Southernbear

If the F-14D Quickstrike and consequently the Super Tomcat 21 and AST21 took off you would end up having the updated cockpit design which you saw on the F-15. It was mostly just a navy thing with rear visibility being the priority since you have the radar out the front to help with spotting there. Plus you have 2 pairs of eyes rather then 1.

U know ED was using Limiter information from NASA for the Viper for the longest time right? because of that the thing kicks in at 5gs and its only since a friend of mine gave them the proper documents are they going to change it. The FMs of these planes are as correct as the Typhoon is going to be to their IRL versions

Will the F-14A that we get, get access to AIM-7E4 and AIM-9Ns? As the F-14 came out with the AIM-7E4 and used it for several months till the AIM-7F and used the AIM-9N in Operation Frequent Wind? And that despite the A we are getting is a 1989+ version could we still see these weapons?

I mean I'll give them slight credit, they did actually recently show progress on the Super tucano and OV-10

This

I'm just sad that it'll now be up to RB to bring us our first true Century fighter...unless (depending on your point of view) you consider the F-110/F-4 a century fighter and that ED can deliver before RAZBAM...but you get my point...

I'm sorry but I need to bring something to attention... I am an avid DCS player...as well as a avid War Thunder player from the game company Gaijin Entertainment...not necessarily by choice anymore...but rather probably more Stockholm syndrome...tho the game does have its high points. I've seen similar issues from RAZBAM before and this is what I would describe as tipping point and I'll be interested in following this issue further... But theres one thing I can't stand for...and its because I've seen it with WT and Gaijin...quite often due to the game suffering from inherent problems what they will do is keep pushing the bar and bring in what us players like to call "new shinys" to detract the player base from the issues at hand... Something I thought I wouldn't see in the DCS community but here we are...we have this Harrier mess and even with what RAZBAM has on their plate module wise and they have the hide to go and reveal this... As a warning don't fall for this kind of derailment and I am quite disappointed that it seems they've stooped to this level given the current situation we all face...

Seems RAZBAM is happy to serve despite the shit fest they find them selves in currently with the Harrier...

As for the F-14D heres the issue. Heatblur about a year or a year and a half ago said a F-14D "might be possible" my guess is they were still looking into it to see if they could add it onto the F-14 module if they wanted too. Turns out the radar isn't the issue as like people have said the APG-70 and such is on the F-15E which we "might get" <------- and I'll get to this in a bit No the real classified parts that are the issue is the PTID and the SparrowHawk/Kaiser HUD The PTID being the big one as it came in many different set ups across the B/U (a B upgrade which is where you first see the use of JDAMs) to the F-14D, here are some pictures: F-14 with the circle radar scope but improved DDD: F-14 with PTID but regular DDD: F-14D with PTID and the upgraded DDD display: As you can see there is many different versions from the B to the D with different arrangements and presumably for these bits of infomation to be still classified is so that Iran can't upgrade their tomcats in the same way (this is why if they chose the F-15A over the tomcat we might have a very different experience then we have today) As for the F-15E even if RAZBAM could get the info on the APG-70 theres no defiant bet they could share it with ED or Heatblur as ED confirmed with the Harrier situation that some weapons for example like the GBU 54/32 RB might not have access to but ED might have access but they still can't share information as some would expect and thus HB might not be able to get access to AGP-70 data either...hell we might not even get the F-15E at this rate due to the shit storm over there with them sneakily saying the Harrier is "Feature complete" when its not...Nineline and the rest are doing a great job trying to communicate with RB to the community because RB doesn't use the forums but yeah...its not pretty. Its defiantly going to lower the confidence of EA buyers for the F-15E and Mig 23 at the very least.

Ah seems after a wonderful sleep the problem seems to have only gotten more complex...welp sorry but I gotta do it to'em. Thank you for you patience in this multi day issue Nineline and others, I know your hands are probably tied when it comes to what you can say and ask.

Ah I see its that time of the month again, Welp only one thing for it... But in all seriousness I'd like to extend a hand of thanks to all of what the ED Community manages have accomplished so far with this current issue.

If Nick gets his way this will be the case. Nick took over the Company when his business partner passed away but it has always only been a passion project for him. Hes openly stated that he much prefers WW2 aerial combat then Modern air combat which is why we got WW2 aircraft in the first place. I expect we'll see much more even before any of the aircraft listed in the OP.

May I remind people the reason the F-104 didn't get kills in Vietnam is because they were used as CAP aircraft to screen against fighters trying to engage Lockheed EC-121 Warning Star EWR aircraft over the sea and that the reason they didn't see much action was because the North saw the F-104 as a tough opponent against the Mig 21s and Mig 17s they had access too so they never bothered going out over the ocean to shoot them down. As for it's terrible safety record two things came into play. 1 the Germans along with the Canadians were using the plane as a nap of the earth conventional and Nuclear strike aircraft rather then a high speed interceptor which it was designed for. Add on top of this that Lockheed basically gave the Luftwaffe no training when transitioning to the new plane from CL-13 Sabres and its no real surprise it has the safety record it does. I mean many of the Canadian losses were bird strikes more then anything. They lost 40% of their fleet before they sold them but only 2 of these incidences were due to mechanical faliure. Used in it's intended role the F-104 was a good aircraft.

I require to know where you have acquired this mod.

Considering how early in development this project is I wanted to make this thread now. Its reasonably clear from the 3D models we've seen that it most likely will be a Lightning F.6 as the F.2A had 4 ADEN cannons and the F.3 dropped the ADEN cannons all together. But what if we could have a little extra? Now work has been made at 3D scanning a Lightning cockpit recently meaning perhaps this ship has sailed but I'd really like to see the lightning we get be a Saudi Arabian F.53 module from RAZBAM. The reason for this is its essentially just a Lightning F.6 with an option of Bombs and rocket pods to give it some extra features and flexibility. It means it still fits into the Falklands map because it still has the Redtops and ADENs and after all with a British skin you won't know the difference but then it means it also fits into the Persian Gulf as well. the changes were "...an additional pair of hard points under the outer wing. These hard points could be fitted with pylons for air-to-ground weaponry, including two 1,000 lb (450 kg) bombs or four SNEB rocket pods each carrying 18 68 mm rockets. A gun pack carrying two ADEN cannons and 120 rounds each could replace the forward part of the ventral fuel tank." Visually the same and the systems are the same but it means we could get a little more bang for our buck. Just some food for thought and I am curious what people's thoughts are on this concept and the Lightning coming to DCS as a whole. Here is an image of a F.53 with her Drop tanks, Bombs and Rocket pack bellow:

And even if it did the Human body's upper limit is 9gs. Where enough training can get (most people) to be able to withstand it for short periods of time without blacking out and even with the training prolonged exposure is very draining.

Huh? my images disappeared...odd well heres several different versions of the PTID here from either F-14B/Us or F-14Ds Oh and here are some differences in the front seat from all the F-14s

At this point I don't care when our F-14A is I just want to know if it'll get access to AIM-7Es and early AIM-9J/Ns as it has been stated before from Cobra that they were looking into it.

In order for the F-14 to use JDAMs we need at least the F-14B/U upgrade. The bombs themselves are not the issue however. The main issue is that parts of that upgrade and consequently the F-14D are still classified. Mainly this is the PTID which was a RIO upgrade and can be seen in several different configurations in these pictures and parts were presumably carried over to the F-15E and the SparrowHawk HUD which can be seen in the last picture from FXS. If this along with the AWG-70 radar in the F-15 wasn't the case then we probably wouldn't need the B/U because we probably would have just gotten a F-14D instead ;)

TBF we have to remember that the F/A-18... HAD NEGATIVE GROUND EFFECT FOR NEARLY A YEAR AN A HALF. the bug was reported around June-July of 2018 and was only fixed around Christmas of 2019-2020. So to say F-14 traps are unrealistic compared to the F/A-18....well at least the F-14 obeys the laws of aerodynamics.

The AMRAAM's 80s range was taken from a F-16 manual which apparently briefly mentioned a flight time of 80s. As for the Hornet and Viper themselves, for what the companies are willing to give they also are willing to give false or under estimation numbers of it's actual capabilities depending on the system/weapon. This is what is believed to have shaped the F-16/18s Radar, systems and weapons. An example of such is when they used NASA data for the F-16's FLCS and G limiter which they are now correcting after being given the right information. So to say guessing is not out of the question isn't entirely true as ED and other devs don't mind "guessing" or bending the truth or what we know of the truth to make all the puzzle bits fit together. Other then that, great post I enjoyed reading it.

Not entirely, the F-4 was put on hold till they got the F-16 and FW-190A8 out...then Supercarrier became the priority so focused moved to that. I HOPED they'd go back to it by 2020 Q3-Q4 but it seems ED wants to announce and WHOLE new thing which is looking likely to be due to the description we've been giving and that its meant to be something completely new as well as the Syria video to probably be either an Apache or something like a Mig 29A. However they did say that they've pushed the F-4 back to late 2021/2022 so at least we now have a rough date.

I mean they said that due to how the Typhoon was made its kinda hard to nail down a Tranch/Block number in the first place and it seems like they'll be making a frankinmodule anyway with it getting the Meteor and IRIS-T missiles and later on the possibility for the AIM-132 ASRAAM for people looking to use a more British Typhoon. It will not be getting the PIRATE IRST at the current time.

It sure would have been interesting if the Japs had taken the F-14 over the F-15. Considering what they did with the F-4 and that it only retired last year you could only imagine what they could've done with the Tomcat. Likewise it would have been interesting if the Iranians took the F-15 over the F-14 and maybe we wouldn't have such issues with the aircraft being such a unicorn in the Aviation community. We can only dream

Ok...well since we are getting an newer F-14A I have a question, I made a forum post a while back which Cobra commented on essentially saying they were trying to do this but, does that mean we can still expect earlier weapons primarily the AIM-7E4 and Early AIM-9s? (J or N I think) so we can use them with the early paints and "pretend" its an F-14A from 1975-80?