KlarSnow

USAF never had AIm-9P-4/5's those were upgrade kits for foreign operators taht had lots of AIM-9N/P's lieing around. AIM-9P-4 replaces the seeker head with an all aspect seeker somewhat equivalent to an AIM-9L, and gives it the ability to slave to a radar lock. AIM-9P5 adds IRCCM of some sort to the 9P4. USAF transitioned entirely to AIM-9L for the frontline fighters (F-15/16) in the mid 80s, and then late 80's-early 90's switched to the AIM-9M. Only J/N/P's left around were either in WRM stocks, for platforms that couldn't use AIM-9L/M or were considered second line air to air platforms (F-4E's for example). Or were sold off to other nations that were upgrading or updating their arsenals as part of aircraft sales. Eventually the F-4G in USAF service had the update that gave full compatibility with AIM-9L/M, but the F-4E was divested as far as I can tell before that update hit (in USAF service, foreign operators may very well have added it). In DCS we have what is labelled an AIM-9P, but is actually an AIM-9P3, however it should be a reduced smoke or smokeless motor, and it is not. the AIM-9P and P1 had the same motor as the AIM-9B/E/J which had less thrust than the motor we have in the DCS AIM-9P, and were not reduced smoke. Additionally the AM-9P and P5 have reduced G limits in DCS (16G max) than they should have. They should match the AIM-9J for maximum G (22G) So for actual dogfight performance its a big tossup for motor performance (9P and P5 have the more powerful motor, 9P5 has smokeless) vs turning capability (9J turns better). Overall its a bunch of inconsistencies in DCS that will hopefully get cleaned up at some point. The DCS AIM-9P5 has the smokeless motor and is all aspect.

You can always use a radar lock to steer to an optimum firing position. That applies to all weapons since it tells you the range and where the target is. What that line is saying is you can get optimum steering if you put the dot in the center of the ASE circle. Just like any other missile. The best reference for this would probly be looking at something that definitely had the ability to slave a sidewinder to a radar lock, and also has AIM-9J/N/P capability. If you have it recommend you look at the AIM-9 employment section of the F-15C-34-1-1. It has a whole section on the AIM-9J as well as the differences between it and the AIM-9L. You will note if you read through it that there is no way to cue the AIM-9J to the radar lock. You only can employ it via boresight and uncage. This applies to all members of the AIM-9J family (9J/N/P) until the AIM-9P-4 and 5. If you google fighter weapons review 1982 and look for an article titled AIM-9P to uncage or not, it talks about AIM-9P employment on F-4E's. They only talk about boresighting and uncaging, no reference to SEAM or any of that other stuff in there. There are lots of other sources out there that talk about this and their employment. SEAM and slaving a sidewinder to a radar lock was exclusive to navy sidewinders and aircraft until the AIM-9L arrived. The only sidewinders that ever had any form of SEAM capability were the navy lineage sidewinders (AIM-9G/H which were the basis for the AIM-9L/M) and eventually retrofitted into an export only variant of the AIM-9P for customers that didn't want to/couldn't afford to/weren't permitted to acquire AIM-9L/M. The AIM-9P-4/5. Other than that, no SEAM for air force sidewinders.

Whenever JHMCS gets added you will need that castle up long vs castle press+castle up.

If you have wing or centerline external tanks installed set the switch to WING CTR. If those tanks are empty or you do not have them installed, set the switch to CONF TANK. This switch determines the priority of feeding from these sources and should be set to match the config of the jet. The fuel will still feed if the switch is positioned incorrectly (you set the switch to WING CTR with no external tanks installed) however there may be a cyclic process that depletes your internal fuel by a 1000 lbs or so before it kicks the Conformal tanks to feeding.

It is, and the missile has no way to transmit back to the aircraft where its seeker head is pointing, its umbilical only sends back the tone signal. So it cannot show you the seeker circle after uncage. I am directly referencing how this is described in the F-15E -34-1-1 from 1989, and the F-15C -34-1-1 from 1981 here. Its the same in both for the AIM-9J/P. They both describe that the way you assess seeker track is via the tone, and that the seeker boresight circle goes completely away after uncage. Think of how these missiles work in the F-5E or the Mirage F1, except you now have a full HUD and radar lock symbology and target designator. Otherwise it behaves exactly the same as in both of these jets. The USAF never integrated AIM-9P5, as that was a foreign export only system. By the time those were around the USAF had completely transitioned to AIM-9L and mostly to AIM-9M. So the J/P is very much a legacy weapon that was being phased out when the F-15E entered service. Just checked the HAF F-16-34-1-1 and it has the same behavior for the AIM-9N/P as shown in the F-15E. Only the AIM-9P-4/5 have the seeker diamond actually represented over the target designator box. If you have that manual this is indicated on the diagram on page 1-405, figure 1-271. The F-15E -34-1-1 dated 1989 describes all of this in the AIM-9 employment section. Page 1-133 shows the symbology for AIM-9J/P, figure 1-48. F-15C-34-1-1 dated 1981 describes all of this also in the AIM-9 employment section. Page 1-33, figure 1-19. The FC3 F-15C is the only other jet with a HUD in DCS that uses the AIM-9P and it incorrectly shows the seeker moving around after uncage, but its FC3 and much about how that is implemented is incorrect, since it just copies the AIM-9L/M symbology. If its an AIM-9P5 then it could potentially be correct. However USAF jets would have never carried the AIM-9P5...

This is correct for the 9J/P the jet does not know where the seeker head is positioned after you uncage with these missiles. And all symbology goes away. When recaged the missile is forced back to boresight. This is correct implementation and symbology for these missiles.

USAF F-4's did not have SEAM for Sidewinders. The AIM-9B/E/J/N/P until the AIM-9P-4/5 were not capable of being slewed to a radar lock. they were all boresight only. there was an update for the F-4E/G that added full AIM-9L/M compatibility including the ability to slave them to a radar lock during their end of life updates. Before this those missiles also would have been boresight only as well on an F-4E/G. So no, the F-4E should absolutely not have any SEAM, unless its replicating the isrealis addition of AIM-9G's in the 1970s. Which how it was integrated you would have to get some details on.

The Air to ground radar pulls the elevation from the steerpoint you have input at PB 17 in the upper right of the radar display. If you do not have a steerpoint up there, it pulls from the closest steerpoint. This is why your targetting pod is pointing in the air. It has no way to generate elevation off of an HRM map, only coordinates. DTED is not integrated with the radar in this suite of strike eagle, so this is something you have to deal with via preplanning. its how it is designed to work.

The CAS has 1/3rd control surface movement authority. So if you move the stick full aft and the CAS decides that’s the wrong thing, you only get 2/3rds the deflection. It uses this to create artificial feel in certain situations to provide feedback for impending situations. The stall inhibitor is one example of this. As you get below a certain speed the CAS reduces your elevator movement for stick movement slightly, resulting in the nose feeling “heavier” Think as you move the stick aft, the CAS programs some of that out in order to make it feel like more stick movement is required in order to reach a stall condition. We actually do test the CAS on itself as a show and tell during the B course, pilot or WSO locks the stick between their knees then the opposite cockpit will do a few maneuvers using just the force sensor. Works but again you are only getting 1/3rd control authority so you aren’t going to be doing anything super aggressive with it.

If you are taking off with takeoff trim you do have to trim that out otherwise it will be trimmed by default to a pitch up condition. Once that is trimmed out I have not had to mess with trim at all. So I’m not really sure what the issue you are having with it continuing to climb is. press takeoff trim button until you hear the “yaw rate” and the light goes green prior to takeoff. Once airborne and the gear/flaps are cleaned up I put 4-5 clicks of nose down trim until it’s hands off 1G level flight and then I don’t touch the trim hat anymore.

Half the training time of strike eagles is air to air. And we have and are tasked quite frequently, and more in recent times with air to air roles. If the mission doesn’t specifically require a precision strike role, F-15Es will load up 7x1 or 6x2 just like a C model and perform air to air as a primary mission.

It is not unrealistic. In the real jet you do one actuation and movement that takes from MRM to GUN, clicking through SRM in one motion. it does not require you to push in to SRM on the way and steps thorugh it instantly. Having to push the center position as a separate push just to get from one to the other is unrealistic if you dont have a switch that matches the real thing. Your point only stands if you have hardware that matches the real throttle. if you don't have hardware that matches the real throttle, then the current implementation is wrong because it prohibits you from actuating GUNS or MRM correctly, which is in one movement. Yes it clicks through two positions when you do it, but its one "actuation" if that makes any sense. Accounting for the fact that people dont have the same hardware as the real thing is not a concession to realism. its making it function properly. You do not get "stuck" at SRM every time you try to go to GUNS in the real jet, nor do you have to think about and remember to go back to SRM before you go to GUNS. That's the unrealistic part of the current implementation.

Which LGB? There are 3 currently implemented, GBU-12, 10 and 24.

Radar channel on A/A radar also sets the radar channel for A/G, if you deconflict the A/A radar you have deconflicted the A/G as well…

4. Can be accomplished already. The bindings for everything are separate front and backseat. So there is nothing stopping you from changing the pilot/WSO seat option to the same key press. Since the select pilot seat option would only be a thing in the back seat and the select WSO seat would only be an option when in the backseat. Or you can double map it to your HOTAS. I have select WSO seat mapped to a button on my stick in the front cockpit controls, and select pilot seat mapped to the same button in my WSO controls.

Which is all fine until they model the tires exploding from your stepping on the brakes at 150 knots and that weight. You don’t want to be on the brakes at those weights and speeds, you very much want to be aero braking.

All of these rules of thumb are for fuel and ordnance, the aircraft base weight is taken into account in them. Just keep in mind the USAF default minimum runway length is 8000 feet for a fighter airfield. If you are landing on something much shorter than that even if you are super light you may run into problems stopping.

INS drift would not be an issue because the coordinate system that underlies the radar would generate the same relative cuing command for the pod regardless of drift or lack there of. The pod cues to a relative position that is calculated based on the coordinates the radar provides. If the INS is drifting its the same error in the same direction for both the radar and the pod. Cuing the pod to an INS set of coordinates (a steerpoint or markpoint) would display a relative error. Since the INS location would be drifting relative to the world IE an outside absolute source.

The radar cannot determine the elevation of the target independently from an HRM (SAR) map. It will pull the elevation of the closest steerpoint if you have SP in PB17, or the steerpoint you have in PB17 when you cue the pod or make a designation. If that elevation is off from where you have cued the pod then yes the pod will be pointed significantly above or below the point on the ground you were trying to cue it to. Only way you can combat this is by understanding this is how it works, and having a steerpoint made relatively near where you are planning on cuing the pod.

190 is still quite fast. Based on the rule of thumb I posted above, that indicates you are landing with roughly 18,000 lbs of fuel and ordnance. You may be on speed, but you are going far too fast to slow down effectively. Rule of thumb for airspeed that estimates on speed is 155 plus 2 knots for every thousand pounds of fuel and ordnance. So if you are at 190, thats 35 knots/2 = 17-18,000 lbs which would require roughly a 17-18,000 foot runway. You can be on speed and exceed the nose wheel gear limit (210 knots) if you try and land with 30,000 lbs of fuel on board. recommend shooting for something in the 160-170 knot region for on speed and it will be much more comfortable.

INST mode is just a one press, brings up the HSI and ADI immediately button, otherwise there is no real difference between INST and NAV.

1) no, there is no E bracket, you just fly the digital readout 20-22 units of AOA. 2) The ILS needles are supposed to be directors in the F-15E not raw glideslope/localizer indications, this appears to be implemented incorrectly right now or WIP. The Raw Glideslope indications is the bracket that shows up on the left side of the HUD and the raw localizer indications is the HSI arrow that is displayed in the HUD.

Rule of thumb is 1000 lbs of fuel and ordnance for every 1000 feet of runway you are landing on. So if its a 9000 foot runway, combined fuel plus ordnance should be no more than 9000 lbs. Take that as your MAXIMUM landing weight, recommended is probly less than 5000 lbs combined fuel and ordnance. You have a fuel dump switch that will dump ~1000 lbs a minute, so use that to help get down to a good landing weight if you find yourself with too much. Fly a 20-22 unit AOA final approach with the flaps down. Flare at 50 feet AGL using the radar altimeter and the tape on the side of the hud. If you are floating in the flare crack the speedbrake to get the jet to settle on to the runway. Normal technique used all the time in the real thing.

Mach 2.0 is the CFT structural limits. 1.8 is the dual pod limit. 1.6 is the single pod limit.

As long as you meet the sink rate limit there is no max landing weight upto 81,000 lbs. If you are looking for a rule of thumb, the normal desired landing weight is no more than 1,000 lbs of fuel plus ordnance per 1,000 feet of runway. So if you are landing on a 10,000 foot long runway, try to be below 10,000 lbs combined stores and fuel. This is primarily so you aren't landing too fast, and can actually stop comfortably on the runway without hot brakes or blown tires, or requiring a cable (not modelled int DCS).