Aquorys

Did you read my initial post? Are you suggesting that 3 AMRAAMs, that were all fired well within parameters, will realistically all miss the target, assuming that they have NOT randomly failed? They were not fired outside of their parameters Are you suggesting that slowing down and trying to pull a Cobra maneuver in an F-15 at ~25 AoA while facing towards a missile and doing a couple aileron rolls is a "proper step to defeat a missile"? Asking, because every single piece of information I have ever seen or heard from what I would call reliable sources suggests quite the opposite. That is true, but you might want to ask some former pilots from Serbia who were smoked by AMRAAM Bs while trying to notch them around 1995 (which seems to be players' #1 favorite successful AMRAAM evasion maneuver in DCS). Unless AMRAAM Cs have somehow de-evolved since then, I am pretty sure that an AMRAAM C can, most of the time, guide towards and successfully intercept an almost head-on target that is doing Mach 0.8 and is flying in a straight line. I did not say it absolutely can't. I said it apparently commonly does in DCS, because it seems a little bit unlikely that 3 AMRAAMs and an AIM-9X in a row, all fired well within parameters, would all fail to intercept the target. How many missiles would you suggest to fire at a single F-15 in real life to have a reasonable chance of intercepting it? Like, 6 AMRAAMs and 4 Sidewinders? There is not a lot of air-to-air combat going on these days. It would be quite interesting to hear how many missiles hit or failed to hit each of the targets that were intercepting recently - e.g., during the Iranian attack on Israel. Some of the drones and cruise missiles were targeted by fighter aircraft, presumably using AMRAAMs. The ballistic missiles were shot down using SM-2s or SM-6s. The SM-6's sensors were developed based on research and technology from the AMRAAM.

I am not saying that it is not immersive when you are just flying around - and in that case, the most immersive simulation I have been in wasn't DCS, it was an Airbus full flight simulator. What I am saying is that as soon as you are doing air-to-air combat, realism along with tactics go out the window, because the missiles are unrealistically unreliable, the AI uses absurd tactics that doesn't work in real life, and thereby exploits game glitches in the game's broken missile guidance instead of either employing proper tactics, or by failing to employ proper tactics and dying as a consequence, and as they should. You called it a "passionate description of your dogfight", and that describes the problem quite well. It was not supposed to be a dogfight. I never wanted to get into a dogfight. My intention was a rather defensive BVR engagement. The dogfight is what happened because things that should have worked did not work. Most of the air-to-ground stuff seems to be doing alright, but the air-to-air and air defense (SAM) parts have not worked properly in the past, do not work properly now, and I have lost faith that they ever will.

Ok cool, but those are all Gripen photos, and they are not made by General Dynamics, they're made by Saab, a Swedish company.

I can relate. I have not been very active either for the last half year or so. My experience today: First of all, DCS tells me that there is another update I need to install, but I skip, and join a bad weather multiplayer server. I take off, while flying outbound I encounter an AI F-15C. I decide to engage first, AI F-15C at 26k, ~M0.9, I am in an F-16CM at 27k, ~M1.3. I fire one AMRAAM, and the F-15C fires one at me too. This is where mine went: null Not sure where it's headed, but it isn't any place that F-15C was at before. Meanwhile, I had defeated the AI's AMRAAM kinetically. A minute later or so I decide to turn around and fire two more AMRAAMs, and the AI fires another AMRAAM at me again. This time the AI does some weird Hollywood Top Gun sh*t with 25 degrees AoA and a couple aileron rolls, and the AMRAAM that is 180 ft away with a M0.3 overtake misses - just like the second one. I narrowly defeat the AI's AMRAAM kinetically again and fly towards my home airport at a very low altitude. The AI F-15C is intercepted by two friendlies (I think Su-27s), but both get shot down in dogfights. While I am trying to land at the airport, the AI decides to chase me again, despite the two active MIM-104 radar systems at the airport, because AI pilots do not believe in basic rules of self-preservation, and I get an AIM-7 fired at me. Now since I'm dead anyway, I turn towards the AI F-15C and fire an AIM-9X. I get hit by the AIM-7, but guess what, the AI F-15C flares within 1 second of my missile launch, and my AIM-9X with the most advanced imaging IR sensor that exists today locks on to the first flare dropped by the AI, and the 9X goes nowhere. Instead, the AI-controlled MIM-104, which is misplaced in such a way that it should not even work, finally wakes up and somehow figures out that it would maybe be a good idea to shoot the hostile that's been flying around at a distance of roughly 7 nm at 11k ft for the last couple minutes, and the AI F-15C is finally brought down. To summarize: 4 times in a row, none of the weapons that should have worked did anything, and the only weapon system that absolutely should not have been able to operate shot the target with the first round it fired. I'm kinda underwhelmed. I guess, it just is what it is, or what it will always be ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I was wondering about that too. Maybe they cast that whole thing in some kind of epoxy resin in the final product to make sure it wouldn't fall apart?

I guess the best answer would be "it depends...", but generally speaking, an AMRAAM does not care about your aircraft's lock. AMRAAMs are guided via datalink and their own onboard active radar homing equipment in the terminal phase. The guidance equipment uses the most recent information about the target's position and movement to find the target, meaning that if a target's position and motion are plausible, based on the most recent information received on the datalink and the time elapsed since then, it will lock onto that target. How this works in detail, e.g. the exact distance/speed/direction tolerance based on a certain scenario, is classified information, therefore, there is virtually nothing you can do to figure out whether the behavior of the missile was realistic in DCS (outside of signing up for a job at Raytheon ).

Apparently, at least some kind of lower-observable helicopter is in service in the US, and of course, the question is, how stealthy it really is - we don't know. We only know about it because they crashed one (and then blew it up and burned it to the ground to avoid exposing the presumably secret technology) during the Osama bin Laden raid in 2011. It is believed to have been a UH-60 Blackhawk modified for less radar visibility and a lower noise level. The operator of these aircraft is almost certainly the US Army's 160th SOAR (aka "Nightstalkers") based at Fort Campbell in Kentucky. Even 13 years after the raid, not much is known about these modified helicopters other than the fact that they exist.

If where the HUD is pointing you is not where the steerpoint is, press CZ (cursor zero) on the TGP page

Well, I guess that kinda explains why there are more F-150 Raptors than 250 GTOs on the road

Just attempted to sort the pictures, because they are backwards, but this editor doesn't work properly

Quite vividly, even the debrief with the cost for repairs, the promotion system and the board (or box?) of medals. It was a beautifully designed game at the time.

I guess that explains why everyone is applauding. I was expecting more of an atmosphere of "oh, by the way, we hit a couple more of those drones the Houthis keep sending... sorry for the noise"

Can't remember off the top of my head which position is in what direction and what mouse button gets it there, but what I do remember is that it seems to work fine. What you're supposed to do with it is to switch it on a couple seconds, then move it to TEST, which is spring-loaded, then you check the probe heat caution light, which should be flashing, and when you release the switch, the spring flips it back to OFF. Then later, before take-off, there is a checklist item to switch it on.

I think it uses hall effect sensors

For example, the one linked in my signature, which goes into your F-16 kneeboard. It is derived from real world F-16 checklists, but shortened to skip items that do not apply to DCS (like, for example, pulling out locking pins and similar items that you cannot do in DCS anyway).

The approach angle doesn't really matter, because Air Force pilots flare before landing instead of crashing into the runway

I mean... it's kinda realistic though. The Soviet union, and then Russia, had to accept that they didn't have weapons and avionics on par with the western platforms until much later. Even when they had something researched and an ability to manufacture a product, most of the operational squadrons didn't have it for a long time. Just compare the timelines of AMRAAMs vs. R-77s, or try to find operational eastern bloc jets flying around with something like JDAMs, SLAMs or SDBs, or an AESA radar (and to be fair, there are some notable exceptions, e.g. the MiG-31's radar was way ahead of its time when it was introduced; just like the R-73's seeker and rocket technology at the time of its introduction compared to the Sidewinder).

It's generally a good idea to fly in CAT III with any heavy loads, high drag loads or asymmetric loads. Any stores on 3/4/6/7 with gear down or trailing edge flaps deployed, and anything with an AoA of more than 15 degrees becomes a prohibited maneuver. Similarly, excessive pitch at low speed in a high-drag configuration in CAT I can make the aircraft depart, and can sometimes be unrecoverable. There are just so many limits and things you're not supposed to do in a multitude of configurations that you probably can't even find anyone who can tell you all of them off the top of their head. Baseline being, don't do anything radical if there is any chance to avoid it. Don't pull the stick like an idiot (aka the guys in the Top Gun movie), don't roll at max rate, don't roll continuously, don't fly too slow, don't kick the rudder with asymmetric loads, don't fly inverted, don't fly at high AoA with stuff on your wings, don't pull Gs with tanks, etc. And that is one reason why at least some modern aircraft come with so-called "carefree handling", where the flight control system knows what the limits are, and a maximum-deflection stick input will simply give you whatever performance doesn't break things or send you flying into the ground with the configuration that you are flying in (and by the way, that is also why you cannot randomly put new or different types of weapons on a fighter aircraft, as the flight control systems needs to be adjusted for the weight/balance and aerodynamic properties of anything that goes onto or into the aircraft). The F-16 doesn't have that, so someone needs to go through endless tables of classified information to figure out what exactly the limits are that apply, and hopefully tell the pilot the correct version of what he/she can or cannot do with whatever loadout the aircraft has.

Any external tanks on the plane and you're a CAT III, unless it's only the centerline fuel tank and it's empty. Mavericks, HARMs, bombs, etc. -> CAT III ECM pod, TGP, etc. -> CAT III Long story short, anything else than AMRAAMs and Sidewinders on the aircraft, and it's going to be a CAT III, and will also require G to be kept within somewhere in the range of 4.5 to 7.5, depending on what exactly the loadout is.

There is at least one model with a ~97 degrees field of view, the L3/Harris GPNVG-18, but despite them having been around for a while, only very few units have them (Delta, DEVGRU, 24th STS, outside of the US, I only know for sure the German KSK and GSG 9, but with different electronics), and they were not designed for flying (the "G" is short for "Ground"). Anyway, I would not be surprised if some special helo folks, like maybe the 160th SOAR, had tried them or even introduced them by now. However, the GPNVG-18 are still very expensive, at around $45k, so I doubt they will be standard issue for every pilot anytime soon. Also, they're big and comparatively heavy (light considering they're quads, but heavier than the usual binocular/monocular ones).

You're probably the only one, so everyone else is confused. Officially, it's called the Eurofighter Typhoon, formerly European Fighter Aircraft (EFA, Eurofighter EFA), or EF-2000. Inofficially, EF is often used as an abbreviation. EU is normally interpreted as referring to the European Union.

In my opinion, the problem that most people have is that they forget to maneuver out of plane. Instead of chasing an opponent around the circle for minutes, if you have the energy (which you can often get by maneuvering less aggressively), just take it into the vertical, roll and then you can "cut a corner" to get your nose on, so to speak. Also, if you're in a mission and not explicitly training gun skills, the safest way out is to end the dogfight quickly. One good turn, good tone, Fox 2, bye. And also don't forget you can switch to and fire AMRAAMs in dogfight override mode. I have used that more than once on dragging opponent that was barely in range for a Sidewinder. ...at least in DCS. Although even then, I would add that it depends on the situation when entering a dogfight. The F-16 is good as long as it is fighting a high speed 2 circle fight, it's not that great at anything else.

I did that a couple times yesterday, had a problem once when switching modes and SOI, and I couldn't get it to go back to letting me mark with the HMCS by making the HUD SOI. I even switched back to NAV, and that didn't do anything either. But that was easily fixed by cycling out of and back in to MARK, and then proceeding as usual.

...if you're flying one of the few US Navy Vipers, then yeah