Dragon1-1

I think it's less of a matter of available resources (although Soviet air had proportionally less funding allocated to it), and more a matter of doctrine. Soviets had dedicated fighters with secondary bombing role, and hence they could focus on making them good fighters. MiG-29 is an excellent fighter and it can carry a few bombs, which is enough for tactical "frontline" aviation, where it was meant to fight. It doesn't have to be a good bomber or attack aircraft, because those are not its primary roles. Accordingly, its pilots have to be good at flying a fighter, not necessarily at bombing things (although they have to be competent at it). In fact, the F-16 was a bit of an oddball even on the US side (though with precedent in F-4 Phantom, which grew into multirole aircraft organically). It was designed as a cheap fighter for NATO air forces, many of which are much smaller than USAF. Hence, one fighter that could do fighter jobs and be a bomb truck made sense. If anything, rich nations have more specialization than smaller ones, because they can afford to have separate aircraft for different roles.

I don't think there's much point of installing the Iron Maiden (BDA) if MPRS is available. Then again, if you're doing a lot of basket refueling, it might be useful. As in, you can threaten the pilots that if they rip off both baskets, they'll get a go at the Maiden instead.

Yeah, MPRS version doesn't have a functional boom, and it's not obvious at a glance. It should be able to refuel boom and drogue aircraft in the same sortie (though not at the same time, see above). Chalk it up to old code that doesn't take it into account that such tankers exist.

Digital cockpits weren't really a thing in its time. Even the early F-16 only had that 7-segment display thing, and that was considered spiffy. Most early 4th gens looked more like Mirage 2000 or the Tomcat. Judging from the FC3 model, visibility was OK, not F-16 level, but not bad. It was a defensive interceptor and a dogfighter, roles in which it performed admirably. It wasn't a revolutionary design like the Viper, but far from crude. Sure, it was simpler than something like the Eaglejet, but one could look at it as being no more complex than it had to be. Air to ground was perfectly adequate and on par with other Soviet fighters of the time. Generally, Soviets preferred use dedicated ground attack jets as opposed to making one airframe do everything.

You sure you can't come up with two campaigns' worth of missions? I have yet to get around to Paradise Lost itself (currently training to prepare for Speed and Angels ), but I know it'll be great, and now we have another iconic Vietnam airframe.

I suspect the myth comes from seeing a missile in lead pursuit, which sure looks like it's aiming for the pilot, despite it actually tracking the aircraft's COM and just pointing its nose slightly in front of it. This is the correct behavior for all but the very earliest heatseekers.

No doubt because MiG-29B also had an utterly crappy radar, far below what the original N019 was capable of. What Iraq got had no IFF, no Lazur and I don't think it was even capable of carrying the more advanced missiles. I suspect the Soviets designed the 9.12B so that if Iraq switched sides, no important tech would be lost, and if they decided to take on the USSR, they'd get steamrolled by "full" versions of their own kit.

Iraqi MiGs were also much lower performing 3rd world export versions, like the MiG-29B, which are not like what we're getting. Notably, these didn't actually get the vaunted HMS or the R-73, being limited to R-60. The equipment Iraqis got were crap, and not just aircraft, but tanks as well. I think East German pilots trained quite a bit, the problem was that Soviet planners did not put nearly as much thought into their aircraft tactics as NATO ones did (who did so mostly on account of the US obsession with air power). In fact, the design of the MiG-29 reflects that, it's a defensive fighter that's supposed to keep NATO aircraft off the Soviets' massed tank formations. Within that role, it's a perfect fit.

Well, that would explain. In fact, there's nothing about which needle it is referencing, it just says things like "80% RPM". In other aircraft, that would typically refer to N2, so I assumed this is the case here, too. I'm talking about the first mission, BTW.

Same thing happens. I've got it bound like you say and have the same problem. Something's up with that particular switch, because 3-position binds in other modules don't have this problem, either.

Also mind, that statement came from German MiG-29 drivers. Of course they'd talk up their own ship up. Modern Polish MiG drivers will also say there's nothing wrong with their planes, at least when a journalist asks them. Everyone wants an F-16C, but if you're stuck with a MiG-29A, you're damn well going to make the most of it.

What frustrated me a lot is that the RPMs in the briefings are wrong. 80% N2 RPM will not give you 350kph. I found the sweet spot to be about 65% N2. You need to pull quite a lot of power from the takeoff settings. Once you realize that, maintaining the parameters becomes somewhat more doable. IMO, the mission would be much enhanced if they gave you proper RPM values. I don't know if the ones we get are from real lessons and the FM is wrong, or if the ones we have were for a previous, incorrect FM, but either way, they're not of much use.

Weapons in DCS seem to go for the COM. This is realistic for guns, radar missiles, modern heatseekers (starting from AIM-9M and equivalent) and anything command guided. Only older heatseekers, the ones that just see a point heat source, should be going for the engine pipe.

In this particular picture, it wasn't the backseater who pulled the cord - the shell set off the charges in the seat and punched poor Jeb Stuart (the GIB) out of the plane. Poor guy didn't make it, sadly, parachuted into the trees at Mu Gia pass and died before PJs could reach him. His AC did make it back to Ubon, at least. The Wolfpack later went back, Olds dropped a wreath out of landing gear door (the guy was from his squadron, FG is the Satan's Angels tailcode), and then bombed the crap out of that gun site. Or so the story goes. They even wrote a song about the whole incident.

Well, it is working, at any rate, but yeah, they were quite stupid IRL. A particularly notorious behavior that is not replicated in DCS is them deciding, meters from target, that the nearby bush looks more like a tank than the actual tank. So called "tactical bush" caused some headaches in 'Nam. They could also go after shadows or random junk. Mavs track contrast on a grayscale camera image (and a small one at that), so anything in camo is going to present problems. So fiddle with knobs and hope for the best.

Far from it. If you detect something, you can then direct assets to try to identify it. AWACS and GCI of the era couldn't do NCTR, either. Their only advantage was the ability to occasionally track the target from the time it took off, at which point you could see if it came from an enemy airfield or not. However, in other cases, VID would often be needed, and the EW asset would direct fighters to obtain that VID.

I'm not claiming to be particularly good with the -29, personally (that might change after we get it in FF, but either way, I'm terribly out of shape at the moment), but I've seen people who are. Say, someone like Growling Sidewinder, it's not hard to find videos of him kicking ass in all kinds of MiGs, including on MP servers. I'm pretty sure there are even better MiG drivers out there. That said, if I ever get good in the MiG, sure. The point was, winning on losing depends on the pilot more than the aircraft. MiG-29 is comparable to other 4th gens, it has some advantages, some disadvantages, like all of them. It's up to the pilot to exploit the former and avoid the latter. There's no magic "I win" button in air combat, not in DCS, at least (and IRL, even the 5th gens had occasionally ended up in someone's pipper).

Or maybe you don't know how to fight a MiG-29 against the F-16. This is a very different sort of aircraft, with no G limiter and largely analog avionics. That you can't win against an F-16 doesn't mean a better pilot than you can't do it. Air combat is not as simple a situation as a race, there are multiple ways to win, and the right way to do it in one aircraft will be wrong in another. MiG-29 can point its nose and stand on its tail really well, but it has trouble keeping up in vertical with the Viper. This was true back when there was an East Germany. The R-73 was indeed a game breaker that put MiG-29 a step ahead anything NATO could throw at it. That said, AIM-9X had leveled the playing field since, although HOBS dogfight tactics mandate a tight one circle flow which does seem like it'd favor the MiG-29 somewhat.

The problem with VTAS was that at the time, the US had no R-73 equivalent. AIM-9X came as a response to that, and that was also when HMDs were revisited. There's little advantage to a helmet sight when you can't use it to cue your missiles outside the HUD FOV. AIM-9G was all right for the time, but it wasn't a HOBS weapon, and thus VTAS was mostly good for giving pilots neck problems (also a problem with modern HMCS). MiG-29 is close enough to even modern jets that pilot's skill is going to be the deciding factor. If you have many personal anecdotes each saying it's one way or the other, then the truth usually lies inbetween. It's not a clearly superior dogfighter, and it has a disadvantage when it comes to its systems (not much of problem under Soviet-style GCI, very much a problem under Western doctrine), but it can hold its own and punish any mistakes the bandit makes. It should be competent in Fox 1 era BVR, but is obviously not a Fox 3 airframe, so unrestricted BVR is out. One nice ability of the MiG-29 is using a combination of GCI talk-on and IRST to perform a sneak attack with heaters or use the radar at short range. This is how the Soviets wanted it to operate.

Or VR. I can do without zoom most of the time, things are plenty visible at realistic distances (yes, including 12kft pipper on the A-10, though good luck actually hitting at that range). In fact, last time I checked the "spotting dots" were way overdone. Spotting IRL is pretty hard, especially against the ground.

The A model Hornet could probably be derived from the one we have, and in FF, too. The biggest difference in the cockpit is the mechanical HSI and monochrome MFDs, it's otherwise really similar, including tricky weapons like Walleye, and the Nite Hawk TGP (which we should also have for our Hornet). The real difference is that it used APG-65, which was somewhat meh compared to what we have (and it can't guide the AIM-120), but it did have most of the modes our radar does. The A model Viper, meanwhile, would be a viable FF module, though it'd have to be made from scratch. ED is aware of that, I think, seeing how many people clamor for it in the wishlist.

Except that isn't really true. Avionics are not the most time consuming aspect of module development, and much of this work can be done in parallel with others. Stuff that happens in the clickable cockpit is simply not worth getting rid of.

Well, the old Carl Vinson got removed, which actually broke at least one campaign (not that it wasn't broken before due to LOD issues with the model). I agree that lower poly models are quite useful for AI, but at the same time, many of the old models don't look particularly good. Ideally, the old AI models would be replaced by new ones, for example made from lower LODs of the high poly player/wingman models.

First we need spherical Earth tech. It's well known that the Jag could take off from anywhere, as long as the anywhere was long enough for it to use curvature of Earth to get off the ground. I'd love that jet. It might not be the fastest or most advanced out there, but it would be a fun bomb truck to fly.

A Phantom GIB would definitely call out speed and altitude (only if necessary, but "watch the deck" is even in training materials) in a dogfight. Larger FOV doesn't matter, the pilot simply cannot take his eyes off the bandit in a dogfight. Lose the sight, lose the fight, and if you stop looking at the guy even for a moment, you might not find him again, particularly during a close fight, or during nose to nose flow. AoA could be felt through the seat (some of us have that option via seat shakers), but it's definitely helpful to know how fast you're going, exactly. In fact, there's a lot more that Jester should call out. During bombing, for instance, he should tell you to pickle when you hit release altitude, and maybe also notify you if you're fast or slow. At least in Vietnam, the backseater was heavily involved in the attack, even if the pilot was the one actually flying the plane.