SwingKid

Interesting link: http://www.sdslink.com/SDS_International/PDF_PUB/AGM65.PDF Indicates that AGM-65A-G were launched from slant ranges of typically 10-20,000 feet, but the CCD-equipped AGM-65H in tests from ranges of 20,000-35,000 feet. -SK

Am I seeing things, or is the PIC taking photos from the left seat in mid-display?! -SK

Dice was one of the original advisors IIRC, but to me the solution seems pretty simple. There's not enough data to model the K, and not enough resources to model the B... So, if someone likes realism, they should always use the D, which gives about 6 nm lock range vs tanks anyway. My only reason for not always using the D before was that it's more expensive than the B, and I thought that in a real operation, the B would be preferred whenever possible to save costs. But the increased cost of the K eliminates that advantage of EO anyway, so I think in my missions I'll just use the D from now on and the virtual USAF can thank me for saving them money. :) -SK

Why do I get the feeling that if somebody doesn't reply to this, you're going to pop? :) I can't make it so, but I think it's a good idea too. Especially, thanks for the reference about it! 2Wags: Do we know what the magnification level is for the K? I didn't realize data for it was available... -SK

RATS! I just made it to 1,000 posts now, and my "Rep Power" popped from 2 to 3. That means all the people I gave rep to, could have benefitted an extra point if I only waited two days?! :p -SK

If it has all the functional attributes of a B, but the lines on the HDD are drawn like a K, I'd have to vote with tflash and D-Scythe to call it a B. Lock On's MiG-29 also has imperfect HDD symbology, but we don't correct that by calling it a "Flanker"... :) -SK

I believe he did already hand over the source project to his beta team, but there are no programmers among them who can work on it. I blame it all on Windows XP. 98 rules! You'll never see SkyWars go this way. :) -SK P.S. Out of curiosity, what insuffices with LoMan v2.1?

Last I heard, the programmer SkyPat has left flight sims altogether. -SK

Oops. When a Russian says "it must be", he means "it should be". It is not a promise, just a bad online translation. Try it yourself. Go to http://babelfish.altavista.com Type in the words, "it should be," and translate from English to Russian. Then take what it gives you, and translate that back from Russian to English. Presto! Instant broken promises and angry customers. :( -SK

Внимание! Будет ли хорошая спутниковая фотография, становится захватывающим... http://forum.lockon.ru/attachment.php?attachmentid=220&stc=1 http://forum.lockon.ru/attachment.php?attachmentid=223&stc=1 -SK

Other ideas, "...saw him an airplane once" "...drinks jet fuel" "...could tell you, but then..." "...was found in a spider-hole" "...loves the smell of napalm" "...nods at your salute" If comedy is the goal, then we should program the intervals to be smaller too, so there is a greater variety appearing in the forum at any moment. :) -SK

Is that rust?!? ;) -SK

Ah, comedy, good idea! (positive) "...flew an airplane once" "...hit a target once" "...flies as a navigator" "...flies as a passenger" (negative) "...flies as cargo" "...drives a truck" "...should be removed before flight" -SK

http://www.dappa.nl/lulea.htm -SK

The MiG has a smaller antenna diameter. This means that its transmitted power is spread out more in space. The Su-27 will focus more of it on the target's RWR and thus appear stronger. -SK

I'm not sure where our disagreement is here. The Maverick is my favourite weapon in Lock On and I agree, one of the most successful in history. And I am also arguing in this very thread that the zoomable IIR AGM-65D should have a much longer range than the "3 nm" AGM-65B - as it does in Lock On. Hmm, that's new. What gives the IIR G a longer range than the IIR D? I thought the Gs were all being removed from service. Am I mistaken, or is ED's "AGM-65K" not perfectly capable of locking targets at night? I haven't checked in v1.1, but the last I time I looked it was "over-modelled" not "under-modelled". -SK

How did you check? Interesting discussion: http://nokiafree.org/forums/showthread.php?p=342287 If it's just for fun, then I think this "distinguished road" and "really nice person" ranking is hard to understand and could benefit from a more ordered theme. Maybe, to replace them with military ranks? But that is not very original... and some posters have real military ranks that conflict. Ideas? -SK

Good question. The "weight" of an explosive is often measured in equivalent TNT explosive power. I'm not sure if that's what's happening here but it may be that the new warhead actually weighs the same, it just uses a new explosive filler with more punch. AFAIK the new warhead is not a shaped charge. I think it would surely disable a tank, but maybe not actually penetrate its armor. It is designed to penetrate concrete. -SK

Hmm, I thought the question was about EO having a shorter lock range than IR. Whoops, the pilot said the target must be a "minimum number of pixels across" - but he didn't say how many pixels, we had to figure out for ourselves from the "3 nm vs tank" description. He seemed pretty clear though that one pixel wouldn't be enough. IIRC he didn't call them "pixels", but rather something else... Maybe "rasters". -SK

ЗРК пускает только вперед. ;) -SK

The pilot said he thought the -A did have some magnification, but also the the magnification of the -B was less than 2x that of the A - closer to 1.5x. Not sure how to interpret that, given other sources that say that it's exactly 2x. Anyway even if ED increases the magnification for the TV display for cosmetic reasons, I don't think it should increase the lock range vs. a tank target. The pilot said the lock range is limited by a minimum pixel size of the target in the display, and beyond about 3 nm for a tank target you can have all the clear-weather visibility in the world, it will still be too small in the TV display to trigger the edge-detection locking. Lock On already models the main anti-tank functionality of the AGM-65B and D pretty accurately. Even the AGM-65A achieved 85% hit rate in the Middle East. "The seeker upgrade became necessary, he explains, because obsolete parts made it very difficult to maintain the older vidicon-based TV Mavericks." What does that have to do with upgrading IIR Mavericks? No, it's all smoke and mirrors. Nowhere in the article do I see that they describe the K as a capability upgrade for the G. Targetting pods are not expendable munitions, and have other measures of merit besides just being able to lock onto things at the maximum possible range. EO might help navigate terrain or ID a friendly. -SK

Sure it does. The cold war is over. Programmes are being cut. For a program to survive, it tries to cut costs. The way I see it, the USAF decided they have a lot more use for a high-magnification IR seeker on an anti-tank weapon like the AGM-65D, than on a bunker-busting weapon they can employ in the daytime against much larger, non-moving targets. Similarly, there are F-15Cs flying around today with 1970s-technology APG-63 radars that were removed from decomissioned F-15As, because their higher-spec APG-70s were removed for use in the F-15E fleet. It happens. It sounds hard to believe - the only advantage I ever heard of for EO over IR is lower cost. Can you back up your thought with a reference? -SK

Earlier, you wrote: Since the EO Maverick in Lock On does have a magnification of exactly 2x, I thought that by "zoom" you meant a user-controllable, adjustable magnification. Now I'm not sure what you meant..? But we're talking about the AGM-65K, which has a different seeker. Lost me again. What is the difference between the CCD seeker of the AGM-65K that we are talking about and the CCD seeker of the AGM-65K that the article is talking about? -SK

I'm not so sure. If you read this article carefully: http://www.dau.mil/pubs/pm/pmpdf99/jhnsn01.pdf nowhere do they say the CCD seeker is superior to, or even matches, the capabilities of the IR seeker. They repeatedly compare it only to the capabilities of the old TV seekers of the A and B Mavericks. The whole "G's for K's" program appears to be nothing more than a financing stunt at the expense of capability - i.e. swapping out a better, more expensive seeker for a less capable one at lower cost, then selling the expensive seeker on export and pocketing the profit. At least, it helps explain why there is so much confusion in this topic... (X-files conspiracy theme music plays in background) -SK

What? In addition to messing up the AGM-65B's name, now they're going to mess up its warhead too? ;) I think D-Scythe has a point. If ED is serious about modelling the K, they should probably make it a third AGM-65 variant instead of taking away our primary anti-tank CAS weapon - and give it a better TV image. -SK