AIM-54 Hotfix PSA and Feedback Thread - Guided Discussion

[Frostie]

96nm kill

 

https://clips.twitch.tv/BillowingFlirtyOtterItsBoshyTime-QfUL_L8yOCZGBOzh

[lunaticfringe]

16 minutes ago, Frostie said:

96nm kill

 

https://clips.twitch.tv/BillowingFlirtyOtterItsBoshyTime-QfUL_L8yOCZGBOzh

 

Recipient earned that for flying fat, dumb, and happy like a Tu-22 right into the Phoenix wheelhouse when it went active. 

Nobody gets to complain soaking rounds like that. 

[DSplayer]

1 hour ago, Frostie said:

96nm kill

 

https://clips.twitch.tv/BillowingFlirtyOtterItsBoshyTime-QfUL_L8yOCZGBOzh

Dats a me. I could’ve committed the missile at around 100nms but I didn’t want to push the envelope of the missile since it’s still unknown against maneuvering targets.

Edited February 8, 2022 by DSplayer

[lunaticfringe]

1 minute ago, DSplayer said:

Dats a me

You're a regular salt miner, ain'tcha?  Cause that was a paddlin'.

[DoorMouse]

1 hour ago, lunaticfringe said:

 

Recipient earned that for flying fat, dumb, and happy like a Tu-22 right into the Phoenix wheelhouse when it went active. 

Nobody gets to complain soaking rounds like that. 

 

43 minutes ago, DSplayer said:

Dats a me. I could’ve committed the missile at around 100nms but I didn’t want to push the envelope of the missile since it’s still unknown against maneuvering targets.

 

I saw that, and what a great shot. The Aim54 is definitely is better at altitude, even if its slower, because that terminal guidance isnt doing wierd 50 degree pulls dumping all its energy.  That being said, that guy was super compliant. 

 

[IronMike]

Not sure if related to what you guys have seen, but maybe it was, and hopefully this helps. @TOMCATZ et al.
 

 

[RustBelt]

On 2/7/2022 at 5:31 AM, Spartan111sqn said:

in my opinion, the effectivity of the chaffs are related with the AI level, with Ace skill the performance of chaffs are awesome!, has no sense such AI honestly, the maneouvers they do are not realistic.

Ace has always felt to me more like a Debug setting not an actual AI setting you're supposed to use in real mission designing. Or perhaps you pepper one or two into a campaign. 

[RustBelt]

12 hours ago, Spurts said:

You do know what the Fort GT was right?

 

For the rest of your post, if this was MP then server desync was the likely culprit.  Lots of tracks lately showing hits on maneuvering targets.

Hell for that matter take a GT500 Mustang and a Dino 208

[The_Doktor]

Hi,

when i drop a bomb in DCS or real life as well as any other object its getting faster and faster as longer it falls.

But not the AIM-54 in game. Or any other AA missile in game. They slow down. Even in ballistic flight with the motor burned off

falling vertical out of the sky.

This behaviour is against the laws of physics as you all know.

You forced your missile into a unrealistic flight model to match realistic data from your white paper.

My only hope is that you will get this problem solved whit the new API, or what ever it is called.

I love your work and the achievements you made. Don't let them get shot down by an AIM-54 that is a

greater threat to you then any A/C in game.

Please excuse my bad English if you don't mind.

[Wingmate]

9 minutes ago, The_Doktor said:

Hi,

when i drop a bomb in DCS or real life as well as any other object its getting faster and faster as longer it falls.

But not the AIM-54 in game. Or any other AA missile in game. They slow down. Even in ballistic flight with the motor burned off

falling vertical out of the sky.

This behaviour is against the laws of physics as you all know.

You forced your missile into a unrealistic flight model to match realistic data from your white paper.

My only hope is that you will get this problem solved whit the new API, or what ever it is called.

I love your work and the achievements you made. Don't let them get shot down by an AIM-54 that is a

greater threat to you then any A/C in game.

Please excuse my bad English if you don't mind.

I am fairly certain that is due to the missiles while under thrust exceed terminal velocity, once the motor burns out they slow down due to drag. I have not checked but if you drop bombs from a very high speed they will slow down to terminal velocity as well.

[TLTeo]

Also bombs are mostly subsonic, missiles near the end of their flights can get close to the transonic region and experience waaaaaay more drag.

Edited February 9, 2022 by TLTeo

[cheezit]

1 hour ago, The_Doktor said:

Hi,

when i drop a bomb in DCS or real life as well as any other object its getting faster and faster as longer it falls.

 

No object falling in an atmosphere gets faster and faster the longer it falls, unless it starts at too low an altitude to achieve terminal velocity before impacting the ground.  Terminal velocity is simply the airspeed at which the force of drag on the object equals the force of gravity.  It's not a constant, but changes with altitude (being lower at low altitudes where the air is thicker and thus drag is higher at any given airspeed).  If the object starts out going faster than terminal velocity, it will be slowing down the whole time it falls.

 

To illustrate this, consider the case of ballistic atmospheric re-entry of a spacecraft (eg. the Mercury or Gemini capsules, or the Apollo command module doing a non-precision landing).  The spacecraft is getting slower the longer it falls!  Why does this happen?  The spacecraft starts out at a speed much higher than terminal velocity, and thus the drag force is greater than the force of gravity.  The capsule will continue to slow until it reaches terminal velocity or smacks into something.  In the real world, of course, we prefer that the astronauts live and eventually drogue chutes and a main parachute deploy to facilitate a safe transition from the aerobraking regime to hydrobraking or lithobraking, but the spacecraft coming from low-earth orbit has shed about 14,000 knots of airspeed without a parachute before that happens.  The fastest Apollo re-entry slowed down by over 21,000 knots before parachute deployment!

 

Now looking at lofting missile, we have a similar scenario.  As the aircraft begins its terminal dive, it might be going Mach 4+ because the motor with a thrust of ~17000 N pushed it up into thin air and accelerated it that fast, but as it gets into thicker air the force of gravity acting on the missile (about 3000 N for an AIM-54A/Mk60 after motor burnout) remains constant while the drag force grows dramatically.  The missile is above its terminal velocity for this entire phase of flight, and thus it is slowing down the whole time even though it is falling.

Edited February 9, 2022 by cheezit

[The_Doktor]

Bombs get supersonic at a regular base. You can check that in dcs quit easily.

A dead missile is nothing different then a bomb. In dcs the missile has so much drag that it gets slower and slower even in free fall.

[near_blind]

3 minutes ago, The_Doktor said:

A dead missile is nothing different then a bomb. In dcs the missile has so much drag that it gets slower and slower even in free fall.

How do you know the missile is in free fall? Can you confirm that whatever guidance algorithm controls it isn't still commanding it to fly a certain parameter (maintaining, aoa, G, etc.) even after it is decoyed?

[The_Doktor]

3 minutes ago, cheezit said:

No object falling in an atmosphere gets faster and faster the longer it falls, unless it starts at too low an altitude to achieve terminal velocity before impacting the ground.  Terminal velocity is simply the airspeed at which the force of drag on the object equals the force of gravity.  It's not a constant, but changes with altitude (being lower at low altitudes where the air is thicker and thus drag is higher at any given airspeed).  If the object starts out going faster than terminal velocity, it will be slowing down the whole time it falls.

 

To illustrate this, consider the case of ballistic atmospheric re-entry of a spacecraft (eg. the Mercury or Gemini capsules, or the Apollo command module doing a non-precision landing).  The spacecraft is getting slower the longer it falls!  Why does this happen?  The spacecraft starts out at a speed much higher than terminal velocity, and thus the drag force is greater than the force of gravity.  The capsule will continue to slow until it reaches terminal velocity or smacks into something.  In the real world, of course, we prefer that the astronauts live and eventually drogue chutes and a main parachute deploy to facilitate a safe transition from aerobraking to hydrobraking or lithobraking, but the spacecraft coming from low-earth orbit has shed about 14,000 knots of airspeed without a parachute before that happens.  The fastest Apollo re-entry slowed down by over 21,000 knots before parachute deployment!

 

Now looking at lofting missile, we have a similar scenario.  As the aircraft begins its terminal dive, it might be going Mach 4+ because the motor with a thrust of ~17000 N pushed it up into thin air and accelerated it that fast, but as it gets into thicker air the force of gravity acting on the missile (about 3000 N for an AIM-54A/Mk60 after motor burnout) remains constant while the drag force grows dramatically.  The missile is above its terminal velocity for this entire phase of flight, and thus it is slowing down the whole time even though it is falling.

correct.

now check dcs again please. at one point the missile is nothing more then a falling Thing.

The modelled physics in the simulation is wrong

I am sorry, my English is not good enough.

[Hardcard]

@IronMike

Hi Mike, thanks for spending the time to reply to us in this thread, I appreciate it.

Now, I'm afraid I have negative feedback about the recent phoenix changes. 
 

mk47 C doesn't reach bandits within 7nmi or even accelerate to mach 2 at low altitude: https://streamable.com/wz43k9
 

mk47 C doesn't reach bandits ~20nmi with sufficient energy, regardless of loft angle and 30+k ft trajectory: https://streamable.com/foq7u4
 

mk60 A doesn't make it to 30nmi with sufficient energy, even when fired at 30k ft with a pretty nice loft angle and 40+k ft trajectory: https://streamable.com/1xzhrz
 

Now, what was that about the phoenix being a long range missile? Did I dream it?
As things stand, medium range missiles outperform this supposedly long range missile. 

You say that this is consistent with your data?
Seems to me that either your data is wrong, you're not interpreting it correctly or you're missing something. 

Medium range missiles can't be putting long range missiles to shame like this.

My tomcat will be gathering dust in the hangar, I'm afraid, until the phoenix becomes a long range missile again.  

I mean, I don't know what you guys expect us to do here... miraculously get within 5nmi of enemy jets armed with amraams, SD-10s, R-27s, etc., cross our fingers and hope that our phoenixes have enough energy to reach them?  

The current phoenix situation is simply surreal. 

Edited February 10, 2022 by Hardcard

[IronMike]

16 minutes ago, Hardcard said:

@IronMike

Hi Mike, thanks for spending the time to reply to us in this thread, I appreciate it.

Now, I'm afraid I have negative feedback about the recent phoenix changes. 
 

mk47 C doesn't reach bandits within 7nmi or even accelerate to mach 2 at low altitude: https://streamable.com/wz43k9
 

mk47 C doesn't reach bandits ~20nmi with sufficient energy, regardless of loft angle and 30+k ft trajectory: https://streamable.com/foq7u4
 

mk60 A doesn't make it to 30nmi with sufficient energy, even when fired at 30k ft with a pretty nice loft angle and 50+k ft trajectory: https://streamable.com/1xzhrz
 

Now, what was that about the phoenix being a long range missile? Did I dream it?
As things stand, medium range missiles outperform this supposedly long range missile. 

You say that this is consistent with your data?
Seems to me that either your data is wrong, you're not interpreting it correctly or you're missing something. 

Medium range missiles can't be putting long range missiles to shame like this.

My tomcat will be gathering dust in the hangar, I'm afraid, until the phoenix becomes a long range missile again.  

I mean, I don't know what you guys expect us to do here... miraculously get within 3nmi of enemy jets armed with amraams, SD-10s, R-27s, etc., cross our fingers and hope that our phoenixes have enough energy to reach them?  

In reality, we can't make it to 5nmi without getting hit by those superior medium range missiles they have. 
The current phoenix situation is simply surreal. 

 

Your missiles got effectively defended in all 3 shots.

The first shot was too low to start with, at a range where it will simply have huge drag effecting it after the motor burned out, and the time it would need to reach the target is unfortunately longer than the motor burn time. You fired on a cold target from 7nm almost in the weeds. This is to be expected.

Your second shot, despite your still relatively low altitude, actually did have enough energy, unfortunately it got chaffed away at the very last moment. This is a guidance issue, which isn't on our side, but will also happen, and likely a proximity fuze issue, hard to tell from that angle. Bottom line is: energy was good, but you got unlucky on the defense. Ask the aim120 slinging guys how they feel about such situations. I would wage it is pretty much the same. Chaff is a dice roll, and it fell against your favor unfortunately. A perpendicular notch is additionally and always was very effective, but again, hard to tell from that angle.

Your 3rd shot was defended by a classic split S, and pulled down low, almost being vectored into the ground as you call it. You fought head on against a highly aware bandit against you. He defeated your missile that he fully expected. You neither beamed the target, not did you bring energy into your shot, yet the missile almost arrived at mach 3. Would the bandit have been less aware (hence the cranking etc), he would have maybe bought it. But like this he pulled it down low and drag again was against it.

None of this seems highly unreasonable to me, as per the data. You can still score shots from 50+nm, 100nm even, but you gotta be a) way higher for that and b) not fight a fully aware target head on which will defeat your missile with a pre meditated maneuver easily. It is not a trick-missile that will magically perform in any situation. That does not make it less long range.

As I mentioned, it may slow down a bit too fast in a very high speed, fast dive still, but do not hang yourself up on this, as the ultimate effect after improving it, might not make it significantly better in such situations, which from a BVR standpoint, are ill-fated from the get-go. Pick and trick your target better, fire from further away and from much higher up, or when down low, move much closer in.

Expectations need to be adjusted and the missile re-learned. The major point remains: no one will dare to not defend it. And if they do, they are toast, and as far as I have seen, none of them were able to flip it around and push on you. It would then depend on your recommit, how you press on them and what you make out of it. But most aim120s will meat the same fate, despite slowing down slower, against aware opponents. Yet, they will not connect at the ranges the phoenix will connect else. It is still a long range missile - but you need to employ it better.

As for the data, it is the closest we can get it for now, we're not saying it is necessarily perfect, until we figured out how to include effects like plume or lift otoh - but again and again: do not expect to see much change down low, even once we do.

[NeedzWD40]

Is there a maximum pitch angle when launching the AIM-54? I was doing some spur of the moment shoots on an AI F-4E from 90-120nmi and my profile was ~30,000ft at M0.9, with a 30deg pitch for launch angle. The AIM-54C climbed up to ~150,000ft and maintained some ridiculous energy, but sailed right over the target at this altitude rather than diving down. A similar result occurred with the AMk60, though the max altitude was ~110,000ft and it seemed to take too long to descend and just gave up at the last moment. When I reduced my initial pitch to 10-15deg, performance seemed to be a lot better, with maximum altitudes in the 100,000ft range for all types.

[DoorMouse]

25 minutes ago, NeedzWD40 said:

Is there a maximum pitch angle when launching the AIM-54? I was doing some spur of the moment shoots on an AI F-4E from 90-120nmi and my profile was ~30,000ft at M0.9, with a 30deg pitch for launch angle. The AIM-54C climbed up to ~150,000ft and maintained some ridiculous energy, but sailed right over the target at this altitude rather than diving down. A similar result occurred with the AMk60, though the max altitude was ~110,000ft and it seemed to take too long to descend and just gave up at the last moment. When I reduced my initial pitch to 10-15deg, performance seemed to be a lot better, with maximum altitudes in the 100,000ft range for all types.

I see this said by people a lot, but have yet to experience it - Did it pitbull on your TID? Can you post a track? 

Edited February 10, 2022 by DoorMouse

[DSplayer]

59 minutes ago, NeedzWD40 said:

Is there a maximum pitch angle when launching the AIM-54? I was doing some spur of the moment shoots on an AI F-4E from 90-120nmi and my profile was ~30,000ft at M0.9, with a 30deg pitch for launch angle. The AIM-54C climbed up to ~150,000ft and maintained some ridiculous energy, but sailed right over the target at this altitude rather than diving down. A similar result occurred with the AMk60, though the max altitude was ~110,000ft and it seemed to take too long to descend and just gave up at the last moment. When I reduced my initial pitch to 10-15deg, performance seemed to be a lot better, with maximum altitudes in the 100,000ft range for all types.

In my testing with the Mk60 motor variant, the lofting guidance seems to be wonky (missile basically drifting in an attempt to turn towards the target and sometimes overshooting the target if it fails to exit the loft in time) if you pitch your plane up beyond 12 degrees before firing your Phoenix. It will go a little bit higher but also leave the loft at a super steep angle while also not having as much energy compared to if you fired it at 10-12 degrees loft. Idk too much about the Mk47C’s performance however since that missile, in my experience, has always lofted so high and always had the lowest energy when terminal of all 3 variants.

 

Lofting the missile at a high pitch angle and getting less terminal speed does make sense however. You’re basically trading more altitude for less horizontal distance. There is a certain amount of pitch before what you’re doing becomes basically detrimental to the missile’s performance.

Edited February 10, 2022 by DSplayer

[shrimpy_dikdik]

Is anyone else having issues with Aim-54 in TWS mode online? I've played a fair bit online in the last year but very recently it seems every shot I do I lose track within about 10-20 seconds without the enemy doing anything special. They will immediately show up again and Jester will acquire and IFF again but the missile is wasted.  And we are talking 40k 1.2M 20 degree loft shots, solo head on target at around 20k with nothing to hide behind and not notching or chaffing. The servers have shown a lot of lag recently, does this impact the track somehow? Must be the last 20 fired go this way and as mentioned I've played a lot the last year online with reasonable success.

Edited February 10, 2022 by shrimpy_dikdik
Typo

[DSplayer]

31 minutes ago, shrimpy_dikdik said:

Is anyone else having issues with Aim-54 in TWS mode online? I've played a fair bit online in the last year but very recently it seems every shot I do I lose track within about 10-20 seconds without the enemy doing anything special. They will immediately show up again and Jester will acquire and IFF again but the missile is wasted.  And we are talking 40k 1.2M 20 degree loft shots, solo head on target at around 20k with nothing to hide behind and not notching or chaffing. The servers have shown a lot of lag recently, does this impact the track somehow? Must be the last 20 fired go this way and as mentioned I've played a lot the last year online with reasonable success.

 

Yeah. The recent updates made the AWG-9 super sensitive to internet issues

[Frostie]

18 hours ago, Hardcard said:

@IronMike

Hi Mike, thanks for spending the time to reply to us in this thread, I appreciate it.

Now, I'm afraid I have negative feedback about the recent phoenix changes. 
 

mk47 C doesn't reach bandits within 7nmi or even accelerate to mach 2 at low altitude: https://streamable.com/wz43k9
 

mk47 C doesn't reach bandits ~20nmi with sufficient energy, regardless of loft angle and 30+k ft trajectory: https://streamable.com/foq7u4
 

mk60 A doesn't make it to 30nmi with sufficient energy, even when fired at 30k ft with a pretty nice loft angle and 40+k ft trajectory: https://streamable.com/1xzhrz
 

Now, what was that about the phoenix being a long range missile? Did I dream it?
As things stand, medium range missiles outperform this supposedly long range missile. 

You say that this is consistent with your data?
Seems to me that either your data is wrong, you're not interpreting it correctly or you're missing something. 

Medium range missiles can't be putting long range missiles to shame like this.

My tomcat will be gathering dust in the hangar, I'm afraid, until the phoenix becomes a long range missile again.  

I mean, I don't know what you guys expect us to do here... miraculously get within 5nmi of enemy jets armed with amraams, SD-10s, R-27s, etc., cross our fingers and hope that our phoenixes have enough energy to reach them?  

The current phoenix situation is simply surreal. 

 

Yeah missiles get defeated it happens to all, one thing you need to be aware of is how you engage. It is a bad state of affairs when people think that all they need to do is press the fire button. Yes that is how it used to work when TC came out, shoot from 60nm and turn cold because magic ins was an easy win.

 

From the tacviews that first one is some pretty poor application and parameters to take a shot. Very low shooter, very low beaming target. The Tomcat had the guy served but fired and ran away from a beaming/cold target. Press for the kill, that could easily have ended with the bandit chasing the Tomcat. Typical example of over reliance expecting the missile to do all the work.

 

Heatblur have stated many times it is wip. But right now there is plenty of things to learn in the current package that can only make you improve.

 

 

My only gripe with the Tomcat is that I still can't figure out if Jester is calling friendly on a bandit or not.

[cheezit]

27 minutes ago, Frostie said:

 

My only gripe with the Tomcat is that I still can't figure out if Jester is calling friendly on a bandit or not.

 

There is a flight regime that fixes this issue

 

Spoiler

 

 

[bonesvf103]

On 2/5/2022 at 1:57 AM, bonesvf103 said:

IronMike,

 

Update:  Well, I'll be...!

v6,

boNes

So it worked OK then...but now, I do the same mission over and over and fly it the same way and now my missiles seem to hit only 20% of the time.  Most of the time I watch the missiles go after they go bullseye and they always got close to the MiGs and never detonate even though they were close enough, or the MiG somehow just gets out of the way.  He was chaffing, but well before the missile even got there.

 

I don't get it I'm just starting to feel like this is literally hit or miss.

 

v6,

boNes

Tacview-20220210-165233-DCS.zip