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TF-30 sub-variants for future F-14 variants?


Beagle_96th

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Will we get other variants of the TF-30s for earlier F-14 variants? The current -414A I believe was delivered in 1982, which is after the IRIAF received their aircraft. So for our early navy variants and IRIAF variants will we get a different engine, or was the difference in sub-variants so minuscule that it won't be modeled?

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1 hour ago, Beagle_96th said:

Will we get other variants of the TF-30s for earlier F-14 variants? The current -414A I believe was delivered in 1982, which is after the IRIAF received their aircraft. So for our early navy variants and IRIAF variants will we get a different engine, or was the difference in sub-variants so minuscule that it won't be modeled?

It's in the FAQ, but the answer is yes, we'll get two more F-14 variants, those being the F-14A-135GR Early and the F-14A-95GR, the latter being the IRIAF variant.

So the main difference in the A Early, is basically the RWR, which is much older that what we have at the moment, the AN/ALR-67. The Early has the AN/ALR-45 which can be tisplayed on the HSD (bottom display). And of course the Early can only equip older weapons, and of course will come with a lot of cool new liveries that fir that era.

The IRIAF Tomcat will be an interesting one, because all of the removed features those came with. That being no TCS, no external fuel tanks, no LANTIRN, no TARPS, only older weaponry, only dumb air-to-ground munitions, and some other small differences, but still with the good ol' TF-30 engines.

You can check out the public Heatblur roadmap here, has pretty much most of the stuff that you asked: https://trello.com/b/HsMiJggJ/heatblur-public-roadmap

Also I want to bring to your attention the Home of the M.A.T.S. website, a website mostly dedicated to the F-14 and I mean in really big detail: http://www.anft.net/f-14/index.htm

Hope I could answer most of your questions mate!

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1 hour ago, Egri_komrade said:

It's in the FAQ, but the answer is yes, we'll get two more F-14 variants, those being the F-14A-135GR Early and the F-14A-95GR, the latter being the IRIAF variant.

So the main difference in the A Early, is basically the RWR, which is much older that what we have at the moment, the AN/ALR-67. The Early has the AN/ALR-45 which can be tisplayed on the HSD (bottom display). And of course the Early can only equip older weapons, and of course will come with a lot of cool new liveries that fir that era.

The IRIAF Tomcat will be an interesting one, because all of the removed features those came with. That being no TCS, no external fuel tanks, no LANTIRN, no TARPS, only older weaponry, only dumb air-to-ground munitions, and some other small differences, but still with the good ol' TF-30 engines.

You can check out the public Heatblur roadmap here, has pretty much most of the stuff that you asked: https://trello.com/b/HsMiJggJ/heatblur-public-roadmap

Also I want to bring to your attention the Home of the M.A.T.S. website, a website mostly dedicated to the F-14 and I mean in really big detail: http://www.anft.net/f-14/index.htm

Hope I could answer most of your questions mate!

Thank you for the answer, but seems I formulated my question confusingly. I was specifically wondering about the variants of the TF-30s for the old F-14s 😄

I believe there were minor differences in the different versions of the engine (-412, -412, -414 and -414A), primarily when it came to compressor stalls (and fan blades for that matter, but the DCS damage model isn't that advanced). I'm just wondering if they'll actually model an engine that's more prone to compressor stalls. I doubt it will make much of a difference, but it would make it more fun and challenging to fly the 14.

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Does the DCS engine support the turbine explosions or other catastrophic failures?  Cold cats and failed arresting gear accounted for more than a few but SC is still missing basic functionality let alone things like that...

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8 hours ago, Beagle_96th said:

...but the DCS damage model isn't that advanced.

You can read below about engine modeling and failures regarding F110, but afaik TF-30 also got the same treatment plus new behavior, systems and other differences:

I doubt they will model different TF-30 version, due to any changes would probably need additional FM rework.

 

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The differences between those TF30 subvariants aren't large enough to justify the development effort, you wouldn't really be able to notice much had changed between them in the blocks we're modeling.

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IIRC there was a considerable engine performance downgrade early in the F-14's service life (around 74-75?) after several instances of compressor blades going through the wing box. After that no real changes performance wise though.


Edited by sLYFa

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On 3/23/2022 at 4:05 PM, sLYFa said:

IIRC there was a considerable engine performance downgrade early in the F-14's service life (around 74-75?) after several instances of compressor blades going through the wing box. After that no real changes performance wise though.

 

I hear that a lot, but can't find any documentation backing it.  Going through the NATOPS manuals (including 1972, 1975, 1981, 1984, 1997 and 2004)  the thrust appears to have negligibly increased, rather than decreased at least at static installed thrust going from the baseline -412 to the -414A. It was discussed here:

What I am aware of are the steel containment cases built around the TF-30's fan blade sections to contain them if they should fail that increased the gross weight of the aircraft, and therefore decreased the thrust to weight at any given point in the envelope.  Every model HB is doing would have had either the -414 or -414A, with the engine introduced in Block 95.  For the sake of completeness, I'm sure -412s got installed in some of those aircraft at certain points since they were likely still common at that time.

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The whole topic is a bit obscure. Tomcast episode 2 talks about how VF-1 lost one (or even two?) jets on their first deployment and they didn't know what happened until another jet went down at Miramar and they were able to recover the wreck. The investigation resulted in modifications to the engines which I believe included a thrust reduction to reduce long-term compressor fatigue.

Another hint is from a Tomcat pilot's post on a different forum. He talks about how they flew TARPS missions in ODS and a particular aircraft (victory 211) had substantially more engine power then the rest. This became evident in TARPS missions, where he could stay supersonic in zone 2 in said aircraft while his wingman had to be in zone 5 to keep up. The reason for this was apparently that "[...] 211 had engines that were rebuilt from the TF-30-P7 engines that came from an F-111. The -P7 ran at higher temps than the -414A engines that were standard in the F-14A at that time." As I understand it, these engines were rebuilt to an "old", non down-rated version of the 412, though this is purely speculation. The fact stands however that there were considerable performance differences between the fleet-standard 414A at that time and some other variants that were also used in the Tomcat.

The 414A version HB models is more then enough though since it covers the vast majority of AC from the late 70' to the end of service-life.


Edited by sLYFa
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11 hours ago, sLYFa said:

The whole topic is a bit obscure. Tomcast episode 2 talks about how VF-1 lost one (or even two?) jets on their first deployment and they didn't know what happened until another jet went down at Miramar and they were able to recover the wreck. The investigation resulted in modifications to the engines which I believe included a thrust reduction to reduce long-term compressor fatigue.

Another hint is from a Tomcat pilot's post on a different forum. He talks about how they flew TARPS missions in ODS and a particular aircraft (victory 211) had substantially more engine power then the rest. This became evident in TARPS missions, where he could stay supersonic in zone 2 in said aircraft while his wingman had to be in zone 5 to keep up. The reason for this was apparently that "[...] 211 had engines that were rebuilt from the TF-30-P7 engines that came from an F-111. The -P7 ran at higher temps than the -414A engines that were standard in the F-14A at that time." As I understand it, these engines were rebuilt to an "old", non down-rated version of the 412, though this is purely speculation. The fact stands however that there were considerable performance differences between the fleet-standard 414A at that time and some other variants that were also used in the Tomcat.

The 414A version HB models is more then enough though since it covers the vast majority of AC from the late 70' to the end of service-life.

 

Definitely possible - it may be that the engines were tweaked to output less thrust in motion (vice at static) to improve the stall margin or lessen wear.  Interesting to read about an up-rated engine years later.  Thanks for the further discussion.


Edited by Quid
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