Questions about F-14 afterburner zones

[DanPDX]

Does the afterburner throw of the throttles in a real Tomcat have detents to denote the different afterburner zones, or is the throw smooth after the Mil power detent?

[Nealius]

That's a good question. The F-14A NATOPS only mentions detents at IDLE and MIL, and gives nozzle position gauge readings that correspond to Zone 1~5 AB. I'm assuming there's no detent and you have to go by the nozzle position gauge, but I'm also suspicious of my NATOPS source. It's watermarked by Virtual CVW-8. If it's a legit doc that's a little sleezy....just like Critical Past watermarking public domain historical footage.

[Spiceman]

No... you push outward then push forward and it’s one smooth motion from there to full AB.

[DanPDX]

Thanks!

[Victory205]

Spiceman is correct, no feedback on the throttles for afterburner.

 

However, the nozzle position indicators don’t correlate directly or proportionally with the gauge markings-

 

A pointer at 1 doesn’t mean that the AB is at Zone One, instead, Zone One is actually between 1 and 2 on the indicator. Zone 2 occurs between 2 and 3 on the indicator, and as you increase throttle in the afterburner range, the indicators or the actual burner zones don’t advance linearly with throttle movement, nor do the engines stage together. They stage slightly differently, and there are little yaw bobbles as a result of the yaw differential. Heatblur has modeled this accurately.

 

While you could feel and hear the differences in the Realjet™, in the sim, it may be confusing for awhile.

 

The good news is that to avoid engine stalls, you’ll either be in Zone 5 or Mil when maneuvering anyway. All part of the charm of the F14A. ;)

[Skysurfer]

Aren't zone 3 CAT launches a thing though? Or did I interpret something wrong?

[Nealius]

 

While you could feel and hear the differences in the Realjet™, in the sim, it may be confusing for awhile.

 

Was HB kind enough to give us some aural feedback to make up for the lack of feel, like they did with the Tomcat's buffet and the Viggen's AB stages?

 

 

[DanPDX]

 

Was HB kind enough to give us some aural feedback to make up for the lack of feel, like they did with the Tomcat's buffet and the Viggen's AB stages?

 

 

I've heard rumors that they have/are implementing a more aggressive audio feedback into the upcoming A model, which should be implemented into the B model as well, but I am a bit out of the loop ATM. check their YouTube for the updated sound model clips and you might find something.

[Victory205]

 

Was HB kind enough to give us some aural feedback to make up for the lack of feel, like they did with the Tomcat's buffet and the Viggen's AB stages?

 

 

The "confusing" part is only that the nozzle indicators, which read from 0 to 5, don't correlate to the actual stage of burner in use. That is faithful to the way the aircraft worked. In practice, it is of little consequence, you really don't care what zone you are in, but you do need to know whether you are in full burner, which is easy to tell since the throttles are full forward, or mil.

 

The use of after burner is otherwise natural, and you just move the throttles as necessary, as you already to in the B.

 

Because the thrust is sort of surging and waning due to the stage phenomenon, flying formation while in the AB range didn't work well in the A. IT could be done, but required a higher workload than what you see with the GE engines.

 

Hope this helps. The A is going to be a lot of fun.