by Andy Bush In our ever-present search for realism in our sims, we continue to ask developers for more and more realistic flight models. They have done a good job in responding to these requests. One aspect of the flight model issue has been the introduction and refinement of flap and trim use. Today, we routinely […]
Back to Page 6 Using Rudder To Adjust Weapon Aiming A third specific application of rudder is its use in adjusting weapons aiming, in particular, the gun. Two main points on this…one, while the concept is technically valid, its execution requires considerable skill. Two, because of this, I strongly suggest that you do your […]
Back to Page 5 Specific Examples of Rudder Use Using Rudder To Improve Lookout Let’s finish this rudder discussion by describing several ways in which the rudder can be used to our advantage in sim flying. The first is the use of rudder to improve our lookout ability, particularly to our six o’clock. Not […]
Back To Page 4 Countering Crosswinds On Takeoff and Landing Crosswind is something that we control directly when we configure our gameplay. It’s an option. If we don’t want it, we don’t have to include it. But for advanced gameplay, we can spice things up a bit by tossing in crosswind. So, if we […]
Back To Page 3 Techniques For Using the Rudder To begin with, we must stress that you do not need to use rudder if the sim does not need it…or if the sim is not programmed to respond to rudder input in the manner that you expect! This is critical. If your sim does […]
Back To Page 2 Adverse yaw In early aviation, pilots found that getting airborne was not a problem. Level flight was not a problem. So what was the problem? Turning! Flying in a straight line was fairly simple, but trying to turn these early planes was something totally different! Initial heading control designs were […]
Back To Page 1 Part One – The Rudder Background Concepts Early aviation pioneers discovered that an airplane had three control axes…vertical, lateral, and longitudinal. After a few bruising ground impacts, they also found that these had to be balanced together in order to maintain any semblance of controlled flight. For these early pilots, […]
How to Use the Secondary Flight Controls in a Typical Sim by Andy Bush Despite your best efforts, you have managed to trap a bandit at your six. He’s closing in to guns range and you need to do something fast! With the bandit in hot pursuit, you pull sharply up into the vertical. As your […]
Back to Page 1 Loss Of Sight Techniques The first thing to do is “fess up”! Don’t continue to fly around hoping that luck will come you way eventually. Make the call, “Red Flight, Two’s blind”. Unless the leader has the flight member in sight, he should immediately get everyone on the same heading and […]
Feature by Andy Bush Introduction This article is intended to amplify the material in the fourth article in the “Boom and Zoom (BnZ)” series as well as the article “Brevity Code” in SimHQ’s Air Combat Corner. Please read these articles before you begin this one. Much of the material in these articles bear directly on this new […]
by John “Spoons” Sponauer Be Sure To Read Part One of This Article: A-10s Over Northern Iraq, Southern Iraq, and Bosnia The Balkans, Part Two: Kosovo Just three years after the bombing campaign over Bosnia-Herzegovina, NATO was once again at war with Serbian forces. This time, the conflict was over Kosovo, another region of Yugoslavia experiencing […]
Feature by John “Spoons” Sponauer Introduction It’s hard to come up with an aircraft further from the style of combat preferred by the US in the 1990s than the A-10 Thunderbolt II. It isn’t supersonic, rarely carries “smart” bombs, has very few computerized systems, and most definitely isn’t in its peak flight envelope for the high […]
