Bremspropeller

Never happened. The -104s were either out of gas or never saw the -21s before the merge. Also, the -104s had suffered from an arms-embargo before the war, so few flight-hours because of lacking spares. The "MiG-21s clearly won" is just a fairytale. All that said, the -21 was still the better (easier) dogfighting platform. The Wopen engines were R-11 copies and were worse than the original. China had virtually no experience back then and it took decades to make up for that. But it would fit much better into the interesting timeframes. It could carry four missiles with the Monsun carriers, adding an a$$ton of drag. One could also think about the FL, which is just as relevant in the middle east (and India, lotsa people - just saying). It will be less capable than the PFM, but at least the IAF at some point installed the outboard pylons. I have yet to see a pic of an FL with anything on those outboard pylons in flight. What's on there on the R/H jet?

I don't think the yaw damper plays a significant role there. For several reasons: 1) The aircraft exibits natural directional stability, so sideslips will righten themselves out quickly. Especially with a low aspect ratio swept wing. This would be oscillatory with a dampening coefficient, so additional stabilty (actually dampening) is provided by the YD through yaw-attenuation. 2) Yaw dampers are mostly used to counter dutch roll, which is caused by a high spiral stability in relation to the directional stability. Their authority is limited, otherwise we'd have no adverse yaw issues when using ailerons at higher aoa. That's also why additional ARI is used on some jets in some circumstances. Yaw dampers don't really control sideslip per sé, but rather yaw-rate. Some turn coordination functions may exist, though, depending on the system's architecture. Most of that is by cancelling adverse yaw on the turn-entry. 3) The only trim required in a steady turn is pitch trim, if the turn entry was flown coordinated. If you need anything on top, it's mostly a matter of spiral stability and the associated dihedral effect through bank angle. This would be a pretty sh1tty design though, requiring aileron into the turn, meaning additional drag on the outboard wing (adverse yaw out of the turn). Hence most aircraft have a reasonable, but not excessive spiral stability. It's more for letting go of the stick for a minute and not doing a JFK Jr., rather than crossing the Atlantic stick-free. Think about it another way: If you're using the sideslip technique for crosswind approaches, you'll find yourself crosscontrolling (aileron banking into the wind, opposite rudder to hold the heading). And that's without YDs. In fact, YDs are normally off during the landing, or you'd run into trouble during the flare... ____ The more I'm thinking about it, the more I think the current spiral stability on the F1 is way excessive. I guess its a leftover from the last "asymmetric loads" fix and I'm positive we'll see another iteration. Edit: I did some more testing. The uprighting moment seems to be reasonable, when tested under several sideslip conditions with YD in Anti-Slip, YD and off. There's a defiante connection between a sideslip indicated by the ball and a resulting roll movement. Certainly in qualitative terms. Roll by rudder seems a little slow at slow speeds, though, and you need a good deal of AoA for her to do more than just a lackluster roll. Still won't do much with some alpha on. She'll do a quite nice rudder induced roll, however, at 500 KIAS

The -23MLA has half the engines but about 2/3 the fuel of the F-4E. Internal, that is. I'd expect an F-4E with the 600gal CL tank to be roughly on par with a -23MLA with the 800l tank. That's not accounting for L/D in the hold for the CAP, but just fuel going through the motors. Combined with it's variable wing geometry, the -23MLA should be able to CAP fairly efficiently.

I think the -23 will take most blufor people by surprise. Especially when the loadout is restricted to nothing but Sparrows as big sticks. The F-4 might have a sliver of an edge in WVR when just comparing ITR and STR, but the -23 can blow through the fight at Mach 500, regain energy pretty easily and it has the gas to stick around. BVR will not be a happy place fo an F-4E, when the opfor is flying late Floggers.

All I need is a Miracle...

I'm not sure I can follow you, but the dihedral effect in terms of sideslip needs to be understood in the correct context. Dihedral effect in sideslip is the same effect, but in yaw and it affects swept wing aircraft to the same degree as dihedral - just in a different axis (roll through yaw). It's not directly related to the dihedral angle, but it may superimpose and fight the dihedral angle, if a roll and a skid persist into the same direction. By the same token, an anhedral wing will have roll and skid add to each other. This might be an issue, as I think the rudder should create a little more rolling-tendency at high AoA. Not sure how much the "anti slip" AFCS-function is trying to footwrestle us there, though. PS: The F1 is more or less mechanical-direct in roll. It's only analogue FBW in pitch and yaw, with a FBW-function in roll (differential stabilizer) with the autopilot engaged. That's just +/-3° of authority, though - basicly a beefed-up wing-levelling function.

Well, hopefully the map is designed in a way that lets us portray the Iran-Iraq war, which had been going on in that area for almost a decade. DS and the actual *war* part of OIF have been quite short, compared to the years of conflicht between those two countries. We already have a good deal of assets for this war and here's more to come.

Naturally - you're my evil twin, after all The way I understand the VVS/ Frontal Aviation role is that they all have at least a secondary air-ground role. In a way, the Fulcrum is just a Boomer's MiG-21. Which is awesome. Ref the tandem 500kg bombs: I'd like that loadout, just as much as I'd like possibly jury-rigged loadouts of the 9.12B-varaiant users. Remember, we'll have the maps to depict middle-eastern Fulcrums big time. So as slong as something doesn't require too much (classified) computer fiddling, I'm game. Ref 9.13: Didn't the 29S also have a flight-controls upgrade? I seem to remember they gave it 2° more AoA allowance for the AFCS-limiter. I also seem to remember (might be wrong, though) that the 9.12 had those retrofitted in the VVS. Again, that might be a mis-remembrance. Would be awesome to have that tick-box if it was a thing.

Five pages of people mostly talking missiles. Nice. - What A-G ordnance will the jet come with? Anything to expect beyond the FC3 loadout? - Will there be a fleshed out GCI meta? Would be cool to recieve steering-commands for interceps. But here's the most important question: Who else is gonna triple-Immelmann it or the first take-off?

I think the bridle issue might be resolved quite easy. You hit U (or whatever you've mapped) and the bridle/ holdback magicly appears. Not purdy, but it's a good enough first implementation. As an addendum to what I wrote earlier on the B/N and J/S discussion: I don't want to trash the J, but people need to do a reality check here. First, the vanilla, pre-mod AWG-10 was a pretty sh1tty system that was down a lot and didn't hold together very well under ops conditions. Somewhat like the DIANE on the A-6A. The second issue is that even post-mod and with the later AWG-10A and B, you still had a cr@ppy 70s Sparrow to do the shooting. Now, you could do a mexican volley and squeeze off all four (six) of them, but that's not quite the path to success either. So if you want to p0wn people on ECW, a Beeline B or the N might actually float your boat quite well. I'm not particularily favoring one over the other. Just want to be fair towards both the Navy birds.

I don't think the B/N would be a bad choice, given the possible timeframe that could be covered: Early 60s through late 70s, depending on which sub-variants they're willing to make/ getting enough info to make. The B was heavily used in SEA and it faded out with the Tomcats coming online. If we're thinking ahead, an early 60s Phantom could be valuable in the future. There's a MiG-17F in the works, there's still some MiG-19S hopes and people are keen for somebody to make an early MiG-21. The B would fit right in with those. The B is also lighter than the J, with a lighter nose, which will be positive at the merge. Both the N and J/S had VTAS, which I absolutely think should be done if there's enough documentation to get by. Not to make ace-in-a-day compilations on youtube or for excelling in PvP, but mostly for the quirkiness and the experience of using this system. If it's a check-option, people will have a choice between unsing it and leaving it at home. The J in general provides a nice contrast to the E, with it's AWG-10 system and the generally better Sidewinders. The B/N and J/S will both be somewhat of a letdown for the A-G folks, when compared to the E, so there's little difference in between them. Maybe some special Marines weapons-rigging, which would be tough as nails getting documentation for. If it ever existed.

Not observed is meant to mean "I didn't look for it". There's a 40° heading-change in the 90° bank test.

One additional observation: The aircraft will roll upright, when overbanked past 90°.

There's always a shockwave in front of the wing. Either caused by the tip tanks or by the tip-rails, which also protude a good deal in front of the LE. I'm also quite sure they figured out how to launch the Sparrow supersonically. It's not quite rocket-surgery to design a launcher that can create enough separation.

Just did a quick and dirty test on the Caucasus Take Off quick mission. Some data-points: At 2500ft and ~310KIAS/ Mach 0.5, the aircraft will take about 15s from a 30° bank to 10° bank and another 30s to reach almost zero bank. Heading change not observed. (R bank) At 3000ft and M0.6, starting at 30° she took 5s to get to 20°, another 10s (15 total) to 10° and didn't quite reach upright before the minute. Heading change not obsserved (L bank) At 15.000ft and M0.8 (~400KIAS) at 90° bank, she took 8s to get back to 60°, rolled through 30° at about 18s and never reached less than 10° of bank before I had to jank her out of the dive that had developed. The nose went through about 40 degrees of heading change. (L bank) Power = iso, same for all trims.

You weren't incorrect at all. Static roll stability has your aircraft return to zero bank, within the boundaries of non-extreme bank angles and attitudes. Different kinds of aircraft will have different kinds of stability requirements. What's good for an IFR cross-country aircraft (high static and dynamic stability) isn't always what you'd opt for in fighter/ attack aircraft, which also want a degree of maneuverability. The dynamic stability part can partially be taken care of by a well-designed SAS. The static part is a bit harder to tune. I'd expect the aircraft to have positive static roll stability at small bank angles, but I'd be surprised if it really had that much dihedral-effect at greater bank-angles. If it had, I'd expect more roll-due-to-yaw with rudder-inputs.

+1 Flutter on the stabs would be awesome.

The closest thing to the F-4 right now is the F1. You'll only get half of everything (engines, people, A-A missiles). Well, not exactly, as it's got twice the guns and looks 10 times better. Joking aside, it's actually a the best prep for the F-4E: - similar roles, similar'ish timeframe (roughly mid 70s to mid 80s) - Fox1 capability with a crappy radar - handling should be very close, too The F-5 handles too different and won't be able to reproduce radar and Fox1s. It also kinematically just isn't up for it. The MiGs are just completely different, same with the Viggen. The F-14 has all the HB flavour, but handles more benign in the phonebooth and it's radar and A-A weaponry are too advanced to get you hitting the ground running in the F-4.

How and if one airplane is able to stand in or even replace another is purely based on the amount of assumptions flowing into the assessment. TLDR: Replaceing the A-10 for what under which circumstances? Circling above an enemy with an upgunned Toyota, or flying through heavily contested airspace? Flying the mission it was concieved for, the A-10 would have been dead meat, as the NATO people were underestimationg the amount of small and mobile SAM assets within the WP by a lot. Turns out that reading through Hans-Urlich Rudel's autobiography isn't quite the prep for building a 1970s/80s purpose-built Tank-destroyer and CAS jet. In fact, an upgraded A-7D would have been a wiser choice back in the day. The same A-7 that flew 9h RESCAP and extremely precise CAS missions in SEA. The Apache was arguably the better anti-tank platform back in the day. But money and ego were a thing even in the 70s. The USAF was already flying an adopted Navy bastard-child, the F-4. But the F-4 was a pointy, sexy jet, not the SLUF which in turn was handed away to the Guard as soon as possible. Where the A-10 really shone was the low-tech-opponent wars that followed post-9/11. The fixability of the A-10 in-theater was a great help and an actual asset there. It prolly also can do the mission at the lowest cost (comapred to contemporary fast jets), which is quite a bonus.

I can offer you a non-slatted pre-Midas IV TISEO bird. Didn't even know they existed until a couple of weeks ago, since I was under the presumption TISEO was a post-slat thing.

Nakhon Phanom or Udorn would be the most convenient bingo airfields in northern Thailand.

Is that a TISEO on this early hard-wing?

Is this a brrt-pod on the outboard station?

My first guess would have been the Shaguar that was foxxed by a QRA jet out of Wildenrath, but this is a grey jet and possibly an FG.1 (periscope)? Edith: I guessed correctly.

Don't think so. They used a different gunpod (twin-barreled 20mm Hughes Mk.4) anyway. Gunpods weren't used on the carrier, so shore-based Navy or Marines ops only, anyway. I think they're A-G only, so no LCOS. I'm wondering if the Phantom FGR.2 did have a LCOS. Maybe @G.J.S could share a story or two on the SUU-23 use in the RAF and whether it was ever used A-A.