AndrewDCS2005

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?