Phoenix missiles reaching for the sky

[Flappie]

A friend showed me a weird behavior from the Phoenix missile (tested with AIM-54A mk47). I'm able to reproduce this behavior. Here are the steps to reproduce:

1. Enemies and player aircraft are flying at 6000 feet. Bandits are 30 nm away.
2. Wait for enemies to be locked, then take a 10°/12° climb.
3. Fire your Phoenx missiles: they fly nearly vertically, reach 36,000 feet, then fall down and most miss their target because they don't have enough speed for manoeuvrability.

If you fire the missiles level, they don't reach such an altitude.

I know there were recent changes in the Phoenix, but is that a normal behavior?

AIM-54A_mk47_to_the_sky.trk

[RustBelt]

Yes. There’s a whole other argument in the main F-14 forum going on about not “helping” the Phoenix by pitching up before launch. 
 

[Comstedt86]

Assisting loft at closer ranges usually has this effect from my limited testing. More is likely needed, but assisting loft at sub 40nm tends to increase the chance of this "bug". 

 

However if shooting at long range 60-80nm assisting with ca 30 degree pitch up can increase terminal energy. 

[captain_dalan]

It depends on the parameters. 30 miles, angels 6, is likely outside effective range, that is an impossible shot, hence the bug. I tried a 30 mile with the same loft, but at angels 28, and gave quite the boost to the missile during terminal fase:

 

Tacview-20220905-003923-DCS-September F-14A_IA_PG_BVR Mk60.zip.acmi

[Flappie]

On 9/10/2022 at 8:42 AM, RustBelt said:

Yes. There’s a whole other argument in the main F-14 forum going on about not “helping” the Phoenix by pitching up before launch.

OK, I missed that. Thanks.