Wizard_03

No way

The hornet is a great jet to start with, because it's very easy to fly, and is very simple and straight forward from a procedure standpoint. It has pretty much every capability you can think of, giving you a great platform to work your way up from basic flight to complex weapon employment and or things like carrier ops. Many of the skills are also very transferable as you move on to more specialist aircraft with more unique quarks and characteristics.

https://youtu.be/Pp3f9Zi6xTg Its here!!!!

Just noticed this, going through some of wags' videos, wondering what it does and when will we get too see it?!

Can/are external fuel tanks used in combat? Or just ferry?

Still here for 6/30 update affects both F-14B and A 135 GR

Oh ok, I agree with that F-4/5 definitely are outclassed.

F-14A+/B is 1987 So its a contemporary as well. However I wouldn't say the F-15 A or C is hopelessly outclassed in BVR or WVR for that matter. Even a sparrow only hornet without EPEs still could be quite a handful with someone that knows what they're doing behind the wheel. It's at a disadvantage for sure, but far from HOPELESS. F-14B/F-15A are a solid match for it, in all respects. I'd even put Mirage 2000C in there as well. The MiG is good, I'd even go as far as saying its the best at WVR, and its very fast so BVR is also a real threat in the 80s. But the margin is not that wide, The MiG sacrifices a lot for that performance, one of the biggest being Fuel capacity. F-15/14/18/2000C in the mid 80s all have more fuel, better radar, better IFF and therefore potentially better SA and are fully independent of any IADS But they can absolutely have AEW and fighter directing just like the MiG, and some even have onboard jamming equipment. GCI is not going correct the fact that the MiG has its radar display on the HUD and basically no capacity for BVR sorting, or independent search and it has a very limited IFF all of which are actually important in BVR.

Would it be possible to have all switches in the cockpit clickable, even the ones that are connected to non-functional systems like IFF and video recording system. It drives me crazy that they're not clickable. The hornet has every switch, dial, and knob modeled down to the air vents.

Not yet there isn't yet. But in any case they are adding a WW2 version, and it is in fact realistic for training on any of those assets. Just like NTTR is for a bunch of other jets and yet has pretty much zero relevance to any of that stuff you mentioned, and however dumb the marianas is for modern or cold war naval action involving US super carriers Its double dumb for the black sea map. Marianas however is free, the channel map is not, and it literally overlaps Normandy

Well without Chinese assets right now sure, but for supercarrier tomcat and hornet modules, I do think its better then just some random square of water in the pacific or Indian oceans and we absolutely need a BIG ole ocean map for proper Naval scenarios. I'm much more upset with Channel map, since you know we already have Normandy and there are exactly zero Battle of Britain assets in the game.

Standard procedure in Russia because their procurement process is quite unique. But it's not representative of their forces because KA-50 wasn't manufactured in large numbers and never saw widespread use outside of a few combat sorties which is also standard Russian practice, Sending test/pre-production/low rate initial production or ,whatever you want to call them, aircraft into combat for hands on evaluation. Never the less if you went to war with them, you probably wouldn't see a whole lot of KA-50s your much more likely to see other helicopters that were mass produced and did see widespread adoption.

I realize Su-25T and KA-50 we're essentially experimental aircraft but they did have a production run, and saw combat and I'm sure ED gave us something pretty close to reality. The problem I would have is if they dropped in a test aircraft and "made game play considerations" to add weapons and sensors that the real test aircraft or limited production batch didn't have but rather might have had, had it went into full production and been adopted for widespread use. Like what were seeing with BS3. Aside from the fact test aircraft don't really represent the air forces of any particular nation, which is the situation with KA-50 and SU-25T, I could see this game devolving into scenarios that straight up could never have happened. I just don't think DCS is a good setting for those kind of "what if" situations.

Sorry let me be more clear, Considering what we have now AND whats on the horizon, mid 2000s hornet, viper, A-10, AV-8B, JF-17, strike eagle, eurofighter, and Apache. Marianas map, and supercarrier, a naval red asset from roughly the same time period seems pretty appropriate. But that's just my opinion. No I'm not a big fan of either of those aircraft or Russian MiG-29S with R77s for that matter, and half a million other little gameplay considerations they've made. But TBH I'm even less of fan of BS3 and the rabbit hole it's heading down. Which brings me to validation, how can we say if anything that aircraft can do is realistic if it's not real? If they were to take some prototype and slap hypothetical combat systems and weapons on it and say "this is how it would/should have been" how can we possibly claim this game is even trying to be realistic. Where does it end, paper aircraft? Fictional Aircraft from pop culture? Future aircraft? If that's the case then we Don't need to look at performance charts because they aren't any, can't get mad if it's OP cause it's not real, can't say if any behavior is intended or not because it's all made up anyway. Yadda yadda. IMHO they should stick to realism and fidelity as much as possible because that's what sets DCS apart and that's what they have to offer over other games/Sims. If that means 90 percent of the game is asymmetric warfare so be it. That's reality.

This right here, 1000 percent. EW is probably THE single biggest deciding factor in modern air combat period. It also works both ways, the jammers those aircraft carry, even 80s/90s tech, can pretty much turn off fancy tracking modes like TWS. The absoulty clear, gods eye, radar picture the modern Jets in DCS enjoy is also a fantasy. Not that it makes a Huge difference in effectiveness but it is a factor for sure.

Uh any Rhino Taming plans over there????

Eurofighters on the way to fix that.

More gas, more boom boom, more screens, and Boat stuff. And high AOA controllability is so much more useful in dogfights with missiles.

The OFPs are different, pretty much does not equal same, and by add a back seat you mean whole cockpit because they share a canopy so the entire mesh would need to be rebuilt from scratch from the pilot and wso seats, then the external 3D model would likewise need to be re-done again from scratch. Maybe they could re use some texture assets like knobs and switches, but it's a different jet so you'd need to scan a new cockpit, and start over. The flight model is also different, because the aircraft is different. Need a whole new set of CG calculations for pilot in the back, new aerodynamic calculations to handle the different shaped canopy and the million other slight differences then we need to know how the FCS handles all that. My guess is it changes pretty much every value when it's all said and done. So even if it's a little change its means a huge amount of work and validation. There's a reason all the performance charts in the manual specify single or two seat, which engines, and stores configuration. All this on top of multicrew integration, which the old spaghetti code probably can't handle so even if they could use the exact same avionics, which it can't, They would still need to jam that into two cockpits so that can they can work at the same time online. Something ED didn't engineer their lot 20 C code for. Similar does not equal same.

They can't do the F-35, not enough data. Early lot F very possible, they considered doing a super hornet before they went with lot 20 C. But in any case hornet D is not minimum effort it's a whole different aircraft, new cockpits, new FM, the works, and for all that, it's basically the same or less capable then lot 20 C. So instead I'd rather have something unique and more different then what we already got like a two seat super hornet for all that work. Because the things that are similar between the C and D that would make the work go faster are also similar between the C and F.

Not soon enough.

Why D? Why not F? Supersize the trash.

Mune too. Indian 29K from the mid 2000s would be a perfect choice considering what we have now. I for one would absolutely hate the idea of a prototype or technology demonstrator in the sim. I can't even Imagine the foghorn level cries about balance and realism from both red and blue sides, and there will be exactly zero we in the community can do to validate anything about it.

Minus a bunch of radar settings/Functionality, an extra display, onboard Jammer, Moving Map, and a bunch of A2G weaponry. In terms of Gadgets about the only thing the viper will eventually do "better" is SEAD. In every other aspect the hornet has more functionality/Gucci.

Performance.