Dragon1-1

AAR is formation flying. Once you understand that, it's much easier to do. Curves are unnecessary, or even harmful. Find yourself a visual reference that isn't the basket (aiming with the gun cross usually works OK) and use it to judge where you are in the envelope. Also, start with the KC-130. If you try to do it with the S-3D, you're in for a frustrating time, that's the hardest tanker to refuel from. Once you can do it with the Herc, move on to the S-3D.

It's not hard to find WWII era Soviet hardware that's still in use, mostly things like flak guns and the like. Ukraine recently had some successes with their SA-5 batteries. The versions we have in DCS are usually more appropriate for the modern era than for Cold War, but in many cases the differences are subtle. That said, our SA-2 is actually the late Soviet variant (which Syria later go) that outperforms the classic Vietnam era one by quite a bit. It'd be nice to have more older variants.

That was the theory. In practice, it appears the effect was not noticeable in the cockpit. Remember, aerodynamic simulations like we're used to were simply not a thing when the Tomcat was designed, and they ran their calculations on mainframes less powerful than a today's smartwatch. The engineers clearly thought that they needed those vanes, but it turns out supersonic turns work just fine without them, and there's not much difference either way. In that era, there was no way of testing such concepts other than building the thing and flying it.

I think the whole point of welding them down was that nobody ever noticed them doing anything to the flight characteristics in first place. They added mechanical complexity while doing absolutely nothing tangible.

The navigation system wouldn't have been much of an obstacle in that case, one MiG-29 did manage to do exactly that. Navigating by compass, map and landmarks remains a basic skill for any pilot, long before he gets to mess with an INS. It was designed not to give the pilot too many options to avoid confusing him with too many buttons (and also because it was simpler and cheaper to make). Also, it being a copypaste of systems in other Soviet aircraft was deliberate, because it made them easier to produce and train pilots for. All Soviet aircraft had common instruments and equipment, to a much greater extent than Western ones. The Soviets learned during WWII that being able to produce a lot of aircraft fast is paramount in wartime, and being able to redirect instruments from one type to the other helps a lot with that.

Looks like it's not official yet, there was an announcement some time ago that they were supposed to be gone by now. It doesn't seem like it's officially retired yet. In any case, those jets Israel took out were pretty much museum pieces, so worn out that they couldn't actually fight all that well, if at all (as seen by their utter inability to do anything about the Israeli strikes). Iran finally managed to buy Su-35s, I'm pretty sure that the Tomcats will be sent to static displays once those arrive.

...and if they were accurately simulated, they'd find out a nuke is nothing more than an oversized HE charge. You don't want to be near one when it goes off, but the "end of the world" is alarmist nonsense cooked up by activists and clueless fiction writers (or those who think "civilization" ends at US borders, since USSR had more than enough nukes to collapse that). Humanity didn't end when Mt. Tambora blew, and that was on order of 800MT, and deep underground. Nike-Herc's 20kT high up in the air is a rather less apocalyptic than that. That said, the MiG-21 has nukes as an Easter egg, and they absolutely kill performance. DCS engine is just not made for weapons with such a huge blast radius. It'd be a major subsystem with very limited utility, especially since details of nuclear delivery systems are all very classified, so they would likely be AI only, or at most restricted to the analog platforms where their operation is known. Nuke stuff is well guarded by everyone who has it, and for good reason.

Hopefully now that the Iranian F-14s are officially gone, the US government will release its death grip on anything related to F-14D sooner or later.

It wasn't shaped charge, it was blast-frag (T-45). Nike J (Japanese version) was actually incompatible with the nukes.

I'd rather have the MiG-21F-13, but in any case, HB has more than enough in the pipeline. I don't think they could take on another module in the near future, there's still the FF A-6 they hardly even started on.

It's very likely that the company that does the jet for MSFS will be the same that'll do it for DCS. See Heatblur, who develop their planes for both in parallel. The company will benefit from research and modeling (both 3D and physics) done for one when making the plane for the other. It makes no sense for ED nor HB to work on Rafale.

I suspect spherical Earth will help with that. One thing about the "feeling" of altitude is just how far the horizon is up there. In DCS, there's no real horizon, the maps are flat. It works at normal mission altitudes if you're not looking too closely, but it's missing the "hey, did I just fly into space?" feeling at the extremes.

No, Block 15 MLU did, and only in foreign service. The MLU package gave them avionics and cockpit similar to F-16C. Stock Block 15 was heaters only, it was the last F-16A. Sparrows were only on a single ANG variant (either Block 15 or 30, I'm not sure), no other Viper carried them. It's still the same generation, and very similar role, that of a lightweight, short range, low cost dogfighter. And you're forgetting one extremely important feature of the Viper: the FBW system. It had a better RWR, sure, but the big deal was its novel control system. It would have been a particularly good match for our MiG-29, at least if it survived to the merge.

MiG-29 is a proper, albeit no-frills, 4th generation fighter. Far superior to the Phantom is every aspect except air to ground. It's comparable to the F-16A in many regards, not necessarily to contemporary heavy fighters like the F-15A. The US modules that we have are called generation 4+.

But that's the problem. What do those seven people do? You've got an AI aircraft that represents seven people operating a huge number of radio antennas, looking at the signals they receive and responding to that in real time. So we need to distinguish between what the aircraft theoretically can do, and what it would actually do in a real battlefield situation. They can choose to jam some frequencies but not others, interfere with comms and employ various EW techniques, at different power levels on different frequencies. The AI needs to make all those decisions in a believable way, but even this level is problematic, because those details are all classified.

The problem is, capabilities are one thing, how they are used is another. EW aircraft have a lot of gear that allows them a lot of control over their jammers. Even a Vientam era design will be equipped with knobs for every parameter imaginable, and those knobs would be tuned based on what the operator sees on the screen. What's classified, even for Vietnam era jammers, is how it all comes together. Radar modeling in DCS is pretty detailed on new modules, so it follows the jamming would have to be, too.

What random Russian people say on an internet forum is not necessarily an indication of what RL MiG drivers from Russian AF say, or what the Soviet ones used to say. Besides, since MiG-23 is long retired and MiG-27 is obscure, I suspect "the MiG" works for most people these days.

Zuyev's account seems to indicate they did like the name Fulcrum and used it sometimes. Same as with Su-27, that one also got a cool name. "Bear" for the Tu-95 also quickly got traction once the crews found out about it.

The A-10 isn't officially called the Warthog, either, and the F-16 isn't officially named the Viper (not the Block 50, anyway). MiG-29 is called Fulcrum by the Russians, too, mostly because it's a cool name and they haven't managed to come up with a better one. In the mission editor, it'd be nice to have the proper name, especially if there might be more variants in the future, but as far as the official product name goes, I'm not bothered. The name serves its purpose and perhaps there's a legal point to not calling it exactly the same as the real plane.

In other words, almost just like in the actual military, only it's easier to hide the beer. I'm all for using proper procedures and a detailed planning session, but "milsim" really shouldn't mean simulating the BS, too. Most of us get enough of that already.

Not only does this aspect have a long way to go, I'm not really seeing it getting much better, even compared to the old days. Finishing a campaign mission still boots you back to the main menu (as opposed to loading up the next one, as is the industry standard), the briefing UI is clunky at best and neither especially powerful nor immersive, there's no way to include custom post-mission debriefing text, nor a way to make any customizations to the campaign completion screen (or even replace the music). Here's a few suggestions that would help: 1. Better briefings. A "slideshow" with large format graphics and rich text below the graphic. For DC, it could use a few (handmade) slides with spaces for DC engine to insert things like target names and callsigns. 2. Custom debriefing in similar vein, with the ability to hide or show slides according to mission logic. 3. Ability to play a video clip before and/or after a mission. 4. Custom campaign intro and outro, in the same vein. Since this would be a large UI overhaul and probably include significant dev effort, you could start by opening the campaign completion screen up for people to insert something other than the generic congratulations (which sound especially silly when the campaign was purely a training one). Good, immersive UI is a big part of the game aspect. I'm not asking you to hire Mark Hamill to do a Wing Commander 3 level of immersive environment between missions (that said, old space games could be great for inspiration), but it could be a lot better than it is now.

I want to play at my convenience, not when others have the time. MP is always a commitment (unless you play with total randoms, which I don't care for), with SP I can play or not, and nobody else will care. My at times unreliable internet connection (I'm on a radio link) also doesn't bother me, nor am I affected if someone else doesn't make it, or has connection problems. Playing with others just adds a whole other level of fuss that I'm unwilling to deal with. Plus, as a VR player, I don't have performance to spare, and MP is poorly optimized in DCS.

In the end, the problem was likely that Stinkbug was too slow for it, though it's also possible funding concerns or even office politics also played a role. It would be interesting to hear just how advanced that idea was, for instance whether wiring for Sidewinder rails was ever installed in the bay. Actual tests likely never took place, but perhaps it could have had this capability added in short order if necessary.

A real idea, actually, but one that did not pan out. At one point, hunting Soviet A-50s was indeed considered as a mission for the F-117A. The "F" designation suggests that the idea of making the Nighthawk an actual stealth fighter had some traction. In the end, though, it was judged it didn't perform well enough to be useful for this. That IR sensor above the nose might be a remnant of this.

AIM-120 actually does use the new missile API, including stuff like Kalman filter and other advanced guidance stuff. As for SPO-15, even if realistic errors are introduced into RWRs on Blue jets they will have an advantage over the Soviet ones. The US learned how important RWR is in Vietnam, where they were vital for dodging SAMs. The Soviets were always the ones with the SAMs, so they never had a similar experience. Their RWRs work for avoiding being nuked by a Nike-Hercules, not for pinpoint-precise notching of other aircraft.