near_blind

I swear I've read at least one book that refers to the F-14C as an avionics upgrade scheduled for the late 70s/early 80s, and the CONUS Interceptor variant/abomination being referred to separately, but ultimately it's semantics, neither was ever funded. The rest of that information was extremely interesting. Thanks :thumbup:

My understanding was less so much testing, and more as a way to expedite the F-14 to the fleet. Get the ball rolling with the A's, then once the F401 matured, switch production to the B and retrofit the F401 into existing As. The C would have then upgraded the electronics/radar. But they could never get the F401 to work as well as promised, and then the TF30s started developing problems (kept exploding), and congress stepped in and cancelled the F401 in addition to a bunch of of things to try and cut cost overruns.

The scale on the left is a representation of the aircraft's vertical velocity. The scale on the right is radar altitude. edit: Sniped, lol.

...and? Seriously, this is the story of like every flight sim since the mid 90s. Feeling entitled and getting upset isn't doesn't help anything, and it isn't going to make the jet arrive any faster.

No, DCS has some pretty big gaps on western weapons in the 70s and 80s, and this chart is misleading because of that. In the 1960's and 70's the US Navy and the USAF both developed parallel families of the AIM-9, the AIM-9E/J/N/P and the D/G/H respectively. In the early 70s this practice was put to a stop, and a single unified weapon was demanded, which would become the AIM-9L. The L entered service in 1977, is all aspect, and kinematically is almost identical to the AIM-9M. The -9M entered service in 1983, introducing new IRCCM features and a less smokey motor. Likewise the AIM-7 of 1974 was the AIM-7E-4, the last of the Vietnam era Sparrows. In 1976 the AIM-7F entered service, which greatly increased reliability and kinematic range by transitioning entirely to solid state electronics, and thus providing space for a larger two state booster, though it's effective range was limited to 20 miles by the radar seeker. The AIM-7M (what we have in game), entered service in 1982.

To be fair, I'm advocating a Norwegian sea map over Iceland. The MiG-31 has inferior maneuverability, a more advanced but comparably capable radar, inferior weapons load, inferior weapons range and capability, slightly superior speed, and a slightly superior fighter-datalink. I will gladly take that fight seven days a week.

Invasions of Iceland aside, the primary task of the Navy in any hypothetical war with the soviets would be contesting/controlling the Norwegian Sea and failing that, protecting the GIUK gap. The goal would be to get as far north as practicable to interdict soviet submarines on their way south, destroy the northern surface fleet, support the Norwegians (and Sweden if they got drawn in some how), and just generally keep Soviet northern forces from playing a decisive role in the fight for central Europe either by direct attack or destruction of vital supply convoys. During peace time they spent more time outside of that theater because most of the trouble spots were in the middle east (Iran, Libya, Lebanon, Iraq), and because the Norwegian Sea is a terrible place to conduct carrier operations. The weather is terrible, the temperature is terrible, and aside from randomly popping into flip the bird at the odd Sov, there was no need to loiter.

If I were to take a wild guess, it looks like something that's late 19th Century Industrial and of the American west. Something to do with one of the old Nevada mines, or a railroad?

As far as I know Navy RIOs/WSOs aren't given flying instruction and Navy tactical aircraft don't have flight controls in the back seat. The Air Force approaches this differently, their jets have controls in the back, and their WSOs receive at least a rudimentary amount of stick time so they're comfortable with the jet and can conceivably bring it back in an emergency. This does not count as an actual pilots qualification however.

I'm assuming at this point you're supersonic? You must be in MIL while exiting afterburner above the mach. Otherwise you get a compressor stall.

Fascinating! :D I had never heard the A's got PTIDs as well, thanks for that picture. I'd love for this to happen, but you know what they say about putting carts before horses.

Not necessarily. The LANTIRN and Avionics (HUD/PTIDs) were two separate programs, and not mutually inclusive programs. F-14B squadrons could receive the LANTIRN upgrade without the new cockpits. I also know that particularly young F-14A frames got them as well (e.g. VF-154, VF-41), and as far as I know the avionics upgrades were never approved for the A models. All of this would imply the old "Fishbowl" TID could display the LANTIRN image.

A sense of humor is a terrible thing to lack.

I'd like to know more, but I'm pretty sure it's classified.

Kinda looks like Mount Suribachi.

Oh I'm aware. :) I primarily fly the Eagle until I can get something naval, and if I'm ever on the PVP servers chances are I'm flying with a buddy who is twice the Eagle driver I'll ever be. My reply Scytale were an attempt to explain the prevailing attitude that the Flanker is literally the worst in BVR, and you must hill fight to have any chance to succeed. Is the Flanker at a disadvantage against an AIM-120 equipped Eagle? yes. It is still an extremely capable fighter however, and with a little strategy and some cleverness you can make it work in BVR.

:music_whistling:

Very much this. Flankers can survive in the open if they use cooperative tactics, and have a good wingman with whom they are communicating and who is actively supporting them. However if you're randomly joining an MP server, you're not likely to find this sort of cohesive teamwork.

If you're referring to Santi's guide, he pretty much spells out what he's advocating are not real life tactics, but tactics to kill things in DCS. The general tactics Sryan is advising here, getting high and fast, shooting long, and then cranking will be applicable to any fighter with BVR missiles. The air is thinner up high, so there is less drag and your missiles will fly further. Likewise the faster you go, the faster your missile will be traveling a launch, the further it travels. In DCS Flanker drivers tend to shun these tactics for a few reasons. One is the Flanker itself. The Su-27S, the model in game, is very much a product of late Soviet air doctrine, which dictates that a fighter/interceptor is not an independent tool, but something that is controlled remotely by an airborne or ground based air controller. The controller will select a target for a flight, direct the flight to the target, and only the terminal attack phase is in the hands of the pilot. In this fashion the Flanker's avionics are designed less for independently searching for and acquiring a target, but rather attacking a preselected target, and building the pilot's situation awareness about the larger fight around him. That is not to say that the Su-27 is helpless when it's left to its own devices, it just doesn't have as easy of a time as the Eagle. Another is the current state of missiles. A years back ED implemented advanced flight modelling for all air to air missiles, however the programming by which the missiles guide are still optimized for the previous flight model. They will pull far too many Gs at inappropriate times, and generally do everything in their power to bleed airspeed, artificially reducing the range of the missile. Arguably another problem is the flight model itself, which people on the forums who are smarter than I am have argued implements an overly conservative drag coefficient at lower altitudes, again robbing the missiles of airspeed. Next DCS models chaff in a probabilistic manner, meaning that each bundle of chaff released has a fixed percentage to decoy a missile, regardless of engagement geometry or pilot manuevers. Compounding this issue, the SARH missiles in game appear to have far worse chaff rejection than the ARH missiles. Finally network packet loss effects missile guidance in game. If a player that is being locked has packet loss, they will either warp, or disappear, causing a missile to make extremely violent turns to maintain guidance or a radar to lose lock respectively. ARH missiles are slightly more resilient to this, as they can reacquire a lost contact. Finally there are also the missiles themselves. With the exception of the MiG-29S, all playable russian fighters in FC3 are limited to either the R-27 or R-27E family of missiles as their sole BVR weapon, which are either SARH or IR missiles depending on the model. In contrast the F-15s have access to the AIM-120 family, which are ARH. This means that in any engagement, once the AIM-120 has activated its own seeker, the Eagle pilots have the choice of electing to disengage and go defensive (be that notching, or plain running), and still have a decent probability of scoring a kill. In contrast, with the exception of the R-27T/ET, the Flankers are forced to stay hot and maintain lock if they want any chance of achieving a kill. These factors, in combination with the inherently disorganized nature of DCS multiplayer discourage BVR in the Russian fighters. The Americans have an aircraft that can better display information, and have more advanced missiles that are more resistant to the intricacies of the game. Additionally Russian aircraft are armed with an excellent dogfight missile, the R-73, which has a helmet mounted acquisition mode, HOBS capability, and is both extremely maneuverable and resilient to counter measures. All of these factors encourage the current Russian meta, which is get low, get fast, utilize maximum terrain masking, sparingly use the radar, and try and make stealthy ambush attacks on the relatively disadvantaged American fighters. Now, this is a valid "real life tactic", however it is generally one used by a disadvantaged force that is attempting to attrit a larger, superior force while minimizing friendly casualties and preserving your forces. Think VPAF hit and run tactics in Vietnam. The problem is that while you can contest airspace and inflict casualties, this technique will never allow you to control the airspace. If you start and stay low both you and your missiles will be at a disadvantage if you're trying to shoot at anything above you.

Comrade, why do you forget glorious aircraft of Tupolev design bureau number 16?

Touché :) My concern isn't so much that I can't read things in the cockpit (as you pointed out leaning is quite an effective solution). It's more that currently I have a ~60 degree FOV using the Vive, and that makes maintaining visual contact with anything behind my 3/9 line exceedingly difficult, with it becoming more harder the closer they get to my six. Perhaps I haven't configured something correctly?

I see. Is this a set VR thing, or has ED mentioned anything about changing this in the future?

Is there currently anyway to zoom in or out, or otherwise change the FOV while using the Vive?

I don't want to disparage Starway as I think the quality of his work is great, but the winter palette he's chosen looks like the most depressing part of winter. Enough of the snow has melted that it's no longer pretty to look at, but enough is there to still be a nuisance. And it's cold, and cloudy, and everything is wet... ugh. A nice snow covered field is way more pleasing to look at. :P

Powerplant doesn't really effect DCS as there is no simulation of ship logistics. As for the class? The Nimitz is being done by ED. The Enterprise, Kitty Hawks and Forrestalls are all equally interesting choices for the era of the F-14. If I had to guess, I'd say it's because outside of the Midways, the Forrestals are the most underrepresented class of carriers when it comes to flight sims.