LowRider88

I was one of the folks who was initially disappointed for not having a full Chinese cockpit. Fortunately for me, I found out about the big news about a week late and by the time I finished catching up on the thread my feelings subsided and I avoided the embarrassment of going off on the PP (not to say that anyone who did embarrassed themselves, I totally understood where they were coming from). With some time to think about it, although the PP was not built in numbers or had a production run, I now think of it as a fully Chinese plane, despite the western avionics. Just like the PL-8 missile started off as the Python from Israel, and the PL-11 began as the Aspide from Italy, the forth gen aspects of the J-8 began with an external source. Some people want an all Chinese plane because they don’t want trolls going on about the Chinese copying of tech (especially when all that tech was legitimately purchased). But this is the unique aspect of the Chinese Aviation Industry. I recently learned that Deng Xiaoping had a saying which was something like “when crossing a river, cross slowly to feel every rock with your feet”, or something like that. The Chinese Aviation Industry is iterative, taking careful steps, not really caring that there are trolls screaming “copy and paste”, and just progressing carefully, which proved to be the right way until they could afford to take more gambles and tech jumps later. So external starting points are still part of the history of this plane, just like it was for the missiles, before they evolved into something unique. I believe PLAAF posted a nice thread with the different variants of the J-8, and photos of the later ones like the G, H, or F had similar cockpit features of the PP, like the MFDs. So the PP is still interesting to me. Like a snapshot in time in the long road of development.

Hm. Looks like the DCS Module List just posted the F-15E for pre purchase. And yet, here I still am, in only this sub forum. You know I will be checking the Module List every day until I see the flying pencil.

Just googled “touch down speed vs stall speed” and found this: https://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=95025 From this, apparently: “Approach speed (Vref) is typically 1.3 times the stalling speed (in the landing configuration). The aircraft's stall speed is directly related to the current weight of the aircraft. Touch down should occur at a speed no less than Vref minus 10 knots.” Also googled “knots to kph”. Looking at the manuals for the DCS F-5E and MiG-19: Touchdown Speed: F-5E = 135 knots Approach Speed: F-5E ~= 145 knots Stall Speed: F-5E ~= 145 / 1.3 ~= 111.54 knots ~= 206.57 kph Touchdown Speed: MiG-19 = 235 kph Approach Speed: MiG-19 ~= 253.52 kph Stall Speed: MiG-19 ~= 253.52 / 1.3 ~= 195.02 kph Just some rough calculations, but this might imply the J-8II has slow speed maneuverability about the same as the MiG-19, and better than the F-5E, which could come in handy in a scissors fight. Not bad for a plane the weight of an F/A-18 and the length of an F-15.

Since 2016, I have come to both excited and disappointed by some of the model choices by DCS. They picked the version of the F-5E that didn’t even see any combat, and opted for the one used in training. Similar thing for the MiG-19. They picked late models of the F-86 and MiG-15 which just made their performance near parity, and thus the game play rather boring, when they could have picked the slightly earlier versions which saw more fighting, and had their unique niches more defined. I am so happy to finally get another Chinese plane, and one that Chinese pilots actually flew outside of development. But again the dream is slightly tainted by the non Chinese elements. It is almost like, now that we get a Chinese plan in PLAAF inventory, it has to be slotted into a bluefor what if scenario, fighting the Soviet Union, when perhaps the Soviet Afghan War did not end and the West’s first shift to the east never happened. I am also curious, were Deka constrained to pick this version because of classified documents from China, or because DCS steered the project in this direction? What ever the case, I will still support Deka and buy this product. Excellent quality and research. Excellent community engagement. So many quality freebies, despite having been stolen from in the past. Great guys.

Thanks UBoats! You said you would provide Q and A and you did. Deka always delivers

Thanks for all of this UBoats Can’t wait for that post!

Does this have to involve FC3? Could it just be a “reskin” of the 19, with the J-8 model and SFM?

Just some corrections to your declarations: 1. The year was 2001, not Y2K. 2. The pilot was Lt. Cdr Wang Wei, not Wing Wei. 3. The J-8 was not barrel rolling or mishandled. It was flying slow and straight as typically would be for escort. You can see the video here:

Maybe the MiG-19P cockpit is a better match. PLAAF posted a pretty detailed thread showing an early J-8 cockpit which looks strikingly similar to the 19.

Wow, that’s a lot of comments in a short amount of time. Deka sneezes and everybody jumps to attention, that’s a tribute to its fan base for sure. I was also originally disappointed for not getting an all Chinese plane. But Thanks to Nineline and UBoats for informing this is the only way to make another Chinese plane happen. Thanks to Jun for sharing the PP cockpit pic. There’s still enough retro aspects of it that it still feels red, so I am good. I hope “Step By step” from UBoats means when it is possible, the F will be flyable. Thanks Deka for sticking to the plan and giving us Chinese, and something original, and long overdue. And Thanks for taking the time to deliver good products out of the box. Just like the 90s, and none of that agile, piece meal business. I just hope the pilot model is Chinese too. Some potential 3rd party talk up multicultural pilots, then go back on their statement. Any dates yet? I already have my wallet out.

+1

Excited about this one. Would be even more excited if it were the laminar flow winged, 6 hour flying La-11.

I would prefer domestic. After playing combat flight sims for almost 30 years, give me some variety. Whoever says a domestic won’t sell, who are you kidding? JF-17 is more obscure than a J-10 and look what kind of fan base Deka built with it. Deka could release a tricycle and people would buy. Because it would be a high quality tricycle.

What did you do to get their “positive” attention? I’ve been waiting almost a year for them to even acknowledge my request to have the flaps not auto retract at such a low speed. It’s been a burning contradiction to their own manual since it came out years ago. Seems my request is oodles more easier to fix than yours. Zilch response.

Hi, someone, anyone, Would someone be able to look into this request? It has been almost a year and as mentioned above this seems like such an easy setting to change. Would some be able to acknowledge this?

Also waiting for the S. Really hope the team can come back to this one rather than starting other projects. Waiting years has me falling in and out, in and out of interest for this could-be-super-awesome plane.

Just some pre-research guessing from me, but perhaps the stability of the plane is with respect to the Center of lift vs the Center of weight, at your test speed, the size and number of fences and other lift devices, and also perhaps due to the span of the wings extending further back in the later aircraft. The only way to know if the stability is correct is if it matches what ever info may be scrapped from the flight manuals.

Originally I was not that excited about the J-8. Maybe listened too much to western media that said it was a bad plane. But having looked deeper into the math, I realize now I was fooled. it is true that China did not build as many of these as the J-6, which was in the thousands. But I understand now that that is because one J-8 could take the place of several J-6s due to their long range and speed. Fewer were needed to cover the large Chinese territory. It was a much more capable and specialized jet. So it wasn’t built in small number because it was unpopular. It may be large but it is still maneuverable, and definitely no sluggish. it is longer than an F-15, but it is lighter than an F-18. in fact, it has a lower wing loading and lower landing touch down speed than an F-18. This suggests a lower stall speed, which in a turn fight may give the J-8 a turn radius advantage in a 1 circle fight or a scissors against an F-18. And it does this without LERX, leading edge flaps. it may not fare as well in the 2 circle fight against an F-18, without relaxed static stability and fly-by-wire, and with a low aspect, large delta wing that bleeds speed, but with a relatively light frame and 2 engines which can propel it to a max speed of 2.4 M, it should be able to reclaim speed easily in a scissors. Being slightly lighter and with the delta, it could be used to slow down sooner in the scissors. It may not have as advanced avionics as the F-18, but as mentioned in this thread it can carry the long range PL-12s. it may carry roughly half the fighting missiles of the F-18, but it most likely was about half the cost of an F-18, and so could potentially outnumber the F-18 in a given theatre match up. In some ways it was like China’s F-18. With similar BVR, high speed, long range, and maneuverability, it could do air superiority, ground attack, recon and escort. And the more I look at J-8 pictures the more attractive it gets. Now I can’t decide between the J-8E, or the J-8F. Both are sexy in different ways. Really hope Deka can make our dreams come true with a J-8. Searching YouTube online, it seems the J-8 is receiving a whole lot of love from a fan base of a particular free to play multiplayer air quake. Wishing badly we can get a full fidelity one here.

Oh, that was a typo. "no way" was supposed to be "now". How about Q-5?

Awesome article, great research I see no way why you prefer the G variant. Any interest in doing the same for the Q-5?

In that case, I suppose you could also count the J-8D collision with an EP-3 in 2001. In terms of the spirit of what you were referring to as more meaningful, absolutely. But in terms of replaying historical air combat in DCS, maybe not so much Just to clarify though, from what ever limits research I was able to pull up, the U-2 and other recon flights were most likely stopped not because of the J-8, but because of the S-2s, and all the J-6 successful intercepts.

Completely agree. As I said, together for a shared future. But we are on a mil sim forum after all, and are all buying mods for the purpose of combat sim, which is more meaningful to some when there are historical cases to study and learn from. Also the PLAAF/PLANAF still had combat cases which met your two points above. If you can find cases, great. If you can't or don't want to, no worries.

I would imagine, F-13 and MF could be done by Mag3, and anythingthing modern J-7 would be best handled by Deka. That is where I believe the similarities could be grouped. However the F-13 is maybe so simple, it could be cockpit and FM independent of the MF. So maybe Deka could also do F-13 with out need for copy and paste from Bis. I believe it is mainly the MF which benefits most from copy and paste from Bis.

That's a good point, PLAAF. Although, I don't find much records of the S being in 'nam, but I may be wrong. I prefer the MF over the PFM. But I guess it depend which timeframe is targeted. Would we want to play the Operation Bolo or Linebacker scenarios.

Not to be a war monger (Together, for a Shared Future!), but it is such a shame the J-8 and Q-5 both have little or no combat history, from what I could find with my limited means. PLAAF, any chance you can find any details of their combat or meaningful operational history?