Swordsman422

Due to an oversight with the initial 3D model, removal of the drop tank pylons will never be modeled. The same is probably also true of the glove pylons. What I wish we could do is model 1B and 8B present but empty and choose which pylon is there.

I just try to avoid this situation by never using a Fox 1 missile as a BVR weapon. If they're within 10 miles, I switch to P-STT, flip the ACM switch, and position for a Sparrow shot. If they're in the transition zone where the missile might not reach them before Jester would flip to P-STT himself, it's not worth the risk of a wasted shot. That said, if an AIM-7 is being guided by ownship, it would be nice if Jester refrained from making the switch to P-STT until the TTI + a margin has run out.

I'm pulling for some day to have an F-4B, or at least an F-4N that can be disguised as one. As much as I malign the old, bright, gull grey over white liveries on the F-14, I absolutely love them on the Phantom.

USS Forrestal made 4 deployments with F-14s as part of CVW-6. She only ever carried VF-11 and VF-31. https://www.navysite.de/cvn/cv59deploy.htm

The dielectric panels were positioned just behind and between the engine nozzles, so they experienced flutter and fatigue cracking from the engines. Removing them solved that problem, but created aerodynamic drag that decreased the performance of the aircraft. The new standard boat tail was introduced with Block 80 jets and retained on later models.

And how quickly you need it.

From my understanding, the dielectric panels were removed because their position right next to the engine nozzles made them vulnerable to warping and fatigue cracking. Unfortunately, removal increased drag. The individual Tomcats I find truly interesting are the Frankenstein jets the reserves were flying in the late 80's and early 90s, like 159025, which by the end of life had all the features of a modern F-14 (NACA gun vents, TCS pod, up-to-date nose probe arrangement) but still the old beaver tail and aft lighting set-ups. And it wasn't like this jet or others like it got shuffled off to the reserves after there were enough of the updated fuselages to go around. These birds stayed with the fleet for a while. 159025 was with VF-11 for a while in the 1980s.

I'd... kinda been working on one on and off, waiting for the -135 Early to come out. Wasn't sure I was ever going to release it and probably don't need to now anyway.

Matt Lawlor at the Top Gun Props Forum made a reference diagram for modelers. Might be useful here.

I think this is what they're meaning to do, make an animation argument to exclude the TCS in favor of the ALQ-100. As a side note, don't confuse a mid-70s 90/95-GR with an early 70's 70/75-GR. That early F-14 is visibly structurally different than the jets delivered to the USN or Iran after 1975. We'll most likely never have the initial service Tomcats, as interesting as that would be.

This cockpit is an F-14A, which did get the PTID but no sparrowhawk HUD or JDAM capability. The jet in the background is in the livery of VF-154 circa 2003.

Subjectively, this is not a big selling point for me. But I otherwise agree that the JFK would be a good addition.

Yeah, I'd vote Kitty Hawk-class for a couple reasons. First, the F-4, F-14, and A-6 all operated from them across their lifetimes. Second, while Enterprise would be cool, which version? She underwent an overhaul 1979-1982 and lost the beehive array atop the island. Unless we get both versions of her, someone is going to complain that either the F-4 Phantom or later model F-14s won't look right on her deck. The Kitty Hawks had some changes over time of course, but not quite as drastic as changed the entire profile of the ship.

I fall under the umbrella of "everyone." I'd rather have the Strike Eagle and no option to remove the CFTs.

Sure. But we have to remember to tell Jester to stow it before trapping, lest it strike the ignition for the ejection seat.

That's not a TCS. It's an early IRST system. It was used in the very early Tomcat days, found to be not worth the weight or drag, and abandoned in favor of just the ALQ receiver by itself before the TCS as we know it was introduced in the early 1980s. You can actually tell from the length of the gun blister that this F-14 is a late test model or VERY early production model, probably a 60GR or 65GR.

The flight model was updated to be more accurate, but the guidance is still broken. From my understanding, we're waiting for ED to complete the guidance programming to be more accurate. It's gonna be in an interrim format for a while.

Heh. I can honestly say without facetiousness that non-US F-4Es (spec. Israel, Japan, and Greece) are FAR more interesting to me than USAF. I believe that a couple of those nations have tectonically active areas.

The future promise of Navy variants fills me with interest for this module. If it was just an F-4E, I'd know it was gonna be a great module but I'd pass on it. Jets whose runways don't move bore me.

The animation for moving visors could apply to him as well, so it's more immersive (there's that word again) for some communication than just a hotkey to apply to both.

Evolution continued to improve the helmets and masks. The APH/MS22001 combination that came before the HGU-33/MBU-14 was even heavier and more awkward. Hell, the butterfly attachments for the MS22001 were pretty weak. I can pull it loose with only a very little effort. Prolonged extra Gs will put the mask in your lap. And then there is the discomfort of the nose and mouth having their own holes in the mask. I don't know how mustachioed fighter pilots of the 1960's were comfortable at all.

One has to wonder, if the Sidewinder is broke, have you considered loaning it some money to get back on its feet, financially? Ignore me. I'll see myself out...

My most expensive mistake was trying to turn a MB Mk. 5 into a comfortable gaming seat. To parody Tom Connelly, there wasn't enough padding in all of Christendom. And it didn't help that I wasn't bringing any of my own to assist. Being a nerd in similar fashion to Lance, I have also strapped on all 40-odd extra pounds of the gear and it already wasn't fun without the additional Gs. And this was 18 years ago when I was running 3 miles a day. Now, 35 pounds and one catastrophic knee injury later, I wonder if I'd rather eat my own uncooked foot than shimmy into all of that stuff, shoehorn myself into a tacjet cockpit, an subject myself to anything worse than an amusement park thrill ride.

Nitpick: It's not rocket science. It's aerospace engineering. With you on this one. These threads generally go OP: "Hey, I found a problem." Dev: "Okay, cool, we'll look into that." Everyone else: "Yeah, but we think you should fix right now! It should never have been wrong." I don't apologize for Heatblur, but I will challenge the impatient ones to do it better themselves if they think they can.

Nice. All classics. My first combat flight sim was 1985's Jet, where the planes were wireframe vector graphics. I was really too young to understand it then, but that's how I got bit by the bug, and it's carried me this far. My point was that technology and technical ability has kinda spoiled all of us. And yeah, it's great that awesome developers like ED and HB are so very willing to push the envelope, but it has some unfortunate side effects. We get impatient (I said "we," so this goes for me, too. Hell, I want the pilot body added even though I'll probably turn it off) and start loading up threads with complaints about how one particular feature or other, which wasn't really possible a decade ago or more, hasn't been added yet when we were still enjoying the flightsims of yesteryear without it (and some of us still play those anyway), and we all think that the one feature that serves our particular enjoyment is the most important missing piece. Whatever it is, it's not going to changed the fact that all that really separates DCS from Spacewar is time and we aren't doing this thing for real. Patience is important. Victory205 might tell you to go get better at what you can do in the sim, and if that's not good enough, go outside and be in the sun for a few minutes.