AH_Solid_Snake

If you mean the movement of intake ramps I haven't specifically looked for this on the various videos that have been published, but since it's a fairly standard DCS feature I would say its highly unlikely Heatblur would have missed it. If you look at the DCS F-15 module you can see the motion of the intakes very obviously because the entire housing moves to adjust the intake. For the F-14 it's a bit more subtle in that the intake ramps are all internal to the intake so you can only really see it through a slit in the top and from the front.

My understanding of the TCS system is if you imagine a TV guided Maverick. The system can use contrast and image recognition to spot 'objects' against a background and can then track that object independently of inputs from another system. It can also be 'slaved' to the radar in the same way as an AIM-9 to point its seeker head at a given direction, at which point again it takes over. The AWG-9 is not tracking the target and directing a dumb camera to follow it - the radar provides an initial - "look over here" instruction, before the TCS takes over and tracks.

WRT - The availability rate and maintenance vs flight hours of the F-14, these were comparable with other 3.5 gen aircraft. To the best of my knowledge their availability during their final cruises was much improved simply because the competition for spare parts was so low they had buckets full of spares allowing most problems to be solved by pulling assemblies / black boxes and replacing them. During their more active service with multiple squadrons per ship performing high tempo operations post 2001, contention over spare parts was much higher and there simply was not the reserves of parts as the aircraft were already known to be due for retirement (planned) 2008 - the DOD was not going to order up vast reserves of parts when the maintenance crews at squadron level could pull and fix many of the parts rather than replace them. Further - in this example of a 'modernised' jet the vast majority of issues would be solved with newer more reliable electronics coupled with a reduction in hydraulic components. An AESA antenna for the AWG-9 / APG-71 would much like the APG-63 v3 F-15s have eliminated bleeding noses. A new FBW control system with electric actuation would eliminate many more potential issues with control surfaces. In short - the airframe of the F-14 on paper is completely sound and even sticking with engines in the F110 power class, new build jets with completely modernised internal components coupled with a supply chain would have much much better availability rates and flight / maintenance ratio than the real F-14 A-D models did. The reality is all the real jets were old, rebuilds of older jets, and all of the more extensive new build F-14 designs from the Quickstrike to the AT21 were not built. When tax dollars on this scale are being waved around there will always be a tension between improved internals for a known design being relatively low risk vs new designs with the potential to be all of this with improved performance and more.

I've read multiple accounts of the F-14 LTS solution being superior to F-15E and F-16 comparable pods simply due to the size of the display in the F-14 RIO position being much larger (physically) than the various MFDs in use on other jets, I would have assumed this would be the same for the Harrier and A-10C as these both have similarly standard size MFDs as the aforementioned jets? Anyone with more knowledge on this specifically care to weigh in?

This is an amazing level of support! Hopefully we'll start to see some really accurate simpits around everyone's new favorite bird. Can you provide any more exports? The pilots throttle along with dimensions would be a great accompaniment to start building a an appropriate HOTAS.

Amazing work! Are you fitting it with all the MIL spec switches of the real thing - it looks worthy of it :) Do you have any plans to share the model or sell via shapeways? It reminds me that either VKB or Virpil were rumored to be working on an F-14 grip, I'm fairly sure I first heard of it reading these forums, but for the life of me I can't find any references to it now? Am i just misremembering?

This is some really impressive work, is the sketch file available to download anywhere?

Looking on the Oculus Store today (https://shop.oculus.com/en-us/cart/) as soon as you select United Kingdom in the drop down for delivery address the price now changes to £ and it is still £549 from there as well. Seems to be the newly selected price for the UK.