Cunctator

There are reasons why the F4U was produced till 1953 despite its flaws. That's why I love this plane. Even the F4U-1 series was competitive as a fighter till the end of the war, while it also evolved into an excellent attack aircraft. Carrier capable, successful as night fighter or air racer. A true multirole aircraft. I hope we will finally get some info about the DCS project this summer!

DCS: Rocinante

+ 1 for Mount Suribachi So does this mean the new terrain technology that put the F4U project on hold has become available and everything will proceed as planned?

I think that's a minor problem, but what's wrong with it? It's hard to find some good english sources on that war. Corsairs were the major fighters for both sides in this war. El-Salvador was using Goodyear built F4U-1Ds (FG-1s) alongside its Mustangs against Honduras more modern F4U-5 and F4U-4 equipped air force. However they were in a very bad shape, with their superchargers malfunctioning. Never less an interesting setup with some nice paint schemes, but the scale of this conflict was that small that I don't think It would be worth any extra efforts to model it accurately in DCS.

Another most excellent choice. The Israeli Air Force's success with the Mirage IIICJ turned this plane into a legend. There couldn't be a more appropriate version for DCS.

Satellites can't provide a 24/7 coverage and have regular, predictable orbits. A drone that can survive long enough in an A2/AD environment needs to be highly stealthy and won't be an inexpensive throw away asset. Your missile will have a considerable longer flight time than any weapon launched from a penetrating assets that has just located the target. It can be detected (and intercepted), giving the enemy additional time to react. Serious problems when attacking time sensitive targets. If you already need to have stealthy high end reecon drone nearby, why not armed stealthy high end strike fighters?

Then you would get a more expensive and less flexible force that still needs the support of some penetrating asset to provide targeting data for your missiles. And how would you do something like Gulf War 1 SCUD hunting or equivalent missions with an all ballistic missile strike force?

+1 for a first generation Harrier, which even should be easier to model than the more advanced versions.

I am eagerly anticipating the roll out of the Boeing/Saab and Northtrop-Grumman clean sheet designs, which should happen alter this year. Curious if any team has further plans to develop their's into an exportable light weight fighter, as it happened with the T-38/F-5.

It is not true that the F-35 is not optimized for its role. The F-35 is a strike fighter and that role it excels. The Lightning can fly into any heavily defended airspace, locate targets on the ground and blow them up, while being able to defend itself against all possible threats. It wasn't designed as an air superiority fighter or interceptor, that was the F-22's job. They analyzed how the F/A-18, F-16 and AV-8 were actually used in combat in the last decades and then build an aircraft that fits perfectly in that role. If you take away all high tech stuff you still have an airframe that can carry two 2000 ibs bombs, AMRAAMs for self defense and enough fuel for a 600 nm combat radius internally and can still fly at Mach 1.6. No F-15, F-16 or Tornado can do that in a similar configuration while carrying bombs, target pods and tanks. Stealth, sensors and sufficient performance and maneuverability will be enough to prevail in A2A until someone can afford to build a similar number (1000+) of stealth fighters, which will not happen anytime soon.

Nothing but miraculous performance in a full scale war will ever satisfy the F-35 critics. If it is performing well in tests or exercises it is just some stupid conspiracy. Or they will just move on to badmouth the next jet fighter project as soon as there is something to show off.

Not to mention that the AN/APG-73 modeled by ED is a more advanced version of the AN/APG-65 found in the Harrier II+. They even received radar sets from upgraded F/A-18As. It would be stupid to the same work twice. Once the Av-8, F-18 and Corsair are released I will be in flight sim heaven.

I am not sure, but voted NO. I had great fun flying the OV-10 in FSX, but here I strongly prefer to see the Sea Harrier or Mirage III first. And since developer time and my own for flying all those planes is limited...

Carriers were also used to ferry non naval fighters to the war zones. They were launched once and then operated from land bases.

A bigger airframe with two engines can more easily absorb the extra volume and weight needed for strike role. The F-35 is significantly smaller than the Raptor, yet they managed to include more fuel, a bigger weapons bay and still got a very decent performance. A larger aircraft with the same bomb load as the F-35, that can supercruise for a significant amount of time, features the next iteration stealth technology and is even prepared to be equipped with self defense lasers will be much more survivable against any threat, not just in a2a. That is exactly what they did to develop the Super Hornet, a "redesign" which essentially amounted to a brand new aircraft. Just compare the timelines of the SH, Raptor, F-35 or Typhoon projects. This approach most certainly has benefits. For me the F-35 is a brilliant design, but that does not mean that there is no need for any other new airframes in the coming decades. If another platform is much more survivable and/or more effective in a number of missions it will always be worth the costs. A limited number of "Strike Raptors", or a similar new design, working in concert with a large number of F-35s would just repeat the successful F-15, F-16 combo of the past.

This time it could replace all Eagles, not just the pure fighters as they planned in the 80s, but also the Strike Eagles. To replace the F-15E it would need at least a slightly increased main weapons bay, capable of holding two 2000 lbs class weapons and more fuel. Any new F-22s should also be upgraded with an IRST sensor, the F-35's DAS and if possible its less maintenance intensive stealth materials. All this would result in some quite extensive redesign of the airframe, but anything less would be nonsensical. As others have said before the budgets for dedicated air superiority fighters aren't there anymore. Few air forces can afford huge fleets of fighters these days and, with the possible exception of China, all would be greatly outnumbered by the F-35 force of any western coalition. Ground based defenses will be the greatest threat to attacking aircraft, not enemy interceptors. For a war against China the base F-22, designed for an European war, lacks the range to be truly effective over the vast expanses of the Pacific. However, some kind of Strike Raptor that can conduct deep strikes against heavily defended high value targets while still excelling in the air superiority role has its merits. But I don't think this will happen. The money required to restart the F-22 line and upgrade the airframe (even in a more modest way) is better spend developing an entirely new high performance 5.5th generation airframe, with advent based engines and free space for some laser turrets in a later upgrade. Using F-35 avionics and sensors would allow for much shorter developing times and more commonality later.

The perfect opportunity do to the Super Hornet trick again and get Congress to fund an enlarged and thoroughly modernized aircraft. An airframe mating the F-22A's performance with more range and internal payload could replace all remaining F-15s and would be better suited for the requirements of the 21st century.

No, just various dumb bombs (up to 2000 lb on center line rack, 1000 lb on inner wing stations), napalm, eight 5" HVAR and 11.75" Tiny Tim (2) rockets and with some luck the ASM-N-2 Bat radar guided bomb.

+1 Also, there are many airliners with military variants. A Boeing 737 and P-8 or Airbus A330 MRTT would give us some realistic civil traffic and enhance the military aspect.

I, too was talking of the ground textures. Terrain height mesh stays, mostly, the same throughout the centuries, but the ground changes a lot. That's why they can't use modern aerial images as base for WW2 era ground textures as they can do for modern era maps. Thus they have to draw their own textures from scratch, choose appropriate colors etc. Plus the sparse vegetation of Nevada or other deserts makes it easier for the mapmakers, who don't have to recreate all kind of correctly colored and placed trees, hedges etc. A good texture, derived from aerial images plus some random clutter is sufficient.

AT-27 Tucano.Harriers and the F-15E are among the most complex aircraft. Look how long ED needs to develop the F/A-18 and how many more simple things they have released between A-10C and F/A-18C. Developers can probably do significant work on something simple as the Tucano, while they have to wait for some bottleneck to be cleared, without slowing down the complex add ons.

It should be much easier to make excellent looking modern scenery than WW2 maps. For Nevada, or any modern maps, they can use high resolution aerial or satellite images as base for terrain or building textures. For any historic map they have to recreate everything manually.

What makes FSX and similar sims so attractive is that you can fly everything everywhere. There might be a big enough group of virtual VFR pilots who would prefer the superior flight dynamics or damage modeling in DCS over the greater freedom in FSX derivatives, but I doubt it would be worth developing civil maps and planes at the expense of more and improved military content. For me the only place for civil stuff in DCS is through dual use modules, such as civil versions of military planes, thus as a bonus for customers and developers. A detailed mid 1980s map of central Germany for Cold War gone hot scenarios would be a fantastic place to fly some GA planes, just as the Nevada map if they add a few smaller civil airports over time. Within a few years DCS could maybe become attractive enough to generate some significant extra income from civil aviation fans.

Obviously because such a map would help ED and partners to sell more WW2 aircraft modules and full sized maps. Train for free, buy a large combat theater map with campaign later. Free base package + paid add ons as business model was ED's choice, not mine. Arguable the MSFS approach, pay for a base package with scenery available to every user, would work better for them, but that is not for us to decide. Flocks of P-40s and Spitfires over post soviet Caucasus is hardly perfect for newcomers looking for the most authentic WW2 sim.

Because a big map like Normandy will be a separate module just like Nevada and thus not available to everyone. Even when developers are making maps to accompany their aircraft modules such a map will mostly still be a better place for training, i.e. Leatherneck is developing the F4U and Iwo Jima.