Biggus

I would not read that '3 months' literally meaning every single weapons guy spending every minute of the working day for 90 days, it was likely more sporadic bursts. "Get it to work" is a pretty loaded statement and there's plenty of room for interpretation, but given that it's in the 1993 manual, evidently they did get it to work and were able to use it within a relatively short time. Retirement from combat use was 1996 for the E, btw. It took until just before Desert Storm for the F-4Gs to have the -7Fs launch envelope integrated into the FCR. They'd been carrying it for a long time by that point. But it wasn't completely integrated for the better part of a decade. We don't exactly have mountains of evidence for -7F usage. We've got two sources in the public domain supporting it. Both of which were dated at the very latest a couple of years prior to the events related in that conversation. There's a 1995 F-4E -34 that would be extremely helpful in this conversation, but as I said, I'm of the opinion that the lack of appropriately dated and publicly available documentation means that we can't form a definitive answer and so we have to wait and see. Whatever modification was made to the G could equally have been applied to the E. There's no hardware or software reason that it couldn't. There could be budgetary reasons, doctrinal reasons, chronological reasons, etc. But up until that modification took place, they were identical systems. I completely understand your point of view, it's generally one that I share. I think HB will come to the correct conclusion, whatever that may be. If there is no evidence that the -7M was integrated on the E at any time in USAF service, that's fine by me. If there's evidence that, say, South Korean F-4Es received the missile around the mid to late 1990s but it did not see service with the USAF Phantoms, perhaps there's a grey area that might have some wriggle room for options. It's really a very minor issue in the grand scheme, and the average Flogger driver won't really know the difference between eating a Mike or a Foxtrot.

I didn't actually say a 1990 F-4G TO. I said "1990s". If I recall correctly, it was a 1993 publication. That date meshes with the dates mentioned in the group. Also note that "integrate well" does not necessarily mean "unable to be used". I'm sure we'd all agree that the F-4E/G was "perfectly capable" of carrying the -7F, but it also needed some work to be considered "integrated well". The implication I'm making is that there's no reason why the F-4E would be unable to support a Sparrow that an F-4G was able to, given equal effort to integrate it. E and G are equal in hardware and software in terms of air to air FCR. The question remains the one you yourself stated: What's the evidence that the F-4E carried the AIM-7M? Without seeing a later -1 or -34, it's hard to judge. I'm inclined to say that at least for the USAF, the -7M on the F-4E probably didn't happen, but I think there's a case to be made that if it was used on the G, it should be mission-editor-selectable for an E purely because we don't necessarily use our modules only in historical scenarios.

@KlarSnow informed me in one of the threads here that the F-4E was perfectly capable of supporting the AIM-7M, that it was listed in a 1990s 1F-4G-1 (which was functionally identical to the F-4E for the purposes of using the missile), and anecdotally I've seen some discussions between former Phantom guys discussing it. I've redacted the names of the individuals in this quick screen grab, but I'll say that one of them has been interviewed at length on the 10% True podcast so I'd consider him vetted pretty well.

Looking forward to trying this out in the Mudhen. Thanks @SFJackBauer yet again!

I'm seeing this happen periodically. A string of good bomb drops that hit their mark, one that will head off to the side for no apparent reason and then back to some more good drops. I found that CDIP works great, but likely because I'm generally in a bit of a dive. I'll try auto with a more nose-down attitude.

The US Navy certainly found that the Sidewinder was the more reliable weapon in the second half of the war, despite quite a few successes in the 1965-66 period. From ~1970 onward, my recollection is that the only Sparrow kill the USN recorded was a night engagement, the other 25 or so being -9Ds, Gs and possibly -Hs. Given the stresses that both the missiles and fire control systems endured, it's not really very surprising.

I believe the 15 JDAM loadout was not actually intended for employment but rather transport to forward bases.

So, I've found an E that has been scanned by the Cockpit360 guys. Unfortunately it's only on FB, and there's no zoom. I'm working on the fuel panel at the moment, and I've run into a bit of confusion that I'm hoping one of the Heatblur guys could maybe answer or drop some hints about. Last night on discord, I was asking for some good reference pictures for that panel, and one of the very helpful users promptly uploaded a better scan from the manual than I had. It is an exact match for the Cockpit360 G here. However, upon looking more closely at the scanned E, I can see that the panel is laid out differently. Like a mash-up with the flares/normal switch from the G, but with the switches of the C (here, for example) and D. What I'd like to confirm is whether the DSCG fuel panel follows the layout as given in the manual, or whether it's closer to the earlier panel in that linked E cockpit above (ie, no flares/normal switch)? I'm 90% sure that that linked F-4E has a pre-DSCG fuel panel. @IronMike could you see if you are able to shed any light on this?

This upsets me in so many different ways.

Correct. I'm hopeful Jester will be able manage it.

I suspect that you'd need to hit the tanker before you made it to the perimeter fence.

I'm probably missing a step or two, but from memory it goes like this: Pipper depressed to 35 mils, pilot aims at the ground at or near the target. WSO boresights the radar, locks onto the ground return and plays with gain until there's a reasonable picture. Pilot with pipper on target (or upwind if compensating compensating for wind) then presses and holds pickle (which commands a range measurement and starts the release timers). ADI now shows pilot where to fly in order to release the bombs for impact at the desired point. Bombs come off at the computed time and the pickle button can be released. The manual suggests that this form of delivery requires 20% more time on the run in.

I'm inclined to suspect that adequate physical clearance at 1G alone is not enough to make it a safe loadout, and/or possibly the left and right maverick positions may damage the sidewinder's seeker head when they launch. Those bombs are likely to be M117s. In the HB discord, somebody much wiser than I pointed out that museum images can be misleading, as they can often be loaded with invalid configurations. In hindsight, I feel silly for not realising that earlier.

I guess the question could be asked about having a single sidewinder and a second maverick on the side where there isn't a sidewinder loaded. I'm sure someone will be able to fill that blank in, because to me it's an interesting possibility.

Regarding Sparrows, there's no limitation on the rear pair that I'm aware of. The front wells can have Sparrows, but these cannot be launched with a C/L tank loaded without popping a circuit breaker or dropping the tank. With other stores on that C/L station, my recollection is that generally the forward Sparrows would work but there were some caveats. IIRC, Phantoms on mud-moving missions in Vietnam nearly always had at least a pair of Sparrows loaded in the rear wells, so you aren't alone in considering them a better option if you have bandits pop up suddenly. I've seen a couple of accounts of Navy guys popping the breaker inhibiting launch on the front pair and actually launching with the C/L tank still onboard, and the fins of the Sparrow caused quite a bit of damage to the tank. With Mavericks, the 1990 -1 shows them mounted singly on the launchers in the bottom position when Sidewinders are carried.

Regarding GBU-12s, it depends on the variant of GBU-12. For the GBU-12B/B, -12C/B and -12D/B, six is the quantity given in the 1990 -1. One each on the outboards, two on TERs on the inboards. It may be physically possible to mount a TER and a pair on the outers, but it is not listed in the TO. For other variants of GBU-12, the total is four. One on each pylon, no TER or MER. The C/L pylon does not appear to be used for carrying any GBU-12 variant, TER or otherwise.

I asked a question about Jester workflow in the discord a few hours ago, but it probably isn't the ideal place to ask questions when the HB guys don't have eyes on the stream of messages, so I'll ask it again here. There are a few air to ground weapon delivery modes like dive toss where the WSO needs to attain a lock on the ground before the pilot cues the impact point for the WRCS with the pickle button. Is there going to be an easy way to ask Jester to attain lock whilst the aircraft is in a dive? The current radial menu seems a little less than ideal for that kind of situation, and I know Jester is getting a rework, so I'm pretty curious what the air to ground workflow will be like for single human pilots.

I'll add my voice to this request too. Very important for the late Cold War era modules and scenarios. Excellent work has been done on adding AAA, but SA-7s and Redeyes would be extremely welcome.

Don't let that stop you. You don't really need to use it at all outside of calibration or changing an axis to a button configuration. I've had my Orion for a couple of years now and I can literally count with the fingers on one hand how often I've used the software.

I'd completely overlooked ACL, you're right. I was very much just thinking about the vector mode.

VR Optician have done two prescriptions for me. No complaints, they're excellent and very fast at shipping them.

The closest we have in DCS today is the Mirage 2000's TAF datalink, which is a bit more informative to the crew due to the TID-like presentation. It's still steering information on a single contact to plot an intercept. You'll only gain SA on that single contact. The real place that SA was gained with the Link 4A system was in the E-2, especially when visual ID was required for IFF. And in the days of early AWG-10s where they'd often break during the sortie, being able to steer a fighter into a firing solution with their fox-2s was probably well worth the effort. The utility of the system within DCS is questionable without a better AI controller scheme and without player controller tools, though. The datalink in the F-14 was capable of steering the aircraft remotely just like the Phantom. It's not modelled within DCS. I'm hopeful that at some point all this will be worth adding to the sim.

@BaronVonVaderham I'd second contacting their support. I've heard of their system having some difficulties with some addresses before and it's generally been fixed pretty quickly.

Fair point of view. I'd argue that it was a relatively tiny space of time that took us from the Bullpup to the Maverick, though. If it's in that manual and has any amount of space devoted to it, it was probably pretty useful.

I suspect that there would be a surprisingly large demand for this, given how much demand there seems to be for logistics modules. So long as, as everyone has said, there's some depth (lol) to the simulation. I've always wanted a high fidelity P-2 and P-3.