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There are no cables in the Tomcats flight control system. Stabs and rudders are driven by hydraulic actuators which position the control surfaces according to stick/rudder position. The latter are connected to the actuators by a linkage assembly. This is a one-way system, you cant externally move the stabs, at least not without breaking them. Like the whole AC, the stick is subject to lateral acceleration and the stick's inertia (i.e. mass induced resistance against the acceleration) will drive it backwards as the plane accelerates. There is no need to pull it. If anything, pilots kept it in place against the acceleration force with their hand. Once the acceleration stops at the and of the cat stroke, the stick will momentarily travel back to the neutral position/ back into the pilots hand, ensuring proper pitching rate.

Unlike the F-14 cockpit at night Too bad their fixes apparently didn't make it in today.

The radar alt doesnt need to be turned off, just set the altitude bug to zero so the light wont come on

Yes we do, there are different alignment modes for beach and boat (GND and CVA) , the latter requiring some information on how the boats/ACs position changes during alignment. This can be either provided by the SINS or derived from an initial position and velocity vector (i.e. HS alignemt).

You dont need HS alignment on the ground, since your plane is not moving and the current position is known from aerodrome charts.

That cant be, 44k base weight +4k tank fuel +6k internal adds up to 54k Btw the "internal fuel" value in the ME counts both tank and internal fuel, so make sure to set that to 10k. Gun ammo or not doesnt matter, as long as your gross weight adds up to 54k, or whatever weight you want to test at.

You need to explicitly set full tanks on ST 2 and 7 (in my mission its set to empty tanks IIRC). The 6000lbs of total fuel will of course not add up to 54000lbs GW As clean as it gets in DCS: No missiles/ordnance, no tanks (tank rails remain on though), no gun ammo, no PH rails, although the latter doesnt matter. This gives an empty weight of 44000lbs which is in line with RW docs.

I was indeed unable to reproduce some of my findings but ONE thing I was able to reproduce: Start with a clean AC (no tanks), set fuel to approx 10000lbs (GW54000) -> onspeed 138 Change loadout in ME to clean AC with FULL tanks, set internal fuel to 6000lbs (same 54000 GW) -> onspeed 132 Change loadout to clean AC with EMPTY tanks, set internal fuel to 9800lbs (again 54000GW) -> onspeed 138. I've attached the mission, can anyone try the above to confirm/refute my results? f14_ext_tank_weight_test.miz

FWIW I'm referencing the in cockpit IAS gauge, not the status bar. That might cause the discrepancy. I'll do more test tomorrow.

Putting tanks on makes things interesting... I did three setups: Clean airframe, no gun ammo and: Full tanks, empty tanks, no tanks. Fuel levels adjusted to have 54000lbs (in ME) Full tanks onspeed: 132kts Empty tanks onspeed: 132kts No tanks onspeed: 138kts It seems like adding tanks removes weight from the FM rather than adding it. Looking at the numbers, about 3000-4000lbs go "missing" when putting on tanks, full or empty.

This is not Jester clicking buttons and flipping switches but an old soundbug. For some reason, sometimes when you click on the ejection arm cover, it will play a long sequence of all kinds of cockpit sounds instead of just one click sound. HB know about it and will eventually fix it.

Why would this be the case? A single TF-30 at MIL will give you enough thrust for a positive climb even at max trap weight. Max cat launch weight is a different story though, thats why they use burners on those in the A. The key to surviving a single engine failure during a bolter is adequate AoA (no more than 14), roll and yaw control, not excessive thrust. Adding AB doesnt help that.

There is no point in lighting the cans in the wires. Mil power provides more than enough thrust at max trap weights for a safe fly away. On the contrary, selecting AB can get you into huge trouble if one of the burners fails to light up, there is no AB asymmetry protection in the A.

I havent tested all possible loadouts but the missile weights check out in both ME weight and on-speed crosschecks. E.g. a 1/4/2 loadout with 6lbs fuel shows 54klbs weight in the ME and gives about 138kts on-speed. The 1000lbs (1100 aktchually if you count the fairing) from the rails are missing here too though. So far, on-speed IAS is accurate for whatever weight is seen in the ME in my tests. Considering that rail weight is not accounted for in the ME weight, the FM does not "see" it as well.

I'm merely stating my findings here, whatever players/devs do with with it is up to them. I'm personally not in the "1DPS is a big deal" camp and these 2000 rail pounds are on the edge of measurability in terms of flying.

Missiles or not, the rails are not being accounted for. If I cross check on-speed IAS and ME displayed aircraft weight, it matches pretty well with the approach speed chart (E.g with 54klbs I'm at about 138kts). If I use the "actual" weight by adding 2000lbs worth of PH rails to the ME weight, I'm always 2-3 knots slower than I should be. The empty weight for the B of 44000lbs does match RW data, considering we cant remove the tank and ST 1A/8A rails, which adds roughly 400lbs to the NATOPS empty weight of 43600. Empty tanks are a little light with 110lbs compared the 200lbs they should be per docs but this is irrelevant. In general, stores and empty weights are pretty close to available data, EXCEPT the PH rails, which have zero weight in both ME and flight model.

FT stands for free turbine. Its the last two turbine stages that are connected to the gear box. The idea behind FT overspeed protection is that if for some reason the mechanical link between FT and gearbox breaks, the FT will start to start spinning uncontrollably fast and desintigrate, sending turbine blades through the whole engine compartment. To prevent that, each engine has two FT overspeed sensors that trigger above a certain rpm threshold and shut off fuel supply to the affected engine. Now you can also trigger that with insanely high rotor rpm, since FT and rotor are mechincally linked through the gearbox. OPs rotor rpm was pegged at 110% but the actual rotor rpm could've been even higher, triggering the fuel shut off.

FT overspeed protection

Is there a paintkit available somewhere? Needs some skins for VA-35/36 aboard TR.

The "Memory" position is a test function to test the memory mode, it can be activated on the DISS test panel behind the FO. If you want to do great circle navigation (which makes no sense on the maps we have and AFAIK the earth is considered flat in DCS anyway), you need to switch the gyrocompass to GPK and follow your orthodromic course.

IRL the handle can be stowed in the oversweep position and the cover can be closed. In DCS, this is not possible (yet).

Could this be fog related? There is a lot of fog in OP's screenshots compared to the second post.

You can disable Jester entirely through the crew submenu, that way he wont touch anything in the back seat.

The command is called "Go silent", you can find it in the BVR submenu.