Planes starting from roads

[Dave317]

In anticipation for the Viggen I had a play with the mission editor and found that planes can't start from roads. I was trying to re create a remote base like the Swedes do but it's impossible to start from the ground. You can land easily enough and taxi into a base but can't start on the ground. It would be great if planes could also rearm without being at an airbase also. Perhaps it could be linked to a fuel truck or other unit being placed nearby.

[MikeMikeJuliet]

This has been discussed somewhat on the viggen forums. I would Imagine we would need a complete road-airstrip, since in real life the aircraft will not use just any road, but a specifically created long straight that is at least twice the width of a normal road (if not thrice).

 

Landing on a plain ol' road is all fine and dandy in still air in a sim, but add a little crosswind and simulate even the smallest turbulence due to winds passing treelines and you'll wish you had that extra 8 meters to work with!

 

Regards,

MikeMikeJuliet

[Dave317]

Remember the Av8B Harrier is also coming too, hopefully in the next few months. I'm no programmer but is it really much of a huge effort to allow planes to start on the ground considering helicopters were changed only recently to allow this.

[Tackle]

This has been discussed somewhat on the viggen forums. I would Imagine we would need a complete road-airstrip, since in real life the aircraft will not use just any road, but a specifically created long straight that is at least twice the width of a normal road (if not thrice).

 

Landing on a plain ol' road is all fine and dandy in still air in a sim, but add a little crosswind and simulate even the smallest turbulence due to winds passing treelines and you'll wish you had that extra 8 meters to work with!

 

Regards,

MikeMikeJuliet

 

Being able to rearm and refuel would be a great start, for placing AC everywhere there was a hack already available.

 

And with a little practice landing the Mirage on a normal DCS road is no problem, even with Crosswind and Turbulence. I guess in the Viggen it´ll be even easier.

[Pikey]

I've done it. Search my posts in the mod section. you have to do two mods, both quite hacky. First one allows take off from anywhere, second replaces the helicopter FARP with a plate you can use.

I never distributed the FARP replacement as there didn't seem to be much interest. I guess no one had the foresight to see why I was doing it or didnt want to give up their helicopter FARP in the same mission.

[firmek]

This has been discussed somewhat on the viggen forums. I would Imagine we would need a complete road-airstrip, since in real life the aircraft will not use just any road, but a specifically created long straight that is at least twice the width of a normal road (if not thrice).

 

Landing on a plain ol' road is all fine and dandy in still air in a sim, but add a little crosswind and simulate even the smallest turbulence due to winds passing treelines and you'll wish you had that extra 8 meters to work with!

 

Regards,

MikeMikeJuliet

For sure such road strip is designed in a way to allow planes landing and ground operation but it's not that special in terms of being wide or long.

 

This one is just a part of a standard and actually a local road - nothing even close to a one side of a highway:

https://www.google.pl/maps/@54.045579,14.906038,1491m/data=!3m1!1e3

 

Another one:

If I recall correclty this part of the road was at best considered an express section for cars - but probably no longer according to dotay's standards.

[WinterH]

This is a feature very important for:

 

- Viggen

- Harrier

- COIN birds

- Potentially the WW II birds

- Some Russian aircraft like Su-25 and MiG-21 to a degree

- Hornet (as Finns displayed it recently with their Hornets)

 

ED has their plate full, so it is understandable they may not be able to introduce this quickly, but it is something very, very nice to have. Seeing FARP functionality is already available for helicopters, one would hope it may not be exceedingly effort intensive to introduce it for fixed wing aircraft as well.

 

We know, placeable grass runways are in development as part of DCS: WW II project. So, it may be the first ingredient to achieve this for all sorts of aircraft in the sim.

[Dave317]

Thanks Pikey, I'll take a look at your mods. It would also be great if there were some kind of invisible area we could place on the ground that would allow planes to park, turn around and re arm/refuel.

[Tackle]

I guess no one had the foresight to see why I was doing it ...

 

I did!

just didn´t implement it (yet).

[grunf]

+1 for the idea.

 

I belive the ED is thinking the same, and that the placeable strips and helos starting from anywhere are steps in that direction.

 

This is a feature very important for:

 

- Viggen

- Harrier

- COIN birds

- Potentially the WW II birds

- Some Russian aircraft like Su-25 and MiG-21 to a degree

- Hornet (as Finns displayed it recently with their Hornets)

You can add M2000C to the list, Indian Air Force did some experiments with their own a year or two ago. :)

[firmek]

Actually many many more.

It wasn't anything special for MiG-21 to land on the road sections:

 

 

Then for instance, MiG-29 was specially designed to operate from dirty airstrips, including roads. The engine intakes could be closed thus preventing the engine from sucking in and being demanded by dirt and stones. In such configuration air to the engine was delivered through gills on top of the wings.

 

 

Another example could be the Gripen which was designed with an easy ground operation in road environment in mind. If I recall correctly the ground crew for inspecting, refueling and rearming the plane in field conditions could be as much as 5 people.

There are on the other hand planes for which dirty airstrips are an issue. For instance F-16 due to having the engine intake being close to the ground requires an extremely clean runways even during normal operation.

 

If one day DCS will include a map for cold war scenario special road sections for landing planes will be a must. I wasn't able to find any reference for road landing strips in Georgia though. I guess such special road strips allowing planes to land and be serviced were more common in countries with not many highways and those obviously that were the frontal ones for which it was expected that the runways would be a primary targets during first days of potential conflict.

[Dave317]

I've tried Pikey's mod out today. It works like a charm. Thanks.

[BaD CrC]

Helicopters can now spawn anywhere. So this is feasible in DCS. Polychop wanted to make the Gazelle refuel-able and rearm-able anywhere too, but it turned out too complicated. I would love to see an invisible FARP mod.

[Worrazen]

I tried placing "dirt runways" and it doesn't work. Only helipads worked.

[MikeMikeJuliet]

Interesting. I guess my knowledge was limited. In Finland only special strips are used that are in practice just widened roads, but never a standard road width. I guess we are just more careful here then. There is a real risk of running to either side and crashing the aircraft.

 

 

The linked video shows the kind of strips used here.

[mwd2]

During the Cold War, in Germany there were some highways prepared for it.

 

a german video:

 

[Worrazen]

Overall I give my supports for such limited capability, I'm not expecting much sophistication, it would just be good to have the roads use the same runway-terran properties and behavior so planes don't get stuck in them and don't explode all of a sudden for hitting a few bumps and barely visible hot obstacles.

 

 

Hot obstacles are those that are kinda not a big deal geometrically but cause a lot of damage when they're touched. In various video games this is common that enemies are super-hot, like in nintendo games, touching them gives you big damage and sends you flying back, this is however totally unrealistic and needs to be treated as a bug in DCS.

 

For this reason, I think this basic dirt/road/highway landing-takeoff capability should be treated as a key realism-improvement rather than a lower-priority bonus post-feature.

 

Also dirtroads should also have some support, for lighter aircraft, but a bit more harsh on the landing gear and would take more power and longer time to get up to speed, ofcourse the modern heavy craft wouldn't probably be able to take off, but at least land, and attempt at takeof, without blowing up for no reason hitting some invisible obstacle.

 

As the Caucasus map is being overhauled to newer technology, that may already have contributed to the techincal groundwork for this to be later realized in proper fashion.

 

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However in the Russian mission in Syria, we have seen "Latakia" airbase (actually Khmeimim) basically being made from scratch and with mobile systems.

 

 

 

 

The new infrastructure was erected "from scratch". Air-conditioned accommodations were built within a few months in 2015 for about 1,000 people. Other new structures include an air traffic control tower, runway extensions, storage facilities, field kitchens, and refuelling stations. Supplies are flown in from Russia or shipped via Tartus harbour 50 km (31 mi) away.

 

The base can handle Antonov An-124 Ruslan and Ilyushin Il-76 transport aircraft and can accommodate more than 50 military aircraft including Sukhoi Su-24s, Sukhoi Su-25s, and Sukhoi Su-34s. In addition, the base is home to T-90 tanks, BTR-82 vehicles, artillery, with Mil Mi-24 gunships and Mil Mi-8 support helicopters.

 

After the 24 November shootdown of a Su-24, a S-400 defensive missile system has been installed, allowing Russia to defend the air space from Southern Turkey to Northern Israel.

 

At the end of January 2016, Sukhoi Su-35 fighter jets started to be deployed.

 

In February 2016, one Tupolev Tu-214R was reported to have been deployed.

 

 

 

 

 

So my extended idea is that I would stay with the basic landing-takeoff from concrete roads or highways , and also dirt roads for WW2 aircraft. And rather put more effort into the "makeshift airbase" feature.

 

That could possibly be as an update/upgrade to the paid module "Combined Arms", if you have a few fuel trucks, soldiers, communications, supply trucks, and an AA and you could order this group to construct such a makeshift runway.

 

It's up to the developers to do more research and decide which type of units and how many would be required to construct such a makeshift , it could be more complex in future, as depending on the number and type of units, the makeshift airfield could have different capabilities and properties depending on how many units and type of them do you happen to have in a feature-specific radius, let's say 5 kilometer radius.

 

There could also be more combinations to make up, for the comm systems, if you have one mobile HQ type vehicle, that would suffice, however if you don't, you could use lesser-level units which have some, but you would need more of them, for example 3 or 4.

 

Communication vehicle from other units such as AA, could count for this too, well they're not meant to be main, just relays and having capabilites for their own task, so to get "makeshift" type function to do some basic job as a main communications solution would, in the simulator you'd need 2 or 3 of them to be more realistic, at least closer, 1 little auxiliary relay can't just be an airport tower with a flip of a switch, more could be needed to provide a more specific job and work together to provide the makeshift-level for basic runway operations, for example. Not sure how advanced some of the units are in real life, modern vehicles have capability to become relays and do some auxiliary jobs for which they haven't been primairly designed for, most modern ones even have full combat awareness capabilities being able to datalink with totally diffent type's of vehicles, not sure if 3 tunguskas could count for this idea, for example.

 

 

These units would then drive closer and position themselfs optimally, position themselfs appropriately, and they would also become part of the makeshift airfield, immobile.

 

 

The number of infantry would determine the speed of the construction, and additionally they could also determine the maximum length of the runway.

 

Number of supply trucks could also determine number of ammunition and other things, such as the health or armor of the compound if it'll be treated as one unit ;; if global options disable unlimited ammo.

 

But on the other hand, this feature, well gee, why wouldn't they just use a piece of road as the runway that could be in the vicinity.

 

So maybe like this: If no roads, and minimal ground units, then buildtime will be longer and they could only construct a short dirt runway, useful only for emergency landing modern aircraft, or if with more troops, a macadam-type runway would enable some light modern aircraft to attempt takeoff almost empty and low fuel to maybe get to a proper airfield, but WW2 would be able to fully use the dirt runway however with more difficulty, macadam would improve ofcourse the handling/speed/power/landing gear behavior for WW2 planes as well.

 

Then, on existing dirt roads, you would need the same amount of units to do a macadam style makeshift runway, that it took to build a dirt runway on land without existing road (farm land, grass, etc)

 

This would apply to the amounts of ordinary soldiers (muscle power) and supply trucks. Supply trucks are kinda wide-ranging term. They could also apply for airplane repairability or the speed, but if fuel is unlimited by global options then fuel trucks should be connected with other properties so they're not left out (if realism allows)

 

And on paved roads and highways, you'd not neeed that many soldiers or supplies, but still the fuel, AA and other stuff would matter the same as with all types, additionally supply trucks and soldiers that aren't needed for construction could then be used for extra fortification. Maybe the soldiers could cut the lightposts down in cities haha.

 

It's just getting a bit to unrealistic, not because it's not possible in real life right now, but because it wasn't used or attempted that much in history.

 

 

 

In this video it shows the Ka-52 helicopter can have comm/data links with HQs, other air and other ground units.

Edited January 24, 2017 by Worrazen

[Gierasimov]

You can easily land and take off from a road in Hornet. Just had some fun with it. It is a real shame we can't refuel though.

Nothing stopping me from putting a KC-130 overhead though :)

[Rick50]

Harrier FARPs on German roads were common in the 1980's...

[Tailhook]

I've requested a start from "Ground" option multiple times that still hasn't been added. With an aircraft mod, you can trick the sim to thinking your aircraft is a Harrier though which allows you to place it anywhere.