KiraTheCat

"The bad news is it's a one wire, but the good news is... we're the only ones who are going to get a no grade!" Sure, Jester. Sure.

In sailing, a telltail is a piece of string or yarn hung from the boom to give you an indication of where very light winds are coming from. Some sailboats also have these built into the sails to show you how the air is acting at different points on the sail, greatly facilitating proper trimming of the sails. The same is used in wind tunnels to test wing designs, showing how the air is behaving on the wing's surface. Old WWI aircraft had them as well. But modern aircraft? I would think that at any considerable speed, boundary layer air would negate the usefulness. Case in point, a commercial pilot acquaintance of mine once told of a fly on the nose of his light twin who stayed fixed there throughout the flight, only flying off when they slowed to taxi speed at their destination. It was boundary layer air that held him there. At 2:52, this is shown on the nose, just forward of the windscreen on the F-14. Movie BS, or reality? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68LWuahFmmw&feature=emb_rel_pause

Do you mean the armoured canopy that retracts into the deck between the catapults? If so, someone else will have to answer. Are you rather referring to the 'burble', ie the mass of air disturbed by the island (the carrier's superstructure) that you must fly through on short final to the carrier? If so, that's just part of carrier aviation.

I've looked, and what I've found is different from what others' have shown on Youtube. Specifically, I'm in the D/L category on the CAP dial. Second option from the back on the left is 'TID AVIA', as they also show in the videos. On the right however, is not 'AVIA ACLS' opposite 'TID AVIA', but rather 'Chaff Count'. Everything else on that drum appears as it does in the videos. So what am I missing? I get the vague feeling of something having not updated on my copy of the sim that should have. That 'Chaff Count' never got changed to 'AVIA ACLS'. I'm probably just missing some switch position that got missed. Thanks much! Specific video I was referring to, at 1:12:

Two types of fight, the turn fight and the energy fight. Turn fights are usually only done by small, lightweight aircraft, while energy fighting can be done by any aircraft. Either can dominate the fight if you sucker the other guy into fighting the way you chose. It helps immensely in an either type of fight to have some minimum speed you won't go below. I would be willing to bet that not having a minimum speed is your main problem, as you're likely stalling the jet. Especially in an energy fight, it's easy to lose your concentration and find yourself pulling into someone, not realizing that you're hemorrhaging energy and piling on drag. Probably way too advanced for you right now, but a title to keep in mind is Aerial Attack Study by Col. John Boyd. The man was a great aerial and otherwise tactician, known as 40 Second Boyd. He could start out ahead of an opponent, and in 40 seconds from the "Fight's On!" call, he'd be on their tail. The guy knew his stuff.

Personally, I figure that if I have half fuel, my wingman desperately needs a tanker. Sure would be nice if they could come up with a way to ask your flight about their fuel state over the radio. I seem to recall that there is a 'Restrict Afterburner' setting when setting up aircraft in the Mission Editor. I don't know if it works, and of course it doesn't do you any good if you don't build the mission yourself. I also can't believe that this issue wasn't considered in the beginning, as I've had way older sims where the wingmen not only used BINGO but also JOKER fuel calls (Jane's Fighters Anthology to be exact). Joker is "Hey, we need to think about disengaging, I'm getting a little low." as opposed to the "We need to leave right now!" that the BINGO call means.

I recall reading somewhere that a lot of guys didn't use the landing setting (except for ACLS, when they had to) as the velocity vector was too slow in responding. Same sources stated using the cruise setting on the HUD for landing.

That is not a visual artifact, it is indeed just the missile rails loaded without missiles. In order to unload them, you'd click that hardpoint and select 'clean' or somesuch. After that, the station will show an 'X' through it on the loadout screen. Usually, just the forward two rails are mounted without missiles for some reason, while the rear two don't have the rails mounted. I suppose they flew like this often for two reasons. 1. Ease of mounting the missiles, should they be needed in a hurry. 2. AIM-54s were heavy and a full load of four (or, especially, six) would be taxing the jet's capabilities, even on the A+/B. In order to have a completely "clean" jet guaranteed, you'd have to have all four center stations displaying that 'X'. Personally, I made a new configuration, called it "CLEAN", and made those four 'X's so that there's nothing hanging underneath. Be sure to check out different types of mission profiles, as I'm pretty sure that a clean configuration is already available. You won't find it in the default profile, though. (As I recall, that's the Air-to-Air profile.)

Any way to add a radio menu option to ask the AI about their current fuel state? Just as nice would be some kind of audio warning (radio call) when they hit certain fuel states. I'm thinking like the old 'JANE'S USN '97' wingmen would call out 'Joker fuel', and then later 'Bingo fuel'. These are real radio calls, the first being "We're getting low on fuel, and we need to think about disengaging", the second "We need to head back to the ship right now if we don't want to be swimming home."

Treat them like cars with no fuel gauge - and tankers like bathrooms. Translation: Always figure they're about to run out of gas, and never - ever - pass up a chance to hit the tanker (or at least send them to do so.) Another possibility: Since your wingman flamed out when you had 6,000lbs, figure on sending them to the tanker when you have 10,000lbs? 4,000 should be enough (HA!). Is there anyway to get them to launch Phoenixes while still staying in formation with you? I'd think that might work as a work around for their problem of going charging off in full AB.

There's a handle in the back seat to select weather the RIO ejects just himself, or pilot as well when the RIO pulls his handle. At startup, the selector is on 'Pilot', meaning the pilot has command of his seat, and will not be ejected if the RIO ejects. Two ways to change that to "Eject Both" (NOTE: The AI's not stellar in this regard. I've decided against allowing AI RIO seat control after getting kicked out of perfectly good airplanes by Jester more than once.): 1. In the Jester Menu ('A' key), select any hashed area to bring up the next menu, upper left ( 8 ) "Crew Contract", Right (3) "Set Eject Both" 2. In the back seat, on the left (press '2' to get there, and '1' again to return to the pilot's seat). just below the canopy rail is a large yellow and black striped round "tubular" handle, angled almost horizontally, say 75ish degrees. To the left of it is labeled 'EJECT CMD'. Slid forward (toward 'Pilot'), the pilot will have to eject himself (ejection command for the front seat given from the front seat). Slid backward (toward 'MCO'), if the RIO ejects, both will be ejected (ejection command for the front seat given from the back seat).

Glim Glam? Really? I wonder who'll get that reference?

Being a 70's aircraft, I'm sure the F-14 didn't have fly by wire, which would seem to indicate that the stick had some resistance to it, most likely directly dependent on speed. Was this the case and if so, how difficult was it to move the stick at various speeds? I ask because I have a Thrustmaster Warthog, and I got tired of wearing my arm out pushing against that godawful spring, so I took it out. Without that beast of a spring, the four lightweight springs make the thing practically feel fly by wire-esque. Doesn't seem to help my formation flying any, but at least I'm not getting tired while wandering all over the sky!

It would be rather nice if he'd give a reminder when you hit your set bingo fuel state. I'm not sure how that would be implemented, but he's got a readout right there in front of him, so it's not like he wouldn't know fuel state.

You're comfortable with only 1-2 around the boat? I'm not 100% sure, but in landing configuration, I figure on around 800lbs total burn per pass. I'm probably rather off, but I don't like to do my first pass with anything under 2000lbs in the tanks.