BalkanBattler

This is MEGA great news! Congratulations on this exciting step!!! Any word on a variant you are leaning to, is it still J/S? Woohoo! Go Navy!!

Have we mentioned recently how much we love you guys? Seriously thank you for the multiple versions of the Mirage F-1. This is the bar to which all other DCS modules should be compared. Love that you are considering multiple variants for the 104!

Recently, ED announced that they are using a revolutionary new technology called Photogrammetry for their upcoming MiG-29 full fidelity module. Given that the remastered F-5E cockpit is the same mesh as the old one and does not fit into the external model, I would like to request that ED re-build the F-5E cockpit to modern standards, scaled true to life compared to the real thing. Here are a few reasons why: ED's other cockpits are amazing. You could 1:1 replace an instrument in the F-18 or F-16 cockpits with a 3D scanned real life equivalent, and it would fit. They're amazing. The same cannot be said for the F-5 - all of the panels are incorrectly shaped in length and width and height at random intervals which are not consistent with the real pit. For example, the width of the main front panel is wrong compared to a real F-5E (I have the measurements for this panel and many others). This does not meet ED's own standards. The Cockpit is where DCS players spend 99% of their time when flying. While the external model is nice and helps you sell more modules, the cockpit is where players actually sit once they have given you the money. By scanning a real cockpit, you can finally be morally correct when you deny peoples requests for features we can finally agree on a single F-5E version. As it stands, our DCS franken-jet does not represent a single F-5E that ever existed, with that radio and lack of INS, it's not a Swiss F-5E, and with that RWR it is not a USAF F-5E-3. So you can finally pick one and be right. Mixed reality: with the increasing popularity of the Quest 3 with color passthrough, mixed reality builders are having a field day with DCS. This helps DCS gain popularity online as people see what is probably the coolest flight combat sim experience ever! This is great with the F-16 and F-18 etc - but the F-5E cockpit does not line up with the real life jet, so this leads to a problem: Do you build a cockpit based on the real dimensions, or based on the DCS cockpit? Why do you have to choose, shouldn't they be the same? Look at projects like Authentekit, or the WinWing F-18 MFD's, there is an appetite for accurate 1:1 cockpits. This is impossible with the F-5E because the cockpit is not 1:1 to real life.

We don't have a USAF F-5E3 in DCS

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Yes APQ-159-1 is needed, the only difference between it and our -3 is that the -1 also has a position for TV. That's it... The radar returns looks the same, it is all based on the APQ-153 anyway in DCS

F-5E Aerial Refueling Panels and Switches

Requesting JATO as: Every F-5E has the brackets for mounting JATO rockets (including the 3D model in DCS) Images, switches, and steps, below:

+1

+1! A post for Mavericks & JATO (both standard export options and outlined in the Export T.O. -1) would also be appreciated!

Yes! This was a factory standard feature! +1

yes please +1

According to WHO? There is no proof anywhere that they have access to a Swiss F-5E. Source? I don't understand why you are open to this and you are not open to a factory F-5E variant. I'm genuinely starting to think I am being trolled. You didn't read what I wrote. You are responding to an imagined argument. I am saying that the F-35 is the most complex project ED has undertaken to date. By comparison, the F-5E is extremely simple. I am not saying that features should be hand waved on. I actually agree with you on this. Again - they do NOT have access to a Swiss F-5E. In fact, they have openly said that they do NOT have data on Swiss F-5E's (i.e. Radios and INS). I am asking, why base it on a Swiss F-5E then? The customers have been asking for a variant F-5E with AAR and Mavericks since the inception of the F-5E module. So ED reads that and goes "you know what? I'm going to remaster it, add no new capability, and call it a Swiss version, but not model the radios and INS that would actually make it a Swiss version". What happened here is that they or a contractor made them a 3D model, and then ED fit it around their existing cockpit, called it a Swiss F-5E and charged $10 for it. ED is the one doing the hand waving here - without the radios and INS, this isn't a Swiss F-5E, period. It is now, and always has been a franken-jet with that RWR. No USAF F-5E had that RWR. And if they were willing to make a change from a USAF Adversary F-5E-3 to a Swiss/USN F-5E, why not look back at what the community was actually asking for, for years? The F-5E was purpose built as an export fighter. If that's that case, they should model an F-5E that was exported, that best represents the equipment it was originally manufactured shipped with. Listen to the customers, this is what we have been asking for, again, for years and years.

We're saying the same thing - Mavericks are on almost every Jet in DCS, they know how they work

This is outside the scope of the F-5E we're talking about though. I want to make a very clear distinction between Factory, and After-Market. What we are asking for are FACTORY options that Northrop CREATED and shipped as-is. We are NOT asking for after-market like the Israeli upgrades with HUDS and MFD's and AMRAAM and Python all that crap. The latter could hardly be considered an F-5E anymore

I am not sure if I am allowed to post pictures from manuals in this thread, it is usually frowned upon

The reason I keep harping on the features is because the F-5E was ONLY MADE to be exported (unlike the F-5A through C). So why not have an F-5E with the features shipped from factory? Wags also said they might look into an F-5EM - why? Nobody is asking for Amraams on an F-5, we're just asking for the features that shipped with the F-5E to be included in the module. Literally no one asked for a Swiss F-5E, no one asked for 2 radios, but there are decade old threads asking for Mavericks and INS. 1. There isn't a single ED employee in Switzerland, the developers are in Russia. Sometimes they contract artists outside of Russia. 2. Your argument about drawing the line is invalidated by Wags when he said they would consider doing the Brazilian modernized F-5M, sorry. How many additional features is a brand new radar, HUD, avionics, Flight control system, AMRAAM integration, fuselage strengthening... It's not even an F-5E anymore. And no one is asking for that in this module. We're asking for F-5E features on an F-5E. We're just asking for an F-5E. Also, you're telling me they can put together an F-35, but putting a 3 minute timer on Maverick Gyro warmup plus a green lamp to indicate warmer up is.... impossibly difficult? The F-5 is an extremely simple aircraft and these weapons systems are also extremely simple. The APQ-159 differs from our radar by having knob that switches to TV - that's it. The Mav weapon panel has four green lights. The AAR panel has 1 switch on the fuel panel and 1 switch on the left panel... I don't accept the argument that this is somehow too complicated or too difficult to do. This is stupidly simple in comparison to the literal thousands of features on the MFD jets. And the function is all laid out in the -1. They took peoples money for some half-baked "remaster" and lied about how much work they did (cockpit is literally the same 3D model). I'd like to see ED actually do some research and present an upgrade that people actually want, and have been asking for for literally a decade. Just look back at all the threads. They should represent an F-5E, not an F-5N, because that's what they put on the store page. Also the dorsal antenna is gone now, so I guess we don't have a Swiss F-5E after all.

I see where you are coming from, and you are correct. The argument is that Northrop did it and therefore we should have it. Northrop is the one that manufactured an aircraft with the capability to load and fire four missiles. The Swiss tried it and decided it was unnecessary for them. That does not mean that the aircraft does not have the capability.

Then how did they model the RWR for this module? That's only referenced in said NATOPS.... are you and @NineLine telling me this module is illegal? It's an F-5N, they carry the -9M, image included above from @_BringTheReign_ I don't see what the problem here is. Like seriously guys, what actually is happening here? We can make the F-35, but jumping from AIM-9P-5 to AIM-9L/M is ILLEGAL? So if I LUA some AIM-9M's onto the module, I'm committing a crime? Seriously @NineLine your own devs used the NATOPS to model the RWR, just check the stores page. You already have the document in your possession as referenced in multiple threads from 2016.

I'm 99% sure it was available on eflightmanuals.com until like a couple of weeks ago... @Kev2go where did you get your copy? Is that something that can be shared with @NineLine and team?

It's in the NATOPS, scroll up

@NineLine @BIGNEWY

YES very well said, I agree with all of this! If ED responds to what customers want, we customers want the F-5E Tiger II with the factory export options!

@Flappie