Evoman

The History channel had recently uploaded this full episode of Dogfights of the F-4 Phantom over Vietnam for those that have not seen it yet and for those that want to see it again.

Just about every person I have told about the new Apache module thought it was interesting and cool. However they were only interested in being the gunner since they admitted they did not have the talent to be a good pilot but that they always enjoyed the gunner role back in the BF 3 & 4 days. I am sure there would be a lot people out there that would make excellent dedicated gunners in the Apache. So I do agree that MP roles are only going to start growing even more now in the very near future. And now with the initial talks taking place of bringing the C-130 to DCS it would only be a matter of time before AC-130 would follow it. Anyone that has ever played BF knows just how enjoyable it was to be an AC-130 gunner.

This made me think that if there was at least a F-4E that gets made that a mod could later be created to make it function like other variants using the same tech that is already implemented in other modules. The player would just have to have it installed like the F-16 to use its radar tech and so on. This is all just a theory based on how current mods are made. It would just take a very talented programmer to try it out.

That would be great for those that live in the same house hold like a father and son, two siblings or two close friends. But it would not be useful to bring in other new friends if you already own the module. And even if you did not already own a module you would be limited to bringing in only one friend. That is why a crew seat license is the most ideal for those that don't even have an interest in flying.

I was just talking to a co worker the other day that is a big gamer about the new Apache. He thought it was very cool but that he would only be interested in being the gunner because he admitted that he lacks the talent to be a good pilot in other war games even though he kills it as a foot soldier. Even in the older Battlefield games I would always run into other players playing online that just wanted to be the gunner in the Apache and in other similar aircraft. Mostly because they sucked at flying. So I don't see how someone that would just buy a crew seat feel limited without an AI if they can just go online and wait in the lobbies for an available crew seat. I for one would probably fly my Tomcat more often on line with a real person in the RIO seat than with the AI if they were readily available.

Here is a good reminder of just how much of a workhorse the C-130 was during the Vietnam war. Often times they got shot up putting out an engine just trying to get to their destination. If you don't have much time to see the whole thing I recommend watching from 11:07min.

Lets be realistic. Based on what we know of the requirements that it would take to make just one variant possible it would pretty much depend on ED or 3rd party being able to get access to all the required licenses and documentation legally. So its fair to say that it would all depend on what would be available and feasible.

Here is a nice little history lesson of why the war in the pacific was infamous. And why the mighty F6F Hellcat was big deal back then against the Zero.

Looks like you have not done much research again. If you were to just follow the other 3rd parties on here or their FB pages you would be up to date on their current projects. Magnitude 3 is currently working on the F-8J Crusader. - https://forums.eagle.ru/topic/200265-f-8-crusader/ Razbam is slowly working to bring the A-7E Corsair II to DCS once they get some other projects out of the way. - https://www.facebook.com/RazbamSims/posts/so-ive-been-asked-about-the-a-7-for-dcs-these-very-early-pics-show-that-while-we/1220573548029281/ Heatblur is working on the A-6 Intruder -

I would also like to see WWI come to DCS. But the best we can realistically hope for this coming to DCS in the next 10 years would be through a new 3rd party that specializes in WWI or for ED to make a basic MAC style game of that era.

If all you were mostly looking for was a decent enough tanker to refuel you buddies then the A-6 intruder will defectively fill that role nicely. Not only could it be equipped with a refueling-pod but there was even a dedicated tanker variant. It may not have the sharp aesthetics of the super bug but trust me that the A-6's great flying all weather capabilities will win you over. I recently read this interesting interview with a former A-6 pilot where he tells of his experience in flying tanker hops. The full interview can be found here: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/27604/confessions-of-an-a-6-intruder-pilot "Most of my career was spent operating in the Persian Gulf where we had ample Air Force tanker support, but I flew a handful of tanker hops where we would strap four 2,000-pound drop-tanks and a centerline mounted D-704 refueling-pod, which aside from containing the retracting hose and basket, held another 2,000-pounds of gas. The most fun tanker hops were the daytime yo-yo missions where you would launch before the fighters and strikers, meet them a couple hundred miles from the carrier along their strike route, give them almost all of your gas (18,000-20,000 pounds of give!) and then race back to the carrier for a solo shit-hot break. The most rewarding tanker hops were when you were assigned as a recovery tanker for the last event of the night. Your job was to orbit overhead and be prepared to offer emergency gas to the planes that were coming down to land in the event they boltered (missed all the wires) or were waved off. During Blue-Water ops, when we operated beyond the range of possibility to divert to a land-based runway, it was particularly challenging and a massive responsibility. Carrier-based jets are fuel-critical from the moment we start our engines. When we fly far enough out to sea where calling ‘uncle’ and landing on a runway isn’t possible, every ounce of gas becomes precious. Once the night missions are complete and it's time to land, the jets have enough gas for maybe two attempts to catch a wire. Throw in some weather, a pitching deck, a dark night and the knowledge that you either are landing safely on the ship, or ejecting into the frigid ocean, a pilot can get so tense that they practically suck the seat cushion up their butt. Everyone I know has had a ‘night-in-the-barrel,' a night where they had difficulty beyond normal catching a wire. And after every miss, the tension became more intense. You knew that five-thousand people were watching your every failed attempt, including your peers, your CO, the Skipper of the ship, and most likely the Strike-Group Admiral. As the recovery tanker you were the last line of hope for a strung-out pilot who had already failed to land a few times. His, or her, nerves were surely shattered and confidence was in their boots. On the last pass before the troubled plane would need to refuel, the recovery tanker would drop down to shadow, or ‘hawk,’ the jet. You would have to maneuver yourself to time it perfectly so that if the jet failed to land once again you would be just in front of them at 2,000 feet. Then that shaky, panicky pilot could spot you immediately as they cleaned up and climbed to your altitude right behind you. Then they would have to perform an activity just slightly less challenging than landing on a carrier at night, they would have to plug their refueling probe into a basket dangling into the slipstream fifty feet behind the tanker at night, maybe in bad weather, at 2,000 feet. Or, they were going swimming. And the reward for a successful plug and refuel was another look at the boat. Yay. I know a guy who had to go around so many times he plugged the hawking tanker three times. After he finally landed, he was so wrung out he had to be helped from the cockpit. And after all the drama was complete for the night, the recovery tanker had to come in and land. And there was no one hawking you with extra gas if you couldn’t make it aboard. I didn’t love flying tanker missions and thankfully I didn’t have to fly many, but the yo-yo, and especially the recovery tanker missions were always gratifying. "

From what I have read the F-14B was done first because that's the variant they had most data on and it had a larger community of former Tomcat pilots/RIOs available to help as consultants on the project. It is interesting to know that DCS always tries to consult with former pilots to get their input to make the module as realistic as possible. Which makes me a little more concerned about doing older aircraft because their respective communities of former pilots dwindle as time passes.

Your best hopes for a recovery tanker will be the A-6 Intruder fitted with the buddy pod or better yet the KA-6D tanker variant. Heatbur has already made this statement regarding the tanker variant: "The short answer to this is that we want to - but until we know more, we can't commit just yet. It's possible we might do some kind of "pseudo" implementation; where it's really an A-6 except in exterior shape alone, as a stop-gap. We'll keep you in the loop!"

I agree with Rick50, the best hope the B-52 has in coming to DCS in the near future is as a community mod. That way development can start right away without the need of a license and it can slowly be improved over time depending on the available data. If that does not sit well with anyone then they can simply start their own 3rd party, acquire the funding, data and licensees and go through all the work required to be approved by ED to become an official DCS module.

I recently read a good article of a former A-6 pilot where he tells of his experience in flying tanker hops. After reading it made me realize just how useful it would be to have this capability in DCS. There would definitely be a need in just flying recovery tanker missions for those coming back from long missions that are already low in fuel and have made several failed landing attempts. lol https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/27604/confessions-of-an-a-6-intruder-pilot Most of my career was spent operating in the Persian Gulf where we had ample Air Force tanker support, but I flew a handful of tanker hops where we would strap four 2,000-pound drop-tanks and a centerline mounted D-704 refueling-pod, which aside from containing the retracting hose and basket, held another 2,000-pounds of gas. The most fun tanker hops were the daytime yo-yo missions where you would launch before the fighters and strikers, meet them a couple hundred miles from the carrier along their strike route, give them almost all of your gas (18,000-20,000 pounds of give!) and then race back to the carrier for a solo shit-hot break. The most rewarding tanker hops were when you were assigned as a recovery tanker for the last event of the night. Your job was to orbit overhead and be prepared to offer emergency gas to the planes that were coming down to land in the event they boltered (missed all the wires) or were waved off. During Blue-Water ops, when we operated beyond the range of possibility to divert to a land-based runway, it was particularly challenging and a massive responsibility. Carrier-based jets are fuel-critical from the moment we start our engines. When we fly far enough out to sea where calling ‘uncle’ and landing on a runway isn’t possible, every ounce of gas becomes precious. Once the night missions are complete and it's time to land, the jets have enough gas for maybe two attempts to catch a wire. Throw in some weather, a pitching deck, a dark night and the knowledge that you either are landing safely on the ship, or ejecting into the frigid ocean, a pilot can get so tense that they practically suck the seat cushion up their butt. Everyone I know has had a ‘night-in-the-barrel,' a night where they had difficulty beyond normal catching a wire. And after every miss, the tension became more intense. You knew that five-thousand people were watching your every failed attempt, including your peers, your CO, the Skipper of the ship, and most likely the Strike-Group Admiral. As the recovery tanker you were the last line of hope for a strung-out pilot who had already failed to land a few times. His, or her, nerves were surely shattered and confidence was in their boots. On the last pass before the troubled plane would need to refuel, the recovery tanker would drop down to shadow, or ‘hawk,’ the jet. You would have to maneuver yourself to time it perfectly so that if the jet failed to land once again you would be just in front of them at 2,000 feet. Then that shaky, panicky pilot could spot you immediately as they cleaned up and climbed to your altitude right behind you. Then they would have to perform an activity just slightly less challenging than landing on a carrier at night, they would have to plug their refueling probe into a basket dangling into the slipstream fifty feet behind the tanker at night, maybe in bad weather, at 2,000 feet. Or, they were going swimming. And the reward for a successful plug and refuel was another look at the boat. Yay. I know a guy who had to go around so many times he plugged the hawking tanker three times. After he finally landed, he was so wrung out he had to be helped from the cockpit. And after all the drama was complete for the night, the recovery tanker had to come in and land. And there was no one hawking you with extra gas if you couldn’t make it aboard. I didn’t love flying tanker missions and thankfully I didn’t have to fly many, but the yo-yo, and especially the recovery tanker missions were always gratifying.

Let me reiterate an important factor I had mentioned earlier. "That way ED is provided with all the necessary data and licenses required to make a full fidelity simulation of the Rafael. " You completely overlooked one very important factor that I mentioned that is very necessary before any company can even consider developing a high fidelity simulation for profit. And that is a LICENSE. If ED or any 3rd party does not acquire a license they can be sued by the entity that owns the rights to said aircraft. Even in old racing games like Grand Turismo for playstaion they could never feature Porsche cars because Porsche would not grant them a license. So the developer got around it by getting a license from RUFF to feature the Porsche models RUFF had modified and sold under the RUFF brand. I am pretty sure True grit had already acquired all of the necessary licensees before they even started work on development of the Euro Fighter to be given the approval by ED. Heatblur just recently merged with True grit to continue the development together. Even Heatblur had its A-6 Intruder full fidelity module project on hold for a while pending they be granted a license to be able to proceed even though they already had enough data.

First and foremost you have to take into consideration that the Rafael is still in active service and it would definitely have a lots of its systems and weapons classified. The only way you can hope for a Rafael coming to DCS in the near future is for Frances air force to contract ED to make them a simulator. That way ED is provided with all the necessary data and licenses required to make a full fidelity simulation of the Rafael. So if you really want it that bad and you can't wait until its retired and declassifed enough to be doable I recommend learning some french so you can make some calls to sell some french officials to contract ED for the job.

It does not even have to be simplified to that extent. Most early jets like the F-86 Sabre are already simple to operate as a full fidelity module. The Saber is so simple to learn that once you learn how to operate it you can pretty much figure it out after not flying it in a long time.

I would agree but the list is mostly based on newer variant modules that are already available or in confirmed development like the F-8. It would be great to start off with the F-4A but we already know the big discontent that would cause.

This is also the reason why a map of Taiwan would be controversial.

This has been thee best idea suggestion I have heard of in relation to this topic. This would be the best method to further support ED and their efforts for those affluent aficionados without affecting DCS's current business model.

As others have already stated already the H-60L would be the most ideal and best bet candidate to be stimulated. Plus it would be cool to see it opened the door later on for the S-70 Firehawk which is based the H-60L if firefighting ever becomes a thing in the future.

I know everyone has their preference of F-4 variants for various reasons. How ever the variants I am mostly interested in are the ones that saw the most action in Vietnam as that is thee conflict that the Phantom saw the most action in. Here is an interesting chart that does a good job of putting into perspective which variants had the most kills in Vietnam.

If you were to really think about it, those big civy sims including the newest one that is all the rave right now that maps the earth is simply not able to implement any type of missions that interact with a ground target. So what would be the point of having an ariel fighter fighting tanker aircraft if all you could do with it in a civil sim is fly it around from airstrip to airstrip because the sim does not even have simulated bodies of water to interact with for water landings much less scoping up water. Hence the reason why DCS would be ideal for fire fighting combat missions for such an aircraft. DCS could even test the waters in this market with minimal investment by just making a firefighting variant of the Heuy by simply equipping it with a water bucket and new skin.

The CL-415 would be considered more along the lines of a medium bomber aircraft like a B-25 Mitchell. It only has twin engines and pilot and co-pilot muticrew. Heavies would be considered anything larger, with more engines and and a crew of 3+. And besides this is more to get the attention of other would be 3rd parties that might take an interest in it. ED would just have to implement the necessary coding once such aircraft is announced for development.