Oldcrow Jr. 62

I believe that the F-5 is limited to 7.5G's otherwise structural damage can occur. It's not a 7.5 G or higher turn fighter. I think there is a mention of this in the Manual. Nineline can confirm this if he can. But there is a maneuver limitation on sustained and instantaneous G's allowed.

G-Limits are there as was stated to help reduce fatigue in the wing box and spar structures. Exceeding the G-limits in one flight will not cause a structural failure unless it is beyond the catastrophic G-Limit established by the engineers on a new wing, then a deformed wing or total failure could occur. What is not being considered, and probably not modeled is the stress / fatigue cycles. A Hornets and most other combat aircraft have multiple wing / spar assemblies. These assemblies are held together using H-Locks and Bolts. As stress is placed on these fasteners, very small movement occurs. Over time, these begin to create oblong wear on the holes in the structures. As time progresses, these elongation of the holes and subsequent fretting, begin to stress not only the fasteners, but also the holes creating micro fractures in the components. The net effect of this causes the fractures to develop into larger cracks, some visible and some internal to the metal. They also allow the fasteners to begin to loosen and move under stress. In some cases it can also begin to bend the Hi-locks and bolts. That is why after over G-limit occurrences, inspections are made to validate no damage has occurred. This is normally accomplished by Dye (liquid) Penetrant, Eddy-current, radio-graphic, radio logical ultrasonic, magnetic particle testing and visual inspections. Most wings do have elasticity built into the design to compensate for the aerodynamic and other loads encountered during flight. But most wing deformations will occur at the wing box joints and pass through locations. If you bend the metal at any other points which you can actually see, then you've cause and have damage at these previously mentioned locations. The greatest risk to wing failure is the repetitive cycles over time from high G maneuvers and over stressing the other critical components such as engine mounts, hard point mounts, landing gear actuator mounts, landing gear mounts and control systems. Just my two cents worth based upon working on General Aviation Aircraft doing Annual Inspections and hard landing inspections are required.

First for background, my father during his career as an Officer in the Air Force, was a Electronic Warfare Officer.Did time as an EWO in B-52's (combat missions over Vietnam) and as a Crew Coordinator in RC-135's, plus other EW assignments. When we talked about his job over the years, he told m, what he could, that not only did Weasel's attack SAM Sites, but also tried to jammed them to reduce the threat to a manageable level. Not only did they (F-4G's) destroy the sites, but also helped keep them off the air (threat of destruction) but also limit their ability to track any targets. And also it was a cat and mouse game of bluff and counter bluff. So over time I learned the basics about EW and am not an expert in the subject matter, but do understand the basics. There were a number of tactics and methods to defeat SAM site's. One person touched on one technique, Jamming a signal using raw return power to block the signal and remove range information but still having a direction to the target from the emitter. Other techniques were range gate stealing and shifting. That's where the on board equipment would capture the signal, change it's wave form, pulse length and other characteristics and transmit it back. This basically modified the signal to show either a different range, speed and location to the sending transmitter. Another form was to shift the signal into a different wavelength to basically remove the return signal from the spectrum in a form that the other processor could not use, and remove the side lobes from also being used to detect targets. They also captured the signal, adjusting the dwell time, velocity and other modifications would create a false target, a false speed and direction. And many other methods that he could not talk about. So for us to have an effective F-4G in DCS a number of things would need to be put in place first. First, as pointed out, we'd need a human interface on the Red side. Second, we'd need to have DCS actually develop a better ECM / Jamming system than we currently have. Third, DCS would need to develop the actual simulation of the different pulse's, pulse widths, frequencies and frequency shifts and emitter/antenna characteristics for each emitter. Fourth, the ability to interact with the emitted signal, and change it as pointed out above. Fifth,develop an effective ECCM environment to assist in the defeat of the ECM measures and allow the Radars to effectively engage targets. And finally, develop the Home on Jam ability for the missile's capable of using this ability to work. In summary, I would love to see an F-4G, EA-6B, EA-18 Growler, F-16 weasel and other countries aircraft in the game. With that being said, there is a lot more foundation work that needs to be developed than presently exists in the game right now. Even if, and that's a big IF, it could be developed, even the unclassified stuff might be not allowed to be used as it is the basis for the follow on and currently used equipment being used. ECM is and was not created in a vacuum. As technology developed, counters to the technology developed and the cycle repeats itself continually. So, even if we could simulate some of this, I believe it would be at best an oversimplified version that would not truly represent what we would want, and realistically be "gamed" to provide an unrealistic implementation and situations that are not found in the real or simulated world. And I don't see DCS spending valuable resources, money or personnel to do this since we've still got unfinished modules needing attention, long standing bugs to fix and new modules/ terrains/features still being worked on which we know about, and probably don't know about. Just my two cents worth.