wilbur81

Good tests... Looked at both the Tacviews (for both jets) and they seem to align well with the blk50 / lot20 real world "vault anecdote" from the earlier post. Thanks, Hulkbust.

You called? For anyone who might be interested, below is a PM conversation I had that alluded to some real world information sent to me by one of our many faithful forum buddies. (I've not included his name here as he sent this to me via private message) - Thought many might find his buddy's findings interesting. Enjoy: I wanted to tell you about a conversation I had at an unclassed level with a friend of mine in the fighter community. He went to the vault and looked at the lot 20 EM diagrams (402 engine) and compared them to the F-16CM block 50 F-16 with the engines we have in game -- his findings were pretty cool. He couldn't tell me numbers, to keep it at an unclassed level, but he said the difference was pylons. With pylons on the wing, the hornet will be out-rated by a clean viper. With pylons on the Viper and a clean hornet, the Hornet will out-rate the viper. Both Clean wing, and they are virtually the same with a slight advantage to the F-16. The caveat here is that the lot 20 is still G limited to 7.5Gs -- so it's engine and airframe are just generating that higher turn rate at a much slower speed -- I think around 380-ish. If the hornet gets above 400, it begins to arc, because it can't tighten down more than 7.5Gs, and the turn circle just gets really really big. This friend also told me that the hornet is playing from a very different set of rules than the F-16, and the F-16 employment manuals don't actually cover how to combat the hornet trickery. The USAF is all about aligning turn circles to kill, and you can do that pretty well against non-high-AOA fighters. But a high AOA fighter (and the navy in general) strive to have misaligned turn circles both offensive and defensively -- which allows them to change the plane of motion in ways that the opponent can't follow without overshooting. This is the classic hornet ditch -- but that ditch needs to be executed when there are misaligned turn circles, and the cue for that is seeing aspect angle out of synch with angle off nose or tail. I think this is stuff that's a bit over the nugget of most DCS players, and if they are operating from IFF manuals or the korean 3-3 viper manual -- it's just not covered in there. A lot of people's complains with flight models in BFM probably stem from this. Anyway -- bottom line is that the big engine hornet can in fact rate as well as a clean viper, but 99-100% of the time the navy is leaving 4 pylons on the hornet, where the viper maybe has 2 -- and so the advantage goes to the viper in BFM. Clean vs clean, and we just have a very small advantage in the F-16. Cheers

Is ED bringing back our retro-120-SINGLE-launcher-missle racks?

Indeed. Hopefully we'll get to a point with our DCS FM that our Hornet will be able to do the same.

I almost never use the rudder in the pattern. Aside from low speed, high AoA roll in a BFM engagement or airshow routine, the current DCS Hornet's rudder (the pedals, I should say, given the nature of FBW FCS) performance is next to useless for yaw in the air. Note the Blue's Slot pilot's left rudder slide into the diamond in this old video... we are hard-pressed to get our virtual Hornet to do the same at the present moment, though I'm sure we'll eventually get there:

Regarding the real world performance of the Legacy Hornet, some will discredit the flight performance of the enhanced performance engine'd (EPE) F404-402 Hornet Charlie's saying something to the tune of, "Yes, the EPE'd Charlie has more thrust, but it's also heavier, so it doesn't really outperform the A-models." For some VERY cool and interesting reading, here is the FAA's Air Show TAC Demonstration manual/guidelines for the F/A-18 Legacy demos. I'm sure many have found and read it before, but I've included a screenshot below from page three in which pilots are cautioned to take into account the extra power/thrust when flying vertical and horizontal maneuvers in an EPE -402 jet, so as not to exceed airspeeds, avoid G-locs, etc. I highlighted the EPE note in yellow in the two images below. Another cool thing that can be done with this .pdf (included for download) is to try and replicate all the maneuvers with accurate entry and exit airspeeds and altitudes within DCS. Our virtual jet is incredibly close! Get after those Double-Immelmann's and enjoy... Navy_F-18-TAC_Demo_Maneuvers-Package.pdf

I'm only slightly teasing... The Finnish F-18s have their G-limiter calibrated for 9G rather than the USN/USMC 7.5G limit. There is no real world flight, turn, energy bleed, etc. data for USN Hornet performance with the G-Limiter disengaged. I'm only slightly tired of the constant Viper-better-than-Hornet-in a dogfight nonsense. It is not better. They are different in strengths and weaknesses. The Viper has the extra power and the 9G rate-options; The Hornet is more maneuverable in the 300 kts and under regime...which is where most WVR 1v1s are flown anyhow. I challenge anyone on the internet to produce a 1v1 HUD tape (real world) video that shows 9G pulls in 1v1 WVR BFM. There are several BFM HUD videos out there, but you will likely not find a single YT HUD tape showing a Viper driver pulling 9g's for more than a few seconds (if at all). There are a fair number of YT videos of real world Vipers (HUD tape footage) performing BFM... you will find very few (I've never found one myself) where the max G exceeds 7g or the airspeed exceed 350 kts. Here's one example: Another example from Defensive BFM with telemetry data afterwards: Neither pilot breaks 7g in either engagement. That certainly doesn't mean it doesn't happen, but probably a lot less common than people assume. Oh, and the F-15C was my first love, too. Bummed that Razbam went with the Mudhen and not the Charlie.

Yeah, yeah... and the high-hour Hornet guys in the comments of Mover's video say that they never lost in the Hornet, 1v1, to the F-16N. Oh, and Cptmrcalm: Your video, "David v Goliath," is not a good representation of the Hornet as you're not flying the DCS (USN) Hornet in that fight; your flying the "Flight Controls, Flight Controls" 9+ G Finnish jet. Try it again without the paddle. It's been said over and over again, the blk 50 Viper is not better than the lot 20 Hornet in real world BFM, it's just different.

You're correct... I did not. Thanks for the info. It makes sense, though, that the radar has to have the HAFU within it's gimble limits in order to make it a L&S from the SA.

If so, then I agree with you. I've only played with it for all of 90 seconds... but was always under the impression that the radar (within gimble limits) would slave to the SA hafu?

Well, I'll be darned... indeed it does. I guess I wasn't clicking hard enough my first go around. Thanks, BarTzi!

This is not current and has never been a feature in DCS. It would be awesome to have, though.

They really just need to fix the Alt+F1 HUD only view, which displays the 3 MFDs across the screen, larger than life... making "HUD only" a bit of a misnomer.

That's a very nice little 21-22 degrees per second sustained turn with the centerline tank. Thanks for sharing, Kefa!

Nvidia card? If so, take a screen grab of your desktop color & gamma settings in the Nvidia control panel. What are your in game DCS gamma settings as well?

That's probably about right, with one DPS room for error.

It's like his 6th post. Not the best way to welcome a new forum member to this community. "Hey guize! Look at this idiot who has an idea he wants to share?" I was about to call out a bunch of you (who've trashed him and his idea) as "childish." However, I quickly realized that'd be an incredible insult to most of the children I know; who are undoubtably more gracious, intelligent, and articulate than 90% of the commentators in this thread... Sheesh

True statements. Interestingly, for what it's worth, here's a little break turn video clip of (I do believe) a small-motored GE F402-400 Canadian CF-18 in 1988 doing 360 degrees in about 16 seconds... averaging 22 degrees per second through the turn, and with energy enough to spare for some mild climbing and maneuvering afterwards (he basically sets up for a high speed pass right after). It's obviously slicked off for demo purposes...but still impressive for, essentially, an A-model Hornet.

Great find! Following...

I think this is most definitely the right move on the part of ED. I appreciate their candor and flexibility... keep up the good work, Wags & Team!

Here's a nice little break turn video of a small-motored Canadian CF-18 in 1988 doing 360 degrees in about 16 seconds... averaging a nice little 22 degrees per second, and with energy to spare.

Yeah, the team really does have DCS firing on all cylinders... it really is a joy to pick it back up after some time away as you kind of forget/take for granted how incredible a sim it is that they've achieved. Welcome back.

Indeed. Here's a nice little break turn video of a small-motored Canadian CF-18 in 1988 doing 360 degrees in about 16 seconds... averaging a nice little 22 degrees per second, and with energy to spare.

A quick post as a reference: There is a fair bit of misinformation floating about regarding the DCS Hornet and it's Sustained Turn Rate (over) performance in the form of user created EM diagrams, Youtube videos, etc. I submit that ED has pretty much nailed it. Here is a completely slick Hornet with 60% internal gas, at near-sea level, through a few max G turns...But keep in mind, I've flown these WITHOUT the paddle switch employed, as a real USN Hornet would be (and which would be reflected in real world EM performance charts) flown, real world. This is obviously only one, non-extensive, test, but you get the picture. The paddle makes a fairly significant difference. Max sustained turn rate in this test was 18.5 Deg per sec. These were all max stick deflection pulls, in full AB. You can definitely get the little chart at bottom left to read higher in the 23-24 deg per sec range, but if you actually watch the live "object box", those dps are not sustained but momentary, and at low airspeeds... which makes the chart itself a bit misleading. Truly sustained, after testing both the Viper and the Hornet, the Viper has a consistent 1.5-2 deg per sec. sustained advantage when watching the live object box in TacView. STR - Slick Hornet - SeaLvL.trk Tacview-20240402-215526-DCS-STR - Slick Hornet - SeaLvL.zip.acmi

But did you fly through the path that he'd been on before he was far from you? As you know, those wakes linger for a fair bit. As said, a track will be best for diagnosis.