Minor bugs and/or newcomer's doubts

[scoobie]

Hi,
I'm learning F-5 (she's great fun!) and have spotted a few things that got me wondering.
Some of them really feel like bugs, but some other - I really don't know.
Maybe someone can shed some light of knowledge?
I've filtered out things that I'm aware are already reported.
Oh, and yes - these are MINOR issues.

 

1. (bug) FCR (fire control radar) scale backlight is always powered, i.e. even when cold & dark. This makes absolutely no sense IRL and can drain battery for no reason, so I think it must be a bug.

 

2. EDIT: (bug?) Aircraft cold & dark. Flip the "BATT" switch on - flood lights are now controlled by "ENG INSTR" knob, instead of "FLOOD"... until you fire up the engine. When the generator kicks in (alternatively, you may ask for ground power), flood light control is taken over by the FLOOD knob (as it should be at all times, I believe). Seems rather unlikely that they could wire the plane like this. RTFineM, not a bug, they wired it exactly that!

 

3. EDIT: (bug or my mistake) Pressing NWS button invokes radio menu on the screen. Is it the case for anybody else or have I messed something up in my DCS? It's a feature.

 

4. (observation) FCR beam trace not dimmable.
In search mode beam trace (this vertical bar moving left and right, showing which part of the sky the radar is curretly illuminating) bears no interesting information, yet it cannot be dimmed and "burns" eyes at night. All other elements on the scope's screen are dimmable. My suspicion is that beam trace should definitely be dimmable, I just don't exactly know with which knob. Weapon delivery manual doesn't say it (or at least I haven't found it yet).
Maybe someone else knows how it works? It may be connected to brightness knob, but I'm guessing (number 7 below).

 

5. (observation) Thumb switch on the stick is not animated. I'm rather insensitive to such things, but anyways - just an observation.

 

6. (observation) RWR control panel is hardly dimmable, burns eyes at night. The DIM knob is there, but you can't make the backlight in the buttons really dim or even decently dim. This is in contrast to the very RWR screen (with contacts etc.) which can be toned down with excellent resolution, from full bright to hardly visible (it's great!). So, either it's inconsistent engineering in Northrop (sounds rather unlikely) or slight omission in the DCS: F-5.

 

7. (open question) FCR brighness knob. Something's fishy here. First off, the way it is currently modelled looks very "digital", artificial, no CRT scope I ever saw looked like it, but that's not a big deal. (Shkval CRT in Ka-50 looks really analog, though it's a "TV-type" CRT screen, not a "scope-type" one) The real problem is who in Northrop came up with such feature and what he had in mind - that's a mystery to me.

It is true that the manual describes the knob like this: "Adjusts the background brightness of the radar scope from off to full bright" (hence how it's modelled in DCS, I guess), but I can't think of any reason to clutter the valuable picture on the screen with useless green background... other than getting the very picture super-extra-bright. That's how TV-type CRT's worked and that's how CRT scopes worked.
See here for example: https://youtu.be/8GR_6QH3uZk?t=569 Note the "light clutter" showing up all around when the beam gets very bright.
Okay, in electronics you may have one of TWO reasons to set brightness as high as this, but on the radar screen such that has a separate "VIDEO" knob to control the radar blips... the only reason I can see is just to make the whole screen super-extra-bright. You do get "background brightness" control with it - it's true - but it's just a side effect, not your goal.

Do you have any idea what the aforementioned misterious sentence in the manual could mean? Or why would anyone want to "drown" desirable picture in the useless green background? A radar's purpose is not to hide bandits in background, so the pilot is not worried before he dies, is it? I really don't understand it.

 

Edited February 23, 2021 by scoobie

[dolfo]

3 - NWS button acts as a Press To Talk button (in-flight only). 

[scoobie]

Thank you! Makes sense now - weight on wheels = NWS, in-flight = push to talk. (I must have overlooked it in the manual, sorry.)

[Golo]

1 - If you mean the numbers 5, 10, 20, 40, they are not on until you have AC power available and radar knob out of OFF position.

     If you mean the lines on the radar scope, that is paint and it is part of the radar scope case. Electronic scale lines can be tuned up with scale knob once radar is  

     on.

 

2 - Floodlights are an emergency lighting. If the AC system fails, the floodlights are powered by the DC system (from the battery) and provide illumination in the  

      cockpit, bypassing the FLOOD knob. In this case, the ENG INSTR knob must be out of the OFF position for the floodlights to operate.

Edited February 23, 2021 by Golo

[scoobie]

Thanks a lot, Golo!
 

2 hours ago, Golo said:

1 - If you mean the numbers 5, 10, 20, 40, they are not on until you have AC power available and radar knob out of OFF position.

     If you mean the lines on the radar scope, that is paint and it is part of the radar scope case. Electronic scale lines can be tuned up with scale knob once radar is  

     on.

Lines, not numbers. On my end it's not "can be tuned up with scale knob once radar is on" - I can do it in cold & dark as well. I've attached the picture below.

 

2 hours ago, Golo said:

2 - Floodlights are an emergency lighting. If the AC system fails, the floodlights are powered by the DC system (from the battery) and provide illumination in the  

      cockpit, bypassing the FLOOD knob. In this case, the ENG INSTR knob must be out of the OFF position for the floodlights to operate.

See, they keep saying "Dude, this plane is so simplistic that anybody can fly it", so I thought I didn't need manual for this particular plane! Yep, I was wrong

RTFineM, RTFM, scoob...

Thanks

 

 

[Golo]

12 hours ago, scoobie said:

On my end it's not "can be tuned up with scale knob once radar is on" - I can do it in cold & dark as well. I've attached the picture below.

You are right. I would say its a bug, it should not be able to do that with radar in OFF position and even more so with no electric power.