AKarhu

All classic variants of HARM will inherently suffer from the lack of precise range information. Should the emissions from the target be lost, even a small angular error can mean significant distance over the ground should the missile approach from shallow. Launched close and above the target, the shot's geometry will certainly improve the situation if the target radar emits high enough for good terminal guidance.

I think remembering an effect of the indicated fuel quantity changing a couple of hundred pounds within few moments after the IFEI is powered up. After that it remains fairly stable, perhaps changing within a few counts, on a stationary aircraft. Other airplanes show slight fluctuations in indicated fuel quantities as well, and in many cases it tends to vary some depending on airplane's attitude, so it is nothing unique to Hornet.

In real life, the indicated fuel quantity varies a little bit (usually within couple of hundred pounds or so IIRC). I'd guess it is probably a combination of factors that is in play here, including the inaccuracy of the fuel gauges, variations in fuel density and when exactly the shutoff valves cut the refueling flow when the tanks fill up.

Hitting any of reasonably advanced SAM systems would certainly make up a good test of tactics. I doubt a pair of Hornets with HARMs would knowingly be launched to the task unsupported, an S-300 site could easily make up into list of targets on very, very high level maps. And not only one could find more advanced SAMs but think about if the AI SAM crews were professionals, playing their tactical game of chess on their side....

It is a real-world procedure and has been for ages - but likely not done in USN/USMC service. It is done regularly in certain non-US services. When operating airplanes from land bases and relying on associated infrastructure and immediate C2 that is in varying degrees remote, there are lots of advantages that are not difficult to imagine in powering up the airplane without having to start the engines. Not that any of it would really make much sense in current simulation status, but anyway! :)

Ground power is used when the airplane is on a mission standing by in short readiness, just for instance, in an intercept role. That way the computers and mission data/voice communications can be up and running without firing up the engines. This is useful, because depending on the mission, you may not know how long the driver will be sitting in his pit, ready to scramble at a moment's notice - or if he will at all. This is the only reason I can think of to use ground power before startup for actual flight...other than that, tech uses it all the time of course.

Yes, that's correct. Trim motor is not used in normal CAS (nor in DEL fallbacks I think remembering). Normal trimming is accomplished by control electronics without any resulting stick movement.

That's one of the most misunderstood pieces in the book that's linked there...the thing works by scheduling the required stick movement per g or unit alpha against non-changing spring forces that are closely linear in relation to stick's displacement. That is, much like a non-FFB stick simulates elevator forces. Larger force per g or unit of alpha over the mentioned feedback effect results from that you need to bring the stick back further against the springs, not from springs pressing actively against you. In that sense, non-FFB stick is fairly accurate except of course the throw and forces are off for most of us. The only thing that does change the spring forces is the trim motor that drives the center position at fairly slow rate. It is a constant speed electrical motor.

The stick force increase comes from the fact you need to pull back further non-linearly to exceed 22 degrees alpha.

Good topic. :) There are some slight variations in the startup process, also I guess in how it is done around the world. Indeed flaps half is the position where the flaps need not to be at, as they hide the hydraulic quantity indicators. They are checked after engine start to make a note of how much the quantity 'drops' when the system is pressurized as this is indicative of the amount of air trapped in the system.

"Aircraft power" is 200 V line voltage. Phase voltage is 115 V. To be completely unambiguous, one would say 200/115 V (or equivalently 115/200 V) , which they actually do here. :)

The strobes won't be on with APU alone during normal start cycle, as they won't get powered with the battery power but only come up with the first generator coming online, being powered by right 200 VAC bus. The flash interval is controlled by the strobe light switch, with DIM setting discharging more often but with reduced intensity.

There is no other bump of transonic drag at Mach 2. The rapidly increasing wave drag, or drag divergence, as the "sound barrier" is sometimes called, is a phenomenon occurring right at high transonic region, near Mach 1 and does not repeat periodically at higher even Mach numbers. A clean or sensibly loaded Hornet easily goes supersonic in level flight.

With clean airplane, the inlet design would in particular be the reason for MMO somewhat lower than in some comparable airplanes. I recall engine limitations coming into play as well if messing with the maximum altitudes. I am aware of at least one engine that sustained some significant damage, supposedly when some of the airplane's published performance figures were exceeded by "some amount" as a part of in-flight evaluation, which sometimes tries to find the absolute limits. Generally speaking, one thing sometimes causing a bit of confusion is not understanding that the maximum speed is not always a figure that cannot be exceeded if one simply pushed on. The "redline" is very often put in for various reasons other than it being as fast as thing could go.

Damn, I didn't know they quit doing PARs. As you bring up TILS, I wonder if there are systems out there providing similar capability to the carrier-equipped airplanes.

Thank you, indeed the list seems very similar to the Finnish AF MLU1 and MLU2 updates, with just some individual differences such as Finnish using LITENING instead of ATFLIR. This wing replacement/reinforcement is very curious piece of information, but makes more sense if Swiss folks indeed are extending the life beyond 2030. In Finland, some extensive structural modifications and even wing replacements were done to the Hawk fleet, but never to the Hornets to my knowledge, except for the fatigue repairs necessitated by the structural checks.

Oh, and obviously I intended to mention, the view through the HUD is generally distorted in color towards purple, as it is not well-transparent to the HUD-symbology green. :)

These semi-transparent screens tend to have some reflections in color when the external light comes in at unfavorable angle. This has to do how the wavelength-selective mirror is done: it is quite nontransparent to the green shade used in HUD symbology, but yet is rather naturally seen through by human eye with little dimming as much as I recall. Eye is pretty sensitive to the wavelengths purportedly selected for the HUD projection, therefore noticing little dimming of the background while improving the contrast of the display. But in certain angles, HUD certainly reflects a tint, apparently as a result of the ray distance of the layers changing with the angle.

While acknowledging the risk of running severely out of topic (perhaps the original question has been answered), I am not aware of any hard point differences in Swiss Hornets in comparison to the baseline - it would be interesting if some light could be shed on this! :) Recall that a generic Hornet can carry 10+2 (AMRAAMs and niners respectively) if somebody wanted it to. :) I doubt there are any chances to the basic A/G capability - they even retain the button. More likely, they simply lack the ordnance (and any upgrades that would come with introduction of some), having essentially the dumb bombs capability but none of the fancy stuff introduced. Also, this wing reinforcement is something I've been looking at to find any good sources, or general knowledge kind of information. It would be interesting to know what structures specifically was targeted, and by what measures. That cockpit pic looks pretty much in line with Finnish MLU2 standard. I wouldn't be surprised if the countries had some common procurement going on behind the schemes over the years, but I don't know obviously. :)

Yep, as already mentioned, Finland, Switzerland and I'm fairly positive that Malaysia does as well. At least. :) Unlike what is sometimes misquoted, A/G capability was never "removed" from the Finnish Hornets, it was more like the capability was not initially used. For example, while no air-to-ground munitions, captive stuff included, were available, one was able to simulate employment of dumb bombs, rockets etc. by configuring weapons computer appropriately if so wanted. Obviously, the smart weapons that were added to the capability during MLU2 required their related updates to the airplane's systems as well, but that would have been the case with any Hornet.

Most likely Swiss Hornets (similarly to some others operating exclusively from land bases) have the carrier landing specific equipment swapped into regular ILS. :) UFCs have been replaced to this touchscreen style widely, though it has no relation to the ILS capability.

Also, there certainly is stuff that is not directly visible to the pilot, things like illumination performance of the onboard radar, radar mode limitations, behavior when intermittently dropping out and such, themselves depending on various factors. To me, FC models of the weapons don't only appear simplified, but very simplified indeed (though it has been some time since I last played around with these, so I might be lagging behind the time). Building them weapons in-depth when they first appear in study level module would certainly be a good investment for the next ones in the pipeline. I must disclaim that I don't know the slightest of the AIM-7 in specific but only what I briefly read from the www. Simply comparing it to the other munitions I know or can relate some practicalities to. :)

Weapons-to-airplane-systems create a rather complicated interfacing problem in reality. It is hardly plug-and-play to introduce a weapons system in an aircraft. Should the modules so far have been relaxed in realism in what comes to the employment of the Sparrow, making an in-depth simulation of it could have a few complications on the way. Note that in terms of all-around systems modeling, classic IR sticks such as AIM-9M are relatively simple in that they are fairly self-contained.

Plus all the few countries who chose it after shortlisting to serve basically as an interceptor, or primarily an air-to-air asset, over competitors that some think would eat it as lunch. I'd guess the bomb truck does something right as a fighter as well. Though I think none had AIM-7s, but AMRAAMs.

There is this paddle switch anyways. :)