brianacooper11

New delay, though on topic. I've generally translated Russian technical material into English before using, but that was growing out of hand. I've switched to learning to read Russian more thoroughly, and the technical material directly. I'm in the middle of the steep part of that learning curve. Brian

Give me another week or two. I don't like to go off topic, but I'm changing jobs, starting Monday, and it's somewhat relevant to this hobby. I've been hired by Camber Corporation to work with US Air Force simulators, specifically the Simulator Common Architecture Requirements and Standards (SCARS) program. https://modernmilitarytraining.com/blended-training/future-security-lvc-qa-u-s-air-forces-colonel-dan-marticello/ My involvement won't directly contribute to the bomber project, and there will be a substantial information barrier between the hobby and the job, but I am hoping, either through meeting people who could contribute, or just growing in my own general proficiency, that the job advances the project, and vice versa. That's where my time has been the last week or two.

I'll try to do a Youtube demo of the external flight model by the end of this week. About the Buccaneer: the Buccaneer project eventually dropped to two core people, Tom Beckett and myself. Tom contributed greatly to the common Buccaneer/Backfire EFM architecture. I said if he contributed to the Backfire, I'd do everything I could to get the Buccaneer see the light of day, so I said, without asking anybody (I should have), that it would be another Black Cat module. Now, keep in mind Black Cat Simulations is a company in name only. Oleg and Dmitriy signed on for the Backfire. There's no money for anything, so they work on the Backfire at their pleasure. I think Tom and I have an obligation to the rest of the team to not get distracted right now, and focus on the Backfire. Could somebody step up and do the Buccaneer model while Tom and I focus on the Backfire? Yes. But it would have to be 'work now, pay later', and Tom and I would want to see a modeling background for games. I lucked out incredibly with Oleg and Dmitriy, and we would want guys of that caliber. I would also make sure that the whole BCS team is ok with who works on what and when. Brian

Hadn't thought of that. I'll make inquiries through the museum.

That is ПРАКТИЧЕСКАЯ АЭРОДИНАМИКА САМОЛЕТА МиГ-25РБ (practicheskaya aerodynamica samoleta) "Practical aircraft aerodynamics, MiG-25RB" It is not the flight manual, but lecture notes as part of a Russian military academy course in practical aerodynamics. There are similar documents for Tu-22M3, MiG-29, a whole series, really good stuff. But it's not the flight manual, "РЛЭ". No "switch-ology". That aside, they are very, very good lecture notes. I have been learning a lot from the partial Russian I understand.

I PM'd Slutcher. If he can get the Russian copy, I will get it scanned and posted.

The National USAF museum in Dayton, Ohio has the MiG-25 that was dug out of the dirt in Iraq. I toured it recently, and all the markings are in English. It just occurred to me that there might be an English flight manual. Many of us would love to read it. Given the widely international makeup of the DCS community, I thought I'd put the word out about the possibility, in case a friend's brother's former roommate might know of a copy. These are the export MiG-25 operators that probably used English manuals: - Algeria - India - Iraq - Libya - Syria I've learned it doesn't hurt to ask...

Easily my second favorite project, behind those awesome Black Cat dudes and their Backfire ;)

That's a fine compliment! Thank you!

Not sure I can give much of a confidence boost, in the way of stuff to show. We all know the track record of various DCS projects. We probably won't be any different; it will take us years. The next update, in a month or so, should show some video of our EFM doing some stuff with the default Tu-22M3, mainly a demonstration of wing sweep aerodynamics, engine dynamics, and supersonic flight. I'm building a development environment incorporating Matlab/Simulink for the EFM and avionics for DCS projects as I go along. That adds a lot of work at the beginning (now), but should speed up things later, and overall. Translating Russian slows me down, too. Dimitriy and Oleg can speak for the 3D model. These things, and DCS, just are what they are. Nobody has quit yet, nor do any of us intend to. The team grows, and more wait in the wings to help when the opportunity arrives.

No and yes. There won't be a ground stabilized camera, per se. However, the bomb-sight is a "target tracking" type. You drag the cross-hairs onto a target, and try to keep them fixed on that point. The cross hairs will drift off that point due to errors in your computed airspeed, height, etc, but as you continually correct the cross hairs back on target, it turns those corrections into more accurate airspeed, height estimates, and after a while, the bombsight should track your target automatically as it passes under you. The system feeds corrections to the autopilot's commanded heading, and gives a "release" signal at the right angle/time. In a way, you're seeing a ground and target stabilized image up through weapons release, and some time after, though you should probably start maneuvering as soon as you can. There is also a strike/reconnaissance camera. I am still figuring it out, but I think it has a mode where it tries to look at the calculated impact point, and take pictures for bomb damage assessment. The bombsight is gyrostabilized, so it's relatively tolerant of maneuvering right up to weapons release, but I don't know that this camera is. I'm not sure we're going to implement the camera initially, anyway, but it is good to share what the real thing was capable of.

Bombs can be released using an optical bombsight, or radar target designation. Missiles, either radar target designation, or in practice, a scout relays back lat, long, course and speed for naval targets, and you program the missiles with an intercept course and parameters for its own active search radar. No laser designators, just a radar screen, maps and slide rules, really. As an aside, I posted about my other project here: https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=163181&page=16

Might as well do a "short" post on this project, in addition to the Tu-22M3... I'm not sure how I got involved in this project, but it doesn't matter, I'm as devoted to the Buccaneer as the Tu-22M3. The Backfire takes precedence, but I'm basically doing the same work for both at the same time. Both: - have similar missions, ground and naval strike - have analog cockpits, aiding understanding and implementation of systems. Systems themselves have similarities, which have sped up my understanding of some Tu-22M3 systems - use a Matlab/Simulink driven AFM - have some unusual aerodynamics that need modeling - introduce realistic air to ground radar simulations - are multi-crew - We're documenting and organizing work similarly Basically, all the dirty work is similar, and although numbers are different, a lot of the programming structure which we are doing now is practically identical. The Buccaneer AFM is presently in the lead, because BAe has been kind enough to share really good flight test data, with some stipulations about protecting that data and the project being non-profit. Tom is super sharp, I basically suggest a few things, and he's off and running with Matlab and Simulink, doing all the "sexy" flight modelling while I do the low level C++ integration to make the AFM come together. I also don't lift a finger with 3D modeling; that's Tom's problem on the Buccaneer to figure out, and the Dynamic Duo (Oleg and Dimitri) on the Backfire. There is a headache coming in that to do this airplane correctly, we're going to need a license from ED, but BAe at present stipulates that we be non-profit. Hopefully Tom finds some way to make things work out. So there, I've spilled the beans, and left Tom to clean up. Sorry Tom! Whether you're primarily interested in the Buccaneer or the Backfire, you really should take a look at the other. In their roles, they are both exemplars, above their peers from other nations. The Backfire is a really capable big stick, but the Buccaneer will run interceptors out of fuel at 100 ft AGL, comfortably riding the air with it's insanely high wing-loading and near Mach sustained speed. The came over for Red Flag one year and flew so low, so fast, 100 ft, vs 300 ft floor for us Americans, they impressed us.

Nope, not until Tom Beckett and I are dead. This is my other project, Tom's the very capable lead on this one. Things are going on, but nothing pretty to show.

It's theoretically possible to deploy any of the "dumb" bombs we use on the Su-25 in DCS -FAB series all the way to FAB-9000. -RBK series cluster bombs, where the whole canister drops, then releases submunitions. Used for immediate area targets, treated like a dumb bomb. -KMGU series cluster bombs, where canister remains with aircraft and submunitions are popped out with adjustable spacing. Used for larger/longer area target than RBK, like an airfield or runway. Has a special control panel in the cockpit. -Kh-15, I would like to do all variants if possible. -Kh-22M (conventional payload), Kh-22NA (nuclear payload). For a while, the logic was, if you want a high probability of sinking, not just damaging the largest capital ships, it takes a tactical nuke. USA, UK and Russia all had nuclear anti-shipping profiles. We will try it. -sea mines No Kh-55's, 101's, or anything like that. They are basically post-Soviet.

Update Here is a small update, mainly just saying work continues. Schnelli posed an interesting question about the licensing from the manufacturer. I work on a second project (and that is all I will say for now) in parallel to the Tu-22M3 where a license from the manufacturer is indeed needed, and we are doing the project in a way to satisfy them. However, I do not think a license of the Tu-22M3, of the era (USSR) we are using, is needed. That opinion comes from some reading, plus a few personal experiences. The USSR didn't 'license' anything, as everything was the property of the state. When the chaos began in 1989, a 'grabfest' began when everybody, the design bureaus, the numbered production factories, even different nations, all claimed rights to the intellectual property of 'their' aircraft, systems, etc. A situation developed where multiple entities 'owned' the same 'IP', and sometimes different developments of the same aircraft or engines, progressed from the early 90's. Personal example: some friends owned Sukhoi Su-29, Yak-52 aircraft, both nominally powered by the "Vedeneyev" M14P engine. Although originally "designed" by the Vedeneyev Machine Plant (doubling as design and manufacturing concerns), the Voronezh Machine plant also manufactured them, and they claimed the engine's IP, ALONG with someone claiming to be the predecessor of Ivchenko, who now manufactures the engine in Romania. For a while you could get M14P-derived engines from two places, Romania and Russia. Then a US company started making heir own improved version just using an original core. So, 3-4 entities, across the countries of Russia, Ukraine, Romania and the States. My head spins, and I'm sure I don't completely understand what happened. Similar events occured with aircraft. Sukhoi and Tuypolev design bureau's were separate from manufacturing plants in Nizhny-Novgorod, Novosibirsk, and Komsomolsk-on-Amur, and the manufacturers were claiming the IP to whatever was on their shop floor. Export recipient countries claimed IP too. The design bureaus, not directly manufacturing aircraft, where left without a nominal source of income, though the manufacturers weren't really doing any better. Fast forward to the 2000's, the various concerns had tried co-existing as separate capitalist entities, and it wasn't working. Putin and company united all the remnants of manufacturing plants, design bureaus, etc into what is now United Aircraft Corporation, and things are starting to function again. My view is that an aircraft, dating from the soviet period, AND NO LATER, doesn't have strong IP protections, if any, at least none with precedence. The chaos of the 90's severely clouds who owns what, and from when. That said, if UAC found out about the project and came knocking, I'd love to make a deal that included helpful data. In short, we aren't going to UAC asking for a license, but if somehow they decide we matter and they come to us saying there is a problem, we're definitely going to try to make things work out. I personally just have two business rules: Don't be evil, and don't be a jerk. I don't think Oleg or Dimitri feel differently. FYI, we don't have РЛЭ, and we're not really going after it. The consensus is that crosses a line. But we have tons of ancillary documentation, identical systems with descriptions from other aircraft with open documentation, crew training aids, plus crewmembers themselves. We are avoiding hot topics, like sensitive comms and anything nuclear, but I don't think those detract from gameplay in DCS. As I have said before, the cockpits are very analog and substantially self explanatory, at least with some engineering and aviation background. What is not self explanatory is explained by crewmembers. You're not going to notice anything missing. This airplane introduces new disciplines of navigation science and systems, radar interpretation, and electronic warfare to DCS. We may not know things like 'true' radar detection ranges vs what is published, if they are different, but we know the "switch-ology" of the systems and radar science, for example. The radar is a surface search radar, not an air-to-air radar that processes information for you. We are doing our best to deliver you a display of correctly processed reflected surface radar energy, noise and all. You are going to have to learn the art of radar scope interpretation, to match what you know of where you are, the radar return vs. what maps show, and sort through the clutter and designate a target. We can deliver that experience without the РЛЭ, but with established science, crewmember input, and what documentation we have. Similar circumstances exist for other new systems to DCS. As time pulls back the curtain around the Backfire-C (and it will), we will keep the simulation updated, but I strongly expect that the core experience will not change, and will be timeless within DCS, and whatever the future may bring. I never really did much of a post about either the trip to Ukraine, nor research about the aircraft, survivors, etc. It is true that Ukraine destroyed most of their Tu-22M and Tu-160 with the USA's help, but they certainly didn't get them all. I think there is one example of the M0 left (Monino), two each of the M1 and M2 (Monino and Kiev have both), and several of the M3 all over the place, thank the Lord. I have a picture somewhere taken from the top of the Tu-22M3 in Kiev, looking across the tops of the M2 and M1 with a setting sun. It was a beautiful shot of the variants, hope I can dig it up someday. I also learned that the Ukrainians love the Tu-22M3 as much as the Russians. You can almost taste the disgust dripping off them when they recall the planes being chopped up. The crews loved them. They want the plane's story told. The Tu-22M3 in Kiev is our primary source of cockpit documentation. Systems were removed in the avionics bay, but the cockpit was very intact, and very beautiful. The nuclear blast shields had been closed, so the sun had not done it's thing to the interior. Just a couple of instruments were removed, but I had pictures of them, and understood their functionality, so no loss. Our goal is a late Soviet era cockpit, and that plane nailed it. There is a lot of variation between Tu-22M3 manufacturing batches, stuff in different places, but that plane in Kiev is probably going to be the representative in DCS, with minor tweaks. This is easily the bomber best suited to DCS: you've got all the gameplay elements that make a bomber and will be unique within DCS, performance unmatched, and it's all done with just 4 seats. We (the DCS community) will have the greatest instrument with which to learn the art of the bombardier-navigator. Nobody can pick another bomber from any country or era to simulate that will be as great overall in DCS as the Backfire. Get your little buddies to establish air superiority, then go pound earth and carrier groups... PS: We do not have a license from ED yet, so stuff that sounds "forward looking" comes with that asterisk. We are gunning for that license hard.

We're still alive, still working. Nothing exciting to show. Right now it's just the details and hard work. It's going to be that way for a while.

Going to do everything you said. Thanks!

I'm back at it. For those who might be interested in helping the project move faster, I have a task that someone else can perform that does not require programming experience. Russian language fluency is needed. I have a spreadsheet that tracks every single gauge, switch, light, etc in the entire aircraft. Every such item has its Russian label, English or at least transliterated (Roman alphabet) equivalent, cockpit argument(s), a brief description of operation if not self evident, a checkbox if it is being implemented, and a designing/testing/complete status. This spreadsheet serves many purposes: -project management, tracking progress -part of EFM, systems, and gauge programming -coordinating with the 3D artists -Eagle Dynamics will use it in deliberating whether or not to award us a Third Party License. It gives them insight into how we intend the simulation to function. It is ultimately my responsibility to put together, but the very first step of creating a line entry with Russian and English or latin transliteration, is very slow going. I can transliterate Cyrillic into the Roman alphabet, and I know a lot of words, but frankly, I'm slow. I'm not a native Russian speaker. Someone who knows Russian could review our cockpit pictures and illustrations and create Russian and English entries far faster; and I can take it from there. I've already divided up the front and rear cockpits into about 30 sub panels, so help with just a portion is possible, and again, I'm just asking for help with the initial label or name, nothing beyond that. Can't really offer you anything as compensation at this point, but your name would go in my list of 'those who helped'. Спасибо, Brian

For those who don't know, a successful mass Tu-22M attack on a US carrier is a major plot element of Tom Clancy's novel 'Red Storm Rising'. Some of the technical details are off, as it was written during the cold war when we didn't know as much as we do now, but the problems are minor. The tactical description of HOW they are used is pretty good. You get to see the Tu-22M doing it's design mission. You also get to see the F-14's performing their design mission as well. Although the Tu-22M sequence in the movie 'Sum of All Fears' is kind of neat, it displays several tactical inaccuracies, plus I don't think that sequence is in that book. It's also the Tu-22M2. If anybody knows of any Russian-language material with the Backfire in it, please let me know. I already know about the cow-poop movie...:smilewink:

Status update: development stopped for a few months, but it's not forgotten. For my part, I got burnt out trying to do too many things. I'm an engineer, but I'm also a business owner, a gunsmith, I'm upgrading my saltwater aquarium, I'm working on a simpit. I get to busy to make progress on any one thing. That's my fault. I'm trying to quit some hobbies, and finish some projects. The Tu-22 project is not so easy to find little pieces of time. I get forgetful after a while. I need to be talking with friends in Poltava and Kiev to get still more data on the plane and it's engines...another friend who was an F-111 pilot is helping me decipher the radar and navigation systems of the era (there was much in common between US, British, Soviet systems at the time), and 'decode' the Tu-22M3's panel...there are actually many Soviet era documents about systems that the US military translated, and are publicly available now, so I read those...a friend, Ed Wilson, is also doing gauge programming, and I have to keep feeding him new gauges...and somewhere along the way I'm trying to find funding (stability), and work toward what ED wants for the third party license...there's a flight model somewhere in there too. ...my point being, it's a massive undertaking, and it's the kind of hobby that needs to always be in my head; when I'm working it, I'm trying to push everything along. A super-hobby. So, in a month or two, I get the fish tank done, get the simpit to where I quit tinkering, drop a lot of other things. There should start being more progress then.

I'm back, I'm alive. I'll post an update in a day or so.

For now I'll keep things tidy, and use this thread only, but I'll use the first post for updates/info. This is not work, just big. Brian

I have a four month window to do nothing but work on this simulation, so progress on the programming side will speed up. After nearly 9 years in intense jobs, I have burned out badly, severe depression, exhaustion, etc. I'm going to spend time re-establishing my relationship with my family and God, get my weight down, and my spirits renewed. The Bomber project makes me happy. What do people think of starting another thread so this one isn't so long? Brian

Somebody needs to break his legs so he can model the Tu-22M3 faster. :smilewink: Seriously, congrats bro. Hope it feels good. Brian