SwingKid

D'oh! The irony is - I meant Novorossiysk. Looks like a recent imagery update there, IIRC not long ago the former runway was more visible. I think the three buildings at the east end are new.

The irony is I think you meant Gelendzhik. :) Now, what WOULD be cool is to fly Flaming Cliffs' Georgian Su-25 out of Black Shark's Kopitnari... Alas.

Merzifon, duh :) The Caucasus airbases are a little squirrely for me, on my slow computer I notice a performance drop compared to the original Crimea bases from Flanker 2. The coordinate origin of the Lock On map is still near Simferopol, so in Gudauta for example I always felt my jet was shimmying sideways on takeoff. In that regard I like Belbek. It's in the (by far) most geographically accurate part of the map, is a real Ukrainian MiG-29 base, and faces the water with a challenging cliff that makes night approaches sort of memorable. I've also visited in real life. I also liked Razdolnoye - which is funny since it doesn't exist in real life, and I removed it completely to create Merzifon. Its unique north-pointed runway, and the way it was tucked all the way in the northwest corner of the map, made it very convenient for testing and campaign design. Plus, transforming it into Merzifon got me acquainted with it on an intimate level.

Me three.

Krasnodar Pashkovskiy (2001) View looking east, from northwest corner of parking lot, at west end of airport: http://www.ecf.utoronto.ca/~pavacic/flanker2/krympics/krym27.jpg View looking north-east, from southwest corner of parking lot: http://www.ecf.utoronto.ca/~pavacic/flanker2/krympics/krym28.jpg Google Earth has some good photos of Sochi

Anapa (2001) View looking west across airport perimeter fence, from north-east end of runway as aircraft is landing in a south-west direction: http://www.ecf.utoronto.ca/~pavacic/flanker2/krympics/krym06.jpg View looking west across NE end of runway, POL tanks visible: http://www.ecf.utoronto.ca/~pavacic/flanker2/krympics/krym07.jpg View looking west at main terminal building, seen from runway: http://www.ecf.utoronto.ca/~pavacic/flanker2/krympics/krym08.jpg Photos from south end of runway of parked military aircraft, radars: http://www.ecf.utoronto.ca/~pavacic/flanker2/krympics/krym09.jpg http://www.ecf.utoronto.ca/~pavacic/flanker2/krympics/krym10.jpg http://www.ecf.utoronto.ca/~pavacic/flanker2/krympics/krym11.jpg http://www.ecf.utoronto.ca/~pavacic/flanker2/krympics/krym12.jpg

Несколько новое от Грузии на Google Earth. Теперь бывший аэродром Зугдиди видимое.

Didn't stop Zuyev.

The "variant" is NOT the 9X, it's a radar missile from 1976. It represents the Northrop/Motorola conceptual bid for the AMRAAM design, which LOST to the Hughes design. It has a pointed nosecone. PLEASE don't tell the Falcon people that "HubMan" gave you data on the "9X." Making good missile models is hard enough already without broken telephones running around.

Alternatively: "As high as the ground vehicle modeling standards are that we see here - ED's aircraft modeling standards are even higher. Only extremely dedicated individuals or professionals can hope to have a chance for their models to be accepted by ED - in fact, I suspect only ED's own artists have a chance. In the event any aircraft models will come from external modelers, they would surely only come from those who have already submitted other projects by now, gained experience, proven their ability to deliver, established a working relationship with ED.. etc."

6 seconds of boost-only thrust. The real AIM-120 is about 11 seconds, but most of that is reduced sustain thrust. The total impulse of the two models may still be similar. http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?p=328375#post328375 The "variant" is a hypothetical, Sidewinder-sized radar missile that sounds like an early AMRAAM proposal (note date of article).

Note: In order to give it a top speed of Mach 4.5, other researchers give the AIM-120 a Specific Impulse of 287 s. The default value in miniZAP is 230 s. miniZAP users may adjust this value as desired.

What if the mission designer wants a bridge that was destroyed in Mission 1, to remain destroyed in Mission 2?

Agreed - and a max-range missile spends the same amount of time decelerating through transonic, no matter what speed it was launched at. Take a look at the Vm charts here: http://www.ecf.utoronto.ca/~pavacic/lomac/betaforum/aim9lperf.jpg Except a little at sea level, there is not a very strong discontinuity in the deceleration of the missile as it decelerates (Mach 1 is about 1000 FPS at 10 Kft) If what's affecting the range of the missile is transonics, that's where we'd expect to see the effects - in the deceleration tail, not from the launch speed.

He also said the range continues to increase beyond the transonic regime, e.g. by 50% instead of 40% if you launch at M1.5 instead of M1.3. So, independent of transonics, faster still equals more range. What role does transonic drag really play, then? Even the way Rhen describes it, you're still getting 40% extra range ("or more") for 44% extra speed - i.e. by going faster, you get less out than what you put in. How much flight time does the missile spend in the transonic regime after subsonic launch anyway? miniZAP says 1 second. If a missile's range could be increased by 40% by carrying 1 more second of propellant burn, why don't they carry 1 more second of propellant burn? I think something quite different is the explanation here.

Only if you set "Gravity Factor" to 0.0 G. With default 1 G gravity, the missile must generate 1 G lift to run straight, and miniZAP calculates some induced drag based on wing area and AOA.

I included all four supersonic drag effects (form, skin, wave and one other I don't remember) that I could find in the literature, to the best of my ability at the time. Since then, it has been shown with two sources that miniZAP generally underestimates the drag.

Rhen has been right (and I've been wrong) in the past, and I'd be happy to learn from him again, but I haven't yet seen him claim: - that the AIM-120 has a "cruising speed of Mach 4" - that transonic drag affects the missile more than supersonic drag, - that "high and fast" is the tactic of choice in a duel between equally-capable opponents, or - that a higher launching speed improves F-pole or A-pole I'd be happy to eat my words over anything he actually says. If, however, the best we can interpret his statements is to infer that F-15 pilots "enter the notch" (thereby dropping radar contact) after a supersonic high-altitude launch - well, in that case I'm a little more skeptical, and find miniZAP very useful to fill voids in our knowledge. You asked for the maths...

At 20,000 feet, an F-15 flying Mach 0.9 can pull about 6.1 Gs and turns 12 deg per second. At Mach 1.2, that drops to 4.8 Gs and 7 degrees per second. What's you're definition of "cranking?" A loftless miniZAP AIM-120 fired at 20,000 feet and Mach 0.9 travels 20.7 km in 34.4 s. The same missile fired at Mach 1.2 travels 22.5 km in 35.5 s. Note: a 33% launch speed advantage (including advantage of not having to overcome the "Mach barrier") translates into less than 9% range advantage, due to the 2nd-power drag penalty felt by the missile at the higher speed. Now consider F-pole. Immediately after launch, the Mach 1.2 fighter begins a 60-degree turn to the side, which takes him 8.6 seconds. In this time he simultaneously closes 2.7 km towards the target. After this, he keeps the target 60 degrees off his nose, closing an additional 5.1 km in the remaining 26.9 s of his missile's flight. His F-pole is thus (22.5 - 2.7 - 5.1) = 14.7 km. The Mach 0.9 fighter after launch turns 60 degrees in 5 seconds, in which time he closes 1.2 km. Keeping the target at 60 degrees, he then closes an additional 4.2 km in the remaining 29.4 s. His F-pole is thus (20.7 - 1.2 - 4.2) = 15.3 km. Now, you can say that the Mach 1.2 fighter will decelerate after launch to improve his F-pole, but then, the Mach 0.9 fighter can do the same. The shooter's deceleration is basically a function of his starting speed, with the slower fighter having a closure advantage. For all the Rmax advantage enjoyed the supersonic shooter, he is still facing a fundamental F-pole disadvantage that he is going to have to solve one way or another. The problem is that the drag on the missile worsens with the square of the speed, but the closure increases linearly with the speed - and this is true *no matter what angle you're flying*. So, if you have to choose between a supersonic shot for longer-range, or a subsonic shot with shorter range - all things being equal, your F-pole is probably better with the latter.

Link?

You can be "cranking," or you can be supersonic. Pick one, please.

He didn't say F4. F3 had a DC too, which appeared to have been quite good for business. Because if you can't convince after the first three times, the fourth will be no different. I thought Cosmonaut's question in post #22 was a good one. Is any of this designed with multiplayer in mind? Will multiplayers have a way to know their assigned mission objectives before take-off? Will they end the mission receiving the identical success/failure debriefing as their enemies? Lock On doesn't give the mission designer very much to work with, in this regard.

Hmm. It seems to be a difference between aircraft and missiles - probably related to the aircraft having a more complex shape to push through Mach 1. In the chart that you show (for aircraft?), the Cd seems to increase by around 4 times at Mach 1. For missiles, the Cd is flatter, seeming to increase only about 1.5 times (see attached). Perhaps v^2 dominates the equation for missiles, while Cd dominates for aircraft. So, I still believe that for practical purposes, launching a missile at high speed rather than slow speed will give an F-pole disadvantage, that must be compensated by the fighter slowing down or maneuvering after the launch. So IMHO, accelerating above Mach 1 might be good for intercepting defenseless bombers and spy planes that happen in real life (in which case F-pole doesn't matter), but not for the fighter duels we like to have in our sims (in which case F-pole is often more important than maximum range).

Does that include the wave drag component, or just the "wing drag"?

What is shown in the Figure 86 is exactly what I described in post #150: the drag coefficient has a bump. Not the total drag, as suggested in post #152. To calculate drag, you must multiply the drag coefficient by v^2. Above Mach 1, v^2 should be rising faster than the drag coefficient is falling. Therefore, total drag always keeps rising. This sounds fishy. I can accelerate from Mach 0.6 to Mach 0.8 with afterburner too, and then stay at Mach 0.8 with military power only. That doesn't prove a drag bump at Mach 0.7.