Starlight

OMG another "pwn3d ac" thread :D

http://www.f-104.de/exponates/english/exp_fiesta_eng.html :)

Maybe, but read any pilot account over Viet-Nam and you'll find out how good the early Sparrows performed... ;) The late -7F and -7M models are definitely different weapons. When I first did my example of the Mig-21 bison Vs an early F-15 I meant a really early F-15 with an early Sparrow... like those flying at Luke in 1974 with tailcode LA... really old, man ;) Anyway, no Sparrow has the same PK of the Amraam. I don't know the PK of the R77 but in combat I'd feel safer flying with an R77 than an AIM-7M under my pylons. maybe I picked the wrong example, the F-5 is one of the smallest ac in the world. Take a larger ac and you have the correct example... :) the fact is that in theory any aircraft can be good at BVR with the right avionics. But that doesn't deny the fact that if you put the right avionics in the right aircraft you stand more chances to win than in a vintage jet fitted with the same avionics. You know 10 times better than me that fighting is not always just locking a target in a radar scope and pressing a button, quite often is also maneuvering into a good position, with the right speed and power. And that's where the good aircraft comes out. But there are situations where the geometry of the engagement emphasizes avionics at their maximum, so an upgraded vintage ac could be a problem for a more modern ac. That's all... IMHO... no flame...

back to the main topic, history of aviation is full of episodes where some aircraft pwn3d other ones in training, against the odds. Yet this doesn't prove anything... USAF F-15s in RedFlag '83 were pwn3d by RAF Jaguars. Yet if you had to choose an aircraft to fly an air-to-air mission, would you pick the F-15 or the Jaguar? :)

mmm I don't think... the -7E had a hard time guiding to vanilla Fishbeds over Viet-Nam. The -7F wasn't so much better... at least until version III. -7M was something better. The R77 could have its problems, but I think it could easily outperform any Sparrow in the world... :) The Sparrow until version -7F III and -7M was mainly used as a "formation breaker", the PK was really low. My opinion is just the opposite. The Britons seem to confirm my vision, since for training and testing purposes they used to add avionics to old aircraft. On the web you could find a lot of pictures of Buccaneers and Hunters fitted with Tornado avionics, for crew training and testing purposes. The Buccaneer with the nose of the Tornado is just great... Anyway, IMHO the only reason why usually most countries don't update older aircraft is that: - vintage ac usually don't have the performance of new ac - rewiring an old aircraft often is as much expensive as building a new one - building a new aircraft makes one AF look more up-to-date and cool - building a new aircraft generates more occupation and know-how As long as it's BVR anyway I don't see a difference between an F-15C and an F-5E Tiger fitted with a bulkier nose with an APG-63(v1) fitted inside.... provided that it has enough resources to make it work. The reason why this doesn't happen is just that the F-15 is just a better ac to do the job and has _definitely_ more room for avionics and anything else. It's overall a better aircraft.

I said the MIg-21 but I could have said a Hawker Hunter or any other vintage jet... I mean any old aircraft with sufficient room for new avionics could be rewired and equipped with state-of-the-art avionics, enabling him to kill any modern opponent... That was my point. The Mig-21 Bison AFAIK could be equipped with R-77 or some kinda ARH missiles. If that was the scenario, an early F-15A with -7F Sparrows could have a tough time winning at BVR. Anyway that's quite sci-fi.... but just because USAF doesn't use F-15A and AIM-7F anymore ;) http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/IAF/Images/Special/AeroIndia2003/Static-UPG04.jpg

I can't see any problem why a refurbished Mig-21 couldn't shoot down a modern fighter. At BVR a modern equipped MiG-21 could easily outperform an early-block F-15 or F-16. At BVR avionics count more than anything else (an aircraft is basically a systems/weapons platform, it could fly as a brick), that's all... and the size, the Mig-21 is a really small ac so detection range is quite limited. If it's also equipped with ECM it's even harder to be locked-on.

In the world famous Aviation Tech Monthly Week magazine I once read that a single Flanker shot down 10 Eagles while flying backwards in reverse gear... an amazing story, you all should read it! Also, I once saw a HUD footage showing that a couple of vintage Sopwith Camels flown by Indian pilots, even if outnumbered, annihilitated at BVR a squadron of F-22 Raptors during Cope India V. The last two Raptors managed to get WVR, but they were no match, the Sopwith Camels did an Indian Kobra, and the Raptors were gone... it was all over, in less than 5 minutes of mock combat... Now the US is planning to scrap the Raptor program and is trying to buy Sopwith Camels from museums....

A good one ;)

There are many witnesses that say the opposite... so we could "loop" forever... Anyone could believe to what he wants... If anyone has HUD footage of the thing, that would clear the fog that surrounds this thing, once for all ;)

I'll quote here the caption of one of the first pages of "Modern Air Combat" by Bill Gunston (a writer who knows something about aviation): "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" The Tornado is an interceptor designed to kill bombers BVR. It's no dogfighter, and it was never meant to be so. It'd probably lose a dogfight with any modern fighter, but it's just not supposed to play that game. The fact that the Flankers "shot down" the Tornados in a joint exercise doesn't prove anything.... The main force of the Tornado lies in its weapon systems. Could you know if all weapon systems were used in this exercise? Maybe pilots and WSO were told to avoid certain modes, because flying with all systems on and at their max capability could reveal something to foreign people. At Maple Flag or Red Flag I think one could gather better info about systems/aircraft behaviour, because aircraft are flying over "friendly" territory and against "friendly" enemies ;) This holds true for weapon systems but it can also be true for aircraft themselves. Just think that most aircraft during peacetime fly with "downgraded" engines to lenghten their lifetime, and often with G-limited airframes... I think that most of us evaluate aircraft too much looking at the "charts". Instead there are also different factors which come into play during real ops. Things like failure rates, maintenance needed, sustained performance... they are seldom considered, but they still deserve great value, because in real conflicts they come into play. PS: for all those who continue to bring up such news like "aircraft X pwned aircraft Y in an exercise, so aircraft X is definitely better than aircraft Y", well there's another story. In the early Flanker days, some "Gus" were pwned by Mig-23... is Mig-23 better than the Flanker? I don't think so.

each and every aircraft in the world is designed to be used with some kind of tactic and weapon. if you deny that tactic or that weapon you put an aircraft at disadvantage. At war is the aim of the enemy to put you at disadvantage. In training it can be made to simulate one aspect of the combat... Fighting gunzo the Tornado F-3 is surely beaten by most of today's fighter aircraft in the world. At BVR with all weapons and systems on, it's a different matter. Since we don't have ANY official document that says how both sides fought in this exercise we can't make any useful guess. your numbers are a bit exaggerated. NATO aircraft committed to the operations were far less than that... NATO aircraft in theater are another matter. NATO claims it was a victory because the final goal was achieved. Milosevic was removed and many war criminals were persecuted. Later analysis, done when the "fog of war" went away, showed that the efficiency of many NATO systems was low, and that many systems performed worse than expected. Being a war, that's sadly translated in more lives lost from both sides. Anyway we're going far OT, I already have my 10% warning for thread-hijacking for much less than this... if I hijacked a thread, you are definitely a terrorist ;) again that? is this the thread about beating-a-dead-horse?????? It's quite recognized that NATO pilots have some of the best trained pilots in the world. Nevertheless India seems to have good pilots aboard good aircraft too... Having said all these things, I don't think we can make useful evaluations from brief press reports filled of propaganda (from both sides) which IMHO is generated just to have more funds allocated for future aircraft. In this and in many other articles (the other cope india and the alaskan dogfight) there aren't ANY technical documents that explain what happened and how it happened. We have just press reports and rumors. We can't say anything useful from that.

apart from saying always the same things, i.e. "again vehicles screenshots, WTF", the damage model of the tanks seems the same... http://www.lockon.ru/img/products/large/2fae0837dcba8b66ba01db5ce0580e4a.jpg it's quite poor if compared to the original model, and it's quite poor even if compared to other sims, like Gunship! from Microprose (2001). In "Gunship!", the turret used to be blown away from the tank. It happens IRL too, if you take a look at the book by Concord, After the Storm: Iraqi Wrecks And Fortifications, it gives you a rough idea of the devastation that can happen in real battles to armored vehicles (and to the poor troops inside). IMHO if the next sim is more mud-oriented, with detailed armored vehicles, it should also better cover the damage aspect. If you hit a jeep or a truck with a missile, it doesn't simply turn into a burning wreck... the vehicle is likely to blow up and fly some dozens feet away, and maybe land upside down... If you hit the tank it can burn or have the turret blown away or it can blow up itself... That's how I see it. Not to be morbid, but that's how things go IRL.

maybe because it's just _training_. If aggressor instructor pilots were supposed to fight at their best during mock fights, younger trainees won't learn anything, they'd be beaten each and every time... The aim of most exercises is not to destroy the enemy but to develop some kind of tactics, to build confidence with some system, or to learn more in-depth some things... It's not always a matter of annihilating the enemy with overwhelming power and aggresiveness. And there is another important thing about this case. This is a multinational exercise. After 50 years British troops came back to India. In your opinion did the British commanders order their pilots to fight aggressively? IMHO _no_ and did the Indian commanders told their pilots to fight at their best? IMHO _yes_ It's not just a simple matter of military aviation, it's more about foreign relations and sending also politcal messages Having said that, it may be that the Tornado is no match for the Sue's. But it may also be not that true.

with all respect, IMHO, is just crap news. It has little or no meaning if you want to evaluate the tactics and the capabilities of air forces and their aircraft. could you expect them to say "OMG those new flankers suck we wasted 100-zillion dollars"? could you expect him to say "OMG they would have annihilated us even if we had our new 1-billion pound typhoon"? No. they all need some propaganda if they want something to fly on...

TWS means track-while-scan, so this is a search/track function of the radar. Engaging a target (i.e. launching and guiding missiles) is a different matter. Many aircraft can actually track a lot of aircraft but engage single targets. The feature you mean is more likely the multi-target engagement capabilty. That seems to be 4 in the F-15 in Lomac, but I'm not sure. One of the best results in aviation history was the old AWG-9 of the Tomcat, and its evolution, the APG-71 which could track 24 targets and prioritize and engage up to six of them. AWACS aircraft could obviously track hundreds of targets in TWS mode, but they don't have any engagement capability (except for self-defense IR-missiles, but I don't think AWACS ever carried such weapons outside trials)

http://www.bbspot.com/News/2006/04/starforce-drm.html hope BS won't come out with that SF version! LOL!!! :D

I really love that skin, wonderful!!!!! I also made some Phantom skins, but yours are far more beautiful, detailed and hi-res. If you want to have a look at them, check my site (click on signature below)... great also that digi-camouflaged frogfoot! I also like the other skins, but, just one small note, I think you emphasize a bit too much the panel lines. if you look at most aviation pictures, panels are nearly flatted, they are quite invisible unless the aircraft are badly weathered... and also the panel markings on the navy phantom are a bit too much visible... but great work indeed! (I saw the decal sheet of a 1:32nd scale Phantom and I noticed something like a hundred panel markings... a nightmare!)

which "class mishap" does this thing belong to? damage to the B-1B at $7.9 million damage to the runway at $14,025 The aircraft was finally removed from the runway 4 days later huge economic damage, and one of the main nuclear deterrent airbases "crippled" if not closed for four days.... I don't think the pilots will ever fly again

In fact, firingsquad is one of the few tech sites that uses LockOn benchmarks in 3D-card reviews. I have an X850XT in my rig, and lomac runs pretty well, but I've also noticed that in every benchmark @ firingsquad, Nvidia cards seem to outperform ATI's. BTW, this only happens in Lomac, in other games benchmarks are more balanced, sometimes are better ATI cards, sometimes Nvidia cards...

great pics man ;) and an awesome example of russian weathering ;)

:)

also to my surprise, a crippled Mirage 2000 was still able to maneuver in gunzo combat... the graphics were showing damage to rudder, engine (the only one it has) and extended damage on one wing.... either the damage model exaggerates real damage, or AI flies against physics. I think it's the second one. If you have a badly damaged aircraft and you switch control to AI, AI is able to fly even a brick.

the report emphasizes the differences in concept between NATO and former Soviet planes. It's not just a matter of which one is the best, like if it was a Dragster race, it's just about tactical situations and concepts. NATO fighters were designed to give pilots more SA, Soviet fighters were designed with GCI structure in mind. NATO fighters look sophisticated, technologically advanced, but sometimes fragile, while Russian fighters look rough and very limited but deadly at short range. A kinda modern version of the "F86 vs Mig15" and "F-4 Vs Mig-21" duels. Anyway what many articles fail to describe (but not this one) is that combat in general is not just decided by some technical parameters as missile range, or turning rate. sometimes there are equally important factors, which sometimes slip ignored... In this report Fulcrums are depicted as point fighters, with very limited capabilities under many aspects, and a very good ability to fight at knife range. But there are also many aspects of a fighter that are also important in a major war: low engine durability, non-LRU radar.... in a major war these issues count a lot, because when an aircraft is no longer serviceable, is just a mere target sitting on the ground. Then, also in the air combat arena, poor nav system, no HOTAS, poor SA avionics, are really important. Not all fights involve furballs which emphasize turning rate. And, even there, 28 against 26 degrees/sec make difference only if both pilots have about the same skills and training. That is not always the case. Anyway the report highlights also that it was about an early export version of the Fulcrum (though East German armed forces used to receive top notch export weaponry, you can't compare that with those bought by other Warsaw Pact allies or, even worse, by other 3rd world countries). Now Fulcrums are mostly C version and are still going through upgrades

No it was only referred to the skins and country insignia. How many countries fly the F-16? many. how many with exactly the same skin? none, because it also changes from squadron to squadron. that's the point. the problem remains with the numbers, but it's a more limited issue. I still agree with EricJ.