Vogel

Vogel's back! As some of you know, I've had a pretty bad time in the last year because of an eye condition and various personal bits and bobs. After surgery and all that faff I now also have my specialist contact lenses and I can finally see stuff properly again. In the sight test I pretty much have my old 20/20 vision back most days give or take a bit if I'm tired or whatever. I also have a new HOTAS Warthog (hopefully) arriving today to replace the one that unceremoniously bricked itself. I'll be rusty as heck, but I'm looking forward to flying again with everyone. Availability might be a bit spotty some nights beause of my shift work and studies but I'll do my best to work around flight nights. Cheers! V.

Hi chaps... Firstly, sorry about my radio silence over the past several months. COVID aside, it's been a bit of a tricky year for me professionally and personally juggling full time work with a full time degree and everything else life likes to throw at us for giggles. I'm off work for a little over a week after being signed off and attempting to sort myself out and start enjoying things again and generally get my mind in a better place. On that note, I've not flown for months but was thinking of popping on for a bit of IL-2 now the Hawker Typhoon and MkXIV Spits are here. I don't know exactly when I'll be on, but I'll throw a message on the JG.1 Discord when I do. Looking forward to flying with you all again :).

I've not had a chance to fly or look at learning any of the systems yet. I booted up DCS and put an AI over Akrotiri to check out the layout, which is spot on to be honest. Although I don't remember the NCO patch having pools in all their back yards lol! Even found our old house on the officers patch on the corner, the buildings don't look anything like they should but they did a good job with the overall layout of the base itself. I've heard a few people having issues with Petrovic yeeting them into the ground when they switch to the gunner/observer position. Anyone here had similar issues?

I'm hearing reports from folks that Cyprus was added to Syria also, which is doubely exciting as I can finally fly out from RAF Akrotiri where I used to live :).

Good news everyone! Mi-24P is due for EA release TODAY! Please view the following post: https://forums.eagle.ru/topic/272848-dcs-mi-24p-early-access-start-date-planned-16th-june-2021/page/4/?tab=comments#comment-4693573 I hadn't pre-ordered but the discount at time of this post is still live for anyone still on the fence. Don't know if I'll get a chance to fly her this week, but it's exciting she'll finally be available for us to fly.

Ah my bad. Time will tell but it feels like we’re in for an exciting time with REDFOR modules in the next couple years.

On the subject of Su-17/22, I came across this in the Razbam discord server. It’s from Leathernecks Christmas newsletter or something but it teases something rather cool. Now to me this looks 100% like a Fitter. It doesn’t match the MiG-21. Note the flat nose, humpback behind the cockpit, elongated tail and in particular the vertical slats along the edge of the wing root. Unsure if any of you have seen this but it’s new to me.

Ok, I might have overestimated the impact of it on further reading. I still think its pretty unecessary, and I stand by the point I've never witnessed or known anyone complain about cheating in DCS in over a decade of play. It will hamper some mod programs that wish to create new weapons to go with them for offline play. I was quite interested in the F-35 mod, looks like a bit of harmless fun alongside the F-22.

I did see that site, looks like good kit. Was a little worried about the lack of https from a Chinese site however. I think my next purchase will be a Buddy Fox UFC panel, looks like a terrific piece of kit for a reasonble price point. I just need to find a way of resting it at a slight angle on my desk below my monitor. You can get mounts for it and a flat stand, but it would be preferable to have a slight angle on it as to make it easier to use from a normal seated position. Not an issue in the real A-10, as the UFC is up at the top of the front dash.

As title explains, ED have decided to encrypt and hide almost all the .LUA files, so modding is essentially dead. Why you ask? Because of "cheating"... I'm not sure what this "popular demand" is all about, smells like BS to me to be quite frank. In the fifteen plus years playing DCS/LOMAC I've never come across anyone cheating online, nor have I spoken to anyone who's ever complained about it. With things as they are now, the A-4 Skyhawk community mod would be impossible, and it's hard to know how this will effect it going forward. Really idiotic and tone deaf move from ED here, incredibly disappointed. They nerf missiles to ahistorical ranges to encourage more merges because "it's more fun" and seem to miss the entire reason why many of us fly DCS in the first place... for the realism. If I just wanted to bomb around in jets and have a laugh I'd stick to Ace Combat. Statements like this don't help either, not professional at all imo:

Oh I agree on RAZBAM and their reliability, it's why I'm still very skeptical on the F-15E. The Harrier however has come a long way and I really enjoy flying it now, next to the F-16C it's one of my favourites as its so unique to fly compared to other modules.

Saw these today on Discord, the exterior model is looking really nice: I really can not wait for the early access on this module, it's been a long time indeed since we got a full fidelity REDFOR jet. It just needs an F-4C to fight against :).

What kind of scenario did you have in mind? The Golan Heights has some really cool terrain and defensive positions to have a large scale ground force conflict. Would be heaven for CAS/ground strike.

Seemingly the 2.7 update massively increased performance on Syria for a lot of people, I was watching Spudknocker on YouTube and he said it performed much better since the update with vastly reduced stutters.

I bought Syria last night, spent forever downloading it so didn't really get to play it until today. Holy hell... WOW! After flying on the Caucasus for so many years this is a real step up in fidelity. Frame rates seem to be alright too all things considered, so much low down detail flying the Mi-8 over Damascus and towards the Golan Heights etc was a real treat. The Hind is going to be unreal fun on this map, same goes for any low level work. I hope somebody does a full IAF paid campaign with voice overs etc, so many historical events you could cover with the IAF's F-16 fleet. Found a little ad for Ugra Media's Normandy '44 map too xD.