captain_dalan

I'm not sure if this has been asked before, but are there plans for a Forrestal version of this mission?

Who knows what were the engineers thinking when they were designing the thing, but at a glance, if nothing else, it does both that and the other things you mentioned. So.... it saves time and switchology?

Always a pleasure!

@IronMike?

It would be much appreciated!

I use 94 for the Tomcat, as it happens to simulate the position of the canopy bows the best on my screen, from my sitting position. Don't buy into that whole your eyes see focused only 60 degree ahead. You don't see in your day to day life with horse-blinders over your eyes. Your peripheral vision is mostly responsible for movement detection, and that easily goes to 120 degrees, and at the extremes even over 180. Plus, if you restrict yourself to 60 degrees or less, you end up looking around like 1989 Tim Burton's Batman. With your neck instead of with your eyes, which is just.... biologically wrong. In the end, find what works for you, and stick with it. I chose 94, as from where i am sitting, it makes the virtual cockpit feel most natural. Like a.... an extension of my room if you would. It feels most intuitive when i need to (still) turn my head to look for certain indicator or instrument. It still doesn't beat a good VR (especially the lack of depth perception and closure), but heck, i'm too poor be able to afford one. Not just the device, but the machine to run it. On top of it, the best current VRs are just starting to approach to visual quality of a good screen. So who knows, maybe by the time i retire...

Is the AMRAAM, that is the new missile API subject to the same oddities?

That's odd indeed. Some time ago, i changed from a 21' 1080p screen to 27'' 1440p screen, and the visibility range for fighter sized targets ahs decreased from about 10 to about 3-4 nautical miles. Which for me at least is ok, as this should be roughly realistic. The visibility of course will depend on the current FoV of course.

Hello there @IronMike Trying to get my muscle memory back, i plugged in the Dragon's Tooth instant action for the F-14A today. And i got my butt royally spanked. No matter what i did, it seemed like i could only beat the 4 Flankers with sheer luck. Then i loaded the mission in the mission editor and noticed (that probably as an artifact of olden times), our 2 Alpha Turkeys are packing Alpha Phoenix, Foxtrot Sparrow and Lima Winders, while the 4 Chinese J-11's are wielding mid to late 90's ordnance, among others, R-77s. So we are not just outnumbered, but outgunned to boot! So, i gave out 2 ship a more contemporary loadout of Charlie Phoenixes and Mike Sparrows and Winders. Et voila! Bagged 2 Flankers each on the first try! And here's a vid to prove it: My proposal, can we actually change this instant action and include it to the official release? I've already done the changes myself and will attach the mission here free of charge of course! What say you? P.S. Alternatively, we could have a retro version of the mission, when the early F-14A comes around, with the same loadout, but against older bandits? F-14A_IA_Marianas_BVR_JA11_AIM-54C.miz

@Tweety777 To follow up on this: - just because your plane rates best at 330-360 KIAS, doesn't mean you need to restrict yourself to that speed. What i often i like to do is start faster, say 420-450, then bleed down to 350 and stick it there if i want to remain inside the best rate speed (not always the case); - then there are energy transitions and exchanges, which involve both bleeding and building up energy, and unlike the previous case, the A and the B are largely different here. That is, while they both rate best around 360 (in general), the A doesn't regain energy that well between 360-400. It's even worse from 280 to 330. At least not nearly as good as the B, which doesn't really have "holes" in the EM diagram. So sometimes in the A, when i'm not sure i want to commit to a turn all the way in, be it one or two circle, i like to say start at 450, bleed down to 380-390 and then reevaluate. If i don't commit, i can now relax on the stick slightly and i can fairly easy get back to 420-430 and start all over again, or use these knots to extend and reposition, or in the extreme bug out. Now remember the B, the B isn't all that good at regaining energy as well bellow 300, but it's much better above 350. This means you can push the bandit for more and for longer before you need to relax if something makes you change your mind. As for the rest, i mostly agree with what @GGTharos said, except for one thing. Practicing against multiple opponents, even if only AI, still has some merits. Not so much as teaching you how to shoot them, but more to how to practice maintaining situational awareness in such environments and how to always have some energy to spare, if someone jumps you. Admittedly, the AI isn't that useful for the latter, but still, sometimes it can surprise in a positive way. EDIT: Stay away from manual flaps control as long as possible. The CDAC is generally much better then you when deciding when to employ maneuver flaps. As for the the landing flaps and the flap handle, while valid tactic at the extremes, try not to develop the habit of using it constantly, as it'll become a crutch and you'll never really learn how to fight in the plane. On top of it, you will make the plane useless in most tactical scenarios and will only now hot to fly it in 1 v 1 tournaments. However, if you manage to employ landing flaps and NOT consistently NOT break them every time you are up, then you sir, have my salute and a hat off. In case you haven't came upon the data thus far, the landing flaps can break at random pretty much every time you get above 220 knots and then they get stuck there, sometimes just one side, sometimes both. I don't know if HB models it, but they should also jam if you over-g them, not just over-speed them. EDIT 2: I just remembered this one. I recorded this a while ago. It's the Nevada instant action, a guns fight against an AI F-16C. I think it's set to veteran. I illustrates some of the points i left as comment to your F-15 video:

I have no idea what AFM stands for, but my 3 main observations here are: 1. You tend to enter the merge at a too low energy state, which combined with your hard pulls (but good control of the high AoA state) leaves you at 200 knots, but with no clear shot at the bandits way too often; 2. Like Elliot above, i agree that you spam IR missiles way too much. I would put a limited number of missiles on my plain and don't use infinite ammo. This will tach you to make each shot matter. Fire with good parameters. If it's from the front, make sure the missile has a good tone, and if it's from the back, that you have good angles and enough airspeed to boost missile performance 3. Turn of labels. It's gonna make things VERY hard at the start. But it is also going to make you fly more cautiously. Few points of cautious flying, don't get stuck in a low energy state, unless maybe you end up with both bandits on your 12, and even then, make sure they aren't in a firing position. Also, always have an exit plan.

Due to my inability to properly use the cross when the AI is in jink mode, i used the stream of tracers to guide my bursts. Sort of a "spray and pray", but with less emphasis on the pray, as i had a general idea where the next impact point will be as long the the burst was uninterrupted. With short bursts though, especially bursts that end on their own and not when i want them, this became less viable tactic. Which in this case resulted in making me a better shot.

Ah, oki. I couldn't really find anything on the subject myself as well.

Nah, it's ok. I mean, it can be real pain in the sitting apparatus to hit an AI in jink mode, but it's also one hell of a good gunnery practice and i learned to love it!

Were C+, C ECCM and C ECCM sealed only a D thing?

No blackouts here, though not enough launches to be sure with greater degree of accuracy. Another observation though, are Zone 3 launches in the F-14A no longer possible with 4x2x2x2x loadout? I tried it a couple of times this afternoon on TTI-Syria, and i kept ending up testing the salinization of the Mediterranean, so i ended up launching on Zone 5.

@IronMike?

That's precisely what i mean, it's sometimes referred to as burst mode.

Interesting, I found the 35-50 mile shots on hot targets to actually end up about 0.1 mach slower 10 miles from the target (assuming this is the point the missile goes active) then they did before the patch.

I've also noticed the guns are set to fire in "burst" mode. Is this also by design?

Sorry i have been away, but i needed a couple of months of DCS leave. I just got to try the new lofting profile for the first time on the 6 on 6 scenario and a few tactical missions. While the data from the 6 on 6 is conclusive, the tactical scenarios aren't. Will need a much greater sample size before i can make my mind about it. Anyway the takeaway from this hack in the above mentioned scenario are: 1. The missile lofts less, from 68430ft or about, down to 64500ft. 2. The above results in roughly similar time for intercept on hot targets of about 1 minute 58 seconds for the mk47C; 3. The cost payed for this is that 10 miles from the target, the missile arrives with much inferior energy state, mach 1.89, instead of mach 1.98, or about 0.1 mach difference. 4. The mk60 version of the missile arrives faster at the impact point, at about 1 minute 54 seconds, but pays for this with even lower energy state of mach 1.86. All missiles fired at mach 0.8, 27800ft altitude, ranges from 50 to 35 miles, in roughly 5 - 10 seconds intervals. How will all this impact tactical employment? No idea. Tackviews enclosed bellow, both the old lofting profile and the new ones. Tacview-20220904-001932-DCS-September update 1 on 6 test mk47 C.zip.acmi Tacview-20220904-003855-DCS-September update 1 on 6 test mk60 C.zip.acmi Tacview-20230807-153502-DCS-September update 1 on 6 test mk47 C.zip.acmi Tacview-20230807-154120-DCS-September update 1 on 6 test mk60 C.zip.acmi

Hey mate, shared this about a month ago, maybe it could be of some help:

Dunno, i was hoping the OP would answer, but perhaps he didn't read the question, or hasn't be online since.

At high altitudes, due to high mach numbers and low airspeeds, you can actually end up in rather unfavorable situations with decreased lift, and unwanted handling characteristics due to your wings being back. At lower altitudes though, you are just shooting yourself in the foot by preventing your wings from going back when they should. The things is, in the real aircraft the stick has an artificial feel system that makes you pull 4-10lbs of force for each unit of g (if memory serves), depending on the situation. That would mean that in the actual plane, you could need 60-200pds of pull to get those g's. There's just no way you can do that by accident. Almost certainly not with a single arm elbow pull. In DCS there are no such barriers.

What carrier is that? The deck looks quite darker then the default SC.