Newbie F-18 pilot

Hi all,

I'm really new around here, and TBH, the F-18 is my first serious attempt at studying how to fly a plane.

So I have a two questions:

1) I decided to replace my old crappy joystick with a Thrustmaster T.16000M FCS (Which contains both stick and the TWCS throttle). Is that good enough for flying the F-18 efficiently?

2) Since the module has developed quite a bit since its first early acccess, is there a place where you can see the fully implemented feature list, with notes on what's still missing?

Thanks in advance,

J.

That stick and throttle are excellent for DCS given the price point. Good call! This thread may help answer your questions but in the meantime Practice your take offs and landings and once you have that down try your hand at cold starts and basically whatever you want.

https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=232929

It all depends on your attitude. If you like to learn in sequential steps then the best thing to do is read the manual(s). Chuck's manual is very helpful so it's a great place to start

https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=212282

I'm all over the place with this sim but I'd rather learn what I want when I want in order to stay interested and keen on knowing more. Honestly dude, just do what you want with the game and have fun. You will eventually learn as you go along and once you have the basics down you will start to learn at a much faster rate. There are tons of great videos on YouTube. Keeping it fun is the name of the game.

Good luck. :thumbup:

1. Yes, that setup should be just fine. As you spend more time in the sim you may crave a more refined control setup though. Cross that bridge when you get there.

2. https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php...4&postcount=13

This covers what is planned for the Hornet. A lot of the list has been implemented. Datalink and related pages are coming soon. Atflir/lightning pods, JDAM, and some other stuff still aren't in, but updates have been moving along at a decent clip.

Fun plane to fly, have fun!

Welcome.

Just take it easy and do whatever interests you. When you start getting into dog fighting, I'd recommend TacView as a learning aid.

I have had that same HOTAS for over a year now and love it. It will do anything you want as long as you set it up right. You will probably want to put some curves into the joystick axis settings to make AAR easier. But once you get things set where you’re happy with them you will love your setup. Happy flying!

I think it's a great joystick combo. The throttle can be a little sticky. There's a tension screw on the slider, you can see it if you flip the throttle upside down (with the throttle all the way forward). Back off on that so it just barely holds the throttle where you put it, you want that as loose as possible. And lube the rails, I use dry lube.

As for axis tuning

1. TDC slew: flatten it out with reduced Y axis

2. Rudder: flatten it out with full Y axis

3. Stick: maybe a teenie amount of curve, doesn't need much

4. Give everything a dead zone of about 4

As for the Hornet, you can work your way through the training missions while you are learning how to fly it. It's really easy to fly -- it'll spoil you. The only tricky part is landing, there's a trick to flying on-speed AOA. That'll take a little practice, but once you have that down, landing is easy.

There are a lot of weapons, but tasks basically fall into a couple of categories. I'd start with three things:

1. Flying the thing.

2. Finding and locking something up on radar beyond visual range. There are some great youtube videos explaining how radar works, what the beam of energy would look like if you could see it, those are well worth watching and understanding. (Put some thought into how you want to adjust your radar elevation, the pinky wheel doesn't work worth a darn for that. I map it to the paddle switch, or you could map it to the rocker switch under your middle finger, like in the real Hornet)

3. Dropping a bomb of some sort. Spend a little time on the F5 and F86 sides of the forum to get some advise on lining up for your bombing run.

I wouldn't spend a ton of time on countermeasures, figure out how to turn on your radar warning system, and how to manually dispense chaff and flares, that'll get you started.

Once you have that done, check out the Serpent's Head campaign. That'll get you into carrier landings and laser guided munitions. Dodging SAMs. It's a lot of fun and you'll be pretty sharp when you're done with that.

After that, the sky's the limit. You can study ACM and within-visual-range weapons (that gets complicated). You can learn comms and navigation, that'll get you ready to start easing into multiplayer. You can learn how to make your own missions in the mission editor, which will let you practice various weapons systems.

The F18 is the gift that keeps on giving, but the entry barrier is low. It's really easy to get started, and really hard to get bored with it.

I like the joystick a lot, the throttle while the buttons/functions are plentiful doesn't "feel" so nice. I removed all the grease and applied graphite lube and loosened the tension screw way off and it feels a little smoother but aside from that it's been a nice setup so far. FYI the computer seems to consider the stick and the throttle quad as 2 separate controllers. Which makes sense but I've come across setting up PTT on the stick will make the corresponding button on the throttle PTT as well. So I cue my mike every time I extend my airbrake for example(there are 2 identically named buttons in the system rather than each of the 29-30 buttons having it's own designation) I wish it recognized it as one system and each button would have it's own designation rather than sharing. Just some things I've noticed so far. Nothing major to report...enjoy!

I just found this a few days ago. A real life Fa18 pilot helping out w/ DCS. Fantastic.

http://thedrive.com/the-war-zone/21790/f-a-18-pilot-gives-incredibly-detailed-instructions-on-how-to-actually-land-on-a-carrier.

I am still working on straight in carrier approaches but this guy's explanation gives me hope that I will actually be able to do a proper approach some day.

Hi all,

 

I'm really new around here, and TBH, the F-18 is my first serious attempt at studying how to fly a plane.

 

So I have a two questions:

1) I decided to replace my old crappy joystick with a Thrustmaster T.16000M FCS (Which contains both stick and the TWCS throttle). Is that good enough for flying the F-18 efficiently?

 

2) Since the module has developed quite a bit since its first early acccess, is there a place where you can see the fully implemented feature list, with notes on what's still missing?

 

Thanks in advance,

J.

I have the exact hardware setup, it works perfectly. But the stick lacks HAT switches though so i have to assign one of the button on the TWCS to be a modifier key.