Su-25 Frogfoot

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Originally a part of the aircraft selection in LOMAC, the Su-25 was ported over to DCS through the FC3 package. Unlike the free Su-25T variant that comes included with DCS, this base model has been produced in the thousands over the last 40 years, and has been fielded in almost every major war in that period.

Just like the other FC3 planes, the Su-25 is more designed to be controlled through a standardised set of keyboard shortcuts than through any kind of advanced set of peripherals, nor does it feature an interactive “clicky” cockpit.

Features

The Su-25 does one thing: it carries what is known in the scientific community as a fuckload of bombs and rockets. Only a couple of them are, perhaps not smart, as such, but at least reasonably precise because they are laser guided.

The Frog offers:

• A good selection of unguided high and low-drag rockets and bombs.
• A simple, but highly accurate and effective CCIP mode to help deliver all of those.
• A laser rangefinder/designator that will further improve the accuracy of the CCIP, but which will overheat and burn out at the most inopportune moment possible.
• Laser-guided missiles that ensure you will want to use the designator until it burns out.
• The regular Russian RWR that will not help much because you are not dodging anything in this particular bucket.

Comes with the built-in campaigns Su-25 - Cold War Warrior and Su-25 - Revance.

Flying the Su-25

Rule #1 of the Su-25: get any notion of flying a fighter jet out of your mind. You are a bomb truck. You deliver lots and lots of things that go boom — slowly and preferably not uphill. You are not fast, nor agile, and when fully loaded, small hills can quickly become very threatening obstacles unless you prepare for them well in advance.

Cockpit overview

Getting into the air

The process of getting the Su-25 into the air is the same as with all FC3 aircraft:

• Make sure you have loaded the correct weapons.
  (This can only be done with the canopy open and engines off, press LAlt' to open the outfitting menu.)
• RShiftL to turn the power on.
• LCtrlC to open or close the canopy, as needed.
• RShiftHome to start both engine at the same time.
  (RShiftEnd stops both engines; RAlt/RCtrl + Home/End starts and stops the left and right engines individually.)
• Wait for the engines to spool up and stabilise.
• Num+/Num- controls the throttle; increase it carefully to get going and do not go too fast.
  (W controls wheel brakes; be particularly careful when turning since doing it at high speed will make you tip over, scrape your wings, catch fire, explode and — worst of all — become the subject of innumerable screen shots.)
• Use Z and X to control nosewheel steering (and also rudder) to make your way to the runway and line up.
• LShiftF lowers the flaps — they should be in the middle position for takeoff.
• Throttle up to max and try to stay in a straight line as you barrel down the runway.
• Pull back gently to take off.
• Raise landing gears with LCtrlG; raise flaps with LCtrlF.

Shooting something

Firing a laser-guided missile.

Making the Su-25 dump a lot of explosives on a target is very easy. Making it hit the target is… not actually that difficult either, but it requires a steady hand, even when — especially when — the guided weapons are used. The only really difficult part is managing the laser designator to ensure it does not burn out prematurely.

• Press 7 to go into AG mode.
• Press D to select the desired pylon.

For any kind of unguided weapon, the rest is just a matter of putting the pipper on the target and pickle. The designator can be used to provide more accurate predictions, but that is all there is. For any of the laser-guided missiles, the process continues:

• Press RShift-O to turn the designator on.
  (The left-side green LED beneath the sight will light up.)
• Use ; , . and / to slew the pipper onto the desired target.
• Press Enter to ground-stabilise the designator.
• When the right-side red LED beneath the sight lights up, release parameters have been met.
• Press Space to fire.
• Avoid violent manoeuvres to not throw the laser off target.
  (The designator can still be slewed and the missile will try to track the new aim point, but be aware of its significant limitations in how much it can adjust in fight.)
• After splash remember to turn the designator off using RShift-O.

Allow the laser to cool down while circling around for a new run. The LED will blink while powering down and cooling off.

More information

• Sukhoi Su-25 on wikpedia.
• Su-25 FROGFOOT Grach (Rook) on globalsecurity.org
• Robert Sogomonian's Su-25T video tutorial series.