Brakes

[Reflected]

According to the manual, you need to hold the aircraft with the brakes on the runway, go to zone 2, then release. In DCS the brakes aren't effective enough to hold the aircraft.

 

 

See video:

 

 

[sLYFa]

The ground fiction model is pretty off in general. You should for example be able to taxi in idle for low weights but right now even a clean jet will require about 75- 80%N2 to keep taxiing in DCS. 

[Raven (Elysian Angel)]

Yup, the current model is sort of a workaround, and a compromise between being glued to the tarmac and sliding all over the place.
The Mirage 2000 should be able to taxi in idle, so does the F-16, and today I heard an interview with a former F-15 pilot saying that one could even reach 80 knots in idle.

[Skysurfer]

Well, the 16 sorta can taxi in mostly idle in DCS. The Tomcat is super sticky/frictiony though making the landing distances also super unrealistically short.

[Reflected]

If you say the friction is too much, than the Tomcat's brakes are even more off. With less friction they would hold even less.

[RustBelt]

Except wheel to surface friction is diffrent from brake load friction from what I can tell. So it's about thrust vs the brakes not thrust vs rolling friction. In that case, the brakes are weaker to make up for the overdone rolling friction. Meaning with too much thrust the sim "lets" the wheels roll when it shouldn't. 

[Reflected]

Something is definitely off with ground friction modeling, because I can't taxi at idle either:

 

[RustBelt]

Yea that has to do with the fudge ED made to make airplanes stay connected to the Carrier Deck. Kludge on a Kludge. 

[Nealius]

When NATOPS refers to "nozzle position 2" it may actually be referring to Zone 1 AB. "Minimum zone afterburning" would be Zone 1, as Zone 2 would be one step above minimum. It also specifically says "nozzle position," and nozzle positions are not equivalent to the AB zones. 

 

AB Zone	NOZ POS
1	1.5
2	2.4
3	3.2
4	4.0
5	4.3 ~ 5.0

 

If 2.4 is the minimum NOZ POS for Zone 2 AB, then NOZ POS 2 would still be Zone 1, I assume. I haven't checked the nozzle gauge specifically, but in an unladen Tomcat the brakes have mostly held through Zone 1 in my experience, so it shouldn't be that far off even with our FUBAR'd ground physics in DCS.

Edited December 10, 2020 by Nealius

[Northstar98]

Quote

The ground fiction model is pretty off in general. You should for example be able to taxi in idle for low weights but right now even a clean jet will require about 75- 80%N2 to keep taxiing in DCS. 

 

This is fairly worrying, it seems very common now that we're finding things that seem to be implemented using bailing wire and duct tape owing to the engine just not supporting these things. 

 

I think ED does a pretty decent job with the duct tape and the bailing wire, but the limitations of DCS seem ever present. 

Edited December 12, 2020 by Northstar98

[RustBelt]

This has been known for years back at this point. Worst part is the guy who wrote all the original code died, so it's basically a forensics project just to find out HOW something works, and also why changing totally unrelated things breaks other parts. Because they give the Toy Core away free, and the Pro training product doesn't really need a lot of that stuff to work to do its job as a task trainer, there just isn't the business case to Start off with a new modern layered middleware style rewrite. 

 

They say they're going to do that for M.A.C., but my guess is it will just be another Jenga tower stack iteration of Lock On. If that is, it ever happens.

[Flash_111]

Nealius while what you said about nozzle position vs zone is correct, the brakes are still under performing significantly. Here are the current tested limits.

 

F-14A brake limit tested at max gross weight, dry paved level surface, 12/16/2020:

 

Single engine (anti skid on): Zone 1

 

Single engine (anti skid off): MIL

 

Dual Engine (anti skid off/on): 90%

 

 

This issue coupled with the exaggerated asymmetric AB lightoff/staging make shore afterburner takeoffs more unstable than they should be.