RaceFuel85

Direct Lift Control, I believe. It was spring loaded with a resting position of retracted.

Pilot: Lock up the left flank, second contact. RIO: Frankenstein never scared me Pilot: Not now, lock him up! RIO: Marsupials do.. Pilot: Spiked, defensive! RIO: Cause they're fast!

How dare you bring rational thought and logic into this!

Oh I know, I was just typing in a hurry. I know a few "hot sticks" in the earlier days of the Tomcat would push the F-14A past 9G's, I believe "Hoser" Satrapa pulled 10.3 and the jet was perfectly fine.

So you're simulating wear and tear? Like..in a single hop..progressive G related failures?

Dave "Bio" Baranek recounts that at 100% fuel (internal, two bags) the F-14 would be G limited to around 5.5 G's, but as the fuel burned down to around 60% internal, the G limit would go up to 6.5. The Tomcat could realistically handle 7+ consistently, it just wasn't officially rated as such.

1:20 in

Lakenheath Eagles gave a good account of VIFFing when doing DACT with RAF Harriers..with new pilots who weren't expecting it the VIFFing was very effective, but once the Eagles saw the signs of VIFFing happening they'd just go vertical and wait until the Harrier was out of energy, convert on them and drill their brains out.

F-16's didn't take nearly the abuse that the Tomcat did and had the benefit of being a very flashy fighter. Where as the Tomcat had the deck stacked against it by having a SecDef at the time who had a grudge against Grumman and decided to kill any future F-14 development and forbid the Navy from going to an all F-14D fleet with upgraded technology.

How many F-16's have landed on a carrier deck 2,500+ times?

Thanks Cobra! If you had to spitball estimate..just how much left is there to do with the Tomcat? I mean, that you're comfortable revealing..

I'll see all of you and raise you a E-3 Sentry with 19 Jesters!

I'm guessing they had the core code and such for Jester done a while ago, now they're adding the details and more Tomcat specific functionality.

You're burying information with this post complaining about non-contributing posts burying information.

Starting at 3:50

You mean the "Tracking, tracking..tracking...KILL the Fulcrum in a right hand turn, at 15,000 feet" clip?

Black Aces High has a good account of a DACT with a VF-41 Alpha cat vs a Luftwaffe MiG-29... I'll see if I can't find it online somewhere.

They were also expecting to be able to release both at the same time. However things change over development..so now the B will be arriving first, with the A following.

I don't think it's fair to expect to get the A for free when buying the B.

Something tells me there's going to be a lot of people who buy this and then make reviews saying "the Tomcat is nice..but..I'm staying with the Hornet as my main module" Mostly because they'll be too lazy to learn how to fight it well or they will lack to patience..or simply because they don't want to deal with it.

Is that the (ex) Cortex Super Hornet mod? If so..when is the anticipated drop date?

Well I do think the video did demonstrate a bit of the weight of the aircraft, like when they were showing the wing spoilers and such..right about a minute in. If you watch some of the footage of the Tomcat in action from the cockpit you'll see a similar sense of heft. However, the Tomcat was also almost unnaturally nimble for such a large fighter, it didn't ever behave like you'd expect a 25 ton aircraft to be.

Yes, early on the Tomcat used the Aim-9G/H which was the last of the rear aspect only Sidewinders. However the Tomcat variant we are getting only carried the all aspect heaters.

Yeah..the Crusader just wasn't great at it..

Gypsy Roll, baby!