Dragon1-1

ACLS Mode I is definitely a full autoland, from entry to touchdown on deck. That's exactly the definition of Mode I. I don't know what the Superbug got recently, but it's been capable of Mode I operations from the start. That said, it's not perfectly reliable, and it wasn't IRL, either. If you spot it misbehaving, you should be prepared to fall back to Mode II (manual control with needles) or Mode III (manual control with LSO talkdown).

There's plenty skill can do for you before that happens, though. Seriously, those fights happened, and it's not "19 out of 20 times". Modern Vipers like Block 70 can do a lot of things those newer aircraft can do, I think this includes launching at datalink targets. You can cite the numbers all day, but there's only on that matters, and that's the one on the scoreboard. So far, the only ones that can totally dominate in this scenario are 5th gen fighters, and their record isn't spotless, either. A well flown Viper is a challenging opponent, and has options even against the more advanced fighters. Vipers have killed F-15s in BVR, Eaglejet has an advantage, but the Viper can try to push through to the merge, which is possible to counter, but far from easy. As for ACM, well, "two turns in this fight, and I've got the Eaglejet in my sights". Lt. Col. Dick Jonas, recalling his experience in the F-16A fighting F-15s of the time. So yeah, marginal.

The sad truth is, it's not the Abrams that sucks in Ukraine. It's the crews. The tank is fine, but Ukraine has serious issues. They're brave guys, and are doing their job as well as they can, but they're not on the level as, say, US or Polish troops. It's not only the tanks, either, Ukraine has severe management issues across their forces. It's the same with modern Russian tanks, they're fine vehicles, but driven by poorly trained, poorly motivated crews. Ukrainians are getting much better results from captured ones than Russians do, and with NATO level crews they'd likely be incredibly effective. What this example shows is that it for all the fancy toys on the battlefield, the most important part are still the squishy meatbags inside them. If you talk to a fighter pilot, it's really not, at least when we're talking dogfights. They'll go to great lengths to win. One Tomcat crew even dumped most of their fuel, just to get on top of a Hornet in BFM. It's highly unlikely the Raptor driver held back on purpose. Not to mention, the way these things go, it's hard to avoid trained behaviors. There was a French pilot on GS' channel who fought a few dogfights with him, and one reason they went guns only was that he didn't want to accidentally launch a missile in a way that'd have revealed something classified about its engagement envelope. In the heat of a BFM engagement, you just don't have the time to think about such things. What I said was strictly about the F-22's performance in BVR arena, where it's also at the most powerful. Dogfighting is a sideshow, but it's also where you can showcase your plane's strengths for the sake of domestic propaganda and pilots' personal pride. BFM performance is what you want to showcase, primarily to impress non-experts. The B(U) is basically an F-14B with D avionics, but retaining the AWG-9. There were actually more of those than there were Ds. AWG-71 was installed on new F-14Ds and a few F-14As that were rebuilt into Ds. Until more data is available on the AWG-71 (keep watching the DOGE website, folks ), the B(U) is the best we'll get, but I suspect HB will be quick (in DCS terms) to introduce the D should the required info be declassified.

Definitely not true against F-15, and the Viper pilots fought Rafales and Gripens in exercises, as well. I don't know what their record is, but we'd hear about it by now if they never won. The new jets are good, but not unbeatable, especially if Meteor is not available. 5th gen, true due to stealth being a gamebreaker in BVR. ACM is about pilot skill and endurance more than specific airframe capabilities, fighting a 5th gen fighter with TVC would be iffy in a Viper, but you have a fighting chance against anything less, and guns only you can throw down the 5th gens as well. The modern Viper is not quite the hotrod the older versions are, but it's still quite a beast. In DCS, anything that can pull high alpha presents a challenge for the Viper in a dogfight, so Hornet, M2K, Su-27, Su-33 and the MiG-29. Viper hates being slow, and they don't mind, so they'll try to get you slow and then stand on their tails and make you overshoot. In the BVR, the Tomcat can be dangerous due to Phoenix having a range advantage on AIM-120, and the F-15C due to being able to go fast and carry a lot of AMRAAMs.

This is definitely something worth analyzing further. However, do note that tracking a head on target which maneuvers away is not an easy job for the missile, because a small change in target aspects generates a large movement of the intercept point, necessitating energy-depleting maneuvers. NEZ (especially as indicated on the HUD, based on current closure rate) is less important than kinematics here, which is why the shot at 1nm works - the bandit has no time to turn away. High aspect shots should be expected to have low Pk against maneuvering targets, even with the AIM-9X. I've actually had experience with this in the other Viper sim, which provides a really nice test scenario with its HMCS training mission. Hitting a high aspect shot with AIM-9X wasn't a sure thing there, either. Both MiG-23 and -29 usually thrashed the face shot, the -21 usually didn't. A sub-1nm shot directly to the face really seems to be the way to go in this case if you want the missile to hit (if you don't care about that, forcing the bandit to defend before the merge is a great for allowing you to slot in behind and shove another heater straight up its tailpipe, or even gun him). What makes you think it shouldn't work? Nobody tested the AIM-120 against a target in a flat spin, to my knowledge. In fact, I don't know of any instance of a missile being fired at a target that just spun out, much less one spinning out when defending against a missile. It's hard to believe it'd work, and it's not something anyone would even think to try IRL. It is, however, a very interesting question what the missile would do in this situation. We should ask Musk to get a general to order such a test. Deliberately depart a target drone defending against an AMRAAM launch, and watch what happens.

That one looks like it lost guidance entirely. Did you lose lock at any point? The bandit began to maneuver, and the missile continued to where he'd be if he haven't. This could be a bug, or a lost radar track before pitbull. Either way, I'm not having any of those problems. In fact, most people seem to be able to hit with those missiles just fine.

I'm pretty sure that's not the case. Missile physics an guidance are reasonably accurate. It's not that the AI aircraft pulls off maneuvers that'd be ineffective IRL. It's that it pulls off ones that would be impossible. As a matter of fact, if they were possible, they'd probably be pretty good at trashing missiles, because fast, erratic turns would force the missile to make rapid guidance adjustments and bleed its energy. I'd be worried if humans were capable of dodging missiles this way, because human-flown fighters have a realistic FM. Again, missiles are not magic death wands, and their guidance is not as infallible as the popular hype expects them to be. They are subject to laws of physics, and the fact that they can only guide to a position they expect the target to be, based on its current equations of motion. A mid-2000s missile can't observe the target for a while and go "oh, he's doing that that corkscrew thing, I'd better fly straight", it checks where the target is, how fast it's moving, and its acceleration at the given moment, then figures out where those parameters will get it. Missiles in DCS follow those constraints and limitations, AI aircraft... don't. Especially when set to "Ace", which is one reason to avoid it. Other settings suffer from this, but to a lesser extent. GFM should resolve those issues and force AI to behave realistically. This will likely require adjusting AI dogfight logic and especially formation flying behavior.

Well, there you have it. The public server sounds like it's got serious mission design problems. Using "ace" AI is one of them, because it does things like that (it'd be hard to just disable it because it'd possibly break a lot of things). What the server owners can do is set it one step lower. There should also be a trigger making the AI abort and return back to their station once you're no longer a threat and inside friendly air defense ring.

In no place did I say that this actually worked out cheaper. The F-22 canceled for being too expensive and then a lot more money was spent on procuring the "cheaper" F-35s. While the program eventually produced a pretty good fighter, it only happened after the program experienced bloat beyond the wildest expectations. This is par the course for the Pentagon procurement mechanisms. Japan was considering it, but they actually withdrew when they heard further production was canceled. Which is wholly unsurprising, they were promptly pushed towards the F-35, despite an "F-22J" being possibly more suited to their particular use case, as it was with the F-15J.

It is, in that the "magic tech" is from 2005, and both Russians and Chinese are likely to have figured out similar things on their own. The US not wanting to export it probably has more to do with keeping the enemies guessing about what their best fighter can really do in terms of sensors and range, to maintain the deterrence afforded by its reputation. There were indeed some talks about exporting the F-22, but they all ended when the customers balked at the price. Which is not surprising, given the US did, too. Even Israel, which usually gets outright handouts from the US, found the F-22 to be too much of a spend.

Probably because they stopped making them after 200 airframes, because it was way too expensive. Not because it's got some magic American tech inside that's forbidden for anyone else. It's a good jet, but hardly the most advanced in the world at this point. These are fighter pilots, they don't care about helping corporate drones peddle their aircraft. When they get in a fight, they fight to win. WVR performance is not a key characteristic of an aircraft that's worth keeping under wraps. That would be its capabilities in BVR arena, particularly the radar and the stealth. You don't buy a 5th gen fighter to get into dogfights with it. It is possible that the Raptor's pilot did not utilize the F-22's capabilities to their fullest extent, but not because he was trying to throw the fight. It would be because he wasn't as good as the Rafale driver. WVR is, like I mentioned, a game of skill, and even if you have the numbers on your side, if you do something dumb against a competent opponent, you will lose. A vastly superior jet can forgive you a mistake or two, but if your WVR game isn't up to it, your opponent can always find a way for you to make one too many. In this case, F-22 isn't even that far ahead of the Rafale, particularly in low speed area (never try fighting slow against a carrier jet unless you're in one yourself), which was how the Raptor jock ended up in Rafale's HUD.

One at a time, following a proper BVR timeline. Remember, your aim is not necessarily to destroy the F-15. If he goes bingo or winchester and has to abandon his mission, you won. In some cases, if you delay it enough that your strikers get through or backup gets there, you've won. You don't have to merge with the F-15 or shoot Sidewinders at it. It's a very capable fighter with very powerful engines, lots of gas and plenty of weapons. It's not uncommon for weapons in a BVR duel to be defeated kinematically. Serbian pilots didn't have anything that could threaten an AMRAAM carrier, so NATO pilots could get close and fire those high PK shots with little risk of retaliation. Once again, it's not that the AMRAAM's sensors are crap, or that there's something wrong with missile dynamics. The AI FM is not the best, but it's a known issue. Was your opponent set to "Ace" level? On this level, it will use every trick in the book against you, augmented by its unrealistic FM.

Last I heard, both flares and chaff were basically dice rolls. Notice that, for instance, you can't lock onto a flare that's already been launched. Preflaring doesn't do much for you, either, but spamming flares the moment you see a launch does. This gets some results, all right, but it does not simulate the way those countermeasures actually work. This is a fairly complex subject, but the way older seekers and radars interact with them are well documented.

Quite the other way around. Missiles in DCS never suffer from random failures, unlike IRL, where missiles are real world machines that sometimes break. If your missiles miss, it is typically because you fired them out of parameters. It can also be because AI took proper steps and defeated your missile. IRL, modern missiles are not a magic death wand, though a lot of people have that misconception. When those people are in the chain of command, the result is usually yet another fighter designed without a gun. This kind of thinking tends to get a reality check if an actual war breaks out. Flares and chaff in DCS do need some work, they're very simplified currently, but it's also wrong to suggest that AIM-9X can't go for a flare if the conditions are right. Again, it's a missile that's being trumpeted as a magic death wand with the ability to ignore all countermeasures, but IRL it's not the case. Fire it out of parameters, or with an uncertain lock, and there's a chance it'll miss.

The real reason why it's stupid is a (quite frankly, bigoted) presumption that the Iranians would be unable to work those things out themselves, which is exactly what they did. They got some parts from the US, yes, but they also reverse-engineered the jets and made their own modifications. They didn't really need samples of fancy US tech to come up with their own solutions, and they certainly had little use for 30 year old US tech, but the US government and tech companies have a habit of not giving enough credit to anyone who isn't them (and then they act surprised when they see Russian satellites, Japanese cars, Korean TVs, Chinese AI...).

Yeah, and probably a bunch of crayon drawings for a flight manual, what with it being marked, as USMC IOC. Honestly, given that most of our modules' dogfight radar modes would have trouble locking onto the F-35 in WVR, I think even a Block 2B will have a massive advantage.

It would seem to so, but make sure to do research. There's no way that would be much easier than looking up pics of various aircraft parked on the runway. You need to do the legwork here, and no AI will help you with that. The only thing we can do is come down hard on AI slop. Sadly, generated misinformation will only spread, because many people think AI is "smarter than any human". Those of us who know it doesn't even think will roll their eyes, but that requires knowledge. At least here, we have enough aviation enthusiasts and actual aviators who can call BS when ChatGPT pretends to "know" something about their favorite jet. Still, I guess we'll soon get people asking ED to make the Su-57 or some other highly classified jet, brandishing an AI-written flight manual and documentation, fully convinced that the "superhuman" AI had divined all the modern military secrets.

Sorry, but that's bogus at first glance. "FBW controls surfaces even when engines are running?" Well, it does, but what does it have to do with anything that happens when the engine is not running? Have you verified that answer? Because I did a quick check, and it's wrong about AV-8B: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_AV-8B_Harrier_II#/media/File:US_Navy_030425-N-4008C-508_An_AV-8B_Harrier_aircraft_hovers_above_the_flight_deck_of_the_amphibious_assault_ship_USS_Bataan_(LHD_5).jpg A whole row of Harriers that all refute the bot's BS. One clue that should probably tipped you off is that the Harrier does not have FBW. An equally basic check (just find any carrier pic with both on deck) shows that Hornets are also parked with their stabs tilted down, while Tomcats' stabs do not droop, presumably because they'd bonk into overswept wings if they did. A quick Google search of L-39 pics show that its stabs don't droop, either (in fact, one pic shows them deflected up, presumably they didn't bother to center trim before shutdown). ChatGPT did not "find" the answer, it fed you convincing-sounding garbage and you believed it. Never use it as a source of information, because it does not give you information, it gives you a bunch of words arranged in a pattern based on a bunch of equations. That those words mean things does not enter into it.

DCS F-14 throttle is mapped to the common detent position on HOTAS sets people use, as to make controls assignment convenient. This doesn't mean it's linearly mapped to the cockpit animation. The Tomcat has an unusually large AB zone, since most people don't have their physical controls set up that way, it makes more sense to make it correspond to that and not to the lever in the cockpit.

Keep in mind this is still less finicky than the real thing. Early Mavs aren't the easiest weapon to use, they're great if all you had up to that point was dumb bombs, but compared to more modern weapons, it's not easy to get a good lock at a decent range. That's what makes the Phantom so fun to learn.

Interesting, though it's still in the early stages. They'll probably need to wait for ED to model the Earth's curvature, too, or their jet will have trouble taking off.

If you guys feel like beating that drum, I've bumped a thread regarding that: The more likes and replies it'll have, the more it'll seem to ED like it's a hotly requested feature, so keep spamming the thread.

With even more realistic campaigns coming out, and DC on the horizon, we could really use this. I can think of a lot of things to do with it, such as altitude restrictions, no fly zones, or simply enhancing the mission makers' ability to browbeat the AI into acting how they want it to act. In particular, if we could set those limits in DC, it could be useful for forcing AI to avoid known MANPADS and AA fire. The more "manual overrides" mission creators have, the better.

For what it's worth, I do remember seeing a USAF document describing a list of signals for formation flying without using the radio, including various types of turns (although this was a modern manual, probably the good old Korea BEM). That said, I now checked CNATRA P-1242, which deals with formation flying, and it states signaling a turn is an optional step, so it seems that USN indeed doesn't typically signal turns. Indeed, the aforementioned CNATRA document specifies quite clearly that any maneuvers in close formation are to use a parade rate of roll, which the DCS AI is incapable of. According to some T-45 learning materials I found, it's about 10 degrees per second, I doubt it's much different in the Tomcat. Dunno what the USAF uses, but probably something like that, too. If we could force DCS AI to roll at that rate, flying with them would actually be enjoyable.

Will that be implemented into other campaigns as well, such as Zone 5? IRL, it's not just the Phantom that used similar signals. Anything tighter than a check turn would usually be signaled by the flight lead, and usually with the aircraft itself, not on the radio. One thing that annoys me a lot with DCS formation flying is when I'm nicely saddled up with my AI lead, sitting there on his left wing, and he suddenly makes a break turn into me. A visible warning would make this sort of thing go a lot smoother.