Spurts

it used to be higher. You would get a series of systems failures before the wings came off. 20G ripping the engines from the mounts and shattering the INS but the wings remained.

Yeah, I used to 1v4 a pair of Flankers and Fulcrums in the Tomcat in gun fights.

I get around this by going full forward trim on entering BFM. Stops me from getting that last bit of up elevator and means all I have to do is relax pressure to get the "nose down" to speed up.

Looking over several variants of the A3D on Avialogs (https://www.avialogs.com/aircraft-d/douglas/itemlist/category/306-a-3skywarrior?start=12) shows that even as the weight increased with later variants the Max T.O. Cat weight doesn't exceed 73,000. Not that I am finding anyway. I never mind an honesty check if I ended up missing something. You are right about the F-111B though, showing a near 78,000lb Max TO Cat weight. I never consider it since it never went to service.

The AoA indexer goes to 28, and 28 may correlate to 22 degrees under certain circumstances, bit that is not the AoA limit of the F-14. "F-14A High angle of Attack Characteristics" paper from August 1976 P.582 Figure 12 shows that max deflection of the horizontal tail results in pitch up moment just past 40 degrees, and P583 states "An unrestricted alpha capability does more than allow the pilot to generate superior levels of instantaneous g. Pilots have found that by flying above alpha=30 deg they effectively convert the aircraft into a flying speed brake.... Also, when flying in the high alpha region, the pilot finds it extremely easy to command the attitude changes required to point the aircraft at the target as he falls in behind his adversary." I have several times in DCS reached 40 degrees AoA in hard pulls. As to the 9+G stories, the book "Tomcat: Bye, bye, baby" has numerous accounts and the AIMVAL/ACEVAL reports show plots of how often the planes in that test exceeded 6, 7, 8, 9G And the 12G pulls weren't test pilots, but operation pilots during both peacetime training scenarios and wartime scenarios. The F-14 IS OVERBUILT as you mentioned it would be. There is a reason it is so much heavier than everything else. It is the heaviest CATOBAR aircraft ever.

this is a common misconception. Grumman built the F-14 to be a 9.5G aircraft and tested it to 12 G. The Navy doesn't like anything more than 7.5G which was the initial NATOPS rating. The Navy then lowered the NATOPS limit to 6.5G wartime and 5.5G peacetime for maintenance reasons but pilots still pulled 9-10+G when needed. There are a handful of accounts of 12G pulls not breaking anything. The G model HB is using is historically accurate. Also, the design of the F-14 is such that if you are going fast enough to pull that high of G the wings are generally going to be swept which reduces the structural loads, and at lower speeds and altitudes where you may get high G with upswept wings the wing stalls and produces less lift above a certain angle of attack but the body lift compensates resulting is the normal force coefficient peaking around 30 AoA and not decreasing as AoA goes towards 90 (but as this is a normal force less and less is lift and more and more is drag)

Does it not have the TER already? Only the MER?

It's one I'm helping to develop, I'll make sure this issue gets fixed before release

So I did end up removing the mod. The B loaded just fine and the AP worked as expected. I didn't even think about the autopilot issue I was having being a possible bug I just thought I was setting it up wrong, but with the mod gone it all went perfectly. Thanks everyone for the feedback.

Did a repair, no luck. Only have one mod but I have not tried removing it yet.

I have tried a few different missions of mine and the F-14B consistently crashes. The F-14A does not. Attached is most recent file. dcs.log-20250118-165804.zip

Captive Carry only per the source, they were not operational

AIM-120 was not operational during Desert Storm, that was all Sparrows and Sidewinders.

I'm actually doing tests right now of fighters in the "F-4" configuration of 4 Fox1 missiles and 4 Fox2 missiles. The F-14A can rapidly exceed Mach 2.0 9 minutes from brake release using the Rutowski profile (climb, dive, level at 36,000) starting with the two drop tank and releasing them when empty (why do you have to burn almost 3,000lb of internal fuel before the drop tanks are actually empty?) but the poor TSFC of the F-14A, 2.74 in AB IIRC, means you run out of gas shortly. I was down to 2,000lb remaining 12.25 minutes from brake release which lasted me another 25 min at econ settings, having ultimately reached a speed of 2.22M. I only spent 90 sec above 2.2M. The F-15C is another story. Taking off with three bags of fuel and using the Rutowski profile I accelerated through 1.8M before emptying the bags 13 minutes into the flight, dropping them, then accelerating past M2 30sec later ultimately reaching M2.3 and I didn't get to 2,000lb remaining until 20.25min after brake release. a full 5 min was spent above 2.2M Trying to do the test in the F-14B but the game keeps crashing. Did the test in the Su-27 though. Crossed M2 at 9.75min, crossed M2.2 at 11min, was down to 1,000kg fuel at 14.25min doing 2.3M. The F-4E topped out at 1.9M by 18 min and held that for 4 min before reaching 2,000lb remaining.

Yes, the plane was tested to 12G by Grumman, and above a certain AoA the wing stalls and the body is doing the lifting so the risk of wings snapping goes away. 18G may be possible, but you just shattered your INS and maybe some other systems too. As to the blackout, it does seem like the blackout model assumes you never exceed 9 G. The current model is still better than the previous one