DD_Fenrir

Indeed. Even the Israelis, who are generally considered to be good at staying on top of things like this, were caught out by the SA-6 during the... er... I think it was the Yom Kippur War. Their RWR and ECM systems had never been programmed to pick up/broadcast on the frequency spectrum the SA-6 operated in and thus were useless against it. Their losses were correspondingly high until they figured out what was going on and updated their systems accordingly. Technology and warfare; you bring new technology to increase lethality and your enemy scrambles to find a way to mitigate or negate that advantage before it becomes decisive. It's as old as arrows and armour. Move & counter move. Trouble is people think this doesn't apply to the Phoenix; you can bet that the Eastern Bloc and their Allies were furiously updating their RWR and ECM equipment after the Revolution in Iran (if not before) and were likely aware of the F-14/AWG-9/AIM-54 limitations. Thus it's not beyond the realms of possibility that any Soviet/belligerent nation pilot worth his salt that would potentially face down an F-14 in the years after could well be educated in the tactics to employ that could exploit these. Topgun instructors would use the same exploits to present Intercept problems to students going through the syllabus in the 1980's - why would they do that if they weren't expecting their foes to be behaving similarly? Thus the parameters that a 100 mile AIM-54 shot taken from 40,000ft against a bomber sized aircraft in 1971 will not match those of a fighter-to-fighter combat mission of the '80s/early '90s. Those who march in here and moan loudly that their AIM-54 won't shoot down a fighter at 110nm when launched sub-sonic from 20,000ft and isn't reaching Mach 5 have obviously imbibed a whole lot of the Kool-Aid that the popular science mythology peddles regards the Phoenix. Don' get me wrong - it's an impressive system, especially considering it' s heritage, but it's impressive when it has a cooperative (non/low-manoeuvring target) and is fired at specific altitudes and airspeeds. As so often with any piece of engineering to excel in one area means compromising in another. The Phoenixes girth, required for a large enough motor to propel it the distances required and to provide sufficient space for the avionics and radar dish to support a useful active seeker, make the missile heavy and draggier than it's contemporaries; this is mitigated by pushing the missile to 80-90,000ft where the aerodynamic drag is a fraction than at lower altitudes and it matters less. However, you bring it down into the thicker air at 10-30,000ft and it not only forces a range reduction (and possibly into the WEZ of your opponent) but it suddenly starts to look less impressive against it's contemporaries in terms of speed, range and manoeuvrability.

F-14A VF-84 Jolly Rogers 1987 (digitalcombatsimulator.com) F-14A VF-84 Jolly rogers 1977 (digitalcombatsimulator.com) F-14A VF-84 Jolly Rogers 1982 (digitalcombatsimulator.com) F-14A VF-84 Jolly Rogers 1989 (digitalcombatsimulator.com) F-14A VF-84 Jolly Rogers 1986 LoViz (digitalcombatsimulator.com) F-14A VF-84 Jolly Rogers 1979 Final Countdown 203 (digitalcombatsimulator.com) F-14A VF-84 Jolly Rogers 1979 Final Countdown 202 (digitalcombatsimulator.com)

Yes. You’re having to overpower the holdback to lock into the shuttle.

@Luka CMF there is a function to adjust the 1st person camera height in cockpit and is a global thing for all modules; try RCtrl+RShift+Num2. It’s not just the tomcat that VR users find their head position a little too high in - it seems a global thing; in most aircraft I find I have to adjust the camera height to get a good sight picture, the Mossie, Spitfire and P-51 are all the same in VR for me.

Seriously?!? Hint: what can the AIM-54 do that the Sparrow can’t? Follow up rhetorical question: do you think they made the Phoenix as big as it was just on a whim?

What a feeble and puerile comeback. Heatblur have repeatedly demonstrated excellent and consistent engagement with this community; they document their sources where they can and demonstrate reasons for the choices they make in the face of ambiguity. Where new data highlights inaccuracies in their modelling they have made efforts to revisit their programming and make revisions appropriately. They hold their hands up and admit their mistakes publicly on the rare occasions that something goes wrong. Finally they respectfully respond to the communities requests for additional features or suggestions for adjustments where these are delivered politely. Excuse me for finding this kind of engagement refreshing and wanting to maintain it, hoping that other devs follow their example. Your pessimistic sensationalism delivered in tones of incredulity and insinuations of deliberate apathy or downright malice on the part of Heatblur are well wide of the mark. Furthermore, I notice you choose to ignore any of the informed responses to your insidious comments that prove you wrong or attempt to provide you with nuanced information, hints, tips and procedures to follow to improve your in game performance, but then why I am not surprised? I had you pegged as an entitled angry little man boy who wants game developers to compensate for his lack of skill, stoicism and patience after your first posts; and the evidence keeps accumulating.

For pity's sake. What a load of histrionic bovine excrement. Grow up.

Surely you mean... phaiph...

Errr… not so much: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/405042560206676118/

That is a massive oversimplification and disingenuous to boot; it also paints HeatBlur in an unflattering light and one that they decidedly do not deserve. For your information the initial data was accurate - however, as HeatBlur themselves admitted their interpretation was off. It was then CORRECTED in light of the new clarifying data. Welcome to the scientific method. How all engineering problems are and should be solved.

Your histrionics and snyde comments are getting boring and tiresome Bubi. We're all dealing with the same issues - just some of us are mature enough to test where the EMPLOYMENT opportunities exist to give you a reasonable Pk (~40-50%) plus look into what and where the issues exist that cause misses. These are almost exclusively tied into terminal phase notch behaviour - a guidance issue; therefore an ED issue - and the AI omniscience as to the position of an attacking missile and their ability to notch perfectly - again an issue for ED to address. These have been highlighted already - repeatedly. Don't like it? Go fly the F-14 in a different sim...

That's a shame... for you. Not much point hanging out round these parts for you then I guess. See you around, don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.

What altitude you launching from? Burn times are apparently correct according to Heatblur and they've got the data so I'm inclined to trust them. Most of the issues seem to be with terminal guidance logic and missile behaviour when notched; this combined with AI that have omniscience with regards to the position of attacking missiles means that they are very (too?) effective at notching missiles. This precludes any opportunity for an active missile to reacquire a target should it only notch temporarily and would appear to be the major cause of low PK for otherwise well launched AIM-54s lately.

Looks like you’re not actually interested in learning anything from these discussions or - god forbid - improving your own skill set; you ‘re just here to <profanity> on the HB flight model because it doesn’t pander to you. So, on that note, and to mirror the unremittingly passive aggressive tone you’ve adopted I think the only appropriate response is: “Awww, poor baby. Did the bad man take your copium?”

Despite some of the sound issues, BTD really got this bit spot-on!

There's a lot of hyperbole, histrionics, melodrama & supposition being thrown around in this thread. As such, the legitimacy of any critique that is being levelled at ED or Heatblur is being compromised. Whilst I too am finding the AIM-54C PK is down around the 25-50% mark, there are known issues for this, and each on it's own is a problem but when you experience them in combination it makes the missile appear next to useless 1. Notch susceptibilty - currently the AIM-54 in both variants is easily notched. Now, good luck finding hard data on this to compare, you are just going to have to trust that ED have their guesstimate in the right ball-park. 2. When notched the missile automatically starts a pitch up, placing it's intended target outside of its radar detection cone, and obliterating any oppotunity for the missile to reaquire a target that might only be in the notch fleetingly. This is a guidance issue, therefore it is 100% an ED issue. 3. The AI are too omnipotent with regard to the position of an attacking active radar missile and are able to time a defensive split S or notch too precisely. This is an AI programming issue, therefore it is 100% an ED issue. When all the above are taken into account we see that it's relatively easy for the AIM-54 to get trashed, especilally by fighter sized targets. Heatblur claim that the missile kinematics are as accurate as they have ever been and meet test criteria; their graphs reflect this. And good luck finding data to disprove them. You are obliged to trust their claims. As for Jester issues; I doubt it. In TWS Jester is not manipulating the system - once a Phoenix leaves the rail, the WCS is automatically shaping the scan zone to attempt to maintain lock. Spurious loss of tracks can and will happen - it's an AWG-9 - and these can account for some Phoenixes being trashed. If you are having Jester issues, attempt a repair and see if that helps.

"OMG!!! The Air Force, after decades of experience, research and testing has decided to prioritise the survivability of it's it's aircrews over something that looks cool?!?" Seriously... some of you need to get out more.

Meme away mate; the issues that trash most otherwise legit Phoenix shots are partly to do with guidance (EDs responsibility), partly to do with the AI's superhuman ability to know exactly where an attacking missile is and defend perfectly (again, EDs responsibility) and partly with a whole lot of users not understanding that Phoenix performs best where the air is thin (cos it's one thicc momma) and expecting it to still be a 100nm shot missile whilst launching it against manoeuvring targets at medium to low altitude (disappointment due to own over-expectations/ignorance).

It's used exclusively for getting bearings to specific Radio Navigation Beacons; unless you (a) have one set for a specific purpose in mission or (b) know an airfield you wish to navigate to that has a beacon and tune accordingly, it's next to useless for any other navigation. In reality you'd reset the P8 compass (below and in front of the throttle quadrant) after a turn point and use that to correct your Direction Indicator (centre of your instrument panel) and fly off that, updating the DI every 15 minutes in case of drift.

This Is Why Clouds Are Often Turbulent – Airplane Academy However: Ergo, cloud = turbulence is not a truism. It's far more nuanced. Nuanced = more complicated = more coding time required = more expense Also = greater demand on your hardware. Would it be great to have? Sure. But it is likely well down the priority list, after the Vulkan integration, Dynamic Campaign and more dynamic weather manipulation by users.

I'd say that about covers it.

Black Widow = White Elephant Currently there is no night fighting environment or assets/technology to support it or any other WW2 era dedicated night fighter. Let’s get the WW2 day ops environment better completed before looking into night fighter operations.

The sheer amount of people who apparently lack the physics nous to understand the vast effect that changes in air pressure (and by direct proportion, density) play in missile performance leaves me somewhat incredulous. Let's start with a truism: peak Aim-54 performance requires a supersonic launch from 30,0000 ft+ against a hot, high flying, non-manoeuvering target At 30,000ft air pressure is going to be in the region of 25-30KPa. At 6,000ft it's going to be closer to 80kPa. That's more than 3 times the air pressure - ergo there are 3 times as many air molecules (density remember) that the missile body has to push against, 3 times as much air resistance; this slows the rate of acceleration of the missile whilst it is under power, limiting it's max achievable top speed plus it makes the missile slow down faster when it's in its glide phase. That's already brought your theoretical range down to 35nm. BUT THERE'S MORE! Don't forget that the AIM-54 in those high-altitude, long-range shots lofts to >80,000ft in order to benefit from even less air resistance, in the region of only 2-3kPa! That's 1/10th of the air resistance it would have had at 30,000ft and ~1/20th of the air resistance down at 6,000ft! But the 6,000ft shot would loft, right? Not necessarily - given the max range the WCS may not calculate a loft profile; even if it does, it cannot possibly loft the additional 40-50,000ft that the high alt launch loft profile gives you because the motor performance suffers due to the increased low altitude air density. Ergo the loft will likely be in the 33% of that figure, and give you ~15,000ft additional loft, which would take the missile to the ~20,000ft region. That equates to roughly 40kPa. That's still 13 times more than the air resistance at 80,000ft. Then, have your target make even a moderate missile defence and of course it's going to be scuppered. So, if you are: Below 30,000ft Under Mach 1 Targeting anything other than a bomber/transport that has limited evasive manoeuvring potential Don't expect your Phoenixes to connect at anything close to 100nm. Even maintaining those launch parameters, against fighters you need to compress that timeline to 40-50nm. Get slower/lower and those ranges compress further. What's so difficult to comprehend?

An "AIM-54" did reach Mach 5... sort of. The Mach 5 figure comes from here: NASA's plan to use an F-15 to launch hypersonic Phoenix missiles - Sandboxx But when you read just how many modifications NASA made to the missile to get it to reach Mach 5 you start to understand just how little this test missile has in common with a US Navy fleet missile. All of the internal components related to the missile’s guidance system and explosive payload were completely removed, including its guidance computer and radar tracker, leaving just its propulsion and control sections at the rear of the missile intact a new nose with slightly more sloping angles was added to what would now be primary and secondary payload sections with the same 15″ diameter as the original components. The primary payload section measured about 57 inches long and, based on the weight of the guidance section it replaced, could carry approximately 184 pounds worth of testing equipment. It's an AIM-54 in name only. Then there's the flight profile - the fact that the launch was committed at Mach 2 and that the missile was not required to make any steering corrections as it had no target widens the gap between it and a fleet Phoenix; there's so little in common here with an operational launch of an AIM-54 that it might as well be a completely different missile.