AndrewDCS2005

I would argue that full-fidelity high quality F-15C would make A TON OF MONEY for its authors, be in DCS or Razbam or Heatblur or whoever else. I'd speculate it will out-sell all top modules because: - F-16C pilots will fall in love with raw performance, firepower, radar range, and BVR - F/A-18C pilots who fly Hornet for range and A-A armament but don't really enjoy the navy life, with the need to get back to the deck on most of the servers where any sensible range for A/G missions require use of Hornets. - F-15E pilots who bought it with a dream of kicking ass with radar, range and load, but find the perf and CFTs unsatisfying with poor dogfight experience, and continue to dream of kick-ass A/A - F-14B pilots (outside of hardcore fans) who can find more modern speed and angels outside of fleet defense - and many others who'd enjoy dedicated air dominance platform. Heck the above are mostly strike-tuned - yeah Boyd is overrated but he must be rolling in grave for what Viper has become - mostly a wild weasel with 3 bags and HARMs; Hornet is made to deliver GBUs/JDAMs on land targets from carrier, and Mudhen is a near-bomber strike platform for theaters with fixed airfields available. F-15C slots will be taken like hot cakes on many servers online and create lots of pain for red forces.

After more time spent in TWS with DL ON, looks like sometimes (like 1 out of 10 times) TMS RIGHT does something - it picks nearest track target and makes it a bugged target, but does not support multi-target cycling/firing, so TWS is broken anyway. Something is not right here and seems to be specific to F-16 FCR TWS + DL since in other planes TWS works as expected. Potentially many pilots engage multiple targets with TWS and DL - nearly every server has AWACS and I'd expect forums to be filled with bug reports about this. While there are few earlier threads around this exact bug, but otherwise surprisingly quiet.

@Keith Briscoe @Nedum @Tenkom please see this thread - i just accidentally found that with DL ON you need to use TMS RIGHT short 2 times.

This has been bugging me for quite a while, maybe a year. Today I accidentally found out what is happening with F-16 TWS and target management while using datalink/MIDS/TNDL First just a small side note for those who still learn the systems. As famous Chuk's guide explains (huge thanks to @Charly_Owl for amazing work for the community ) in Part 13 section 2.2 on datalink track types, datalink-provided tracks (red triangles) are correlated with FCR tracks in TWS mode and become yellow filled squares as track targets. Transitioning all these track targets to system targets (empty yellow squares) is expected to be done with a single TMS RIGHT short press - this is what is documented in DCS guide, Chuk's guide and so on. But a single TMS RIGHT short does nothing if DL is ON (which is reproducible 100% all the time). All targets remain at track state, and it is not possible to use FCR TWS to shoot at multiple targets. However what works while DL is ON is TMS RIGHT short two times in a row (but not too fast) - track targets transition to system targets and simultaneously the closest target becomes a bugged target. Subsequent TMS RIGHT short will cycle through displayed system targets marking them bugged and allowing to shoot at them while in FCR TWS as expected. I haven't seen this double TMS RIGHT mentioned anywhere in docs or community videos, and wonder if this is a bug or expected behavior? When DL is OFF, everything works as documented/expected in FCR TWS - transitioning targets works with a single TMS RIGHT short. Track attached with repro - first two targets (angels 6/7) where DL-provided + correlated, and single TMS RIGHT didn't work. I used double press few times just to show it works. Then I switched off MIDS/DL and went to next two targets (angels 33) in FCR TWS - first got them as search targets (small solid white squares) then in a while as track targets (bigger solid white squares), then with single TMS RIGHT short transitioned to system targets. Then with TMS DOWN returned back to TWS search and made transitions again, to show a single TMS RIGHT works as expected. F16-TWS-DL-NODL.trk

Another example of AIM-120C missing within 40ft from the target, which it was tracking from the 1/4th aspect. No track unfortunately (hey ED make tracks record by default for last week, the installation is hundreds of gigabytes, few megs from tracks wont hurt). The more I fire at M2000C and see AIM-120 miss very very closely, the more it looks there is some advantage Mirage has, curious what is it. Looks like missile loses lock just a second before it passes by.

@Nuggetz cool! Do you have the track/tacview to check what was the TAS at that point? Also curious what was the weather setup - temp and pressure?

Well DCS F-16C according to DCS: F-16C Viper has F110-GE-129 engine which according to GE https://www.geaerospace.com/sites/default/files/datasheet-F110-GE-129.pdf is rated at 29000lb=129kN of thrust. I think this rating is at zero ASL, however this is a normal airbreathing turbofan and its thrust goes down with altitude. Not sure if there is any public data about the thrust/altitude of the engine to see how DCS modeled that. So the thrust:weight definitely goes below 1 at some alt and there can't be unlimited vertical climb - @S can you please share videos of F-16 doing vertical climbs to 30kft MSL?

@razo+r thanks, this is interesting, and actually raises a question how well F-16C is modelled at altitudes above >50kft. Putting pilot/human model aside (temp, oxygen, pressure, etc) I wonder if there are any modeling simplifications or limits which makes high-alt flight behavior different from what would be expected to happen in real world. How do we ask folks in ED team ? @NineLine ?

After many tries the highest I can get in conditions specified above (0 degrees, 760mm Hg, no wind, no precipitation) is ASL 28756m = 94345ft ASL (aka True Altitude) is by definition more accurate than indicated altitude on the altimeter (which depends on pressure and temperature), and in this challenge I only refer to ASL. I usually end up with ~500lbs fuel left at the peak which definitely plays a role - with lower total mass of the plane its kinetic energy is lower and it will not go as high, however the weight is also lower and gravitational force will have less effect so the plane can go higher. There's definitely some balance here, need to play with energy formulas to find out the sweet spot Max speed I can't get more than TAS 607 m/s = 1359mph maybe this is the limit due to aerodynamic drag and pushing beyond that requires modifications to the airframe Side note - wonder why F-16C altimeter stops at 80kft, is this by design or a bug? Can someone from ED or real pilots clarify?

We can have all three goals set to be achieved in one flight in this challenge - max TAS, max ASL, shortest time to both max TAS and ASL Clean plane, 50% fuel, no chaff/flares, no gun ammo, start from runway hot. Also weather conditions matter a lot so I created a mission for this with Caucasus map (which we all have), temperature 0 degrees Celsius, pressure 760mm Hg, no wind, no clouds, start at 10 Oct 2022 08:00 local time out of Kobuleti. See attachment. max-altitude-flight.miz

Cool stuff! Let's use the same units for consistent measurement and comparison - TAS for max speed, ASL for max altitude. Here's my lazy attempt (Tacview track attached): - TAS 607 m/s = 1359 mph; which was achieved as Mach 2.03 at 9920m - ASL 28498 m = 93498 ft f16-93.5kft.acmi

Thanks I read all threads here in AIM120 - the one above seems to be focused on online/multiplayer sync issues. My case is much simpler - offline single-player against AI bot. There seem to be many issues atm with AIM120 guidance, looking forward for replies from ED

Lets put the fuze/proximity aside for a moment. More important question is why did AIM-120C at 1.7M speed miss a target at 0.4M speed, coming at it from behind and not having to deal with high aspect ratios/high angular velocity/etc.

Yeah this is suspicious, just had this today again after a while - locked on the incoming A2A missile which probably has order of magnitude smaller RCS than fighter, but sometimes takes 10-20s or has troubles to lock on the opposing fighter at the same altitude at 12oclock.

When I saw this in game I didn't believe my eyes. Target = Mirage 2000C at ~4000ft altitude, speed ~0.4M, distance between 3000-4000ft, slowly going up. AIM-120C fired and guided to target by its own radar, however missed within 48ft distance from target, at 4800ft altitude and speed 1.66M This was super close, and there is a parallel thread debating whether AIM-120 fuze proximity should be 50ft or less (Aim-120 proximity fuze too low) however what is amazing here is the miss itself. The target wasn't maneuvering with high angular velocities and there was no high aspect ratio - the shot was more or less from behind, with target slowly rolling at low speed. There is yet another parallel thread about defeating AIM-120 by barrel roll at high altitude (AIM-120 can still be defeated by barrel rolls at high altitudes) however the geometry is quite different there. Anyway this was something quite unexpected and hopefully allmighty ED team will a look at this AIM-120C-miss.trk

Nice, looks to be great runs, thank you for sharing. I'll try in the same conditions, never got anywhere close to 90kft in F-16 so there's space to learn more for me The profile of the flight is definitely crtitical, and I suspect there is a straightforward mathematical/physical model for each plane (with mass, thrust, lift and drag at different speed ranges, etc) as input parameters, but can't hope to rebuild it myself, only try to replicate whats been available publicly. For example F-15A Streak Eagle world records (though focused on time to reach defined high altitude) video has some info on the flight profile with altitude and time, and some approximate climb angle

Hi everyone, I am researching a topic of maximum altitude flight in F-16C (and F/A-18C), using DCS to practice it. First would be great to have documented public info on the max altitude flight params - I quickly searched FAI records, Flight altitude record - Wikipedia links, public forums but can't find anything specific. Is there anyone who can share links to trusted data on this? Second, there are two types of reaching maximum altitude - in stable horizontal flight, maintaining same speed at highest possible altitude; and climbing vertically at max power to reach peak altitude. I am interested in both. Flying F-16C without pylons and 50% fuel (mid-Jul morning in south Atlantic map without any weather) I can easily reach 55k ft indicated altitude in stable horizontal flight, and can zoom to 80k ft peak with the same params (manual stick and throttle, no trim). Is this realistic and how close does it come to the real world? Is anyone else interested in this and can share your findings? Maybe we can do a small competition to get Viper to highest highs?