F-14 Exterior Lights - Real Observations from the 80's

[Andrew8604]

In a nutshell -- I contend that real F-14 Nav/Position lights flashed in unison with Anti-collision lights, most of the time. (As well as on the F-4B/N and F-4J/S Phantoms)

 

Living near NAS Miramar "Fightertown USA", I observed a lot of F-14's from about 1976 to 1987 (most likely all F-14A's). I was a fanatic! (before Tom Cruise) I watched a lot of them at night, through a 40x , 60mm, f/15 refractor telescope, with image erector...believe it or not. I was good at manual acquisition and tracking. I could resolve the split nav lights on the wing gloves from about 4 miles. I could quickly recognize an F-14 at night by its lights because they were so distinguishable. I could see them turning in their PAR patterns while listening on a UHF radio to Approach Controllers giving them vectors and their short responses with noticeable engine whine in the background. Wingtip and glove lights told very well how they were banking in their turns. And then the Final Controller would come on frequency and give glide-path and course status/corrections with no need for pilot responses. I could see the color of the approach lights...amber, red, green (sort of bluish-green).

 

Now, it was a long time ago, but I'm pretty sure I remember seeing all lights blink off-n-on in unison, except landing/taxi light, approach lights (usually) and formation lights (green strips).

 

They seemed to be illuminated longer than off when flashing...assuming a flash rate of 1 cycle per second, they seemed to be on for about 70% of that second...and their illumination didn't cut instantly off like modern LED lights, it faded down to off in like a 1/10th of a second and came back on with about the same delay. So not 50/50, on/off, but more like 70/30. Those were incandescent bulbs.

 

The lights on this Heatblur F-14B seem just as I remember as far as positions, I'm sure they got them exactly right. But I'd swear I remember seeing all Nav/Position lights, including wing glove lights, flashing in unison with the nose and tail anti-collision lights. When the F-14 would make its high speed descent for the overhead break, at night, I could see a 'slanted' line of three, evenly spaced red lights flashing in unison, viewed from the port side. That had to be the nose light, wing glove lights, and left vertical tail red light. I can't replicate this distinguishable feature in the Heatblur F-14B.

 

Not to mention that the DCS graphics engine does not seem to be able to display lights properly from a distance in DCS. It seemingly tries to draw them real size with limited contrast, when human visual acuity sees them larger than they really are due to their intensity against the black sky from a distance at night. They need to be 'artificially' brightened and enlarged just a bit at a distance. But that may be difficult when dealing with the limited number of pixels in our displays.

[The LT]

Not to mention that the DCS graphics engine does not seem to be able to display lights properly from a distance in DCS. It seemingly tries to draw them real size with limited contrast, when human visual acuity sees them larger than they really are due to their intensity against the black sky from a distance at night. They need to be 'artificially' brightened and enlarged just a bit at a distance. But that may be difficult when dealing with the limited number of pixels in our displays.

 

That's the same issue as with contacts visibility. Its next to impossible to convince ED to rework lights and contacts.

[QuiGon]

Not to mention that the DCS graphics engine does not seem to be able to display lights properly from a distance in DCS. It seemingly tries to draw them real size with limited contrast, when human visual acuity sees them larger than they really are due to their intensity against the black sky from a distance at night. They need to be 'artificially' brightened and enlarged just a bit at a distance. But that may be difficult when dealing with the limited number of pixels in our displays.

 

That's the same issue as with contacts visibility. Its next to impossible to convince ED to rework lights and contacts.

Not true! ED did exactly this for the Hornet (and maybe other aircraft) in one of the recent updates! The Hornet's lights can now be seen from very far away and are very noticeable!

[The LT]

Not true! ED did exactly this for the Hornet (and maybe other aircraft) in one of the recent updates! The Hornet's lights can now be seen from very far away and are very noticeable!

You know what, you're right. Some of the lights are now shiny with the new system but not others though. That may very well change for "the sake of realism" so don't hold your breath. Hopefully it won't.

[HavaFaza]

The true behavior of flashing lights was bug reported a while ago as well, though it's much lower priority than many other things it would be great to see the proper behavior and nav light blinking represented correctly eventually.

[QuiGon]

You know what, you're right. Some of the lights are now shiny with the new system but not others though.

Indeed, the new easily visible lights are only available on a few aircraft so far. I hope it will extend to others over time. 3rd parties like Heatblur will have to do that by themselves.

[The LT]

Indeed, the new easily visible lights are only available on a few aircraft so far. I hope it will extend to others over time. 3rd parties like Heatblur will have to do that by themselves.

We can only hope ED will settle on the new lights api and all 3rd party devs will eventually adopt it. I can understand why HB isn't rushing it.

[QuiGon]

We can only hope ED will settle on the new lights api and all 3rd party devs will eventually adopt it. I can understand why HB isn't rushing it.

I don't there really is a new lights API. I think ED just cranked some values high up and that's it. The third parties would have to do that for their own aircraft as well though.

At least that's my impression from the outside without having access to the underlying code.

 

 

Edit: Well, on a 2nd thought maybe ED did a bit more than that, as the lights (e.g. on the Hornet) are still normally dim if seen from nearby, but now shine really big and bright if seen from afar. So maybe ED did tweak the underlying code a bit, but 3rd parties would still have to adapt to it.

Edited August 11, 2020 by QuiGon

[IronMike]

Thank you for the observations, we will take a look.

[Cobra847]

The F-14's lights are already set as gigantic glowing orbs in distant LoDs, not sure they should be even bigger. It's a tough balance to get right.

Edited August 11, 2020 by Cobra847

[QuiGon]

Hmm, either I haven't seen a Tomcat with lights on from a distance in a while (quite possibly) or its lights in distant LoDs still pale in comparison to the new distant Hornet lights. :dunno:

[Slant]

The F-14's lights are already set as gigantic glowing orbs in distant LoDs, not sure they should be even bigger. It's a tough balance to get right.

 

Sorry for the late reply, but this seems relevant. Are you guys aware of discrepancies in the mirrors? Blinking lights that should be steady, wrong colour etc. Am I psyching out on drugs or is that even possible? Should I make a bugreport about this?

[Slant]

Hmm, either I haven't seen a Tomcat with lights on from a distance in a while (quite possibly) or its lights in distant LoDs still pale in comparison to the new distant Hornet lights. :dunno:

 

Hornet lights are a bit too bright, because (I suspect) the entire DCS community always dials the knob to maximum setting, I've speculated privately that they might be more in line with "normal light" if people actually used a decent setting on that knob.

[Nealius]

Hornet lights are currently broken. Single notch ON and they have a hideous halo that looks like it came out of a PS2 game.