Vampyre

I can't wait to get my hands on this plane. It will be fun to learn the systems and see how it fares in multiplayer. Any chance for a Mirage 2000N-K2 or Mirage 2000D in the future?

If work was started now I would not expect an Intruder module to be completed in 2-3 years. By that time we will have a lot more period specific units for a lot of the time periods (of which there are already a great many of in the A-6's case) and most likely a working carrier. The carrier is not a show stopper either because the Marines mostly used their Intruders from land bases anyway... so it is still realistic. By the logic put forth in that post, the ultra modern pointy nose multi-roles should not even be worked on until we finish the mid-90's era units. The only aircraft that you listed as what you consider to be a priority that even qualifies is the F-16A-D with the Block 50/52 initially delivered in 1991. Even then to be true to keeping with the time period it will be an unmodified airframe as well... so no JHCMS and earlier radar. The A-6E Intruder was not retired from service until 1997 so it is not an orphan aircraft either. DCS is a work in progress and until ED stops development it will always be that way. Not every plane, ship or vehicle will have a home when initially released. That's just the way it is. Steps are being taken to flesh out the environment and I believe we are in for some really pleasant surprises within the next year.

True story. The Navy is the same way. We are training almost every day. We train how we fight and that gives us the edge over our potential enemies.

The Viggen has the P&W JT8D engine used in many airliners. The Swedes added an afterburner section to it and manufactured it as the RM8. The power plant is completely conventional with the exception of the thrust reversers. No other aircraft in DCS has actual operational thrust reversers.

I picked up two of them a couple of months ago. Who could possibly be against Chuck... or the A-10. (Nice guy BTW, met him during a port call in Ft Lauderdale in 2004)

Funny, I don't really care for any of the types you listed. I'd would like to have a complete flyable mid-70's/80's era carrier air wing. A-6's were the heavy punch of the CVW's for over 30 years and would be fun to operate in a simulated tactical environment. The point is that not everyone wants a present day ultra modern multirole fighter. I'd buy an A-6 module... or almost anything from the mid/late cold war, Vietnam era or WWII. I am just glad we have developers that have similar tastes and don't just focus on the platforms that have already been done to death in other simulations.

The MiG-23ML/MLD display the Radar information on the HUD. The scopes in the cockpits you are talking about are probably MiG-27K's. The scopes are required for the Kaira targeting system. Do you have links to the photos you are referencing?

I believe its intentional to avoid legal issues.

I hope the announcement is that they have working slot machines in the Vegas Casinos... complete with free drinks. DCS: Slots :thumbup:

Awesome news Cobra. Nice to hear things are still on track.:thumbup:

When you have one or two of these BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRT doesn't really matter.

It can't. That is a Super Hornet capability. The S-3 is one of the platforms I worked on in my career. It was a very capable attack, tanker and ESM platform. All of the anti-submarine equipment was removed in 1996-7 and after that it was primarily a tanker with an outstanding maritime reconnaissance and attack capability. It was a poor tanker though. It could fly a long time on the fuel it carried due to the efficiency of the TF-34 turbofans. The problem was with the giveaway fuel was really too small of a load for the aircraft it was tanking (mainly F/A-18's and F-14's) as they were voracious fuel burners. I'd buy a DCS: S-3B Viking just for the nostalgia.

So, in summary, you and Tirak are seriously asking for an official cheat to be incorporated into a full real DCS level module because you don't think you can win in the multiplayer fragfest servers regardless of the fact that the F-14A and F-14B were never equipped to fire the AIM-120. The pictures posted earlier of a Tomcat firing an AIM-120 were of NF-14A Buno 158625, not an F-14A fleet representative model. While the "warp drive" example that someone else threw out there is not physically possible, neither is the AIM-120 on a fleet Tomcat which is what LN are building... not a one off test aircraft. Some people are always trying to ice skate uphill.:doh:

The Tomcat has a far larger fan base than the F-15. It also will be a full DCS aircraft. That means that it will be the F-15 that will suffer in multiplayer, not the Tomcat. Now if the individual servers want to limit the Phoenix and some players do not want to fight without it, they will go to another server that does have what they want. Saying the AIM-120 is needed on the Tomcat for multiplayer purposes is silly. If you want to fly a AIM-120 shooter fly the Eagle. If you want to fly a naval AIM-120 shooter fly the Hornet. A lack of realism in a module that is supposed to be ultra realistic WILL be a reason for ridicule. Hopefully LN learned that with the Grom on the MiG-21Bis. A mid-80's A and a mid-90's B did not have had the AIM-120 at all and it shouldn't be included. Why not just give the FC3 Eagle the AIM-120D, Meteor or even the Phoenix to even things up a bit. The mission builders can do those things. If you want something nerfed it might as well be a flaming cliffs plane... not a full fidelity DCS level plane that has a huge and rabid fan base. LN would just be inviting the hate mail if they did that. I would rather them keep making DCS modules rather than quitting in disgust because of the actions of some of the community.

You do know they only made one of those, right?

I disagree with your assessment. My opinion is that the LN F-14 should only be able to carry and launch it's true weapons load out. The AIM-120 was never integrated into the fleet Tomcats. I would not worry about how it will perform in the non-realistic multiplayer servers... that is a matter for mission designers to deal with. The Tomcat will already have one advantage over the in game F-15 in that it will have a Link-4 or 4A data link. giving it capabilities it never truly had would be a disservice and make it a gamey module as far as I'm concerned. What is to stop them from giving it the AIM-9X as well. They were never integrated into the Tomcats weapon system but the Tomcat could carry and fire them (granted there would be little real advantage as they would have to be aimed like a 9M) with no real changes. If I wanted to spam AIM-120 all over the place I'd fly the eagle. I want the Tomcat to be as true to life as it can be, not an airplane nerfed for unrealistic multiplayer game balance purposes.

The lot 11 and below aircraft can still conduct attacks at night, they were just not optimized for that mission. The lot 12 and above have NVG compatible cockpits among other upgrades to improve their overall effectiveness. The NVG's enabled the pilot freedom of maneuver. Before the NVG compatibility a pilot had to use the FLIR pods to look around in the dark... which is not optimal in a combat environment.

You might want to check the publishing date on that. My guess is that it was originally published before 1986... or it is just poor research by the author.

The Night Attack lot 12's and later are denoted by the "N" designation. From the book, the evidence is found in the fact that there no "N" designations prior to 1990. Additionally, I know that VFA-146 and VFA-147 swapped their jets (Lot 16's) with the forward deployed VFA-192 and VFA-195 (Lot 10/11's) around the time that the Kitty Hawk took over fror the Indy... 1998. Luckily, all four of those squadrons are listed and you can see when they swapped the Night Attack Hornets from CAG 9 on the America to CAG 5 on the Kitty Hawk.

More likely than not it indicates a night attack version. That means the airframes are lot 12 or later jets. Link please?

From watching the video and knowing a bit about aircraft, I would not be surprised if the accident investigation team concludes the cause of the incident to be pilot error. The Hunter is a well built machine, even so it is doubtful that they would be throwing around an expensive machine like that if it was close to or beyond its flight hours limit. The pilot was pulling very hard at the end as evidenced by the wing wobble just before impact. The wing wobble was caused by exceeding the critical AOA for the Hunter. That tells me the controls were, more likely than not, operating as advertised. Condolences to the families that lost loved ones that day.

The 9L is all aspect. It was the first IR Sidewinder with that capability. It gave the RN SHAR's a distinct advantage over the Argentine Mirages in the Falklands.

Mainly, the 9M has better resistance to IR countermeasures and a low smoke motor.

Except that it can dogfight... very poorly. Just because it doesn't have rate or radius like a Hornet or Falcon doesn't mean that it cannot operate in the merge. That's what BFM is, operating in the merge. Even the AV-8 Harrier, F-105 Thunderchief and A-7 Corsair II practiced BFM and they are terrible turners. The Thud even has gun kills. Granted, it will take an extremely lucky MiG-31 pilot to survive a turning dogfight but the jet does have speed and a lot of fuel which will save your life in an engagement. A component of BFM is picking the correct time to disengage and escape. BVR... The MiG-31 is literally the 500lb Gorilla in the room and its BVR game should be feared. The R-33 is the primary weapon, but it only has four of those. Its wing pylons can carry either two R-40T's or four R-60's for closer engagements. The R-60 is a dogfight missile as its max range is only a little bit beyond cannon range. Interesting huh? This is where you reply and say "that's what I meant" even though you used absolute terms like can and cannot when referring to dogfighting ability. Now, If dogfighting ability is the metric that will be used to measure the fun factor then it will get no better than in WWII or Korean era fighters... all dogfight all the time. I for one would like to see a MiG-25 in DCS. At least three versions. The PD, BM and RB. Of course, before that, I would also like to see a MiG-27K or Su-17M4. Well, I'd like to see almost all of late Cold War jets... 1965-1991ish.

Goose is dead bro... Let it go. I'd rather have a live RIO anyway... or pilot in this case.:pilotfly: