near_blind

10-20 degrees of dive is perfectly doable with CCIP.

Rockeyes are very dependent upon their velocity at burst height, and thus the angle at which you drop them. The shallower the drop, the more dispersion, the more effective they'll be. They burst at around 1200 ft AGL, I find I get my best results dropping in pairs using a 10-20 degree dive with a release around 4-5000 feet. Doing this I can reliably kill trucks and light armor (BMPs/BTRs). If RNGesus is smiling upon you, you might also take out a tank or two, but that's not as guaranteed.

The art work for the MAK79 hasn't been created yet, it's on HB's todo list.

'Morning All ED introduced a fix to the autopilot PN values for the AIM-7 in patch 2.5.6.53756 to fix an issue where Sparrows were not able to properly maneuver in their terminal guidance phase. I was perusing through the files and noticed that as of DCS 2.5.6.54046, the F-14's definition of the AIM-7 has not received these changes. I've uploaded an imagine of the diff of the guidance sections for the HB AIM-7M on the left, and the ED AIM-7M on the right. The relevant values are Kconv, Knv, and Ki in the autopilot section. The AIM-7F and AIM-7MH are also affected by this issue.

https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=4254039&postcount=4 Datalinks in DCS have a range limit. The F-14's should be something like 250NM, but players have reported it being less at times. This is something that's apparently a WIP on the backend As for why you can't see datalink contacts in the F-14 at range, but you can in the F/A-18 and F-16, it's probably a foible of how the two systems work. Link 4A is a host-client system, the provider is the only host, and provides information to all clients on that frequency. As for the contact limit, hostile contacts have a greater display priority, and the system should automatically drop friendly contacts for hostiles as they appear if the limit is reached. Link 16 is a peer to peer system, each aircraft on the system rebroadcasts everything it sees, as well as all information it is receiving. In this way information can daisy chain over vast distances from the original provider as long as there are aircraft at intervals to propagate it.

I have definitely had situations where an enemy has shot at me, the RWR will stop indicating the shot due to the emitting enemy leaving the coverage zone of the RWR due to my maneuvering. When the enemy emitter re-enters the scan coverage, the RWR does not categorize it as a launch threat or guiding a missile. It's especially annoying as Jester will recognize the missile in the air, but won't categorize it as radar guided and switches to frantically dropping flares instead of chaff.

Probably not at 11Gs unless the air frame was heavily fatigued.

I'd be curious to read that, as it runs contrary to just about every official document or public interview I've seen. It'd be like someone saying the AIM-7E is superior to an AIM-7M because analogue is simpler.

It's also an oxymoron and makes it more difficult to understand what the poster is trying to say. Lock generally means to track one target to the exclusion of all others, like a trap locking around prey. If someone tells me they're locking a target, I will assume they mean STT. In TWS the radar tracks contacts, in the F-14 the RIO hooks tracks.

The HUD on the F-14B and F-14A are the same. B (Upgrade) got a newer HUD around the year 2000 to bring them closer in line with F-14Ds, but that's out of scope for the aircraft represented by our module.

Your RIO is going to need to put you in Manual release mode. You adjust the pipper using the Elevation Lead knob at the bottom of your right vertical panel.

In reality the laser code for a Paveway is a physically set by the ground crew before takeoff. There is no communication between the targeting pod or the bomb, it's up to the crew to remember what the code for each bomb is. In DCS, for the F-14B you can either set the bomb's laser code in the mission editor, or you can set it via key commands in the kneeboard while sitting on the ground before takeoff (I don't remember if the engines have to be off). Once released the bombs will guide on any laser with the proper code, be it your laser, a buddy's laser, or a laser from a ground unit, it doesn't care. ED allows player to set their bomb codes during flight via the SMS page. In reality this wouldn't actually effect the bomb, but they've made it like that as a convenience to the player.

This is spectacular, thank you for sharing! Messing around with it in the editor, I had a couple of observations. 1) Neither Phalanx can engage targets on the port side of the ship. I was able to get the forward Phalanx to turn left by pasting in the angles from the ED Arleigh Burke (120 to -120). The rear turret simply refuses to turn past 180 degrees, any value given greater than that simply reflects it back to the starboard side of the ship. 2) The aft SeaRAM mount doesn't seem to engage, it just rotates like a radar antenna. 3) Is there any reason that the SeaRAM launchers are configured to fire Sea Sparrows? RAM was added with the super carriers and AFAIK it's not blocked behind the content wall. I'd like to reiterate I really appreciate taking the time and effort to make this.

Why the early retirement for the A in US service? The last 'A' squadron converted in 2004.

16,100 is max internal, but that includes the wing tanks, which drain (and refill) off the same line as the externals. So you're correct, the tanker and jester will never call the rejoin complete unless the probe switch is in the "all" position.

This isn't an issue with the F-14 per se. It effects all aircraft in DCS, and is an issue with ED's flight control logic for the missile. It's been acknowledged by the ED testing team, and I've been told that it has been fixed internally, it just hasn't made it to an Release Candidate yet. See: https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=276732

1) No one has ever held the F-14 up to be the outstanding fusion of men and machine by which all others are judged. It was an iterative improvement over the F-4, but lacked the obvious inspiration that would go into the LFWs later in the decade. That said Grumman didn't design the F-14 to a user base of people who casually fly it on nights and weekends, flight crew spent the better part of a year reading the manuals, going to instruction, and becoming familiar with the aircraft before being sent to an operational squadron. 2) once people get over the mental roadblock that it's the cover affecting the action rather than the button, what it's actually doing isn't anything overly complicated or strange. It gets BVR missiles off the jet faster, it configures the Sparrow to be more useful within 10 miles, it preps the heat seekers if they weren't prepped already, and it increases the gun's ROF. These are all things a pilot would generally want to be doing anyways. It's a novel actuator, but the actual functionality is sound. Later, more digital aircraft would automatically configure these these things contextually rather then rely on discrete pilot input. 3) Having spent a considerable amount of time in a contemporary eastern cockpit, I will take an F-14's office over the haphazardly placed switch bukkake that is the MiG-21Bis cockpit every time when given the choice

It never went away, the 3d model for the MAK adapters doesn't exist yet.

1) This is functionality that came with TWS-A. Auto is constantly attempting to keep as many contacts within its scan volume as possible at any given time, prioritizing tracks that have been shot on. If your targets begin diverging in azimuth by have a similar altitude, then TWS-A will automatically switch from the +- 20 degree / 4 Bar scan to a +- 40 degree / 2 Bar scan. Or back if need be. The radar will stay in TWS-A while tracks with non-timed out missiles exist. I'm not even sure the RIO can override this, but jester certainly won't unless he's bugging out. 2). RWS only displays ambiguous "hits" on the TID, so they won't be IFF'd. Because they are not tracks, they won't have a radar generated velocity vector (be careful, as a correlated datalink target will), nor will it have a shoot order number when the AIM-54 is selected. RWS is a 8 Bar scan compared to a 2 Bar scan in TWS, so the altitude limits will be higher and lower in the former than the latter. Finally jester doesn't play with the azimuth knob, so if the scan volume is following targets around dynamically, it's TWS-A.

From the other TWS thread. The missile shot happens at ~2:30. You can see the AWG-9 momentarily lose track after launch, then reacquire the contact within a frame. However it fails to correlate the held track back to the contact, and the launched track accelerates away from the original datum at Mach: Yes. I've got the track in the original post: https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=4345758&postcount=103 Admin Note: it's best to watch from a bit earlier around 2min, to see what happens. prio2 target basically splits into two targets, whereas the track with the active missile countdown drifts out of the scope, while the "new" track is where the target should be. (edited by IM)

Correct. Raising the ACM cover in the F-14 is a shortcut to configure the aircraft for dog fighting, and will effect each missile differently. For the AIM-54 it means "get this freaking thing off my jet, now!". It'll subtly effect things in different radar modes. For RWS (and probably TWS), the missile will be bore sighted to the aircraft datum line and go active as it launches. In STT or any P-STT mode (which includes PAL/PLM/VSL assuming you have lock), the system will align the AIM-54's seeker with where the AWG-9 is currently looking, giving the missile a better chance of acquisition, but is otherwise still active on launch and unsupported thereafter. You'll still get guidance cues and shoot orders from the radar in TWS, but the system is explicitly ignoring all of that in service off getting the missile of the jet as quickly as possible. By default Jester uses two radar modes. RWS and TWS. For long range search he will start in RWS. Once he has found something, he'll switch to TWS to build information. The easiest way to tell the difference at a glance is jester uses a +- 40 degree 8 bar scan in RWS, and a +-20 degree 4 bar scan in TWS. A fatter cone means Jester's in RWS. A narrower cone + iff + velocity vectors means he's in TWS. If you have the AIM-54 selected, then in TWS the radar will also start generating the shoot order for each target. Take what I'm going to say with a grain of salt, because I haven't reached my coffee quota this morning and I'm struggling to remember the nuanced differences of how DCS used to work, currently works, and is supposed to work compared to how the F-14 is supposed to work in reality. As it is now, when you shoot in TWS or PD-STT the AIM-54 is supposed to work like a giant AMRAAM. It guides towards the target using the F-14's radar until it gets within 7NM, at which point the missile's radar pops on and it will guide itself towards whatever its radar has picked up. If you're seeing the missile fail to acquire after you immediately turn cold with a 30 mile launch, that sounds to me like expected behavior. The missile is not receiving guidance updates from the radar, so it never gets close enough to turn on it's own radar. When you're shooting with the ACM cover up, you're essentially tossing a big javelin down range with "TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN" written on the side. The missile will go after anything that blunders within 7NM of the pointy end due to DCS seekers having a ridiculous field of view. My question is what are you expecting to see? (Full disclosure: There was debate whether ARH missiles using the old missile guidance code were always active off the rail, that is the missile is always on, it just happens to receive updates from the radar while outside of the magic 7NM acquisition zone. I don't remember what was proved or disproved. There is also a bug with the same API that effects the Phoenix where in the missile will receive spooky scary magic guidance to the target even if the radar is off or pointed cold. I think(?) this only shows up in multiplayer. In either case(?) chaff should also effect the missile, and due to a separate issue, the will start chaffing heavily when launched on, even in TWS. This could also be effecting your missile).

It's more of a feature of how HB modelled the radar than a bug. Power helps you see further and overpower certain kinds of jamming, it won't help you see any clearer. That's a matter of how the radar's beam and its signals processing, and here it's important to remember that the AWG-9 is built upon 1960s computational technology; there's only some much you can wring out of it. Even then, all radars will have greater difficulty discerning individual aircraft flying closely together at longer ranges, and depending on the geometry breaking them out might not be possible. As for what do you do? It's highly situational. Generally when an adversary is flying like that, they're attempting to exploit your timeline to get someone outside of your radar's scan zone for an unobserved attack. Say there are four MiG-28s flying at you in close formation. You go STT to lock up the one radar contact, and the other aircraft know you've narrowed your focus to one target, so they split in different directions hoping you won't be able to see them, or see where all of them went. As you shoot on the guy you have locked, one or more sneak around you and hit you with heat seekers. They don't necessarily need to wait for you to go STT, they just need to have an understanding of when you are likely to start sorting targets before engaging, which is usually a couple of miles more than the max range of your missiles. The way you solve this is to fly with one or more friends, coordinate what areas of the sky you are scanning so that between your flight, you are covering as much of the area in front of you with your radar as practical and understanding that if one enemy fighter ballsy enough to come after two or four of you, he's probably either foolhardy or planning something sneaky. In either case be prepared for anything. If you don't fly with others, leave. You're as fast or faster than anything in the game, and have plenty of gas. Finally, you have Phoenixes, they don't. The post hole is prefaced on the assumption that the unobserved aggressor can cover the distance to the target before the target can finish the engagement and start rebuilding situational awareness. That proposition is a lot more iffy if you can start raining down missiles from 60 miles. Best case, you get multiple kills with one missile shot. Worst case, you disrupt their formation and gain a better understanding of what's facing you.

For the AIM-54A at least, yes. This is one of the things that should be addressed when the missile API opens up.

There's currently an issue with Sparrows across all aircraft that prevents them from maneuvering properly when they approach a target. Otherwise I haven't seen anything unusual about failing to acquire targets or the like.

How fast was the helicopter going? Quoting the manual: "because of the way the radar operates the doppler filters it will have two blind ranges. The main lobe clutter (MLC) region which contains most of the ground returns, those returning with zero groundspeed is one of them and is 266 knots wide, centered around own aircraft groundspeed (133 knots slower and 133 knots faster). This is the reason that the radar can be notched as a target with the same relative groundspeed as the ground will also be filtered out." Most likely the helicopter was moving slow enough that the AWG-9 filtered it out of the Pulse Doppler modes, and if you're flying alone Jester only knows how to use PD search modes. If you know where the helicopter is, you'd probably be able to lock it fine in PAL, PLM, or either of VSL modes.