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I'm going to dump my graphs here: With my extensive testing, I've come to the conclusion that I already knew: the AIM-54s are faster this patch. Test parameters: Launched at Mach 1.0 at 40000 ft (active pause on) at an ace AI target flying Mach 0.85 at 30000 ft hot aspect in TWS with target size at small. All utilizing track files (when comparing the new and old at the same distance) for the most accuracy in terms of distance fired and what the AI does to defend. I used the OB 2.7.15.25026 as the version I conducted my testing it, I only reverted the Weapons.lua file to the older OB 2.7.14.24228 patch in order to test for the old drag numbers. This does mean that the improvement to the AIM-54 guidance effects the values I have here. A discrepancy I had noticed is that the AI will defend the missile at 10nms even though its supposed to go active at around 6nms when using Target Size Small. Actual Conclusion: AIM-54s overall go faster and because of that speed, they loft to a lower altitude while also maintaining a higher speed at those lower altitudes. The speed increase is most effective at long range shots as the lofting flight profile has the most induced drag and as you get closer, the loft gets less and less dramatic which results in less effects from the new reduced induced drag. It is important to note that the Mk47 motor variants have rather poor performance against maneuvering targets. Graphs: AIM-54A-Mk60 AIM-54A-Mk47 AIM-54C-Mk47 Bonus AIM-54A-Mk60 Graph. This includes the Weapons.lua file from OB 2.7.3.8494 this means its before the drag values were modified to match the CFD values found in the whitepaper. It's also very easy to notice the time of the flight where the missile had took a hard turn (4.9Gs max) in order to align itself before going active.

Currently the only way you can edit and selecting the F-14's cockpit textures is by putting them in the "F14B_cockpit" or "F14A_cockpit" texture folder in the Saved Games folder (or the Mods folder in the root DCS installation). However, you can only have 1 cockpit texture mod installed at a time since you cannot select what mods you want to use in the Special menu (the "Customized Cockpit" seen in basically every other aircraft). Just a little quality of life change since it's bit of a pain to get change the files every time you want a different cockpit (especially if you're not using OVGME). F-14 Special Menu currently Possible F-14 Special Menu with Customized Cockpit Option

This problem is especially noticeable against high speed targets that are almost beaming at longer ranges. That will cause the AIM-54 to just lag behind and the target doesn't even have to put that much effort in defending the missile.

Currently aircraft equipped with TPODs can only point track other fighter sized aircraft at a range of 20nms. This is even though in IR modes (WHOT and BHOT) with the new FLIR system you can distinctly see a contrast between the aircraft and the sky behind them at a range of 40nms (around the range of where planes render visually) and a TPOD should be able to lock this pretty discernable target out of the sky. Can we expect an increase in the range where you an point track other fighter sized aircraft? LITENING pod on the F-18 seeing a target (J-11A) at 42nms. This target cannot be locked up even though there is a clear contrast:

With the new 54 guidance change, I noticed when the missiles go active and if the target is doing evasive maneuvers, the missiles do hard G twitches when it loses lock (it doesn't look as smooth as it was earlier) which is similar to the behavior that it had before the big AIM-54 fix this earlier year. Kind of a double edged sword since it seems like it can pull more instantaneous Gs but you can also have problems where the missile decides to just twitch so much that it could lose a lot of energy. What I did notice in terms of speed was that the AIM-54A-Mk60 was once again able to reach beyond Mach 5 when launched at higher altitudes (for my test it was ~54000ft) and was able to maintain a speed of Mach 4.5 while cruising onto the target (launched from ~92nms away) with a pretty good terminal energy too. Image of that 92nm test's telemetry chart: Perhaps maybe explaining what "Reduced AIM-54 induced drag.", "Returned to original guidance parameters thanks to a guidance fix by ED.", and "ED: AA missiles. Corrected target tracking extrapolation." means in terms of what happens to the missile's energy and what happens when the missile goes active will probably help us a lot when we're trying to understand what the changes did. EDIT: I redid the test on the same mission and parameters but this time I used the older Weapons.lua file from the previous OB patch that I had copied. There does seem to be a slight difference with the speed along with flight path that it took since it shaved off about 3-5 seconds from the TTI. The speed increase is most prevalent with the Mk47 motor variants. They seem to cruise at slightly above Mach 3.3 now (closer to high Mach 3.3s for the Mk47C and high Mach 3.5s for the Mk47A) compared to when they used to cruise below Mach 3.5 (closer to Mach 3.34 for the Mk47A on the old LUA and Mach 2.94 for the AIM-54C). That's a pretty substantial increase all while the AIM-54C still gets to go super high compared to the other 2 variants and is still takes the longest of the 3 to hit the target. Overall, that induced drag reduction really helps the AIM-54 get speed at that initial lofting phase along with the descent phase. What differences the original guidance parameters really did remains to be seen imo. Old LUA Mk60: New Weapons.lua excluding AIM-54A-Mk60 (In order: Mk47A, Mk47C) New LUA excluding Mk60 (In order: Mk47A, Mk47C) PHXTestNewLUA.acmi PHXTestOldLUA.acmi

I just learned that some of the F-4s later (RF-4Cs, F-4Es, and F-4Gs) on in US service (and some that got transferred to foreign air forces) had a single piece windshield. From what I could gather, this was a retrofit that was supposed to be added to every aircraft but all the F-4s were basically retired before the upgrade could be fitted in any actual large quantities. Pretty cool stuff ngl. Images: An F-4G from the 37th Tactical Fighter Wing: A diagram from "The Phantom Story" by Anthony M Thornborough: Reference material from the book "The Modern Phantom Guide: The F-4 Phantom Exposed" by Jake Melampy:

Those Air Force variants would probably be included on the Iranian F-14 model.

Maybe that new improved guidance via datalink and INS could allow for you to lose lock and then pick it back up and the Sparrow would keep tracking without missing a beat.

Relating to the release date again:

Can I get like an official document source for that? I need to yell at someone about the proximity fuse on the AIM-54 and how it should be around 15 meters.

The Mk47 motor on the AIM-54C does have a weaker impulse than the motor on the AIM-54A-Mk47. That combined with the increased weight causes the missile to perform worse than the AIM-54A-Mk47 kinematically.

HB was going to give an update on possible discoveries relating to the AIM-54C a couple months back but nothing came out yet.

A human RIO cannot move the radar beam once a Phoenix has been employed however. But they can mark targets as Do Not Attack and drop the TID range down to make the AWG-9 ignore them. With Jester, you can only drop down the TID range to make the AWG-9 ignore contacts in the back.

Not a real Tomcat SME but TWS is limited to ±20° 4 bar scan and ±40° 2 bar scan. A pretty small chunk of sky it has to scan in comparison to the more flexible RWS. Maybe with the APG-71 this changed and the scan volume could’ve been larger.

I am still having the problem where Jester decides to switch to the TCS from the LANTIRN pod after detecting an enemy aircraft within visual range.

Any update on this update?

That Air Combat Experience podcast featuring RAZBAM discussed the possibility of an AI WSO. IIRC, they do plan on an AI WSO but it will be more of a tool rather than an AI similar to Jester.

The thing that puts a damper on the potential closeness of the release date is that they haven't shown us any A2G functionality yet (outside of dropping dumb bombs) and they continue to highlight that the latest videos are just 3D model showcases and not system demonstrations. Especially since some of the indications for some of the functions are not operating like they're supposed to. On another note, that video Hi8 player gives me hope that I can play some weird ass videos in the F-15E. That's some great meme potential right there. The video Hi8 player and recorder is intended for recording the HUD, MFDs, etc. for debriefs.

In relation to the release date and what was shown in the recent videos. It appears that, even though its flyable, it isn't close enough to being ready for EA release. Also an image of a video Hi8 player along with an image of a rudder pedal:

There is this line or one similar to it: {"HB_F14_AIM-54", 0 ,"HB_F14_AIM-54_Early",false}; or {"HB_F14_AIM-54A", 0 ,"HB_F14_AIM-54_Early",false}; Remove or add two dashes "--" in front of it so you can get the stock AIM-54 textures. Be advised that at long distances the AIM-54s will probably become the textures that are included in the stock skin because the long distance skin texture needs to be modified in order for the stock AIM-54 textures to appear.

The thing that is missing now is that the LAU-138 is no longer modeled in the external model with that LAU-7 update. You guys gotta texture it and throw it onto 8A and 1A.

https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3322479/ I made a little cockpit mod for the F-14B that changes the nozzle position gauge to the nozzle percentage gauge for the F110s along with fixing some of the missing labels that were fixed in older versions of OB but were removed recently (MAND ATTK on Datadrum, COMB on the hydraulics gauge, and AWG-9/AIM-54 cooling switch). Inb4 Heatblur had these fixes planned for the May 18th patch. V1.0 - Initial Release V1.1 - Removal of the COMB on the hydraulics gauge and AWG-9/AIM-54 cooling switch fix since it was fixed in OB 2.7.16.27869. V1.2 - Added a fix for the missile station status indicators (the indicators covers were extremely opaque and almost made it appeared that certain stations, especially on Station 1A, were selected). V1.3 - Updated for OB 2.8.3.37556 (making the mirrors work again).

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