1 hour ago, Ron Attwood said:

All the more reason to respect all the guys that do it for real. Relatively few people make it that level.

Absolutely.  I remember a tv show years ago called Jetstream, it followed a class of RCAF CF-18 trainees as they attempted to go through the final training to become fighter pilots. Not all made it and it was a really interesting insight into the final phase of what it takes to make it as a fighter pilot.

One thing that I always remember when trying to fumble my way through DCS is they talked about some pilots washing out because their cup was full...ie a fighter pilot has to remember, process and react to so many things at once under great stress, some people just can’t do it, hence their cup is full and information overflowed it.  That’s always how I feel.

7 hours ago, Manny said:

I thought of DCS but not sure if I have the stomach to learn a new flight sim. 😞

If you fancy a good and pretty realistic (most of the VC buttons work) flight sim which is a bit easier to get your head around than DCS (which is admittedly kind of hard to get used to, but great if you have the time), then I can recommend giving Combat Air Patrol 2 (on Steam) a shot. It's only about 17 quid to buy and it is really great fun, works in VR too if you have that set up.

There's some great scenery, which whilst not quite up to MSFS standards, is not too far off it, including the Mach Loop, Lake District and quite a bit of the UK including a few airports which are not massively detailed, but you can land a harrier anywhere of course, as well as numerous other places for combat, plus a bunch of US and UK carriers to fly from. So long as you have a fairly good joystick with a few buttons to map to, you can have all the nozzle controls and weaponry etc set up in no time, and then you can take your fancy AV8 Harrier down some cool scenery or shoot and blow some stuff up.

Some pics:

Over the Liverpool Estuary, heading for North Wales...

Red Two, checking in...

Pulled up a bit so I could get an external screenshot without crashing...

Heading back down into the weeds...

Turning up the Mersey Estuary over Liverpool to line up for a landing at EGGP, or possibly a strafing attack on the tower, haven't finalised that decision at this point...

 

Edited December 26, 20205 yr by Chock

if  you  want  to fly  fighter  aircraft  eg  hornet,  tomcats  etc  than  Dcs  is the  way  to go if  you  want  to go as  realistic  as aircraft  goes

4 hours ago, Chock said:

If you fancy a good and pretty realistic (most of the VC buttons work) flight sim which is a bit easier to get your head around than DCS (which is admittedly kind of hard to get used to, but great if you have the time), then I can recommend giving Combat Air Patrol 2 (on Steam) a shot. It's only about 17 quid to buy and it is really great fun, works in VR too if you have that set up.

There's some great scenery, which whilst not quite up to MSFS standards, is not too far off it, including the Mach Loop, Lake District and quite a bit of the UK including a few airports which are not massively detailed... 

Does it have water masks? 

1 hour ago, bobcat999 said:

Does it have water masks? 

Actually to be fair the lakes are not that great-looking, but they are better than P3D or FSX offers, so they're not terrible.

13 hours ago, pmplayer said:

 

Seems you using the other 747-8 mod

dont know the name at the moment,

but from this mod you see that startscreen

in MSFS.

cheers  😉

You can change the loading screen yourself.  The file used for this is called LOADING_FREEFLIGHT.jpg. On my computer it is in F:\.....\AppData\Local\MSFSPackages\Official\OneStore\fs-base\missions\Common\LOADING\FreeFlight. Replace this file with one of your own screenshots (rename your screenshot to LOADING_FREEFLIGHT.jpg). You can also change the background: F:\.....\AppData\Local\MSFSPackages\Official\OneStore\fs-base\missions\Common\LOADING\BOOT (background_loading.jpg).
This is my loading screen at the moment.

32 minutes ago, HeKa48 said:

You can change the loading screen yourself.  The file used for this is called LOADING_FREEFLIGHT.jpg. On my computer it is in F:\.....\AppData\Local\MSFSPackages\Official\OneStore\fs-base\missions\Common\LOADING\FreeFlight. Replace this file with one of your own screenshots (rename your screenshot to LOADING_FREEFLIGHT.jpg). You can also change the background: F:\.....\AppData\Local\MSFSPackages\Official\OneStore\fs-base\missions\Common\LOADING\BOOT (background_loading.jpg).
This is my loading screen at the moment.

Thanks , Yes i saw that today i looked in that mod file so you can do your own pic, thats a fine and cool thing i would say..😎

 

cheers 😉

16 hours ago, nachezdc9 said:

F14 tomcat

F-14 Bombcats in that pic. Note the LGBs under the fuselage.

6 minutes ago, HighBypass said:

F-14 Bombcats in that pic. Note the LGBs under the fuselage.

That's politically incorrect these days, you have to call them LGBTs, just in case the weapons choose to identify themselves as different gender. 🤣

LGBT bombs... You, sir have won the internet for me this afternoon! 

2 minutes ago, HighBypass said:

LGBT bombs... You, sir have won the internet for me this afternoon! 

Probably not a great idea to have a laser guided bomb which can choose to take a different path if it wants to. 🤣

This is why we don't want weapons to be too "smart" 

16 hours ago, Denwagg said:

I fail to see why anybody would want to fly a dumbed down (buggy) military jet in MSFS when there is a whole world of Study Simulators available in a reasonable good quality flying environment already available in DCS

With Carrier Landings and Takeoffs they very few have mastered

Unfortunately I can't fly around my local airport in DCS. DCS is great but very limited at where you can fly compared to the other 3 major sims available. 

16 hours ago, Manny said:

I thought of DCS but not sure if I have the stomach to learn a new flight sim. The same reason I never went to X-Plane

It's not too bad for the basics if you get the F18. You can set the controls to mirror the controls in MSFS. As long as you only want to fly around and do carrier cycles, the sim itself isn't too much of a learning curve. Figuring out how to land on a carrier the right way is, of course, an insanely steep learning process. 😉

You only have to really start getting into the control assignment weeds if you decide you want to do combat. I found getting SimDashboard and making some button boxes for my old Android tablet to be very helpful there.

 

 

14 hours ago, Chock said:

I can recommend giving Combat Air Patrol 2

A cheap Harrier sim? I think you just cost me £17😀 Hopefully my old joystick won't cause it to crash as it does with DCS and MSFS.

 

6 hours ago, Chock said:

That's politically incorrect these days, you have to call them LGBTs, just in case the weapons choose to identify themselves as different gender. 🤣

Get with the times, they've been upgraded to LGBT+ nowadays😉