lunaticfringe

"Turkey" stems from the look behind the boat- gear down, wings out, and control surfaces in various directions. The dog tooth, strengthening, and lightening don't overcome the center of gravity/center of lift issue inherent in the MiG-23's design. As to performance, allow me to get home from a doctors appointment, and you'll have plenty on the F-14. Ergo- don't feed the Flogger troll. And I might just have some data he won't like about the MiG. Oh, btw- do the words "progressive goat" mean anything to you, foxbat?

Echo- I understand that it's the *hands*, and that there is no limitation on your movement from the elbow and shoulder, is that correct? Reason I ask, is that once you get out to 12+ inches of extension, the net centering force on a Warthog (and any other consumer joystick, for that matter) is just about nonexistent. Means you have to place the base on the floor, rather than your desk, but you can get all the throw, or as little of it, to fit your comfort through axis tuning and dead zone modification. In conjunction with one of those dedicated FPS key rigs they offered years ago for your opposite hand, you could likely get away with most all weapons, radar, and throttle options in that key set. And wasn't someone talking about doing a Spitfire-style spade handle a while back with the WW2 thing? That might be more comfortable as well, depending on the nature of your injury and how it affects your dexterity- grasping it essentially like a mouse, with the palm rather than the full grip of your hand, and rocking it back and forth/side to side.

Not really. Take note of the various 303 design studies dimensions; that was what Grumman spent the money the USN was giving them for engineering work on the side, separate from the F-111B. None of them were substantially smaller than the eventual F-14. And although the intention may not have been to stuff the AWG-9 in there wholesale, you can be certain the Navy was going to want a substantial upgrade from the APQ-72, which meant you needed to prepare for weight. That said, when it comes to getting into the fight, aircraft weight matters less than wing loading, because the latter is where your induced drag stems from. You can deal with a lower T/W ratio if you're paying a lesser cost for every degree of turn than the other guy for the same G. Higher wing loading- net induced drag increase in the corner. If the F-14 had half the wing (ergo, no body lift), it would have the net turn performance of something like a Mirage F1 (or a MiG-23, for that matter). Instead, if you don't tear everything up, you can sustain, and you can do it slower, and with a smaller radius, than just about anybody else. Otherwise, you need bigger motors to net the same performance benefit. The trick of all of this is that folks don't "see" what they think should be the net increase of the F110s when they look at the performance charts. They look for it right along the Max CL curve, but that's not where the full grunt of the GE's come online at; there's some, but the point is that you punch through that region faster based on the difference in output to get right up to where the difference lies- right around 0.6 Mach; while it only looks like there is 1 additional G sustained at that point (5 vs 6) there is 66% more Ps at that point, being .60 Mach and 5k feet in the *heavier* D in the 4x4 configuration- 500 ft/sec vs 300. It does beg the question whether or not all of the curves were properly confirmed on the A+/D charts, because your induced drag is going to essentially be the same on both airframes. But it's really no big deal- so long as the proper subsonic acceleration is there, the performance will work itself out. Re: -23. It's bad all away round, such that I've often wondered if the development of the R-73 (based around the Navy's work with VTAS) wasn't really supposed to be for the Flogger. Reason being that, while it surrenders Rmin to the Sidewinder, the off-boresight ability played directly to the MiG-23s strengths- running. Get some offset and angle running into the merge, take a face shot while pointed at an acute angle, and split.

Came here to discuss the contents of NAVAIR F14AAA-2-2-16.1, Change 6 - October 1985, with all sorts of lovely ATG weapons symbology (to go along with Change 2, 1982, with the air to ground drop sequence and pallet data), staying for the royal fisking delivered to the guy who's dad put up a hangar at Bethpage. Good show, everybody. Popcorn and +1 internetz all around.

That speculation has no bearing. One project to the next are not necessarily dependent on one anothers' methodologies. Further, many disparate projects are coming to a head: 2.0, and the promise of what lurks behind it from ED, drives all of these things. If Leatherneck is working on a carrier-based fighter, you can be certain that the infrastructure required to make it work right is being built up on ED's side. And if Leatherneck is working on an aircraft with air to ground radar, it means that the expectation of an F/A-18C (which requires many of the tools that Leatherneck needs for the F-14 experience) is pressing developments in that area. There is far more going on under the covers of the Tomcat, with regards to the flight dynamics required based on the auto-sweep wing than any other type currently offered in this system; that, in and of itself, brings with it an immediate penalty in development time that you'd see with no other type (barring the auto-sweep Tornado variant). Thus, don't confuse position in release with lack of complexity. It's likely a situation where the pieces are falling into place faster.

Or, aka instant "uninstall this *teasing b*", *click*

Here's a fun idea- lemme start up a fighter jet! Not take it out for a spin- just start it up. It'll be "fun". All the foreplay with no release amounts to DCS: Blueballs.

Avialogs is free to read, or subscribe to download.

A few points: 1. The F-14 was built from the ground up as a maritime air superiority aircraft, meaning that it was required to beat all expected threats at the time of its design- not just bombers and cruise missiles, but opposing fighters. The aircraft was intended to not only defend the carrier, but escort strike packages over land- right into the opposing air defense, meaning you've got to be ready to hassle. Grumman was well into the process of designing the airframe when the F-111B went down the shitter- the Navy had been granting the firm funds to design an advanced fighter follow-on to the Phantom, meaning that they already had an ace up their sleeve when McNamara's stupidity blew up in their face. The ability of the Tomcat to carry both the AWG-9 and palleted Phoenix was a byproduct of the decision-making of their engineers at the time to build a flexible machine- long loiter, high dash speed, built while maintaining a low wing loading, and good performance behind the boat. The pancake was engineered for performance; it was simply made to be compatible with the AIM-54. Thus, it will turn, and it will turn better than many expect. At right around 0.65 Mach, you will generate a bat-turn, even in the A, that will make a Viper driver shit his pants. The problem is that in the A, you only get this turn one time- you need to either use it to end, or use it to leave. 2. The Navy didn't like the original programming for the wing sweep provided by Grumman. The logic originally intended for the F-14 was based around CL max; this generated more wing flex than the admirals liked (because the wings were fully extended through 0.75 or so Mach), and so the programming was changed to Ps max. Essentially, performance was left on the table in the name of perceived longevity. 3. In conjunction with this decision came the standing load limit of 6.5G. Talk to "Snort" Snodgrass (and if you're talking Tomcats you know who he is- otherwise, GTFO), and he'll tell you his old man- who was a test pilot on the F-14 program, and his fellow testers, were instructed to fly the jet like it was a *13G* machine. Going with normal 1.5x strength standards, this means that the Tomcat was built for ~9G. Again, performance left on the table. And Muczynski was glad it was built that strong, because he pulled 10 getting away from the Fitter carcass that blew up in his face- the Sidewinder didn't look like it was going track, so he was converting for guns. Lastly, 4: PSA: Dope is bad for you. The MiG-23 is an abject display of garbage- higher wing loading, lower CL at max sweep, lower available AoA at max sweep. The reduced G requirement to invoke wingsweep is an embarrassment to the concept, meaning you're running what you brought to the fight, rather than being flexible within. The engine integration was a disaster. And let's trust in a manufacturing process so poor that their wing-box implementation as a fuel tank required reinforcement, because the welds weren't able to survive exposure to JP. So yeah- tell me about how a Flogger will beat a Tomcat 1 v 1 inside five miles, and you'll see me laughing at you. All. Day. Long.

Boy, nice job taking a statement regarding the interaction of decoys versus sensing and turning it into a bad remark regarding loft programming. PG is still in effect during a lofted profile; the weapon's logic is processing range and aspect information as required to turn a known energy constant into enough kinetic-plus-potential energy to render a valid intercept. It is not two separate stages, but one long calculation- the missile maintains the constant lateral LOS required. This is reinforced by performance at short range: an AIM-120 doesn't need to loft with a shot taken at 5 miles. Instead, the equation is performed, energy is noted as sufficient to get downrange, and the logic is followed. Loft, in relation to missile performance and guidance, is a known issue. It is not simply known issue, it's also an excessively difficult one to solve based on the grade of data that is available on the "white" side of the fence, not the least of which are the constants that have to go in. Although, if you'd like to provide exact engineering data as to the ARs of the fins of various weapons, the specific energy total of their solid fuel boost and sustainer stages, along with their full drag profiles, they might be able to get back to you far more quickly than they currently are. Instead, they're having to work backwards, from oftentimes wildly inaccurate sales data, and flight data for singular regimes. And honestly- that doesn't tell you a quarter of what you need to know as to how the weapon got there from the physics side, because those inputs can be fiddled with any number of ways to get the range up. One has to have that grade of intimate data to be able to effectively feed a lofted PG equation. Otherwise, you're dealing with even worse performance than we already have. So frankly- as the man said, it *is*, as currently constructed, adequate. They are working on it in a near-constant fashion, but it is a painful process. But, like I said- if you've got a hard line on state secrets that you're willing to spend a couple decades in a maximum security facility for releasing to the developers of a consumer-grade flight simulator, be our guest. Otherwise, don't shoot the messenger.

Communicating. Keeping up foreign relations.

"Where did the F-5E come from?" Northrop. Any more questions? ;)

If he's flown all APG-79 birds, it wouldn't matter if he knew the difference or not. ;)

A NSFW piece of Naval Aviation history. If you've seen it previously, I'm glad the components literally fell into my lap a few years back to put this together. http://www.unmitigatedgall.net/?p=335 Hope everyone has a safe holiday and a Happy New Year.

Skate is correct. US, MA.

Gents- Have to consolidate for a bit, so up for sale is my Warthog. Low hours (I'd evaluate less than 30 in use since purchase in February). Includes all accessories from the box, and will ship in the original box. $415 plus actual shipping cost.

It's built in to the three to six month exclusivity comment.

You uh, you know, able to buy a Timber Wolf with C-Bills yet? OH WOW, I CAN BUY A KIT FOX! Yawn. P2W. Period. Pay up, get your exclusivity bonus to pad your ELO for three to six months, wash, rinse, repeat.

Gang- Got a good response with the Boyd design, so I thought I'd share here: F-14- "KEEP CALM and FOX ONE" http://teespring.com/FoxOneF-14 F/A-18- "KEEP CALM and FOX TWO" http://teespring.com/FoxTwoFA-18 Target on both of these shirts is 25, rather than the 50 for the Boyd design. Re: Shipping- I'm discussing with Teespring to see if they'll permit me to solicit combined shipping in the details. For orders of both shirts this would entail choosing the "pickup" option, then issuing payment for actual cost to me directly via PayPal. More on that as it becomes available.

Not now, unfortunately Pilotasso- statute of limitations expired long ago. If they had simply gone the way of every good Mechwarrior ever and honored the Solaris rules expansion, folks would be lining up. Instead, they are showing all the signs of life support.

Again, I don't disagree with that. The conceit is a comparison of what is happening with the eyes in a plane (focus), vs. what is happening with the eyes in DCS (zoom). The eye changes its focus to see objects in the distance. The player in DCS uses the zoom function to see objects in the distance. It's different methods to achieve the same net result (a spotted target), but with different effects: in real life, apparent depth changes; in DCS, the target gets far larger than it should be. If DCS represented visibility at range, and the changing of focus, I wouldn't be having to use the conceit. We could simply compare apples to apples and determine if it was represented correctly. We can't. Thus the fudge.

No, it doesn't zoom. Used here, it's a conceptual conceit to bring a closer parallel to how the eye works correlates to what is taking place in the engine. The engine only "zooms" rather than permitting realtime change in DoF (which is what the eye is doing). Thus, when I say that the eye is "zooming", it's drawing it's focus out to a farther distance, which is only comparable in the simulation as actually zooming along the visual z-axis. It doesn't have anything to do with what is presented on the monitor. It does, however, have everything to do with what is visible to the *player*, and that is based on said distance. Example: A fighter-sized object (say, a MiG-29 smoking in MIL) is on the horizon. Based on 20/10 vision, say that this should be visible in a head-on aspect at 14 miles with the representation of one lit pixel. If you permit the changing of FoV (which is what zooming actually does, projection of smaller fields of view in the same apparent visual area), you're changing the apparent size of said object. A pilot strapped into his seat can, at most, get his eyeballs closer to an object (disregarding the net range collapse by his velocity at the object) by, at most, 6-8 inches of slack in the harness and traverse of his neck. The FoV is changing by thousandths of a percent at that 14 mile range. What he can change is how far out his eyes are focused to pick up that microscopic object, which is more apparent based on its relative sharpness to the rest of what is in his visual field. This is why locking the FoV, and tying it to the visual field of the display, is the "balancing" option. Everyone should loose the zoom function. Apparent FoV should only change with the addition of/resizing of displays to bring in more of the peripheral. In such a system, the best the player can do is lean in a bit- he's still having to hunt the same as a pilot based on applied DoF in the visual z-axis, rather than changing the projection. What we have now is the reverse: bigger the display, the bigger you can get the target to eyeball.

If it was me, from my small time up front in an aircraft, along with my illustration and photographic background, I'd be suggesting the following: 1. Desaturation of DCS World's color palette- some have called it cartoonish, and, while I am predisposed to considering it more of a HDRI view of the world, the fact that the human eye can *see* that much wavelength doesn't mean that a. it will ever discern all of that value at once, and b. the monitor being challenged to display it is anywhere close to being up to the task. These two things cause situations where different screens will fail to show objects that others will when there are large disparities across the available display gamut. It also puts the viewer into fewer situations where contrast will be obscene at range, too. As range increases, contrast should become more subtle. Another benefit is that by desaturating the available palatte, you're compressing the size of what is being displayed back into a more consistent color space (say for example- 85% of Apple RGB, which essentially any monitor made in the last 10 years which isn't a laptop screen made on the far end of that range can produce easily) in such a way that the screen response time can show it clean. A lot of the issue is happening because of the wide palette. 1 v 1 over water, or over the plains from above 15k; the hard deck is far too dark. The amount of light hitting it is, by scale, entirely too small versus what should be a similarly heavily lit object (the target), which should become brighter against that dark. While more realistic lighting would cause the ocean or plain to become apparently lighter (rather than more vivid- ), the target would be even brighter than that, meaning that's how you pick him up. He's not going to be a chrome point of light, but he's going to stand out because their ultimate values will be separated in a more consistent fashion. Contrast this to now- the visual background is dark, and the engine is doing everything in its power to keep that target vivid. This collapses the contrast and you can't see him, even with as little as two miles range with his plan view facing you. And let me be frank- from what we've seen of EDGE, it doesn't fix this. Light falloff is too far out, maintaining its vivid nature. It's repeating this same problem. I'll hold until it's released to pass final judgement, but from what I've seen, this will be a continuing concern. 2. Calculated FoV lock- this can be calculated based on apparent window size, or better- system reported screen PPI. With that one piece of information, the engine can calculate apparent range to the eyeball from a user-defined distance to the screen. Now, this might not seem fair to folks who work on small monitors and zoom out in a huge way, but it will solve whatever potential complaints of "balance" that could be had. If folks are sitting their monitors to a point where they can pick out a single pixel, yet have comfortable view of the full screen, then you're making it a consistent experience across the board. 3. (the big one) Depth of Field locked to zoom, rather than what looks "pretty". The biggest problem a pilot has with keeping sight is open airspace. The eye has difficulty in finding frames of reference with which to allow the muscles to dilate and generate his optical "zoom" for him. However, as the eyes zoom in and out, their Depth of Field changes. Eyeballs do have something akin to a hyperfocal distance, but you do lose huge portions of your peripheral, as well as everything under that range. And yet, depending on the range, the eye works less than like a hyperfocal, and more like a true zoom with normal relative Depth of Field. And that right there is the key to detecting movement when zoomed- too much is in perfect focus. When the eye starts to see what appears to be seemingly immediate changes in contrast against a region it's looking at, it hunts to focus like your camera's AF; and nothing in the air causes apparent change in contrast to focus on than movement. Your brain starts saying, "hey, I'm seeing 45% against 50% gray, and that's maybe clouds and the horizon. But why's this blob of 80% in there moving left to right...?" Bang. A split second later, if you're trained in the art, your eyeball is fixed on that movement. So what I would suggest is that, rather than using the DoF capability of EDGE to make things look nice, use them to make the visual search challenge more realistic. If it could be defined as a zoom axis, everything under 15% is for in the cockpit (gauges, etc), and from there on out it should scale like 20/20 or 20/10 vision at range (since we're working with the baseline of folks needing aids having them on; also note- this is the *real* reason you need to lock FoV to do this properly), with appropriate shifts in what will be in focus at given ranges. And you would find that people should be detecting things with less amounts of zoom than expected, because things out on the horizon will be more out of focus, meaning what's closer will be in, or at least showing visible contrast. But that's what I can come up with. Who knows if and what ED wants to do to solve the issue creatively, if at all.

The contrast problem isn't the rendering engine; it's the monitor it's displayed on. The volume of light coming into your eyeball is far higher when out of doors on even a marginally clear day (and even in many overcast conditions) than your monitor can ever express. Plus, you're dealing with falloff at range caused by particles in the air that generates decreasing contrast as distance increases; this is the reason the horizon appears more gray than your immediate surroundings, and the basis of most modern camouflage schemes. Your eyes see by both contrast *and* motion, and relative motion is more important at range; You can have a dark spot out on the horizon that the eye cannot focus on, , but a grey one with movement that it will track. But 90% of us are working on screens less than 24 inches wide, expecting to sight through a field of view nearing 160+ degrees; you can't compress a net closest frame of reference encompassing nearly 20 feet at your average focusing distance to a monitor down to a mere 24 (or fewer) inches and expect to have things detectable in the same fashion.

Do you know what happens with an inherently stable aircraft above stall speed when you take your hands off the flight controls? That's why.