Dragon1-1

Yeah, that would've been a very worn out airframe. I've heard stories of no less than two incidents in which a part broke which was stated to "never break" in the docs, presumably because it was overdesigned with respect to the rest of the aircraft. Sending up spares when one aircraft scheduled to fly had an issue was a common occurrence, notably unlike Hornet squadrons. The F-14 we have modeled is in a somewhat better shape, about a decade younger, and with a few hundred fewer carrier traps and training dogfights behind it. That means you can get away with some abuse without the wings falling off. Pre-FBW jets are entirely dependent on the pilot respecting their limits, HB modeled this, as well as the safety margins. For what it's worth, in words of one Tomcat instructor, the F-14B is "as close to a rocketship as the Navy has" when in clean configuration and at about half fuel. So the comparison to the X-15 isn't entirely unwarranted. You could plug in the blower, pick up some speed, then zoom off about halfway to space in a vertical climb. Even towards the end of its service life, despite the G and mach restrictions, it could put up a fight in the vertical.

It's contract law 101, regardless of jurisdiction. If the terms of the contract are violated, then the contract is rendered void, and the penalty clauses (if present) kick in. Since the contract is what tells ED company to pay RAZBAM, should it be violated by either party, there would be no basis to pay out any money that is not already due. You're free to read up on the particulars on some Swiss government website, however I highly doubt that it's very different from how contract law works in the EU. In any case, this could be further complicated by the exact wording of the contract, which we aren't privy to. I suggest you stop getting high on hopium and actually look at all the evidence, including Ron's past antics, not only ED's. You're the one showing bias here, steadfastly refusing to see that RAZBAM's statements are pretty obviously designed to manipulate the audience, and ignoring facts that you find inconvenient. Thankfully, you seem to be the only one who actually bought into that.

Did you actually try sweeping the wings back forward after pulling 12G? Because if you did, you might find that indeed, the wing box pinions didn't like your stunt at all, and your wings are now stuck in the "optimum position". If you pull that 12G in DCS, chances are you will find yourself missing something, like your INS, wing sweep or a gauge somewhere. Or not, it's pretty random what breaks and when. I don't know if we have stab flutter, but you overload the plane at your own peril. Yes, in DCS the F-14 can survive a 12-14G overload condition and keep flying, but fortunately it can't simulate the "conversation" with the crew chief that would ensue after you came back (not without increasing the age rating of the sim, anyway ). Also, when did your son fly the Tomcat? That's important, too. In later years in particular, F-14s were severely derated for both maximum Gs and speed. They could, if you pushed it, still achieve it physically, but unless you did it to save your or someone else's life, actually doing so would get you chewed out by the CAG and the airframe would likely be written off. HB is working on modeling airframe wear, but right now, AFAIK we have them in a state they'd between the 80s and 90s. Not brand sparkling new, but not the perpetually broken down hangar queens they were in the mid-2000s. As for controls, yeah, DCS is best experienced in VR (get a good headset and this fixes the peripheral vision problem), and with as many button boxes and physical switches as you can afford. Modules are designed with this in mind, every dev basically assumes you'll bind everything important to a HOTAS/button box, then use the mouse for the rest. Using a low button count stick and a keyboard does complicate things, the default bindings are a bit of a wild west. You can do controls standardization yourself, but it's a pain to change every module to your liking. Worth noting, the MiG-21 and Cessna 172 don't have the same brake controls - the MiG has a pneumatic wheel brake, which is controlled with a stick lever and rudder pedals (it also has a nose gear brake, which you can turn on and off by a switch). The gear lever in a MiG also has three positions, not two, and if you leave it up, you'll use up the compressed air and end up having no brakes when landing. So in many cases, the controls are quite different, and an experienced Western pilot jumping into a vintage Russian jet is in for quite a few surprises.

I'm pretty sure recent changes from the Apache will be backported to some extent. Petrovich and George are pretty much the same subsystem.

Maybe we can talk under Ron's comment on X (well, some of us, I don't have an account and keep well clear of that cesspool). Seeing as Musk allows pretty much anything there, I doubt he'd have issues with my preferred terms for Ron, or with discussing certain things. Judging from the comments so far, the vast majority seem to be in torches and pitchforks mode, and for most part not directed against ED, so to speak.

Remember that there's an NDA (mentioned in one of ED's post) over the important aspects of the whole thing. I don't think that Ron actually broke it, but the fact he's willing to skirt its edges tells you something about him. Following an NDA is essentially a lot like handling classified information, the best way to avoid leaking something is to give the whole subject a wide berth. That's what responsible people do, as anyone who's had anything to do with classified or otherwise sensitive information knows. ED is being careful with their statements because if they started talking, they'd be risking an NDA violation, which would not help their case. Ron is bound by an NDA, too, but he's been a lot less responsible about it. His last message was likely a lame attempt at influencing public opinion, just like his previous ones. Elon Musk he ain't, not matter how big his ego, and DCS players are a bit smarter than the average Musk fanboy, so it doesn't have a very great chance of working. That said, given his history, I doubt RAZBAM will, in its current form, be working with ED in the future. We'll see what comes out of it, but my hopes aren't high at this point. Ron might well cut the cooperation out of spite, particularly if the final settlement doesn't favor him (of course, AFAIK the only sim community that he hasn't screwed over at that point is a WWII one, not exactly his forte).

Yup, this is the new reality for everything Chinese in the US. Tariffs are ultimately paid by the consumer, this is what you're seeing.

It's from the RAZBAM CEO, so if he says he's given up on resolving the matter, I'm afraid we can expect very little from anyone else. If he won't play ball, then I just don't see how anyone else can do anything about it. What I'd like to know is what ED is planning to do with it going forward. I would actually prefer if the Mudhen was done by Heatblur, full as their plate is, since it's a multicrew aircraft and despite the fact the pilot can do everything the WSO can, the backseater is nonetheless a very important part of operating it. Too bad that the Harrier is probably too niche and weird for anyone else to make it, but hey, maybe the MiG-19 could go to the Red Star people, their -17 is shaping up nicely.

Everything so far had been SFM, GFM has not been released yet. Fuel issues is mostly because AI sucks at managing their fuel. They use AB willy-nilly, fly at full power as opposed to efficient cruise, and don't respect any sort of bingo, so they continue wasting gas until they fall out of the sky.

I think ED actually has some debugging tools to analyze tracks, in addition to what the sim normally provides. They might be able to pull better data than we do with them.

The WP radar wasn't actually downgraded all that much, AFAIK. The main difference was lacking one single radar mode with better ECCM, and there are reports from Serbian pilots in Yugoslavia using that mode in combat, so even that's not certain (apparently, this mode worked similar to VS mode in Western radars and wasn't very popular with pilots). The 9.12B, sold to 3rd world countries, was the one with a significant downgrade. In any case, R-27ER and ET use exactly the same seeker as regular R and T. Same mounting interface, too. The only important thing that's different is the big honkin' rocket booster at the back. The R-27 family is essentially modular, this is why so many variants exist.

Relying on any single system opens you to that system being targeted. If StarShield becomes an essential component of the US military technology, the first thing potential adversaries will do is develop ASAT weapons capable of taking the system out. You can't prevent satellite overflights of any given territory, including enemy ASAT sites so there's no good way, other than putting active defenses on the sats themselves (driving up mass and cost) to make sure they won't get shot down. For constellations, killing one sat will create a debris cloud that could damage the others, making this a massive risk. In fact, this is one reason why Reagan's Star Wars program didn't go anywhere. INS should be enough to get home, at least with enough accuracy to get a visual on the airfield, or an ILS fix. However, there needs to be a way of setting up the ILS and enabling it without using the LAD, not to mention stuff like switching waypoints and taking INS fixes.

That it isn't new doesn't mean it can't fail. In most aircraft, an MFD failing isn't a huge deal, so it doesn't go in the news, they just fix it before the next flight. The LAD hasn't been around for very long, there are probably some contingencies for a total failure, but I'm not sure how well they'll work in practice. Of course, it also helps that fighters are flown much less than airliners, when we consider the total flight hours. I'm a bit worried that the engineers, while they know what they're doing, might have different priorities than we'd hope. "It's cheaper that way" mentality had caused a few aviation accidents over the years. The LAD is nice because it's cost-effective, you've got one screen, no buttons and minimum maintenance requirements. Of course, the F-35 has an ejection seat, which probably affected the calculation as well.

It can't if it's being jammed. This is another crucial failure point of many modern systems. This is also the issue with using the datalink: what if the enemy manages to jam it? GPS jamming is fairly straightforward, it's easy to degrade it to the point it can't be used for landing or PGM delivery. With datalinks, it depends, but reliability of a high bandwidth system in a hostile EW environment will be suspect. All the other suggestions rely on another system that would have to be added (and cost money). I would propose a minimum fuss, minimum problems solution: display the data in simplified form on the HMD. You don't need a full color high resolution map, just enough to get the jet home. Fuel and remaining time could be displayed by pressing a button, that alone would improve the situation somewhat. That alone would allow proper fuel planning. In general, in case of an electronics failure, you want to give control to the pilot, not to more electronics. An airliner is in a better situation because it doesn't rely on a single screen. Having two crewmembers, it usually would have at least two displays. This gives it a basic measure of redundancy a fighter LAD lacks.

There's a reason I gave ED more of a benefit of doubt that I gave Ron. I stated it. Reading comprehension 101. I'll change my opinion if you ever offer more than wild handwaving and wishful thinking. If you want to change reality by wishing very hard it was different, go to church and start praying, instead of posting here. Chances of success are similar, but the priest won't be telling you it won't work. Yes, it is. Non-payment is a normal and expected response to a breach of contract. Or do you want me to believe that Ron went "they're not paying us on time? Fine, we'll spend more money making a module for another of their products, for which EAF will pay us directly. That'll show them". It just doesn't work that way. I'll admit it's not impossible, given the quality of Ron's previous decision making, but it's still highly unlikely. And even ED's payment issues did come first, notice how HB seemed to have been able to resolve that without all the drama we're seeing now (or making an unauthorized module for the military version of the sim). What seems more likely to me, again based on Ron's previous conduct, that he expected to draw an equivalence between those two situations, only for HB to call BS and refuse to back him. What you are doing is making the very equivalence tried very hard to get other people to make: ED doesn't have a perfectly clean record, so obviously it's their fault again. What he overlooked, and you willingly ignore, is that this situation is a little different and one party has a little bit more documented screwups. So to speak. The offer on the bridge is still good, BTW. Very good condition, hardly ever used. I'll even throw in the original vintage railings.

Yeah, it never works, except in ODS and OAF, when it did. When you're targeting an airfield, a military base, or any sufficiently large gathering of conventional forces, a B-52 strike tends to be rather effective. You seem to be confusing destroying the enemy's ability to fight with breaking the enemy's will to fight. The latter is kind of hard to destroy with bombs, but when facing a regular army, the former is very much doable, and made much easier by being able to deliver a lot of big explosives. US loses like Vietnam and Afghanistan were against guerilla movements, which require a more comprehensive approach to fight.

My mistake, it was found on 737s. The directive recommended checking all Boeings, though, including 787s. However, since it was optional, Air India has explicitly been said to have not complied with it. Meaning that, assuming the pilots didn't treat the lack of toggle locks as normal from the start, complains about it wouldn't necessarily have gone anywhere. And yes, such a minor thing not getting fixed for 7 years is perfectly plausible. Either way, since that part was pulled from the wreckage, they will undoubtedly check this. This is being investigated right now, but we need to remember that even without the locking toggle, those switches are pretty hefty. It'd be hard for them to get flipped down all by themselves. Nobody wants to bring up accusations of pilot suicide, but switches don't simply flip themselves. Even with a worn out switch missing a locking toggle, it'd take a very powerful jolt to actually flip.

B-52 has a simple role which hasn't changed in 100 years: low threat delivery of a massive load of bombs. There's no magic here, you need a great big plane, a great big bomb bay, and... that's basically it. You don't deploy the B-52 where you expect it to be shot at by anything, instead you surround it with enough fighters and SEAD that even though the enemy knows you're coming, they can't do a damn thing about it. It is, by far, the most efficient way of pounding the enemy into submission once air defenses and fighter bases had been taken down, possibly by B-21s. Another role it fulfills is a long range cruise missile boat, shared with similarly old Tu-95. It's rarer to see it do this, but it can. All you need is a big plane with big racks capable of hauling a lot of mass. Once again, B-52 delivers, and you don't need to fix what isn't broken.

Because I haven't seen a single shred of this alleged evidence? Ron's previous antics are out there for all to see. Is it prejudice? You could argue that. There's, however, also a saying: fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. Past behavior is an absolutely valid argument with regards to present behavior. If someone has a habit of not keeping their word, are you just going to blindly say "I'm sure they kept their word this time, and the other guy may be wrong"? Well, if you do, I have a bridge to sell you. And if he really is innocent... tough luck, should've stuck to his word the first N times he didn't. It's going to take really good evidence to convince me otherwise. FYI, courts and judges look at one's past behavior all the time, and it's not considered prejudice. Yeah, it sucks for the occasional convicted thief falsely accused of stealing something, but this situation is rather less common than a thief stealing again, and usually actual evidence saves the day in the end. Give me evidence of ED's shady behavior and my calculation will change. In my experience, past behavior is a pretty good indicator for future behavior, unless someone suffered a drastic consequence for their shortcomings, or less often a general life-altering event. There's nothing weird about the language. It basically means "they screwed around and found out, but we'd rather settle out of court and have them go back to business rather than sue them". A lawsuit is a last resort, and tends to be hugely expensive for everyone involved. There's a reason the vast majority of them are settled out of court. In fact, it's very likely a full blown lawsuit would drive a small company like RAZBAM into the ground regardless of the outcome. What he's saying here is that ED is not interested in driving RAZBAM out of business, but would rather have them continue to develop their modules. Which is a sensible business strategy. Only one of the parties is posting obviously manipulative statements that appear to be designed to inflict pressure on the other party. Only one of them is using paying customers as hostages. Meanwhile, you appear to be engaging in naive bothsideism. ED might have their problems, but again, vague hearsay about them breaking contract doesn't quite equate to Ron's well documented history of hotheaded decisions and blaming everyone but himself.

Trailing plane will fall out of the sky in this case. This is because in this scenario, you're reacting to what the leader does. If you both firewall the throttles in sync, you will stay together, but what is going to happen is that you'll see the leader going full thrust, and only then apply power of your own. This will produce a lag, normally when flying formation you could correct it by adding more power and then pulling it back, but as you're both at full power, you can't. So you will fall behind/below, and if you try to maintain your position in the formation, you will start trading airspeed for altitude, putting you behind the curve and stalling the jet. If you don't, you will eventually settle into the same climb profile as the leader, but the gap that will have opened up between you noticing the acceleration and engine reaching full power (a surprisingly large delay with a slow spooling jet) will remain considerable. You would also have to only start climbing when your engine spool up, not when the leader does, as otherwise you'll climb too early and likewise end up behind the curve. Max rate climb is a very unforgiving maneuver.

If you read the report, this wasn't necessarily the case. Several Dreamliners were found to be flying with the toggle locking feature disabled. Boeing issued an advisory directive to fix it, but Air India didn't implement it, since compliance with it isn't mandatory. Also, as those switches are toggled before every flight, and exist in every Boeing airliner, any pilot who flew one for any length of time had, indeed, practiced. I flip the toggle locking switch on my Winwing PTO with barely more effort than a regular toggle, it's smaller and lighter than those, but someone with strong hands could probably have pulled them both out at once. It would be awkward, but if you're flipping them several times a day, you might get into habit of doing it like this.

A real aviation switch of this size would be pretty stiff, to the point where it'd be odd if they were both actuated at exactly the same time, unless toggle lock was disabled. Of course, the condition of the aircraft would also play part, but I highly doubt they could be jostled or bumped by accident. I doubt any Dreamliner had been flying long enough to actually wear those switches out.

If you can make it, you'd do it by luck, and probably not in IMC, because without the LAD, actually selecting the point you want to fly to and enabling ILS is probably difficult, if possible at all. I'd hope that there are HOTAS options to, at least, get the aircraft home if the LAD suddenly decides to go blank. Losing tactical systems isn't too bad, because you're not really fit to fight if you lose even one MFD in a more traditional cockpit, it's not quite as bad, but you generally want to get home ASAP anyway. The biggest problem with LAD, IMO, is loss of engine instruments (particularly fuel flow) and the fuel indicators, robbing you of all means of endurance calculation. Other than that, the HMD can display enough information to keep the aircraft flying mostly straight and in the right direction, if you can select the home plate by HOTAS.

If it can be contained at all. ED tried, and would have kept it contained had RAZBAM CEO not brought it into public. It should have stayed internal, and that's how ED has been trying to handle it. Sometimes you can't help when the other party insists on not cooperating. It's a little different. Yes, I want my teeth to be fixed and my money back (as compensation for me having to live with the results of their mistake). However, in that case, I can also settle for my money back, and then more money to pay someone else, entirely unrelated, for fixing my teeth properly. If the practitioner had a spat with the owner, then I might be inclined to take the second option rather than bother with waiting for them to resolve their differences. In that case, there are options that I, as a customer, can take to affect my personal outcome. DCS is a closed environment, so no such luxury. You can buy those modules from RAZBAM (Falklands aren't affected, BTW, only the aircraft), or you can keep your money. There aren't multiple Mudhens to choose from in DCS. In fact, I've had a front row seat to something quite similar last year (already related in one of the thread's previous incarnations, BTW). A group of people signed up for a trip to the Arctic onboard a sailing ship, starting from Iceland. They all flew to Iceland only to find the captain who was bringing the ship to Iceland had wrecked the engine and the headsail, so they weren't going anywhere. They rightfully asked the ship's owner for their money back... but the owner has no money, because the insurance company won't pay, and they won't pay because the captain insists he's the hero for sailing his crew out of a storm he sailed them into in first place. He also blames the ship, the crew before him (on which I was on, which is how I know it's BS, my captain also couldn't believe the man's chutzpah), and everything but himself. I'm following the case because aside from my own good name as a sailor (which isn't really in doubt, given that nobody believes the other captain's story), I also have some paltry sum of money I'm supposed to get back, and I also know the ship's owner is a great guy who doesn't deserve to be out of pocket for someone else's bad seamanship. The whole thing is hopelessly stuck in court. In this case, I know the ship's owner did his best to vet the captains, he sailed with the guy, there were no indications back then that he'd do something like that, though others have now gone on record he was known to take unnecessary risks as captain. Still, given that sailing was literally the man's day job, this brouhaha is on him and him alone, as far as I'm concerned. Oh, and he also lacked proper insurance, meaning that when the court does rule against him, actually getting all the money out of him is unlikely.

Doing that perfectly, 100% of the time, is very much superhuman. We're not just talking a well trained pilot, we're talking one who can magically teleport the stick from one side to the other. We're talking one who can guess his airspeed perfectly at all times while keeping his eyes glued to the bandit (and simultaneously looking behind, the AI is that good). We're talking one who can continuously hold perfect trim, disregarding the imprecisions in the trim switch, or even the need to actuate it. In fact, I'm pretty sure nobody actually trims mid-fight. DCS AI does, it's always in perfect trim like an FBW jet. I agree that most players don't even meet the criteria of simply flying well, and the MiG-15 is a real beast when flown well. However, no real pilot is going to hold corner speed to the knot while not looking at the airspeed dial. We simmers are seriously disadvantaged in the G load department, but a pilot's butt isn't a super-precise G indicator. You can be good at guessing, but you don't have a HMD, so in a dogfight, the MiG-15 needs to be flown by feel to some degree. Otherwise, you'd spend so much time staring at the gauges that you lose tally.