Spiceman

Phoenix were rarely carried on the wing pylons, at least on the east coast. In my 10 years in east coast squadrons, I never saw Phoenix on a wing station. P.S. interestingly enough, there is not a big drag penalty for the Phoenix on the wings. The Drag Index is 12 for the Phoenix both on the belly and the wings. The Phoenix pylon adapter has some penalty... the Sparrow adapter has a Drag Index of 2, and the Phoenix adapter is a 3. There are other penalties, of course with the heavier missile on the wings, farther from the CG.

Thanks! New one coming out soon... Yes... closer in helps alleviate that wacky loft behavior. I think everyone will be pleased with the Phoenix fix when it comes out. Definitely works as intended and the Tomcat will have its claws back.

The Phoenix is a bit borked at the moment... it lofts for too long, then executes a hard turn, dumps all its energy, then glides down from behind the enemy. There is a fix that should be in the next update whenever it comes out.

There was a plastic filter that snapped on the face of the VDI. It was kept in the storage box in the cockpit.

If there’s a specific airplane you’ve got your nose pointed at, you might want to consider PLM as well. PLM puts the AWG-9 to boresight and locks what it sees. It’s akin to Boresight Acquisition in the Hornet.

Typically he’s switching to the TCS. You’ll usually hear him say “that’s a MIG-29” or something similar shortly thereafter.

... and just FYI, the Phoenix rails weigh 500 pounds each. The Phoenix fairings weigh 100 pounds as a set.

Thanks... that's my goal, contribute to the community and help generate interest however I can. Here's the video...

Yeah, it's on the seat right by your right thigh... but I don't think it actually works in the sim. Gotta use your RCTRL+RSHFT+Num arrows and move the camera, then save your views.

What I go through is really meant to be an academic exercise to teach the concepts of angles, aspect, collision bearings and whatnot. It's pulled from the NATRACOM syllabus. Your techniques make good sense as well. For academic purposes, we sort of deterministically drive ourselves to a specific spot/geometry just to help drive the points home. You're right.. if we're each just out to kill each other, then intercept geometry sort of goes out the window since the goal there is to deny each other turning room, which both the bandit and I can do simply by turning into each other. I can try to create turning room by making the bandit turn with a missile shot (regardless of Pk) or locking him and provoking him to move. But now we're talking engagement tactics as opposed to intercept techniques.

No, what they’d do is the high guys would F/F their targets to the low guys, basically act like an AWACS. The low guys would let the enemy pass overhead, then come up behind them, switch their radars on and engage the bandits from behind. It was a method used to jump the enemy from behind.

I’ve got a new video rendering on the topic as we speak. It’ll be online in about two hours. I’ll post a link when it’s done. In aircraft stabilized mode, there’s really no good way to visualize target aspect. The vector shows you course differential, but that is just not the same and you can’t really gleen aspect from it, not without doing some trigonometry in your head, which ain’t happening (at least not for me). The AWG-9 was updated to display target aspect some time in the early 80’s and I mention that in the video.

I haven’t heard of that one, we didn’t do anything like that. I seem to remember there were different wafers (the sacrificial male-male connector that laid between the aircraft umbilical and the missile’s connector) for different missiles. There were red ones and green ones. I think they were used based on specific models of missiles, and maybe that’s what you’re reading about. They definitely weren’t based on aircraft status. Us avionics guys would have been involved in the wafer selection if they were, and we weren’t.

Agreed, and to tag on to the question above, if you launch in PSTT you will be using CW regardless of switch position. If you launch in PD you will be using CW in NORM and PD in SP PD. With the switch in SP PD, it disables tuning of the AIM-7 to the CW missile channel, so it basically forces the missile into PD when it otherwise would be using CW in a PDSTT. All that being said, I think HB said in a different thread that CW Illumination is not implemented yet.

It’s actually a bug... you should be able to hook a datalink contact in any mode. HB is aware...

Thanks... yep, you’re head’s in the right place. If you’ve launched a Phoenix they’re aware of your presence once it goes active, and if you’ve been spiked you can assume they’re aware of your presence. Maneuvering can also tell you, if you offset and they jink into you, they’re aware of your presence. All of those should factor into your decision. Ideally, you don’t want them to know they’re in a fight until it’s too late (for them). Yeah, the next video will be around running intercepts in the Tomcat and the associated radar techniques.

I don’t think there’s a hard and fast rule for when to STT. Basically you STT when you’re prosecuting a single target. If you’re running an intercept as a section, typically you sort (e.g. Lead takes lead, Wing takes trail) and then Wing shoots in an STT and Lead shoots and remains in TWS. Then after assessing which threats remain for the merge, the engaged fighter will STT and the free fighter will remain in TWS to maintain situational awareness. If you’re a single, shoot in TWS and remain there until you have to pick your biggest threat and STT for the merge (or choose to run).

Awesome!... man, if I could just have the Computer Address Panel on my touch screen my life would be complete...

Argh, thank you... I uninstalled when the recent bug materialized and just reinstalled it. Must have gone to Arcade mode then. Thank you!

Hmm... no, that's not it.

Stupid question... why do my target symbols look like C's... I've seen many screenshots and no one else's look like this. I see from the manual what my Object Properties should look like, but mine doesn't look like that. I'm missing drop downs to choose Friend/Enemy and Symbol.

It’d be awesome if you could go through how you turn those warped .dds texture images into nice flat instruments in your profiles (if you do indeed start with the module’s .dds files).

Question... how does one get nice, flat, instrument textures, a la Capt Zeen’s F-18 profile? When I look at the .dds files, they’re 3D textures meant to be wrapped around a 3D model and so are all warped. How do guys turn those warped textures into nice, flat ones?

Lol, OK... I’ll go grab me some popcorn and watch the rest of the show then!

Guys, please don’t fall for this kind of thread. Don’t take the bait.