Strapping in 2023

Happy new year, everyone!

Looking Back - A Year of Loss, Turmoil & Grit

For me, 2022 was a year of ups and downs. On one hand, I have realized one of the hardest projects I have ever worked on. On the flip side, events in my personal life have tested me to my breaking point. I have learned some hard lessons along the way, but that's just how it is sometimes. Happiness is a fickle creature, but in my mind there is no point in dwelling on what was lost; sometimes, all you have to do is slam those throttles forward, light the cans and move on.

The completion of the first iteration of the AH-64 Apache guide has proven to be more difficult than anticipated, but I am glad I was able to power through and deliver something to you fine folks in time for Christmas. I hope some new DCS players give this great attack helicopter a try... it's a fantastic module.

As most of you may already know by now, Mudspike is shutting down. Back in 2018, the owner of the Mudspike website BeachAV8R graciously offered me a place to host my guides. In those days, my work was relatively unknown and the DCS Hornet had not even come out yet. As years went by and the guide library expanded, what had started as a small-time operation turned into something exponentially bigger in scale and complexity. The library now has more than 11,000 pages in total. Terabytes of downloads each month, website stability issues due to increased traffic, bot attacks, increased maintenance workload to keep all of this running... Amazing tech wizards Fearlessfrog, Troll and Fridge spent countless hours helping me keeping the lights on, but I think we all knew the adventure had to end sooner or later. I am immensely grateful for BeachAV8R's generosity and selflessness in providing a unique online hub for flight simmers to discuss and fly in the virtual skies together. I am sad to see the website go, it genuinely feels like losing an old friend... and I will definitely miss it. However, more importantly, I am grateful that such a great website and friendly community existed in the first place.

With the help of a kind and generous soul (thanks Daniel!), I have found a new home at https://chucksguides.com/, which is where you will find the latest versions of my guides. As I have already mentioned in a previous post, the next few weeks will be a kind of "test run" to work out the kinks and see what works (or not) with the website. Expect some changes/improvements down the line, but I believe what we have now is functional enough to be useful to the community.

As a recap, here is a brief list of what I worked on throughout the year:

• Mirage 2000C Guide Update (Late December 2021)
• F-16 Viper Guide Update (January 2022)
• Mosquito Guide Update (February 2022)
• Mi-24 Hind Guide Update (February 2022)
• JF-17 Thunder Guide Update (February 2022)
• F-5E Tiger Guide Update (March 2022)
• AH-64 Guide Creation (From March 2022 to December 2022)

Looking Forward - A Year of Strong Winds

Surprising no one, the DCS 2023 and Beyond video has once again shown us a breathtaking glimpse into the future. We have seen some amazing upcoming modules such as the F-4E Phantom II, F-15E Strike Eagle, F4U Corsair, C-130J Hercules, La-7, F6F Hellcat, and OH-58D Kiowa Warrior.

My immediate priority for the moment is to provide some important updates to the existing guide library (F-86 Sabre, MiG-15, JF-17, F/A-18, Mosquito, Mi-24, F-16, Harrier and Ka-50 Black Shark III among other things). Once that is done, I should be able to move on to the Mirage F1.

The F-4E Phantom II is probably one of my favorite 1970's fighter jets ever... so you can bet it will be very high on my priority list. Knowing Heatblur Simulations' reputation, we are in for a treat. Something tells me that this is going to be a demanding but really fun project.

I am aware that RAZBAM's F-15E Strike Eagle is also likely to be one of the community's most requested guide. I will have to think carefully about when I can start working on it since it might end up being a very complex and very long-winded project. I have spent 9 months working on the Apache guide... I will have to plan things better if I want my workload to remain manageable.

One last thing... the CH-47 Chinook. This is one of these helicopters I have been wanting to fly in DCS ever since the UH-1 Huey was released. I am incredibly excited for this module and I cannot wait to start flying it and write on it. Helicopters are something Eagle Dynamics has always been great at simulating, so I am happy to see them focusing on my beloved Chinook.

So... that's pretty much where we're at right now. Stay tuned!

Chuck