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

[Hummingbird]

4 minutes ago, Spurts said:

Oh?  I didn't realize they put in the TF30 specific tune already!  I thought that was going to have to wait.  As for the sustained G, I am not going to lose sleep over losing .15G at SL, a 3% or less error.  I am never doing a STR turn anyway.  I am always either climbing, diving, speeding up, or tightening down.

Looking at it like that and it seems trivial, I agree, however even 0.5 dps quickly adds up in a sustained angles fight where people are turning and twisting for several minutes.   

Either way the FM has been massively improved versus before, so there's definitely reason to be happy(er).

Edited October 21, 2021 by Hummingbird

[TLTeo]

To add to Victory's point - ok, the discrepancy you found is a few %. Are you confident that your (and RL) tests are also accurate to less than a few %? How so? If the answer is "no" or "I don't know", then the conclusion is that the performance is as spot on as it could possibly get. Comparing two very close measurements without their error bar is pretty meaningless.

[maxsin72]

9 minutes ago, Spurts said:

Oh?  I didn't realize they put in the TF30 specific tune already!  I thought that was going to have to wait.  As for the sustained G, I am not going to lose sleep over losing .15G at SL, a 3% or less error.  I am never doing a STR turn anyway.  I am always either climbing, diving, speeding up, or tightening down.

Because i do really much bfm on multiplayers servers, i am always doing STR turn and i would like to have every single decimal of G force, to turn as better as the f14 is able to do, expecially at sea level where f14 excels.

7 minutes ago, TLTeo said:

To add to Victory's point - ok, the discrepancy you found is a few %. Are you confident that your (and RL) tests are also accurate to less than a few %? How so? If the answer is "no" or "I don't know", then the conclusion is that the performance is as spot on as it could possibly get. Comparing two very close measurements without their error bar is pretty meaningless.

I've read the same kind of answers to Hummingbird also when he wrote the f14 with new FM was tanked in november 2020 but all we know what is happened in the meantime.

[Hummingbird]

15 minutes ago, TLTeo said:

To add to Victory's point - ok, the discrepancy you found is a few %. Are you confident that your (and RL) tests are also accurate to less than a few %? How so? If the answer is "no" or "I don't know", then the conclusion is that the performance is as spot on as it could possibly get. Comparing two very close measurements without their error bar is pretty meaningless.

You cannot reach any such conclusion by that logic. The data I provided is constructive, and to raise awareness for the devs to have an extra look. They have a tool to check with, so their measurements are going to be more accurate (more devoid of human error). Hence we would need to see their measurements for sea level to make such a conclusion.

Also as I've been trying to get across, I am not "dissatisfied", I am infact very thankful for this update and all the hard work the devs & SME's put in to correct the STR issues raised after the fateful Nov 2020 patch. Things have massively improved, and many small inaccuracies have been corrected (maneuver slat/flap schedule is now spot on etc.). Just wanna make sure the same is the case with the STR, and according to my tests its slightly conservative, but HB's own test could say differently, would need to hear from them on that first.

Edited October 21, 2021 by Hummingbird

[Victory205]

27 minutes ago, Spurts said:

Oh?  I didn't realize they put in the TF30 specific tune already!  I thought that was going to have to wait.  As for the sustained G, I am not going to lose sleep over losing .15G at SL, a 3% or less error.  I am never doing a STR turn anyway.  I am always either climbing, diving, speeding up, or tightening down.

I’m just now loading the release build to have a look, but the freaking Ps 0 line width is thicker than .2 G at the max end of the chart, not to mention that the G references are bunched closely as well. 

[SgtPappy]

 

1 hour ago, Spurts said:

Oh?  I didn't realize they put in the TF30 specific tune already!  I thought that was going to have to wait.  As for the sustained G, I am not going to lose sleep over losing .15G at SL, a 3% or less error.  I am never doing a STR turn anyway.  I am always either climbing, diving, speeding up, or tightening down.

Did they complete the TF30 tuning? I was under the impression that it was in progress after reading the language used in the patch notes.

I plan to do some quick and dirty testing today for the F-14A at the real world data plot points I have, but from last night's flight tests with Hummingbird, it is eaten alive at all speeds between SL and 5,000 ft by the F-15 even at speeds where it should have clear superiority (i.e. 340 KIAS). From the plots, if both planes are around that same speed, the F-14A should out-rate the F-15 which was evidently not the case in-game. According to the plots, the F-15 at max. STR out-rates the F-14A by about 0.5 dps up to around 20 kft (I think) but it must do so at a higher speed which may negate the rate advantage.

 

 

However, preliminarily, the F-15 had no trouble (even in zone 4 A/B) catching up to and then lapping the F-14A when we tested a series of level turns from 5 kft down to SL at the same speeds (STD day, same weights and loadouts per the real world charts). This result may also be caused by the F-15 which appeats to be overperforming by some 0.4 G at low speeds at ~Mach 0.5 at 5 kft - and that's quite a bit.

Edited October 21, 2021 by SgtPappy

[captain_dalan]

51 minutes ago, Victory205 said:

I’m just now loading the release build to have a look, but the freaking Ps 0 line width is thicker than .2 G at the max end of the chart, not to mention that the G references are bunched closely as well. 

Hummigbird got it wrong, i just ran a quick test, using a scripted mission that makes sure you fly within limits and the F-14B is spot on ASL. At least for the few breakpoints i had enough time to check. 409 knots 6.5g, 413 knots 6.65gm 295 knots 4.77g, 335 knots 5.0g.... other modules can only hope to be this close to published data   

[Hummingbird]

15 minutes ago, captain_dalan said:

Hummigbird got it wrong, i just ran a quick test, using a scripted mission that makes sure you fly within limits and the F-14B is spot on ASL. At least for the few breakpoints i had enough time to check. 409 knots 6.5g, 413 knots 6.65gm 295 knots 4.77g, 335 knots 5.0g.... other modules can only hope to be this close to published data   

I also just completed a more thurough test, and you're right, it hits 6.5 G at M 0.62 (410 KTAS) @ SL, but I couldn't get 5 G at M 0.46 (304 KTAS), here I end up at 4.9 G.

In conclusion, if anything is off, its by very little.

I apologize for initially getting it wrong, I accidently tested at 400 KTAS @ SL when I should've been at 410 KTAS. I'm getting within 0.1 G at most speeds.

The devs did a great job on the FM.

Edited October 21, 2021 by Hummingbird

[SgtPappy]

36 minutes ago, captain_dalan said:

Hummigbird got it wrong, i just ran a quick test, using a scripted mission that makes sure you fly within limits and the F-14B is spot on ASL. At least for the few breakpoints i had enough time to check. 409 knots 6.5g, 413 knots 6.65gm 295 knots 4.77g, 335 knots 5.0g.... other modules can only hope to be this close to published data   

If it's the same mission I'm thinking of, I'll try it tonight. I'm trash at flying perfectly stable though, so if you want to have a go at in the F-14A, let me know what you get @Hummingbird and @captain_dalan.

My quick and dirty flights just now got me 4.8 G at TAS = 344 kn, 5 kft and 4.8 G at TAS = 399 kn, 10 kft. I took these approximate speed figures from using the true Mach given in the F14-AAA-1.1 turn rate diagrams which say I should get 5 G at both those tested points but the 0.2 G could easily just be my own error. 

[fat creason]

Alright guys, as stated in the patch notes the FM is still WIP. This was just phase one. We're still dialing in the performance because @Victory205and I spent the bulk of our time working on handling. That matters more to us than trivial sustained G errors. The performance numbers are in the ballpark but not exact. Again, take anyone posting sustained turn rate numbers in here with a massive pile of salt. Unless they're posting videos of their tests you might as well just ignore said results. Additionally, if you're looking at the cockpit gauge you have to consider the location on the aircraft where the gauge is measuring (hint: it's not at the CG), as well as the resolution of the gauge itself, parallax error, etc...

Anyone claiming with authority that there's a measurable .1G error while looking a shaking cockpit gauge or even the infobar while hand flying this maneuver can be effectively ignored. Actionable results from hand flying these tests are not really possible.

I will dial in all these numbers over time and you guys will get updates piecemeal as I get each altitude level tuned. It takes a massive amount of time to do this and we just didn't want to wait any longer with the rest of the FM since everything was already kind of close. Again, a friendly remember that all these charts you guys are referencing are mathematically derived and/or estimated from flight test data. While they're the only "hard" numbers we have, remember they're estimated.

Posting your test results here without at least a video showing how you acquired that number isn't going to result in any action on my end, I've got ways to test and measure that are far more accurate than anyone here has. I'll run these tests and do the tuning as I have time to do them. Don't expect everything to be tuned by the next patch, it's not as simple or timely of a process that many here seem to think it is. Thanks for you concern and patience!

Edited October 21, 2021 by fat creason

[SgtPappy]

6 minutes ago, fat creason said:

Alright guys, as stated in the patch notes the FM is still WIP. This was just phase one. We're still dialing in the performance because @Victory205and I spent the bulk of our time working on handling. That matters more to us than trivial sustained G errors. The performance numbers are in the ballpark but not exact. Again, take anyone posting sustained turn rate numbers in here with a massive pile of salt. Unless they're posting videos of their tests you might as well just ignore said results. Additionally, if you're looking at the cockpit gauge you have to consider the location on the aircraft where the gauge is measuring (hint: it's not at the CG), as well as the resolution of the gauge itself, parallax error, etc...

Anyone claiming with authority that there's a measurable .1G error while looking a shaking cockpit gauge or even the infobar while hand flying this maneuver can be effectively ignored. Actionable results from hand flying these tests are not really possible.

I will dial in all these numbers over time and you guys will get updates piecemeal as I get each altitude level tuned. It takes a massive amount of time to do this and we just didn't want to wait any longer with the rest of the FM since everything was already kind of close. Again, a friendly remember that all these charts you guys are referencing are mathematically derived and/or estimated from flight test data. While they're the only "hard" numbers we have, remember they're estimated.

Posting your test results here without at least a video showing how you acquired that number isn't going to result in any action on my end, I've got ways to test and measure that are far more accurate than anyone here has. I'll run these tests and do the tuning as I have time to do them. Don't expect everything to be tuned by the next patch, it's not as simple or timely of a process that many here seem to think it is. Thanks for you concern and patience!

 

Thanks @fat creason! I hope in no way do our discussions or tests mean to be a slight on all your hard work. Our obsession to us isn't trivial although your point on accuracy obviously stands, and expectations could be adjusted to take this point into account.

I think I speak for all of us when we say we love the Tomcat, this rendition of it and of course just want to see her kick ass - especially for those who play on MP. I think we've concluded to the best of our abilities that indeed, the Tomcat is closer than it ever was before and I for one would not have been able to know that unless I really tried my best to look at these numbers. Awesome work as always! 

Edited October 21, 2021 by SgtPappy

[Katj]

It's not the topic of this thread, but she for sure feels a bit different.

[Victory205]

45 minutes ago, SgtPappy said:

Thanks @fat creason! I hope in no way do our discussions or tests mean to be a slight on all your hard work. Our obsession to us isn't trivial although your point on accuracy obviously stands, and expectations could be adjusted to take this point into account.

I think I speak for all of us when we say we love the Tomcat, this rendition of it and of course just want to see her kick ass - especially for those who play on MP. I think we've concluded to the best of our abilities that indeed, the Tomcat is closer than it ever was before and I for one would not have been able to know that unless I really tried my best to look at these numbers. Awesome work as always! 

 

Fat Creason worked his ass off on this update. I thought we had dispatched him to the Great Beyond a couple of times, but he hung in there and kept after it.

He single-handedly solved a maddening YAW SAS response to Beta that has perplexed the module for a long time. Lineup corrections, rolling in or out on a heading are now correct and far, far, far more precise. There are tons of nuances in the flight model changes that make the aircraft fly more accurately. Still a couple of things to tune up a bit, but have a look at the change log for items of interest. We went through the handling extensively. 

His new Callsign by the way, is “The Boogeyman”. Start calling him Boogeyman immediately, and take a moment to thank him for his work (“he can kill a person with a pencil, who does that?”)

[Noctrach]

38 minutes ago, Katj said:

It's not the topic of this thread, but she for sure feels a bit different.

It for sure took me some adjustment but I'm positively surprised at how good the changes feel. The "AoA tells" and CASE I handling are lovely right now. Much as I like his company, I politely ask Jester to shut up in BFM, because the buffet gives me all I need.

Previously I felt like I was struggling to figure out how it would respond to certain inputs, which lead to a lot of overcorrecting. I feel much less "behind the jet" right now. Seems a bit harder to keep the speed up, especially with bags, but in return there seems to be more precision and I can "feel" when I'm in the right places of the envelope.

[Hummingbird]

3 hours ago, fat creason said:

Alright guys, as stated in the patch notes the FM is still WIP. This was just phase one. We're still dialing in the performance because @Victory205and I spent the bulk of our time working on handling. That matters more to us than trivial sustained G errors. The performance numbers are in the ballpark but not exact. Again, take anyone posting sustained turn rate numbers in here with a massive pile of salt. Unless they're posting videos of their tests you might as well just ignore said results. Additionally, if you're looking at the cockpit gauge you have to consider the location on the aircraft where the gauge is measuring (hint: it's not at the CG), as well as the resolution of the gauge itself, parallax error, etc...

Anyone claiming with authority that there's a measurable .1G error while looking a shaking cockpit gauge or even the infobar while hand flying this maneuver can be effectively ignored. Actionable results from hand flying these tests are not really possible.

I will dial in all these numbers over time and you guys will get updates piecemeal as I get each altitude level tuned. It takes a massive amount of time to do this and we just didn't want to wait any longer with the rest of the FM since everything was already kind of close. Again, a friendly remember that all these charts you guys are referencing are mathematically derived and/or estimated from flight test data. While they're the only "hard" numbers we have, remember they're estimated.

Posting your test results here without at least a video showing how you acquired that number isn't going to result in any action on my end, I've got ways to test and measure that are far more accurate than anyone here has. I'll run these tests and do the tuning as I have time to do them. Don't expect everything to be tuned by the next patch, it's not as simple or timely of a process that many here seem to think it is. Thanks for you concern and patience!

 

 

Well I mean it was community testing that first revealed the loss in performance (and that's often the case with most modules), so it aint useless

But I do agree that ofcourse you should take community test figures with a grain of salt, they aint perfect and most definitely are susceptible to human error, nomatter how good a stick you are.

Also  like I've said from the beginning, I ofcourse trust your internal test figures more than anything else, as you've got a program to run them precisely, and like you said it's not exact yet, like my results also indicate. But as far as I can tell, it's close now, and as I've always said, I have full faith you will get it bang on eventually.

 

Finally just to be clear, in the end I study the recordings of my flights when accessing the precise turn rate/load factor and to be sure I didn't miss anything = that's how I caught my 400 vs 410 knot error, which slipped past me whilst flying.  

Edited October 21, 2021 by Hummingbird

[Victory205]

It also holds AOA far more tenaciously. The trim is accurate and behaves like the aircraft did. It requires holding for extreme accels or decels, but around the trim null, you’ll find that clicking quickly works best. You will constantly be trimming, two clicks up, a quick down, etc to get it right. You’ll find it so precise that if you are slightly fast, donut and chevron, that one click of nose up trim will get you back on speed. 

Pitch with power requires little nudges to offset.
 

The real airplane wasn’t difficult to hustle safely around the boat, your landing grades should go up.

[lunaticfringe]

33 minutes ago, Victory205 said:

Fat Creason worked his ass off on this update. I thought we had dispatched him to the Great Beyond a couple of times, but he hung in there and kept after it.

He single-handedly solved a maddening YAW SAS response to Beta that has perplexed the module for a long time.

 

Creason is a man of focus.  Commitment.  And sheer f***ing will. 

[Noctrach]

8 minutes ago, Victory205 said:

It also holds AOA far more tenaciously.

This I've noticed yeah, you have to really unload to get back on airspeed but if you've settled in a turn it will also hold it quite effortlessly.

[Hummingbird]

1 hour ago, lunaticfringe said:

 

Creason is a man of focus.  Commitment.  And sheer f***ing will. 

 

Which I'm very thankful for 

[Relayer]

So I'm not sure whether this is simply me being ham-fisted, but since the update, the nose seems super jumpy. A pretty minor pitch input will see me swinging from -2000fpm to +2000fpm. Is this just an issue of having a relatively short throw stick? I swear it didn't used to be quite so skittish. Certainly I used to be able to sit in a 360 orbit with the VSI pegged at 0 and now I'm all over the place making a right dog's dinner of it. One 'click' of trim seems to be too much in one direction, then too much in the other. I feel like I'm water-skiing behind the jet, as I'm spending so much time just trying to get the jet at the right altitude.

[Victory205]

Get quicker with your clicks on your trim hat. I use a standard length Virpil and it will trim hands off in the landing pattern or at Mach 1.5 

I’d also advise using the Afterburner Gate feature under the F14 Special menu. Just use a button on your throttle to engage AB. Coming off the forward throttle stop puts the engines back into the mil range. This gives you more throw in the mil range and more precise control.

Practice.

Practice trimming to hands off.

Practice level and level turning flight in the landing configuration. Note the FF settings. Note how the aircraft flys a little phugoid cycle. Notice how the nose pitches with power application. Notice how much power needs to be added when rolling into a level turn, note how much needs to be pulled off when rolling wings level.

The A is a little underpowered (this is a simplification) in the landing pattern. The result to the pilot is that it’s more difficult to recover from a slow condition, and you may find yourself hitting the SPD BK/DLC micro switch and retracting those devices. If that happens, take a wave off and try again. Refrain from pulling back on the stick in turns.

It’s already been adjusted and awaits the next hotfix update. 

Edited October 22, 2021 by Victory205

[Baz000]

57 minutes ago, Victory205 said:

Get quicker with your clicks on your trim hat. I use a standard length Virpil and it will trim hands off in the landing pattern or at Mach 1.5 

I’d also advise using the Afterburner Gate feature under the F14 Special menu. Just use a button on your throttle to engage AB. Coming off the forward throttle stop puts the engines back into the mil range. This gives you more throw in the mil range and more precise control.

Practice.

Practice trimming to hands off.

Practice level and level turning flight in the landing configuration. Note the FF settings. Note how the aircraft flys a little phugoid cycle. Notice how the nose pitches with power application. Notice how much power needs to be added when rolling into a level turn, note how much needs to be pulled off when rolling wings level.

The A is a little underpowered (this is a simplification) in the landing pattern. The result to the pilot is that it’s more difficult to recover from a slow condition, and you may find yourself hitting the SP BL/DLC micro switch and retracting those devices. If that happens, take a wave off and try again. Refrain from pulling back on the stick in turns.

It’s already been adjusted and awaits the next hotfix update. 

I'm guessing the micro switch you speak of is the one that retracts the speed brakes and DLC when the throttles are moved to MIL? Sorry, you lost me on the SP BL/DLC terminology but is that what you're talking about? So if you inadvertently or intentionally go to MIL and retract those devices changing the aircraft configuration... You should execute a pilot initiated wave off and not try to recover?

Is that only after you entered the groove? Like what if it's after the 180 like at the 90? A situation I can think of is misjudgment of the power needed In the turn at the 180 and getting behind the power curve and having too high of a sink rate, pilot panics and goes to MIL to recover, for example.

[captain_dalan]

4 hours ago, Victory205 said:

Fat Creason worked his ass off on this update. I thought we had dispatched him to the Great Beyond a couple of times, but he hung in there and kept after it.

He single-handedly solved a maddening YAW SAS response to Beta that has perplexed the module for a long time. Lineup corrections, rolling in or out on a heading are now correct and far, far, far more precise. There are tons of nuances in the flight model changes that make the aircraft fly more accurately. Still a couple of things to tune up a bit, but have a look at the change log for items of interest. We went through the handling extensively. 

His new Callsign by the way, is “The Boogeyman”. Start calling him Boogeyman immediately, and take a moment to thank him for his work (“he can kill a person with a pencil, who does that?”)

I bow in respect and in awe (absolutely no sarcasm, i really mean it), he did an excellent job here. I just did some more test flights and and here is the data, both in raw form from the log file and in converted form (the original script is in metric and count turn rate, so i converted it to g-force). I attach the track file as well, just so people get the idea how many passes are required to get it right. Seriously, this needs some precision flying and tight coordination in your turn or you won't pull it off. BTW, for the life of me i could not fly her coordinated enough to get good measure at 3g, i keep flying into my own jet wash and i'm not good enough to compensate
And yeah, i don't know what you guys did, but she feels so....... snappy? Is that the right word? I'm a non native English speaker so i am not sure i'm expressing it right. But i feel my grip on her, especially at optimal AoA is much tighter!

Again, @fat creason, we who are about to die, salute you! 

Here's the test flight results!

P.S. I've only used data generated bellow 200m here, so to minimize computational error due to changes in the speed of sound. 

Tacview-20211021-233246-DCS-Sustained turn rate test flight f14B.zip.acmi

5 hours ago, SgtPappy said:

If it's the same mission I'm thinking of, I'll try it tonight. I'm trash at flying perfectly stable though, so if you want to have a go at in the F-14A, let me know what you get @Hummingbird and @captain_dalan.

My quick and dirty flights just now got me 4.8 G at TAS = 344 kn, 5 kft and 4.8 G at TAS = 399 kn, 10 kft. I took these approximate speed figures from using the true Mach given in the F14-AAA-1.1 turn rate diagrams which say I should get 5 G at both those tested points but the 0.2 G could easily just be my own error. 

Looking forward to your results mate. The more data we get, the larger the data sample, the least the chances for spikes to distort our findings! 

Edited October 21, 2021 by captain_dalan

[lunaticfringe]

2 hours ago, Victory205 said:

Get quicker with your clicks on your trim hat. I use a standard length Virpil and it will trim hands off in the landing pattern or at Mach 1.5 

I’d also advise using the Afterburner Gate feature under the F14 Special menu. Just use a button on your throttle to engage AB. Coming off the forward throttle stop puts the engines back into the mil range. This gives you more throw in the mil range and more precise control.

 

Minor question about moving outboard into the AB range for a project I'm working on: was there a tangible feel or resistance on the handles when passing through the individual AB zones?  

[captain_dalan]

6 hours ago, Hummingbird said:

 

I apologize for initially getting it wrong, I accidently tested at 400 KTAS @ SL when I should've been at 410 KTAS. I'm getting within 0.1 G at most speeds.

 

 

No worries mate, we all make mistakes every now and then.