wilbur81

Eagle Dynamics + DCS + WinWing = The ABSOLUTE Golden Age of air combat simulation!

I'm sure you're quite right.

I'm highly skeptical that this article is even accurate... but IF it is, and the USMC really does ever upgrade some of its Legacy's to the AESA and 120D's, my goodness! This would be the Hornet to simulate in DCS. "Shut your mouth, fat, slow, ugly Super Hornets!" Let the Legacy live! One can dream...

The real -402 EPE'd C model will go from M 0.8 to M 1.6 in 2 minutes and 12 seconds at 35K with 2-AMRAAMs and 2-9Ms... so that extra 45-48 seconds to a slower M1.45 with the 4 extra wing-120s seems pretty close to real world, I suppose?

Here you go:

See my first post here: In afterburner, it is actually incredibly close to real-world.

Indeed. He talks about the Marshall Stack and need for the timing fuel reserve requirements for such a small, dynamic 'floating-airfield' that just aren't as much of a factor shore-based.

Indeed. Though, for what it's worth, in a fascinating interview with career-Legacy-Hornet-Driver for the USMC (Louis Gundlach), he said something to the tune of, "The Hornet is short-legged for carrier ops." Here's an excerpt: What is the biggest myth about the Hornet? “Around the aircraft carrier the Legacy Hornet could have used more gas, but compared to other land-based fighters, the Hornet had more fuel endurance. When fighting against F-16s, AV-8Bs, and F-5s we would have gas left over when those aircraft were “Bingo” (low enough fuel that they had to head home). This was often after flying farther to the training range and having farther to fly home.”

For what it's worth, the perfect blended solution might be a TDC that moves at the current RDR ATTK page speed with small movements, with speed increasing to the current HUD TDC diamond speed as you increase the the pressure on the axis. The real hornet TDC moves VERY fast at max speed, but starts small and slow (i.e. - it seems to have a curve) with small and slow 'movements.' The real Hornet's TDC is pressure sensitive, I do believe.

Fair enough... Thanks, Tholozor.

Fair enough... good thoughts.

This has been spoken about by a few others over in the Hornet forums. It sounds very Batmobile-y to me. Don't get me wrong... I'd LOVE IT if the real APG-73 with properly integrated MSI had this capability and it was simulated in DCS (it seems simple enough, in theory, for the radar, datalink, MC, etc. to 'talk' to each other in this way), but is this actually documented anywhere that's accessible to the team that is intentionally avoiding any use of classified resources?

Been this way for a while now, but does anyone know why, when using the WINWING radar elevation axis on the throttle, the "up" zooms in and the "down" zooms out? Maybe this is intended behavior from the real system? Just seems a bit counter intuitive. If you go and invert the axis in the controls menu, it 'fixes' the 'problem,' but then messes up the RDR ELEV logic.

What I'd like to know is this: What is with the crazy flying plus sign on the HUD?

Those aren't bandits... those are RWR indications. Three aircraft off your nose are pinging radar emissions off of your jet, but you have zero hits on them.

True... though surprisingly, I think Vizcarra's Hornet was an A at that time, which makes it even crazier if it was just the standard -400. Either way, cool interview. And fun little side-note: The little old YF-17 Cobra was the first US aircraft to super-cruise without afterburner in level flight during the LWF competition with the YF-17.

This is true and they'd have to work around that somehow if they were going to implement it. I like Darkman's ideas above better, though.

I may very well be wrong... I just found it very surprising that my absolutely clean, 60% fuel Viper was being out accelerated in MIL power by that much (Clean Hornet was 7 seconds faster from 400kts to 0.9 Mach at 30K feet). I wouldn't think that a Hornet could ever out-accelerate a Viper when they were both clean. Maybe the Hornet is as it should be but the Viper's MIL power isn't high enough currently? Again, from my tests above, ED has nearly perfectly NAILED IT for the Hornet in full afterburner... so, maybe they have too in MIL? Again, I wouldn't think that a Hornet (clean or not) could ever out-accelerate an absolutely slick Viper. That's where my question is coming from.

It sure seems to be to me, too.

Hey, Team. I'm not sure if this is a bug report or not, so I've posted it here and you can feel free to move it to the appropriate place based upon how you see fit. Hope it's helpful, though, either way. First, I'd like to highlight just how right your team seems to have gotten the thrust modeling on our Hornet in DCS: According to an easy-to-find public source from a governmental report using the Navy's data: The F/A-18C, equipped with the F404-402 EPE's, in a 2 AIM9, 2 AIM120, 60% internal fuel configuration, hits the following acceleration benchmarks in full afterburning thrust at three different altitudes: At 5,000 feet, the F/A-18C accelerates from 0.8 Mach to 1.08 Mach in 21 seconds. In DCS: 27 seconds At 20,000 feet at maximum thrust, the F/A-18C accelerates from 0.8 Mach to 1.2 Mach in 34.6 seconds. In DCS: 36 seconds At 35,000 feet at maximum thrust, the F/A-18C accelerates from 0.8 Mach to 1.2 Mach in 55.80 seconds. In DCS: 55 seconds and accelerates from 0.8 Mach to 1.6 Mach in 2 minutes 12 seconds. In DCS: 2 minutes 01 second. In short... Well done! However, I did some tests in full MIL power and compared them to the Viper in full MIL as well as the Viper was seeming sluggish to me clean, in full MIL. My findings surprised me a great deal and I thought I'd post them here in case it could either get our Hornet and/or our Viper even closer to reality: For my tests, both the Hornet and Viper started at 400 kts and 30K ft at mission start and 60% internal fuel with no stores or pylons on either jet. For the full afterburner tests, it was no surprise that the Viper beat the Hornet from 400kts to M 0.9: Viper 18 seconds to achieve 0.9 Mach Hornet 21 seconds to achieve 0.9 Mach However, here are the results for the full MIL power tests under the same conditions: Viper 49 seconds to achieve 0.9 Mach Hornet 42 seconds to achieve 0.9 Mach A seven(ish) second advantage in military power over the perfectly slick Viper seems wrong to me (maybe either the new Viper engine modeling at full MIL or the Hornet's MIL power is the bug?). Is there any evidence that a slick Viper would be slower to accelerate than a slick Hornet in MIL power in these conditions? I have doubts that this is accurate, but I'm also (obviously) not privy to every capability of these two different motors. Again, hope this info. and (albeit very limited) testing is helpful to you guys in some way. Keep up the great work on these 4th Gen masterpieces! 5K FT - GAO Test - 27 seconds.trk 20K FT - GAO Test - 36 seconds.trk 35K FT - GAO Test - 55 seconds.trk 35K FT to M1.6 - GAO Test - 2m 1s.trk 30KMilTestViperHornet.miz

It might be a nice option for MP server hosts to be able to turn on or off the ability for Hornet pilots to use the G-Limiter-Override switch if they so choose... though it would be understandable if it is too enmeshed into the flight modeling of the Hornet to accomplish easily? Low priority at this point, I'm sure, but thanks for considering... Keep up the awesome work, ED!

indeed.

Hey, Spartan. I just did a quick little test with both jets loaded with 80% internal fuel, 2 wingtip 9X's, three drop tanks, and no other pylons or pods. At 16K msl, both jets starting at 400kts and going full burner immediately at mission start, the Viper beat the Hornet to Mach 1.0 by about 4 seconds (it took the Hornet 34 sec and the Viper 30). Air temp was whatever the default one is on the Caucasus map. Happy to attach the mission if you'd like or you can run some more extensive ones yourself.

Hey, Mr. Grey, Wags and the Eagle Dynamics Team... I just wanted to extend to you a hearty, "Thank You" and "Well Done" regarding the current state of DCS Open Beta. You can see in my signature that I'm running DCS on a humble GTX 1070 and not-brand-new 8700K CPU. As slow, gradual improvements are often not noticed or acknowledged by users, it just occurred to me that I'm tooling around in DCS, at full 4K and plenty of new clouds, units, in MP, SP, etc. with the settings below; all the while fluctuating between 30-50 FPS, and remarkably smooth in most cases, even when down in the 30s. There are obviously some challenges with my hardware (read: "Supercarrier with it's tower lights on and rain droplets on the canopy ), but overall - VERY pleased with the performance I'm getting in an era where there's no way I can afford to upgrade my GPU. This is a testament to all the work you've put in, all the while juggling MANY different modules, demands, etc. Well done! - W

I haven't noticed anything except this: it seems like accelerating now leads to a rising of the velocity vector that I've never noticed before? Not sure if this is something that, in real world, the FCS would dampen out? But maybe I'm just imagining this as well. Anyone else noticed this VV rise when accelerating after the update?