Czechnology

Exactly as the title says. Anyone know any good documentaries, youtube videos, etc? NOT looking for training style videos, think we already have a thread dedicated to that, and I'd bet the same 5ish Periscope Films videos will get bounced around if I did ask. Pretty much looking for anything. Just craving some Phantom related content and don't want to read anymore damned technical orders. My poor eyes.

They've not made a specific annoucement. And less a question of capability of the missile, more a question of the wiring on the F-4. Might just be physically incapable of providing the power to the missile, or they might of changed some connectors, or any myriad things that just make it impossible. If I had to guess no.

Personally I've just got a policy of not using mods. Support the makers, what they do, and hope they get more support, but the lack of full fidelity really scratches me the wrong way. Can only really bear the lack of being able to hit all the buttons in WW2 planes like in IL-2, and even then when I play IL-2 I'm usually longing to get back into something with a jet engine (that will last longer than the month)

that's fair tbh, but doubt we'll get it still. Just extra unnecessary work when they've got the late F-4 in the pipe, the EF, and the A-6

Yeah, was that aforementioned technowizardry I had mentioned. Very interesting system that I'm excited to try out when y'all do drop

Think it's unlikely we'll be getting one. There were some F-4s retrofitted but to my understanding it was a pretty small batch because the idea was floated when the bird was ending her life in the USAF

Anyone have them? Early version gets some bombing techno wizardry, but until we get the DMAS we don't get a CCIP equivalent as best I understand it.

Very much what Kalasnkova said. F-4 enjoys a higher top speed and much more missiles carried in a single sortie, Mig-21 Bis enjoys a better turning ability in the hands of a veteran and better acceleration overall. Can't say how much of an advantage, best place to find people with real 21 knowledge is Enigma's cold war server, but good luck getting information other than essentially "Mig-21 > {INSERT BLUFOR AIRCRAFT} my 1 to 1 thrust to weight-o-rino with the emergency AB!!!" Personal plan is to keep it high and fast. In theory the F-4 has such a high top speed the 21 is physically incapable of keeping up without choking its engine.

just a joke. right guys?

Also a follow up question that's more history related, why did the F-4 originally come without an IFF? Wouldn't IFF be crucial to perform BVR intercepts without risk of friendly fire, like the bird was designed for? Mig 21s at the time were coming with them, as shown in our use of the Combat Tree system, so what gives? Just one of those handful of times the Soviets were ahead of us, or some other reason?

I think a follow up question is in order for the IFF system. We did a lot of talking of what the system did, whether it was on the bird, and all the antennas, but the question of how the thing works wasn't really answered! Do we manually interrogate like on the Mig 21 or F-14, or is the radar continuously interrogating? What does a friendly or hostile marker look like? Do we have to lock a target to interrogate? Does it even work on locked targets? Is it displayed on the radar screen, or somewhere else?

Math nerds, just pull the friggin stick and turn the bird, who cares about AoA indicators

Best just to wait lads. Mike was kind enough to give us a pretty decently sized update message in the other thread "No official news?", then the big update on their facebook, best not to get spoiled and expect him to respond to every question.

It's unclear how much input heatblur actually gets on these weapons. They will probably provide models, but unlike the vast majority of module contents, ED gets the final say on weapons and their performance

We love you Mike. Looking forward to it.

I know nothing about the f-14 release. Focus on what we got here and now. My big thing is just continued emphasis on it's fine 2022 was missed. The reasons are 100,000% understandable. My issue is that we've gotten a weird change in direction from "2022 is still possible, we're burning the candle from both ends" to "before mid point of the year" from someone who I don't fully recognize and hasn't been making comments on the development before now. The silence implies we're still imminent, but the few shaky words we've gotten imply a long wait. Even if an annoucement dropped out and said "OK guys, sorry, something really f'd up and we're going to be a long while" or "Development is continuing, expect more news" - SOMETHING, anything, good news, bad news, or practically no news to follow up the missed mark, I'd be sated.

It's an annoying dance of them wanting to keep our attention and keep their hand close to their chest in the event something goes wrong. They want to keep us enraptured with Phantom Phever, but if they say like "it's gonna be out in x amount of time for sure" then if something goes wrong they've got a blunder. Which they've already had - WHICH - I do want to emphasize that last year's failure to launch was because of Ukraine and other issues with developer's family, entirely reasonable. But this is the best way one can put it. They were talking like 2022 was still a possibility before the year was up, but managing expectations "We're doing everything we can, don't give up total hope". That's fine. I'd resigned myself to a probably late Q1 release. Now this newest bit of info implies to me they've resigned to taking at least half the year before we get information, not even a release, just info. I really enjoyed the hype building strategy from last year, but now that the mark was missed I'd at least like a proper follow up.

Nothing I'm aware of. I try my best to keep a good feel for it and haven't seen anything. Only grey area is reddit where I don't keep any tabs. To my understanding there was a reply someone the HB team put out saying we should be getting details well before the half point of the year, but I'm taking them with a grain of salt because it wasn't Cobra or Mike who made it.

Actually the plan they seem to be running is to release two different USAF F-4E variants, one "early" and one "late", getting the early first. The naval variant they decide to go with will be a different module, I would imagine with another early/late variant pack, as their doing with the F-4E and have done with the F-14. Becoming a bit of a heatblur signature for modules.

No that's actually very real. Adverse yaw at high AoA on Phantoms was notorious, but it's also true it's partially not knowing how to fly it. Our E was partially trying to address the problem, but it's still something to be aware of. Don't know the number for the E, but for the hardwings, as you approach 15 units of AoA, you must use more and more rudder instead of aileron, and surpassing 15 you must not give ANY aileron input or risk flat spin. Again. These are numbers for the hardwings, so we might have more wiggle room

The word on fighting migs from books and pilots was keeping knots up and using the vertical, but the problem is that the 21 and 19 are both pretty darn good in the vertical too in theory. To my very, very vague understanding, the Vietnamese just didn't really train in the vertical, and thus didn't use it much in practice. BIG HUGE NOTE HERE that this is heard from US sources, so possibly entirely wrong. But like I said, 19 and 21 both have good TWR and powerful afterburning engines. Do know they can't keep up in a straight line. The in game Bis as it stands quite literally, F-4E flying at theoretical max speed is beyond what the 21 can fly before it chokes its own engine. 19 won't choke itself, but still, doesn't keep up.

Really my big question, on the co-pilot's controls, is there any kind of lock out where the pilot can enforce his controls over the co-pilots? I know from interviews and books that it's normally interlinked, where the co-pilot could in theory "fight" for the controls, so is there a lock out for if say, co-pilot got unruly, or maybe he's hit and slumping against one of them? Unruly really being the biggest we'd have to worry about in DCS with randoms hopping in and messing with you if you let them come aboard.

Expanding on my previous post since I've been thinking about it more, think I personally would be able to shrug it off if we just got some solid word on the production other than "it's coming along." I don't need to hear "Oh we're working on these systems, this systems done, we want these systems done before we launch it" or "Heres how many rivets we've included". I don't even want a screen shot. Just give us a new release projection, even if it's rough. Also, @Horns, my only thing on all that is that pre-order periods can range wildly. I've witnessed several month long pre-orders to literally none ever since I joined the community. I can't speak for how Heatblur have done it in the past though, their other modules are before my time on DCS, as I've said before, my experience with heatblur was hearing waaaaaaay back in the day "These guys are making a multi-crew F-14", saying "Cool", then a few years later it was out and I bought it. I wasn't biting my nails watching every piece of development like I am with the F-4. I hadn't played or kept any kind of tabs on DCS other than a few failed attempts to learn the base Su-25 before the F-14 released.