Voyager

I think we're talking about different problems. What I am wondering is of there is a way to change the rate at which trim is applied. At the moment, the trim seems to be moving so fast that I'm trimming past TU Evans a off point rather quickly. I'm wondering if something is off with my trim controls, or if this is just the way the plane is and you get used to it after a while? Addendum: what I'm expecting, which may be wrong, is that for the majority of navigation flight, I should be able to fly the plane almost entirely through just trim inputs. That was where Is gotten to for warbirds, but it may be an incorrect assumption for non-flybywire jets.

Bear in mond, if it's not on the P-47, it's new to me, and TACAN sounds new to me :). So facing having access to a real F-14B manual, sounds like next steps are go through FAA TACAN operation, then the Hoggit thread on Case I carrier operations next. I'm wondering, are three any training squadrons doing F-14B stuff that people might recommend? It will be some time before I can do multiplayer, but I'd think they'd have offline work I could run in the meantime?

Long term objective is to be able to fly on a full real multiplayer modes in the front seater role, and be able to accomplish all of the aircraft's primary missions. I also want to fully understand all of these systems and how to get the most from them, including failure recovery. Eventually I want to build a VR focused simpit for the plane. So, sounds like I'm looking at something similar to the Navy training,along with setup for the game voicexom voice com interface. Are those even publicly available? I thought most of the F-14 stuff was under lockdown?

As I've mentioned elsewhere, I've got pretty limited flying time these days, so I'm trying to get the most out of it, and always have a next step prepped. My background is in WWII era flight sims, so the basic mechanism of flying I've got a solid handle on, (though the F-14 is much bigger, heavier, faster, and trustier than anything from the second world war) but the systems are generally completely new to me. Right now I'm working on the airfield patterns and day landings. The goals are to get to a point where I can run through the power-on checklist from memory, orbit the airfield at a constant controlled speed, and consistently enter the glide slope correctly. It does seem like the airfield at the cold start mission has a number of mountains around it that, if I'm reading the barometric altimeter correctly, are in the 500-1000ft range. Also, when setting the reference altitude, I'm guessing I should be setting the altitude pressure to the one listed in the mission briefing (29.82, if I'm remembering it correctly)? In generally, what should be the next main system I should focus in on? I'm thinking either day light navigation, or night take-offs and landings, but am open to suggestions? That's the TACAN system, correct? Thank you, Harry Voyager Back in my day, we didn't have these here fancy computers. Our computers were just a spinny disk thing, and you had to know what it meant when you used it!

Wondering if there is a good way to change the rate of trimming, and if so, what that should be for the F-14B. I'm practicing my take offs and landing and when trying to get it in trim, it seems like the trim is moving the stick further than I am. I'm wondering if I've got a setting off that's causing the issue? Also, what is the most reliable instrument for telling if the plane is in trim? In warbirds, I'm usually using the gun sight to understand where the plane of pointed, but I haven't really figured out what the alternate is on the plane, Thank you Harry Voyager

This have been an amazing thread to follow. Makes me want to go get a 3D printer and build a simpit of my own. Definitely saving this thread to raid for ideas thoroughly if/when I start rolling on one. Might even see if I can raid it for parts of I move from the F-14 to the F/A-18 by the time you get to a release state. Very cool, and learned a ton of things I didn't know were possible to do with 3D printing :D

Thank you. Finally got time to fly Monday and did some laps. I knew the aircraft had a turn coordinator, but had not realized that it also had a turn rate indicator. That and the advice here have helped quite a bit. But definitely going to take practice to keep up with and get ahead of the plane. :) The landing was awesome. Have finally figured out that you need the DLC active and the spoilers/antiskid set to 'Both' for ground landings, so touchdown was good enough. However, somehow I though having nose wheel steering on was a good idea. We lived, but I'm just as glad i don't need to pay for the repairs, to the wing, or the radar truck...

I'm nowhere near the point where I could fly these, but this sound very cool. Definitely booo marking this thread for later.

Anyone have any guidelines for setting up for the 1, 2, and 4 minute turns for station keeping on patterns and in the carrier landing stack? I'm looking to practice then when I next get time to fly, so trying to understand the expected entry/sustainmemt conditions; i.e. IAS speed, wing bank, G load, minimum power. I'm assuming for air field circuits I'd be doing a half version of one of these at each end of the loop? Also, and general guidelines for setting up for the best practice session for this sort of this? Thank you, Harry Voyager

I expect Bong would have done well in either theater, though the issues of the P-:38 likely would have limited his ability to operate that aircraft there. There were many other P-38 pilots who were not able to "abuse headons with the stupidly flimsy Japanese fighters" as you put it, and many more, early in the war who would avoid the head-on and its risks in favor of the turn fight and discover themselves the ones abused.

Ok, so to recap, at takeoff, run the throttle up until the fuel flow hints 10kpph (one notch below the top of the upper white male on the FF indicator) then let the engine spin up to 100% RPM, and watch the nozzles to make sure they don't go over 1.5-2?

So, I seem to be having an issue where, when I run the training, it recognizes commands with 80-90% accuracy, but when I try to use it in mission, it can't seem to recognize words. I've also seem to have issues getting through the training set in one sitting. Things work for the first 50 or so words, then it stops recognizing words that it understood before. Any thoughts on where to even start? Thank you, Harry Voyager

Ok, so I understand, if the instruments were working correctly, should I be controlling jet engines by fuel flow? Or is it a different control factor? Or are jet engines inherently "squishy" at the instruments and should only be managed by throttle position? Understand, In coming in form props, where there is a strong link between manifold pressure and power output. Does such a relationship between fuel fow and power exist here?

Is there a general guideline on what the engine instruments should read for Mil power? Trying to get the power settings for takeoff right, and not sure what I should be seeing on the gauges to show its set right. Piston Engines typically have a manifold pressure and RPM you're supposed to be at, but I'm not sure what the equivalent numbers would be for the F-14B's GE's Thank you, Harry Voyager

Addendum: The TF-51 is a clickpit, and the Su-25 Frogfoot is not. The Su-25 is a Flaming Cliffs 3 grade aircraft, while the TF-51 is a full DCS study build, just with WWII era systems. The FC3 aircraft generally have limited clickable cockpit controls.

You may also want to dip your toes in first with one of the Flaming Cliffs 3 aircraft, first. The learning curve can be very steep in DCS. It took me about three or four goes to get the F-14 airborne, simply because it took me awhile to understand the systems, and while I was able to land it (ground runway) on the first go, I had a number of the systems configured wrong, so the only reason I got down without crashing was because I've got years of flight sim flying experience and could keep it under control in the skid. I still had a blast, but that's what you'll need to be aware of going into the study level ones. The FC3 aircraft have the same flight models, but with much simplified systems, so you can spend you time learning how to fly high performance jets, before you dive into the systems side of things. The FC3 planes are also cheaper so you can get the whole set and try all of them out to see what lights your candle. If you are new to flight sims, I'd seriously recommend starting with the Flaming Cliffs 3 bundle and trying all of them out to see what you like most. Even if you aren't new, FC3 represents a wide range of flexibility for your flying for the price, and can still work well with the study aircraft of you decide to go that route. Plus, the F-15C is currently only available in FC3 grade...

I suspect it is more about the engine stalls. There was an interview with an F-14 crew who'd spent most of their time in the F-14B model. The pilot had only about twenty or so hours flight time in the F-14A yet, he joked, he'd still occasionally have nightmares about double compressor stalls in the F-14A,and could still rattle off the whole restart process. It sounded like it made an impression...

I'll have to run it down again, but I recall a NACA paper on aileron loading under maneuvers that concluded that, under rolling high G turns the wing tips would see considerably higher G forces than the core of the aircraft. Think of it as cracking a whip: your hand is moving fast, but the tip of the whip is moving far faster. So, if you a rolling in a 9.3 G (core) turn, the wing tips are likely seeing a complex of the core G force and additional Gs due to the effect of the rapid roll. Do we have a quick calculation of the centripital force the wing tips would likely see during a max rate roll under 1G? I'd expect it's non-trivial.

To preface, I understand that wing rock is induced by high AoA flight, from Victory 205's F-14 Practical Handling Tips, and having gotten myself into it on my first flight (apparently a 1980's jet interceptor has a higher landing speed than 1940's P-47. Who'd have thunk?*) What I'm trying to understand is why it does that when its at high AoA's. My intuitive expectation when a plane starts to go over like that is that its about to enter a spin, rather than stop and go the other direction. The Tips pdf mentions there is an interaction with vorticies coming off of the intake ducts. Is this a case of the vorticies only disrupt the vertical stabilizers when they are in the plane of travel**, and when they are out, the aircraft has enough natural centering force to drive them back into it? I expect I've pureed the terminology; my background is not in aerodynamics. Is the causing mechanic anything like what caused Sabre-dance? Or are the results just visually similar? Thank you, Harry Voyager *That was pseudo humor, partly. I've mostly flown WWII eras aircraft, so in the landing pattern, I was looking for my normal approach rates. It did end in a successful landing, and, as far as I could tell, I didn't brake the airplane, even without knowing about the spoilers or anti-skid brakes.... **plane of travel in this context is being used to describe the plane defined by the Aircraft Datum Line and the Vector of Travel.

So, working my way through setting up controls and systems for learning the F-14B Pilot station. Bear in mind, my background is WWII era planes, and this is my first real deep dive into modern aircraft, and I'm trying to make sure I understand the F-14's radio and push to talk systems, and how to set everything up to interact correctly, and how to bind it to my joystick/throttle in a way representative of the aircraft itself. Looking through the manual, I'm seeing a 4-way hat switch, that looks like it is for coms, It's the one with the #6 arrow. If I'm understanding this, this has the Pilot/RIO intercom, UHF1 & UHF2 switches, as well as a "Both" that appears to be unused in the game that the moment? For the throttle, I'm currently using the Thrustmaster Warthog HOTAS. If I'm understanding these threads: https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=236119 https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=226019&highlight=vaicom+srs+teamspeak It sounds like the way to map these would be to, first, move the wing sweep controls to the forefinger PoV Hat, then map the 5-way thumb hat such that, "Press" is the TS/Discord/Game voice PTT, the map the ICS to VIACOM's Jester Channel, then map the UHF1&2 to VAICOM TX1+SRS Radio 1 & VAICOM TX2+SRS Radio 2 Respectively, while the 'Both' command would be left unmapped for the F-14? That seem to line up with standard best practice? Thank you, Harry Voyager

As a handy public resource, the Navy posts all of their public domain photos to the navy.mil site under the Media/Photo Gallery menu. Searches for specific aircraft come up with a ton of really cool photos: https://www.navy.mil/gallery_search_results.asp?terms=F-14&page=3&r=4 Currently debating between this guy: A) https://www.navy.mil/view_image.asp?id=37522 B) https://www.navy.mil/view_image.asp?id=31816 C) https://www.navy.mil/view_image.asp?id=31766 Leaning towards C) because it is a widescreen resolution one, but there are many more to look at...

Is the air source just providing air to the radar, or is this the cabin breathing air too?

Hadn't realized that was a thing, so I went back and ran the mission again. This time it actually worked, so not sure what went wrong the first time. One think I did notice when making quick missions is that by default, the air fields don't seem to provide external air or power. Anyone know how to set that up?

That's what I'm suspecting. I tried issuing a ground crew command to remove chocks but the communication menu was empty. I think I'm going to try it on a quick mission tonight and see if I can call for the removal of the wheel chocks on the ramp.

Tried it in both positions. Not sure whether back or forwards it the one that engages the brake. Didn't move. Also, I was given to understand the F-14 brakes can't hold the plane in full military power, much less reheat.