A question towards all IRL active or ex Hornet Pilots how realistic is the Hornet flight model after all ED patches after the release ?

[Eagleflieger]

Hi Hornet pilots, 

I would like to ask about your oppinion about the Hornet Flight model in the actual version ? I have heard from lemonine that the DCS Hornet is dragy or an another pilot said the DCS Hornet is too unstable and the IRL Hornet would be much more stable, did ED patch it with the time since the release and with the last FCS Update in february last year ? 

 

Best reguards 

 

[cru]

I've seen a few Lemoine videos where they actually say it's the best F-18 simulator out there.  I've heard them discuss more about missing/wrong features than the plane's performance itself though.  It'd be cool if Lemoine posted on here and put his review in writing here.

One memory that stands out the most to me is when C.W. Lemoine and a buddy of his were doing 1v1 fights with the Viper vs the Hornet.  They were saying how the Viper's turn radius is way underperforming in DCS, but, I think the fact the F-16 is currently underperforming is a pretty well known fact in the DCS world.

My non-fighter pilot useless .02 submitted

[Swift.]

Its funny, some SME's say its too draggy, some say its not draggy enough. Some say its too powerful, others not powerful enough.

[Bunny Clark]

11 hours ago, cru said:

It'd be cool if Lemoine posted on here

He does, though he's mostly active in the Viper section. 

[Steel Jaw]

8 hours ago, Swiftwin9s said:

Its funny, some SME's say its too draggy, some say its not draggy enough. Some say its too powerful, others not powerful enough.

Does that not call into question the reliability of these SMEs?

[=475FG= Dawger]

2 minutes ago, Steel Jaw said:

Does that not call into question the reliability of these SMEs?

Not really. 

[Bunny Clark]

1 minute ago, Steel Jaw said:

Does that not call into question the reliability of these SMEs?

It can be hard to translate experience in a real aircraft to how it should fly on a computer. The "seat of the pants" feel in a real aircraft is so important to flight that sitting at a computer will, to some extent, just never feel right. 

Also, our Hornet has the Enhanced Performance Engines, which not all fleet Hornets got, so it may well feel too powerful to someone who was used to flying Hornets with older engines.

[Mr. Big.Biggs]

I jumped in day one, launched from the stennis, flew around for a bit and landed albeit a tad ugly first try. 
What does that tell you about accuracy?? 
 

[Brass2-1]

33 minutes ago, Mr. Big.Biggs said:

I jumped in day one, launched from the stennis, flew around for a bit and landed albeit a tad ugly first try. 
What does that tell you about accuracy?? 
 

The real Hornet is actually renowned  for being easy to fly, as are most modern fly by wire aircraft. 

[Mr. Big.Biggs]

If it was easy, every pilot would be trapping on a carrier. 
I guess my point was that yes, it’s a high end sim, but flying fighter jets off carriers can’t be this easy. That said, I will never have the ability to compare(because I would end up dead).  

[=475FG= Dawger]

1 hour ago, Mr. Big.Biggs said:

If it was easy, every pilot would be trapping on a carrier. 
I guess my point was that yes, it’s a high end sim, but flying fighter jets off carriers can’t be this easy. That said, I will never have the ability to compare(because I would end up dead).  

The physical skills involved in pointing an aircraft around the sky are not particularly difficult. However, there are myriad skills and a plethora of knowledge required in the real world that simply have no place or purpose in DCS. 

And there are human factors that also play no part in DCS. No physical or psychological stress from grueling flying days where the chance of death is real.

If you get tired in DCS, just press pause.

 

 

[Coyle]

3 hours ago, =475FG= Dawger said:

Not really. 

It absolutely does, and I would not trust a single hornet pilot that has not flown our exact model with all of the improvements it has revived over the years to make definitive statements like it's too draggy or too powerful. The engines are the massive change here obviously, but did you know the hornet has gotten several hundred pounds lighter due to internal electronics upgrades? There are many variables at play that most are not privy too, and even now ED has Apache pilots disagreeing with each other over certain things. Trust only the book numbers which, surprise, none of us have access to. Those pilots who have only flown much earlier models of the hornet have opinions that are quite frankly, as irrelevant as my own in how this hornet should handle towards the higher end of its flight envelop.

Edited January 29, 2022 by Coyle

[Rainmaker]

38 minutes ago, Coyle said:

It absolutely does, and I would not trust a single hornet pilot that has not flown our exact model with all of the improvements it has revived over the years to make definitive statements like it's too draggy or too powerful. The engines are the massive change here obviously, but did you know the hornet has gotten several hundred pounds lighter due to internal electronics upgrades? There are many variables at play that most are not privy too, and even now ED has Apache pilots disagreeing with each other over certain things. Trust only the book numbers which, surprise, none of us have access to. Those pilots who have only flown much earlier models of the hornet have opinions that are quite frankly, as irrelevant as my own in how this hornet should handle towards the higher end of its flight envelop.

 

You are putting yourself wayyyy too high on the pedestal. 

[Bunny Clark]

2 hours ago, Coyle said:

Trust only the book numbers

Book numbers will not, frankly, tell you how a plane flies. They will tell you part of the story, but not the whole story.

[BuzzU]

Anybody who isn't a real Hornet pilot shouldn't assume they know if the plane is right or wrong.

[wilbur81]

11 hours ago, Bunny Clark said:

It can be hard to translate experience in a real aircraft to how it should fly on a computer. The "seat of the pants" feel in a real aircraft is so important to flight that sitting at a computer will, to some extent, just never feel right. 

Also, our Hornet has the Enhanced Performance Engines, which not all fleet Hornets got, so it may well feel too powerful to someone who was used to flying Hornets with older engines.

This ^^^ 

[davidrbarnette]

13 hours ago, Mr. Big.Biggs said:

If it was easy, every pilot would be trapping on a carrier. 
I guess my point was that yes, it’s a high end sim, but flying fighter jets off carriers can’t be this easy. That said, I will never have the ability to compare(because I would end up dead).  

I’m just a lowly private pilot, but a good analogy is that you could jump in a perfect “by the numbers” simulation of a Cessna Cardinal or any other GA plane and take off and land it with absolutely no problem. Without actual flying experience, you’d likely have some problems in real life due to the jarring experience of task saturation and the seat-of-the-pants feelings of acceleration, g-forces, turbulence, etc.

I often think that one of the things DCS doesn’t do so well is simulate environmental effects… a couple examples:

- turbulence in DCS doesn’t have nearly the effect that it does in real life. A day with challenging conditions can make flying quite the experience, and I’m not sure it can be simulated.

- ever climb in a plane in the summer? One of the things simulators don’t capture that is a real, meaningful thing is the heat, sweat, the smell, etc of flying a real plane. In real life you’re often tired and frazzled by the time you even start the plane up.
 

I guess the simple way to say it is that simulators capture the experience of working the stick, rudder, throttle, and systems. It’s not that the simulation isn’t good or accurate… it’s that there is way more to it than that IRL.

Edited January 29, 2022 by davidrbarnette

[Cathnan]

On 1/29/2022 at 3:41 AM, Mr. Big.Biggs said:

I jumped in day one, launched from the stennis, flew around for a bit and landed albeit a tad ugly first try. 
What does that tell you about accuracy?? 
 

I did the same. Doesn't say much anyway. Getting it on the ship is one thing. Especially in DCS because of lack of fear of death and minor sidenotes like that. But getting it on the ship without endangering the plane, the ship and everyone on deck and yourself, everything while dealing with things you don't get in DCS like g-forces on your body is bound to make it much harder.

[BuzzU]

I believe i'm in the most popular group of those who struggled to get good at landing on the boat.

Some think the Hornet is the most complex plane to learn in DCS. I won't disagree but the Hog runs a close 2nd.

[WOPR]

I don't think we yet have the burble for the Hornet, and don't forget it is fly-by-wire.  Getting good at flying the F-14 makes you a better Hornet stick.  The opposite is not true.

[BuzzU]

37 minutes ago, WOPR said:

I don't think we yet have the burble for the Hornet, and don't forget it is fly-by-wire.  Getting good at flying the F-14 makes you a better Hornet stick.  The opposite is not true.

Yes, maybe but in the Hornet you don't have someone in the back seat helping you. Plus, the systems in the Hornet are way more complex than the Tomcat.

Why make it all hard? The Hornet is easy to fly but the easy part ends there.

Fly a WW2 plane if you want to do all the work.

[Mover]

On 1/28/2022 at 11:20 PM, Coyle said:

It absolutely does, and I would not trust a single hornet pilot that has not flown our exact model with all of the improvements it has revived over the years to make definitive statements like it's too draggy or too powerful. The engines are the massive change here obviously, but did you know the hornet has gotten several hundred pounds lighter due to internal electronics upgrades? There are many variables at play that most are not privy too, and even now ED has Apache pilots disagreeing with each other over certain things. Trust only the book numbers which, surprise, none of us have access to. Those pilots who have only flown much earlier models of the hornet have opinions that are quite frankly, as irrelevant as my own in how this hornet should handle towards the higher end of its flight envelop.

 

[Sarge55]

3 hours ago, Mover said:

Most eloquent…

Congrats (or perhaps condolences) on your recent Fini flight. 

[Dancer]

I don’t feel like this is a place to use popular opinion and status to degrade others educated statements in some group think movement. Coyle and I have spent a lot of time looking at our hornet, and trust me, we don’t need SME’s to know that some things are wrong. Yes we may be civilians and that gives us far less insight to the real world piloting aspect, but I’d argue we care just as much about the airframe and it’s capabilities. Not having real world experience in types aside from the 2007 lot 20 like most SME’s I’ve heard of shouldn’t nullify hours of research done on the communities side into the flight model alone.

Edited January 31, 2022 by Dancer

[Mover]

1 hour ago, Dancer said:

I don’t feel like this is a place to use popular opinion and status to degrade others educated statements in some group think movement. Coyle and I have spent a lot of time looking at our hornet, and trust me, we don’t need SME’s to know that some things are wrong. Yes we may be civilians and that gives us far less insight to the real world piloting aspect, but I’d argue we care just as much about the airframe and it’s capabilities. Not having real world experience in types aside from the 2007 lot 20 like most SME’s I’ve heard of shouldn’t nullify hours of research done on the communities side into the flight model alone.

 

I'm curious why you and Coyle think there's such a difference between the "2007 lot 20" and someone who's flown the Legacy hornet (A-D) that it disqualifies the opinion of someone who actually flew them in real life.