prefer not to install mods). I have l-39 instead. Could I train in l-39?

For training materials, guides etc id recommend Chuck's Guides. Chuck participates in our discord, totally cool guy.

We write procedures. Recovery and departure procedures at nellis, procedures and comms for the various ranges, etc. But we don't have a textbook. Can't beat dcs tutorials or Chuck's for aircraft familiarization, and there are plenty of resources on the internet for basic flight training. As you get into advanced topics like AIC we are developing our own materials

I'll ask about the L39, I'm not familiar with it although I hear it's a great trainer.

Not a ton of interest in supporting the 39 at this time, training program is really focused on US procedures, not sure that would translate well to the 39 platform even though I hear it's a fine trainer. That said, I think it would be really cool to have a realistic Eastern bloc track. If you search through this sub, I think someone is already doing that.

We do have a helicopter instructor and it's possible to start training with the TF51, although if you're on that track we move people to jets pretty quickly.

Mods are pretty much required, can't join the server without them. Google up OVGME, which allows you to manage mods without messing up your core install. Flip side of it is, there aren't that many MP servers where you can fly the MB339 and the A4E. Both are fine mods.

Is this Program Dead?

Must be. No answer.

Just bought the C-101 thinking this is still active.

Is this Program Dead?

Hope not.... Sounds really interesting..

Discord Link is dead for me

same

On 11/10/2020 at 12:29 AM, skunk160 said:

Discord Link is dead for me

All,

DCS Academy was closed in early July 2020 and reborn in September 2020 as an end-game experience for experienced pilots.

MSFS2020 offers an excellent experience for new virtual pilots which wasn't available before August 2020. I recommend learning your flight basics in MSFS2020 before tackling DCS.

A special thanks to @DeltaMike for creating and looking after this thread and all of the very excellent work he did for the first iteration of DCS Academy!