SgtPappy

I agree it can get super frustrating sometimes. Personally I find him incredible in the F-14 WVR (BVR, a good human is superior) and he's saved my bacon so many times, he's part of the reason I love flying the Tomcat. I'm keeping my fingers crossed we'll get the same in the F-4 soon!

Speed callouts during bombing runs would be really nice. I think he currently also does not specify if the bandit is high or low when calling them WVR. But my understanding is lots of this will be added as he does some of it for the F-14 already.

The confusion may be coming from the fact that when the Rivet Haste program ushered in the slatted F-4E into Vietnam starting in Nov 1972, they took the 555th squadron title in the hopes that their new jets and training would pay out in MiG kills which didn't happen. The real, original 555th then ended up getting the last kills of the war with F-4Ds. Look up "Clashes: Air Combat over North Vietnam" by M. L. MIchel III. Lots of info on thw Vietnam war and this in particular there.

Hey I was totally just kidding, come back

To be clear, the pilot does not control the radar in the real aircraft. The temporary section of the control bindings which has radar controls for the pilot is exactly that - a temporary workaround while Jester is improved.

There are controls under temporary binds where you can choose to control elevation and gain on your own. Jester will fight you but he lets you use it a bit for a few scans and resets it to his desire if the scans yield nothing. You can also add your own controls from the WSO binds in a keyboard.lua for the pilot and take full control while turning Jester off but it's a bit risky.

I tried a practice mission with MiG-21s at various altitudes flying orbits. I appear to be finding them at the same ranges as I did before. What seems to work for me is having some control of the antenna elevation and gain myself. If I move around both and illuminate a target, Jester will often find the target himself even in clutter. If he finds nothing he will reset both. What seems to have got worse for me is how many times he'll just decide that "Oh no I lost the lock!" despite having a perfect lock on a lookup target right in front of me at 7 nm. Then as I'm approaching a firing solution, he'll just return to search. It appears to happen most often when he switches from the 10 nm display to the 5 nm display. I'll try to reproduce the track soon.

Thanks for the info. I think I would have preferred having the quicker boresight auto-lock as well as I'm having a tough time getting the current system to lock repeatably. Still, what we have now can come in handy in some situations.

I played with a friend of mine who is certainly better than I am but we are close enough in skill that more of our fights end up in a draw where we run out of fuel over those which either of us are victorious. Some lessons learned in DCS so far: - With the Viggen, F-5E and MiG-21, the F-4E will generally beat them in a 2 circle - especially when clean, it's not even close. With missiles, it evens out more. - The Viggen, F-5E and MiG-21 have better 1 circle performance (especially the Viggen) but the F-4E is a little better in climbing turns since it can use that extra P_s and should strive to force the fight upwards. - The F-5 and Mirage F1 are the weakest of this plane set in terms of T/W and struggle a lot when the fight goes up. But all planes other than the F-4 gain a lot when in diving turns since they can pull more AoA without worrying about losing speed. This is a dangerous thing for the F-4 to follow. Really, ANY kind of scissors is a bad day for the F-4 against these planes except maaaaybe the Mirage F1. I still have to face the Mirage more to conclude anything. To summarize, it does seem that the jets are all close enough in performance that if neither pilot makes a mistake, they'll end up in a draw. At first this disappointed me but I'm feeling a bit better with this result because if you win - especially in BFM practice with another human - you were the better pilot in that engagement. If you're even then chances are someone will bingo first. Usually the F-4 but all the jets of the time have similar endurance. My next steps during online practice will be the following with the goal of making the best move possible even if it may not result in a win, and then maybe moving onto more risky and aggressive tactics. I'd like to avoid giving them good rear-quarter missile shots since rear-aspect IR missiles were the weapon of the era (please provide feedback where possible): 1) Remember to come into the first merge at ~0.95 Mach or ~550 KIAS whichever is greater a) Be aggressive whenever you have this excess energy 2) Focus on bringing the fight upwards in climbing turns and avoid the temptation to following these other mid-Cold War jets in diving turns or any scissors. Note: I suppose diving turns look a lot like scissors... Any thoughts on this? 3) When beating the enemy in a 2 circle, they will often tighten the turn if you're about to get a shot and then reverse as you overshoot their flightpath a) Try to prevent overshooting the flightpath by using a vector roll in the opposite direction to the turn, or a high yo-yo b) If the bandit sees you doing either and takes the opportunity to reverse, go into an oblique loop to force the fight into basically an egg-like, somewhat vertical 2 circle since they will be at an energy disadvantage.

Just a bit off topic, but do you happen to know what came before CAA? My understanding is it went like this: 1) F-4B/C/D - Pilot commands cage mode, puts bandit near reticle and then request WSO/RIO to lock 2) F-4E with cockpit TO 556 mod - Pilot commands cage mode, puts bandit near reticle and pilot presses air refuel button to lock on OR can request WSO/RIO to lock 3) F-4E with CAA mod to APQ-120 - what we have in DCS now Is (2) correct? I haven't been able to find a clear source.

I think just being on the internet does that to everyone. At any rate, it's good to know that this particular engine quirk will be corrected on an already spectacular module.

I always find it funny when someone judges someone else for being passionate about something - particularly when one nerd judges someone for being too nerdy. If they were being rude about it, that's one thing but you're in one of the nerdiest corners of the internet. Let people be themselves or go somewhere else.

You were one of those dreaded Hurricane IIC pilots people feared back in the day weren't you?? I remember seeing FM2 or Hurricane IIC pilots in the axis vs allies mid war servers and thinking "glad they're on my team!" A little OT for this thread but a buddy of mine and I cut our teeth as a Hurricane and Spitfire duo in AH2 and now we're here.. good times...

100% agreed. There's no competition when it comes to facing real people. But AI could be so much better and we all know this.

Agreed on some points but it's pretty easy to see why IMO people aren't enjoying the AI. For some, it's a matter of not being able to defeat the AI. For me, it's that these "ace" AI crash into the ground more than half the time. And you're right - they make other mistakes that no human decently familiar with air combat could make. I don't enjoy any of that. Add to this the unrealistic flight modeling of the aircraft that hold too many G's and can often climb vertically at 130 kn etc and you have a very unsatisfying experience. At the end of the day, it's simply bad AI that is the problem, and some of the symptoms are that some people are having lots of trouble against AI using techniques that work against people and more realistic flight models OR some people are finding it incredibly easy to take advantage of the AI's poor choices. Either one is unrealistic and if I wanted to fly against unrealistic AI using unrealistic techniques, I'd hop on Ace Combat (a very fun and vastly different experience but not what I want from DCS).

This is the best thing IMO of this era of jets. They're closely matched, there's a lot of data out there and when someone beats you, chances are they were just better pilots. That said, I don't get the impression that people are looking for a magic bullet. I think that we're all sort of just enjoying what abilities the Phantom has and lacks vs other jets because it's fun to just nerd out and analyze and also because it's a video game where anything can happen. Two buds can hop in in a 1v1 gun fight and be evenly matched and that's where knowing nuanced aircraft characteristics shine the most. Realistic scenario or not, it's important to remember this is a game and a simulation - not real life - and everyone plays a bit differently.

I'm not sure if this is a bug or if I'm missing something but I believe about twice now, I have been unable to fire the gun and I can't replicate the cause. I have attached the track and for those curious, the video of the instance: Note at the end of the video that my the gun was selected on the stores panel, pinky switch set to GUN, master arm was on, the armament indicator was showing weapons armed, and I had not fired a single round during this fight (it was an air spawn in one of the dogfight servers) and yet the gun did not fire. If I'm missing something, please let me know and I will crawl back into my cave but I'm starting to think there may really be a bug. F-4 possible gun bug - mobettametas_Cold_War_Dogfight_Arena_-_Caucuses_-_v0.14.5-20240602-092921.zip

Holy cow, this might explain why mine never guide either. I'll try this workaround. Personally, I think this is a bug. Unless I'm missing another nuance, the Sparrows should guide. I'll check if toggling the CW switch works as well, as maybe there's an issue with air spawns. EDIT: toggling CW off then on did not work. I had the same issue as OP but I have even less success - only 3 of maybe 24 missiles fired though perhaps I'm not keeping the target close enough to boresight as needed. Please see attached track. F-4E flood mode bug.trk

I also wonder if he is using the nutation, 2 bar (RADAR mode scan pattern). My WSO and I have had much more success (when the radar wasn't broken due to desync) with MAP-B mode. I would like to see if it is possible for either Jester or myself to use MAP-B to search for contacts more consistently.

Have you also made sure that your weapon pinky switch is set to HEAT while you're in AAQ mode? The pinky switch will determine if your radar automatically scans more left, center or right. After you obtain lock, you may switch to whatever pinky switch position you want.

Bump. I have not found a solution. I've been searching for weeks and gave up while waiting for the F-4. Now that it's out, I can't join any of the servers - busy or not.

FYI, for anyone having this issue, the workaround is to cycle the compass mode knob (the one behind the right side of the pilot seat which you usually hold clockwise and the let go of when synching the compass) through all its different modes then synching. Then repeat this cycle over and over again until the ADI and HSI stop oscillating. I do not know how/if this negatively affect navigation capability but it seems to work well enough for now.

This was my third attempt and out of the 6 missiles fired, two did not fall short and one hit. I have to try again today. My strategy is to force the SA-3 missile into the ground and then pop up, force the next missile into the ground and repeat until I'm so close, I can smell them then I launch both shrikes and turn away with lots of chaff. In real life, I doubt this would work since my understanding is that maybe the SA-3 prevents its missiles from colliding with the ground in some cases but then again, the real SA-2/3 missiles weren't as maneuverable and jammer pods worked very differently.

I noticed this as well. I had Mavs onboard with a centerline tank. I selected the centerline station only and when I moved the selective jettison knob to stores, the mavericks ejected in addition to my centerline tank.

Confirmed that the Mk 36 works against the SA-3. I've had consistent tone and consistent guidance... but only one hit. You have to pop up REAL close. I haven't got around to using loft yet.