TheFighterPilot

Without diving into numbers I just don't have the time to look up, I initially didn't think the Viper was under-powered (or at least drastically off in this department). I'd be primed to say based on real life Viper V Hornet fights, the Hornet should not be enjoying the rate advantage they have now, so I'd throw my vote into the "Hornet is over-powered" school of thought, but I digress as someone who hasn't flown the Hornet IRL. However the G-issue of the virtual pilot is complete garbage and is where I think the DCS Viper has it's real world strengths negated. There are countless videos online of the real viper centrifuge G-profile, this should be a very easy thing for anyone who hasn't flown the viper IRL to compare to the DCS pilot modeling. As is, you can't employ the 3-3 rate gameplan in DCS to a credible level. Fix the G-issue and DCS Viper will be closer to the real thing.

What you really want is GBU-39's (SDB). The only issue is it'll require either good mission planning or they're going to have to bring the TGP up to snuff and implement good coordinate generation / Mark Point creation.

Quote: "The Viper V5 radar is picking up the same fighter sized targets and generating good tracks at roughly the same range (within group criteria) as the Legacy F-18C/D model hornets with whatever OFP was current as of 2019 for both models. If anything we tend to agree in the debrief that our (viper) scope presentation is much easier to work and in a sense gives us a slight edge in picking out the right contact sooner.". Source: I fly the Viper. We debrief combined fights with Hornets all the time. Everyone walks out of the briefing room with that same understanding. I'll let any other real world drivers chime in if they've seen something different (within reason of course), I'm not the mayor here just the town drunk but still apart of the town.

Again, grain of salt and oversimplifying this, but you are going to see the same fighter sized target at roughly the same range in both the viper (V5) and the legacy Hornet. Roughly the same distance. Sure...we could get picky with this but you're talking within group criteria distances for sure.

You wan to talk about realism...the frustration I'm hearing from alot of you is the exact same in the real world Viper community...so shack to ED for that! Couple things: TWS..... Not used in the real world. Not to say maybe in DCS it has it's strengths, I'm just saying if you want realism, we don't use it. RWS is bread and butter. Hornet (legacy) vs Viper radar.... They're about the same. V5 radar vs V9.... processing power. You'd be surprised what just upgrading the processing units will do even though the bulk of the equipment is the same. Finally, Hummingbird has been driving the right point all along. Detection range and holding/dropping locks will vary for so many reasons, biggest of which is RCS. Keep in mind real world, RCS will change as well, it's not a "4"....its sometimes 4, sometimes more (or less). RCS is just a number that can't express every instance or situation an aircraft will present to an enemy radar. All depends on Look angle, Doppler shift, clutter, ect.... Basically the radar can see stuff pretty far away, the only problem is the processor unit(s) needs to sort out the noise from the metal. I'm not sure DCS is modeling the radar to that level of fidelity, but if so, you're going to see weird shit and not get the same results every time. Welcome to the real world because that's the kind of frustration that actually exists. It's overcome with tactics, good radar mech, and solid GCI/Mission planning so we know where to put the radar.

Just searching and found this thread. Having just played again today in what has been awhile, I can verify that this G-model is still wrong. You don't black out or have nearly as much limitations as what is in the sim right now. I would argue what it is really doing is taking away from the strength of the Viper and not letting you fight it the way you would truly fight this aircraft in real life. Big highlight example today was 1 v 1 multiplayer against the Hornet. Hornet wants to fight AOA against a viper, and normally a Viper would want to fight a 2 circle rate war...you just can't in this sim right now because you'll black out every single time if you fight the rate airspeed numbers.

Ultimately those expected contact ranges (ECR) are classified, but it's safe to generalize and say the Hornet will outclass the viper by some margin in this area. It's no secret the Viper radar isn't that great and one of the biggest gripes in the community. That will improve with the AESA radar replacements now showing up at some guard units.

Well...you didn't say it had to be DCS, so I guess here's mine

As of 2016 (and still current) this is the profile and what all US Viper Guys are training to: HLkBHXEqNB8

In SCU with litening this is done with long press of MSL step. I believe the same as well in MMC (block 40 and beyond).

The viper does not have this option for "fadeout time", just "histories" displayed. Beamscanner is correct, the radar tutorial video does display this in a weird way. You can set "History" in the FCR control page to show just one, which means the bar only lasts during the current sweep. What OP is mentioning, is with a history of 2 or greater, you will get the bar on initial radar hit, then on next sweep you'll get the new bar with the previous bar slightly faded to show you where the hit was previously. If you go to history 3, then you get 3 bars with the two old hits slightly faded and so on.

If it's meched like the current SCU (and I think MMC?), you can latch the laser with a long missile step (button on right face of stick at the top, above the trigger). This is good for a few things, one of which is seldom talked about, the IR Pointer. With gogs on at night, if you are without a Helmet sight, putting the target in the pod and ground stabilized, you can latch the laser and see the beam under NVG's, and use it as a way to tally the target for visual roll in. It defaults to some gee wiz number of seconds of lasing that I can't remember right this moment. You should get a TTI (time to impact) on the HUD (bottom right area) and in the TGP. Again...assuming they model this accurately, no telling what will make it in the sim. In laser page on DED, the time you set there is the auto-lase time. So after pickle, 30 seconds means it lases the last 30 seconds of bomb fall. If you want continuous lase, set 176 seconds.

It's purely for Wing Flutter. There's a reduced speed you're supposed to operate with no 120's on the wingtips and 9's on STA 2 or 8. Can confirm it's annoying flying without them.

Not a bad view to have getting gas

The best viper squadron in the US Air Force right there

Canopy pooling on landing?

A better way of putting this: Lack of IFF gives us "Lack of friendly" criteria. Based on that, you then use other criteria to "upgrade" that contact to include getting your eyeball on them. Hopefully that is...would be a shame if your #2 forgot to squawk the appropriate codes on fence in, but then again that's what he gets for being lazy with Tac Admin.

It's not the techniques of how ECM works that will matter here, it's more of how does the radar respond to and display ECM, which is in the Secret and above realm. It will never be accurately produced but generalities can exist for generic ECM against a baseline radar. At that point you're completely guessing, and it may or may not be how ED want's to go after being so detailed in most other areas.

No. The external pods are here to stay. Lots of good discussion here, but a few take aways: You will never see the pod on a wing station. It just doesn't make sense, will create a huge stores config limitation (you will likely be in the asymmetric category which reduces your ops limits to lower G/Air speed) and you're taking away a weapons store you probably badly need. It will be centerline always. ECM is a huge part of BVR that I seldom see reproduced accurately in DCS or any other flight sim, and honestly it's way better that way. It overly complicates things airborne in realtime, and just wouldn't be that fun to deal with. About the best application in the sim would be how it affects your survival against SAM engagements but that's now treading into a realm of guessing since you won't have the full technical data or numbers to put this together. I'm very interested to see how this get's implemented by the ED team.

This is also where the switch is with the CDU vipers. Any plans for CDU? Copy, not super organic yet to the Block 50 but it's supposedly coming and already here for the 30's in US inventory. Can't beat that TGP view either in CDU vs the MFD

The Block 30 and 40's (as of latest SCU and MMC) have the ILS in the HUD and even better, a flight director of sorts in the HUD that makes it real easy assuming you established a good glideslope/centerline at the start of the approach. It will show as a green circle on the hud, and you simply fly the flight path marker over the slightly smaller circle which will fit inside the FPM circle. You then keep the 2 lined up and it'll take you down perfectly centered on GS. It's a bad day when you do these approaches HUD out in the viper, too much head down time with the excellent side vis of the canopy in the weather has gotten viper bro's killed from spatial disorientation. Too easy to get sideways without knowing it. Luckily that's where GCAS/PARS switch in the 40's and later come into play.

I have no idea how that doesn't code 3 the jet, usually you pull to idle and the jet sinks...let alone an instant chute shock deceleration with a little altitude to go...those crew chiefs must have a well stocked bar!