GGTharos

The answer is a little nuanced - so, IRL and only 'more or less' because detailed information is not available: APG-63 with some upgrades (late 80's/90s), the F-18's APG-73 and F-16 APG-68 are capable of correctly tracking a helicopter by the radar return from the spinning rotors. The RCS is significant (between 2-8 meters squared according to studies), so for something like an F-15 this is detectable quite far. Newer versions of AIM-7(M+) and AIM-54C are also capable of correctly tracking helicopters in the hover. And of course, AIM-120. Older radars like the F-14's and Su-27 (and original APG-63, older versions of APG-66, 65 etc) probably perceive the spinning rotors as a doppler jammer - ie. denial of speed measurement, but they can still tell that there is 'something there'. Ranging would have to be done using motion. In DCS, this effect (spinning rotors showing up on radar) is not modeled ... if it is, this would be a recent change. So then you have to rely on the speed gates of the various radars and missiles, which in DCS work in a simple way: You're either in, or out - and as the radar gets closer to its target, the speed gate becomes smaller. Also, there is no speed gate in a 'look up' or co-altitude situation, so a low flying fighter will see even aircraft in hover, if I recall correctly.

These drones aren't likely to be harder to pick up than a cruise missile. They might be easier to hide in a notch due to their speed but overall, they're not indicative of anything at all with respect to detecting and tracking a missile. Construction, orientation and speed all matter.

Watching payload (or pieces of an aircraft) separate on the video of the tracked target (radar video, not visual) is very different from picking up the weapon in free flight after it has separated.

The AIM-54 will accelerate with ~4g for 27-30 seconds and depending on altitude. AIM-7 will accelerate with 10g for 2.5sec, and 0-2g for 10 seconds thereafter depending on altitude. 10nm head on at low altitude - maybe even medium - the AIM-7 might not be so easy to catch thanks to its higher acceleration at start. This is math question though, the math needs to be done.

Are you really that certain that it's something like that and not say, certification up to M1.5 because they didn't test further? Reality is fickle and its fickleness is not simulated There are a lot of fuel tank related things that aren't happening to anything that carries fuel tanks ... not just eagles or vipers. Hint. From the little I know, the greatest area of concern is transonic, that's where a tank is a little more likely to do something unexpected like come back up and take a couple of feet of wing off - it's happened, but it's also not exactly what you'd call a common occurrence.

And what do you think should happen if you dump it at M1.6?

In DCS it is position -> g, IRL I believe it is force -> g which amounts to more or less same minus trimming nuances I believe. As said above, a transition to transonic (usually from supersonic, but I'm no expert) really does mean a change in airflow type and IIRC you will get more g for that same deflection. The CAS does its best to protect the aircraft from this but it's neither perfect nor fast enough to deal with it in some cases. And most importantly, it's there to give you what you commanded it to so if you pull the stick all the way back and you drop into transonic, your 8g might suddenly become 12g (real numbers unknown, exaggeration mine for effect)

I am going to present the imperfect opinion I have as this: A 13g spike (even repeated 13g spikes) can't win a fight when BFM is flown well. So, I while I understand that it is an issue, I don't believe it's a huge issue. If there were fixes to do, I'd like to see air pressure etc. resisting the control surfaces and limiting the amount of maximum achievable g via physical simulation. The airframes are strong and you can already sense performance based on AoA buffet, but this takes effort to train. I don't agree with 13g spikes GLOCing pilots as this isn't realistic - not that it can't happen, but rather you're not going to model a pilot forgetting to do his AGSM. This sort of random thing (because it would have to be a random thing) is more likely to eventually infuriate players and see the feature turned off no matter how many sing its praises. Force players to adhere to more sensible flying by flying better BFM than they do, or have them suffer for it

The ESAs will correct the physical component and will reduce seeker settling, but I'm not certain that they can get rid of it. Scintillation is part of the problem and you can't fix it on the seeker end I think Scintillation dominates seeker settling, as it increases proportionally to the distance to target decreasing. The main natural contributors that I recall are: Change of aspect (in both dimensions) either due to target or missile maneuver Background noise The first has the largest amplitude when the aircraft is maneuvering normal to the established POM.

The dirty secret is that every single airframe in this game can pull more g than it should be able to. Absent of things like g-limits, the control surfaces are achieving things they should not. Can an F-15 pull 13g? Not likely, the highest every recorded is 12.5, that was stick full back for a few seconds at 'the right speed' for getting as much g as possible. Can a hornet pull 11g? Probably, but not much more. How about a MiG-29? You need 16g to break the wings ... could it physically pull that much? Not likely. Nor is g-loc a limitation for spikes to these g-loads, DCS models some simple version of the STOHL curve. You're not going to black out right away.

So you're going to start a training camp for VR pilots and punish them if they fly wrong?

The fact that the seeker will oscillate for a variety of reasons if either the target or missile perform specific maneuvers. The result is increased miss distance.

Yep, the incident in question stated 54CPUs.

It happened during a regularly practiced defensive maneuver which included high AoA flight. Why do you believe the eagle would depart? There are definitely reasons for it, but why do you believe it would have to? There's no way DCS anything reflects reality, it's just close to it.

No it isn't. There are incident reports regarding F-15s exceeding that number.

And another pulled 12.5 and was not fine. Aircraft have been written off for over-g damage. Not a lot of them, because there aren't that many incidents. In DCS, there are plenty of incidents.

Maybe, especially given that opposing forces can be operating near the same frequencies as your own radar. This is why RWRs blank when the radar or jammer is operating and why radars blank during ECM operation. That way everyone gets their little time window and it's transparent to you, the pilot. There's math for it out there but I don't think in-game burn-through has anything to do with it. Also, it's heavily nuanced for a number of reasons, it's different for different systems and different techniques, etc.

What, in-game? No. There's no structure in game. I'm not terribly worried about that, no. This sort of thing, as well as aerodynamic problems caused by warping of the airfame aren't modeled. The only thing that's modeled is ultimate strength, and it's all ok, it does it's job. Given that you need to accumulate plenty of over-g and that the aircraft can pull more G than it can IRL (I wish that could be taken care of, it's not an F-15 issue either, more of a DCS thing), not really - and again, it's modeling ultimate strength, not airframe plasticity or other structural items. Right, there's nothing 'FC3' about this. And of course there's no simulation of the airframe being bent and subsequent aerodynamic issues, etc. etc.

I'm familiar with the incidences of over-g in the eagle. No, saying hat the pilot would GLOC is not necessarily realistic. Further, these over-g incidences IRL are a single event in the aircraft's 'career' typically, not the high-low pump that happens in DCS in a single flight. As well, the DCS eagle is capable of developing more G than the real one ever has. What ED has done seems just fine. I've never seen it happen to anyone who wasn't running around ham-fisted with full bags.

Nothing terribly advanced about it. It's already in-game in one way or another. The closer you get shorter 'radar memory' is, since the target can move a lot more in terms of angles up close (where eg at 40nm even though he makes a 90 here or there, as far as moving the radar antenna goes it'll be a fraction of a degree)

In DCS they will be always lost. IRL it depends heavily on the radar and the techniques it uses, but very broadly speaking if a target drops into the notch that's a break-lock. Modern radars have ways to recover the target if it's not able to stay in the notch long, but there's no magical way of continuing to track it if the filter drops that target. It's now considered to be part of the radar clutter. In an F-18 you have some options, such as continuing to track with the pod in A/A, although this should also be subject to clutter, just not in the same way (sort of random change of dropping the track, but we don't need to go into this here). As for how radar work IRL - an aircraft approaching 90 deg will have a much larger RCS, something not modeled in DCS - no point in complaining about that though, it just is what it is and it's ok. At the same time, while MPRF is less sensitive to notching (better clutter rejection) it is absolutely not immune to it and because of the way MPRF works (lower duty cycle and lower signal integration), the detection and tracking range is significantly reduced compared to HPRF. The main difference here is that HPRF is great for head-on targets, very poor against receding (for detection/tracking at range...will work fine at the ranges required to operate tail-shots for sparrows etc) while MPRF gives you an overall consistent performance at all aspects with the caveat that it's got something on the order of 40% of HPRF range.

I don't believe this to be the case unless you're flying a very light eagle and even then it's subject to repeated stresses in rapid succession, highly dependent on which flight regime all of this is happening in.

Haven't noticed it because I don't ham-fist the aircraft, and it pulls 9g throughout most of of its weight range, unless you're running around with full bags. It is a strong fighter ... you're just not a strong pilot There is nothing to fix. It's a poor pilot condition, not a poor flight condition. Learn how to control g-forces in your aircraft. And as mentioned, the real eagle has no limiter and therefore neither does the DCS one. The limiter is you, so get better at understanding how to fly

You're under the mistaken impression that JANE's is a worthwhile source of information for any of this. The F-15C uses the APG-63 and actual radar test data has been provided to ED. No JANE's needed. You can even cross-check with the radar equation to see if the stated ranges make sense.

It was certainly simulated for the 'Missile SFM' and it's likely so for the new FM they're using right now. Missiles in 'SFM' had somewhere around +7% thrust at 12km compared to SL. Don't quote me on the numbers though, it's been a very long time. The change of altitude/pressure also changes the burn time along with manufacturing tolerance realities, and thus you have two sources for the cause of this range. So any number you see for thrust, burn time etc should be followed by a question like 'at what pressure'.