Victory205

Yes, September of ‘72 I believe, two 19’s using AIM9’s. While flying F4’s, did you get a chance to turn with any Tornados, perchance?

Agree! A lot of gadget freaks today that love to play with buttons. Getting the parameters correct for an accurate hit while Manual bombing is more interesting than CCIP in my view. LGB, Lantirn etc just isn’t that appealing in a game. Real world to get a mission complete, save the good guys and erase the bad guys? Absolutely!

I am referencing the F14 high alpha characteristics. All of the fourth gen non-fbw swept winged aircraft are similar in terms of adverse yaw with lateral stick inputs as alpha increases. The A4 was similar to the F4 and F14 and A7, etc. They differ in amplitude and things like buffet onset, etc, as well as departure characteristics and recovery inputs. The F4 should be a blast to fly.

I used to brace my elbows against the canopy rails to ensure that the stick was centered when possible. Do you own the Heatblur F14 module? What you describe about adverse yaw/roll is modeled in the F14. It’s a little less immediate that it was in the aircraft, but it’s there. I’m confident that they will get it into the F4 Flight Model as well. It will be challenging to get the nose slice and departure characteristics replicated though. I do hope that they refrain from providing AIM9L’s and restrict the F4 to older Aim9’s that will set up fights against threat platforms with Atolls. Having to maneuver to the rear quarter will make the Phantom experience far more interesting. The so called “rate fight” junkies are going to learn what real vertical maneuvering and rudder reversals are about.

Part of Bright Star. We were supposed to fight a pair of 21’s, and 19’s showed up, the only one’s we saw. The video is kind of funny when I realized that they were 19’s, but too large to upload. It turned into a fun conversation point at Red Flag later, when my section got into trouble and had to see the Red Flag Commander (Col John Madden) after the mass debrief. The Col had two Mig 19 kills in Viet Nam. Col Madden had a painting of his kills on the wall behind him when we reported for our discipline. I saw the Mig 19, and I used our engagement (same pilots as over Egypt) to change the subject. He was very, very cool to us, and understood that the Navy operated a bit differently than the USAF. His calling us out in the mass debrief was to send a message, he wasn’t actually mad. Our “chewing out” turned into a long fighter pilot bull session about Mig 19’s, the F4, and his experiences in Viet Nam while the next crew awaiting a tongue lashing waited outside his office. What those guys went through is worthy of our respect. I’ve also fought 21’s, 23’s and 27’s both 1v1 and as part of mass exercises (21’s). The Egyptian Mig 21’s didn’t maneuver hard, just arced around at about 4 G’s for some reason, but that burner, it seemed to be as long as the fuselage!

LOL, that’s funny (and true)!

What? The Navy didn’t fly B25’s! If you are going to project yourself as a superior, too good for the Air Force Naval Aviation Diva, shouldn’t he at least know that it’s called a PBJ? ”Fighter Pilot”, by Christina Olds is a worthwhile read. Amazing leader.

There are very good reasons to start with the E version, and yes, there will be a J. The devs have their own aircraft carrier and love working around the boat. They do a great job too. I bleed blue and gold, and I’ll be pre-ordering the F4E as soon as it’s available. The history of USAF Phantoms during Viet Nam make it more than worthwhile, and I already have a Robin Olds legacy mustache.

The engine wouldn’t fail based on airsource selection during IFR. It was switched to the left engine to prevent fuel ingestion into the cockpit during disconnect or a basket problem. If there was a catastrophic failure, ingesting basket or IFR door parts was the concern. A massive amount of fuel might stall the engine or worse, but airsource wouldn’t make a much of difference with respect to the engine function in those conditions. Not sure about the avionics or AWG9 overheat modeling, the gun function is modeled correctly AFAIK.

A crew isn't going to "forget" the Airsource. It's obvious when it's off, the crew will be uncomfortable in short order. As to gamers turning off Airsource for performance reasons, that's another kettle of fish that I'm not going to waste time on. The avionics overheat, the weapons system cooling goes south, the gun doesn't work, etc, etc.

Not a chronic issue, but a concern. Anytime there is a failure in 400ºC bleed air, things could get sporting. At least one F14 was lost in a bleed duct failure of unknown origin (maintenance error or pure failure), but a bleed light in any jet aircraft was an immediate action item and something to take seriously.

The ECS put out such a high (loud) volume of air that assuming that the cockpit temp was set reasonably, the canopy didn't fog in flight. Might get into an aircraft on deck that had moisture on the glass, but once the engines were started and airsource was on, that was all gone forthwith. The center windscreen panel would occasionally pick up external ice, but windshield heat removed it in a few seconds. Sometimes the ECS would put out a blueish haze when at very high mach numbers, other than that, there isn't much to say. The ECS made conditions pretty comfortable overall.

"...two early AWG-9 F-14A's can data buddy together pincer spread and pick up an F5E size target at 160-180 miles IN THE NOTCH at Co alt or Below. " Uh, no. Not in a million years. I stay out of these missile discussions, precisely because actual weapons performance strengths and limitations are none of your business, and there isn't enough data available to model any missile in DCS accurately. Everyone is wrong, the people who think whatever missile is "nerfed" or over performs are basing it on information that is extrapolated from what are snippets of the true picture. Most accusations seem to be based on changes to previous behavior from players who don't have a clue either way. No one has access to the true RCS characteristics of the targets involved (see F5E reference above), nor has anyone provided a detailed description on how or if it is modeled in DCS. I've been on multiple missile shoots with telemetry data capture, and the full data was not shared with us. We might get intercept distance to confirm warhead Pk, but not the trajectory or behavior, especially in ECCM scenarios. Knew a bunch of guys that worked at VX4 and shot dozens of radar missiles, including receiving constant updates and briefings on all facets of the weapons system. So we did get extensive feedback on employment based on the compiled data, and were briefed on and viewed tactical shots, including ACM. Let's just say, the amount of embellished bull<profanity> that I've read about missiles on DCS, on both sides of the performance argument, and even from YouTuber who for some reason, just can't help themselves from lying, could fill a fleet of double bottomed supertankers. You are going to have to accept that weapons performance is an educated guess on DCS. Feel free to PM me your buddie's name. If it's someone who answered you in a chat, or you saw it in a forum, don't bother.

I'm sure that it was something like that, with GD working a sweet deal in exchange for something down the line so they wouldn't have to eat the jets, or the money would have never been spent by NavAir. The F16's were on the way when I was at Miramar, and the buzz about them permeated the squadron. A lot of funding during that time frame was soaked up by the push for a 600 ship Navy to counter what turned out to be an "overestimation" of the Soviet Naval threat. That includes standing up (and cancelling) the fifteen carrier air wing for the aviation side. It's an oversimplification, but the mindset was quantity over quality. Some amazing weapons systems were deployed on the surface fleet though.

Exactly (very old joke that was on weapons tests from time to time). I would imagine that pointing the IRST at the sun was prohibited, but I'm sure it had the same detection range as the AIM9. I don't recall trying on other celestial bodies. I'm with Bio, we hit the Navy at the same time. As he described, it was frustratingly sad to see how long it took to get upgrades to the Fleet. He did a twenty year career, was a squadron CO and was never in a B squadron AFAIK. Even in the early 1980's, the community was hopeful that it would get AMRAAM when that missile eventually deployed. Never happened. At one point, the F14D was supposed to replace the entire F14A fleet. Never happened. The B's and D's both contained large numbers of remanufactured A's. Navy adversary squadrons got brand new F16's that weren't combat capable before the F14 fleet deployed with a GE engine. It goes on and on, for a number of insurmountable political and fiduciary reasons, but for the end user that has to take it into harm's way, the lack of upgrades was tough to take. The lack of certain systems bit the Navy in the arse when Desert Storm came out of nowhere. That's the way it works. Guys like Bio put in twenty years of dedicated work, never sees the D, and some new guy fresh out of Training Command gets to fly the new tech.

Are you familiar with the maximum seeker detection range of the AIM9M/L? It's a lot farther than that!

That’s pretty rare, especially off of the ship. It was particularly difficult to do in the F14 since the person in back needed to run OBC, had the IFF and jettison setups. I can count on one hand how many times we did it. Hope he gets to “fly” the Heatblur F4E, someone will figure out a way to hook it up to the Cat.

Are you not familiar with the number of undetonated bombs that hit British ships due to low level lay down deliveries? My recollection is that there were at least six or seven additional ships hit by unexploded 500-1000 lb bombs. When the shooting started down there, I was flying A4’s in weapons phase during Advanced Strike Training in VT7 in the USN. I eventually instructed in it. There was keen interest in the conflict as there were USMC instructors from the A4M community and USN former light attack pilots (A4 and A7). We had a couple of AV8 pilots as well. Just like any other conflict, we were briefed daily, and objectively followed the Falklands operation while it was underway. Lessons learned are passed on and tactics evaluated accordingly. I ended up with just under a thousand hours in the Scooter.

I was flying A4’s at the time, and we were staggered by the bravery of the Argie’s and how many bombs they put into British ships. It was eye opening that the put so many dumb bombs into British ships. Had they had proper fuzing, who knows how it would have turned out. The British Harriers made good use of the AIM9L, developed of course, by the Royal….oh wait, it was designed, tested and deployed by those pesky colonialists. The big takeaway was that it would have been far, far, far cheaper for the RAF to just pay the Argentinian Air Force to to put a crater in their own runway. The Argies would done it of course, and used the funds to procure better fuses and a few more Exocets.

Of course, good chance it was before you were born. Totally over rated piece of junk that spent its entire career flying in airshows- it put one bomb, one single bomb on a deserted runway that didn't matter. Which of course, is why the Brits love it so.

Exactly. The biggest complainers are not making any difference whatsoever as to what comes down the pike from entities that can actually produce content. My theory on removing all complaints from UK based simmers would be to announce The Vulcan. The thundering heard of Englishmen running off to demand all of the models and liveries and serial numbers and bases and weapons would awaken the dead, and the rest of us would finally get some peace and quiet. The last time I visited the RAF Museum up in Colindale, I did notice a scanning crew imaging XL318, but they made us swear to secrecy. I would think that by now, there would have been some sort of announcement though…

I’ll say! Somewhere between 1980 and now, the language changed in the USN from “aircraft” to “jet”. The latter was a USAF term, and came across as a bit condescending in the USN, since pilots who flew props and helicopters performed missions far more dangerous than many USAF “jet” pilots. Landing an SH2 on a frigate in a high sea state after an 18 hour day was orders of magnitude more dangerous than flying a C141 to Manila while carefully observing USAF crew rest limitations. I always got a kick out of the UK “fast jet” moniker, which brought to mind the idea that the RAF at some point in time, spend untold amounts of Royal Treasure in order to purchase “slow jets” for some vague reason. I won’t even get to the bizarre vocabulary that cool flight sim jocks have manufactured. Good grief. Phantom drivers understood the heritage and legacy of their mount, and carried themselves accordingly. The Heatblur Phantom is a welcome addition to a part of aviation history that needs to be highlighted and remembered.

You wound me, sir… I may not recover. Very true in that some accounts from pilots are cartoonish (similar to current cinema) and bombastically shallow. Everyone who earned wings had difficult times at some point, and had to overcome obstacles that came in many forms. The interesting stories include those challenges and frustrations, and how they were overcome. Just noticed that “Phantom over Vietnam” is indeed available on the Kindle Store, at a reasonable price. It’s a nuanced, insightful read. Highly recommended.

Well, despite being written by a “pompous and exaggerating” pilot, this the best account of what it’s like to fly a Phantom, or any tactical jet for that matter, in a nuanced, thoughtful manner. In fact, his description of pilots is spot on, which is at odds with what most of the new generation of “aviation enthusiasts”, who have been skewed by a handful of movies and self promoters on media channels, seem to believe. This exactly captures the simple act of raising the landing gear- ”Gear retraction takes less than three seconds, but the sequence of events is no less intricate than a ballet. It begins with selection of the gear handle to the up position. In military airplanes, the gear handle is a hefty chunk of metal that pilots are taught to move with a vengeance, as if the force itself were important to the success of the operation…” You may have to do a little digging to find an affordable, used copy - “Phantom over Viet Nam”, by Stanford Engineering Graduate, and USMC pilot, John Trotti Edit: Found that the book is available on the Amazon Kindle Store at a very modest price.

So if your anatomical scan is used to fashion the pilot’s body, and someone pushes the Backspace Key in order to hide the stick, what happens?