Uxi

Puck Howe said Top Gun in 97 trained to shoot long range at 30-40 nm or 0-20 but to hold between 20 and 30 nm since it would be detected and defeated mid range. By that point, only had C.

Was there going to be any sort of Home On Jam functionality in the Phoenix? Speaking of mass, did we ever figure out if the pylon weight is included or not?

Any progress or files? We have all the bindings now... I don't own a Warthog but use a Virpil Mongoos T-50 CM (v3) same size as the TM, but am using my flap lever, etc so would want to add my own electronics. Am looking at motorized pot sliders which look like they should allow simulating the spider gear (with a separate raise/lower of the emergency lever). Only thing against them is most of them look pretty small in travel but might be able to spread it out creatively with some extensions...

Some people were using GIMP, which is free...

Also the Emer and Oversweep flags pop up even if you man mode (with throttle bind) the wings to 68 and DON'T pop up when you put the emergency lever back after any period of time to actually over sweep after trapping, for example. Both are more just visual than broken in functionality, though you see it entering every break and after every trap.

Seems much more standardized for line birds in the time period of our cats with TPS, etc. CAG and CO birds could be one offs as it is now while the mid-late 90s line birds to early 00s could be dynamic. Anything earlier than 92 or 93 or after 2002 are out of scope of our configuration. Generic line bird probably easiest low hanging fruit. Maybe Grumman test livery and add popular squadrons to demand as HB's copious free time allows.

Think they're known behavior. I always center mine out as a matter of habit in addition to a small dead zone.

Definitely curious on what happened.

Buzzing the Burj

Yeah the extra thrust from the GE 110 made it unnecessary and he couldn't cheat the G's because they had things that would "tell."

I took it as a "in BFM, I'm 20 degrees" or otherwise am "running away at 68 degrees" but also seemed to be something he was referencing only when he was in the F-14A but not presumably in the F-14D. He definitely didn't seem as... sea story type like Shoes and Snort sometimes did but is presenting this more matter-of-fact of how he learned from his mentors to maximize his aircraft...

Puck is a great interview. Very interesting how he talked about wing sweep being manual all the time ("on or off") and all the circuit breakers he was pulling, backing up Snort with mid compression bypass, again, etc.

Definitely interested in seeing more of your wing sweep cover and mechanism. I'd be inclined to go with a momentary hinge metal roller lever micro switch for the cover more than a push button but either way.

For Tomcat definitely want split throttle. Need it for startup, airstart, spin recovery procedures, etc

Wouldn't trade my Virpil T-50CM v3 for anything... I am kinda undeterred in trying this 3d printed DIY. Would be hard to give up all the extra hats though. https://cults3d.com/en/3d-model/game/throttle-hotas-box

Radio and Tacan panels rock! Look like very cool designs.

Same. SU-57 does it too, so probably an update to FC3.

Chocks and chains would be my hope sooner than later. At least on the boat. Chocks on the ground.

Everything from that era is pretty maintenance heavy. It really needed the ASF-14/Super Hornet treatment. Reading that study, once it became political the heels got dug in. It wasn't partisan on the usual party line the way it was for F-22, though. It was mostly the New York Congressional delegation fighting for it because once the production number went so low, it actually WAS a jobs program as the argument the NY delegation made was not on affordability but national security grounds to keep Grumman open. The end of the cold war abs the "peace dividend" killed many programs, the Strike Cruiser and never got to 600 ships, either. The Forrestals were retired earlier then planned as well a the recently refurbished Iowas amongst others.

Indeed!

The F-22 did sort of play out like the F-14D though. Lowering the initial order increased the price per plane to amortize development. That was done twice with F-22, which made them individually so expensive that it was politically vulnerable. Like F-14D there was also a political fight to keep it going but the administration shut it down after that. Like the F-14D there's no peer replacement that has the same capability. Now they're talking about reducing F-35 orders because of the price which we should know that will only make the remaining order more expensive (and again gets nothing to replace it with).

That same study indicates the main justification was NATF. Without that, Super Hornet just can't match the capability and no one signed up to reduce capability. They did pull a fast one by convincing Congress it was essentially an upgrade when there was really very little parts commonality. The only way Grumman could have matched that was with ASF-14 which would have been the "Super Hornet version" of the Tomcat where it looked kinda the same but had modern less maintenance intensive internals, access panels, etc. Even so, the cost factor is the biggest issue and hard to get around even if maintenance is the same. That said, SECNAV Lehman is the one who probably started the avalanche, though as he was the one who started the F-14D(R) program and had the initial build cut from 304 to 127 and was later quite critical of Super Hornet as not being a suitable replacement, but his priority was the 600 ship navy... Part of the bigger picture is some hadn't forgotten that Grumman had to refuse one of the earlier orders in the 70s claiming they were losing money on each plane and tried to force the government to renegotiate the contract. https://www.nytimes.com/1972/08/28/archives/troubled-grumman-sees-f14-as-its-key-problem-troubled-grumman-sees.html https://nytimes.com/1975/01/19/archives/has-grumman-pulled-out-of-its-tailspin-grumman-saga.html They were projecting a 25-30 year lifespan for new F-14D though, which would have put the full procurement until 2020 or so. More than enough to see parallel upgrades to F-15E on the radar, LANTIRN and nav pods, etc and if that was done, then almost certainly something like ST-21 as an F-14E.

F-14A-95GR is as early as I think I want, though US Navy more than Iran. And of course later F-14B-155GR with DFCS, GPS/CDNU, Sparrowhawk and F-14D-170GR

The Cheney thing is a meme at this point and not an accurate one. Cheney wasn't the main guy in DoD opposed to the F-14D. He was mostly echoing David Chu who's job was to weigh the merits of major weapon systems and argued the low rate production was simply to keep the Grumman line open. He was right but did want to keep the rebuild program going. This is where Cheney's "job program" comment came from. The issue was price and heavy maintenance requirement and diminishing threat (and defense budget) even before the Soviet Union fell so it would take the USSR getting much more aggressive to counteract that. https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a282162.pdf

Would be very cool if tilted for Forge. Different cushions would rock. Maybe tears or stains? Would BuNo be tied to livery or just a random number?