AndyJWest

Yup. I'd noticed the same thing. Most likely getting a good recording is tricky, given the levels and the inevitable vibration which is going to mess things up. Even something as simple as microphone placement might alter things dramatically, given how close the pilot (or back seater at least, for the two-seat version) is to the source of the noise.

While we wait, video (and audio) of the real thing, from the cockpit of a two-seater. A whole cacophony of angry noises.

Now plot sustained turn speeds and rates.

How long would it take if you had to type it all in from a listing in a computer magazine, 1980s-style?

Why not go the whole hog, and get ChatGpt to fly the plane for you?

Lucky you. Personally, I wouldn't trust ChatGPT to tell me the day of the week. It routinely makes stuff up. It's nothing but a next-word-predictor 'trained' by web-scraping humongous quantities of random dubiously-reliable 'data' from the internet.

High RPM, low MP= safe (within limits). High MP, low RPM = damaged engine. Look for documentation on your engine limits. Stick to them.

Yup, and that is how a balanced system is likely to behave. Looking at blue sky and ocean unloads the GPU, so the CPU is the limiting factor. Down low over complex ground details, the GPU may hit its limits first. Maybe once in a while you'd hit near max load on both CPU and GPU, but it is likely to be transient.

There are flight manuals for various versions of the F-104 about, and some of them include a section on 'Flight Characteristics'. I've not found one for the C version with this, but the basic aerodynamics won't have changed. The section goes into a fair bit of detail regarding why, despite the 10° anhedral (on what is almost an unswept wing), due to the T-tail acting as a fence on the rudder/fin, inducing greater roll in a slip, "the aircraft possesses a normal positive dihedral effect". This to me would suggest that the aircraft should be at least a little more stable in roll. The same section also has data on the stability augmenters, showing their damping effect diagrammatically. I seem to remember one of the manuals stating that the roll augmenter should be turned off in some circumstances (above a certain speed, with missiles/tanks on the tip stations, I think), but I can't seem to find it. This would imply that even without the roll augmenter, it should still be stable in roll.

Seems to apply to GBU 54s too, on the Harrier at least. I've not tried the remaining GBUs.

I've been trying out the C model. Looks are excellent, but I'm a little unsure about the flight modelling. I can understand it being sensitive in pitch, but it seems to actually be divergent in roll: trimmed hands off, it will fairly rapidly roll off to one side or another, to an extent that I'd have thought unacceptable in a real aircraft. Is stability augmentation working? Turning roll augmentation off via the switch seems to make no difference.

Before everyone gets totally overwhelmed by entirely undue hype, I'd strongly recommend reading what Dassault actually wrote. There is a Rafale in the new 'simulation' section of their website store, but it is for MSFS. link If they add anything from DCS to the store, it is presumably going to be the Mirage F1. They clearly aren't developing anything themselves, all they are doing is providing links to sellers of Dassault aircraft on existing sims.

I've seen that, but frankly I'm sceptical. The wingspan is reduced by less than 2%, and the wing area well under 1%. Could easily just be placebo effect. Even in the real aircraft, trying to measure such effects would be difficult, and most likely overwhelmed by other variables.

Looks to me like they are simply too slow - heavily loaded, with a stationary ship and no wind.

Oops, missed that.

See this thread. It appears that the WW2 airstrip should be longer.

Could have been worse. Like the time Open Office refused to print anything on a Tuesday. Link

Some British carriers had hangers which weren't quite tall enough to accommodate standard F4Us with the wings folded, so the aircraft were modified to make them fit. I doubt it had much noticeable effect on performance.

Yup, like Dragon1-1 says, anything other than a simple lever (with a direct mechanical linkage) would add complexity. Remember, the basic design goes back to the late 1950s/early 1960s, with the Hawker P.1127 and Kestrel. They presumably found something that worked, and stuck with it. Given how much extra capability VSTOL adds to an aircraft, its remarkable how few changes they had to make to cockpit configuration to facilitate it. Other than the nozzle lever and STO stop, the only other 'special' control I can think of is the water switch - everything else is integrated into stick and rudder, used in the conventional sense. Simple is good.

Will a Hornet actually do 350 kt with speedbrake, gear and flaps all deployed? If they actually were. At 350 kt, you are 100 kt over maximum gear and flaps deployment speed, so they may not have come out at all. I'd check your throttle via the Windows controllers thingy, and if that doesn't show anything obvious, just carry on until it happens again. If it does, check to see what is actually happening in-cockpit, and save the track.

Was the throttle stuck, or could you move it to idle?

Would make sense, given that for catapult launch external tanks need to be either completely full or completely empty to prevent the fuel from slopping around.

'Should...should...should...' Why would either party act on what you think they 'should' do? If it was as simple as customers 'calling on' them to do things, we could have 'called on' them to settle the dispute months ago.

Don't think that was it, but it looks like it will do the job. Many thanks.

Yup. The difference in wind speed from sea level to deck height would make any mathematical solution trickier, if one was trying to be exact. In practice, negligible in regard to getting the wind down the deck though. I'm fairly sure I saw a tool of some sort for doing the calculation graphically somewhere on the forum. Anyone know where it is? If not, I could probably knock one up that at least gave a ballpark estimate for the optimum heading relative to the wind direction.