rossmum

Jesus dude, those are a work of art! Be a shame to bomb them, almost The extra fuel isn't a problem because of weight in the wings, it's because of the extra weight in the fuselage adding to the wing loading. You're asking the wings to carry a higher weight than they are at 2200lbs. If the actual limitation is there because the shift in CoP causes some kind of dangerous situation, like a much higher amount of pitch authority and maybe more marginal stability because of the shift in CG associated with the additional fuel (disclaimer - I don't know how much of a factor this is on the F-5), you might end up with a very small margin between the control input to achieve an acceptable 7G load and the aircraft abruptly passing through that and into the uh oh zone with very little pilot input. It doesn't really explain what happened in your case but it seems like it'd be the most likely culprit for why the limit lowers with >2200lbs and around the transonic region. If the extra 2000lbs or so was the issue itself, the limit would be 6.5G at all speeds for that fuel load, but it isn't - it only drops from the standard 7.33 once you're transonic. Ultimately I still haven't managed to rip my plane up in actual combat, so all I can conclude is you guys are doing something I'm not and it's probably down to different flying styles. I'm coming from MiGs with very strict G-scheduling so my stick inputs are probably already going through some kind of self-filtering I've picked up as a result. It's pretty easy to cause it in testing, though, so that's been my only point of reference so far.

Never seen this in the 21 (if anything it will drop lock because someone looked at it funny), but this was a particularly weird and reproducible bug in the 19 for quite some time. If you turned off the tracking radar while someone was locked, the radar would fixate on them and no amount of switch flipping or manoeuvring would drop the lock. The radar pipper would follow them to the ends of the earth. That would make sense, that's the reason why the Soviet jets' limiters bottleneck around the same speed range. I wonder if it's a "we don't want to rework the entire FM so let's slap a band-aid on it" kind of thing, given the module's age.

Don't hold 15 degrees, hold 900TAS. Holding angles is probably why you have absolutely no speed. This isn't an F-15, your thrust to weight ratio is good but it isn't 'literally a rocket' levels of good, plus you're fighting a lot of induced drag off the delta wing as you lose speed and gain AoA. From takeoff, accelerate level to 900TAS, pull and hold and then adjust pitch as necessary to maintain the thin needle on the Mach meter over 0.9 until you reach 10km altitude or so. From there, go into a slight dive to break through the sound barrier, level off and continue accelerating to M 1.4 or more, then pull the stick back just enough to try hold onto that speed. If you're feeling sporty, you can climb to 12-13km, accelerate to M 2.05, and then pitch for like 50 degrees and see what DCS looks like from 30 kilometres above the ground.

Testing for symmetrical pulls - using the ingame telemetry bar to check peak G - 2 Sidewinders, no other stores, full fuel (6.5G limit per the manual, plus 150% safety - 9.75G) - the wings come off past 11G at speeds below 500kts. Above 500kts they break around 8.5-9.0. There's nothing I've found in the manual suggesting there should be a difference: the limit change is based on fuel load and the turn charts are consistently lined off at 7.33G (for half fuel and two missiles) across the aircraft's entire speed range. Reading is hard and the drop in limit is from 7.33 to 6.5 with fuel above 2200lbs and above M 0.95. In this case it still seems to be a bit easy to break. 2 Sidewinders, no other stores, 2000lbs fuel (7.33G limit per the manual, plus safety - that puts us at 11G) - below 500kts I was able to merrily see-saw the aircraft between +11G/-3G repeatedly. On the fourth cycle I brushed past 12G and on the fifth the wings snapped off at 11. Above 500kts, I was able to reach 11G twice - the wings broke on the second pull. The pilot's flight manual (section V, operational limitations, pg 5-35, fig 5-6; appendix I part 8, pg A8-33) makes no reference to any change in load limit based on airspeed up to the aircraft's maximum speed, for fuel below 2200lbs. As for the actual consequences, DCS' damage model doesn't really support much consequence for pulling too many G other than breaking important parts off, even if the fuselage in many aircraft would tend to fail before the wings catastrophically liberate themselves. It is what it is. The issue of speed affecting how limits are simulated needs looking at though, it seems a touch strict but overall nowhere near gamebreaking.

The F-5 is far more superior in two circle than one circle. It will out-sustain you in that regime unless the pilot is extremely inexperienced, no matter what speed you fly at it will still either hold neutral or out-rate you. The 21 can get squirrelly at low speed and it opens you up to being third partied, as well as leaving you with less options, but fighting in the one circle is an option and it's one area where you can do reasonably well with some experience. If you're not confident in your ability to avoid stalling out, or you're worried about another guy joining in, keep your speed up and play the vertical. You have an enormously better thrust-to-weight ratio, climb rate, acceleration, and top speed, and the higher the fight goes the more clearly superior you are. The F-5 will probably want to keep the fight down low where his aircraft's disadvantages are least noticeable, so you can just perch above him and swoop if he does that.

I'm doing some more testing now. My first round was mostly around 500kts so I didn't encounter the lower limit beyond that. With full internal fuel I'm losing the wings around 8.5-9, and 11 below that speed. Forgive me as I've skimmed the manual here and gone straight for operational limitations, but it says +6.5 with more than 2200lbs fuel and that multiplied by 1.5 puts us over the usual safety factor, as long as we're below 500kts. Above that, I don't know what's going on there, obviously it's a pretty significant drop and sure enough I'm not seeing anything in the manual that suggests that the limit should change based on speed - sounds like something ED do need to address. On a closer look, the shift in limit is based on speed specifically in this condition. 7.33 -> 6.5 above M 0.95 while fuel is more than 2200lbs, on an otherwise clean aircraft. No limit shift specified for below 2200lbs. Cutting the fuel down to just below 2200lbs and keeping my speed below 500kts, I'm able to pull just on the north side of 11G repeatedly, I'm literally seesawing the thing +11 through to -3 to get my speed back and I brushed just past 12G on the fourth cycle. The plane finally broke on the fifth cycle as I pulled at around 450kts. Pulling from 600kts, I got past 11G with no issues, and broke on the second pull at around 11.5. e/ Above for symmetrical, for clarity.

From memory it's a 7.33G fighter per documented limits, add a safety factor of ~1.5x to that and you get 11G, which is about where I found it breaking while running some tests the other day. The amount it'll let you pull ingame before it breaks seems to be a function of fuel load only, not suspended stores or anything else, but with 2 Sidewinders and a combat fuel load I was able to have brief excursions beyond 10G twice before the wings finally gave out on a third pull, at a much lower value. If you're losing them at 8.5 it's very possibly because you already burnt that safety margin without realising it earlier, and since the F-5 completely lacks any sort of limiter system it is quite easy to do. These older US fighters have surprisingly low limits, 7.33 seems to have been the norm for a long time. With that said, the 21 will snap its wings if you pull too abruptly for the ARU to keep up, as will the 19. The Viggen rips even lower, unless HB have adjusted it very recently I was seldom able to even sustain 9 for more than a second without the wings checking out.

I am a much more prolific user of the radar than most. It does affect gameplay but a little less than people think. The biggest issue is actually the lack of lock warning, not that it sees things it shouldn't - you can lock someone 20km out, then just follow the contact on the scope until they're directly on your nose. With that said, I've noticed some players won't even react to a radar lock from an aircraft which does give warning, so I don't know how many easy kills would have happened anyway due to overconfidence/RWR in wrong mode/RWR muted/etc. As far as spotting things goes, you can go into a situation knowing beforehand roughly how many aircraft there are and who is or isn't friendly. This is probably its most useful side effect after the above, but it's only really useful when there's no GCI - when there is one, it's not giving you any new info that they haven't already given you. When it comes to R-3R kills, let's just say you have to be pretty stupid to try some 1v1 neutral merge BFM lunacy in a live combat environment. You practically have to fly into an R-3R to be hit by it, I have no pity for anyone who dies to a head-on joust and I don't think they'd be any better off if the radar functioned properly. At that point they're nearly as likely to be killed by the gun (or, if we still had them, R-60M). I'm hoping we get a radar fix soon, both so I can stop picking up bad habits and have one less thing to worry about being modelled wrong on my favourite module. It is a factor, however it's one that does also get played up for whatever purpose - for every time I'm able to stealth-lock someone 20km out at low altitude and follow through to an R-3R kill, there's another time where the radar resolutely refuses to hold a steady track on a target a few kilometres off my nose which I can visually see and which isn't manoeuvring especially violently. It's not the only radar with issues (F-5 can lock in ground clutter consistently, if you know what you're doing, and is totally unaffected by either weather or chaff), but it's got the worst issues by quite a large margin.

I've been experiencing this for a while, most recent time was about a week ago. For everyone else it was a full moon with reasonably bright ground. For me, the moon was invisible, the ground was very dark, but the Persian Gulf was reflecting so much light that the water was physically painful to look at and objects like buildings, helicopters, my own cockpit, etc. were very bright. Example (screenshot from Tats who experienced the same issue on the same mission) - I have also experienced this in the past, going back maybe a year or more. It is extremely rare and virtually impossible to reproduce intentionally, and it can usually be fixed by reconnecting to the server, let alone restarting the game. I don't recall if I've experienced it in SP but that is probably because I do not play SP very much. I am nearly 100% sure the issue is connected to time of day and specifically the way the game handles the handoff between "night" and "day" states - every time this bug has happened, it's been within 30 mins of sunrise/sunset. The issue is extra annoying, because sometimes the "day" cockpit lighting behavior is active and so your instruments are nearly completely invisible in the darkness. For another example, here's my view in a mission earlier in the year - here's a video from when I streamed it (timestamped to mission start) and then some screenshots to compare it against - These screenshots were taken from the trackfile, where the lighting functioned as intended. This is also what the other players in that mission saw. As you can see, the ambient lighting level is substantially different, and heavily impacted my ability to play the mission. I could only see my HUD, not even my instruments. The only way I can think to reproduce this issue is to just load up a mission set around dawn/dusk and restart it until the issue occurs, but I have no idea how many attempts that will take. It may also be connected to a very subtle, but noticeable, 'flicker' between two slightly different colour temperatures during certain lighting conditions - I don't know how to describe it, but every few seconds the game scene will tint slightly green, then back to blue, and repeat constantly. Something to do with GI?

Minor one, only noticed because I saw a screenshot of it close up. Normals on the drill rig tower are inverted or something, so the lighting is coming from the opposite direction to the base of the rig. Same issue the Hawks had a while ago.

Sometimes it's not just GCI. Some players tend not to react well to being told to orbit a point or establish a patrol, it can get extremely frustrating to watch people fly off in the complete opposite direction to where you actually need them. Ah yes, the Chappy is our greatest asset I know of at least two times I baited one into shooting a guy off my tail, and I've seen Zach do the same. Re: radar missiles - they're OK but can be defeated with the right tactics. It also helps that the average DCS player has been conditioned by years of fawning over 120s and unironically subscribes to "Sparrow bad", so they'll get cold feet and dump support on a missile that was tracking perfectly. Remember that the Sparrow's tracking logic will make it appear like it might not be tracking, because it tries to make the least amount of turns necessary in order to intercept. I got saved yesterday on BF 80s by a Hornet firing a second missile (dumping support on the first) right as it was in terminal guidance. Honestly the SARH missiles are quite cool. It turns into a game of nerves to make sure your missile has support all the way in and actually scores a hit. Dust - I think a bunch of the Caucasus missions do have/did have fog. I don't know if it causes the same issues as dust in VR, but it looks similar in 2D at any rate.

Yep. Saw the same - and didn't see the moon. DCS is definitely special sometimes.

I should be around. Mi-8.

Only if fully loaded I think. Don't carry tanks into combat and don't pull hard while still heavy on fuel. There seems to be some cumulative effect to it. I need to do more testing to properly confirm it, but at ~50% fuel and 2 missiles I was able to pull 9-10 G two times for a few seconds each, before finally ripping them on the third attempt. With full fuel or especially tanks, it probably happens much sooner.

SORC causes it too, I think.

Fair enough about the warehousing issue, though maybe it'd be worth putting an extra bit of time in missions like this so each side can slot up and check their inventories without worrying about eating into time needed to complete the actual objective. A lot of the other big events do this and it helps guard against one team having a dumpster fire from the start because people slotted into the wrong thing or (as we had) not knowing how to change their SRS frequency and suiciding several planes into the entire enemy team before finally figuring it out. If you know the differences between their jets and ours, you should also know that they have things like prebrief mode to lean on. We have to wait for the radar to begin broadcasting before we can even get a shot off. We lost every single SAM at Qeshm after a single sortie, which unlocked their F-16s and made the numbers situation even worse for us (not everyone has/can fly the 14, and we had at least one who was not on comms and was teamkilling), and the reason Jask held out was that the Tor intercepted most of the first wave of missiles (except the one that killed the eastern EWR again) and then died to the last missile of the first wave. The second wave killed everything except the last Kub site which was inactive, presumably reloading since it was eventually killed by strafing. They also dispatched what few fighters we had over there quite handily in the process, during both sorties. You're right that I got frustrated, but I hope you were listening about the differences in objectives and tools available to accomplish them. We have three SAMs to kill, all in a small valley across open water from us. Blue have a lot more targets (but also more aircraft and more missiles per aircraft to accomplish the objective with), and so all they have to do to stonewall us is mount an effective CAP over Khasab and there's literally nothing we can do about it, especially because we have to get close enough to trigger the Hawk radars with a pair of aircraft that can barely get out of its own way. Meanwhile, we have to prevent them from attacking two widely spaced areas at the same time as gaining enough air superiority to get the Su-25s close enough. We just barely managed it in one sortie last time, because our Su-25s didn't waver when pressed and got unbelievably lucky. One of them had a Sparrow miss by a few metres because the F-15 guiding it was killed at the last second. Blue don't need to send a mass of fighters to either objective, because their SEAD aircraft are fighters and can defend themselves competently. They also get where they're going much faster and have generally better situational awareness. So you're right, it was wrong for me to say you changed it to make it impossible - perhaps what I should've said was that it was only ever possible in the first place because we got lucky against a team assembled at the last minute, last time. Perhaps if we'd been fighting a more organised force we would've realised it then, or maybe we should've realised it when checking Tacview afterwards and noticing how close it was. As for the password - this is why every single other special event uses signups on the forums, or uses some sort of community organising tool. Most use Discord. I know you don't like Discord, I know why you don't like Discord, and I think your points are very valid about it bear out to be true more often than not - but in the end it makes no difference, because people will make their own anyway, and the forum thread regularly turns into an absolute circus in exactly the same way a Discord server would. You don't need to use it, but it would probably help avoid the last-second scramble for players or people grabbing the wrong slots because people would be able to discuss it beforehand. I know you have an attachment to Teamspeak but the reality is that almost nobody else does. I still have it installed because we use it for ingame and radio comms in ArmA, that's it. A bunch of our players didn't even have it installed. You can definitely use it for organisation, but you're going to be at a disadvantage because you're requiring people to be physically present at a specific time on a platform that most people haven't used for years - at least text-based organisation takes the physical presence aspect out, which helps keep chaos and confusion at the 11th hour to a minimum. Forum signups would probably be better for it and I honestly don't know why you haven't done them, since you do usually post threads for each special event. There are only limited slots on the server and it's not outside the realms of possibility (actually I think it happened during one or two runs of Tiberias) that there are more people wanting to play than there are aircraft slots. Blue may have even had that problem today, judging by how many JTACs they had on a mission without a ground war - though at least then you have more GCIs so you can coordinate better. I still think that of all the missions, this is the only one that genuinely warrants one, and mainly because the entire focal point of the misison revolves around a fairly difficult objective that absolutely requires coordination to achieve. If it wasn't for that it wouldn't matter so much. The main reason this one in particular caused so much frustration is because of that - the point of the mission requires us to do something pretty difficult. If we can't do that, we're pretty much reduced to exactly the thing you hate: airquake. That's all it was for us after the first hour, because at that point we wouldn't have had time to do much else. Our Su-25s may have actually cleared the way if they hadn't run out of missiles, but it was too little, too late. The Scuds are a separate matter - I'm not sure what happened there, I saw some back-and-forth about the helicopter's hidden state in chat. Tacview shows a Hornet beelining for it from quite a ways out so I'm not sure if it popped up despite being set to hidden, or if Tau just used his initiative to scan low to the south of Fujairah knowing that there was probably a helicopter coming from that direction. It doesn't really matter which, the end result is that Salty got shot down before reaching the target, the next person to occupy the slot just sat in it for a considerable amount of time and then despawned, so nobody else could use it while they were doing sio, and then the final player to take it also got popped by express post from Ras Al Khaimah. The AWACS must be a lot better at spotting low-flying helicopters than I thought and I'm surprised it could see them at all given their altitude and the terrain in the way, or perhaps it was just a case of knowing where they'd be coming from and flying directly there. At least they still got to have their fun even without us triggering the Scuds, so one team still enjoyed it despite the mission's main events not playing out. I'm glad you took the time to watch it and reply - seriously. If it's any consolation, my repeating of something you suspected another player of doing a year and a half ago has resulted in endless unwanted drama for me ever since, so maybe we can call ourselves even now I have ArmA in ~7 hours but if you're around and happy to hop on TS, I'll be there for a bit. I actually forgot I was still in the channel until several hours later because I didn't think I'd have anything to add to the debrief that others wouldn't bring up first.

It's still using F-15 avionics for now. Hopefully it'll end up as deeply detailed and well-made as the Skyhawk, and then they can shoot for official status.

We need a better weather system first IMO. DCS' new clouds look nice, but we still only have like 3 layers of them and negligble wind or localised turbulence, and various radars that should struggle with cloud currently don't, IR seekers/IRST sees through them, etc. Also, there's a distinct advantage to anyone who turns shadows off unfortunately - spotting under cloud shadows is pretty difficult, but turning shadows off means you can see like it's broad daylight. Hopefully ED will hardcode cloud shadows at some point so that isn't an issue anymore. I'd absolutely love some more missions with weather when that day finally comes, though, and a bit of overall turbulence can be interesting even now. e/ On the other hand, Dawger's suggestion is solid. I used to like Supervision but the cloud base was high enough that people would just stay under it anyway (kinda like Open Range currently). Having it really low so really only helicopters can operate at ground level would be interesting for sure.

I seem to recall coming across a similar issue at some point but I wish I could remember how I got around it. I know for sure that there are some odd startup-related issues in the game though - for instance, spawning on one of the launch positions on the SC Kuznetsov and then turning your engines off will render them unable to restart, unless you turn your electrical system off before starting them. No idea what causes it, it's really weird. It seems to only happen on the front right position. Spaghetti code problems, I guess

Yep, that's the one. Note as well the mention of those limitations does imply that it functions as a full-blown attitude hold by default, while currently it only performs that task if you press an 'imaginary' keybind - and you can't really use it in that role anyway, as you have to fully disconnect and then re-engage the system to make any manoeuvres, rather than just using a little extra force to overcome the AP. An implementation more like the Mirage or Viggen stick overrides would be enormously more useful for DCS pilots, even without FFB. Maybe deflecting the stick out of a certain small deadzone can act as a disconnect or something and it can re-enable when the stick returns to neutral.

It's adorable how well you play the "be patronising but not quite enough to ever break the forum rules" routine, but we both know exactly what's going on here. It's also a good thing I'm not the only one who remembers how all this started, unfortunately us "youtube streamers" who edit our footage tend to catch ingame chat on screen sometimes

The real life pilot's operating handbook for a start, but there are also mechanics floating around who you can ask, as well as a couple of pilots on the Russian forums. In fact, if you go to the Russian forums, you'll probably notice they have a longer list than I do. I can tell you right now there's a nice, simple experiment you can do: take a Ka-50, turn on the LWR, and then fly a MiG-21 around it. Watch what happens. Currently, the slant range unit (which is what should be doing the work for CCIP) is not modelled. You may also notice that as you're taxiing on the ground in certain ASP modes, the reticle will expand and shrink as the nose dips towards the ground, even when the radar is off. The module uses an invisible, always-on laser to do A/G rangefinding. It was the first third party module and began life as a mod, and workarounds like that are common for mods - it's just that the 21 is still using them. This is why an aircraft which had absolutely no lasers of any variety in real life sets off the Ka-50's LWR in the sim. There should be no CCIP at all for bombs, bomb dropping was done via manual reticle depression and drop tables, like the F-5. The CCIP for guns/rockets is correct to the best of my knowledge. ASP stuff is pg 58/59 of the English translation of the POH and there are other supplements floating around the Russian forums, including diagrams of the actual switch logic in the unit. The POH itself makes scant reference to bombing, but notably only describes provision for aimed dive bombing, while it is much more explicit about what we'd now call CCIP when using gun/rockets. RSBN doesn't match up with any of the stations used for other FF aircraft, because the MiG-21 uses its own 'canned' implementation. This is why the channels are all different between it and other aircraft equipped with this system - the module predates proper RSBN implementation and never retroactively received it. Likewise its ARK system is a separate implementation unique to the module and missing aspects of how the ARK is actually meant to work, like the function of the near/far switch. The autopilot has one issue that is an artefact of how DCS controls work, which is that the system does not disconnect unless you press the disconnect button. Simply applying force to the stick is enough to do this in real life, the stick base has a ring of 8 microswitches (stacked 2 vertically at each of the cardinal directions) that bump against the inside of the stick extension and allow the pilot to quickly make a manoeuvre and then allow the autopilot to resume working. This is an annoyance, but understandable as you'd need a force feedback stick to simulate it at all on the user's end. The other big issue it has is that the stabilise mode should essentially function as an attitude hold, including rolling the wings level if they're within a few degrees of bank, with the pilot able to make trim inputs as well as override the stick in the same manner as the above to manoeuvre. In DCS, enabling the mode makes little difference aside from damping roll response enough to prevent accurate rolling increments, and requires a separate keypress that does not match any button in the cockpit to enter an attitude hold mode - which you cannot override manually, you have to turn it off, make an input, then do it all again. The ARU will stop accounting for the relationship between speed and altitude above, from memory, 7km and go immediately into its long arm position as if you're ready for landing. I'm still digging for the specific mention of whether this is accurate or not in the POH as I tend to skim for relevant sections when I need to check something, but I don't believe this is entirely accurate and it leads to both extremely twitchy flight at high Mach numbers, and also a pronounced and jarring 'kick' as you break down through that altitude in a high speed dive. It's abrupt and violent enough that the first time I experienced it I thought I'd lost a wing or been hit by a missile, it wasn't until I caught sight of the ARU needle ripping across from longest arm to shortest arm in the space of about half a second that I realised what it was. The IFF system currently treats the izd. 81 switch as a power switch. In reality this is a lockwired switch that should only be flipped when ordered, as the izd. 81 box is there specifically to scramble IFF codes in case of compromise. Obviously this is not a thing you want to be doing normally. I have heard from multiple sources, but am yet to confirm via documentation, that the aircraft should have something akin to a seeker uncage mode as the weapon release is held in to fire. Nothing like this is modelled in DCS. The electrical system will allow you to turn things on or off in whatever order you like, with or without the engine up and running, with no consequences, so starting by-the-book is unnecessary in DCS as you can just slam everything on before the engine even finishes spooling. The radar has a few issues, some of which are constraints of how it is coded ingame, some of which aren't. It's overall too sensitive, it can't see the new clouds, it doesn't display chaff (this is probably a DCS level issue to be fair), and my understanding is that clutter should appear as contacts (similar to jamming strobes) rather than just vague blurry haze, making contact sorting much harder than it is now. The documents have proven elusive but maybe we'll see some changes here at some point. R-60s are realistic on a 21bis, I think they were cleared for service after the manuals are written as the POH lacks them as well but they were routinely photographed in use in the real world. RS-2US and Kh-66 are not as the RP-22 radar could not support either weapon, they were used on the MF whose radar could support them and could not support R-3R. The rudder does indeed provide enough authority to keep the aircraft straight (or straighten out after a turn) at much lower speeds than anything else. It isn't enough to actively steer with, but it makes a huge difference in how you taxi - the first time I tried either MiG-15 or MiG-19 I kept ending up oversteering or understeering and ending up in the grass, because I was used to having the plane do more of the work for me. There are probably other things I'm forgetting here and there, and there are features which aren't finished or are awaiting rework. We just got a fun new feature to play with recently in the form of the boundary layer system inhibiting AB lightoff. Overall it's still my favourite module to fly and a lot of its issues stem from its lineage and age, but over the past three years of owning and flying it as well as reading up on the real aircraft and talking to people on the Russian side of the fence, there are a lot of ways where the DCS simulation of its systems does not match up with reality and it becomes all the more obvious once you're dealing with the same or similar systems in other Soviet aircraft modules from a similar period. As for the mirror... the entire periscope assembly is part of the canopy. You can't just remove it, you'd need to find a canopy without it. There are photos floating around of 21Rs with no periscope, but if you look closely, you'll notice the external housing has been removed but the actual cutout and base support for it is still there and has just been blanked over. If you have VR or headtracking it should be a non-issue anyway; if you don't, I can understand it'd be an annoyance, but it's there on the real aircraft and you'll just have to live with it. In any case, it's fantastic for checking behind you and with it, your only rearwards blindspot with a little head movement is what's masked by your own fuselage.

It might surprise you to know I fly the module a lot and I know what people do and don't do with it. I also know what it will and won't tolerate. The SPS triggers at 30 degrees of flap deflection. Takeoff is 25, landing is 45. The flaps will not drop below the 30 degree position until you are below 400km/h IAS, which (assuming you're in AB) is unlikely to happen without causing a severe departure first. I very much doubt you can visually tell the difference between 25 and 30 degrees of flap while in a dogfight, I sure can't and neither can anyone else I know. I am sure you'll find another way to try hint at your superiority here, but considering I both read up on how the system works and tested it ingame and have a fairly decent amount of time spent actually putting the theory and testing into practice, you're wasting your effort. Where I have seen people get tripped up is when landing. Most people either don't drop flaps in combat, or only drop them to the takeoff position, and the advantage they offer is situational and something of a tradeoff, which you would know if you did actually do any real testing. You trade some airspeed and an incremental amount of turn rate for a slightly tighter radius. The flaps will allow you more margin of error in terms of low speed but will also reduce your margin between the initial wing rock developing and the departure. In short, they're no help to most people and a double-edged sword for anyone else. Full landing flap was never an advantage, because even before the AB inhibiting behaviour was added, they send your L/D straight to the bin and make recovery from a dangerous situation (as well as acceleration) far too slow. As it is, the automatic retraction isn't modelled correctly for a bis, which I found out by asking a mechanic who worked on the things. They should retract in stages rather than proportional to airspeed, though in this case it wouldn't really make a difference anyway. Save your gotcha posting for someone else, bud. e/ Just to be completely clear here, we're still hung up on this mystical MiG landing flap business because you saw me questioning the Viggen's smaller turn radius without any penalty to turn rate with its flaps out like a year ago, right? You know, the thing I didn't even realise existed until I loaded the module up and tested it. That one. I don't remember you showing any interest at all in the 21's flaps until that moment, and I don't even remember the last time I saw you play in the server.

Relevant thread There was also a post in a separate thread that explicitly detailed the possible loadouts, overall the biggest change to what's posted in the above is that it was possible to carry Rb 75 and Rb 24 simultaneously, but in an asymmetric manner. I don't have the link to the pdf handy but someone else might. In any case, the main differences are no usable outer wing pylons (wired for Falcons, if memory serves correctly?) and no 4x AAM or 4x Rb 75 loadouts, no TERNAV, and of course none of the more modern weapons which were already removed from the server anyway. Lack of TERNAV was in part because the AJ did not have a data cartridge and the aircraft's internal memory is a fraction of what the catridge can hold, so TERNAV is running entirely off of that instead of the onboard memory. I don't think anyone really cares if people can use the cartridge to program the CK 37 though, button punching for 10 mins before a mission is only for the biggest masochists. I don't think TERNAV can be restricted but those who are particularly eager for authenticity can turn it off themselves via the input panel. As to why blue don't win When The Mountains Cry... I dunno, I feel like it's just because red tend to push out very aggressively on that mission. Most memories I have of playing it have been flying fighter sweeps across the entire AO, not just our lakes, and then turning back based on either the Tbilisi Hawk sites or my fuel state. By contrast, when I've played on blue, only the Viggens seem to push much beyond the 'frontline'. The one current mission which I do think is a really hard deal for blue is Open Range. If you don't get at least 2-3 Viggens coordinating on ground targets it's basically unwinnable, Cherkessk factory and the water plant are both far too close to Minvody to push with A-10s or even bombed-up F-5s. Meanwhile, the only thing stopping red from steamrolling the mission in about 10-15 minutes is the total overcast it now has. I remember when it was clear weather, all we had to do was get the Su-25s to hit the FARP and send a flight of MiGs to S-24 the crap out of the blue rear area targets and that was it.

Considering almost nobody builds deliberately slow fighters, I still don't see how that interpretation has any meaning beyond reducing almost all fighters ever built to "interceptor", regardless of the other roles they were expected to perform. Interception is a single role among several that the aircraft has to accomplish, and at times is even performed by fighters which aren't particularly fast or good at climbing, particularly during air policing. It also ignores the fact that being fast and having a good climb rate is not an exclusively interception-oriented goal, it's been known since WWII that whoever is faster, higher, and climbs better will general hold the initiative during WVR combat (and particularly at the time of design, there was no other form of aerial combat). Reducing anything with above-average speed and climb performance to "interceptor" is absolutely pointless and actively misleading about its operational use, particularly if you're trying to apply US definitions to a country who didn't fight like the US, didn't design aircraft with the same goals in mind, and doesn't even speak the same language. This is turning into petty semantics but at the end of the day, the nation of origin and design bureau of origin are the ones who decide what an aircraft is, and the 21 is not an interceptor per the Soviet definition nor operational use.