Hummingbird

The EF doesn't need LERX to generate vortices, a wing sweep angle of over 52 deg generates strong vortices over the top of the wing. The Rafale on the other hand needs the higher swept LERX for these vortices to form. And the Rafale's canards are essential pitch control surfaces just as on the EF, no difference in that respect at all, they just have different added benefits. The close coupled canards add more to the Clmax (esp. at low speeds) as the vortices that form over the edges of the carnard start closer to the main wing. The strakes on the EF are there to achieve a similar effect, however since they are smaller & fixed they cannot add the same total increase in lift that the close coupled canards can at low speeds or very high AoA. On the other hand the closer coupled canards require more deflection to generate the same pitching moment as longer coupled ones, hence more trim drag is generated (i.e. more down trim is required in a turn), esp. in a sustained turn at speed. There is no free lunch in aero. The AMK upgrade proposed for the EF is there to solve control issues at high AoA that nessicated the 25 deg limit, aiming amongst other things to make the vortices break down later in the AoA range, which in turn is going to add a lot to the total lift available. Drag is gonna go up though.

Yeah, but we won't be flying it in a sim until som 20 years later

Here I disagree, they both act as control surfaces (hence why both aircraft deflect their canards downward when in a turn, to prevent uncontrollable pitch up [longitudinal instability]), EF's long lever arm just means less deflection required for the same applied force, which in turn means less trim drag in turns = the whole point of the long lever arm. Meanwhile the Rafale had to be carrier capable, thus a close coupled canard config was chosen as it provides a higher max Cl at low speeds where the aircraft is more stable (canards now pivot up to lift the nose).

Ofcourse the strakes interact with the wings, that's the point of them being there, as vortex generators to generate a vortice over the wings: As for your figures, they're quite low for the Rafale, listed empty weight at Dassault is 10,000 kg, incidently the RAF lists about the same for the FGR4 Typhoon, ~10,000 kg. But let's go ahead and use empty weights of 11,000 kg for the EF and 9,850 kg for the Rafale as listed on Wiki. Empty W/L: 9,850 kg / 45.7 sq.m. = 215.5 kg/sq.m. 11,000 kg / 51.2 sq.m. = 214.8 kg/sq.m. Internal fuel capacity is 5,000 kg for the EF, and 4,700 kg for the Rafale: Fueled W/L: 14,550 kg / 45.7 sq.m. = 318.3 kg/sq.m. 16,000 kg / 51.2 sq.m. = 312.5 kg/sq.m. So the EF definitely has the W/L advantage, and the more weight you put on both, the higher the advantage gets. Now for T/W 15,296 kgf (150 kN) / 14,550 kg = 1.051 kgf/kg 18,355 kgf (180 kN) / 16,000 kg = 1.147 kgf/kg Fairly certain I even used a conservative AB power figure for the EF's engines here, as I believe the true figure is 91.2 kN a piece (peace time), and the variable intake lips on the EF should provide an advantage in efficiency at various flight conditions. The lower W/L leads to less required Cl and thus less lift induced drag pr. G (=less thrust required to sustain said G), coupled with a higher T/W to boot this should allow the EF to maintain a higher STR irrespective of altitude.

No Mover, in DCS I am not incorrect. In real life however, that was the question. And I know about the paddle, but things don't work like that in DCS.

Ah didn't think yuou were talking about the LERX, well given they're deltas, and the fact the EF has dedicated vortice generators, I doubt the Rafale benefits comparatively here. (Also more sweep, more vortice generation benefits off the wing itself) And yes the Rafale is lighter, but it also has quite a bit less thrust, hence the T/W is lower, and it's wing/weight (wing loading reversed) is also lower. The Rafale is also smaller, however conversely it also requires a higher Cl for the same overall lift/weight, which means more lift induced drag. Now it's impossible for us to tell the precise difference between the aircraft, but I'm confident that the EF has the higher STR irrespective of altitude based on the information available (E.g. higher T/W, lower W/L), whilst the Rafale has a higher ITR thanks to a higher available Clmax (higher max lift/weight). Wing ref. area is always as follows:

The EF features LE devices as well, camber & chord increasing LE slats, pretty large ones at that. As for the Rafale's wider fuselage, it's mostly counted in with the reference wing area on both aircraft due to their delta wing body design, so in this case I'd say a narrower fuselage is an advantage as that means more of the Ref.area is actual wing. The slightly lower sweep angle of the Rafale's wing does help improve lift, esp. at low speeds, but as does the EF's lower wing loading and larger LE devices. In other words based on the aerodynamic layout coupled with FLCS restrictions I'd expect the Rafale to have a higher instantanous turn rate, and thus smaller min radius, however I'd also expect the EF to have a higher sustained turn rate, afforded by a lower lift induced drag (lower wing loading = lower required Cl), coupled with more thrust.

Well you could also say that the Hornet can outrate the Viper, in ITR & STR, at all speeds up till the point where the Hornet is G-restricted, which I think is what some are asking you wether is the case IRL. Because that's how it currently stands in DCS, and if you pull the paddle in the DCS Hornet you'll outrate the DCS Viper at any speed, the DCS Hornet being able to reach 9 G at a lower speed than the DCS Viper, instantanous AND sustained. Now we do know the DCS F-16 is underperforming in both areas atm, and we've been told the FM isn't finished, so this isn't a complaint, just stating the facts.

I agree with that bies, albeit I'd argue the EF's HMD & IR sensor system was and still is a major advantage in its favour, it just really lacks an AESA radar (coming soon) as well as something akin to the Rafale's SPECTRA CM system.

US planes didn't have hydraulic servos for their elevators and suffered the same issues. Remember reading the P-51 felt like a truck in elevator forces at high speeds, just like the 109. Most importantly the 109 could be trimmed out of a high speed dive that would doom most other aircraft thanks to its fully trimmable horizontal stab.

Been away for a while, so didn't notice the update. Will get around to testing how she handles this upcoming weekend to see what difference the corrected maneuver devices schedule might have resulted in.

The F-14 FM is being tuned atm, which is the reason it's currently underperforming in turn rate. It'll be corrected eventually, we just gotta hope Fat Creason finds the time available to make sure it won't be too many more months.

Faster at low AoA's? You mean straight line speed?

It's just a rehash of the earlier hushkit article. The aerodynamics part is pure guesswork as no'one besides the manufacturers have access to the EM charts of either aircraft. In STR the Eurofighter is most likely superior, whilst in ITR the Rafale is most likely superior due to a higher alpha capability, and this should hold true at any altitude where either aircraft can operate. Other than that it's a good comparison though.

Sounds good FC

I'll wait to see what the update next week brings. If nothing then I'll continue with the tests at 10 kft & 15 kft.

Understandable, and I know about the last bit all too well having dedicated large amounts of my own time to test fly most modules in DCS after every major patch (biggest hobby as I never got to chase the test pilot dream IRL, my hearing simply wasn't good enough), it is anything but easy and takes a lot of time to be able to finish these tests accurately and consistently, even with a lot of experience. Hence why I was sure you probably had a bot to do this for you, as the amount of time you'd have to spend on it otherwise didn't seem reasonable in my mind considering all the adjustments & changes that goes into fine tuning an FM, and then the cascading effect just one minute adjustment can have. That said, just knowing you are dedicated to getting it spot on is actually enough to provide many of us with extra patience, and we know you can do it, because you were spot on or very close to it in the subsonic region for a long time.

Oh I always knew that, I was however under the impression that either: a) You had a scripted autopilot which could test this stuff super accurate or b) that you had a bunch of test pilots who's finest job was to test this after every patch The FM is by far the most important of any module (IMHO atleast), so hence I'd always place it as priority no.1 to get just right. Also please take this as constructive criticism, not a hetz, as like I've said fsince the launch of this module, you did a fantastic job with the F-14 FM, it's one of, if not THE most believable flying module I've ever had the pleasure of flying. In short I'm a fan who desperately wants to help, not a mindless critic.

Yes, basically.

First round of results, these are for 5 kft, and they are interesting: ISA, 55,620 lbs, 5,000 ft: F-14B DCS vs RL TMN 0.35 / KTAS 227 = ~2.70 vs 2.80 (-0.10 G) TMN 0.40 / KTAS 260 = ~3.30 vs 3.40 (-0.10 G) TMN 0.45 / KTAS 292 = 3.95 vs 4.20 (-0.25 G) TMN 0.50 / KTAS 325 = 4.50 vs 4.80 (-0.30 G) TMN 0.55 / KTAS 355 = 5.00 vs 5.40 (-0.40 G) TMN 0.60 / KTAS 390 = 5.45 vs 5.65 (-0.20 G) TMN 0.65 / KTAS 422 = 5.90 vs 5.90 (-0.00 G) TMN 0.70 / KTAS 455 = 6.40 vs 6.40 (-0.00 G) TMN 0.75 / KTAS 487 = 7.10 vs 6.80 (+0.30 G) TMN 0.80 / KTAS 520 = 7.90 vs 7.00 (+0.90 G) So we got some bad underperforming right at the speeds where the F-14 should shine, and some pretty extreme overperforming where the F-14 should actually start to peter off in performance (above M 0.75). Now this actually took 4 hours to do, due to wanting the most accurate results, so fell abit short on time to complete a full test at other altitudes. Will try to complete the tests at 10 kft & 15 kft for next weekend, and then I'll wait with SL till last as that's the easiest one to do.

Yup, those are easy benchmarks to check.

Yes, the difference is largest at SL. Also we absolutely need to test at SL, we'd be doing everyone a great disservice if we didn't, as performance at SL ofcourse also has to be realistic. For example it wouldn't make any sense if the F-14 suddenly lost any advantage in STR over the F-15 at the speeds where it holds it at 5 kft. Infact at SL the difference should be slightly larger in terms of sustainable load factor at the speeds where F-14 holds the STR advantage, with it gradually decreasing as altitude increases and available G's to both decrease. I will try to make the A as well, I'm a bit limited on time though, and these tests take several hours to do due to how meticulous we have to be when carrying them out. So I might do the B this weekend and then the A next weekend.

Not really, it's easy to calculate what the performance would be when we have the 5 kft, 10 kft and 15 kft for reference. Only thing that would make it problematic was if the engines somehow didn't behave as predicted at SL vs 5 kft, but since we have performance vs alt charts for the GE engines, that isn't an issue and we know there's no unpredictable change to performance at SL, which would also have been very odd. In other words the performance to be expected as SL and targets are: Est. F-14 perf @ Sea Level, based on the real life 5 kft, 10 kft & 15 kft figures as well as engine perf charts M 0.3 = 2.85-2.90 G M 0.4 = 4.25-4.30 G M 0.5 = 5.65-5.70 G M 0.6 = 6.50-6.55 G M 0.7 = 7.40-7.45 G M 0.8 = 8.20-8.25 G

Will be running a full set of tests at SL, 5 kft and 10 kft this weekend and then report back the results. Conditions will be as always: - Std. Atmosphere, 15 C @ SL - Zero wind - Unlimited fuel on - Load out 4xAIM9 + 4xAIM7, 50% fuel (55,620 lbs total weight)

We always test with correct fuel load and unlimited fuel set to on, otherwise weight will ofcourse change with time and thus ruining the accuracy of the results. If you're not using unlimited fuel option, then that would probably explain why you're getting the feeling the a/c is overperforming as it gets lighter and lighter during the time needed to settle into a stable Ps=0 turn, which can take quite some time and thus once you get a reading you're already much lighter than on the chart you're comparing with.