Dragon1-1

I'm glad we finally agree. You just said it can be accurate, and you also said the makers decide how accurate it is. HB seems to have decided they want it to be accurate, hence... it is (or it will be once they finish making it). Your words, not mine. I mean, thanks for making my point for me, but I don't think you realized it when you wrote it. I don't get what else you're trying to say, other than you're being condescending, while also showing your exceedingly poor grasp of logic. You need to stop accusing HB of lying without any proof of them doing so. That's what you're doing, though you obviously don't realize that. You're saying that HB is free to decide whether it's accurate, then next, you're saying we're pretending it's accurate (let's pretend nobody can see that "early access" tag, but that's neither here nor there), despite HB having clearly stated that it really is going to be accurate as possible. So either they are lying, or you aren't thinking logically. I am pretty sure which one it is. Let's not even get into your flimsy attempt at equivocation, what with treating accuracy as a scale in one sentence ("more accurate", "less accurate"), and as a binary choice in the next ("accurate", "not accurate"). I'd accuse you of arguing in bad faith, but I always try to assume the most charitable explanation, so I'm going to put it up as another lapse in your line of reasoning. My point exactly. It's not different. If you set up and fly historic mission, it's exactly the same principle as a historical reenactment. Tomcat is a piece of history that we're trying to recreate in a simulation, to give people chance of experiencing it in at least some way. For that, it's worthy to strive for maximum accuracy we can get. Nobody is going to show up to a Civil War battle with a WWII Garand and say "but people don't know one old rifle from the other (because I sure don't), so it should get a pass". Yes, they're shooting blanks, but out of period accurate firearms, and that counts. Oh, and IRIAF doesn't fly Tomcats anymore. Ukrainian pilots seem to have played around with ED's F-16 module while they were still lobbying for the real thing, though. Nothing of that has any bearing on whether this is or isn't a good sim, or whether HB needs documentation to make it as accurate as they decided to make it. If your point was, as I suspect, "HB decides how accurate the sim will be, so they could decide to lower their standards and make APG-71 without the docs", then we can pretty much surmise that "maybe, but they won't, and we don't want them to" is the answer. The rest of your nonsense is just distraction from the fact that you're arguing otherwise, which is something which the rest of the community doesn't agree with. The only kayfabe here is you trying to pretend, like an oldtimey wrestler, that you're fooling anyone with your rambling.

...or until you quit in frustration. People don't play a game to crash and burn, especially when they don't get much feedback on why they're crashing and burning. That's the problem, you're advocating figuring things out by trial and error, but that's not a good way to learn, and you can end up with bad habits that'll hobble you further on, just because it was the first thing you stumbled upon that seemed to work. Learning with a less powerful plane allows you to get a feel for this type of aircraft at a slower pace, and with a less demanding airframe. This is more conductive to developing an understanding and building good flying habits. Same with learning on modern jets, quite a few things there work on the basis of "press the magic button, a magic thing happens". Understanding what goes behind this can be really useful. Especially when you one day press the button and the magic thing suddenly doesn't happen. It can be the difference between flipping the switch you forgot to flip and carrying on, and posting a bogus bug report on ED forums. It'd be very polite of those insurgents to go into battle unarmed. As a matter of fact, one of the L-39 variants that come with the module is actually a COIN jet developed from it. Those missions can be fun, too. Yes, defensive systems on those aircraft are similar to F-86, which is to say, you get your eyeballs, the stick, and the throttle lever, plus whatever armament you have strapped on. That's a valuable lesson to learn, too. Not getting shot down begins with good attack planning, keeping a good lookout, and effective defensive maneuvering if engaged. If you can't survive using just that, perhaps you need to fly a few missions in a trainer.

Yeah, so challenging that they're bad for first time flyers for this very reason. I really wouldn't recommend starting one's adventure with taildraggers from DCS WWII birds, especially for a complete newcomer. TF-51 is free, so it's one way to do it, but only if one is not easily frustrated. Quite frankly, for WWII birds, I'd suggest starting with the Piper Cub in the civilian sim. Less torque, actual forward visibility, gentle and slow in all phases of flight. Only attempt to tame one of the fighters after understanding the fundamental principles of taking off and landing in a taildragger. The F-86 is actually quite comparable to the trainers in capabilities and ease of flying. It can be a good choice for a starting jet if you don't care for dual cockpit in MP. However, it's an old module, and it has some quirks. For those who don't care for Korea, it'll be same difference.

No, but it helps. Two cockpits mean you don't need an external app like Discord, and you can both have your controls hooked up to the plane, letting the instructor take over the controls (you can do this in the F-4 and F-15, but these are complex beasts). The L-39 (dunno about others) even has an IFR hood, which is useful for, wouldn't you guess, learning IFR. Yes, you can learn in a combat aircraft, the thing is, there are things that are just easier to understand in a trainer. Most combat aircraft we have are equipped with various flight assists and have a lot of power available to compensate for your lousy flying, and navigate by GPS. Take away all that, any you start learning. Not just flying, but airmanship. You have to learn to navigate by map, landmarks and ADF. You find out why the overhead pattern exists. You learn to read the dials, not just HUD numbers. You learn to precisely control airspeed, dive angle and pipper position in order to bomb accurately. Sure, you can go out of your way to learn those things in a modern jet, but in a trainer, they're necessary. If you only ever intend to fly modern aircraft with GPS and all the aids, and aren't really interested in airmanship, then by all means, start with the modern jets. However, learning to bomb the F-5 or L-39 is useful for refining your ground attack technique with CCIP, while radio navigation and reading dials are useful skills in older jets (yes, you can learn that there, but something like the Phantom is a quirky, complex beast). Those skills also come up if you make a jump to WWII. There's value in those less capable jets, too, and their switchology is quite easy to learn.

Says the one who constantly confuses the meaning of every big word he tries to use. Literally nothing you wrote aligns with how those terms are actually used. You're either a non-native speaker butchering the translation, or trying to impose on us the jargon from some obscure sub-sub field of computing theory. You also confuse wrestling jargon. Kayfabe is pretending you're not playing pretend. Nobody here does that. We want to play out fictional scenarios (or just compete) with simulated military hardware. Nobody here, even the cockpit builders, is pretending it's a perfect recreation of real jet, just one that's reasonably close for what we're trying to do. As for the other terms: Emulation is using software to recreate the operating environment (not necessarily down to the hardware level) on which the original programs can run. Simulation uses a physics model to approximate the behavior of the real thing. This model is typically "fitted" to reality by making sure it matches the values in the documentation. That's what DCS does. The FM is a bunch of equations that are tweaked until the curves for the virtual aircraft's Ps and Qs match those in the charts for the real aircraft. A properly fitted model can be extrapolated, with lower accuracy, to areas that aren't in the chart. Other systems work more or less the same, while they can have some simplifications for performance reasons, you couldn't tell in the cockpit, because you've only got a few hydraulics gauges, not a realtime readout of the whole system. The key takeaway here is that it's the simulation of the aircraft as a whole, as experienced by the pilot and RIO. Simulacrum is an imitation, like a historical reenactment. Yes, an FM based fully on lookup tables would qualify more as a simulacrum than simulation, but only AI uses that in DCS. Human-flown aircraft are simulated. Well, you might be surprised to hear, then, that HB is only using SME feedback to confirm the information they get from documentation, as well as tune the general "feeling" of the aircraft, which all that subtle, minor stuff (like the various crocks to keep the ACM panel buttons from falling out) that is not in the docs and is largely subjective, anyway. Nobody remembers enough data to accurately simulate a complex aircraft system, anyway, so while you can tweak things based on SME feedback, you can't rely exclusively on it. HB is not "softening some edges", but compensating for limitations of user hardware. Ultimately, the goal is to be able to take procedures and advice that worked for the real pilots and apply them in DCS. We are not sitting in a real jet and pulling real Gs that can be felt, so compromises need to be made. Even with that, flying the virtual F-14 is actually harder than the real one, because you don't get the same feedback pilots do. Seriously, what you're doing is the very definition of JMSU. You seem to be trying to bamboozle people by waving your hands and alluding to some illusory complexity that means nothing that runs on a home PC can have any relation to reality. The truth is, back in the day they used flight training software that was much inferior, both graphically and in terms of fidelity, to DCS, though they'd usually have a cockpit on some kind of motion platform (this is completely out of HB's hands, I might add, but some people build themselves one of those). Nowadays, of course, the professional state of the art had advanced. DCS might be an an entertainment product, but it doesn't mean it can't be accurate, nor does it mean it's not worth trying to make it accurate.

Seems like you don't even know what kayfabe is. They're not pretending they're going to get an actual emulation of the radar. What you call "facsimile" (another word you're using incorrectly) is in fact a simulation of one. Which is defined as something that doesn't work exactly like the thing it's simulating, but you can't tell from the cockpit, because the results you get are essentially the same. An emulation would replicate every wire and IC that comprised the AWG-9, and it would chug computer resources for no good reason. It might be more correct in some extreme edge cases, but nothing that would actually come up in normal use. What we are doing is a simulation of the aircraft and its components. Nobody is pretending otherwise, so there's no kayfabe to speak of. What you don't seem to understand that to simulate the systems, documentation on how they are supposed to work is required. Because how would you know your simulation is good otherwise? An emulation would allow you to reproduce undocumented or even previously unknown behaviors, but for a simulation, most things need to be explicitly programmed in. Also, just FYI, "old hearsay" is not usually accepted as a source, unless you want to call SME feedback that, in which case they could get offended at a random ignoramus questioning their years of experience. HB had consulted people who actually flew the Tomcat for the USN. Do you want to tell them they all suffered a mass hallucination and don't know what they're talking about? No, ED decided to lower the standards of what, for their purposes, constitutes a sufficiently accurate simulation. And then, as far as we know it's only for the F-35. In any case, it's certainly not a reason for HB to lower their own, higher standard of "sufficiently accurate". In every case, there are compromises to be made, primarily because of the hardware we use to interact with the sim. That does not detract from the quality of the simulation, or from the effort required to achieve that quality. I suggest you spend some time educating yourself, starting with the meaning of the words you use. You make a lot of bold claims and wave your hands a lot, but I haven't seen a single shred of evidence. File a bug report, then. This would indicate the animation in cockpit is incorrect, and it'll be incorrect for everyone in this case. I don't think the animation being done this way is a design choice. In fact, the throttles should also move sideways when crossing the AB detent, they should probably take a look at this, too. It's a cosmetic thing, but it'd be nice if they did get it right (plus, clear feedback when exactly you hit the detent helps with calibration).

No. Again, check Mover's videos, and the charts. He's done it. Not sure with what, but he mentioned having to throttle down in order to stay at corner. With 50% fuel and an AA loadout, the Block 52 gets TWR of 1.24 or so. If you unload the jet, you should be able to accelerate straight up, at least at sea level, no matter the speed you're going at. That said, the Viper is a pig at 200kts and you know it. A competent Viper driver will not be at 200kts. Yes, this can be used against it, but in general, in a dogfight getting slow is only use if your opponent is also slow. If you lose tally, you're dead either way, IRST or not. The time it'll take you to use IRST to cue you back onto the Viper (assuming it's even within its FOV) is the time he'll use to get on your tail. Sure, you can improve your tally-keeping ability in first place, but real pilots generally are able to keep their eyes on the bandit. Small size does enhance the Viper's ability to turn the radar off and bushwhack from down low, like MiG-17s used to do to Phantoms. This will probably come up on DCS servers more than in actual Red Flag, but it's something. If we're talking such small numbers, and there are now F-16Vs with AESA radars, too. I don't know the parameters, but it's doubtful that variant will have any problems finding anything that isn't a dedicated stealth fighter. There's no question there odds are stacked against it, the question is whether it's so bad that the Viper has practically no chance of winning. Real results (that you seem so desperate to dismiss) answer that one with pretty resounding "no". Your advice for a Viper going against, say, the Eurofighter amounts to, "there's no use, eject". This is completely useless. Instead of focusing on how "there's no way for the Viper to win that match", you could try to come up with something useful, like what the Viper could do to win, or at least give the EF a solid fight. The Eurofighter will certainly be the most challenging opponent for the Viper in DCS, in that you'll have to outskill the bandit by a significant margin to win.

Ships in DCS are simplified, and they have way too much hitpoints. AGM-88 would do nothing. IRL, it's not a good way of dealing with a ship's radar, either. It could damage one of the antennas (ships typically have a lot of them), but it won't do much otherwise.

That's a little strange, but even so, what I said is still valid. It's possible there's a bug, or perhaps some misbegotten DCS optimization from ye olden days that completely shuts off guidance when the missile logic detects it can no longer make the intercept (note that in such case, the solution changes rapidly, it wouldn't take a lot of time before that happens). Of course, that's unrealistic, the AIM-9X is smart, but not that smart (heaters have no way to know the range to target or its closure, so they can't make that determination).

The enemy evasive maneuvers are causing the AIM-9X to run out of energy. Remember, you're both closing in rapidly, and the AIM-9X accelerates to the predicted intercept point. The enemy then turns around, still going fast, and suddenly, the intercept point is way off to the side. The missile has to turn and accelerate towards this new point, only, most of its motor burn time has been spent accelerating to the old one. The AMRAAM, having a much longer burning motor, will still be gaining speed at this point, and will easily make the intercept. To fix this issue, forget the DLZ and launch the AIM-9X at very short ranges in a head-on merge. This is pure physics, and not unrealistic in the slightest, just surprising, especially with how modern missiles are hyped. The "common wisdom" about what those missiles can do is based on ranges and Pk against nonmaneuvering targets (likely because advertising brochures use that). Against maneuvering targets, you need to adjust your launch parameters. Now, I'm not quite sure if the AI should be able to spot a head on launch at all. I personally find it difficult to see a tiny heater at 3nm, and the AIM-9X is smokeless, so unless it's leaving a contrail, perhaps the AI shouldn't be able to react. Of course, against missiles with a smoky motor, or with MWS, it's a different story.

None of those fly with an AESA radar, so you don't need a radar lock to know that there is an opponent, you'll see him on RWR. He needs to find you, too, and you'll know when he sees you. Most of the time, both sides will have an AWACS, rendering that part moot. If both sides have an AWACS and AIM-120D, they can both shoot at datalink tracks. The point is, the Rafale guy thinks it's challenging. Don't you figure that this implies the fight could have gone the other way, had he not had his WVR game up to 100%? That's what I'm saying. If this was a turkey shoot, he wouldn't have been saying that. Also, it's worth noting the difference between that and Eurofighter. It's possible he ran into a particularly bad pilot, of course, or the pilot had a bad day, but nobody gets to fly an Eurofighter without a lot of learning and training. All the pilots involved here are highly trained professionals. So you can see how much skill influences a dogfight. ...or, if you can get around that big circle faster than he can around his small one, you can try to force a two circle fight. In fact, going one circle against an F-5 is exactly how you end up on the wrong end of his guns. Anyway, in case of the F-5, he's not really capable of doing much in the vertical, it's actually a great way of dealing with it for fighters that can. The more advanced fighters can match the Viper up there, which is another thing that makes that fight more interesting than a race. The Viper's plan here is not to end up at less than 200kt. Which, should, TBH, always be part of the Viper's plan, because it hates being slow. What matters is how they perform at speed. Besides, we don't even know the fuel state of the Eurofighter at which it can do that. Full tanks, or half-empty? Incidentally, the Viper's thirsty engine means it'll lighten up rapidly, something that DCS pilots sometimes exploit in MP (of course, it is a gamble, you need to be able to at least get to tanker afterwards). Do you have the actual charts for how fast each of those airframes must go to generate 9G? Because this is quite specific info, and often not all that easy to come by. Also, it's worth noting that generating 9G is not necessarily the same as sustaining 9G (which, as per Mover and the charts, the Viper has no problem doing at a proper speed and altitude). So you either have some otherwise hard to get EM charts, or you're making claims solely based on ballpark TWR figures and guesswork.

I guess that's another thing that's on ED. It really should be possible to set up custom tanker tracks, including orbiting a point. I hope they change that for DC, this ability is quite critical in planning tanker ops IRL.

Can you ensure the aircraft is on the cat, or at least close to it, before the "launch" salute registers? I think it's safe to assume the first two will be on the parking spot.

At a comparable range? AMRAAM has a lot more energy, so if you fire it at a distance you would the AIM-9X, the same maneuver will not save the bandit. AIM-9X is more maneuverable than the AMRAAM, but it has a smaller, shorter burning motor. Case in a point, being able to hit a sub-1nm shot on a rapidly closing target is actually quite remarkable. That's what AIM-9X excels at, however keep in mind that making large turns scrubs off a lot of energy.

I've been wondering lately if it wouldn't have been easier if the tanker was put in a circular orbit instead of a racetrack. At least then, it'd have a consistent attitude. Right now, in M2 it constantly switches between flying straight and turning, which is annoying. Plus, it's probably an ED thing, but on rollout, it now seems to overshoot and put in opposite bank for a while. Very annoying to follow. If it just circled around in place, it'd probably be easier.

And I'm answering that question. There's no doubt that the Viper is no longer the top dog in air combat. However, you're trying to imply it's useless and has no chance whatsoever against other, newer 4th gens. Which is a ridiculous position, because it isn't. It's going to have to get creative in BVR (which is less skill-dependent), and it's at a disadvantage in WVR, but hardly the overwhelming inferiority that you claim. All the aircraft you listed can pull up to 9G outside brief (and highly energy-depleting) excursions. So no, they're not actually more maneuverable if they all stay at corner. Sure, if the fight gets slow the newer fighters have massive advantages, but an F-5 can kill the Viper if it can get it slow, good Viper drivers know better than to let that happen. Radar and IRST don't really matter in WVR (if you don't suck at keeping tally, that is). They're all most likely to be using the same AIM-9X with their respective HMCS. Yes, all those fighters have tricks to use that the Viper can't quite follow, have more gas, and a little more TWR to play with. None of that will enable the Viper to be beaten with 95% success rate, even if the pilots are all professionals with a more or less equally good BFM game. Your comparison between a 1995 rally car and a 2015 track car is BS. It's more like 1995 Escort RS Cosworth vs. a 2005 Lancer Evo VIII RS, and put them on a rallycross track, two laps, full contact. Dunno about you, I'm not making bets on that one, I'd bet on the Lancer if I had to, it's got some 50hp on the Ford, but I'd make my peace with potentially losing my wager if it driver messes up a single corner more than the Ford. Seriously, just read what an actual Rafale pilot says about the matter. Viper is a difficult opponent.

Lucky you to have buttons to press and switches to flip. Well, most others are stuck pushing keys on a keyboard, in VR audible feedback is often the only way to know your keystroke was registered without looking down. Like it or not, most people don't have nearly enough bindings to cover the important stuff. Also, 3-position switches sometimes don't register properly if you move the real switch too quickly, the audio feedback is a lifesaver in those situations. Until DCS fixes problems of this sort, this will remain useful for, apparently, everyone who but you. In fact, for those without a full 3D audio system, bass shakers and proper headphones, the sound will always be "fake", since it's difficult to replicate a real aircraft's audio environment using just a pair of headphones. All in all, HB's standard on audio quality is still rather high. RAZBAM, for instance, seems to barely care what their modules sound like.

OK, found the issue. You have to salute twice for the taxi directors, and you have to use the button. Once to signal that you're ready, and then, once they get ready (without helpers on it's not obvious when they are), salute again to get going. This didn't cause issues in Speed and Angels, but in Fear The Bones the second salute causes the hand signals for launch to show. Might be worth it to guard against this.

Yes, because both F-14 and F-4 are in EA. Other devs don't provide options - you have clicky switches and audible speedbrakes in ED modules, for example. You don't even get the option to adjust AB detent in most of them. Those sound effects are a replacement for tactile feedback, not for the sake of sounding cool. On the kind of rig described in your signature, as opposed to a full cockpit motion platform you obviously use now, not having those sounds would be fake difficulty. We want to be able to operate the jet the way it's supposed to be operated, not constantly look at switches to make sure they engaged. If you think flying with what amounts to a full body loss of a sense of pressure is in any way realistic... well, I have bad news for you, pilots are generally expected to have all their senses in working order. Most people don't have a haptic suit (not that DCS supports one).

I say, if those are the biggest problems with the module, then HB's standards are high indeed. Also, worth noting that those compensations let as fly in a more realistic way. We're still at a disadvantage, most notably with the ability to sense the G-load. Very easy IRL (you know whether it's 4 or 5G squishing you into the seat), but very hard to reproduce in the sim with any kind of precision. Hardware solutions exist, but they're quite complex, and still not perfect. HB did a remarkable job reproducing the way the real jet would "talk" to you, but hardware is always going to be a brick wall against which such efforts will eventually crash.

Most of those are either things that are unfinished (anything with Jester) or compensating for the inherent unrealism of flying the jet while actually sitting in the chair. In fact, the lack of sound on the throttle light switch often leaves me wondering whether it actually toggled, as DCS is sometimes unreliable with physical switches. There's obviously no such issues in the real jet, where you feel the click. Likewise, AB and DLC coming on are easily felt through the seat in the real jet. While a toggle for those would probably be appreciated by those few who can feel their motion platform kick when they put the DLC on, I would expect this to be low priority. You've listed a bunch of trivialities (and one rather silly bug), most of which are firmly in the "making the module usable with normal hardware" category. None of that involves making up a system out of wholecloth, which they'd have to do for the APG-71. The only thing that comes remotely close is the AIM-54C issue, and that's on ED's missile API. Yes, it would be nice if they didn't launch you at night if you didn't turn on at least one set of lights, but does it actually affect anything?

Like what? HB making their module usable with hardware people actually have? Besides, you can set a realistic throw in option if you do have such a throttle. The F-14 is unfinished in a few areas (still waiting for the EMER GEN and OBC checks, for instance), but that's different from things being made up.

Yeah, except for all those pages upon pages of detailed technical documentation the teams always collect. I'm sure it's all just to look fancy on the shelves... HB doesn't do JMSU. ED might have possibly given in to it for the F-35, but HB has its own standards.

Yeah, "students" with hundreds of flight hours already under their belt. Really, just check out Bio's recollections of how real TOPGUN training usually went. I can't point you to a single source about USAF, but Bio has great stories on how things were in USN. The Tomcat is a superior aircraft to the F-5, so by your logic, it should always win. Well, already elite USN pilots routinely got their backsides whooped by TOPGUN instructors flying F-5s. The trainees would indeed start winning eventually, as they learned and applied the lessons from TOPGUN, as well as from the previous experiences. My point is, skill matters more than the aircraft. In that case, it certainly did. No it won't, unless the F-15 driver flies a perfect game 95% of the time. Which most of them won't, either in DCS or IRL. No two pilots are perfectly equal, and in the end, it always comes down to who makes the fewer mistakes. The F-15 can afford to make more mistakes, or bigger mistakes than the F-5, so it's undoubtedly more likely to win, but there's always room for pilot error in a dogfight, including ones that will put the F-15 right in the F-5's sights. They're a good place to start, though. They showcase concepts than anything else, but learning concepts is good, because you can then apply them in an actual competitive environment. That's what flying a fighter is all about. Learning and adapting to threats. Seeing what worked for GS can give you a leg up in figuring out what works for you. From there, you can figure what kind of mistakes are the most important to avoid, and what kind of mistakes you can potentially goad him into making. In particular, those videos are very instructive on how both of those look from the cockpit, which I found very helpful. Oh, you mean those edge of envelope tweaks that happen from time to time? Exact performance specifics are not where those fights are won. Tactics are. As long as the essential relationships between aircraft performance remains correct, the results will be more or less correct. Would you fly the real Eurofighter exactly like you would a DCS module? Probably not. Could you learn what works with DCS version and then adjust for differences and apply it to the real jet? Probably yes (at least if you're any good as a pilot). You seem to be under impression that there's some "modern jet secret sauce" that will magically let newer technology completely dominate older one. There's no such thing IRL. Rafale, Gripen and Eurofighter will not, and do not, beat the Vipers 95% of the time. They have an advantage, but in a dogfight, a single mistake can throw all that advantage away, if it's big enough. Eurofighter is not an automatic "I win" button IRL, it won't be so in DCS. So, constrained 1 vs. 1 gun/heater fights don't count, because they're too scripted, full package ops during Red Flag don't count because they're too realistic? Sounds like No True Scotsman fallacy to me. As a reminder, Vipers have trounced the newer jets in both. A Rafale driver even mentioned the Viper as the most challenging opponent he's faced. So far, only fights against the F-35 and the F-22 had been declared to be as one-sided as you'd like them to be.

Ty putting them on the boat and you'll buy it soon enough. It's not total size, but rather folded wingspan. The Tomcat is huge and takes up a lot of deck. The Hornet is shorter and folds up way better. As for wiring, data busses reduce its length and simplify it by a lot. Especially combined with more advanced computers, the Hornet is simply much less manpower intensive.