whats that thing? the airbrake? how to close it? thanks
Airbrake, usually on spoiler key bind
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Steve is CORRECT, it is the SPOLIER. it is deployed while GEAR is DOWN. you need to manually retract once airborne.
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I guess thatās a sim limitation thing? The speedbrake does come down when gear is extended, but it should retract when the gear is raised.
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thanks.
where is the lever/switch for the spoiler/speedbrake. cant find the folder with the Harrier User Guide on my drive - where is it installed? thanks
i use key binding to āspoilersā manual .pdf is in the community folder with the harrier package
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Just picked this up and while I definitely have questions and learning to do, Iām thrilled with it so far. Itās a riot to fly in VR! Can anyone recommend any comprehensive tutorials for PC users, either text with graphics/labels of some kind or even better a YouTube tutorial that covers most/all features of the plane? I really want to learn to fly this one well. 
My biggest question thus far: Can anyone tell me if there are any anti-icing controls hidden somewhere in the cockpit, please? Iāve not found any and experienced significant canopy icing on my first proper flight. If I can enable anti-icing in this condition Iād love to know how!
Also, Iām having significant issues with the autopilot and could use a complete tutorial/better understanding of how it works and all its features.
By following the tutorial here (https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/qdAh_BGDuSQ Iāve gotten altitude hold working; I presume thereās no way to change altitude other than switch it back off, manually fly to the new altitude, then reengage ALT HOLD mode, right?
But as for lateral navigation, it seems only to work-ISH but with nowhere near the accuracy shown in that video. When attempting to follow the flightplan here (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1e6kbafDqYe3s0Yw3Nj8XX0fJoFjCT81I/view) the autopilot is definitely steering the plane laterally, making a significant and fairly sharp turn near the start of the flight. However, it stays about 10-15 degrees left of the correct course to the first waypoint as shown on the right MFD map and HUD and thus never comes anywhere near it, approaching no closer than about 25 miles west of it.
And while the waypoint display on the HUD shows the direction to the waypoint constantly changing at a faster and faster rate the closer you get to being parallel with it, the plane never adjusts its direction from that it initially selected after changing course near the origin. I can get it to change course to the second waypoint by switching AUTO mode off and selecting waypoint 2, but if I switch back to waypoint 1 it wonāt head towards it even though itās still 25 miles away at that point.
I have to be missing something here, but what?
Also, if I leave the sim paused by entering the MSFS menu for just a few minutes while taking a bio break or fiddling with MSFS settings and having left the autopilot active, when I unpause, the plane pitches extremely wildly on unpausing even though the weather conditions havenāt changed radically.
This has happened to me twice already and Iāve only owned the plane for around eight hours. In one instance, I was able to regain control manually but unable to reengage the autopilot for lateral navigation after that; nothing I tried with it did anything. (I canāt remember for sure if I got ALT HOLD to reengage or not that time.) The other time, it instantly (sub-half a second) overstressed my airframe on unpausing, causing me to lose the entire flight.
Another issue Iām having is with lighting. Even with all lighting switches/knobs off or at their minimum position, I get a very bright white light on the bottom of the central panel in the cockpit where the INS knob is whenever the landing lights are active, appearing to emanate from beneath the ejection seat.
This makes the text labels unreadable in most lighting conditions, even in the daytime. And even direct sunlight through an open canopy on a cloudless day canāt come close to drowning it out.
And the anti collision light switch, while flickable, seems to have no effect. If I load in on the runway with the aircraft live, I get a flashing white light above and below the plane regardless of the switchās position. If I load in cold and dark, the flashing white light is never enabled regardless of the anti collision switchās position. And either way, the red light on the top of the plane cannot be illuminated in either position either.
Also, is it just me or are the nose-wheel steering modes inverted? Per AV-8B(NA) - DCS World Wiki - Hoggitworld.com and https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/759130/manuals/AV8BNA_Pocket_Guide.pdf the NWS HI mode should have a higher +/-45 degree range, while standard NWS mode is a much shallower +/-14 degrees. I figured out how to switch modes from the button on the flight stick, but when NWS HI is shown on the HUD and taxing at just ~6-7 knots, the plane turns far more slowly than when NWS mode is shown.
Oh, and thereās one other thing I want to figure out. I have the Thrustmaster Hotas One stick/throttle combo. Thereās a self-centering analog rocker on the back of the throttle which would be perfect for adjusting the thrust vectoring if it didnāt control it directly, but rather adjusted the position while it wasnāt centered and locked the position when centered, as then I could move the vectoring quickly or slowly depending upon how far I moved the rocker left or right.
I canāt thus far figure out a way to achieve that yet and am having to rely on a second, ancient Sidewinder joystickās throttle control as my thrust vectoring control, which is much harder as I have to keep taking my hand off the throttle. Is it possible to configure the throttle rocker to do what Iām wanting, and if so how? (Hopefully my explanation was understandable!)
Thanks to all for any help you can offer, as this is SUCH a cool plane and the DC Designs modeling of it shows a lot of promise! I just need to get to the bottom of my issues with it so I can truly enjoy it.
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Right side of cockpit bottom left of cluster of 4 switches is windshield de-ice
Next to that is a twist knob, this is cabin heater. These will stop icing
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I wouldnāt pause to be honest: quite a few planes have issues with it. I just donāt trust it. Backing out into the options etc. menu pauses too.
Thatās what I did, went into the menu. I donāt ever use the official pause button, just go into the menu and Iāve not had this problem with any other plane in MSFS by doing so. Iām guessing itās something to do with the custom code thatās used to allow for VTOL flight?
All the pauses get me confused about what theyāre called, but, they just fixed an issue for SU-13 in active pauseā¦ maybe related?
IOW, not anything necessarily related to something that could be controlled by the developer. Then again, might not be related.
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Thanks, I saw that and am hopeful it will make active pause usable for other aircraft. I havenāt been using active pause with the Harrier though, simply because Iād already learned that it didnāt work for other aircraft and so stopped using it.
What I did with the Harrier was simply to enter flight simās menu system, much as I might if I was too change a graphics or control setting, but without actually changing any settings. That works perfectly to pause every other aircraft Iāve tried, even for extended periods and complex aircraft like the PMDG 737 and Just Flight BAe-146.
But the latter approach doesnāt work for the Harrier, causing major controllability issues after just 2-3 minutes or less in the menu with no significant change to weather conditions in the intervening period. Iām guessing thatās because it is doing the flight modeling outside of the sim to allow for VTOL flight which MSFSā own flight dynamics canāt provide, but it would be nice to hear from the developer on this topic.
How fast are you flying when you āmenuā? It may not matter (see below), but, just wondering.
I have a feeling this issue with menu pause might also be helped here.
Unlike you, I do get the dive out of a lot of planes I fly when I come out of menu pause. And I think itās likely the plane is āstoppedā by holding the plane at the zero point. Hopefully the fix also holds the rotation of the body now and not just supporting on a string at a point.
I think the issue is, when you come out of pause, the plane has to accelerate to speed again from zero, and any off axis force about the point the plane is being held at has a chance to act and rotate the plane about that point before the lift forces on the wings take action and keep the plane level again.
Now, I donāt have the Harrier, but, itās possible the developers did not put the zero point at the center of lift like the SDK suggests (and actually says, they donāt take any responsibility for plane dynamics if you donāt do this, or something to that effect), and this exacerbates the problem coming out of pause.
Hopefully this fix is applied across the board for all pauses.
I rarely visit here, as weāre not allowed to offer support. Our Discord or Facebook pages are linked on the various threads here so please use those for detailed assistance. In short, however, the Harrierās flight model is entirely within MSFS, which is more than capable of VTOL operations if used correctly. However, VTOL is none the less complex to model and active pause will eventually upset the aerodynamics of the airplane. We canāt do a lot about that unfortunately. Same thing happens with moving carriers - pause the flight and your airplane stops, but the carrier keeps moving
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Oh, so if youāve landed on the carrier, pause the sim, the plane is held in place and the carrier drives away?.. lol
Ah, the unintended consequences of design decisionsā¦
Many thanks for the reply, Iāll look for the Discord link and continue my question there when I have a minute. Itās not active pause Iāve been using though, just entered the MSFS menus.
no, the carrier carries on because you pause āyouā and not the world, the carrier being an asset is part of the world so it carries on, nothing to do with Harrier design its a sim limitation
Yeah, thatās what I was saying. It was a decision on Asoboās part about what to do with carriers. Nothing Dean can do about itā¦ Asobo obviously hasnāt thought all the way through on how carriers should work. Or about how aircraft interact with the world during pause, or how people want to use the sim. For instance, why didnāt it occur to them that people might want to start helicopters cold and dark? (Maybe it did occur to them, but, time didnāt allow them to do it ārightā?)
I mean, Iām super glad we have the sim, and Asobo did start the process on how people interact with the sim. It just needs more work.
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Or they did think it through and made a decision that this was the best option possible. Why do you never assume competence?