_Firefly

Glad you enjoyed it, sorry I didn't film more of it. I'm finally getting the hang of maintaining reasonable AoA throughout the speed envelope. With the new FM that's much easier than it used to be, as the aircraft gives you plenty of clues about how it likes to be flown. It feels... analogue and mechanical, just like it should. I've said it before and I'll say it again - IMHO the Fishbed is the best it's ever been. The fixed FM rejuvenated my interest in the plane and makes every flight on Alpenwolf's server a pleasure. Sure, there are some kinks still left to work out (ASP functionality, cockpit lighting etc.), but those are fairly minor complaints. Once again, many thanks to M3 for keeping this model up to date. Now, if only we could get the F-13 and the Bison in the game... :joystick:

Had great fun flying tonight despite the rather empty server. As ever it was the ground units that won the day. Thoroughly enjoyed dogfighting The_Tau (uszanowanko! ;)), that first fight we had was glorious (even though I ended up shot down). Shoutout to 104th_Mustang, pleasure flying with you good sir!

A modernised Italian F-104 would be a day one purchase for me. I'm not counting on one being made within the next few years, but it would make sense for IFE to be its developer. Good luck IFE, looking forward to Italian aircraft in DCS!

Doc, I filmed a few segments from tonight's flying and this is just about the only one that is of any relevance. Sorry I don't have more for you. I tried using the rudder at low speeds, with a little bit of opposite aileron it works like a charm.

@Alpenwolf, what's your take on introducing supply runs into your missions? The limited numbers of aircraft available opens up the possibility of a victory through attrition. I can imagine the battle going down to the wire, with both sides frantically trying to bring in as much hardware to the front line as possible. This could be a fun way of employing L-39s, C-101s and helicopters in non-combat tasks. Interdicting those supply runs could become a secondary objective in itself. I know, in all likelihood implementing this would be far more complex than I'm portraying it here, but IMHO this could add an interesting new dimension to your missions.

This matches my experiences from CW last week. From my research the F-5 and the Fishbed-L should be very close peers down on the deck (assuming similar loadouts and fuel levels), with the Tiger enjoying slight advantages in maximum turn rate, minimum turn radius and climbing turns at medium to high speeds, while the MiG accelerates quicker, has a higher straight-line rate of climb and better handling at very low speeds (its controllability enhanced by an effective rudder, just like Dirty Rotten Flieger demonstrated in his fight against the F-15). What I love about this matchup is that usually dogfights are won or lost with situational awareness, teamwork, tactics and piloting skills rather than hardware. Cheers, will do. hopefully I'm going to have enough HDD space to record the whole thing. I'll try to tape this together with in-flight comms. Please don't expect much, I'm not a YouTuber by any stretch of the imagination.

You mean the one on the right of the flight line, far in the background? That looks like an F-5 to me... There's an Israeli team currently working on a Kfir C.2/C.7 mod, the quality of their 3d work so far is second to none. Will do! :thumbup: Getting back on topic, tonight my friends and I will be doing some testing with the 21. The last time we tried out the Fishbed against the F-5 the latter dominated one-circle fights, especially if the merge happened at >800 km/h. I have a sneaking suspicion the fight will be much more evenly matched this time.

@Hiromachi, new skins coming up? I may have a few suggestions for you... :joystick:

Nicely done. IMHO the MiG is the best it's ever been in terms of realism and performance.

Couple of points for @Sideburns: Although the R-60 is capable of locking on in a head-on engagement, getting a hit this way is highly unlikely, if not impossible. Yesterday I launched an R-60 at an F-5 in precisely this fashion. He was in burner and flew straight and level, and yet the missile, well, missed completely and went for his wake instead (this may have been because the fuze took too long to arm, but I'm not sure). I need more attempts to verify this, but from what I've seen so far the Aphid does have very limited all-aspect capability, though in practice it's for rear-aspect engagements only. While the MiG-21 can carry up to 6 IR missiles (and not 8, thankfully that's a thing of the past as that's highly unrealistic), that's hardly the optimal loadout for dogfighting. With the additional drag from two APU-60-2 launchers the Fishbed loses plenty of performance. On the other hand, with 4 R-60s mounted (one on each pylon) the MiG feels somewhat more agile than with a full complement of R-3s or R-13s, which may be down to the lower weight and better aerodynamics of the Aphid. These days I rarely see people taking off with a full load of 6 missiles. I like to fly with only 2, VPAF style, to give me the best possible turn performance post-merge. I've had at least a dozen instances where an enemy plane required more than 2 Aphids to destroy. This is particularly true of the A-10 (no surprises there) and, oddly enough, the Viggen (the latter seems capable of powered flight despite having its wings blown off and its engine on fire). I'd be happy to go up against AIM-9P5s for testing purposes on CW. Now that the R-60 is back it's only right that we should give the F-5s a chance to adjust to the refreshed Fishbed.

I can confirm both the rudder steering at low speeds and the self-steering nosewheel. I've gotten so used to this that I no longer pay attention to it, but it's there.

Cheers, appreciate the input.

The plane is in a great spot now. It feels more realistic than the old FM but not nearly as constrained as the improved (but bugged) model. Can't comment on the exact parameters because I haven't done back-to-back testing, but being able to fight it out against the F-5 in most regimes is great. In a perverse way I think the bugged FM might've helped my piloting skills a little bit. Thanks M3 for fixing this! Now to get rid of all the other bugs... ;)

Oh yeah, the rear-aspect R-60s are a major improvement over the R-13M1s that were the standard before the update (haven't tried out the latter). Not sure how the Aphid stacks up against the various marks of AIM-9, but it feels good to have it back. The flight behaviour feels just about right, with limited high-g launch capability and little resistance to IRCM. It does give tone in a front-aspect engagement against an afterburning F-5, but it doesn't track even when launched from as far away as possible (which is a good thing, don't get me wrong). I sent another one after a Viggen that was flying straight at very low level, but the missile went stupid and plonked into the ground with no evasive manoeuvres performed by the Blue plane. Luckily I had a full load of guns. :joystick: Anyone got any feedback on the R-3S? I'm getting the MiG-19 as soon as there's a sale on it, I wonder if the relative overperformance of its primary armament's been toned down a bit.

Had fun tonight, really enjoying the fixed Fishbed FM.

That's the coolest screenshot anyone's ever taken of me. Thanks man!

That was me. Right before you killed that F-5 someone stuck a missile up my engine nozzle and blew me up in the process. I'm not salty about that kill steal, but would like to know if I was TK'd. Was that you? I don't, at least not since the scoreboard bug became a thing, though it's nice to have numbers confirming your achievments (or failings). Couldn't have said it better myself.

It's still an issue as of yesterday.

Dunno, I landed the Fishbed about 5 times today and never had a problem with pitch oscillation during landing, no matter what the weight of the aircraft was. FYI, my typical touchdown speed is about 280 to 290 km/h with about 1000 litres of fuel left and up to 2 missiles still on their pylons. The pitch trimmer has always been difficult to adjust perfectly. I often find myself balancing the tightrope of throttle input vs. trim. I've gotten used to the constant pitch trim adjustments, so that's no big deal to me. Not sure if that's how it should be though.

Those are excellent Nellus. Which DoF modifier do you have on, bokeh?

Thank you.

Yup, check Hiromachi's previous posts in this very thread.

IMHO moving the start of Sneaky Bastards to early dawn would make the most sense.

Exactly, all models from the ML onwards were substantially lighter than the earlier variants and had more thrust. I'm not so sure about lift, as most of the changes from the M to the ML were internal (except the dorsal fin of course).

With only two wing glove pylons and two variants of the R-24 available that choice is going to be rather limited... ;) Depending on how useful the TP-26Sh IRST turns out to be, I might be inclined to try out an all-IR loadout.