wilbur81

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.

Question about the Hornet and energy-bleed/general performance between 225(ish)-300kts: I was watching (again) the brilliant Jetstream documentary about Canadian Hornet pilot training. In episode 5, the "BFM" episode, I was struck with how well the CF-18 could maintain knots and even accelerate when pulling 3-5 g's in the 250-300 kts range. I've done quite a bit of testing at the altitudes, airspeeds, g-loading, and a/c configuration to compare, and with our current DCS Hornet FM/Engine model, pulls of 2.5 to 4 g's when at or below around 240-300 kts (and b/w sea level and 16000K) just instantly bleed (even when descending). I'm not using max stick deflection pulls and most all maneuvers are in full AB. I'll create some of my own tracks and post them when I get the chance. But here are some time-stamps for the HUD footage so you can see what I mean: basically watch/assess starting at 08:19 through 10:42. (Do yourself a favor if you haven't and watch the whole series. ) Note especially that he can, multiple times, achieve 25+ Alpha at speeds between 290 and 300 kts without 'cashing it all in.' In DCS, the only way I can see those Alpha's is if I'm slower than 250(ish) kts and drain the knots out...in which case you can see Alpha's get VERY high, but you have limited to no real maneuverability. In the video, at 20+ Alpha he still has knots and solid maneuvering options and hasn't 'cashed it all in.' Keep in mind that it appears from takeoff and landing footage that these CF-18s are carrying one centerline bag and have all pylons, though unloaded...and of course are two-seaters with the instructor in the back. Also, I'm keeping in mind that I don't know the air temperatures for the flight. I'm just wondering if anyone else can achieve the AOA/and energy sustainment with 2.5-4 g pulls between 240ish - 300ish kts with our DCS Hornet like the real CF-18s in this video?

Interesting, I didn't know you had to calibrate the slew itself. I'll take a look. Thanks, LT.

In a world with 200-400% inflation on GPU prices... and those prices may be here to stay...How could one not put "Multi-threading" and "Vulkan" at the top of their list?

This ^^^ Come back asking for "A" models of current modules when they're all out of early access, oben beta, 90% bug free, full-featured, etc.

Yeah, I've just never had to mess with them with the TDC slew in particular (other than the little dead zone I had to create on my X-56, which, as a testament to its quality, the Super Taurus TDC doesn't require). Thanks for the offer, though. It looks like we just need to wait for ED to speed up and tweak the speed of the cursor in the Hornet.

Hmm... that's interesting. After some more testing in SimApp and then in-game, I think you're exactly right!

Thanks for the info. Yeah, I figured that'd slow the RDR TDC way down.