Whiskey11

I'd actually contend, in terms of dollars spent per module gains, the F/A-18C is actually a worse value than the F-14. You get two F-14's, the Forestall, the AI-A6 Intruder, two campaigns, and a soundtrack for ~$80. I'd also disagree about the F-14 being "All about air to air". The A2G capabilities are quite good. You get a diverse array of weapons, including some precision weapons, but sure, it's not as fleshed out as the F/A-18C became in terms of weapons it could deploy, but the mission sets are still very good. LANTIRN Pilot Control Mod is excellent and allows for front seat operation of the LANTIRN pod. Sure, not realistic, but it works. The Air to Air is also quite good and she's rewarding to fly well. She'll definitely feel more like a warbird than a Hornet will and there isn't a whole lot of complex shenaniganry you need to worry about to deploy weapons with it. For me, the F-14 is my natural choice. It feels like I'd expect an airplane to fly. The Hornet feels numb, and I'm already flying a "video game" so why would I want to fly a flying "video game" inside of a "video game". Give me something with character any day! You can keep your SEAD/DEAD missions... I'll be on station for 6 hours and still have more fuel than you took off with in the Hornet!

This... I wonder if it's the same document which I read eons ago which said the F-14 could fire an AIM-54 on datalinked targets painted by other aircraft... fun to re-read those articles today with more knowledge!

They are only supposed to go active in TWS mode. In PD-STT they are Fox 1 all the way to target. If you drop lock in either mode (or Jester switches on you), you'll trash the missile. Prior to the Missile API update, it would act like an AIM-120 and go active if lock was lost, but on Open Beta at least, it will go dumb if you drop lock for any reason. In real life, if launched in PD-STT, they are Fox 1 (SARH like an AIM-7) all the way to target. In P-STT they get initial steering information from the AWG-9, and then launch mad dog (hot off the rail). In TWS, they are a Fox 3 and go active only when the AWG-9 says to go active. Loss of the track or turning away will cause the missile to go dumb.

I've noticed the F-14, both the B and A just HANG in the air around 33k feet at between 250 and 200 knots indicated... I was struggling one day to get the Pilot LANTIRN mod working (ended up just VR walking through the bulkhead and flipping it on manually lol) and put it in that configuration through all four GBU's I dropped (2 GBU-24's and 2 GBU-16's) and when I turned for home I had about 15k lbs of fuel remaining after about 400nmi of travel. On the campaigns, in the B, I've been doing the same and I have so much fuel left after the CAP/FAD mission, I end up in burner on the way home just to make landing weight! Love the loiter time of the F-14. It's just silly.

Full Zone 5, 45k feet, clean bird... is taking FOREVER to get through the transonic region... been at this altitude and configuration for quite some time and just now breaking the Mach 1.1 zone. But curiously... full AB and only 2900lbs of fuel per minute? Seems a touch... low for full AB? Topped out at Mach 2.1 when the engines went out. Was at Mach 1.9, again, completely clean, with 1k fuel left!

The AIM-54 is far from an I-Win button as well... it's not an AIM-120... you have to support it until it goes active. Launching at long ranges is the ONLY way to safely engage with it and it has a surprisingly low PK against half aware targets. As it is now, the missile does not smoothly travel in an arc... it lofts to whatever altitude and then sharply bleeds all of its energy as it turns to lock onto the target when commanded active. This is not how the missile would behave in real life, but is a limitation of the DCS game engine and the missile API ED is using. In PD-STT it's a SARH missile like a Sparrow... UNLIKE the AIM-120. It CAN be launched maddog like an AIM-120, but it's not an easy missile to boresight launch and get successful hits with. I'm also extremely confused as to why a missile is the only reason you wont buy this aircraft... that's a pretty silly reason to not buy the aircraft. No one is requiring you to carry and use them either... fly the F-14A in the A2G role then. Fly it with only Sparrows and Sidewinders... And if you ONLY fly PVP, wouldn't you want a missile you perceive as an "I-Win" button? Nothing you are saying makes a whole lot of sense to be honest... your lack of experience in the airframe shows you don't truly understand the aircraft and its limitations... nor the missile it carries. You are full of contradictions, which is why so many people here are calling you out as a troll.

That'd be cool to see... This video claims to be IRST footage... but the IRST box isn't selected on the right hand side and later it shows near perfect top down views of an airbase... seems more like a TPOD image to me.

Wish we had better info on them... the IRST footage you see online doesn't appear to be IRST footage, but instead is TPOD footage...

Really? After this latest patch, I jumped in the -A again in the Caucus Free Flight Mission (used to do the cold start as well), and with the default 2 sidewinder, 2 AIM-7MH, and 2 external tanks loadout, at 36k feet I burned through over 12000lbs (a Hornet's worth ) of gas at ~Mach 1.1 before I emergency jettisoned the stores and instantly the speeds started climbing rapidly until I nearly ran out of fuel (was able to land at Sokhumi with about 700lbs of fuel). I finished this acceleration around Mach 2.2. So in roughly 5klbs of fuel, clean, I went from Mach 1.1 (where I burned ~12000lbs of fuel), dumped the two AIM-7's and two external tanks, and shot up quite rapidly to 2.2 before cutting it around 1400lbs to land at Sokhumi with 700lbs. I know the -A lacks thrust, but sparrow's on the wing pylons are relatively low drag, and the fuel tanks are obviously higher drag but it seems odd to ditch those items and instantly gain the ability to rocket off. I would have figured the -A in this configuration would still breach 1.1 fairly easily given the relatively low weight. I'm not expecting to be able to carry 4 Phoenixes to that speed in that configuration though... I have not experienced the engine fires on that mission, the temperatures did climb, but never broke into the "time to yeet the fan blades" mode like they did previously.

How all of these pictures make me feel!

These two guides are a perfect starting points. For starting the aircraft, Jester has a guided start up procedure for you which you can use any time you fly until you are comfortable starting the aircraft up. Once you get used to his check list, you can parse out the "BIT" (built in test) procedures since DCS World doesn't usually start you with failures! In the mean time, there are a BUNCH of helpful people on the 107th Through the Inferno Discord server which would be willing to help answer all your questions if you want more immediate help with something! https://throughtheinferno.com/

I just figured I'd update this since ED announced on the Book of Faces they intend on adding the GBU-24 to the Hornet. It appears to be WORKING now on the Open Beta servers on the F-14. So ED must have done a stealth edit to it. It does appear to have Paveway-II Bang-Bang guidance logic, which is fine as a temporary behavior just to get it working. So with that great news, time to "GBU-24 ALL THE THINGS!"TM

I've relegated the -A to the A2G mission anyway with the Pilot LANTIRN mod being a godsend which works in multiplayer. I get some odd looks, but given the -A developed quite the reputation for that role, I wont complain! :D

A couple of my observations. 1.) Overall, LOVING my Sundowners F-14A with the Pilot LANTIRN mod and moving dirt. Also loving the added challenge of dogfighting in the F-14A. It certainly does NOT retain energy or GAIN energy like the F-14B does, but it seems to do fine when you unload it going down hill. Overall, enjoyable! Looking to mess around with it more. 2.) Visually, I think you guys have done a beautiful job on both the -B and -A. My biggest gripe with the -A is the FS9 level of detail when looking straight down the engines from behind. I know you've said you don't intend on doing much modelling here, but having a flat 2D texture on the back makes taking pictures in anything but AB a no-go on the -A. I didn't pay much attention to see if there was any more detail in the -B... I thought there was. 3.) The Mach 1.0-1.2 wall is annoying and I can't wait for your fix! :) The biggest issue here is I have the dreaded "you've reached Mach 1.1, enjoy your sudden engine explosion" bug. The first time it happened I was able to land the bird at Sochi... the second time, not so lucky. I haven't yeeted my fanblades through the engine nacelles any other way though, so that's good! The TF30 myths remind me of the flat spin myth. Very difficult to get a TF30 to explode and just as difficult to unintentionally enter a flat spin in the tomcat. 4.) I haven't had any issues with weapon deployments per se, but what I DID have an issue with is related to Jester and the radar. Specifically, I was at about 10k feet climbing to a pair of SU-27's at 27k feet and about 60nmi ahead. At 40nmi, we were co-altitude and Jester was still blind. We were closing on each other at extremely high speed. At 15nmi, I boresight launched both my AIM-54C's and they both tracked one of them. I COULD NOT PLM, VSL LO, VSL Hi, or PAL the second SU-27 AT ALL. The radar was entirely AWOL and Jester equally useless. I had just taken off from the Super Carrier after an uneventful sortie and had rearmed/refueled. I also couldn't deploy flares for some reason until after I fired the first AIM-54. I don't have a track handy sadly and I haven't been able to replicate it since. 5.) I've noticed the YAW string and the side slip indicator/turn coordination ball don't match up all the time. Example: I've made a turn, say a left hand turn, and see the "need" to input right rudder on the coordinator while turning left (which is counter intuitive) and then looking at the YAW string which is say yeah you are good or needing more LEFT rudder, gets confusing for someone like me with no actual flight experience. I guess what I'm saying is the YAW string matches what I think the aircraft actually needs from an intuitive standpoint whereas the turn coordination ball will occasionally show the need for OPPOSITE rudder (right rudder in a left turn). FWIW, I've observed this behavior in other more "manual" aircraft like the MiG-21Bis and the F-5E, so I'm guessing it's real behavior... it just feels odd to see that from a device intended to help coordinate turns.

Sad F-14D noises.... :cry:

So, I encountered this "issue" as well... when you load profile, you have to load your keyboard profile while you have the keyboard selected, the joystick profile while joystick controls are selected, throttle profile when throttle profile is selected and the rudder pedals when the rudder pedals are selected. It's convoluted, but there are four files in the F-14B section which load just fine onto the F-14A controls. Once I did all four in the correct place, the issue went away and I was able to fly as if I was using the F-14B.

I would use the ILS needles for the boat when turning to final. If you join the Marshall stack correctly and fly the pattern you won't have issues lining up using only the ILS needles. ILS channels are on the right panel below the gun lead counter. Make sure to set the hud and vdi to AWL mode and the steer point to AWL/ILS.

On speed AoA is an AoA measurement only. The speed is largely irrelevant when landing, only the AoA matters due to hook to airframe angle to catch wires on the deck.

Not that I'm in camp Hornet, but why is becoming a cop a negative?

Make sure you are transmitting on the correct radio for where you have the frequency dialed in at. Right control backslash or right alt backslash are the default bindings depending on which radio. Might not matter if you have radio set to auto.

Honestly, they should just put the Paveway II bang-bang guidance on it so it works and then tweak from there... no reason to not have a working bomb, even if it isn't perfect. Yes, I'm aware it's essentially the same as a GBU-10 then... I still don't care ;)

The F-14 only guides multiple AIM54s with TWS mode, which is not a true "lock". It's more or less a quick scan of an area with track files in the radar accurate enough to guide a missile. The AIM54 receives those track updates from the radar via a data link to the missile. Remember, the radar sweeps back and forth in a conventional non AESA or PESA radar array (like all the aircraft we have in game right now). A TWS track file gets updated every time the radar beam goes over the radar return, about every second or so. The AIM120 operates the same exact way. Where the AIM54 differs is that the AIM54 launched with a lock is only a SARH missile, like the AIM7, it never goes active... the AIM120 will go active a set distance from the target and hand off guidance to it's own seeker, and if it loses lock somehow, it can revert back to SARH guidance...

Vulkan is about efficiency in rendering. One of the biggest advantages is offloading much of the graphics processing to multiple cores in the CPU and reducing overall CPU workload and overhead. On a game like DCS World, where the game is primarily CPU limited in non-VR and a combination of CPU and GPU limited in VR, offloading computation onto multiple cores should make a much larger difference than games that were GPU bound before.

No, but you did tweak the VDI and TID repeater up front got better visuals no? In the RIO seat, the game is "seeing" for displays from three RIO pit compared to the 2 up front. I was getting huge frame time increases looking down at the pilot master test twitch (looking rearward) so maybe something about "seeing" multiple displays is causing the performance hit? Between that and the new lighting...