Theodore42

Ya for sure. Keeping the pitch above 12 degrees during landing slows you down a lot. It's so effective that people in this thread are wondering why you can't aerobrake under 140 knots when the Viper is really heavy. 1. The manual (irl) says it's ok to land at the max take off weight. BUT you NEED to aerobrake a LOT to get the Viper stopped while it's really heavy because the brakes aren't that great AND 2. In the DCS Viper, you can't aerobrake long enough to slow down enough to stop before the end of the runway that the irl manual says is long enough to safely operate from THEREFORE Either the Viper flight model is wrong and should allow for the ability to aerobrake down to a slower speed OR there are procedures concerning landing near max weight that we don't know. [EDIT: or we all suck at landing] I've seen a video of an F-16 (Spanish maybe?) Taking off with wing tanks and then immediately landing due to a problem. I couldn't find it when I went looking for it though

1v1 guns only dogfight to show the difference between the heavier but more thrusting 229 in the F-15E vs the lighter 220 in the F-15C.

The F-16 has a tail-hook for just such emergencies, right? Probably just the center of gravity with full fuel plus external tanks makes aerobraking unreasonable, even if the landing gear can take landing at 100% of take off weight. When testing I noticed taking off the TGP gets more aerobraking distance when landing heavy.

It will, as long as your speed is stable at the engine settings. If you're still accelerating then it will look like critical altitude is lower than it really is.

The manual says the butterfly valve automatically adjusts up to critical altitude. Critical altitude is when you are at full throttle (the throttle lever is at 100%) and the manifold pressure is at max, 61 inches. The manual says the automatic MP regulator functions: If between 42 and 61 inches MP AND when altitude < critical altitude then the auto MP regulator is functioning. When between 42 and 61 inches and altitude > critical altitude, then the throttle behaves normally. Those are the rules as described in, and inferred from, the manual. No matter your throttle setting, if you are above critical altitude, then the regulator CAN'T maintain manifold pressures at less than 100% of throttle setting. The pilot has to be able to increase the throttle up to 100% to whatever MP a fully opened butterfly valve is when above critical altitude. I remember wasting a lot of time trying to think this out but I just had to do an experiment to understand, something like this: When you are climbing at 100% throttle and speed and your MP starts drop, this is your critical altitude. You'll have to accelerate a minute to get your speed up because MP goes up the faster you are going due to ramjet. So critical altitude is max possible altitude at max manifold pressure AND at max SPEED. (The faster you go the higher you have to go too.) Write down the altitude and speed of the critical altitude. Climb 2000 above that altitude and accelerate to max level speed. Write down your MP at full throttle. Now descend back down to the critical altitude, the one where at FT and max speed your MP just started dropping below 61 inches. Set your throttle to what the MP was at 2000ft above that altitude. Now don't touch the throttle. Climb up 4000 feet, only 500-1000 feet per minute to keep your speed up. What does your MP do as you climb? What is your MP at this new throttle setting stabilized at speed and altitude? Now go back down to the critical altitude and set your MP for what it was at 4000 feet above the altitude. Fly sensibly, like you're really doing an experiment, because speed and trim are factors Thinking won't help, it'll make sense if you just do it.

Describe how exactly you think the system should work in terms of the critical altitude and specific altitude relative to the position of the throttle lever... [Critical Altitude is the highest altitude that you can achieve maximum MP. Specific Altitude is the altitude where Full Throttle is the maximum continuous engine setting.] Edit: I think the specific altitude is maybe technically the critical altitude for maximum continuous power but my point is the same. When you take off and set your MP to max continuous, the butterfly valve is opened such that the pressure in the manifold is 46 inches. As you climb the air thins out and the butterfly valve has to open more to maintain 46 inches of pressure in the manifold. Therefore the butterfly valve automatically opens as you climb without you touching the throttle. That's what this is: "All of this manual states that automatic manifold pressure regulator can maintain set boost between 42 and 61 inch though out all alt up to critical alt. And on top of that Maintenance manual states that differential unit permits manifold pressure regulator to operate throttles independently of cockpit throttle control." When you reach the CRITICAL altitude the air is too thin for the butterfly valve to open all the way and achieve MAX MP. Even though you aren't at max MP but max continuous, this matters. At this point you have to advance the throttle lever to open the butterfly valve enough to maintain the max continuous throttle setting up to your SPECIFIC altitude, which is where at Full throttle (butterfly valve fully open) the Manifold Pressure is set to the max continuous engine setting. If the aircraft could advance the throttle lever on its own then this is where it would do that. But it can't. I'm 99% sure if you guys tried to describe how you think the system works you would end up needing the throttle to move on its own. I've attached some relevant pages from TM 1-407 Aircraft Induction, Fuel, and Oil Systems.

IMO the F-16 Viper has the most streamlined UI. Operating the Viper seems to require the least amount of button presses than the other aircraft and the systems seem fastest to learn. The F-18 Hornet operates from an aircraft carrier. That adds a lot of cool procedures for aviation nerds, but also amplifies the fun in multiplayer. The F-15E Strike Eagle conforms to your criteria and was just released to early access. If you want the Full DCS experience you can learn the Strike Eagle systems as they're implemented. It's kind of fun learning things with everyone else. Not only is the forum full of people asking questions you're trying to ask, and the questions you're going to be asking after a few hours; but you also get people posting the about the history and lore of the aircraft. Common misinformation on the aircraft always comes out and is corrected. Unclear "TV explanations" become clarified with understanding, often by posts made by the very crew that worked on the aircraft. And you will find bugs... but it is a strange learning experience to learn how a system works, find a bug in it, realize it is a bug, then see the bug fixed and the system operate as described in documentation. It will feel forever like you understand that system better than the aircraft itself, or it does for me anyway. Since OP is into the NAVY get the F-18 for sure. You're posting on the Hornet forums for a reason Also get that carrier DLC ED has.

Wrong, -gz when following terrain is called bunting. -gz is useful for modifying geometry to enter into a target's turn circle when you don't have time to flip inverted, correct, and then flip back (or just don't want to show the target your cold side). -gz is useful for avoiding a collision so you don't lose sight of what you're trying to miss. isn't there a really famous example from WWII of the tactical validity of -gz? If you discount the entire regime of -gz then you're going to be making some pretty unnecessary mistakes.

ok. I may have conflated -6Gs from a prop plane demo at that airshow with the F-15C demo. That would make sense because at that age I was only interested in the military aircraft but I surly would have noticed anyone doing high negative-G maneuvers. And those prop pilots do some insane negative-G work. I've looked for any negative G maneuvers in US military airshows and never found anything other than inverted flight.

Ok so maybe they added an automatic cutoff making the high negative-G turn impossible which is why I haven't seen it since the '90s.

When I was a kid in the '90s, probably not even 10, I went to an airshow and saw the most amazing thing: An F-15C do a high-G NEGATIVE turn, for real. I'll never forget it because I couldn't imagine something so painful. Does the F-15C have this restriction? Doesn't it take more than 10 seconds to do 360 degrees in an F-15C at negative 6Gs? I've always wondered about that because I haven't found documentation for a negative high-G turn during a demo, nor have I found any airshow videos of the maneuver.

They might still be in CAT III, or at least none of the maneuvers looked like they needed to be in CAT I. And for all I know "unrestricted Gs" might mean SOP is that maximum Gs in training is 8Gs or 9Gs and not "Whatever max stick deflection gets you" Gs.. Also the sudden onset of Gs in CAT I might be too dangerous with stores so SOP might be to always be in CAT III with stores. FURTHER, any of those assumptions may only be true in training. And he's a test pilot so his squadron might have unique ideas about what's safe to do to the airframe. I've never seen any documented guidance on the matter and it seems others haven't either, so infer what you will from the video. But unless there is a SAFTY issue with CAT I and empty wing tanks, I assume from the video that if you're simulating combat in DCS and your wing tanks are empty, go nuts with CAT I.

https://youtu.be/E_HUrfQqUmA?list=PLCJZqEzsF9_owrrr1KUhyInlDs9od6kPt&t=569 Hazard Lee youTube of a dogfight. The pilot says that he has about 400 pounds to go before unlimited G restriction. He has on 2 wing tanks, 2 AMRAMMS, 1 sidewinder, and all pylons.

Operating a Hornet in war is like playing the piano at a concert. A pianist thinks 0% about the keys he is pressing and 100% about expressing his emotions. A Hornet pilot thinks 0% about the buttons he is pressing and 100% about expressing his will to kill. It's called a "study sim" because it requires lots of thinking and reasoning BUT it is also true that flying and warfare are performing arts. I learn to do things in DCS like I learn a piece of music. If you've ever learned a piece of music, you're going to have parts of the piece that are easy and parts that are hard. Identify the hard parts and then practice them over and over. I had one music teacher that had me repeat the hardest measures over and over without stopping until I got it. I had another music teacher that made me play the hard measures backwards and forwards, and then flipped the music upside down and made me play THAT backwards and forwards. In a performance there isn't time to think about every note. To learn something that's a performing art means being able to do it without thinking about it. To learn how to use the Hornet in this way, METHODICALLY go through every button, page, state, etc of whatever system you're studying (Fuel system, ILS, AA Radar, ATFLIR, HSI, left MFD, etc) and understand what it does. Just go through the buttons as fast as your brain can understand what the point of pressing each button is. At first say literal words in your head but eventually turn it into a meditative, intuitive understanding of the meaning behind the buttons. I do this like I practice music: the faster my brain understands the systems, the faster I go through the buttons. Imo this serves to program the brain to have an intuitive understanding of what the button presses do and no thinking is required to play your instrument of war. That's just my hard and fast way of learning all the button pushing. It's probably not what you meant by practice BUT if I'm fumbling through buttons or don't have a clear understanding of something then that's how I deal with it. For example, the stupid SOI in the Viper has annoyed me a few times so I took about 60 seconds using the DMS switch to flip through all the sensors and situations I could remember that annoyed me and now I own the DMS. And now I get how it's useful when I never used it before. Not really an impressive feat but not something you want to think about when performing combat. Spending 60 seconds in practice is worth it to save 5 seconds in a mission or multiplayer situation. I know that probably isn't what you meant by "practicing things I've learned" but the modern tradition of music is 1000 years old and I think this level of detail translates to fighter jets. People aren't used to thinking this deeply about a video game but the manual for the Hornet is 900 pages and is 100% about pressing buttons and 0% about expressing your will to kill. May as well see if you can go from reading "how to play piano" in a book to playing "Pop Goes the Weasel" on the piano. To practice flying as a performing art of war: Keep things simple. For example, when you practice dropping bombs at the range, you aren't practicing for a mission, nor are you practicing the ingress, you aren't even practicing the attack. You are only practicing the dropping of the bomb on the target. So do THAT. And do it over and over as fast as you can. Pick any bombing mode and do variations on it: practice the attack at different speeds and different altitudes and various dive angles. Use the unlimited ammo. Understand how to get the bomb to the target and you will always be able to either get there fast or you will quickly realize it is impossible and disengage. Check accuracy at the different ranges and speeds. Get a feel for the WEZ. You get more value out of your practice time if you spit it up. 30 mins a day is better than 6 hours over the weekend. Brains learn faster during sleep. They also recall what was done 1 day ago better than 1 week ago. Record your performances. Professional athletes do this commonly. It's difficult to tell how good or bad you are in the moment. Watching back what you've done is a great way to identify mistakes or correct bad habits. I started my YouTube channel posting recordings of myself narrating BFM. I had a real bad time remembering what the hell I was thinking while reviewing my dogfights so I just started narrating what I *thought* I was doing in the moment to remind me later. It's a game, have fun. But if you're playing a study sim then you probably are looking for a little extra. Practice a few things you want to get good at a few times a week and record your weekend missions. When you watch back you will see more clearly how it all needs to come together. [Spoiler alert] Everyone sucks at multitasking. LOL!!

The 229 engines in the F-15E have a higher idle thrust than the 220s in the F-15C, so they are pushing you down the runway. This is the reason given for the procedure of skipping aerobraking and going straight to wheel brakes when landing the F-15E very light. I read that the idle speed is reduced after 20 seconds of weight on wheels but it looked like this wasn't implemented last time I checked.

The FM of the F-15C is a PFM and is about as accurate as the F-15E. The E's engines weigh a whole lot more than the C's, has fuselage tanks adding weight and drag, and has a heavy air ground radar in the nose messing up the center of gravity. The feeling of weight is part of it If the F-15 is clean and is low on fuel do more like 23 AoA units. Always land with a 2-3 degree glideslope and don't worry about speed, just CPUs (AoA units). Use the air brake to get the wheels on the ground so you don't float but then skip the aerobraking and go straight to wheel brakes. I believe this is the recommended procedure for when the aircraft is very light.

If you have a really light load you kind of need the airbrake during the flare or the F-15E will sail halfway down the runway before touching down.

The climbing profile is 61" 3000 RPM up to 500 feet and then 46" 2700 RPM up to 40,000 ft. The speed is 175 mph but if you have no external stores you can do 165. If you have less than 50% fuel you can do 160mph. Above 20,000ft the best climb speed is a little slower; I've never seen the best climb speed go lower than 155mph indicated. If you don't know which of these speeds to use just stick the speed needle on each of these speeds for about a minute at each speed. Choose which ever speed averaged the highest feet per minute. If you do this experiment and your find that all the speeds average about the same rate of climb, this is normal. It means you need to focus on keeping the airframe steady for a faster climb out rather than worrying about selecting the correct climbout speed. Problems climbing out usually happen because the nose climbs a little too much and the speed ticks down just a little bit. Accelerating back up to minimum climb speed while in a climb at less than minimum climb speed ruins your climb rate for LONG periods of time. I remember reading or watching an interview with a P-51 pilot concerning his high altitude escort missions: He reported the importance of delicately manipulating the RPM and manifold controls. If you weren't careful, the changes in engine settings disrupt the airflow and you would lose a few mph. At 30,000 feet or more getting those few mph back takes a lot of time and delicate flying. The Mustang has an easy engine to manage but the airframe can be really difficult to control.

Hm, probably set the axis just how the airplane flys to you. The flight control system will make the flaperons flop all over the place trying to interpret your control inputs. So you shouldn't be posting asking about how to set up your controls for the Flaperons, the Flaperons should be posting asking you what you mean when you deflect the stick in a certain way

I wasn't going to say anything, not because I disagree with the argument, but because my reply might be too nerdy Probably close to 20 years ago I remember in the forums of an old Viper sim a similar argument. People were saying the buttons didn't make realistic sounds and people wanted actual recordings of the buttons in the sim. I naturally agreed. But one day I was at an airshow and they had an F-16 just sitting out by itself with the canopy up. They were letting people SIT IN IT!!! Where were all the people waiting in line? Where were all the kids that wanted to sit in a cockpit full of buttons? (Where were the MPs making sure kids don't fall off the ladder climbing into the cockpit?) There were thousands of people at this airshow and an open F-16 cockpit is vacant?!?? So I climbed in and went through the start up procedure. The HOTAS was pulled out but everything else was there. And I was amazed as I started flipping switches and pressing buttons at how closely the tactile experience of pressing the button was to the sound effect of pressing the button in that other Viper sim. The buttons on the UFC probably didn't even make an audible sound, but the way it felt to press them was exactly how I imagined it felt when clicking them in the simulator with the "poor" sound effects. So are they BAD sound effects because they don't REALLY represent the actual audible experience or were they GOOD sound effects because they accurately represent how it FEELS to press the buttons? Also, a pilot may not be able to clearly HEAR the afterburner, or the wind during high alpha maneuvers, but he can FEEL when the afterburner is on or when the wings start buffeting in the wind. Does sound have a part to play here? So that's just a thought on the philosophy of sound in video games. Now consider this analogy wherein we can all be SMEs: In the year 3000 a car nerd wants to jump in a car simulator and drive a Stingray down Route 66. The Stingray's engine sound is famous. But the road noise is loud! So he puts on tires from 2020 even though they aren't contemporaneous with the Stingray (to us, anyway. A guy in the year 3000 might think they are). Oh yeah, Route 66 is in the desert! So he naturally turns on the AC. Oh no! It's too loud for him to clearly hear the awesome engine sound!! (Even in cars with loud engines an AC on max will drown out the engine sound). He either has to turn down the temp of the desert (so he doesn't need the AC) or he turns down the volume of the AC so he can clearly hear the engine. If you're an SME contracted to Stingray Simulator 3000, how would you advise them? I guess it all comes down what you're trying to simulate. Some people like jet engines and they're going to want to hear them. Some people relate to fighter pilots and they're going to want to simulate the pilot experience. When I read that other modules didn't simulate the ECS sound that kinda bothered me. Imagine some jerk that knows nothing about airplanes gets a backseat ride in an F-15. When confronted with unfamiliar screens, flashing lights, buttons, switches, knobs..... the first thing that's going to stick with him is the SOUND. And then jumps into DCS... He'll say it's obvious to him that this module is NOT what it feels like to sit in an actual F-15E cockpit at all! The cockpit sound, the thing that made the greatest impression on him the first time he sat in an actual cockpit, isn't even in the game?!?? All the attention to detail that goes into making the sim that this random guy has no chance of understanding, and probably not even a chance of perceiving, is lost on him... yet he could honestly say the inaccuracy of the module is obvious to him. The solution imo (and I think previously mentioned) would be to have a global volume setting for the ECS and to bring all modules up to a similar ambient cockpit sound standard. It would fit right in with the "hear like in helmet" and the amplify afterburner sound options.

The F-15E has CFTs and a heavy radar in the nose so the center of gravity is unusually far forward for an airplane. So I would guess what you're describing is what the flight control system looks like while keeping the F-15E's massive pitch moment in control. People have noticed that the F-15E has a pretty bouncy nose and that pitch inputs are generally very sensitive. Maybe the flight model / flight controls are still WIP or maybe converting a fighter airframe into a bomber has some side-effects.

That would be awesome If it's true they really are making the primary mission of the F-15EX air to air then it occurred to me: IF the strategy is to use lots of airplanes with lots of missiles in BVR and IF a solution to this you came up with is a quad pylon, THEN the platform that would most fit the new equipment (quad-pylon) for the strategy is the F-15E. Missiles aren't much of a weight restriction relative to any modern fighter but the drag from a quad pylon has got to be insane. BVR means you want to be going fast and high and the faster you're going the more inhibiting drag from the pylons will become. I would imagine the massive power from the F-15EX engines could push through the top-end speed and acceleration limitations of the high-drag quad-pylons better than any other option under consideration. You want to get real high real fast with lots of drag? I think the F-15E must have looked like the best option for this strategy. BTW just to clarify, this strategy I'm talking about is just the set of tactics involved in fighting a modern, large scale air to air battle (stealth, AWACS, ECM, ECCM, datalink, etc.). In that environment, a squadron of 12 F-15EX, with radar and equipment that can effectively shoot 192 AMRAAMs within max range and then be able to turn and burn safely away... can you imagine a general saying "no" to that?

COOL good luck with that! I was just quoting from that article. In fact I had to double check the authenticity of the article because of the absurdity of the quad-pylon. But there's a picture: Someone is testing the EX for an air to air mission apparently!

Maybe you're thinking of flight control systems to aid in control of the aircraft, like the F-15's CAS or the P-51's trim tabs being interconnected between the stick and control surfaces to lighten the load. Technically fly by wire is the last step in that progression. The stick is designed to best manipulate the aircraft and then it is plugged into a computer that controls the control surfaces exactly as you want. When a pilot uses a fly-by-wire system, he isn't flying an airplane, he's making a philosophical argument The F-15E has a really heavy nose because of sensors... also the F-15 was designed for air superiority. Maybe with all the extra sensors, equipment, ordinance and CFTs the center of gravity is a little far forward compared to similarly sized and maneuverable aircraft, like the A-10 or Su-25, both of which have very different airframes than the F-15. The F-15E airframe was put into a role it wasn't quite designed for so maybe some nose bobs are a side effect. I've heard pilots say PIO happens easy in the F-15E.

You must have missed the photo of the new inboard quad pylon. QUAD DAMAGE!!!! Those F-15EX guys are going to be playing airquake for real now.