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Everything posted by Quid
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The problem is as you get close to stall speed, you have to increase angle of attack to maintain level flight. You're increasing both lift and drag. Can you power out in a gentle climb from next to stall speed if you light the cans at that altitude? Absolutely! Can you stand the jet on its tail and climb straight up while accelerating? No. As you pitch the nose up, you're massively increasing the drag and by the time you get to 90, you're too slow, the engine isn't putting out nearly the thrust you need to climb. Just for grins I tested it with a clean Viper at about 5000lbs of fuel. Starting at ~6800 ft and 150KTAS, I plugged in the burner and pitched the nose up towards 90. The jet didn't quite make it to 90, and the max altitude I got was 9528 feet at 38KTAS as the jet had already begun forcing the nose back down. If you start a lot faster and a little lower, you can probably get the jet to maintain speed for a brief moment (i.e., less than a second or two) before it starts decelerating. I started at 1.03M and 1500 feet, put the jet on its tail, held 630KTAS for about a second between 8000 and 8800 feet, then continued decelerating, albeit slowly, achieving a maximum altitude of 42715ft before falling out.
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You'd need the aircraft engine's measured installed thrust charts to figure that out if you were talking in real life. GGTharos explains why, but if you want an example, there are a few unclassified, unlimited distribution documents which lay it out well from an application standpoint; General Accounting Office report B-260367, "F/A-18E/F will Provide Marginal Operational Improvement at High Cost" includes several performance charts on the F/A-18C and E/F, to include installed engine thrust at different altitudes and airspeeds on report page 81. There is also a study that was done on the F-16A's F100-P-200 engine by the 26th International Congress of the Aeronautical Sciences, "A Flight Thrust Deck for the F100 Turbofan of the F-16 Aircraft," which includes a chart showing the aircraft's installed thrust curves at different altitudes from .6 to 2.0M on page 5. On aircraft with a dynamic inlet, the chart will look different, more like a bow, since there will be a pronounced decrease in thrust (primarily at low altitude) as the inlet shape changes to prevent supersonic air from striking the fans, followed by a re-growth until MaxQ at the given measured altitude as the airflow/speed continues increasing, continuing the ram-air effect through the smaller area. For modern turbofans, the engine's thrust might also be programmed to decrease at higher speeds for engine life considerations. As TLTeo and Swiftwin9s explain, however, you also have to accommodate for drag as well as weight, so even if you take a sample from a given chart where the jet should be at 1:1 or greater, it doesn't actually mean the plane will be able to climb without losing speed. The engine must be able to overcome the weight of the aircraft AND its drag to do so. Add to this that the air is getting thinner every second of climb, the engine's thrust is lowering in the process and even if the jet can maintain speed momentarily, it won't be able to for very long. There is an easy way to figure it out for DCS: Test it! Grab your Viper, give it a number of different payloads, and figure it out. Then you'll know, and knowing is half the battle.
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Literally everyone wrote about why one was better than the other at that time. All come to the conclusion that Brand X will beat Brand Y every time. I've read a lot of it I put no faith in any of it. Phoenix wasn't allowed in ACEVAL/AIMVAL. One of the outbrief items was a Phoenix-like capability in a Sparrow-sized missile was highly desirable to counter an all-aspect packing adversary. That became a funded requirement which became AMRAAM, though it took another 15 years to get the first rounds delivered. Why the notching was so effective was because it trashed AIM-7 shots, denying the BVR advantage of the F-14/F-15 and forcing them close, where all aircraft now had face-shooting AIM-9s, and the power/maneuverability advantages of the F-14/F-15 were mostly nullified in part because of their large size/ease of visibility and modeled missile performance. As it stood, with the same "VID before shoot" rules in ACE/AIM, the furthest shots that could typically be taken were inside of 8NM with the Sparrow (average head-on ID for an F-5 using TVSU in the Tomcat and rifle scopes in the F-15).
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Got some time to test again - it works with both Phoenix and Sparrow, but in a weird way. If a ship is at a stand-still, the missile tends to hit the target, or miss close, and a downward-angle seems to be necessary. I noticed if the ship was moving, the AIM-54 tended to track the last known position of the ship and hit behind it, rather than the ship itself. Also, I don't know what kind of ship I blew up during that MP mission, but in my testing in SP, I used a tanker as a target and none of the missiles that hit were able to sufficiently damage the boat to sink it, so it may have been a significantly smaller ship I sank during the mix up with the MiG-21s. So, apparently it is possible with the missile logic right now to hit a boat with an AAM and it wasn't a one-off fluke. I'd say this has no tactical significance, really (are you going to waste your AAMs to maybe possibly hit a boat just because you can?), just an interesting discovery.
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ALCON, I was wondering if there was a tweak made to the AIM-54 that allows the missile to kill ships. A few of the guys I fly with had tested this several months ago, since the AWG-9 can lock ships due to their large radar returns. At the time, we ran some tests where we locked the ship, then fired an AIM-54 at it. The missile tracked, but never actually struck or prox-fused (not sure if this is implemented or not) to do damage. It would always fly just barely above and miss. Last night we were running a mission with a fighter sweep and a interdiction section. Long story short, things got chaotic when one of the CAP Tomcats got shot down by an unseen MiG-21 and in an effort to shoot another incoming Fishbed, I went to PLM, locked something to the North (everything from that direction was hostile, the blue forces were to the South), and I launched my last AIM-54. When I noticed the closure rate was low, I turned on the TCS only to find that I had launched on a ship - faaaaaantastic, that meant we had to deal with three MiG-21s between two A-10s and one F-14. After a bit of dogfighting the pair of MiG-21s that came high to fight me (the dudes in the A-10s managed to out-fight and eventually splash the Fishbed that went after them) I noticed that where the ship had been, there were flames and smoke. After splashing the remaining MiGs in the area, I headed back to the carrier and checked the scoreboard because I was curious - 4 aircraft shot down and 1 ship destroyed. Wait, wut? The AIM-54 guided on and destroyed the ship. The A-10 guys had also noticed and indicated they saw the ship explode before they had to go defensive against the lower Fishbed. Maybe it was on account of the angle the missile took; when we had tested it before we were firing at low altitude and launched the Phoenix as if it were a Harpoon, but in this case, the missile was diving from an altitude of about 20,000 feet, so overflying the ship wasn't as likely to happen, but I also thought the game logic basically made it so that an AAM wouldn't fuse on a boat, yet in this case, the missile fused and caused enough damage to sink the boat. Has anyone else run into this? Is it a fluke that the angles aligned just right, or has the missile logic changed to allow an AAM to damage a ship? I could certainly see it working - the missile doesn't really care what the radar return is; if it can see a return, it can intercept it, be it a plane or a boat, it had just never worked that way in the past.
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Oh absolutely, hence why I said "approximate" - I wasn't going to run down a list of everything that changed between the 1980s and the early 2000s for those airframes, it would be cumbersome and unnecessary in a forum like this. Simply saying a lot of the gap can be made up for by restricting weapons. In doing so, even with more advanced systems you can't as easily take advantage of them. You might have TWS, but you can't exploit it with a Sparrow, and you can't even use it if you want to shoot. You might have JHMCS, but you're stuck with either a -9M or -9L which can't use it, even if you have the HUD projected for you when at that time it wouldn't have been an option. You have MFDs which might have a little more functionality or modifications to what they did 20 years prior, but it isn't going to help you that much.
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You could approximate that by restricting AMRAAM and AIM-9X for the server, correct? Yes, a few of the BLUFOR aircraft will have certain systems (e.g., JHMCS) that they didn't have at the time, but that would turn the F-15 and F/A-18 into Sparrow shooters for BVR and the F-16 into a pure dogfighter (no BVR missile), akin to their configurations during the 1980s.
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Once the F-14A is released, sure. Right now, the F-14B is a stand-in, since the "B" was never exported and only used by the USN. Even the JF-17 isn't truly REDFOR (as you note with your 'kinda' remark). I primarily fly BLUFOR myself, but I'd love to see some slightly more modern high-fidelity REDFOR aircraft myself, even if it was an early Su-27 (e.g., the S or P, maybe) or the MiG-29.
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Did it happen in real life? Yes. Was it against the rules in NATOPS? Yes. Could it damage or break the system if you abused it? Yes. Was it "normal?": It depends on who was flying and what was happening in the fight. Different pilots have spoken about it and many contradict each other. Based on what I've read and asked the Vietnam-era guard, use of full flaps seems to have been second nature when the fight got slow. Others have said they never used them, even in a slow-speed fight. A more recent (late-1990s) perspective was shared on the Fighter Pilot Podcast episode on the F-14 where the pilot being interviewed said his squadron (VF-102) was a "big flaps" squadron and he clearly describes using full flaps for slow-speed fighting (~47 minutes in). So, your best answer is: it depends who you ask, but it was evidently common enough. Here's the thing, in DCS, you never have to have the plane fixed by a maintenance crew, and every fight is "in earnest," i.e., to the death. That's why DCS Hornet drivers hit the flappy paddle to get more "g" out of the jet, when actual Hornet drivers didn't even consider it unless they were about to become one with the earth. DCS Tomcat drivers deploy full flaps, but do so much more recklessly than a real pilot would have. Anything to get the better of the other guy, airframe be damned. But, you also don't actually die in DCS, so players can be far more reckless with their aircraft and it doesn't matter. "I lost the round! Oh no! Well, let's get back up and fly the next one, put 12g on the jet, overstress the flaps, YES! Killed that guy! One point for me! Flaps are jammed? Meh, eject, respawn, next round." For as realistic as DCS tries to be, it is still a game, is still full of "game-isms" and beating the ever-loving sh*t out of the airframe just for a shred of an advantage is one of the many.
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I see a weight, but not a loadout. It doesn't tell me if the jet is clean and fuel was added or if there were stores added to make the weight. They'll have a different impact since the aircraft's drag index will be different as a result, and now I'm genuinely interested since it was pretty damn close when I flew it (~.5-.6 degrees off, not 1.2-1.3), but I am not a script, and had to derive my numbers from TACVIEW recordings in sections of the circle where the altitude and airspeed didn't vary.
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Well, this brings up an idea: could Totmacher run a test at 5,000 feet ASL, 4x AIM-9, 4x AIM-7, full gun ammo, no tanks, 50% fuel and see how well it matches given an AI script which can fly the circle "perfectly"? I didn't see a loadout on the last page, only a weight. If it was done with a clean aircraft, there is no impact from stores, a lower DI, and it won't follow the chart as closely.
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Just for your SA, none of the F-14B's charts are for sea level. The lowest chart is 5000 feet, so you want to test there, not SL. I ran a few tests myself with a 4-4, 54% fuel (based on the weights listed in the 1.1, it's right around there), and while I'm not great at just holding a turn, I was stable enough to get some data out of it. At around 330-340 KTAS (.51M), I am sustaining 5-5.1g, which is right about where it's supposed to be on the charts. At .56M, max STR, and 4857 feet (because i started a little low) I'm at 5.5g, which is pretty close to where it should be; TACVIEW lists a fluctuating 16.6-16.7 STR, it should be around 16.1, or about .5-.6deg/sec off, possibly slightly less due to my suck-tastic entering conditions. Seems pretty close to me at 5,000 feet; then again, running it with a script that makes no mistakes could yield different results.
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Read the whole line – “what Fat Creason means, is no charts, no hard data” followed by the need to use SMEs and Grumman reports about flaps. This is the landing flaps, not maneuver flaps; the Tomcat’s charts include one set with the maneuver flaps inoperable, and one set with the maneuver flaps operating on auto. They do not include how full flaps adjust the max lift and Ps lines, hence the need for SME input, developer data and approximation. No, it means you need other sources for your FM. It also means you saying “Following charts, at sealevel the sustained autoflaps load factor at M 0,5 and 15% of fuel should be ~6-6,5g and not 7,8g.” is inaccurate. There is no chart for that, nor any chart for clean/DI=0 unless you’re using another source (e.g., and official engineering report or something). What I was quoting was based on an actual profile flown and written down in a book by a former fighter pilot. You can say something “should” be one way, but then you actually do it and it’s another. Something’s either wrong with your assumptions, your variables, your math, or alternatively, maybe the accelerometer broke and the jet didn’t hit 8.5g in reality; I suppose it’s possible? I’m guessing you didn’t read anything on page 1 or 2, where the videos provided that kicked off this entire “conversation” were trying to show the jet to be overpowered by flying at 1% fuel (set to unlimited so it could get around the circle without losing both motors to fuel starvation) and another at about 15% fuel that matched up closely to the F-14A profile on almost no fuel remaining. That's pretty nuts; how did you get fast enough to load 14-15g with full flaps?
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I’m wondering how much of this is as a result of incorrect stores drag compared to the actual jet itself. --------------------- Fair point; I think there would be complaints. Right now, the F/A-18 is off by about 2°/sec too high max STR compared to publicly available data at SL, but it doesn’t seem like many virtual Hornet drivers are clamoring for it to change. If it was too low, though, they probably would. ---------------------- He’s not talking about maneuver flaps, he’s talking about full flaps. Maneuver flaps add about 2°/sec at 5,000 feet compared to when they’re not functioning. The testing done here with full flaps at 280 knots is definitely above their limit and probably would push the rate up further. You assume the entire thing is a guesstimate? Certain elements would have to be for any military aircraft, but that’s a pretty flagrant accusation. None of the Tomcat's charts in the 1.1 are modeled for 15% fuel, nor clean, nor at sea level. The lightest chart for the Tomcat assumes a 4-4 loadout and about 54% fuel and the lowest it goes is 5,000 feet. In the situation Gillcrist wrote about, the F-14A had no stores, about 10% fuel, was on the deck, loaded 8.5g at 350 and accelerated to 400 by turn's end. The pilots he spoke to, who flew it, would have known how much “g” they loaded with the max g pointer on the gauge pointing at 8.5. And probably run out of gas and be forced to eject unless you’re right next to base. But that doesn’t matter in DCS. This is the thing I don’t get – the demand to make things realistic, then do unrealistic things with the jet, then bitch. This whole thing kicked off because of testing the F-14 in utterly ridiculous configurations followed by “ZOMG 1+ 7uRnZ Too G00D!!111!one!!one!” Why are you testing the jet at 1% fuel? For the test configurations with stores, my question is (as I asked above): are the drag values of the stores accurate? They seem to get adjusted a fair amount. I’ve never even once gotten that high without losing the wings. Maybe it does need to be tweaked, but anything higher than ~12.5 and they separate.
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Well, that chart isn't particularly useful because it doesn't include any information at all about the aircraft; as TLTeo points out, you don't have an altitude, a weight, a drag index, weapon load, engine setting, etc. All it is is a snip of a doghouse with no context, so there isn't much to be gleaned from it. That said, posting the actual doghouse is asking for trouble (rule 1.16: "1.16 Posting images, file links, and file sharing links of military aircraft documents newer than 1980 is strictly prohibited on our forums. Such posts will be removed.")
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None of the charts are modeled there, but using Gillcrist's description of the less-powerful F-14A's show, that looks about correct. You're on the deck at corner velocity with F110 engines at 15.4% fuel, clean. The F-14A did it with TF-30s at 8.5g entering at 350 - above corner velocity, wings at 40 degrees, not 20-22, and accelerating, albeit probably closer to 1500lbs of fuel. You're using an F-14B with F110s at 8g and AT corner velocity (~310), wings at ~22 degrees with maneuver flaps out (auto), and sustaining albeit with 2500lbs of fuel (only 1000 extra pounds). Seems like it's right where it should be.
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It's probably spot on for a completely clean jet with 162lbs of fuel in it. You've also got the flaps down full and would have broken them in that position with such excessive "g". Read the first comment on YouTube for your video: yes, at such unrealistic settings, it probably would turn that well for about a quarter of the turn before both engines die of fuel starvation. Even a clean F-14A at such low fuel state will turn like a bastard. Paul T. Gillcrist, RADM (Ret) wrote about the F-14A's airshow demonstration to the Shah of Iran in the book "TOMCAT! The Grumman F-14 Story." In it, he explains that the F-14 started its show with only 2,500lbs of fuel (15.4%). The aircraft took off with full afterburner, executed a chunk of the show, bringing the fuel state even lower, then "at mid-field at about 1,000 feet and 350 knots with wings swept to 40 degrees [the Tomcat] went into a full-afterburner 360 degree turn staying within the field boundray and during its 8 1/2 "g" turn, accelerated to 400 knots."1 This implies that a clean, TF-30 powered F-14A, with somewhere in the vicinity of 10% fuel or less, will sustain more than 8.5g at 1,000 feet when starting at 350 knots, since the jet accelerated to 400 by the turn's end. You are showing an F110 powered F-14B at 1% fuel, clean, with flaps down. If it could be tested without trashing the jet, it probably would be somewhere around what your video shows. References: 1. Paul T. Gillcrist, RADM (Ret.), "TOMCAT! The Grumman F-14 Story, (Atglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing Ltd., 1994), 51.
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Here's a few more for your records.
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I'm guessing Tomcat-Sunset? I remember that conversation, but as you say, it was years ago (possibly at least 10). Other pictures of that Tomcat that I have were from "Turk's" website, but it was taken down a long time ago. "Bushwhacker" Bjerke (TOPGUN grad and later ACEVAL/AIMVAL pilot) also flew during OFW, he was in NK105 and did a 1.5 hour chopper escort, but he never said his loadout. "Hawk" Smith was in a Bullet (VF-2) F-14 during his sortie, but I don't know his side number. I've attached a few pictures from that era, including 159000 (NK114) with a 2-2-2 loadout. Suffice to say (based on Turk's comment), an OFW loadout could have been 2x AIM-9H, 2x AIM-7E-4, or something to that extent. AIM-7F's seem to have been promulgated fairly quickly, and a lot of the images I have from 1977 and beyond show AIM-7Fs, rather than E-family missiles. Based on what Turk said over a decade ago, during CAP, they typically didn't carry AIM-54s during the early 1970s, but I'm guessing that was largely because of the availability of the missile at the time.
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The AIM-9H was introduced in 1970[1], so it wasn't particularly old when OPERATION FREQUENT WIND kicked off in April 1975. For that matter, I've never seen an early USN F-14A carrying an Air Force-based variant of the Sidewinder (e.g., AIM-9J/N). The Iranian F-14's did, but I've never seen them on Navy Tomcats. If HB has documentation that states it could carry the AIM-9N, then I believe them, I just haven't ever seen it in any of my references. At that time, Tomcat would have carried the D, G, or H, and I have a number of pictures of VF-1, VF-2, VF-32, VF-114, and VF-213 Tomcats between 1974 and 1978 carrying D/G/H model sidewinders and E-model Sparrows. The particular picture you posted isn't the only one of an armed F-14 from that time, nor is it the only one of that Tomcat on that flight; is only one of a series of pictures of that F-14, and there are several taken much closer which makes it very easy to identify as a D/G/H series, but not specifically which one. So, if you wanted to do an OFW loadout, you'd be safe to assume one of those three, and I'd estimate AIM-9H as they had been around for 5 years by that point. References: Christopher Chant, Air Forces of the World, (Spain: Crescent Books, 1990). 237.
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I'm on the current version.
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[REPORTED]Broken damage model in 2.5.6.50726 ?
Quid replied to Raven (Elysian Angel)'s topic in General Bugs
Yeah, the missiles are mostly ineffective, though the bigger ones seem to do better; 5x AIM-7s and 2x AIM-9s into a Su-27 = no kill. 236 rounds of 20mm = no kill. 2x AIM-54s = kill! 1x AIM-54 + 2x AIM-9s = kill! Also, a weird thing happened where I shot the pilot out with 20mm, got a "destroyed" message, and the plane proceeded to land. The shot litany at the end indicated I had killed the pilot, but this didn't stop it from returning to base and even popping its drag chute. Strange to say the least. -
Yup. I have SRS installed. It doesn't like it now. Attached a screencap.
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Zone 5 - DCS F-14 campaign with Dave 'Bio' Baranek in the making
Quid replied to Reflected's topic in DCS: F-14A & B
Based on how Reflected was responding, it sounds like this will be explicitly for the "A." Based on the F-14B delivery rates, there would have been a chance for the plane to show up from fleet squadrons at TOPGUN by about 1989; VF-74 completed their transition in late 1988, their sister squadron VF-103 at the start of 1989. But, if this is set in the mid-1980s, there shouldn't be an F-14B. -
Just ran some tests myself against the Su-25, MiG-29S and JF-17. Not a single AIM-7 tracked on its target, just fell off the rail and went stupid. Very strange. I tested the AIM-7F, AIM-7M and AIM-7MH.