Spiceman

Yes, 2/2/2 was Phoenix on 3/6, Sparrows on the wings. We never carried Phoenix on the wings in VF-41 during my time (mid-late 80s, early 90s). I’m sure it became more popular with the C (coolanol to the wings was a nightmare) and with the LANTIRN. Yes, ACM loadout was four Sparrows on the belly (never heard it called a tunnel in the real world).

Not sure what you mean by pallets, but if you’re talking about the Phoenix rails on 3/4/5/6 they are very quick-changeable, and at least in the 80s and early 90s they were removed/swapped in and out a lot. We rarely if ever carried four Phoenix. The two most common load outs during that time were 2/2/2 (patrol loadout) and 4/4/0 (ACM loadout). When carrying two Phoenix, we did not carry Phoenix rails on 4 and 5. Phoenix rails (and fairings) can be swapped out in less than 30 minutes. I’m sure standard loadouts varied by region and air wing. But the point is that rails and adapters are very much quick-change items and there’s no reason based in realism to include them in basic empty weight.

I would think that it has to mean the multi purpose pylons. They are standard equipment. All other rails and adapters are per-mission, but no airplane is ever without the multi purpose pylons.

With one correction… what you’re pointing at on the wing stations in that bottom picture are the multi purpose pylons. The Phoenix adapter (or Sparrow adapter or Sidewinder adapter) bolts to it. HB doesn’t show it without the missile there. I’m not even sure they have a visual model for it. Edit: disregard… now that I look at it, that is indeed a Phoenix adapter on those pylons. My bad.

The rails are 500 each, the fairings are 100 for both. The 200 pound adapter is the adapter for the wing stations.

The HUD tape videos you see are “produced” videos. They shoot a scene in 2D with no head tracking, record their screen, then add the effects in video editing software. It would be awesome if there was a HUD viewport that could be placed on a second monitor and then recorded cleanly regardless of what was going on in the main viewport, but alas that does not exist.

Same....

TWS and “lock” don’t really belong in the same sentence. You don’t lock targets in TWS. You build and maintain track files. So taking a step back….is it that you weren’t seeing any track files being built? See if this might help in general..

I was on the deck for that one. He said thankfully he felt something unusual at the end of the cat stroke that caused him to not put the gear up, because chances are it not only wouldn’t have come back down, but the flailing bungees would have torn up god knows what in the nose wheel well.

It’s a dumb question, but you’ve got the canopy open, right? It used to be that you could close the canopy as soon as you made the request. I think ED might have changed something and now the canopy has to be open for the entire exchange.

Reforger…. The air boss sounds like a real stud.

The Tomcat is more like a Warbird than it is a Hornet or a Viper as far as stick and rudder skills go. You need to use the rudder. You need to use the rudder as the primary means of lateral control (rudder first, augment with stick) above 20 units AOA. At the end of the day it’s a jet and not a prop, so you’re not going to need as much rudder as you would a Cessna or a Christen Eagle, but it becomes critical in certain flight regimes.

Ooh, no, it’s the exact same instrument. Basic flight instruments haven’t changed in 80 years, and they’re the same whether you’re flying a Skyhawk, a Mustang, a Tomcat or a 747.

Thanks! Yes, to be honest I don't know whether my explanation explains it or not. I fly Cessnas, and I've certainly never seen that behavior, not that I could apply enough angle of bank that quickly to mimic that in a Cessna, although now I think next weekend I might just give it a test, lol. It'd be interesting to hear Victory 205's take, and tell me if I'm full of shit or not, lol.

I’m confused, there’s only one ball. The needle above the ball is a turn rate indicator. It indicates your rate of turn and it is a gyro based instrument. The ball is simply a ball floating in mineral oil and it is a simple inclinometer that indicates the balance between gravity and centrifugal force. When you bank, gravity pulls the ball down and centrifugal force (influenced by application of rudder) pulls the ball up. When gravity and centrifugal force are in balance, I.e. a proper coordinated turn, the ball is centered. The needle will always move in the direction of your turn. There is a gyro in there mounted vertically and it works on precession. As the plane turns and applies a left or right force on the gyro, the gyro applies a force 90 degrees in the direction of rotation and that is tied to the turn needle. EDIT: I've watched your video again and I think I see more now what you're saying. In the first section, when you go full stick deflection and initiate that rapid roll rate to the left, I believe you may be seeing the effects of fluid compression in the turn coordinator. In a rapid acceleration into a left roll, the fluid in the indicator compresses to the left and the ball moves to the right, or the less dense side of the indicator. As your acceleration into the roll stops, the pressure in the fluid equalizes throughout the fluid. It's a similar odd effect to when you're in a car with a helium balloon, when you turn left, the balloon actually moves towards the left side of the car, to the *inside* of the turn. This is because the air inside the car has compressed to the right, causing the balloon to move left into your turn.

It is indicating correctly You read the ball as “step on the the ball”. So starting around 1:15 when you are flying straight level and step on the right rudder and induce right yaw, the ball is to the left. “Step on the ball”. It’s telling you to apply left rudder to remove the yaw. When you’re quickly rolling left and right you’re giving sort of a fake illusion that the ball is always opposite of where it should be because you’re reversing your turn before the ball settles back from the adverse yaw. Bank left for 20 seconds, then bank right for 20 seconds and post a new video.

The AIM-54 will run MOAT in STBY, but it won’t be tuned.....

Like sLYFa answered, it might be. These are hard questions to answer because engaging enemies with the AWG-9 in standby isn’t a real thing and wouldn’t be mentioned in any real world documentation HB may have. So anything they’ve implemented is just as good/accurate as any other thing they could implement, because it’s squarely in the realm of “make something up”.

Oh... you’re alone on a multiplayer server. I see. Run a good timeline and you’ve got nothing to worry about. Know the Max Abort Range for your opponent. Shoot (~35NM), crank to gimbles, skate at pitbull, assess (offensive or defensive? blind or tally? spiked or naked?), press or escape by MAR. Read up on timeline tactics and practice. Die many times and eventually you’ll be the master.

Tomcats would do that in real life using FF data link. Two sections in a wide bracket. One nose hot, one nose cold. The hot section does a grinder keeping the enemy occupied and on data link for the cold section which comes in from left field.

Yep.....

I've looked through some old stuff. I can't share it, it's colored yellow, but it has a note that says "NOTE: During EMCON, status of radar missiles (PH/SP) will not be known." which reinforces what I remember. Edit: In another place it states that if the AIM-7 fails to initially tune, cycle the AWG-9 from XMT, back to STBY, then back to XMT. So more validation there as well.

Yeah, and I’m still thinking they wouldn’t tune on deck without being in XMT. I seem to remember that the status of the radar missiles would not be known to the crew until they were airborne when we were at EMCON and they couldn’t go to XMT on the deck. Even with the dummy load, it leaked too much RF. And without being in XMT, I don’t think the transmitter generated the CW to the MOAT antennae. The missiles run a self-test which is reported in BIT sequence 4, so you’ve got that, but they would not be tuned.

On the deck, yes. But if I remember right, they don’t tune with the rails armed without being in XMT. Tune on deck and the stations go white, but once armed they go checkerboard until you get airborne and tune again in XMT. I could be wrong, but that’s my memory.

I’m not even sure that’s possible in real life. If I remember correctly, the missiles will un-tune with the transmitter off, certainly with the AWG-9 off completely, and your station status flag will go black and you will not get a hot trigger.