Lucas_From_Hell

It's all relative, I think. The Tomahawk is a formidable missile, and the Russian air defence network is equally so. Ignoring politics and the likely aftermaths, if the US went for an all-out strike the immediate outcome would be lots of missiles destroyed, but also lots that hit their intended targets. Like Pilotasso said though, it's best we don't find out.

The A-10C and F/A-18C we have entered service in 2005. They are by far the limiting factor here. There's some wiggle room for the Hornet, but the A-10C simply didn't exist before that. The Viggen went out that year. American Tomcats flew until 2006, but Iran still operates a fleet. Countries that operated the base-model F-5E (or similar) in 2005 are Iran, Brazil, Bahrain, Honduras, Indonesia, Jordan, Malaysia, Mexico, Singapore, Switzerland, Thailand, Morocco, Taiwan and Yemen. No idea on the Harrier, but I think it was flying already.

The music feels over the top. You have half a dozen very loud supersonic fighters doing aerobatics together, any epic music when put next to that feels like owning a fridge in the North Pole. Anything that doesn't add to the show is a distraction, personally. For comparison, this is what I feel is the absolute finest use of music during an airshow. It creates such an intense and remarkable moment!

You need the pod to successfully detect an object with a frontal aspect the size of a human torso coming in at Mach 3, 4 or higher, at enough range so that you can eliminate it in a timely manner before it can hit the aircraft, either directly or through shrapnel. That sounds kind of tricky, but I'm oblivious to the specifics of how these pods work.

If you're not completely sold on it and, by the looks of it, it isn't quite your cup of tea, then I'd say skip it for now and go learn the stuff you already have but don't know how to use. The Hornet will eventually be released, and then it'll be completed, and updated, and it will go on sale like any other module. The best thing you can do right now is play a bit with the Mirage 2000 default campaign. They're from similar generations (though the Hornet is much newer and more advanced) and should present a similar feel in terms of FBW controls and systems, only with less of a workload. If you do enjoy the Mirage a lot and think you'd like to have something similar to it but with better A2G capabilities and that lands on a ship, go for the Hornet. If not, stay with the older stuff. There's an F-4E and MiG-19 coming out this year for example, that'll probably be up your alley.

Nice guy CptSmiley :D Helps create a great module, and still gives it love daily! Thanks for constantly communicating here and on Reddit, good luck with the work!

Actually that's a quirk of instrumentation. Despite being labelled as L/R, the fuel tanks are actually forward/aft! Take a look here, items 98 and 117. If I remember correctly the forward tank has more capacity than the aft one.

It sadly is, and has been for a long time. A few P-39s crashed in Soviet service because occasionally tools were forgotten inside parts being repaired, moved during a turn and upset the CG to the point of causing a flat spin.

A H-60 from Harpia (7º/8º GAv, Manaus) rests after a sortie.

This. The rockets are also heavier, so there's a decent chance that they were never tested or certified for the airframe.

To complement this, what happens when you grossly exceed the limits is the mechanics back at the base do a close inspection and overhaul to see if any structural damage was sustained - many times nothing happens, but you need to check and address these problems so that next time someone pulls 11 or more any small damage incurred before won't make the aircraft fall apart.

Pretending to be a test pilot with the balalaika! I was surprisingly pleased with how it handled. In controlled level flight, I reached its specified service ceiling of 17500m without much trouble. It was docile at the commands, but I was conservative in handling. After that, I traded some speed for altitude and did a zoom climb to see how high I could go. We almost broke past 20.000m, but its tiny wings got tired at exactly 19.900m. Here's the view on the way up - even the Nevada desert looks cold from those altitudes!

A part of the problem is the MiG-21's deadly combination of a delta wing, engine prone to flameouts and very good control authority. Any harsh pulls on the stick leave you flopping about without speed and possibly a dead engine as well, which is never a good thing to put it mildly. The F-5 funnily enough behaves the same at very high altitudes, almost every time I go for a hammerhead the engines quit at the top and I'm left desperately chasing thicker air with an angry bandit behind me!

They complement each other well. Both are very well-modelled, both have some issues here and there, and both have areas where they excel and fail as fighter aircraft. At high speeds and/or high altitudes the MiG-21bis puts the F-5E-3 to bed quickly. Its engine power combined with delta wing design makes it excellent in those envelopes, where the F-5 loses speed and becomes stationary quickly. At lower speeds or altitudes the situation is reversed. Thanks to its combat flaps, leading edge extensions and lift-enhancing extensions the F-5E runs circles around the MiG-21, and thanks to gunnery cues from the radar and a pair of powerful guns with lots of bullets it has a much higher chance of converting good positions and snapshots into concrete kills. All in all their design roles say it all - one was born as an interceptor, the other as a tactical fighter.

My ideal somewhat realistic picks would be AMX, A-6E or MiG-29A. Draken or Gripen would also be a blast, but the latter has a lot of classified stuff.

All this talk about the MiG-21 combined with watching The Right Stuff made me take this rocket for a spin. I passed 19900m in my first attempt, clean aircraft, no rocket assistance! The world looks very pretty (and cold) from there. I could maintain controlled level flight at 1-3º AoA, making around 500km/h in full afterburner, until something like 17000m. Without touching the throttle and keeping AoA reasonable, the engine behaved rather nicely and remained lit throughout. To reach 19900m I had to unload, let the nose drop to pick up some speed, then enter a 30º climb until the wings refused to keep the little guy flying. You're definitely just sitting on the engine at that point, but it shows just how much power they packed into this tiny interceptor.

From another post, a tip I got from a real Tiger pilot: I cannot stress how much of a difference this makes in handling, particularly at slower speeds. You need to get the timing right, generally speaking bring the rudder back to the middle almost a second before where you want the nose to stop. You can make very sudden reversals at a relatively minor speed penalty. The Tiger can be very stable at higher angles of attack but it likes to go there too often, so be mindful of how much you pull otherwise it will bleed a lot of speed.

Another vote for the MiG-21. The only caveat is the cockpit textures, you'll be a happier camper with Deferred Shading off until the next update since the alpha channel of the scratches and dust layer is more opaque in 2.5 than it was designed to be, making visibility a problem.

As in the title. It is one of the most popular hose tankers out there (used by Brazil, Canada, Israel, Italy, Argentina, Japan, Kuwait, Malaysia, Morocco, Singapore, Sweden and Saudi Arabia), and many of its operators are or will be added to DCS with incoming modules. Is it planned to eventually add it together with a skin for the operators present in DCS? Would users be able to help towards that by tackling at least one skin per operator?

Belsimtek's Tiger is the F-5E-3, an Aggressor variant, similar to those employed in Switzerland (cockpit photos reinforce that, with the Swiss having both VHF and UHF radios). The curved fin does not specifically determine variant universally, it's only useful to tell in Brazil where all aircraft were from two separate batches and variants. The straight fin is for avionics which were not present in the Canoas Aggressor ones (VOR, VHF radio and GPS, I think). The ability to install the off-the-shelf refueling must have been requested before production so that Northrop could get all the plumbing done for future probe installation. Given the operational ranges needed, I would make an educated guess that Brazil, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Chile and Singapore requested the ability to equip the probes should they want that. The Moroccan inventory shares similarities with the Brazilian one. The initial Moroccan batch delivered in 1981 was built with the requirement for in-flight refueling, and probes were either installed in the factory or in Morocco already. In 1989, an agreement was reached to purchase surplus USAFE Aggressors flown from the UK. Like the Canoas aircraft, these lacked avionics included in the spine of the Moroccan Tigers, and did not have the option for in-flight refueling. The F-5A in that photo was a non-standard modification done during Skoshi Tiger trials, nothing official or that applies to the F-5E. The Canadian probes were also non-standard, and developed as an afterthought to enable their CF-5A to be transferred without stopovers to Norway. Sorry for the wall of text! What I'm trying to say is, in short, it's definitely possible to get a probe working on the USN/USMC F-5E-3. Brazil did that to the Canoas airframes (like this guy over here). However, this would require somewhat invasive modification by the air force's maintenance park. It isn't the kind of thing that can be quickly fitted by the squadron's maintenance team, thus probably not the best idea for a loadout option. This is different from the D2M on the Mirage 2000C for example, which is compatible and easily fitted but not generally used because of the Charlie's mission profile.

Brilliant update, the amount of detail put into this is baffling. Thanks, Heatblur!

Before the F-5EM modernisation all Brazilian Tigers equipped with the probe were the F-5Es of 1º GAvCa, BASC. No F-5E-3s (1º/14º GAv, BACO) received the probes. These were ex-Aggressor aircraft, and are identifiable by the curved juncture between the vertical stabiliser and the dorsal spine, compared to the straight one in the F-5E. It is very likely that without further modifications the F-5E-3 is not compatible with the default air-to-air refueling kit available for the F-5E, which is why Belsimtek did not include it.

I'm playing this campaign again. Mission 2 didn't work for me in 1.5 but in 2.5 it's splendid! Tracers everywhere, such an intense firefight, and easy to identify. Went in for the pass, kept it just below supersonic (don't want old angry Georgian ladies showing up at base complaining about broken windows) and hit the PANIC release button for a nice show... then I, the moron, relised I had forgotten to move the countermeasure dispenser power next to the program dial from off to semi-automatic! Regardless, a Mirage knife-edge pass was enough to settle things down, and I had a great time :)

Now to some modern Brazilian Air Force, off their official twitter account... Esquadrilha da Fumaça preparations are coming to a close, and they are ready to kick off their 2018 season! FAB 4828, once an F-5E belonging to 2º/1º GAvCa 'Pif-Paf' out of Santa Cruz, Rio de Janeiro, has since been upgraded to the F-5EM standard. Besides the change in colours, it is now serving with 1º/14º GAv 'Pampa' in Canoas, Rio Grande do Sul. Its sibling however, FAB 4827, was part of 1º/1º GAv 'Jambock' and remained with it in Santa Cruz. Here is poses in front of the gorgeous Zeppelin hangar which services both squadrons. Make way, Hercules. One of the KC-390 prototypes in flight. An Embraer project with collaboration from multiple countries, it's about to reach operational status.

Having the issue as well, I played mission 03 of the campaign today, did not change the payload, the tanker would not fill up beyond 3160kg. Interestingly, it would also not tell me that refueling is complete or to disconnect, so while waiting for the tanks to fill up I broke my record for minutes plugged into the tanker without disconnecting :D