Joe Miller

I hate this viewpoint. DCS isnt built around your personal likes and dislikes. Dismissing other peoples preferences like they matter less than yours is really pretentious. Myself, and MANY others who fly DCS and who dont type in the forums, would love to have a late navy phantom with the excellent radar, as an example (thankfully this is coming) or even an AMRAAM capable one, like my country flew. These arent "fantasy" aircraft. I personally love using cold war aircraft that have excellent fox 1 missiles, for example. They're extremely fun and very effective against modern fighters. The F16 or F15 are NOT the only fighters that deserve to have their avionics/misiles upgraded. The F16A with the terrible radar is not the only variant that exists, even though it was one of the most common variants built, and according to you, the one that stays "true to the era it was designed in." Military aircraf are NOT static things. The rare exception are things like the F14, which sadly never got more modern radars like every other 4th gen aircraft. There's a good reason wealthy european countries spend multiple millions to upgrade 40 year old aircraft, like the F16. Militaries arent stupid, and they clearly judge these to be worth the money and time invested, and effective against their perceived threat environment, which arent F22s. You dont need an F22 or F35 to fight an SU-27 effectively. Plus, why complain about more variants? If the devs want to do it and have the required information, why stop them?

I have nothing much to add, but just wanted to thank beamscanner for this absolutely INCREDIBLE read. Being able to read such well researched, high effort and detailed information on modern fighter radars for free is amazing. Despite what people think, nothing on an F15, or any fighter, is magic (although high frequency RF sure gets close in my book, give me vortex flow fields anyday). Physics still exists. If you're determined enough and dig for the available information, have the requisite time and equations, and are knowledgeable enough on the subjects required, you can do some pretty cool reverse engineering Beamscanner is a legend

The tempest mk v would be my top pick for the next dcs ww2 module. It really had some innovative features, spring tabbed ailerons, MUCH better wing design, etc. As a (quite shitty) mechanical engineer I have the greatest respect for those who designed the sabre engine, and its my favourite engine of the war for many reasons. The short stroke in comparison to every other ww2 engine, combined with the relativity low capacity per cylinder, spot on reciprocating and rotational balance thanks to basically being 2 flat engines on top of each other, and the lack of inertia from valve springs/valvetrain made it the highest revving aircraft piston engine. Looking at the frankly quite ridiculous ammount of precision required in making the thing during wartime with the problems of metallurgy inherent to sleve valve engines and severe lack of oil quality in those days, its no suprise had problems at the start. Something I find cool is that it was the only engine from ww2 (from what I know) to make 100hp/l, at least in prototype form. Plus, we need an actual late war british fighter to go up against the germans since we dont have that yet ;))

What do you have against the F14 mate? It is unquestionably an excellent dogfighter, and has a great sustained turn rate. As people have already said, there are SO many variables to pilot stories. The experience of the adversary pilot is a big one. Hell, there are accounts of mig 21 folks beating inexperienced F15 pilots out there. What type of fight were they participating in? At what altitude? What airspeed? Any stores/pylons? Etc...

Its not anything to do with being "less modern." The tomcat's radar is currently one of the best a2a radars in dcs if you know how to use it well (which is quite a challenge). When it comes to range and mechanically scanned arrays, its extremely hard to get around a smaller antenna and lower transmit power, like in the f18 and f16 (the viper's antenna is also non circular, which adds its own quirks from what I understand). Its just always going to be a major fundamental limitation. According to a few people here, the APG-68 also doesnt use HPRF in TWS or RWS, so all these things together account for the lack of detection range in comparison to something like a tomcat. Also, loosing track in TWS while doing violent maneuvers is a problem for pretty much EVERY mechanically scanned radar until you get to a PESA/AESA, or the absolute best mechanical radars (eg. the eurofighter). Apparently, the jeff also shows this quirk now. Either way, im just happy that radars in dcs are slowly becoming a lot more realistic (no idea about any of the fc3 radars tho :D)