Excellent read Beach.

Got it thank you Mr Kodiac, and Captan Beach of course,tried it once and ran me tanks dry long before the end, one shall have to learn to go a tad slower,was just about to scrag that chopper with me cannon as well :rolleyes:

Just tried the mission again as a sight seeing tour ,see how well the autopilot runs things,a couple of places I needed to tap the A key and take over as we would have flown into one of those green concrete clouds,lifting over ridges and such,what I want to ask those with the proper manual, is there any indicater,light or switch that shows you are under auto pilot control or manual? when things get a bit hectic I sometimes cannot remember how many times I have tapped the A key,the ENR RTN LND and distance to go symbology is still shown on the HUD ,but no indication if I am under autopilot,as you all know doing something drastic with the stick when under autopilot generaly leads to disaster.
Just pulled the best approach and landing yet in the 25T, mind you one had jetisoned all my war load.

Yeah..I had (have) the same problem with the autopilot and not knowing when it is ON or OFF..I'll be fighting the stick and wondering why my trim is so whacked...doh!

The autopilot will indeed run you into the ground..I use it often..but spend a lot of time "checking up" on it..particularly at low level. Another thing I'm trying to get used to is that I don't think the autopilot stays in "Route Following" mode once you switch to one of the combat modes. When I was dorking around with the air-to-ground HUD mode I noticed that the airplane flew right through the next course leg..so I had to manually take it back over on course.

And on the gas..yeah..I purposely kept it at about 50% on that mission to give the plane a bit of "spunk" during the bombing runs. Of course..running around at full throttle really eats up the gas though...

BTW - When I make a mission..I've put the missile effectiveness pretty low (25%..can't remember?) so does it keep that for when other people play the missions? Right now I want to keep the missiles from being magic beams..and make myself work for a kill..and also be able to spoof missiles aimed at me. I saw the suggestion earlier (PFunk?) that it would be nice to have an AI or enemy missile effectiveness slider and a human player slider. For those of us that are sometimes willing to give concessions between realism and gameplay..

BeachAV8R

One thing to look into is when you make your bomb runs, is to actually throttle down. For me it seems to give a slight edge in controllability, but with the Su-25T it may be very well different, since you have to adjust the aircraft constantly (more than the Su-33) according to speed.

As far as Autopilot is concerned... it automatically sets your trim according to speed more efficiently of course, but once you disengage Autopilot, hit CTRL + T, which resets trim to zero. Of course it means you start over, but then again if you have to constantly adjust it, then it shouldn't be an issue.

I have missile effectiveness at the default 50%. At longer ranges missiles get spoofed by a single chaff bundle (R-27ER at 38km against an F-16, I think he flew the notch and he evaded both, but then again it's been real long since I fired AAMs anyways....) but at the same time pk works out at closer ranges too, but it's what works for you, as it seems more "normal" for me, at least giving you a fighting chance if you actually evade.

I think I read somewhere that the CTRL-T trim reset does not work in the Su-25T..apparently they wanted to require people to retrim manually all the way...

I could be wrong..but I'm pretty sure I read that somewhere...

BeachAV8R

The ACS panel (middle left side on the instrument panel) has the indicators. It'll tell you not only if you are in an "autopilot" mode but also which one. You just have to memorize the lights. The Route-Following ACS mode, I believe, is the top two on the left.

If you are using the Shkval optical targeting system, the Route-Following ACS mode becomes slaved to it. The aircraft is then guided by the ACS to the target (whatever is in the crosshairs). You can actually steer the aircraft this way. Want to turn to the right, slide the targeting box to the right, etc.

And CTRL-T does not reset the trim in the -25T. You have to do it manually...or use the emergency leveling mode (panic mode) (ALT-3 ???).

Rich

Ahhhh..... Yeah shows how much I've not flown the -25T that much

Great mission read. I have Flaming Cliffs, but it won't run. I checked GoGamer to ponder purchasing the manual and I saw that Flaming Cliffs is out of stock.

I have no doubt that this is a result of your reports.

Thanks

Am I the only one who limits their autopilot use to altitude hold? And that's really only to auto-trim the aircraft, or to fly a longish distance in a straight line at altitude....I like to fly

They may have manuals for sale at the main lockon site:- http://www.lockon.co.uk

Nate

Liewise - only use in combat for Auto-Dumb-Bombs release every now and then. Works well with MER's.

Great stuff, thanks !!

BeachAV8R wrote: These missions are a great read - thanks for them.

Since we all like technical details to be correct, hope you don't mind if I point out that "careening" is the process of dragging a ship out of the water so its hull can be scraped clear of attached marine life.

The word you're after is "careering" - to move in a rapid and uncontrolled way.

I suppose if you wanted to you could just delete the offending double post as well as this last one. Just click the edit icon and look in the upper left of the text box that opens. You'll see a box marked "Delete post". Checkmark it and follow the prompts.

Rich

Careen..career...lol...good catch..I'll change it!

BeachAV8R

Great read!
Days before I just download the full Beach's Falcon Tutorial PDF files and wondering what if we can get a same tutorial on LOFC.

It's already here! Now I am picking up FC again. Thanks Beach!

Yes, Beach is responsible for a number of titles on my shelf. I read a few of his training missions and then suddenly I just have to have it. At some point I'd really like to see written things on some of the aircraft in FSX - especially the Goose and the Lear.

But honestly, this FC training stuff really makes me interested in Lomac again. I can't say that I will get FC for a couple particular reasons, but just be reading that I have become more interested in Lomac again and I'm flying it a bit more now. His description of the Russian HSI actually straightened some things out in my head about the Western HSI in general, and now I'm understanding navigation quite a bit more. This has translated into my understanding for all of Lomac as well as other sims too. Not bad for a write-up on a title that I don't even own

For trimming in the Su-25T I use the ALT-3 to trim out and then Alt-9 to get out of ALL auto-pilot modes.

My Up-To-Speed Guide for the Su-25T(in my signature) will have fuller explanations for all the key modes.

@ZoomBoy:

I read your guide to the A-10. It does a great job summing everything up all the controls in all phases of the flight. It was good reading. Well done.