Just got F5 what do i need to know ?

[Zilch]

Flew a bit on the 104th today. Cool experience, very educational, so hopefully it's useful to you as well.

 

One thing I noticed about the F-5 is that it'll make you think and learn. It's easy to pick up the jet and fly it, use the weapons, and so on...but to practically be in position to employ those weapons is another matter entirely! It can turn with the best of them, is small and hard to see, and armed for the knife fight.

 

Two things I took away today (and a bonus!):

 

1. You cannot engage modern enemy aircraft unless you are 100% on your terms, which means they will almost certainly nail you BVR before you can get them into your phone booth, preferably unseen.

 

I was hoping to charge at them by flying than 100 AGL with the hopes that ground clutter could mask me until I was WVR. Nope. Splashed.

 

I was hauling a load of rockets to the A2G zone, hoping to evade radar and missiles by putting them on my beam. Nope. Splashed.

 

So, change of concept. I headed toward the AO, which has a nice mountain range separating red and blue. As I approached it, I went high profile, medium altitude, radar on. This seemed to attract some attention.

 

Snooze radar, put the baddies on the beam while the RWR shows them in the outer circle. Headed into the mountain range with my beam still on the RWR spike, so hopefully they're chasing my previous location while I displace a few miles off, wait for them to overfly, and ambush their asses with passive AIM-9's before they know what's up.

 

That's the basic idea. With the help of teammates in F-15's providing SA, I shot down a Su-27. Sweet revenge.

 

This leads to...

 

2. Situational awareness. This is either awesome or mediocre, depending on scenario.

 

Against MiG-21's, you have the SA advantage, flat, and I'll take the F-5 over the Fishbed as my preference any day for this and other reasons.

 

However, against current fighters, you're low man on the pole, not so much because of the simple radar (trade-off being that because it's simple and loses abilities, those are fewer things to think about and manage, allowing you to fight your jet the best way you can with head-up.)

 

The biggest problem I had was IFF. There is no IFF interrogator in the F-5, which I felt like I badly needed in a mixed-coalition server such as the 104th. In a more segregated RedFor/BluFor server with NATO planes on one side and Russian style on the other, the IFF is less critical due to the clearly-legible RWR icons (21, 29, are bandit, 5, 15 and M are friendly etc.)

 

However, in the 104th, the MiG-29 could be bandit or friendly, the only give-away being the paint job, and if you're in close enough to see that, you're either in some deep shit or you've got the situation in hand. Usually the first thing, since they could IFF query you from 40 miles out or more, allowing them the maneuver BVR to set up the merge in their favor, or just R-27 you while you're scratching your head about those RWR icons.

 

Even though the F-5 is a strictly WVR fighter, I think the lack of IFF is a more serious detriment than its lack of BVR weapons themselves. If I knew the "15" spike on my RWR was bandit at 40 miles, I could avoid the engagement or set up an ambush to engage on my terms (hopefully without him knowing I was there!)

 

Personal preference, perhaps, but going A2A, I'll take superior SA over a better weapon load or selection every time...on the 104th or the like, you'll need to get creative.

 

This leads to...

 

3. Teamwork. The F-5 as a lone actor may be possible for master tacticians when flown against modern opponents, even more so when going against period-matched opponents like MiG-21's or other F-5's. However, for merely decent tacticians like me, it's like walking into a trap nearly every time when you go A2A alone against more modern jets. Lesson: Bring a friend, or make one!

 

Specifically, my success against that Su-27 was made possible by good teamwork and communication with allied F-15 drivers (and if they're reading this, I'd like to say thanks yet again!)

 

There I was, flying at full mil power, eastward skimming through northern foothills of the east-west mountain range through which Red Air was penetrating. A pair of Eagles were flying just north of my posit, scanning the area with radar and calling out contacts on the comms, engaging them when possible. Meanwhile, I had snoozed my radar and was head-up, when I got a visual on an unknown contact hauling ass northwards at roughly my altitude. I had no idea at the time, but it was a Sukhoi-27.

 

I asked the F-15 guys to ID the target as hostile or not, which they did right as my AIM-9 got a good tone and the bandit pumped rearwards in response to their active locks. Bandit had not noticed me, probably because he had at least one F-15 painting him, allowing me to get into my happy spot: high energy, undetected, close-in and with a Sidewinder locked up before he has a clue. Fox-2. As the missile was about halfway to the target, I finally got positive ID on the type of aircraft right before, BAM, my first kill on the 104th thanks to those Eagle drivers.

 

By providing IFF and locking up the target, the F-15's effectively extended my weapons range to that of the RMax of missile I was carrying, rather than the range at which I could get visual ID and be sure I was shooting the right thing (about 1/3 of RMax.) The F-15C: AWACS with teeth!

 

Unfortunately, the enemy had F-15's too, and as I plunged into the mountain range to look for more prey, a friendly F-15 got mixed in with at least two enemy F-15's, dropping my SA and forcing me to hold fire several times for fear of blue-on-blue kills...As I was chasing them, an enemy F-15 slipped into my rear quarter. By the time I my RWR had a "15" spike in the inner circle, I was dead to rights and was blasted by an AMRAAM close-in. Nice shot, really...

 

Anyway, as part of a team, the F-5 can apparently be pretty lethal. It's hard to see them, they can move like a Lotus on crack and have good all-aspect missiles and a solid gun to match.

 

If you fly it like an F-15, Sukhoi or even a Mirage, the F-5 will humble you. However, once that happens, and you put the work and thought into using it either A2A or A2G, you can use it to humble your opponents, instead.

 

Sure, getting loads of Su-27 kills in an F-15 is great, and it's what you'd expect flying one of the premier A2A platforms of all time.

 

Getting fewer kills, but doing it in an "inferior" jet like the F-5, though, is a truly sweet experience and will net more bragging rights, if you're into that. Personally, I enjoy overcoming challenges that are stacked against me, and the F-5 is the perfect platform for that if you want to master stick and rudder flying and BFM.

 

It has the added benefit of being a true joy to fly, and you can get straight to the tactics without having to learn or utilize complicated systems or avionics merely to get the jet going.

 

The F-5 is amazing. Easy to fly, easy to learn...difficult to master. Perfect.

[Nodak]

Does turning your transponders off not work for confusing the opposition on mixed servers, or does the game identify regardless?

[Zilch]

Does turning your transponders off not work for confusing the opposition on mixed servers, or does the game identify regardless?

 

Even turning them off should not, in real life, confuse the enemy, if I understand correctly.

 

IFF works by transmitting a code when queried by another aircraft. If it replies at all, it'll say, "Hey, I'm friendly," or nothing at all if the codes don't match. So, you can't use a lack of response to spoof the enemy into thinking you're friendly, they'll just see the same thing your now-confused allies will...nothing at all. Presumed bogey or hostile by both sides, just like if you had no IFF system in the first place.

[lmp]

IFF transponders in all DCS aircraft are currently very abstracted - that is they are always on, compatible across all systems, 100% reliable and even present on aircraft that don't have them.

[Fri13]

IFF transponders in all DCS aircraft are currently very abstracted - that is they are always on, compatible across all systems, 100% reliable and even present on aircraft that don't have them.

 

So by other words....

 

If aircraft you fly in DCS can initiate IFF, you can be 100% sure that target is a hostile if it doesn't get marked as friendly?

[lmp]

You should be - there were some IFF related bugs in MP, but I don't fly MP so I'm not really familiar with the details. Barring any bugs, it should work as you described. It would be awesome if IFF was simulated in more detail... but it's not the thread nor forum to discuss that.

[Snowblizz]

how do I program chaff and flares

[jmijnen]

IFF transponders in all DCS aircraft are currently very abstracted - that is they are always on, compatible across all systems, 100% reliable and even present on aircraft that don't have them.

 

This is due to the developers not having access to real life IFF data. IFF systems are some of the most classified systems in existance and militaries across the world keep their technology classified about it, even from many years ago, due to this ED had to develop their own IFF system.

Edited November 24, 2016 by jmijnen
Spelling!

[Johnny Dioxin]

Which sounds very reasonable to me - look forward to its full implementation.

[Bearfoot]

Flew a bit on the 104th today. Cool experience, very educational, so hopefully it's useful to you as well.

 

... snip ...

 

+1!

 

Very, very, very nice summary!

 

Thanks for sharing!