New f-18 pilot help

Hi Folks,

I've been away from DCS for a while and thought it's about time I get back into it so a couple of days ago I bought the F-18. I've run through a few training missions and all is going well but I'm having major issues when flying either in the mission editor or campaign.

In no particular order.

1 No thrust, I can barely take off from a runway. I go into mission editor and place the jet on the runway, mash the throttles forward but I'm pulling the nose up just as I'm hitting the grass at the end of the runway. At one stage I thought that maybe the parking brake was on but it isn't and surely that wouldn't do anything when wheels up.

2 Autopilot only works in training missions. I've watched loads of vids on YT and followed them to the letter but I can't get any of the modes to work.

3 No matter what I do with the elevators trimming has no affect. Even when I trim to drop the nose the jet still heads for the sky. F2 shows elevators are moving (most of the time).

As a total noob to the F-18 I'm guessing that most of this is my doing but can someone tell me what I'm doing wrong here please? Or are these issues bugs?

Make sure you aren’t in Game Mode in the options. Otherwise confirm from external view you are getting afterburner when you select full power, regarding point 3 it sounds like you might still have flaps down. Make sure flaps are in AUTO mode. Let us know if any of that helps.

Can you save a track file and upload it here? Then we can see step by step what you are doing. You can save it in the debrief screen.

Are the finger lifts on by default? Maybe afterburner is not coming on.

Not being able to take off might be T.O. trim isn't set or you could be overweight. What kind of airspeed can you achieve once airborne? Does IFEI show engines running at 100%? Auto pilot could be you are in game mode. It also needs 0 stick input to engage I think so check you aren't pulling on the stick or something and maybe check your dead zones. Third issue sounds like the flaps are fully extended to me I dunno. Just some thoughts maybe they might help.

The trim button doesn't do what you think it does, and neither does the flap switch. Trim is all completely computerized, you just have to make sure the right program is running, and you select the program with the flaps switch. Set it to half for takeoff, and full for landing, auto otherwise, and don't try to psychoanalyze the jet.

When you first start up the jet there will be a bunch of error codes on the FCS page, you have to clear those codes, reset the FCS and then set your takeoff trim. There are a couple of different ways to do that, I set flaps to half, hold the FCS BIT Switch and FCS RESET Button at the same time for two seconds (easiest to do this from the keyboard) and once the a/c is finished doing its thing I hit the takeoff trim button, but there are other ways to do it (see for example Mudspike guide https://www.mudspike.com/wp-content/uploads/guides/DCS%20FA-18C%20Hornet%20Guide.pdf) just make sure you do all those things and leave the flaps switch in the T/O position, nobody will nag you about taxiing with your flaps down

Roll trim pretty much always works (since they fixed it) but pitch trim typically does nothing unless you're in the pattern with "flaps" "down," and then it lets you dial in an AOA basically. Which is really cool when you think about it. You'll find yourself thinking "cmon it can't be that simple" but it really is.

Afterburner is complicated, in the real jet (apparently) there's a gate you have to lift over or push through to get into AB, and that's modeled in the software. Easiest way to get started is to go to settings - special - F18 and set "Afterburner detent" to "Always off" then it's just like every other jet in DCS. If you do that it'll be hard to tell if you're in AB or not, hit RCTRL-ENTER and that'll give you an overlay where you can see your throttle position

There are things about the Hornet that will drive you bonkers but flying the thing is a piece of cake, just let it do the work for you. Believe me your workload will be plenty without having to fuss around with the trim button. Just follow the rules -- especially when landing