Firefly

Glad you're liking it so far! She's a hairy beast, but once you tame her flying becomes an incredibly addictive experience. If I were to choose just one DCS module to use for the rest of my flight sim career then this would be it. p.s. Nice camo.

Literally! Couldn't be happier about it. Now if only they could fix the ASP, radar and cockpit lighting...

With a little bit of luck and slightly better positioning she could've gotten 3 kills rather than 2. Still, wow!

On a somewhat more serious note - here's a period news report from German television. Even if you don't speak German it's well worth a watch.

Today, 3 October 1990, marks the 30th anniversary of German reunification. Germans celebrate this date as Tag der Deutschen Einheit (Day of German Unity). I'd like to take this opportunity to wish all the best to our German colleagues. Herzlichen Glückwunsch! I also prepared something truly special for everyone to enjoy. Ladies and gentlemen, will you please welcome... THE HOFF! I'm not even sorry.

Sounds like a workable plan. As Brit said, a few of our EU pilots have the Viggen (not me though, I could join you in another airframe), so the evaluation shouldn't be too much of a problem. The MiG-21 has rather limited air to ground capability, but until we get a Cold War-era Soviet ground pounder (think Su-17 and MiG-27) it's one of the best assets we have. We've done both A-A and A-G in tournaments before (we even sank an imperialist CV once! ), so we're no strangers to mud moving. As for A-A training, we'd be happy to give you some guidance. As long as you know the basic flight manoeuvres and can navigate your way around the cockpit (which is a loose collection of switches, buttons, toggles and gauges scattered around a toothpaste-coloured bathtub) you should have no problems dogfighting in a MiG. Just remember that the 21 is a difficult machine to master, as it's actively trying to kill you at every opportunity. It's like training your own Russian attack bear - it may not always work as intended (and you may get eaten along the way), but when it all comes together it's great fun. In Soviet Russia aircraft fly you! Do you own any helicopters? We fly those too. Many of us are eagerly awaiting the Mi-24.

@Jonne might find this useful.

Hello Rookie, welcome to JG1 boards! Our CO will get in touch with you shortly. Yes. II. Jagdstaffel (our EU section) holds practice sessions every Tuesday at 19:30 CEST. We try to keep those exercises varied, so depending on the week we could be doing navigation, air to ground, interception or dogfight training. @Klaiber, our CO, recently came up with a lovely mission on Caucasus that's designed to cater for a variety of training scenarios and includes a fun little recon mission. Normally we use both TeamSpeak (for general stuff) and SimpleRadio (for in-flight comms). We fly in OpenBeta exclusively. If you'd like to start flying the Fishbed then you've come to the right place. The 21 recently received a new flight model, so many of us are still trying to master it. From personal experience I can tell you that it's the best it's ever been. Next week we're scheduled to fly the MiG-15. In JG-1 "Fritz Schmenkel" (our Cold War squadron) we fly Warsaw Pact aircraft, so if you're looking to expand your DCS collection I suggest you wait for the upcoming Autumn sale and pick up a few of those (I'm getting the MiG-19 and the L-39, gonna get the Mi-24 as soon as that's available for pre-purchase). If you have any more questions feel free to post them here.

How to turn jet fuel into noise, Cold War style. I have a feeling @Klaiber and @Erhardt are going to like this one.

As impressive as that looks, the utility of a ski jump-equipped CV is limited by the relatively small MTOW of the aircraft on board. The Chinese realise this, which is why they're moving away from Soviet-derived, heavily armed, ski jump-equipped STOBAR designs like the Lianoning and Shandong towards a US-style CATOBAR configuration with EMALS (look up "Type 003 aircraft carrier"). Still very cool to see a non-Western approach to naval aviation.

Love C&Rsenal. Been watching them since almost the very beginning, about the time they did the first Mauser 98 video.

I love these clips of Italian F-104s. It's 90s extravaganza - there's porn film music, tactical 'staches, questionable editing and Cold War jets. What more could you possibly want?

Incredible air-to-air footage of Su-25SM3s in action at a target range. Note the variety of aircraft at the airfield: Su-35s, Su-30s, Tu-22s, Il-76s, MiG-29s, Su-34s and others.

So you're one of those people who watched the trailer so many times they could've watched a full movie instead? Join the club.

Man, I am SO EXICTED FOR THIS!

Simon from ED strongly hinted at it in a recent podcast with the Grim Reapers. They haven't made a formal announcement yet (they're "looking into it"), because they have the Russian MoD information barrier to overcome. Not sure if the Fulcrum would come before or after the also-rumoured AH-1 or AH-64, but after a major rotorcraft debut in the form of the Mi-24 I'd expect their next release to be fixed-wing (and not NATO, because F-16 and F/A-18C). Summary of the interview here.

Exactly. It's just like we talked about a couple of days ago. IRL the plane gives plenty of feedback to the pilot by modulating stick forces and physically moving the column around (think force feedback on steroids). This is adjusted automatically with speed, altitude, angle of attack, stick deflection and other such parameters. It takes some getting used to (Robert Hierl, a Luftwaffe F-4 driver who got to fly the Fulcrum-A before moving on to the Eurofighter programme as a test pilot, mentioned this in his interview), but once mastered it makes the Fulcrum a formidable opponent in the WVR arena, with ample feedback for the pilot and a great sense of controllability despite the high deflections required. In many ways this is the crowning achievment of computer-aided analogue flight control. Note that most of its contemporaries and the aircraft that followed, both Western and Eastern in origin, had fly-by-wire controls right off the drawing board to contain the natural aerodynamic instability that originated from supermanoeuvrable airframe design (think Su-27, Eurofighter and Rafale). In DCS the plane seems far too sensitive to stick inputs (pitch in particular), which - and this is entirely my conjecture - may be down to the fact that ED modelled the Fulcrum's aerodynamics correctly but failed to appreciate the importance of the FCS. While IRL the plane would give you certain inputs through the control column, in game those are entirely disregarded, resulting in a flight model that is far too sensitive to even moderate stick deflection. Modelling this correctly would be a challenge, but with so much data available on the Fulcrum I don't see why they haven't even attempted it. Hopefully the rumoured full-fidelity Fulcrum-A will change things.

I'm going to be flying the MiG-15 and 21 on the Cold War server tonight. If anyone out there is up for some flying then give me a shout, I'll be on the 104th Phoenix TS server.

Since we've fallen into the rabbit hole of nostalgia... I played both of these on my sister's Amiga. To a 5yo Firefly strafing and dogfighting was where it was at. Apologies for hijacking the thread @Klaiber!

Holy crap, those were made right around the time I was born...

This is the very PC first flight sim I've ever played. Found this video entirely by accident. Oh, the memories!

One of the greatest rock bands ever. My favourite album is Quadrophenia, though Sell Out is great too. Speaking of all-time greats, here's another one: I watched the similarly-titled documentary the other week, it's exceptional. I've always been an INXS fan, but now that fondness has grown into a full-time obsession.

That's going to be quite difficult, with his current job and the YouTube channel he has hardly any time for games.

I've known him for years, we flew together a fair few times during my War Thunder days as well as my short-lived IL-2: BoS transition. He's a fine chap, always insisting on choosing the best possible source material for his videos.

Looks like we are witnessing the dawn of a new era in fighter aviation... Not that I'm too enthusiastic about optionally manned weapon systems. https://theaviationist.com/2020/09/15/the-u-s-air-force-has-secretly-built-and-flown-a-full-scale-demonstrator-of-its-next-generation-fighter/ https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/36431/the-u-s-air-force-has-flown-a-demonstrator-for-its-next-generation-fighter?fbclid=IwAR1zPIQFL6cwsS7cK3gFEChxWN5IHfiTirC7pYoK9hopIL4JWn5S70xZnkM