Ivandrov

And I suppose for the record, the formation you are attempting to defend against would not at all be a formation that these bombers would be using. They have their own radars that would be blocked for the same exact reason.

Example of how a good RIO enhances your awareness. Here is me controlling your track. I'm attempting to offset and the TID still shows one contact. However, if I look at my DDD and hold the IFF button to change the DDD to show range. I can see what is really going on. I can see that there are in fact 4 separate bricks. Well, you can believe what you want. But, you'll need to show some documentation to Heatblur if you want to argue that the TWS performance should be changed.

The radar picks them up fine, you'll be able to see them on the DDD in the backseat. The TWS processing is not doing a good job of seperating them out into different tracks on the TID which is what you are looking at on the front seat. If you want to see them all, you would just use a different radar mode, or you have a good RIO who knows how to work the radar to give you the information you need.

You are still attempting to compare two different radars to inform you about the TWS performance of the Tomcat's radar. That is not a valid comparison whatsoever. They are two different radars. The -63 in the 15C is not only the next decade over, but it has received far more in the way of updates to its capability since then. Anyway, there's no bug here nor are you doing something wrong with the buttons. they are just too close together and all in a column where you can't see past the one in front. If I take control of your track using the buttons you pressed, it's the same for me where I can only see the one bomber, but all I do is just move to the side and I can get a 2nd contact to show up in TWS at long range. If I do my own mission with the TU-142 spread out further and in a line abreast as I said, they all show up at long range without any special button pressing.

Do not try to compare the performance of the two radars between the F-14 and the F-15E. The 15E has a more advanced radar. It's about 2 miles of separation required for the TU-142 so that the TWS keeps the two aircraft separated. There is no error on your part other than you are expecting too much from a 60's era radar. As far as what to do in a situation where you are dealing with a conga line, you would just reposition to the side, no different buttons need to be pressed or anything like that. It's just a matter of repositioning the aircraft.

Doesn't look like you provided the right track, it's named ACL fail and it looks like some attempt at a landing with ACLS. I can infer a bit from your description that it sounds like you are trying to find 4 targets that are all in column right behind the other while you are co-altitude and nose-to-nose with them? It's a bit like if I asked you to count how many vehicles are stopped in a lane on a road while your head is level with the front vehicle's grille and you are looking at the cars where they are all in line with each other. It's pretty difficult and a radar would suffer from the same problem of reflected energy all being reflected by the front contact. If you put them the same distance apart in a line abreast formation more of them show up at much longer distance. But even then for the TU-142's they have to me more than 2 miles apart at least at more than 50 miles or the TWS starts determining that two of them are actually one giant track.

Ah, but Victory also said this, his notes on DLC use don't seem to apply to the version of the spoilers we have.

Yeah, something is up with what you are doing. If you see them in RWS than you should also be able to see them in TWS.

I highly doubt he actually meant nothing more, it is recommended for you to not hold the DLC up for an extended period of time so that your sink rate doesn't get really high. Hence why he said if you're high you flick or bang it twice. It is also the first place he went for adjusting down slightly, not the throttle it seems to me.

In no way is it recommended to be just using the throttle to trap. The NATOPS is pretty clear that the DLC should be engaged for Carrier ops, and it's a full time job on stick, throttle, DLC and Rudder adjustments.

It's not really as much of a braking surface. Although the full spoiler deployment at an airfield helps a ton. As said before its primary purpose is reducing lift. It's also not like the F-14 is the only aircraft to have them, or its only swing wings that have them. You'll find them on commercial airliners as well, for dumping the lift of the wing to achieve as much weight on wheels as possible for efficient braking.

Ah, so we're good with the plate then. No replacement required.

It seems to me that it's always described as "wear" or "worn out" rather than any specific design issue.

Replacing the buttons presumably, if they're friction retained as the other post suggested.

Could be they're actually quite nice buttons that are abused to death over years. I don't actually know what material they are made of or how they're supposed to be retained in the panel.

That's not the cheapest bidder. There's been cheaper solutions to the buttons wearing out than that. Including scotch tape, and shoving paper into the gaps. Some squadrons did their due diligence and actually properly fixed them. Others decided that the plate or wire were good enough.

September of last year was the most recent patch note I can find about changing NAVGRID from True to Magnetic. It's a bit vague on what that actually means but I assume it's for the Threat Axis. I don't know what Heatblur had used for this specific change. Could be a manual, could be SME feedback. I have however found a reference in the NATOPS that the Grid updates its position based on changes in MAGVAR.

To be a bit more clear on a basic level as to what exactly the DLC does. The inner spoilers have a control thumbwheel on the stick you can use when they are active. The thumbwheel changes very granularly how far the spoilers extend, spoilers spoil the air going over the top of the wing, reducing lift. The more they are extended the less lift the wings have. As well as the obvious of more drag. They are very quick to use, quicker than any of your other controls in DCS and are more capable of finer adjustments to glideslope. As IronMike said, you still have to pay attention to everything else, you can't just concentrate on the DLC, but proficient use makes landing the Tomcat easier.

I consider the DLC to be mandatory, same as the flaps. Rest of my group does as well, and every resource from actual pilots that I can find about its use also seem to agree. It also just makes adjustments of the glideslope way easier once you get used to them. There can be a lack of response from the TF30's and sometimes seemingly an over response from the F110's.

Heading for the NAVGRID threat axis is Magnetic not True heading. Hence your grid is offset by whatever the jet thinks the MAGVAR is right now. If you want it to point straight east on the TID you'll have to calculate the Magnetic heading yourself or use F10 map bullseye function to tell you.

It does not. At least not at the moment. Presumably an accurate altitude difference would be important in determining lofting behavior, but that's a complete guess on my part as I am not even sure that the loft behavior of the sparrows is correct.

1) Depends, INS Go Now is not a thing in the jet per se, it is a command to Jester to finish the alignment immediately regardless of where the progress is at. So that means depending on when you tell him to "Go Now" you can be in one of four states. AHRS backup Coarse alignment Launch Criteria Fine alignment Missiles in the DCS F-14 seem to work fine regardless probably because Heatblur doesn't really have control of the weapon side of things to simulate any kind of degradation in lofting capability for instance. In the DCS F-14, consequences for a bad alignment are navigational. (It can be hell trying to use datalink to figure out where targets are though, the drift becomes immense.) 2)Keep in mind that PD-STT omits use of the MLC filter, so you don't have the notch blind spot that the search modes have. AIM-7 tracks properly in both.

Track would be helpful, haven't experienced any sudden trim nose up in either of these aircraft.

If you're talking about bindings, every plane has two kinds of modifiers available to them. One that acts like a switch and the other requires you to hold it. Sounds like you used the wrong one and have to rebind it to the other one.

Pretty much the title. Was prepping to counter REDFOR F/A-18's in a simulated ship strike. They'll show up on the AGC trace in the DDD, but no lockable contact will form nor can the pilot lock onto them using any pilot modes. The slightly larger KH-35's show up fine, it may or may not be an RCS thing, but I am not sure. Harpoon no radar contact.miz.trk