Starlight

your avatar is an eye-killer ;)

Mine was just a witty comment to say that some of LOMAC flyables (current and future) are not exactly well-spreaded aircraft. ;) Extremely interesting aircraft from technical point of view, marvels of Russian tech, but not really well-suited with the exception of extremely fictional scenarios. The Su-33 is in service in really small numbers (maybe a dozen airframes?). The Su-25t has been built in a few units, I don't think it really entered service. The Ka-50/52 is operational, but again in really few units, and it was combat-tested while still in the prototype phase. The Mig-29 SMT I think is in service only in Yemen (about 14 units), and with the Russian Air Force (original plans called for 150 airframes, but I don't know how many have been actually built). Anyway, my point is, in a middle-east scenario, Yemen is likely to have 14 mig-29smt units. BUT, Syria, Iraq (former regime) and Iran have standard 9.12. And 9.12 can be used for other scenarios (korea, former yugoslavia, former warsaw pact, cuba....). That was just my point. cheers, Mat

9.12, definitely. I think ED has already modelled a good number of protoype aircraft. If they choose the SMT, they don't have to complain if people call the game "Lock On Modern Air Testing". Instead of the desert or Black Sea they'd better set up the game at Kubinka or Ramenskoye AB :)

Once upon a time there was this site. This man made a NT-compatible driver which allows to program each and every button of the GAMEPORT Saitek X36F+X35T. http://x36driver.r8.org/ I downloaded the latest driver some months ago, but now the site seems offline And yes, with that driver the gameport joystick works well under XP. If you don't want to program all the billion of button combinations, you can still hook up to the gameport and use it like a common six button + throttle and 2 POV joystick. I bought it for 10 euros on ebay. definitely a bargain, would recommend to anyone, even if it's a bit less plug'n'play than the x45. I'd call it more "plug'n'pray" ;)

yes the clouds in that screenshot are just painted (and suck!)... but the ones in the screenshot that I mentioned looked a bit different. That overcast was extremely realistic. Anyway I've also read that they're gonna change them

IMHO this sim looks great and has a great potential. seems very interesting and I'm looking forward to its release. And this shot IMHO shows a truly great landscape, with wonderful clouds. I think they should improve contrast and shadows on aircraft, but the rest of the image looks really great! http://simhq.com/_air5/air_171h.html

thx a lot mates ;)

Hi, My video card is defective so I have to send it back to Germany for RMA. :( I have a document (half page) in German that I'm unable to fully translate, so if someone could help me, that would be greatly appreciated. I've some troubles in particular with this sentence I uploaded the whole document in a website, if you want the link send me PM. thx a lot in advance PS: Since I'm Italian, translation from Deutsch to Italian is ok too ;) PS #2: Yes I've already tried babelfish... it's not really helpful this time...

The Mig-17 is a real dogfighter, but each aircraft has its own characteristics. Like Bill Gunston sez in "Modern Air Combat [1983]".... "There is no 'best fighter'. Tornado ADV cannot match the F-16 in a dogfight, but the F-16 cannot fly the Tornado's 4 1/2-hour patrols with stand-off kill power". And, same book, Mike Spick says in the Tactics: "Never fight the way your opponent fights".... The F-4 surely wasn't a pure dogfighter. The problem was that Phantom crews were NOT trained for air combat. They relied too much on missiles. You can't fight a true dogfighter with a heavy aircraft. however the lowest kill ratio in vietnam was 2:1 or 3:1. Soon after Aggressor training the odds came back to more than 10:1. IMHO the Tomcat is one of the greates fighters built because (at least the -D version) has a great flexibility. This comes from the swing-wing geometry, which adds a lot of weight to the aircraft, but has great tactical benefits. Low speed maneuvrabiliy, good acceleration and so on... The Tomcat was crippled by its poor early engines. If the Eagle or the Falcon were equipped with the -412A they would have been much less capable. One more note... I've seen videos of Tomcats flying at high speed a few feet above the ground... I'm not sure Strike Eagles could do that so easily, their low wing loading would make the ride not really comfortable. "There's no better performing fighter in the close-in, slow speed, knife-in-the-teeth dogfight than the F/A-18 Hornet, except maybe, of course, a Super Hornet" said by a USN pilot who flew both F-16 and F-18, although it's quite biased towards the Hornet. http://www.intellisearchnow.com/pwrpub_view.scml?ppa=6prkn%5EZeflnipvWSec%7D38%7DbfehYm the same pilots says about the F-18 "Speed is nice to have, and I wish the Hornet had more"... :) Anyway they're both good aircraft at low speed, F-16 has more SEP and can accelerate faster, the Hornet is probably easier to handle at low speeds and high AOA. I agree. The pilot usually makes the difference There were verbal skirmishes between USN and USAF for target assignment in the Gulf War. I once read about an F-16 pilot who said he had an F-14 roll in on him because USN crews were frustrated, since all the targets were given to Eagles. The Eagles flew more CAPs than Tomcats, and yes, the AWACS usually vectored Eagles. Two Mig-21s credited F-18C of VFA-81, shot down enroute to their target. AIM-7 kills at short range (I have the video). Nothing to say here, It's a very good demonstration of multirole capability. hehe :D If you were sure you had killed everything, BDA wouldn't be needed ;) And if you attacked a site, that doesn't mean that 10 miles away there isn't a SAM which stood silent the day before ;) TARPS missions were dangerous. They were flown over Lybia, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and all times F-14 drew a lot of SAMs. No, they have very similar cruise speed, around 500 Knots. BUT, the F-14 is much more a fuel efficient aircraft (even if its engines are thirsty) because it has swing wings and can cruise for hours without AAR. The Hornet © can have fuel for as little as 30-40 minutes in the air (from "Jane's How to Fly and Fight in the F-18 Hornet"). F-14A (D is even better) can cruise at about 550 knots, which is a good speed without A/B. I'm sure the F-22 and other newer generation fighters perform a lot better. They were designed 30 years after the Tomcat! ;) I just wanted to say "ok, in clean config the F-35 can have supercruise. What about fully loaded with fuel and weapons?" Yes it is. And this is probably why F-15 pilots don't complain about transitioning to the new fighter ;) The problem is that "The meteoric rise of this aircraft [f-18E/F] is unrivaled in the annals of naval aviation." http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/docs/920505-cr.htm Figures grew so high that a 1999 projection called for a "cost of $86 million per unit" for the F/A-18E/F. Do you know what you can do to today's F-14D with that money? Not only you can extend their life for 1,000,000 more flight hours, but you could also pack into the cockpit a full array of goods like refrigerator, xbox, sexy woman... To end my part of our "Tomcat vs SuperHornet" discussion, if someone asked me "do you like the SuperHornet?" I answer "yes, it's a wonderful and capable aircraft" But if someone asks me "Do you think it was worth the money?" I answer "no definitely. with that money you could have upgraded all the existing F-18C and F-14D fleet, and still you would have saved a lot of money" And I believe I'm not the only one thinkin this way.... please look at "Fighter Fling" videos, you can see what REAL PILOTS think of the Superbug.

I think EVERY aircraft comes out from a tactical requirement. A tactical requirement usually generates an RFP (request for proposal) usually followed by some projects and a competition. The winner wins the production contract. One of the biggest problem in today's aviation is that from the RFP to the first operational squadron can pass some decades. Just an example: the Ef-2000 Typhoon, is the cousin of UK's EAP, which is the cousin of UK's ACA (agile combat aircraft). The first ACA prototype (or full scale mock-up) was built in the early 80s. The Eurofighter, AFAIK, has yet to become fully operational in any airforce. 20 years have passed. In 20 years the geopolitical situation has changed very much. The USSR collapsed, the Warsaw Pact and the Iron curtain collapsed too. Now there aren't really clear threats, so nobody can say if the Typhoons entering service today are really adequate to the needs. I live in Italy and the situation is really an exemplification of this problem. We had an obsolete air defence system throughout the Cold War. Instead of buying new hardware we upgraded to death our Starfighters, bought in 1960. If war started in the 80s a squadron of Warsaw Pact gliders could have easily gained air superiority over Italy. After 40 years the Starfighters were retired, and Tornadoes and F-16s were bought as gap-fillers until the arrival of the Typhoon. Now we have the Typhoon and the F-16, but one of the primary tasks our airforce is called to carry out today is scrambling to intercept possible terrorist aircraft. Which is the only thing the Starfighter was really good to do!!!!! Being a rocket with the wings, the Starfighter could be a perfect scrambler, with excellent speed and climbing qualities. no need to dogfight or to supercruise. just advance the throttle to Mach 2 and reach an aircraft. We have had it for 40 years, being useless for about 20 years, and when we scrapped it we found we needed it. Nobody says that the Typhoon is a bad aircraft. It's wonderful. But maybe it doesn't fullfill today's requirements. This story tells that planning a modern aircraft today is really hard because it takes a lot of time and a huge amount of money. After you spent some years in research and you put tons of money into a project, you can't scrap it just because tactical requirements have changed. You're probably gonna modify the project to tailor it to the new situation... But you're not likely to have the aircraft you'd need for your current tactical requirement!

because of poor RoE. because early Phantoms were without a gun. Because early missiles were even less efficient than they are now. And because crews were not trained for that kinda combat (mostly were trained for nuclear bombing, long range bomber intercept) The Phantom was a good aircraft for its time. It had drawbacks, but with the same aircraft the crews performed well when they knew how to employ it. They are completely different aircraft. The Hornet performs better at knife range. At slow speeds some say it performs even better than the F-16. But after 400 knots, AFAIK, the Hornet is very slow to accelerate. Instead the Tomcat boasts a powerful acceleration at all regimes, is quite maneuvrable at low speeds but early versions suffered severe engine problems. They couldn't sustain any turning fight with good opponents. The F-14D is a new breed of 'Cat, and demonstrated it has good chances to win against all -teen fighters. The combat record of the Gulf War was totally influenced by the tactical situation. AWACS were vectoring mainly F-15 to air targets, that's why they were the only aircraft to achieve kills. Your record is further wrong, because the Hornet got shot down too... not only, but the Hornet was the first aircraft to fall in the Iraqi skies. It's still unknown what shot it down. Some sources claimed an SAM, some a Mig-25 kill. The pilot was never rescued, not even found. The Tomcats did extremely dangerous missions too in the Gulf War, because they flew TARPS missions alone, while the Hornets went in always with Prowler escort. If you compare the F-14D and the F-18E I'm not sure the latter has the edge. It's a bit more maneuvrable, but it's MUCH slower, and more than that, it simply can't keep a high speed in a real mission. It doesn't have supercruise, instead Hornets are usually thirsty aircraft. If they want a decent range they must slow down. If they cruise fast, the range is very very short. Comparing the F-18E to the F-14A wouldn't make sense! First, the replacement of the F-14 is the F-18E, not the F-35. Second, the F-35 is still on trials. It can supercruise ok, but with how much payload? 2 amraams in an internal bay? Hang a couple of bombs before comparing to aircraft in service. A clean aircraft is useful only in airshows. Well, because a project has been approved by USN or Pentagon, it doesn't mean it's the best (A-12 Avenger is THE example). Furthermore it seems that recently politicians have been much more influenced by industrial lobbies than from military personnel. In the past it wasn't like that, so we had great fighters, like F-14, F-15, F-16. Milestones in fighter aircraft technology. In the sixties the projects which made the aircraft so good were influenced by people like John Boid, not by computer technicians who have never flown in combat. Furthermore I remember that when pilots were transitioning to newer aircraft in the 70s-80s, they were all proud of that. Now I've heard much complaint by USN aircrews and commanders about the F-18E. Not that the F-18E is a bad aircraft. But most of the people are probably convinced that they're losing more than what they're gaining. And that those money are kinda wasted because they could have been used to upgrade what they had. That's not a good feeling. If you don't believe me, watch the latest Fighter Fling videos. They're all F-14 pilots, not forum writers like me...

really good video. wonderful angles!

Fighter Fling 03 and 04 contain some material about what F-14 pilots think about the SuperBug. And it's a bit different from the well-known "Chunx" POV. :D

I've read that Iranians have become monsters in reverse engineering. some people said that their tomcats used a A2A version of the HAWK SAM. there are some photos too, but I don't know if they do work

they look like the SAS who stormed the Iranian embassy in London (1980?) How could that dress be comfortable for operations?

The pilot defected. It wasn't a government decision. I've also read somewhere (dunno where and dunno if that's true) that seems that the Soviets approached and paid that pilot to defect. But that's just a rumor.

most of windows apps are multithreaded. even web browsers are multithreaded. the problem is to see if they're multithreaded to support dual-core cpu.

I disagree... the U-2 was shot down in 1960 as soon as SAMs were fielded in USSR. The next time it tried to fly over a SAM-protected area (Cuba) it was shot down again. The U-2 can fly only where the threat is very little and its ECM are capable to defeat it. Yet its altitude is quite unreachable for many fighters... As far as the Mig-25, I must disagree too. There are known successful interceptions, but they are very few, if compared to the "traps" laid by NATO or Israel and which were usually evaded. I remember reading an article about Recon Mig-25 dashing accross Europe without problems before F-15s were introduced as interceptors. I'd also like to comment on the score you report. Yes there are a couple of known US victories (one with -120 after the Gulf War ended) and maybe a couple by Israel, but you must also consider that US and Israel were operating with a total air supremacy achieved. And that Syrian and Iraqi pilots are not known for their skills or their proficiency ;) I'm not saying you have to run at Mach 3 (even the MIg-25/31 can't sustain that speed for all the mission). I'm not even a Foxbat/Foxhound fan. I don't like them very much. I'm just saying that speed is very helpful in some parts of the air combat and pilot reports confirm that. (apart from Kosovo when pilots appreciated the A-10 capability to fly slow as a FAC). Speed is good for example to achieve quickly a good position before combat begins, or to disengage quickly if the enemy is not totally destroyed. Outmaneuver an opponent means also gaining a tactically good position before him, not only pointing your weapons at him. Supercruise is ok, is a very useful "weapon". What I mean is also that in many discussions some A/C features are a bit exaggerated... for example supermaneuvrability... "my aircraft can turn 1000°/s" or "is better because can outturn yours by 2°/s" If you look at combat records you see that REAL air combat is a bit different from what many people believe it to look like.

That weapon system is very little known. It recalls the AWG-9 /Phoenix weapon system, but there are some people who say that they're really different. Dunno. Yet the AWG-9/Phoenix was fielded in late '60s, the R-33 was fielded in early '80s, AND after a Persian 'Cat was acquired by Soviets. I think they had some opportunity to see how it worked ;) Furthermore, I don't think the Soviets had problems to put their hands on the full NATOPS manual. I wish I knew a KGB officer! :) Because "Speed is life"! It's an old motto, but it still holds true. They also implemented it in the Superbug :D :D :D ("one of the slowest jet fighters ever flown") "Speed is life" because if you can avoid to be hit, you can have all the weapons of this world locked at you, but they simply won't work. We know (even if we don't know what it looks like exactly) that even the most modern AAM has a limited launch envelope, especially when fired against fast and fleeing targets. It's just a matter of fact. Two of the least intercepted aircraft are the Mig-25 and the SR-71. I'm not saying that an aircraft must fly at Mach 10 in a straight line, but speed is helpful and I'm not sure that some modern designs like F-35 and F-18E are the way to go in a tricky scenario. The F-35 would have been more useful in a Central European scenario during Cold War, where NATO airbases were clearly at risk and a STOL aircraft was needed. Today the US can deploy everywhere, so I don't see the need for a STOL if that means sacrifice speed. Given the data I know I wouldn't fight the Su-27 or the Mig-31 if I had an F-35.

I have just found some bits of data on Jane's "How to Fly and Fight in the F-14 Tomcat" "A great benefit of the active-homing Phoenix is that it needs no radar lock - unlike the Sparrow"....[cut] "The missile's autopilots initially follows a pre-programmed course and only begins tracking its target only when it begins the descent. It then goes into semi-active radar homing (SARH) mode and steers toward periodic reflected transmissions from the Track-While-Scan AWG-9. When several missiles are in the air, target illumination is even less frequent, since it must be shared between all missiles in flight. At 10-15 nm from the target, the Phoenix's own DSQ-26 active radar takes over and guides it to impact." I think it's a fairly good description of how it works. A strange mix of inertial guide, SARH and ARH... a really complex system, like its carrier... Well the Tomcat was designed to kill bombers and sea skimmers, the drones were depicting that scenario. Each weapon system has its own limitations, and is obvious that in leaflets those are minimized. The Phoenix LAR (Launch Acceptable Region) varies with target speed, aspect and height (like for every missile), but is said (in the same book) to be 52 nm range for multiple targets, about 100 nm for a single target. It's obvious that if targets were Backfires fleeing at Mach 1+, the LAR would be greatly reduced. Since Tomcat's mission was BARCAP, it was accepted that bombers would have been flying towards the carrier (and towards the 'Cat). The fact that the Phoenix has an optimal range of 80-90 nm was (and is) staggering, so most people (in particular newbies) are expecting that it achieves that range even against a Foxbat running away at full speed! But IRL every missile has a particular launch envelope, which is mostly classified, and is usually far smaller than what's advertised in company leaflets.

BTW, I appreciated very much your tutorial, it's really great and helpful. I just wanted to point out that some tactical situations don't allow that graceful dance. Anyway your tutorial is great (I wish I was so skillful in avoiding Strelas!) and I also liked the idea of putting it as a video. It takes more HD space, but there are no compatibility problems! way to go! ;)

Could you please unveil the title? PS: the Zimmer megamix is just a cute mix of the most beautiful songs by that author. You're likely to have them all already ;) just not mixed together ;)

Excellent idea of making movies from tutorials. It's really great from the technical point of view. Really big thanks to Ironhand and Ruggbutt!!!! Having said that I have just some doubts about being "tactically useful". I mean on "peacetime training" you could do what's in that tutorial. IRL or even in a true LockOn mission you really can't do that dance. First because each SAM battery has 4 vehicles, which operate in pairs, so in no way you're gonna face just one vehicle. You may have more than one, maybe four, and if they begin to fire with some kinda coordination you're in deep s*it. If you wait for SAMs to be depleted you may well end your flares before. And if only one vehicle fired and then you pop up for a level attack, maybe the other vehicle could fire at you unnoticed. Second because these are extremely mobile SAMs so it's usually difficult to know where they are. So it's a bit unrealistic knowing beforehand where the threat is like in this tutorial. You may well be overflying them when they fire at you, so you stand a little chance of survival. Third because each SAM battery is usually deployed with AAA, usually being ZSU-23-4 or 2S6, which are formidable threats, and usually don't allow loitering that much over target area at that altitude. Last but not least because an A-10 flying at that altitude over the FLOT is just a sitting duck for longer ranged SAMs and enemy aircraft. Over Iraq and Kosovo A-10s tried to fly high because the tactical scenario allowed it, but in a typical scenario (at least where the A-10 was planned to work, i.e. Central Europe) terrain masking would have been the keyword! Maybe some words from Dice or any other experienced guy would be helpful.

In principle I agree with you, but IRL I see that many game-devs are releasing patches for dual-core CPUs....

The concept is not much different from the LOD-mesh concept used in most of 3D applications (LockOn already included). The refinement process is also used in numerical analysis and other applications, whenever an error is introduced because of a discretized/numerical representation of a [continuos/symbolic] model (whether physical or mathematical). The basic concept is, if your representation unit isn't satisfactory for your purposes, you split it into smaller units, until you get the desired precision. Me and some my colleagues at University made some months ago an adaptive (dynamic) model for Finite Elements Method, which was applied to 2D and 3D functions. in the 3D case it was something like that you linked at wikipedia, basically a dynamic mesh refinement. Maybe "Subdivision surface" is a bit faster than other methods, but it's often difficult to find the "always best" method when programming. Programming is usually an art to find the most satisfactory tradeoff or balance, that is why is mostly regarded as an art, not a science ;)