PSA: F-14 Performance/FM Development Status + Guided Discussion

[Spurts]

Most/all the -402 Hornets went to Marines and foreign sales, so no he is not likely to have used them just by flying to 20 years.  Again, he calls out the engine change of the Tomcat and not the Hornet, that is very telling.  And do not confuse 10% more rated thrust with only having 10% more dynamic thrust.  Same way the F-14A has a higher top speed than the F-14B.  

[maxsin72]

1 hour ago, Spurts said:

Most/all the -402 Hornets went to Marines and foreign sales, so no he is not likely to have used them just by flying to 20 years.  Again, he calls out the engine change of the Tomcat and not the Hornet, that is very telling.  And do not confuse 10% more rated thrust with only having 10% more dynamic thrust.  Same way the F-14A has a higher top speed than the F-14B.  

This pilot had a duty period in the Navy starting in 1983  and ending in 2004 flying with the F18 till the end. I think he knows what he is talking about. Anyway i tried to ask him the difference between 400 and 402, i hope he will answer.

Edited February 9, 2022 by maxsin72

[Spurts]

I'd love to hear what he has to say. 

[maxsin72]

On 12/6/2021 at 3:03 PM, fat creason said:

Not until at least 1-2 updates after the new year. Been too busy with real life things and other things that I can't discuss without getting banned here . There is a minor FM update that's been queued for release for like 5-6 weeks but it hasn't made it out yet as far as I know...hopefully it comes out with the next patch.

 

Hi fat creason, do you think there will be some FM updates with the next open beta patch? Thx a lot

[Spurts]

I'm just waiting for the TF30 tuning.  IIRC that is still to come.

[fat creason]

Not coming this patch, I've had my day job and real life things taking up most of my time lately, sorry!

[Spurts]

No worries @fat creason. Thanks for the heads up though.  I am all too familiar with real life getting in the way of DCS.

[maxsin72]

5 hours ago, fat creason said:

Not coming this patch, I've had my day job and real life things taking up most of my time lately, sorry!

Thanks for the answer

[maxsin72]

On 3/17/2022 at 3:29 PM, fat creason said:

Not coming this patch, I've had my day job and real life things taking up most of my time lately, sorry!

Please forgive me but i ask you another question: how much time do you think will be necessary to have new updates to the FM? Thank you

[fat creason]

Sorry I can't give a timeline, it will be done when it's done and depends greatly on the demands on my free time to work on it. The overall changes won't be significant either, it's already very close. Not really something to get hung up about waiting on.

Edited March 23, 2022 by fat creason

[maxsin72]

2 hours ago, fat creason said:

Sorry I can't give a timeline, it will be done when it's done and depends greatly on the demands on my free time to work on it. The overall changes won't be significant either, it's already very close. Not really something to get hung up about waiting on.

 

Thanks, copy that

[maxsin72]

Does anybody knows if F14B still lack in acceleration against F18? Thanks 

[draconus]

4 minutes ago, maxsin72 said:

Does anybody knows if F14B still lack in acceleration against F18?

What kind of question is that? You have to be more specific. You mean game or RL?

[fat creason]

36 minutes ago, maxsin72 said:

Does anybody knows if F14B still lack in acceleration against F18? Thanks 

Have you put any personal effort into finding out? Would you even bother to test or notice a FM change without me telling you it happened? Personal initiative and curiosity are good things.

 

Also: Comparing performance among two aircraft in DCS is a fool's errand unless you know for sure one aircraft's performance is 100% correct. This is extremely unlikely.

Edited March 23, 2022 by fat creason

[Katj]

I don't exactly know how it compares to the Hornet but I find the F-14A/B acceleration through the transonic region to to
still be surprisingly bad, especially with any sort of a2a loadout.

Oddly enough unloading or diving doesn't seem to help much.

[maxsin72]

39 minutes ago, draconus said:

What kind of question is that? You have to be more specific. You mean game or RL?

I mean both: please correct me if i'm wrong, i have read that F14B and F18 have both about the same subsonic acceleration in real life. If this is true, i think the same should be in DCS.

24 minutes ago, fat creason said:

Have you put any personal effort into finding out? Would you even bother to test or notice a FM change without me telling you it happened? Personal initiative and curiosity are good things.

 

Also: Comparing performance among two aircraft in DCS is a fool's errand unless you know for sure one aircraft's performance is 100% correct. This is extremely unlikely.

 

I've only asked a question, and i think there is nothing fool in this. So please keep calm

[maxsin72]

4 hours ago, fat creason said:

Have you put any personal effort into finding out? Would you even bother to test or notice a FM change without me telling you it happened? Personal initiative and curiosity are good things.

 

Also: Comparing performance among two aircraft in DCS is a fool's errand unless you know for sure one aircraft's performance is 100% correct. This is extremely unlikely.

 

My tests at sea level, time to accelerate 300-650 knots, 0 wind, 20°C:

F14B 24,2 sec. (1620 lbs fuel, clean configuration, only full guns bullets)

F18lot20 23,1 sec. (1000lbs fuel, clean configuration, only full guns bullets)

Please see tacview files attached.

Tacview-20220323-221418-DCS-acceleration F18lot20SL.zip.acmi Tacview-20220323-221939-DCS-acceleration F14BSL.zip.acmi

[turkeydriver]

On 2/8/2022 at 6:33 PM, maxsin72 said:

This pilot had a duty period in the Navy starting in 1983  and ending in 2004 flying with the F18 till the end. I think he knows what he is talking about. Anyway i tried to ask him the difference between 400 and 402, i hope he will answer.

 

The -402 was not an upgrade that went to all F/A-18C squadrons.   Only a few Navy jets got them and yes most went to the Marines.  You could google the answer.

[RustBelt]

On 3/23/2022 at 10:35 AM, fat creason said:

Sorry I can't give a timeline, it will be done when it's done and depends greatly on the demands on my free time to work on it. The overall changes won't be significant either, it's already very close. Not really something to get hung up about waiting on.

 

And really, as soon as the changes get made, ED will change some factor of the Simulated Physics Environment and it starts all over again.

[ThunderStrike]

Are there any plans to improve physics? At the moment, the aircraft does not react in any way to weight reduction (missile launch or bomb release)

[IronMike]

11 minutes ago, ThunderStrike said:

Are there any plans to improve physics? At the moment, the aircraft does not react in any way to weight reduction (missile launch or bomb release)

That is modeled and it does react to that. You can make a simple test to notice it fully: perform a case1 with 6 phoenix equipped and say 10k lbs of fuel. Then repeat, but now jettison all your phoenixes. Or alternatively dump fuel at nauseam. Due to its large body, a single smaller weapon released may not be felt as much as you'd expect in the Tomcat.

Releasing a bigger weapon causes a release motion at times, but smaller weapons you just might not feel in the tomcat. you can get a thump, a shake though and even fly through your own missile's wake turbulence.

Drag gain or reduction, if you expect a lot, is not very impactful for tunnel stations.

Edited May 15, 2022 by IronMike

[RustBelt]

3 hours ago, ThunderStrike said:

Are there any plans to improve physics? At the moment, the aircraft does not react in any way to weight reduction (missile launch or bomb release)

The Tomcat's a Biggie Piggy You got to unload a lot to notice weight changes. 

[ThunderStrike]

3 часа назад, RustBelt сказал:

The Tomcat's a Biggie Piggy You got to unload a lot to notice weight changes. 

Not so much that it would not notice at all. Maybe it shouldn't be pushed up too much. Perhaps the roll should not have large values. But it seems to me not right when the plane does not react in any way.

7 часов назад, IronMike сказал:

That is modeled and it does react to that. You can make a simple test to notice it fully: perform a case1 with 6 phoenix equipped and say 10k lbs of fuel. Then repeat, but now jettison all your phoenixes. Or alternatively dump fuel at nauseam. Due to its large body, a single smaller weapon released may not be felt as much as you'd expect in the Tomcat.

Releasing a bigger weapon causes a release motion at times, but smaller weapons you just might not feel in the tomcat. you can get a thump, a shake though and even fly through your own missile's wake turbulence.

Drag gain or reduction, if you expect a lot, is not very impactful for tunnel stations.

 

If this is true, then thank you very much for the work done by your guys.

[draconus]

24 minutes ago, ThunderStrike said:

But it seems to me not right when the plane does not react in any way.

Show your test then - values experienced vs expected.

[Noctrach]

On 3/23/2022 at 6:57 PM, Katj said:

I don't exactly know how it compares to the Hornet but I find the F-14A/B acceleration through the transonic region to to
still be surprisingly bad, especially with any sort of a2a loadout.

Oddly enough unloading or diving doesn't seem to help much.

See, I also felt the F-14 seemed slow to accelerate in the transonic region, so I did a 1:1 test with DCS compared to the AAP-11 scenario below.

Test parameters and method: Syria map, 15C, QNH 29.92. Stabilized level flight at FL35, IMN 0.70, engage full afterburner while maintaining level flight (verified altitude and level flight with info panel in transonic region to avoid instrument inaccuracies). Flare release to indicate IMN milestones for TacView analysis. (TacView shows TMN)

Taking some error margin due to inaccuracies in manual testing and interpreting the graph lines, our F-14B isn't too far off in total timing accelerating from 0.9 to 1.20. However, this is mainly due to its overperformance in going from 0.7 to 1.0, after which it hits a wall of drag that takes over 50% more time to cross than per manual. It also accelerates significantly faster  past IMN 1.60->1.65->1.69, taking a massive 3 minutes less total time to reach.

Both ways it does seem like something that might be worth looking at.

Maximum Afterburner - 66,000 lbs gross weight - 35,000 feet - ICO standard day
AIM-9*2, AIM-7*2, AIM-54*2, 2*370 Gallon External Tanks, Gun+AMMO

IMN	DCS Time	Mnl Time	Delta	DCS Dist	Mnl Dist	Delta
0.7	0	0	0	0	0	0
1.0	0:46	1:14	-0:28	6.6	10	-4.4
1.2	2:03	1:53	+0:10	20.3	17.5	+2.8
1.4	3:07	2:42	+0:25	34.1	28.7	+5.4
1.6	4:06	4:32	-0:26	48	56.3	-8.0
1.65	4:24	5:51	-1:27	53.2	74.9	-21.7
1.69	4:37	>7:30	-2:55	56.8	107	-50.2

 

Edited May 15, 2022 by Noctrach