Cmptohocah

Did some research on this. Long story short: different materials and surfaces have different "emissivity" of IR energy, ie. they don't all emit same amount of infra-red radiation even though their temperatures might be the same.

The manual (MiG-29B) doesn't mention any range of the KOLS in front hemisphere, what so ever. Any time EOS is in search mode "ТП(СТРОБ)", manual only mentions rear hemisphere (ZPS). Maybe it's because the only IRs it could carry were R-60?

Not entirely true. FC3 red planes are somewhat buggy and miss-represented as well as the red SAMs. I can confirm this :D

Just had another look at the MiG-29B manual. So Radar and EOS can indeed work together, but only to search and track targets. This coupled mode is called "ВЗМД. ТОРМОЗ". Ranging data is provided by the Laser Range Finder which, in air-to-air measurements, can measure targets from 200m up to 6.5km. Couple of other points: manual mentions EOS use only in rear hemisphere - in DCS we can easily pick up targets from the front also maximum operating time of the Laser Range Finer is 12min per flight - in DCS its indefinite in EOS search mode ("ТП") targets can be detected from 10-25km (let's assume 25km is max.), but can only be locked up 2-3km less than that - in DCS it's instant lock IFF in real Mig-29B takes 5s to complete the ID cycle after which it displays the symbol "C" on the HUD and after releasing the IFF button this symbol disappears - in DCS IFF is instant and permanent MiG-29B's radar can't reliably detect range of less than 5km in HPRF (ППС) and in automatic mode (ABT) at ranges of less than 10km it searches only in MPRF mode (ЗПС) - we have none of the mentioned radar short comings in DCS

I have no problem fighting in "old crap" as you said, against AIM-120 or AIM-54. It's just harder that's all.

Do you have any resources to share? As far as I know, pilots that flew according to the flight manual I have, did not have anything else but what was explicitly stated in the manual. MiG-29B manual explicitly states that ranging information to EOS is provided exclusively from the laser range finder. I was not talking about what existed at a time LOMAC came out, but rather what airplanes were included in it

My bad again: I meant to write Fulcrum and not Flanker. I was trying to reference MiG-29B. MiG-29B manual mentions no such capability for the SPO-15 - just the fixed radar types like Hawk, F-15/14, etc. In DCS we get ranging information in EOS mode while the radar is off. I didn't really understand this one. Could you please explain this one in more detail? People have their mouths full of realism and what not, but no one even mentions IFF. The IFF we have now is "Ace Combat" at best and it's such an important aspect of air combat. How many fights degenerated into close encounters 'cause of IFF issues...

This is not what I meant. I was typing the message from my phone, so I didn't provide much detail. I will try to explain here: 1. GCI DL - real Flanker A can receive target information from GCI and it shows on the HUD 2. RWR - in DCS Flanker's RWR categorizes radiation as "airborne", (long, medium, short) SAM, long-range search, AWACS". This is not how the real RWR classifies radar energy 3. IRST ranging - in real MiG-29A the ranging information comes from a laser which has limited max range (can't remember now exact numbers, but not more than 10km). In DCS that information seems to come from the radar as we can range targets well over 10km You just described most if not all of LOMAC (FC3) airplanes and we still fly 'em today, so I don't see where the problem is. You can have a look at my post above, as an example. Yes, this is the case currently. When LOMAC first came out, it was almost perfectly balanced: blue side had F-15C with AIM-120C and TWS and A-10A; red side had Su-27 with DL and MiG-29S with R-77s as well as Su-25T. Both sides had advantages and disadvantages, but on average it was somewhat balanced. What we have today is effectively blue planes that are allowed to be modeled and the red side which can't be modeled (due to what ever reasons), so the red planes are left with the last century capabilities and systems.

I think people keep forgetting that LOMAC planes were a kind of compromise as well as being very well balanced. Now, the Flanker we have in DCS is missing some RL features like: DL with GCI, navigation etc., but on the other hand it has features that don't exist IRL like: RWR, snapping "shlem" sight, radar-based EOS ranging... Coming back to balancing: I think the only thing that can keep the red side competetive is to create LOMAC-like modern airplanes that simulate systems and are not 100% based on classified manuals. I mean this is how DCS started after all. I would personally love to give MiG-31 a spin - that is a beast!

Multiplayer?

Ahahahahahahaha, what the h**l is going on there? It looks like it's having a fit.

+1

Depends who's flying though. Couple of guys here from forums kick ass in Su-27s and MIG-29s on MP servers. With a good GCI, 29S is quite a capable machine.

I actually prefer the good ol' indicators. Have no idea why they switched that nice yellowish non-intrusive layout to that ugly red indicator.

Unless something changed recently, there is no diff. in IR signature in DCS between 0% and 100% power setting (no AB).

Is this still the case? For some reason, I was under the impression that this was fixed

It will be much tougher to fight against the likes of F-14/F-15 and F-16 once they implement the realistic RWR as the RL one is a bit different to the one we have now.

The decision to go up in the air was mostly political in nature. The commanders didn't really care if the pilots will come back or not (actually mentioned by one of the pilots). Sending people into combat without functional radars and/or RWRs, just goes to show how mindless was to issue an order to go up against F-15s and F-16s. Not to mention that the GCIs had no idea which planes were friendly and which were aggressors. All in all, there were nothing more than flying targets, most of the time.

Not 100% sure, but from 1999 encounter of 2 F-15Cs and 2 MiG-29s it appears that AWACS has tough time picking up targets that are close to the ground. The Fulcrums, according to the flight leader, were deliberately flying low (<= 50m height) and close to the ground in order to avoid being picked up by the AWACS. This seems to have worked, as from the F-15C testimony the MiGs were picked up by AWACS after they climbed to 7.000m or so. MiG-29 Pilot / F-15C Pilot:

Hi @QuiGon, I didn't formulate my post properly. What I should have written was: what kind of ECM is DCS trying to simulate? Also, I am not sure why what is exact mechanics (funny wording since everything is electronic) of this noise jamming? It sounds a lot like repeating the orginal signals and the sending them back amplified, but then a lot of other effects are missing for this type of jamming.

Is that the reason why aircraft still cary flares?

From my limited knowledge, which comes from that 1962 US Navy film, of ECM there are at least two types of ECM that affect radars: 1. Signal-multipliying 2. Lock-breaking My question: which effects are being simulated in DCS when it comes to ECM? Interestingly the same movie claims that the performance degradation of the radars can be up to two thirds of normal operation, when ECM is on.

It's not about pushing other people to do what you want, it's about having the same rules for all. If the server doesn't allow something and has it disabled as an option, then no one should be able to access it - what is wrong with that? It's about consistency, nothing more and nothing less. In this case, there is clearly an exploit, where one can use "tricks" to gain information that otherwise should not be provided by the sim. No one stops you from having a second person sit next to you while you fly and act as a navigator (just an example), but this is not what we're discussing here.

I see what you mean, but then we kind step out of the world of air combat (strictly speaking) and enter the world where other factors come to play: how much training pilots get, in what kind of conditions they fly and so on. For example, during NATO aggression of FR Yugoslavia, MiG-29 pilots were forced to fly beyond their limits of fatigue, but if we start taking these things into account then it might get messy, IMHO. When it comes to how these things would be modeled. Well, I guess it would start with some pilot interviews and/or stress tests and so on. As I am not an expert in this matter, I can't really say for sure, but this is where I would start from. I am sure, plenty of RL fighter pilots would be able to give valuable input on this. I would say, decreased G-tolerance rather than longer blackouts. You pulled 9Gs, x number of times, now you start having blurred vision/color loss at 6Gs (or what ever G should be here). In realistic mode, there would be no stamina bar, one would just see effects, ie. no visual feedback. For the ergonomics, I would say: "Definitely, yes." I would imagine it as having 3 categories of fatigue "coefficient": 1. FBW with non-moving stick - like F-16 2. FBW with central moving stick: Su-27, F-15... 3. Mechanical central moving stick: MiG-29, MiG-21, etc.

Let's take it one step at a time. I mean let's first model effects that would more-less affect everybody in similar manner. Making it all or nothing, isn't really an answer. Also the fatigue effects don't need to be super-modeled, but I highly doubt that what we have at the moment is realistic: one can yank that stick all day long with no real consequences. This aspect of air combat is grossly overlooked, and yet it plays such an important role in real air combat. Surely pilots can't spend 1 hour pulling 8Gs and not being affected by it. Think of why F-16 has a stick next to the pilot's body which doesn't move, as opposed to a MiG-29 which needs to be moved a lot in order to fly the airplane. This is just one example, but all these details add up to bring more realistic experience. Of course this could be added as a realism option, so people that don't enjoy RL settings can fly as they wish. Now coming back to pilots not being ready for combat cause of "x" factors: well that could be modeled as a random failure, but since all our A/C come brand new when we spawn, it would be safe to assume that the pilots are also in best condition they could be before the sortie.