Ironhand

I see the "fog" but not as extensively as in your screens:

For your viewing enjoyment, start at 35000 ft and enter a Mach number. I used 2.6. Then keep increasing the altitude by 500 and watch the TAS behavior. Look familiar? https://aerotoolbox.com/airspeed-conversions/

To infinity and beyond!

Which is why I made the statement.

Exceeding M2.606 was never my goal. I’ll leave that to you F-15 jocks. I only got involved in this conversation in the first place because Vindicator’s issue intrigued me. There are certainly issues, the biggest of which is that TAS calculations cease at 36,300 ft and default to 1494 as the highest value above that altitude. As I noted earlier, I’ve seen some Mach/TAS/CAS calculators do the same thing. The altitude it happens at, though, is somewhat higher. I don’t know if the calculations become unreliable above a certain altitude or what the reason is. Of course it can exceed 1494. Just add a 20 knot tailwind and the GS will be 1514 in the real world. That’s the problem with being so fixated on the GS. It varies, not in the DCS F-15 but in the real world. If you’re top speed in the aircraft were 1600 kt, your GS would vary, quite literally, with the speed and direction of the wind. BTW, that 1600 is probably somewhere around the aircraft’s practical top speed. Various websites report various numbers but 1600 or slightly more is a safe bet. Get your hands on the aircraft’s real world flight manual, if you want more precise numbers. But I guarantee, max GS will not be among the listed stats.

I said that I wasn't going to look into this further but I should know that I can't leave a puzzle unfinished. One tidbit to add: 36,300 ft is the magic altitude. Above that you are locked at 1494. Below that (and I don't know how far) it can increase. I don't know if they are getting the speeds from a table or what but...the calculation stops at a lower number (1494) at 36,300 ft. That might explain why different people are experiencing different things. I've seen something similar occur on some TAS/Mach calculators. In fact, some will even warn you about it.

I don’t doubt your experience in the sim but you seem to doubt mine. I never include wind in a test mission unless it’s a test parameter. So it wasn’t included in the test mission that led to my statement earlier. Perhaps you can bring your superior time in the F-15C to bear and help me solve the following conundrum:

You just need to fly a very precise profile in order to duplicate something like that, when pushing the limits. So it’ll probably take some experimentation to get all of the pieces right. It wouldn’t surprise me to see TAS numbers a bit higher than 1514. 1522-1523 might be worth aiming for…

Watched your video and I might know why you didn’t see an increase. The closer you get to the upper limit, the slower the TAS/GS increases. You only allowed 30 seconds and, also, were in too steep a descent which created a few issues of its own. I’ve been using a -3* pitch (more or less but never greater than -5) during the decent from altitude once I’m at 1494. During your descent CAS was noticeably increasing but some of that was due to altitude loss. Your TAS may have been increasing a bit (I couldn’t really tell because I’m viewing it on a small screen). But your GS probably wouldn’t have been increasing (and may have been actually decreasing) due to the steepness of your descent. It’d be interesting to see, if you made a more gradual descent whether or not the result would be different.

You can get above 1494 (this number is both GS and TAS) but you have to follow a decent flight profile. You won’t get much above it because M 2.5 is as fast as I’ve seen this jet go in level flight. That said, I can hold 1503 at 35,000 (M2.5). At 42,000 ft, the number was 1494. I may have been able to get a bit faster at 35,000 ft or some lower altitude with a better profile but this is about as much time as I want to spend trying.

Ahhh...damn. That's embarrassing. Obviously, I don't read so well, either, these days. EDIT: So DCS isn’t factoring in wind speed as a part of the GS equation. Then the question becomes, in the TRK I had posted above, can I maintain Mach 2.5 in level flight at a sufficiently low altitude to raise the TAS above 1494? The approach in the track is probably correct given internal fuel limitations. Perhaps dropping to 30,000 ft might work…if M2.5 can be maintained. If no one else bothers to try, I will but it won’t be today.

Text deleted. Misread the problem. No answer here. F-15C Speed Test 1.trk

I rummaged around my hard drives thinking that I might have a Tom Weiss fictional Ukr. repaint but all I have that are not Russian are a few of his ANG repaints. Unfortunately he died several years ago or I’d suggest you get in touch with him.

It doesn’t take much of a change to alter a track replay. Any change to the aircraft you are flying could alter the outcome, if it alters where your aircraft would be in space. Even something as simple as a slight change in the coefficient of friction between the tires and concrete could mean you never make it to the runway, let alone take off. That’s the Achilles heel of the present replay system. A small change can completely break tracks.

That would have been with the release of FC2 back in 2010(?). Not sure about the rest, though. EDIT: Come to think of it, Flaming Cliffs 2 extended the Caucasus map south to Batumi. Wasn’t it Black Shark 2 that pushed it east to Tbilisi?

Sounds like a plan.

Distasteful to whom? This entire region is going to be in simmering conflict for years to come. Perfect map material. But we’re getting sidetracked. I shouldn’t have added to my above post.

Assuming I’m remembering correctly, it was a legal dispute over who owned rights to the map and Ubisoft had a bigger war chest than ED for the fight. That said, I certainly wouldn’t mind if some enterprising map makers did the Crimea Peninsula, Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus…Lithuania…Poland…Slovakia…Hungary…Romania……..and…

The original Su-27 Flanker title featured the Crimean Peninsula and was published by SSI. I don’t recall if Ubisoft was responsible for publishing it in the West. My memory isn’t what it used to be. Flanker 2 followed in 1999 and Ubisoft was the publisher in the West at that point. Flanker 2’s map was also the Crimea. Relations between ED and Ubisoft became strained either before or after publication of LOMAC. LOMAC’s map was the Crimea and NW Caucasus, IIRC. After that the relationship between Ubisoft and ED broke. Ubisoft would not relinquish rights to the Caucasus map for Flaming Cliffs 2. So the Crimea was dropped and the Caucasus portion of the map was extended south to include Georgia. And that’s been the default map since. At least that’s the history as I remember it and the reason ED will not/cannot do a Crimea map.

It’s been that size for quite awhile…from the start, I think. I don’t recall the NDBs in western Ukraine, though. You can still see the locations of the old airbases in the Crimea portion of the map. I tried landing on the location of an old runway several months ago just to see if I could. It didn’t go well. I was hoping that, perhaps, they might still be useable.

Unfortunately, as long as you have to spoon feed the AI, you’ll always have frustrated mission designers…and no possibility is a dynamic campaign.

I had forgotten all about this thread until I got the notification the other day that it had been posted to again. Since I frequently see this missile referred to as a high altitude, high speed missile, I decided test it using it as such. High altitude, high speed MiG-31 against a high altitude, high speed, B1-B bomber. I first attempted to use it against an SR-71 for the extra altitude but couldn't get the MiG to launch against the mod for some reason. To make a long story short, the missile was launched at 85 km which is the longest I've seen. More interesting however, was that the missile reached a top speed in excess of Mach 5 and was still traveling in excess of Mach 3, when it hit. This makes me wonder, if the limitation is the MiG-31 rather than the missile. Based on missile's speed at impact, I think the likely range that shot could have traveled would have been around 100km. That happens to be the range (100 km) at which I can launch an R-27ER in the above scenario. The advertised max range for the R-27ER (not -ER1) is usually quoted as 130 km. The max range for the R-33E is usually quoted as being 120-160 km. Against a fast and higher flying aircraft such as the SR-71, the ranges of both missiles in my tests probably would have been closer to their advertised limits. So, I'm thinking that I might have been both wrong and right in my statement in an earlier post. I may have been wrong in thinking that the R-33 was terribly under performing. The R-33 is really a missile which is similar to the R-27ER, when it comes to range. Or, at least, it's not as bad as I originally thought. TacView and TRK attached. Tacview-20220622-230541-DCS-R-33 Range Test.zip.acmi R-33__85km Launch.trk

Great! Glad you were able to get it sorted.

If you unplug whatever you use for a throttle, will the aircraft start? That might help to isolate the issue.

Just wanted to say “great job”. Had a lot of fun exploring the Pacific side yesterday. Hopefully you will find a way to get rid of the pixel stretching on some of the cliff faces. But truly enjoyable just the same.