Zeno~SPARTA~

We are still here, but nowhere near as popular as we were in the ArmA heyday. The most active people are playing Warthunder (tanks). You should be able to see if people are on TS using the forum home page, Browse tab. Teamspeak is shown on the right.

I bought the Spitfire Mk 9 and the Mustang P51D so that I can practice engine management, on the ground and in the air. I have taken off in the Mustang, but I do not think I could in the Spitfire because of its stupidly narrow undercarriage. In the air the Spitfire is a treat. The F3 key shows the external flyby view. The noise the planes make when they fly by is magnificent. I hit F3 a lot

It was the British Mustang, in the UK at the time there were few engines that were bigger. All the 250 series Ferraris were 3 litres, eventually when the Rover V8s took hold there was a bigger engine in the UK at 3.5 Litres. Jaguar had 3.8 to 4.2 Litre straight sixes. So the 3 litre V6 was huge, especially since, on the whole, engines were wheezy, long stroke 4 cylinders. Funnily enough, although my car was called the Mk 1 Capri, it was not the first Capri. Early in the 60s Ford launched the Consul Capri. It was a good looking coupe. It was a sales failure because of the success of the Anglia and the Cortina. My dad worked for Ford, so we had a bunch of them, my dad had the Poplar, the 100E and 105E Anglia, the latter being the first car a ever drove.

As a young man I was very impressed by the Capri and wanted one. I promised myself that after 3 years of work I would buy either the 3 litre Capri or a Lotus Elan. Well I kept my promise and bought myself a 3 Litre Capri GT XLR. Sadly I had 2 accidents in it, one rear resulted in rear damage (I was hit in the back) and one front damage (my fault). I was in the process of fixing the car (on the street) so I had taken the bumpers off, then when I was driving I was stopped by the police and received 5 convictions related to the car. Not long after, it was stolen (with my tools in it), never to be seen again. It was a bit of a beast, with a very loose tail end and skinny tyres (by todays standards). After the convictions and the theft I found it hard to insure a powerful car so my next car was a Mk 3 Ford Cortina 1600 GL. So not my best experience but I was still happy to have had one. Here is a fantastic example of this car, it is in very good condition.

New clouds for open Beta 2.7. They are rather nice.

Happy Birthday!!

Belated best wishes!

The Embraer A29 Super Tucano has been updated, amongst the updates is a new prop animation. The quality is getting up there and they seem dedicated to the project. National pride I guess. I really like the idea of trainers, it makes it a bit easier to learn the basic principals of weapon systems. I look forward to a Hawk or Goshawk for DCS as well.

Thankyou to the people that turned up to our small Spartan tribute to Sabine Schmitz "Queen of the 'Ring".

If we set the server up for 2 hour practice we can just belt around the track, everyone at their own pace. This will give everyone an opportunity to learn the track with the pressure of an actual race. Lets say Sunday from 8pm UK time onwards.

Have a great day!

Today I read about the passing of Sabine Schmitz at the Age of 51. Many car enthusiasts in Britain, including me, discovered her when she appeared on Top Gear teaching Jeremy Clarkson how to get around the Nordschliefe in under 10 minutes in a diesel Jag. After many attempts he managed it, then Sabine went out and beat the time by a lot, she almost beat that time again in an unmodified diesel Transit van. After seeing her I was motivated to try the track myself in my RX8. That same day I was lucky enough to ride with her in the v10 M5 Ring Taxi, she always seemed happy and had a perpetual grin on her face. Her accolades are many, those of you that know about her don't need me to espouse them. If your interested in motorsport and the Nurburgring North Loop (Nordschliefe) I urge you to take moment to research her. So young. Sadly another motorsport icon, Murray Walker, also passed away. He was a huge fan of F1 and his commentary imparted his huge enthusiasm and excitement to every race. He was 95.

Normal service will resume shortly.

Et voila deux mod en un pour les francophile parmi vous. Comme il-y-aurais personne apart de moi qui va le lire, je m'amuse a l'ecrire en francais. Voici Le porte avions Clemencau de la Marine Francaise. Parmis les avions qu'elle porter il-y-avais Le Super Etendard et le F8 Crusader. Biensur le missile anti navire equiper sur le Super Etendard c'etait le tristement celebre Exocet.

Another new free mod, the Embraer A29 Super Tucano. This is used as a trainer before getting into jets. But they are also being used as Light attack aircraft in uncontested airspace. The beauty of this plane is that it is easy to fly yet can carry pretty decent armament. It has 2 50 cals but can carry air to air missiles, air to ground missiles and rockets, and bombs (dumb and laser guided, although they need a buddy lase) on top of which they have a long loiter time. This is a work in progress, even so it has a clickable interior, most of which is functional. My only dislike is the propeller disc (not shown in the photos), which is terrible. With that said they are working on that as well. There will also be a free T45 Goshawk trainer mod after DCS 2.7 comes out, which means we will be able to train using turbo props for basic ground attack and air to air and move onto the jet for carrier and high speed practice (unarmed).

This guy made a short movie using Vietnam era assets. There are flyable mods for the A4e, the F4 Phantom, the F105, the C130, the Littlebird, as well as the official model for the Huey. The A4 is an incredible mod. I hope you enjoy as much as me.

Ok, it's not a SEAD mission anymore. I can't achieve the mission primary objective of destroying the warehouse if I try to suppress/destroy all AA/AAA. So now I go straight for the warehouse. In this attempt I used the A10a (from the Flaming Cliffs 3 module) with 12 x Mk82Air bombs I approached over the lake at low level (200-300 feet), found the mast and lined up to the right of it. I couldnt figure out how to drop all the bombs so I released manually (10), incredibly I destroyed the warehouse. In the shot below I was doing 330 knots at 1719 feet, but the height above ground was 220 feet. On the way in I received some ineffective 23mm AAA fire, but my RWR was very active after I cleared the buildings beyond the lake. In all 5 Iglas and 6 SA 15 Gauntlets were fired at me. One or two Iglas took out one elevator/rudder assembly but I could still fly, but not low enough to evade, then an SA15 hit me and it was game over. I was still alive but this was unrecoverable, so it was time to punch out. Still I was happy that I could penetrate the defences and kill the primary target. The problem with the A10 is 330 knots was on full throttle and that isnt very fast when trying to evade. Maybe the A10c II is faster but I would have to learn how to master that plane.

Here is the Queen Elizabeth Carrier mod. It's a bit low res and there is no bow wave (the ship is doing 20 knots). I have added an F35 mod as well, but few plane mods are in the same league as the A4 I showed earlier. The upcoming Grisellimod F22 is not bad and I will show it later.

SA 10 (S300 Grumble) can reach 100,000ft. I had to add an SA10 to the mission to force a low level penetration, otherwise it would have been more logical to use high altitude bombers like the B1b or B52,which could also be a fun mission in a covering role. The newer S400 is even more deadly, but fortunately is not in the game. Something I did not add was the acquisition time for the AA systems which range from 3 seconds to 26 seconds depending on the AA system. I have tried this run in the F5 and F18 and observed on my RWR that the AA radars were losing me and reacquiring me, but presumably the clock starts again each time. Iglas have a fast acquisition time and if I set the manpads skill to excellent you may get an Igla in the face, even on the deck and very fast. Sadly the F5 only has Snake eyes, so I was destroyed by my own bombs, as they simply dont have time to slow down before hitting the target at sub 100ft.I have to check fusing but I dont think there is a high degree of interaction with the bomb, Just some switches and dials, to indicate which bombs to drop, the interval of the drop and I think tail or nose fuse. Its a shame because I enjoy flying the F5. It's a challenge, a bit like playing chess against yourself, and it keeps me from getting too rusty.

I tried this mission in an F18 (the plane with which I am the most familiar) using 8 Mk 82 Y bombs. The Mk 82 Y (AKA the Mk 82 Air) has a retarding mechanism in the tail called a Ballute which slows the bombs much more than the Snake eye. With this bomb you don't have to climb before release. I approached at 500 knots and <100 feet. I manually dropped the 8 bombs together, but missed by 100 meters or so. 10 anti air missiles were fired at me in the process, 1 Igla, 4 Tors and 5 Grumbles. Since the ingress and egress were very low I evaded by executing sharp 45 degree turns as well as chaffing and flaring. I was able to land undamaged at Kutaisi. I will have to figure out a visual cue to release at low level. The following planes have the Mk 82 Y/Air or its equivalent F18 F16 A10 Harrier Viggen

There are free mods available for HMS Invincible, Illustrious and HMS Queen Elizabeth. Here is HMS Invincible

One wheel on my wagon, but I'm still rolling along! Incredibly I could control the plane using the rudder, elevons and one set of ailerons. unfortunately I had no thrust, so when I ran out of talent the plane hit the ground too hard.

My favourite mission in DCS is SEAD. The toughest missile system in the game is the SA10 with its massive reach and speed. This could be defeated with the HARM missile from standoff range, but not so easy with any other weapon. However in one of the updates the land based SA10 will shoot at and destroy HARMs. I experimented with an attack on the standard SA10 template which has 6 vehicles with 4 launchers each (ie 24 missiles). Using my F18 and the terrain, I attracted fire from the SA10 then dove down into a valley. It took a bit of time and patience (not to mention fuel awareness) but I managed to deplete the site of missiles and then kill the RADARs. I am pretty sure I can devise a devilish AA defence system, but I want a challenging defence, not an impossible one. So in this mission the objective is to destroy a specific warehouse. It will be defended by a layered defence potentially consisting of :- Manpads SA18 Igla Min Alt 0 Max Alt 12000 Range NM 2.5 Guidance IR RWR None Gaskin SA 9 Strella Min Alt 100 Max Alt 12000 Range NM 2.5 Guidance IR RWR None Osa SA 8 Min Alt 50 Max Alt 21000 Range NM 7.5 Guidance RADAR RWR 8 BUK SA 11 Min Alt 450 Max Alt 45000 Range NM 19.2 Guidance RADAR RWR 11,SD TOR SA 15 Min Alt 60 Max Alt 25000 Range NM 6.5 Guidance RADAR RWR 15 The exact location of the warehouse is unknown, only the approximate area. We do know that there is a large radio/TV mast nearby. It will be in the vicinity of the three airfields. Note the 2 TACAN channels 25 and 22 which will help navigate to the area Note lining up with the eastern tip of the lake will put you on course for the airfields. The lake is in a depression, there is a small wooded area and buildings allowing you to get close with cover. The target is to the right of the radio/TV mast which is tall and will be a visible landmark to align onto when you cross the lake. There is no enemy air cover. We will not have access to long range stand off weapons to hit the warehouse, nor will we have any HARMS or their Russian equivalents. Ideally this will be a mission where any fast plane with dumb bombs and rockets can participate We will have to recon the area to find the warehouse, but the recon will be hot. I built this mission for myself to practice low level flying, SAM evasion and bombing, if anyone wants to join in I will add the plane of your choice.

This is the A4E mod v2.0. This is really an impressive plane especially since it's free. I have paid for planes in FSX that were less interactive and frankly good looking, inside and out. It can carry an impressive array of weapons from dumb bombs to the Shrike Anti Radiation Missile, as well as guided and air to air AIM 9s. It is carrier capable using the free carrier that comes with DCS World. Here I have tried to recreate a busy carrier deck preparing for a strike trying to stick with Vietnam era equipment.

It looks like the KC135 PRMS has a boom and a Drogue, so I have changed the refuelling practice KC130 (Arco) to this plane.