DCS World mod teams are growing more sophisticated in their aircraft making and in their presentation of their efforts and that is amply shown with this announcement from a mod development group calling themselves ‘Veco Simulations’ and showing off their T-38A project for DCS World.

Fly the iconic Talon

A free community mod project aimed at recreating the T-38A Talon in DCS World has announced that their multiple years of effort are paying off. An announcement trailer and post on the DCS World forums could easily have come from a paid third party project but this one is a free mod instead.

The feature list is significant with the project aiming to release a free standalone full-fidelity community mod with clickable cockpit, multi-crew support, detailed #d model and textures and their own external flight model (EFM) and stand-alone avionics.

Like payware projets, Veco have gathered thousands of images of the aircraft and done their own photogrammetry scans of real aircraft to get the measurements right. For the flight model they are bringing in wind tunnel tests, CFD analysis and empirical estimations. Data on the J85 engine will allow for differing levels of function up to and including elements such as a compressor stall.

A classic steam gauge cockpit was chosen to get around limitations imposed by not having access to the DCS SDK. It will, however, have functional UHF, intercom between pilots, TACAN for range and bearing, ILS for landing guidance (including marker beacon), and a mechanical flight director.

We’ll have to see how this mod develops over time but the goals are ambitious. Read more about it over here on their announcement thread.