wilbur81

Haha. I stand corrected.

Feel free to merge threads if necessary... are we getting any closer to a fix for the Hornet's locking up missiles over large RCS targets? It makes the TWS stepping feature pretty dicey when I have 3 bandits 20 miles in front of me and stepping from one L&S to another locks my (or other) jets missiles instead... particularly when in AUTO mode. Other than this one thing, the DCS APG-73 is working quite well. Thanks!

It depends greatly on the speed he was at in the turn. If he was at 475+ kts with pylons, depending on fuel weight, he can sustain 7.5-7.6 until he runs out of gas. Now if he was at 350kts or slower, there's no way he's going to sustain that G in the Hornet for more than a few seconds. Try it yourself. Just an FYI - As an avid Hornet guy (who never uses the paddle switch in a fight), I almost never BFM above 380kts and I NEVER sustain a 7.5G (or max G available) turn in a dogfight. AoA is the strength of the Hornet and 7G+ is not good for AoA. I beat guys by pulling between 5 and 6.5 G's, at speeds between 125-360 kts. Viper guys come zooming in at 450+ kts, and I one-circle them if I can. I NEVER EVER EVER use the vertical when in the Hornet in BFM unless it's towards the earth.

DCS does model the effect of pylon & weapons drag for the Hornet. Please realize that, if you're impressed with the Hornet's performance in BFM against you, it has been out for a long time now and folks (like me) that have flown it almost exclusively and love to do Gunzo BFM over and over and over are actually really pretty good at it. A second possibility is that you were fighting a (in my opinion) 'cheater' who was pulling the paddle switch. But even still, our DCS Hornet bleeds energy like crazy if you aren't very disciplined with your AoA.

The same for me as well. Vulkan would be WAY more valuable to me right now than any module that I don't currently own... and I only own a few by comparison to many others.

Indeed. It will be interesting to see if this is ever implemented for the Viper's stores. My understanding from talking to a couple Viper guys is that the pilot has to do the over-g calculations in their head for the stores/weight that they're currently carrying whereas the Hornet's FCS makes these g-limiter calculations for the pilot. Without a true FLCS or FCS, I'm sure the Eagle driver has to make all those stores/over-g calc's in his head as well.

I'm really liking the new, subtle engine tweaks. It seems like we went from an A model F404-400 to a proper C model F404-402. Keep up the good work, Team!

Mover Lemoine has also stated in a video of his that the Hornet's radar is slightly better than the Vipers, and he was speaking of the A+ Hornet, not the APG73 Hornet. He is a Viper guy by trade as well so he's knows both aircraft.

Absolute nonsense. There is nothing "broken" about the current FM. It needs more tweaking in certain regimes to get even closer to reality...but it is certainly not broken.

Correct, I turn off SimApp after calibrating. And yes, I have calibrated both the throttle and detent multiple times per your instructions. Does every new update of SAPro require a new calibration you think?

The devs have been fairly quiet on the Viper end regarding the radar's current performance, but I think the Viper community is going to have to go through some of the same stuff the Hornet community has as it gets closer to maturity: As with the Hornet, as the Viper gets more realistic, it will not perform as great as it currently does now in several areas: High Mach numbers without stores damage, an F-15 performing radar, etc.

Hey Mustang. Well, I followed your helpful tutorial above to the T, but nothing changes for me in DCS. In fact, if I change the ratio to all kinds of more extreme percentages, still nothing changes in DCS. I am definitely hitting 'activate' as well. Any ideas?

After the latest firmware update, the RDR Elev wheel on mt Super Taurus no longer works as an axis...but only as a switch. Any ideas?

Do the Lot 20 Hornet SME's and programmers working on the flight model have access to and consult the dash 210 (which seems to be very hard to find...still classified?) performance manual for the Lot 20 jet with the enhanced performance engines?

After reading today's Newsletter on upcoming FM changes, I'd love to revisit the above request.

Hey, BN... Has there been any more movement towards making the EI panel Nite lighting darker when the knob is turned low? It still is WAY brighter than every other light (on minimum settings) in the cockpit while in Nite mode... to the point where I always turn it off because it won't dim to the level of the other lights, displays, etc.

This is true. I rarely beat anyone in the Hornet (guns only) unless I go into the merge below 400kts. In real life, the Hornet 'rules the roost,' 2nd only to 5th gen fighters, in the slow speed/high alpha fight for American jets (Lord, help us all when the Typhoon arrives in DCS ). Though, to your last point above, if you load up the video I've posted on the original post at the top of this thread and view starting at 08:19 through 10:42, the real Hornet does pretty darn well with its energy and nose authority below 300kts (I suspect a bit better than our current DCS flight model, though I think they're pretty darn close, amazingly so for a video game) as long as they keep the G's below 4.5/5g. Keep in mind, too, that the pilots flying in the video are extremely novice at BFM. You are correct, though... load up 5 or more G's below 350kts in the Hornet and you're going to be parked for quite some time.

By the way, it's possible that he wasn't even in burner at the start of the climb as his Mach number was hitting 0.97ish in level flight right before the pull up and crossing the number would be a big no-no at an air show. He may have had to go Mil power to keep from Boomn'.

If this is an A model, our Lot 20 C has the GE402's so there's a potentially significant difference there. Pressure altitude/air temp wherever that demo was could be a factor as well... and we don't know when (if) the pilot pulled out of afterburner.

Which real Hornet pilots are saying this? Just curious.

Sheesh...that was the whole point of my original post.

Clear? No, not hardly. Too many unknown variables. In fact, performance could be considered relative here as a pilot might desire higher AoA under less G than higher G with less AoA. Also, that 7.3 g isn't indicative of the FCS's max allowable at the time as you can (in real life and DCS) exceed the FCS limiter for a split second quite easily and it will register as max g pulled. I appreciate your screenshots for sure, but it would be more helpful to upload a track and do the flight with the controls indicator on. I find it pretty hard to believe that you were sustaining 287 knots at 5.5 G like in your pic below.

Nah, I don't ever pull the pinky switch... nor do the real Hornet pilots. NIce... so you're maintaining those airspeeds at those G loadings, correct? I am carrying a bit more fuel for my tests (8,000 to 10,000 lbs) so maybe that's the difference? I guess ED has got it pretty spot-on, then.

At what airspeed? What I'm getting at is the question of airspeed bleed at or below 300 knots with 2-4 g's loaded. You're saying you can sustain 4.6 g's in horizontal flight at 10k feet with an airspeed between 250 and 300 kts?

Here's a quick demo of the bleed: EnergyBleed.trk Air temp: -1.3 Deg C. Note the loss of energy as speed decreases below 300 KTS with 3 g's in a descending turn. Never thought much of this before viewing the real life BFM HUD footage from my original post... just seems like the real jet has better performance in terms of maintaining energy/AoA at low G and below 300kts than we are currently seeing in DCS... But I'll readily admit that ED's model may be pretty much spot-on and my testing not thorough enough, FWIW. Here was the airframe configuration.