Dragon1-1

Well, Heatblur could. Next time I have to choose between two modules, I know which one I'll get. Steam users shouldn't get shafted because preorders on Steam don't work now for some reason (and they used to, I preordered Apache just fine). Couldn't you make it possible to transfer Eshop preorder to Steam, or something? Either that, or add regional pricing to it.

Couldn't you make it 30% for a week or so? Steam users should get a chance for the preorder discount, too. Heatblur did exactly that for the Phantom and it worked out for them.

People are expensive whether they sit in cockpit or not. Automated systems, such as MWS, autopilot and so on are the way militaries are going towards right now. Optionally piloted aircraft mean that the pilot doesn't have to be piloting all the time, and can do WSO's job instead when needed, while still being on hand to control the aircraft.

Show me one video that shows it doing this "clearly", as opposed to simply approaching from behind. No, modern heatseekers take the shape of the whole aircraft into account, not only to reject flares, but also to avoid being fooled by having engines far apart (which is not why Russians do it, BTW, and it would not work even against missiles that do home on the jetpipe, because of the blast radius). Look up any unclassified docs on how their seekers work, and you'll understand why it's the only way they can work.

He's a USAF jock, so he's not nearly as well-mannered as USN aviators. Then again, when we get a carrier Phantom we'll also get ones from USMC... That said, to think of it, I mostly heard F-word variations as the pilots' profanities of choice. While I don't think they'd shy away from religious ones these days, perhaps in the 80s people took those things more seriously.

Well, when to use which maneuver is kind of obvious - you use the regular "combat turn" when they're shooting at you from the ground, as to minimize the time you're flying straight. The "loft" one is a classic pop-up attack, used if you're able to terrain mask, and the half loop technique is for low threat situations - it overflies the target going fast, and then pops up into an attack. It's accurate and lets you inspect the target, but it also exposes you to enemy fire, particularly to MANPADS. It would've been nice if some more time was spent on tactics, but these attack types themselves are fairly basic building blocks. I admit, this campaign could use some more theory, but ED probably thought it'd come from elsewhere, this is just the practical part.

Honestly, it's not like this particular weapon looks like something that MiG-29A will be able to carry, anyway. This thing looks like it has a widebody motor, a much larger seeker and overall only the fins resemble the R-27ER. It's not like the Shrike, if it was just an ER tuned into AWACS radars instead of MiG's own, it would've been a simple matter. This is obviously a new weapon, and thus, probably only compatible with new versions of the MiG-29. We don't even know how exactly is it cued onto a specific radar signal.

Turns out, it's still wrong if you reference the N1, but a bit less so. If you set the power the briefing wants you to, you'll get too slow. I think this needs to be adjusted, especially since it's in the briefing, so no issues with voicing.

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).