captain_dalan

I think the most important change is actually a part of the envelope not often used by many DCS F-14 users, that's between 400-480 knots, and when in the right conditions you can have a very favorable energy retention and recovery for very small sacrifice in turn rate or gains in altitude.

This is what i've read as well. As for preliminary flight model testing......i'm impressed! Still getting used to the new stick, so took me a bit longer then what i would have wanted, but here it is. And what can i say, HB outdid themselves. The only significant difference i found between the charts and the current F-14A FM is the region at the mach 1 number, or 675 knots to be exact. It might be a DCS thing, or it might be charts flaw, but at this point instead of the 5g expected available, i could only do 3.4-3.5. Aside from that...... it's extremely close! It's either inside 0.1 g of expected, or inside 10 knots of expected, which is IMPRESSIVE to say the least. Not to mention that the charts may not be all that precise to begin with. Needless to say, i'm looking forward to the B adjustments as well. Configuration, 4 Sidewinders, 4 Sparrows, no tanks, 53873lbs gross weight. Fuel burn disabled to maintain constant parameters. This of course also needs crosschecking with linear accelerations, but i hope someone else can do it! Also, other altitudes like 5000ft, 10000ft, 25000ft and especially 35000ft need to be checked. And of course, other loads, like 2x2x2 and 2x2x2x2, which i'm especially interested about! Enjoy:

And test pilots are what? Imaginary pilots? Or mythical beasts? There are guys who fly by the NATOPS and there are guys who write the NATOPS. Both are equally valid ways to enjoy this product. As for the the latter point, i'm not sure either, as i haven't yet done extensive testing myself. I have a hunch, but i'd rather wait for the developers to chime in, or someone do the tests for me!

Testing purposes, handling and performance evaluation under different conditions. How else do you learn to fly the plane unless you push her to the limits?

@IronMike and @fat creason I think i figured out what he meant last night. I was doing some preliminary FM evaluation (looks roughly ok if a tad fast-ish max speed on the deck BTW, good job) when with the roll SAS on i tried to pull 3g's around 220 knots, something that requires 20-25 units AoA. Lo and behold, there it was, just as in the manual. Wing rock, and if you don't arrest it in time, it can get worst. Much worst, like 30+ degrees to each side. But it can be bypassed with proper coordination and clean stick inputs. I like it!

What seems to be wrong with the rolling? I had a short training fight and some stunts after that this afternoon, and didn't encounter anything peculiar. Mind you this was the IA, so roll SAS was off by default..... but i did push her up to 34 degrees alpha and she didn't depart on me

Note that installed thrust most of the time differs from specified thrust for various reason (inlet geometry, bleed air, engine tuning), but still.... i liked this idea, so i gave it a go tonight. Here's the video, but if people are bored of watching 9 and half minutes of contributing to the greenhouse gas emissions (which i can't blame them for), the end result is there is about 9 and a half percent difference between SFC stated in open sources and burning static in DCS ( 937.9lbs/minute VS 1026.6lbs/minute). As usual, the values in DCS are lower. But i would take this finding with less assuredness .... (is that even a word) then values extracted from flight manuals. Also, the full numbers and calcs are in the description.

Amen to that!

To quote Gimli : "Give me your mission file Horse Master, and i'll give you my Tacview file"...

It was fun at the start, but kinda got old after the first dozen tries or so!

Advocating for bind-able key for NAVGRID-Center aircraft!

JASDF Phantoms? Heck yeah! The prettiest non Navy F-4's to have ever graced the skies if you ask me (which i know you don't)

I did just that above...

This is 100% user error on my part, but can anyone point me to what i'm doing wrong here? Around 19 minutes in, i fire 2 AIM-54A Mk60's at the MiG-28's. The missiles track and go active. One of them scores a hit. But i never get the inverted T when the tracks form i usually get. Now, in this mission you start hot and with the nose down, so maybe some crucial step in the startup is skipped. But in most hot start (aerial start) instant actions and when i start cold and dark in campaigns and MP, the inverted T does show up...... so..... what am i doing wrong? EDIT: the T does show up AFTER i fire.

Of course, the 400 should burn 6.3% more fuel for every pound of thrust in full AB then the 402. The 402 however produces more thrust. About 11% more (10.6 to be more precise). And that's just static thrust, without taking the effects of the ram air as we accelerate. So if we take SFC and static thrust only we get: 16000lbs * 1.85lbs/(lbs*h) = 29600lbs/h for the 400 and 17700lbs * 1.74lbs/(lbs*h) = 30798lbs/h for the 402 That means, even without the extra airflow and extra thrust produced, at full AB the 402 should burn about 4% more then the 400. The data in the manual states the 400 at mach one, full AB burns 1320lbs/min for both engines. The 402 should burn at least 4% more at full AB (and as we are going even faster, probably a bit extra on top of that), or 1373lbs/min for both engines. But what we get in DCS is 1155.7lbs/min or 84.15% of the expected value. That's a 15% difference at least. And probably more.

@NineLine, @BIGNEWY? Anyone? Has anyone reported this? Is it being tracked or investigated?

Sorry to necro this old thread. If a moderator thinks it's better, i can always start a new one, i just wasn't sure if it was appropriate. Me and my friends came across it a while ago, but neither had the time to actually run any tests in DCS, mostly because the holiday season wasn't friendly to our DCS schedules. We did however ran some tests the last weekend and i continued doing some of my own well into this week. A video of the average test result, a track, the mission file and a couple of Tacviews are attached bellow. In short, my mission setup for this particular test: 15 degrees standard atmosphere, F-18C at 500ft, doing 750 knots. I wanted to minimize time for acceleration - deceleration and thus provide stable airflow and a constant powerband for the engines, so i chose the max airspeed attainable this low. The F-18C is in a 2X AIM-7, 2X AIM-9, 34000pds configuration to match NATOPS data most closely. Sparrows are conformally mounted. Internal fuel is 7050lbs. This should match the configuration in the manual for the 400 engined Hornet, with the exception of top speed, as the old engines barely reach mach 1 at sea level in this configuration. My methodology: I start the mission, kick in max AB and count the time from AB lighting up (external view) to afterburner flameout (external view). Trying to stay level as much as possible and the speed inside 5 knots. My results: The total time in burner seems to be within 6 minutes 3 seconds and 6 minutes 10 seconds, the average being around 6 minutes 5-6 seconds, which are the tracks and the video i post here. This gives us average fuel consumption ASL for MAX AB power of 1155.7lbs/minute. To tie in to the OP concerns: Open source data states specific fuel flow for the two engines used in the Hornet to be: 400 engine : 1.85 lb/(lbf*h) 402 engine : 1.74 lb/(lbf*h) The new engines are more fuel efficient per pound of force produced. Now, the engine power as rated in open sources (static thrust) is quoted as: 400 engine: 16000pds; 402 engine: 17700pds; The new engines are obviously also much more powerful as they can easily get the hornet up to mach 1.14-1.15 in the above configuration and can even get to mach 1 without use of AB. These are static engine thrust values only and don't take into account effects of airflow, but i think it's safe to deduce the new engines produce significantly more thrust then the old ones, as what is essentially the same plane drag and weight wise is now much faster (almost a 100 knots faster on the deck). Finally the crux of the matter: Figure 11-143 Combat fuel flow chart states: at sea level, in the above mentioned configuration, maximum fuel flow at mach 1 or so (top speed) is 1320lbs/minute. That's 14% higher then what we have in DCS, despite our engines being considerably more powerful (about 10% more) and slightly more efficient per pound of thrust produced (about 6.3% more). So the OP may actually have a point here, it's possible that the fuel consumption is not quite where it needs to be in our Horner. What do you guys think? Have you ran any tests yourself? Are there significant flaws in my methodology? Here follow the data: Video: Mission file, track file and tacviews: F-18 fuel flow EVAL.miz F-18C fuel flow.trk Tacview-20230119-000227-DCS-F-18 fuel flow EVAL.zip.acmi Tacview-20230118-235102-DCS-F-18 fuel flow EVAL.zip.acmi

On the topic of manual lofting, just did some mini-tests tonight as well, 50NM shots, launcher at mach 0.8. 30000ft, not non defending target at mach 0.75 23000dt: 1. A level shot results in a 2 minutes flat time to impact (1:13-3:13), missile loft apex at 66994ft and mach at impact 1.29; 2. A 30 degree loft results 2 minutes 1 second time to impact (1:16-2:17), missile loft apex at 88534ft and mach at impact 1.68. Just dropping my 2 cents for what is worth. Tacviews attached bellow: Tacview-20230118-225806-DCS-1 on1 loft test mk47 -30 degree.zip.acmi Tacview-20230118-231536-DCS-1 on1 loft test mk47 -00 degree.zip.acmi

Hmm, i'll do some more test runs then. Maybe even tonight if i get that extra free time. Same server, just to try and replicate the circmustances.

Thanks mate. Sorry for the late reply, i was just away from DCS for the holidays. I found the solution, and it turned out to be the size of my virtual memory page file. I had it set under 32 gigs. And it looks like that wasn't enough! I will clear out the temp folder though, as it seems like a good practice! Thanks again and happy holidays!

This is a strange bug that is either rare, new or it's just me first time encountering it. I was on Through the Inferno Syria this evening, grabbed an F-14A slot just as the carrier started turning. After some bumping around the carrier settled in on a new course, but my plane was leaning to one side. Never the less i still tried the starting procedure. The right engine started OK, but the left never spooled up at all. I assumed it might be plane damage, so i spawned in a new slot. The Left engine again, wouldn't start. I asked in the chat and someone mentioned it's a bug and i should start from land. I don't have a track as this was in MP, but i was wondering, has anyone experienced this issue before?

Thanks mate, your input seems to have fixed the issue!

Hi @Flappie these crashes may not be related, but i didn't want to clog the forums with new threads without a good reason, so i'll write here first. These crashes are fairly new, only started in December, which coincides with both Changes in the missions that cause them (Through the Inferno Syria and to some extent TTI Caucasus), the new DCS patch, me buying a new GPU and PSU. The interesting thing is i don't get crashes on any other MP servers, nor in SP. My rig is: CPU: i5 9600KF RAM: 32GB DDR4 GPU: NVIDEA GF RTX 3060 with 12GB of VRAM SSDs both for the system drive and the game drive I wrote to the guys of TTI on their forum page/post as well. And here is my latest log file, from last night - this morning, which is the last time i had the crash. Thanks in advance and Marry Christmas! dcs.log dcs.20221225-040325.crash

What about the RWR in other manned planes?

Ever since the start of December, i just can't get a break with the Syria server, and i get random crashes to desktop. Sometimes while still starting up on the deck of the Super Carrier, and sometime after flying around for a bit, but a crash is a certainty. Sometimes the crashes happen on the Caucasus server as well, but not as often and not as regular. I run no mods, except for a few custom made skins, the A-4 and the T-45. My setup: CPU: i5 9600KF RAM: 32GB DDR4 GPU: NVIDEA GF RTX 3060 with 12GB VRAM SSD for a hard drives, both the system drive and game drive. The only thing different i noticed from before is that the ping went up from the usual 160-170, to 180-190. However, the ping on the Caucasus is usually higher, and that results in less crashes. Anyone has any ideas what the crashes may be caused by? I don't get them on any other servers, nor in SP. Thanks in advance! EDIT: here is my latest DCS log file, from last night (this morning) if it's of any help: dcs.log