Victory205

It’s going to be tweaked. Everyone must be patient (including me) and understand that the team is busy creating reams of RCS (Really Cool Stuff) at the moment. The buffeting (not shaking, you aren’t watching a horror film) will provide nuanced feedback in due course, just like the real aircraft.

If your body scan is ever implemented, first thing I’m gonna do is press the <Backspace> key and watch you wince.

So this means glovevanes, right?

You shouldn’t be getting “pissed off” about a game/simulation at all.

It's a myth that only thrust asymmetry due to engine stalls cause flat spins. VF201 lost an aircraft and RIO to a flat spin, as just one example, with both engines running just fine. I am not familiar with how the DFCS was flown or it's idiosyncrasies, but I doubt if I'd have made asymmetric thrust inputs at high alpha a matter of routine. It isn't necessary give the massive pitch rate available. Plenty of notes about what causes departures in NATOPS. The current flight model recovers from spins using the NATOPS procedure. You'll find that going through the steps in order, works about the time you program in aft stick. The nose will begin to pitch, and when it pitches nose down 20-30 degrees, the airspeed will break (increase rapidly), and you can neutralize controls and recover from the dive at 17 units. It takes awhile and a bit of altitude, and in the real world, the pilot would never be able to hold full control inputs at -6.5 eyeball out G. An easy way to set up a flat spin is to simply slow to a reasonable speed, say less than 200 knots, and input and hold full cross controls with full aft stick. Starting in a nose up deceleration helps expedite spin entry. Don't throw up in the cockpit.

Kidding aside (you all should still get into shape for simple health reasons, start today), a pilot body wearing an SV2 vest (added four or five inches in some places, especially when carry a handgun and ammo) and gear gets in the way of a lot of switches. The F14 cockpit was roomy for a fighter (I'm 6'3", and could move my elbows outboard about two inches and touch the canopy rails), but you were still constantly having to move an arm, elbow, hand, leg etc to see switches and or CB's, so I'm not sure how that would translate to TrackIR or VR players. Good chance, like the control stick, that a lot of folks will turn it off after the novelty wears off. The bloke who said he wouldn't buy the module due to a lack of a pilot body? Even for a child, it's beyond silly, look at what you are missing. While I've not tried VR, there is something a little unrealistic about the cockpit view in all desktop flight sims. I'm not sure if it is due to eye position or the lack of stereoscopic vision (VR users, please chime in). Seeing the HSD around the F14 stick wan't a big deal, but it is in the sim. The canopy bow and windshield frame is nothing in real life, but since it is always in focus from a single eye reference, it is in the sim. Take note the next time you drive you car, the window pillars don't intrude like they do on a screen. Focus on this dot on your screen. Back up a few feet, then hold your thumb up at arms length directly over the dot. Can you still see the dot? The same thing that happens to your thumb, happens to the windscreen structure. My view is that while you say you want immersion, you really don't, not all the way, because you don't know what that entails. You can't really move your head under max G, you can move your eyes to see maybe 20-30º, but you aren't going to change sides with the alacrity of a one G head tracking device. You aren't going to make delicate switch changes, and most of you (since you admit to being flabby pools of blubber), are going to gray out at 5G's sustained, get tunnel vision at 6, and become tired after about 180 degrees of turn and take the aircraft vertical to get rid of some of the G (we had a big talking little guy in our squadron that couldn't handle 6 G's for more than a few seconds, he'd always go vertical at the pass, easy kill). The O2 mask isn't going to pull down even with the tip of your nose, pulling your helmet down with it, so you can't see as far in the vertical plane. All of the flight sims that I've sampled make it seem like the pilot isn't wearing a helmet at all (which would be nice in real life, if there was a way to keep an O2 mask in place or increase the pressurization). Give me a Bose A20 and Google (or better yet, Apple) Glasses for HMCS any day. If you manage to depart, and spin, your face isn't going to be against the top of the stick, with your head next to the ACM panel, and you can get full control throw, which isn't realistic at all. You can easily recover from a flat spin using proper controls in the sim, where you couldn't in the aircraft. Don't believe the BS artists on that accord. Oh, and get rid of that comfy gaming chair you spent $600 on. Sit on a plywood board...with nails that begin to stick up after an hour and a half. That's immersion.

Yes, we were limited to a single 360 roll with further limitations based on external stores and or fuel in the drops. The Blue Angels used zero G rolls to mitigate the adverse yaw that ExA4K mentioned. It was instantly evident, in that you'd feel light in your seat during a max rate roll, the inertial coupling/dumbbell effect was there too. Concur, half slats on speed. I dig my notes out of the safe tomorrow if possible. I haven't observed the slats deploy at all in the sim, but only have had one go at it. I may have fouled something up in settings or installation, so haven't looked a high alpha maneuvering yet.

The T wasn't restricted in roll. I have a video around here of a max rate roll and it's staggering. About the time you hit the lateral stop, you have to instantly remove the input to stop at one rotation. It's on VHS, however. I've managed to find the notebook I made for every aircraft that I flew for the A4, but haven't looked closely at it in years. I also gave the "flight characteristics lecture" for students, which got me involved in handling evaluations and discussions for decades. Again, I only flew the longer, heaver TA-4J, which is why I was asking the K driver about the single seater. You might be amazed at how pilots much forget about the nuances with the passage of time. They just naturally compensated for pitching and so forth, and aren't able to articulate what the aircraft was doing based on certain inputs. One thing that you have pretty close is the nose strut compression with braking inputs. The longer T would bounce up and down foot or two during taxi. I'd rather wrestle a rabid alligator in a pool of radioactive quicksand than log into discord.

Heatblur originally scanned my body as a model for the virtual pilot. The model was all ready to go, and then they realized that rendering my tall, fit, handsome, immaculate countenance would ruin "immersion" for all of the short, flabby, pear bodied players out there who might be triggered or distracted by such an unobtainable fighter pilot likeness. AFAIK, the plan is to wait six months so you can all to sign up for a workout program at your local gym, lift weights, run, get fit, buy a new wardrobe, get a squared away military haircut, shave (keep the mustache), take a shower (regularly this time), and then release the pilot body so you don't feel "inadequate". Of course you won't have time to play the sim because you'll be too busy juggling with all of the new babes that are hanging all over you...

I have just under a thousand hours in the TA-4J, most of them as an instructor, I taught FAM, Instruments, Formation, Tactical Formation, and ACM (BFM), no Air to Ground. The T was a bit nose heavy compared to the single seat versions, but I find the module quite pitchy longitudinally, especially changes in pitch moment with power application. Did you find that the single seaters pitched up with increase thrust and vice versa? The T would simply hold attitude and needed to be helped by the pilot to stay on speed. On a wave off/missed approach for instance, the pilot had to pull the nose up, or the aircraft would just accelerate and go faster at the ground. Was that different in the single seat models as depicted in the sim? You flew both, correct? Any thoughts on the differences between the two? Same thoughts on roll inertia. Roll acceleration was quick, but it wasn't instantaneous, and required a slight opposite stick input to stop the roll. The aircraft was rolled with rudder at high alpha. Rudder inputs in the module seem to induce yaw only at high alpha. One interesting aspect of the slats is that during a cat shot, they would slam shut due to simple inertia during the acceleration. At the end of the stroke, there would be a moment of buffet until the slats had time to extend aerodynamically. Referencing slats and buffet. I've only flown the module for an hour, and didn't see the slats extend at all, resulting in massive buffet. I need to sort the slat behavior out before further comment.

DLC was an answer to the float caused by relatively straight wings interacting with the aerodynamics behind the ship. Would have likely been needed no matter what engine was mated to the airframe. S3's had it, A6 pilots on occasion would do a quick set of lateral stick inputs to pop the spoilers and kill lift over the ramp. You can do that, or at least be aware of the loss of lift in the F14 when making lineup corrections. Not in DCS. Try to lead a horse to water and ten people will complain that the horse is the wrong color, and is "broken, nerfed, borked or tanked" because it won't run as fast or as far as they read on Wikipedia. They'll demand that it be changed immediately to make it easier to ride, and to enhance "immersion".

Very good, did you try removing the tanks only, leaving only the original missile load out, and noting if there is a speed difference at 15 units AOA? Same process, but add fuel to put the gross at 54K again. Any change in speed?

Mil power only in the wires, you can't make the ship go any faster. The problem, and there is a nice treatise in NATOPS about much of this, is the time for the TF30 burners to light. You can actually lose thrust for a moment as the cans open before light off. At landing weights, it isn't much of an issue as the max weight would be 54,000 lbs. Every CQ prior to a line period would involve a "day emergency" period (all other FCLP was almost exclusively performed at night). The emergency period involved SE passes with a throttle at idle at 14 units, no SB/DLC (combined failure), etc. The aircraft climbed fine single engine. We did SE wave offs, and were supposed to push up both engines before rotating on a SE FCLP pass, but on occasion one could try an SE touch and go and it wasn't an issue. F14 pilots were pretty aware and adept at using rudders. The problem of course, would be if a pilot let a high descent rate condition develop, that's where burner is required, but if SE the aircraft should be at 14 units with a little margin. Losing an engine on takeoff in burner was a controllability issue more than a sink rate issue, as long as AOA was managed by proper rotation off the cat. Raising the landing gear closed the MCB's and gained thrust, which was in the procedure. You may have noticed that the AOA shifts both index and tape to 17 units during test. Early on, to make the Navy approach speed specs, the aircraft was going to approach and land at 17 units, with the AOA reference shifting either when gear or full flaps was selected (I don't remember which). That would have killed a lot of ventral fins and burner cans to be sure, and it was scrapped with more WOD required and so forth. You may see the 17 unit reference in old docs from time to time. Same thing with gross weights. The original max trap was 51.8, which was raised in the mid eighties, making life a lot easier. The max TO weight kept increasing, far beyond what I saw in order to accommodate the bombing mission primarily. Again, more WOD for launch and recovery was mandated to help offset the increases, but the energy addition and dissipation still increased on the AG and CAT.

Thanks sLYFa, that's looks like what I'm seeing. The configurations that I used obscured which stores contributed to the phenomenon, but based on your work and my notes, it looks like investigating tank dynamics is in order. Seems like the power required correlates also. Both, but I was looking at other aspects of the FM and noticed this as an adjunct of that testing. I will set aside time to look at it as soon as possible. The tanks are going to be empty as a facet of carrier landing. What I initially surmised was that only fuel state might have been determining approach speed, not missiles, but it appears to be more complex than that.

Did anyone try flying with empty fuel tanks? Do the approach numbers still make sense? I’ve been flying for weeks in the landing config in order to tune other parameters. While flying at a constant weight, often max trap, In certain load outs, I’m getting strange approach speeds that don’t make sense. Adjusting fuel loads to put the aircraft at a constant weight results in varying speeds at 15 units AOA. It’s confirmed by other factors like stab angle and power required. Been away for a few days and haven’t been able to evaluate what might be causing it.

It was bad during daylight in the airplane too, but you could use your hand to shade the lights.

You've swerved into something, have a look at a couple of configurations that represent the spectrum of the load outs. Should be obvious that I tend to favor "teach a man to fish" over "give a man a fish" approach. The autothrottle limitation for new pilots seems to be a direct example of wise leaders ensuring that nuggets don't become dependent upon them. There were no such prohibitions that I recall on the F14, but few people used auto throttles beyond using them while downwind while they needed to divert attention to do something else. It was a different technique. The aircraft in DCS will exhibit a long period phugoid in the landing config. It does it with wings fixed as well, more evident when they are forward than aft, which is a natural aircraft response- even an airliner on altitude hold exhibits it as evidenced by the speed cycling. This phenomenon can make the speed vary during these tests. Just get it as close as possible and average the mean. Trim for most flying a sim means trimming while readjusting the stick location back to a neutral position. Trimming in an aircraft means reducing force by feel, while keeping the stick in the current position. It's a different technique to get to a common, desired result. The aircraft will constantly be experiencing slight displacements that require attention, even more so in the real world with natural turbulence, etc.

That's because moving the wings is a configuration change. How did you overcome the horrifying task of trimming an aircraft. Understand that the F14 constantly requires constant corrections, it's nothing different than any other aircraft, including FBW. I haven't spent much time in the T45 and don't have the A4, so can't comment on whether they provide positive training, but I get a sense that a lot of folks jump into the complex modules without spending time flying basics, holding altitude, turns, simple configuration changes, etc, without attempting to understand what is transpiring or how to anticipate. Simply turning off the HUD in the F14 and learning to perform the aforementioned tasks will help you understand what's going on, pitch attitudes and power required. I noticed that the gent doing the AOA vs Speed turned on the autothrottles (I think) to obtain his data, which speaks volumes. Almost all pilots I knew ensured that they would first be proficient without aids, because those aids wouldn't be available when it mattered most. That you can do it at all is astonishing. The Heatblur gang has a group that impressed me with their ability to get around the ship. My hat's off to the folks who spend the time and energy to get it right.

Wait, are you telling me that players that ignore G and speed limits observe max trap weights? Color, I mean, colour me gobsmacked! Do you realize that HM and EM diagrams generally ignore other limits? The NATOPS G limit occurs at 49,548 (IIRC) pounds. Rolling G starts at 5.2G's, yet look at the conditional weights on the charts. Are you all observing those when complaining about how .2 G's or 2000lbs are ruining your ability to fight? How about "Peacetime" and "Wartime" limits? Those are oft referenced, sometimes by pilots. Where are the references for those? Some pilot's offhanded comment on Youtube? All of the "this airplane is better than that airplane because I know a real pilot (yeah, right, more likely you read a comment online)" who said he beat this or that is nonsense and a waste of time. I get questions like this all the time from someone who wants ammunition to settle an argument. So while you are keenly focused on rails, still no feedback on the missile weights?

Missiles?

It doesn't matter. Sometimes it's useful to step back and convey a sense of perspective on much of this. The turn rate pedanatry (all over the DCS forums, not just here) emanates from the unfamiliarity with what is important, and what isn't. Aircraft within a flight get airborne off of a ship with fuel loads that differ by more than what you are concerned about, depending upon when the started, how long they were in burner on the cat, etc. Really nothing to worry about. A pilot's ability to maneuver efficiently far, far offsets the weights that you are referencing. Again, if you really want to learn, then select the same aircraft with the same configuration and go fight. It's never "fair", you end up fighting with what you have when a threat arrives. The nature of a sim will never replicate the real world.

You shouldn't be bugging anyone over ~500 notional pounds in a flight simulator. Load some missiles, do the same evaluation, see if the fake weight of the rails still bothers you. Are your empty weights close to what is displayed in the ME?

My understanding is that DCS controls the weapons weights. Try a couple of runs with missiles, see if the mission editor ordnance weights correlate. Pretty close -

One item that I’d highlight is that the AOA vs Speed chart is from 1976, the new DLC that is modeled in the sim hadn’t been “invented” yet and wasn’t in use. The F14B NATOPS number would be accurate in absolute terms, but the relative difference is still useful. It gets even more interesting when you add missiles…

You can determine weight by flying on speed in the landing configuration with various fuel levels, weapons load outs and weight set using the mission editor. Compare with the speed vs AOA chart in NATOPS, ensure that you are using the correct DLC state. The results might be interesting.