Invisibull

An excerpt from Radar, Heat, Guns by James C. Frederick, which i think you guys will appreciate: Let's talk about some things you already know. You fly what may be the most capable fighter ever built for the mission we are assigned. Great radar, great weapons. Our best, most survivable scenarios involve using that radar and those weapons, keeping our mach up, and staying away from furballs. Fly fast, blow their ass outta the sky as you pass 'em going Mach 1. We are the biggest fighter out there and the easiest to see. We get into a turn and burn scenario, in a multi-bogey environment, we are gonna have our hands full. But, all that said, it is gonna happen, ain't it? The folks at McDonnell Douglas, bless their hearts, figured it would, and they gave us another great advantage for just such a situation. We got power, and lots of it. Have you tried the double-immelman yet? You start at about 450, go max burner, ease into the first half of the double, and the second half ain't hard at all. Plenty of power. I've done a triple. Yep. We got power. But power, in and of itself, isn't an advantage. It has to be managed as part of an overall fighting strategy. That's called energy management. Let's talk about it a little. First, the sticker on your brand-new F-15 says two engines that are rated at 25K. That's a misnomer. Rated power is kind of like Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price on a new car. It isn't the final number. That thrust rating is on new, perfectly constructed engines, fuel controls tweaked, and at sea level. When's the last time you flew around at sea level? Engine wear reduces thrust over time. Fact. But, the engines are really good, and they produce lots of power, and you have more excess thrust than the next guy in almost every fight. Practically speaking, how do those engines work under the stress of combat? Here's some practical-isms. The faster you go, the faster you go faster. The slower you go, the faster you go slower. Wrap your brain around that for a second. These engines love lots of air flow. They are high bypass fans, and the efficiency of their thrust production is greatly affected by how much air is coming in the front. The better the airflow into the front, the better out the back. So, the faster you are going, the faster they will accelerate you. That has a limit at the higher machs, where the drag induced by your jet at supersonic speeds finally catches up with the acceleration curve. That drag curve is dependent upon what you have hanging on your jet and your gross weight. In dense, sea level air, induced drag builds up pretty fast . . air friction. In an Eagle with one centerline bag and a full load of weaponry, you'll be lucky to get Mach 1.5. More realistically, about 1.2 or 1.3 at low altitudes. At higher altitudes where the air is thinner, same configuration, you can probably get 1.8 or 1.9. Clean jet, you can probably do 2.0 plus. A MiG 23 will probably outrun you on the deck. He probably won't outrun your AIM-7 or your heater, though. Nobody, and I mean nobody, can out power you above 30. In fact, we are in our element in a maneuvering fight above about 20. Excess power, greater than almost anybody. F-16 and F-18, more on our level. Nobody else. Unless you are running from somebody or running somebody down, top end speed is overrated, anyway. What you really need, especially in a knife fight, is the ability to accelerate . . to get slow and then get fast again quickly. Lots of variables in the equation, but here's some generalities you can hang your hat on. 350 knots . . widely considered instantaneous corner velocity . . the minimum speed where full pull on the stick will give you about 7.2 Gs (momentarily) . . is a good cut-off point. At or above 350, you have lots of air into the intakes and great acceleration. As you get to 400, the acceleration accelerates, and you'll get to 500 from 400 almost as quickly as you got to 400 from 350. The faster you go, the faster you go faster. Below 350, the other end of that weird cliche becomes evident. You pull too hard on the pole, and even with max burner, you will probably decelerate. Start slower than that, and you will slow down even faster. The induced drag curve is steeper than the thrust production curve. If you milk it . . if you limit yourself to 4 or 5 Gs, you can probably still go over the top . . plenty of power. If you make that hard G turn with your nose pointed down . . use gravity to help you maintain your mach, you can probably maintain the G without loss of too much speed. So, here's where energy management becomes a real tool in your kit. You have excess power . . way more than almost anybody out there . . but it can be mismanaged. Learn to know what your speed is without looking. Learn to feel it, to sense it. Learn to feel what the airplane is feeding back to you and how the airflow sounds over the canopy. You start to feel the burble . . you are pulling the air off the back of the wings and inducing a lot of drag. Maybe that's what you want, but maybe it ain't. Fight in the vertical. Never give up that power advantage against a lesser fighter by staying horizontal. Make him honor your ability to go up. Most of the time he won't be able to stay with you. Remember the physics of turn radius. Faster speed . . bigger turn radius. More than one good fighter pilot has found himself hanging in the silk because he forgot a really important fundamental. You can't outrun a missile. You might be able to out maneuver it, but you can't outrun it. You have the greatest turn capabilities . . tightest turn, smallest radius . . at or near corner velocity. One last thing before I get off this soapbox. Take a good look at an Eagle sometime. How many tails we got? Two. There's a reason. We have lots of rudder available, and the only reason for that would be high AOA maneuvering . . slow speed dogfighting. Take a look at the outer third of the leading edge of the wing. It has negative camber . . it actually bends downward. Negative camber means the Eagle's wing does not stall wingtips-in like most swept wing fighters. The wingtips, with that negative camber, will maintain airflow and resist stall to a very slow speed. Good for . . you guessed it . . slow speed dogfighting. And one other thing about that squirrely negative camber . . it gives you a non-standard best acceleration flight profile. Most fighters . . 0 G pushover equals best acceleration. Our fighter, more like three quarters to a half G. Rather than hanging in the straps, just get light in the seat for the best acceleration profile. If you are going to be a good dogfighter, a good BFM-er, you gotta know energy management. It has to be instinctive. You have to be able to fly your aircraft right at the ragged edge. Keep your mach up and shoot 'em in the face, blow through. But when the furball occurs, be the best.

Lenux, try downloading "Fraps" It gives a big clear FPS reading in whichever corner you'd like.

Thx, Slipp! You can get Slipp's mod for DCS 2.0 in JSGME-rdy format here.

Hi, It's an AI Flanker as I've stated above. The version is DCS 2.0 which I'll add to my OP.

Hi All - A squad mate and I have come to notice that when launching an Aim-120c from our F-15's, 56 nm away while having an AI Su-27 bugged in TWS, that the Su-27 will immediately start pumping chaff out. If my understanding is correct, the Flanker shouldn't have any way of knowing that I've launched on him within the stated conditions. So why is he pumping out chaff? Please find tacview attached. This happened in DCS 2.0 Thx, Bull Tacview chaff.rar

You can get it here from my dropbox.

Participation is much appreciated. For those who aren't using the missile mod, I'd love a sentence or two saying why. Thx

My squadron has recently taken up flying the F-15C in a big way and a lot of the guys have mentioned the missile mod put out by IASGATG. I'd be interested in how many online squadrons are and aren't using it and why if possible. Thx

I don't think the above answers fully explain what i've been seeing. First, the hard locks have lasted far more than 7 seconds (over a minute in some cases), and secondly, we've been simultaneously hard locked when in excess of 20 nm distance from one another. One of the guys I've been flying with also tells me that this didn't happen before DCS World 1.5 was released. Though certainly no expert in DCS BVR engagements, I have flown quite a lot of flights sims in my day and have never seen anything like this before. Any further insights would be appreciated.

Hi, I've just begun learning the F-15 and when flying with a few friends online we noticed that an AI SU-27 was able to hard lock all three of us simultaneously. Is this within its capabilities or is it a bug? Thx

Be sure you have the plane you want to get into set to "client."

Please check OP for the new hardcore version. In this version, flak guns now protect the convoy making successful strafing runs quite a bit more difficult. Additionally, the convoy's speed is considerably greater than in the original. I've also attached a .trk to of me destroying the convoy and landing safely without going over 7G's. I can assure you that it took quite a few attempts to accomplish this, and it was pure luck that no bandits showed up to complicate things. Have fun! Bull

You're welcome, Lilkiki. Hope you enjoy it. I'll be posting a more challenging version soon for those who have been able to complete the original.

Hi Folks, Here's a simple, straightforward, skills-building mission that I enjoy playing myself and hope you all do as well. Please feel free to post your Trk's and Tacview files when you complete the mission. Feedback Welcome: You must install the 39th Server Pack in order to play this mission. You can get it here: https://goo.gl/5BnEY9 The pack is JGSME ready and should be installed in that fashion only. The server pack will add Korean War era weapons, vehicles, skins and my label mod. Installation will also allow you join the 39th Korean War Server. ***Important***Please try to keep from pulling more than 7Gs during this mission in order to have the most realistic experience possible. Destroy the convoy traveling south from Russkoye on the road perpendicular to and just west of the runway at Mozdok before it can enter the city of Mozdok. You must then land safely to complete the mission. There will be a 2-ship of MiG 15s defending the convoy. Destroying the MiGs is not required for a mission success. If you choose to do a ramp start, the convoy will not begin moving until you've taken off. A runway start will instead start the convoy off right away. Thanks once again go to SiThSpAwN/Stonehouse for their Flak Script, and Lilkiki and Markindel for their great vehicle/weapons mods. Installation: This mission is both SP and MP compatible. Just drop the mission file here: C:\Users\PC name\Saved Games\DCS\Missions and play. More complicated and challenging iterations of this mission will be added if there's a demand for it. Have fun! Bull Sabre_Challenge.rar +++Sabre_Challenge_Hardcore.miz sabre_challenge_trk.rar

Yes, thanks for this. Very interesting indeed.

Hi Folks, I'm trying to find a way to keep people from being able to pull more than 7 G (or perhaps 7.5 G) in the F-86F Sabre. Is there a way to script this as a trigger condition? I'd love to create some sort of penalty if possible as a stop gap until Belsimtek addresses this troublesome issue. Thanks, Bull

Can't wait for this. Can we expect these bases sometime this year?

Hi, Just wondering if Belsimtek could comment on when they plan on modeling damage when g-limits are exceeded. I have to say, it doesn't feel like I'm even flying an F-86F when i can pull in excess of 10 G with a full load of HVAR's and not cause a bit of damage to either the wings, the racks or the rockets themselves. According to the F-86F flight manual, I shouldn't be able to pass 6 G with such a loadout without causing damage. Even with a clean jet I shouldn't be able to pull more than 7 G below 15K or 6 G above 15K without structurally compromising my aircraft. Everyone who flies the Sabre knows that you can easily pull 10 G until you blackout with no damage penalty whatsoever. To my understanding, this is just simply unrealistic and needs to be addressed asap. Thanks for your attention, Bull

Thanks for the info, Fix. Do you use the default force settings?

Good thing for your last post or people might have missed the point in your first two. :D

Thanks, FS.

Nice set up. Rotation looks the same as mine. As far as height goes, I guess I'd better understand the height if you could tell me how far above or below the tops of your legs that light grey tightening nut is located.

Hi Raven, Put your in-game FPS up (right Ctrl+pause) and put yourself in a reasonably busy environment that you might encounter during a mission. You'll have to change settings incrementally until you find the proper balance between performance and aesthetics. It's a time consuming drag, but there's no way around it as every system is different. I would recommend putting shadows high though. Counter-intuitively, many report getting better performance with that setting up. Best of luck, Bull

Thanks for that, FS. Do you have your stick rotated to the left at all, and what height is the stick in relation to your body? I agree with FS that the Warthog stock stick base with its well known stiction issues leaves a lot to be desired, and that the FSSB R3 is a huge improvement over it. Also, the customer service provided by Manuel at RealSimulator is easily the best I've ever seen in all my years of flight simming. The man has literally written custom firmware for me in order to make sure I was enjoying his product to its fullest.