RShackleford

I didn't see where the insiders said R-73, just saw that original post of the damage and some tweets saying unconfirmed R-73 from the same people who said they shot down the jet even though it was confirmed to have not been shot down. And F-15 could very well be within that range, the 10 seconds of AB does not help as much as you think it does. As others mentioned, show of force or strafe. An F-15's standard daylight strafe takes you to to 500' above the target. Show of force is usually down to 500' as well. If they're doing a climb away from the target in mil power (usually done in mil to give less heat signature) they are going be within range of MANPADS for awhile.

Well I stand corrected then. I was just talking from experience of how I finally learned to land the T-38 (hardest aircraft I've had to land, the window for height above ground and AoA for when to flare was really slim.) Previous experiences in things like Cessna 172, DA-20, and T-6 it was very much more trim to the right airspeed then use power to correct flight path. T-38 was a lot more difficult to keep trimmed at an airspeed because you were so far into the region of reverse command at approach speed (T-38 no likey slow speed) that you were constantly man handling both the throttle and stick at the same time and couldn't really think about it other than do what you can to keep the flight path marker on the threshold and the AoA where you want it. Guess I'll have to revert back to this weird thing called "fundamentals" I've heard so much about when flying DCS F-18 :drink:

They aren't that different, they still US fighters made with western flight control systems. Just pointing out how they land and that I imagine the F-18 is similar. I could be wrong, just stating my opinions on how you're going to land the F-18.

Pretty sure. Not that the flight path marker is glued to the point on the ground, but if you set it 3 degrees nose low it should stay there.

Yeah I agree with what you're saying GGTharos, just challenging Emu saying ".5M" and "200ft" being the only way a MANPADS would have a smoke trail hitting an F-15. I don't know enough about Yemen's arsenal to say it was a more modern MANPADS that can climb above 10k feet but the constant ruling out of MANPADS hitting an F-15 unless it is flying low and slow irks me. There's a large envelope the F-15 can operate in that will put it within a MEZ.

That's kinda what my point was, that fighters aren't going that slow (the .5M that Emu said) just because CAS is 350. It kinda works that way in combat areas too, you want to be at a higher CAS at low altitude and don't need to be as fast at high altitude.

Tuck under jink, loaded floor jink, vector roll are ones I know of. They still kinda work but you have to be at the perfect AoA in DCS for it to work and it doesn't wrap around the nose or cause the quick weird change of direction that it should. The F-15 can also pirouette but it isn't controlled by the FCS, it is pilot flown using essentially the same control inputs and it's not a 180 degree change of direction for an eagle, just a way to possibly gun a guy when in scissors and have a slight altitude advantage. I just hate that the F-15's nose stops moving around 30 AoA in game when it can go 40+ and still be turning IRL, you'll just be bleeding energy like crazy.

I don't know how the FCS in the F-18 works but with aircraft like F-16 and F-15 (to a lesser extent) you control altitude with stick and airspeed with throttle on the approach. In an F-16, you set the flight path marker where you want it and it auto-trims to keep the flight path where you set it. This means that ideally if you setup a perfect approach on a 2.5-3 degree wire and go full idle or full AB you'll just slow to stall or speed up but stay on that 3 degrees. That's how I understand it from the F-16 pilots I've talked to. With the F-15 there is the mechanical pitch trim compensator (PTC) plus digital CAS that makes it so you trim for a certain G, not AoA like traditional aircraft. It's not perfect but once you set 1G trim after takeoff (TO trim sets you slightly above 1G) then you only need a click or two of trim here and there to keep a 1G straight and level flight. You fly your approach by setting the flight path marker on threshold and keeping it there with your stick while throttle modulating for your AoA (20-22 units.) So in essence the way to fly your approach is aircraft dependent. Flying in a cessna 172, you're trim sets your AoA so it makes sense to use the yoke + trim to set airspeed (it sets AoA) and using the throttle for altitude. Flying a jet with digital flight controls, the trim might not work the same way so it is opposite. Either way, the technique of "just fly it" works when you have enough experience to not think about it anymore.

Would love it! Kinda doubtful it will be implemented since there's some crazy F-15C high AoA maneuvers you can do in real life but not in DCS. Seems above 30 units AoA in DCS the F-15C nose just freezes all movement....

So to clear up some random things I've seen posted here. Fighters cruise at around 350-450 knots but that's at altitude so closer to .7-8 Mach or so. True airspeed is going to be around 500. Still though, not nearly fast enough to outrun MANPADS. Mudhens are not an F-15C, they don't accelerate greatly with afterburner. From the FLIR it looks like they were in mil or below until 10 seconds until impact. 10 seconds of AB is enough to maybe accelerate 30-50 kts depending on altitude. Why the Saudis thought it was a good idea to put in afterburner while using flares is beyond me, they didn't even try to maneuver either. Saudis are not good pilots, they will fly within the regime to be shot down by MANPADS then not perform correct defensive tactics to defeat a missile launched at them. They will also run out of gas because the tanker pilot is a female and would rather eject than refuel from a female piloted aircraft (true story.) So when assessing this whole story, remember there will be oddities that come from how strike eagles are operated by Saudi Arabia rather than the US. Modern MANPADS can reach up above 10k feet pretty easily. I don't know how long the burn is but it isn't getting crazy acceleration like an SA-8 for example, it has sustained motors. The warheads on MANPADS are tiny though, so a direct hit even with the warhead going off is still possible to fly with. R-73 has a much larger warhead and with the video shown it would have killed that jet with such a close prox. R-27 has even much larger warhead that would make sure the jet isn't flying. It's really difficult to tell if the warhead actually went off or not but either way it wouldn't surprise me that the F-15 was flying after being hit by a MANPADS and I have a really difficult time thinking it could be an R-73 or R-27. These arguments from Emu are making my head hurt...

ACMI pod like the others were saying. You can also track these aircraft in a 3d space real time when the ACMI pods are active. Makes it pretty easy to have another guy from the squadron to act like a GCI/AWACS without the need of actually having a ground radar or an E-3 with an air battle manager controller, so defensive counter air and tactical intercept training can be done cheaply. Afterwards the ACMI shop puts the data on a disc and gives it to the aircrew so you can validate missile shots and kinematics during the debrief and replay the entire fight.