correct as-is F16 Flight Envelope.

[Nessie]

Since last update the handeling of the F16 seems to have been "dumbed down", granted the ground handeling seems better, but in flight she seems more sluggish. Can anyone explain this or the direction we are going with the flight envelope.

[BIGNEWY]

Hi

Our viper closely matches available EM data. if you have evidence that it should be different please present it. 

thank you

[Nessie]

Hi Newy, my point is that it has changed quite dramatically since the last update, the questions is why was that not mentioned in the update & also why was it changed yet again. My understanding was that it was already "correct as is"

[Moonshine]

havent noticed any change to the previous OB version. did you maybe accidentially switch to CAT III or something?

 

[Nessie]

Hi Moonshine, if it was just me who noticed it i would have put it down to that, but i know numerous pilots who are saying the same thing......very strange.

 

[itn]

Have you checked your axis tune (curves)? There might have been some changes to defaults there.

[BIGNEWY]

21 hours ago, Nessie said:

Hi Newy, my point is that it has changed quite dramatically since the last update, the questions is why was that not mentioned in the update & also why was it changed yet again. My understanding was that it was already "correct as is"

Hi, there have been no changes to the flight model in the last update and we dont see anything unusual, all looks correct as is to us. 

Thanks

[Deano87]

@Nessie Just for clarity, Are you flying Openbeta or Stable?

Edited November 12, 2022 by Deano87

[Sarge55]

I haven’t noticed any change either. Fly it pretty much every day. 

[Nessie]

Openbeta guys, she's more stable on the ground, takeoff, tanking, & seems less responsive with a a/g loadout.  I also fly it pretty much every day & have not touched any control curves.

Very strange as i know a few guys who have noticed it.

[IR.Clutch]

What do you mean more stable on the ground? I just noticed that my Viper is flying even better with my new Virpil base, which just arrived.

[Nessie]

Just definate differences, on takeoff, tanking, seems more stable. Not tried any BFM yet, but definately an improvement. The issue was there was no reference to it in the update, then BigNewey reckons there was no changes, & i made no changes to controls, very strange but heyho!

[WHOGX5]

On 1/8/2023 at 3:49 AM, gortex said:

I had to check the FM myself to make sure it hasn't changed.  My friends and I just don't see the F-16 being that strong for BFM compared to the F-18, M2k, and F-15.  But so far as I can tell it still has the improved FM from Spring 2022.  Getting your best turn rate near 9g isn't that useful when your turning circle is huge and you're on the edge of gloc all the time.

 

Obviously the turning circle will be huge at 9g, that's why you want to rate fight in the F-16 rather than go for a radius fight. The main issue in DCS is the ridiculous G-LOC which prevents you from fighting the way an F-16 is supposed to fight. The biggest benefit of the F-16 in BFM is that you have the corner plateau from roughly 350 KCAS to 450 KCAS. This lets you enter a fight with somewhere around 500 KCAS and use instantaneous turn rate down to 450 KCAS and then maintain sustained max turn rate. After that you can pull instantanous turn rate down to 350 KCAS and still maintain maximum turn rate at that speed. If you try to do that in DCS you will pass out in seconds. But regardless of that, if you try to engage any of the aircraft you mentioned in a radius fight in the F-16, you will definitely lose if the other pilot knows what he's doing. You gotta go for rate in the F-16.

[Pavlin_33]

On 1/10/2023 at 1:06 PM, gortex said:

Right.  And as you pointed out, to get the best rate in the Viper you're just blacking out in this game, even if you prepare with g warmup.

Blacking out has to do with the G forces. 9G is 9G no matter the speed or the aircraft you experience it in. Small disclaimer, I've neglected the fact that Viper has a 30 deg. seat incline in RL - in DCS this is not modeled, I think.

 

On 1/10/2023 at 9:43 AM, WHOGX5 said:

Obviously the turning circle will be huge at 9g, that's why you want to rate fight in the F-16 rather than go for a radius fight. The main issue in DCS is the ridiculous G-LOC which prevents you from fighting the way an F-16 is supposed to fight. The biggest benefit of the F-16 in BFM is that you have the corner plateau from roughly 350 KCAS to 450 KCAS. This lets you enter a fight with somewhere around 500 KCAS and use instantaneous turn rate down to 450 KCAS and then maintain sustained max turn rate. After that you can pull instantanous turn rate down to 350 KCAS and still maintain maximum turn rate at that speed. If you try to do that in DCS you will pass out in seconds. But regardless of that, if you try to engage any of the aircraft you mentioned in a radius fight in the F-16, you will definitely lose if the other pilot knows what he's doing. You gotta go for rate in the F-16.

In a two-circle (nose-to-tail) turn fight, you want to be at the "left" part of the "plateau", i.e. you want the lowest possible speed at the highest possible G-force as this gives you the most turn rate. I am assuming that "plateau" means constant G limit.
 

[DummyCatz]

Are we talking about flight envelope OR handling characteristics? Seems two different things to me.

[wilbur81]

https://forum.dcs.world/topic/317348-pulling-too-much-aoa-during-dogfight/?do=findComment&comment=5145932

 

Edited February 13, 2023 by wilbur81

[Pavlin_33]

2 hours ago, gortex said:

Of course, but unlike the F-15 and F/A-18, the F-16 is intended for 9g.  Joke is on me though.  According to in-game test data you can't outrate the Hornet at any g-load or airspeed with the F-16, regardless of gloc.

Subsonic_Energy_Maneuverability_Diagrams_for_DCS_v202211.pdf 12 MB · 3 downloads

 

Yup the document seems to suggest that F-18 has both better turn rate at both corner speed and as sustained turn rate. It's insane turn-rate comes from insanely tight turn radius at high loads.
I persoanly had no idea that Hornet is supposed to turn better than the Viper. To be honest something seems a bit off there.
F-15 is also intended for 9G as well as the MiG-29 as these are their max loads.

[VarZat]

In my experience you cant outrate the f-18 in an f-16. After listening to RL pilots, my generall inpression is that the problem lies with the f-18 being too powerful. But ED has said that they are doing a recalculation of the hornets FM, hopefully this changes something

[itn]

9 hours ago, VarZat said:

In my experience you cant outrate the f-18 in an f-16. After listening to RL pilots, my generall inpression is that the problem lies with the f-18 being too powerful. But ED has said that they are doing a recalculation of the hornets FM, hopefully this changes something

Before you get your hopes up, remember that in real life the situation is completely different. There are safety limits and rules in place and someone's death, or loss of a jet would be a disaster. We usually don't know the configuration, exact safety limits, rules or briefing used, nor the difference in pilots (experience/skills).

Also there's the infamous paddle switch. No need to argue about it here, but suffices to say that it too makes a difference between real life BFM training vs DCS fight-to-"death" HABFM.

I don't expect the Hornet FM changes to change the situation all that much between Viper and the Hornet. Then again, what would I know since I don't have charts to compare it with. But I expect it to be quite close already, and as such don't expect the changes to be that drastic in this aspect.

[BIGNEWY]

I would suggest waiting until all tweaks are completed. 

[Pavlin_33]

7 hours ago, itn said:

Before you get your hopes up, remember that in real life the situation is completely different. There are safety limits and rules in place and someone's death, or loss of a jet would be a disaster. We usually don't know the configuration, exact safety limits, rules or briefing used, nor the difference in pilots (experience/skills).

Also there's the infamous paddle switch. No need to argue about it here, but suffices to say that it too makes a difference between real life BFM training vs DCS fight-to-"death" HABFM.

I don't expect the Hornet FM changes to change the situation all that much between Viper and the Hornet. Then again, what would I know since I don't have charts to compare it with. But I expect it to be quite close already, and as such don't expect the changes to be that drastic in this aspect.

Even without the override, that is at 7.5G, it still has superior turning performance. What that document shows is that it can endure around 30 deg angle of attack - hence why such high G load at realtively low speed.

As @BIGNEWYsuggested, things might get revised.

[wilbur81]

On 2/13/2023 at 5:06 PM, Pavlin_33 said:

Yup the document seems to suggest that F-18 has both better turn rate at both corner speed and as sustained turn rate. It's insane turn-rate comes from insanely tight turn radius at high loads.
I persoanly had no idea that Hornet is supposed to turn better than the Viper. To be honest something seems a bit off there.
F-15 is also intended for 9G as well as the MiG-29 as these are their max loads.

This document, though an amazing effort and piece of work, is not accurate as it is utilizing TacView for the telemetry...which is known to not provide very accurate turn performance data. Also, if you're interested, here is some real world information sent to me by one of our many faithful forum buddies. (I've not included his name here as he sent this to me via private message) - Thought many might find his buddy's findings interesting. Enjoy: 

I wanted to tell you about a conversation I had at an unclassed level with a friend of mine in the fighter community. He went to the vault and looked at the lot 20 EM diagrams (402 engine) and compared them to the F-16CM block 50 F-16 with the engines we have in game -- his findings were pretty cool. He couldn't tell me numbers, to keep it at an unclassed level, but he said the difference was pylons. With pylons on the wing, the hornet will be out-rated by a clean viper. With pylons on the Viper and a clean hornet, the Hornet will out-rate the viper. Both Clean wing, and they are virtually the same with a slight advantage to the F-16.

The caveat here is that the lot 20 is still G limited to 7.5Gs --  so it's engine and airframe are just generating that higher turn rate at a much slower speed -- I think around 380-ish. If the hornet gets above 400, it begins to arc, because it can't tighten down more than 7.5Gs, and the turn circle just gets really really big.

This friend also told me that the hornet is playing from a very different set of rules than the F-16, and the F-16 employment manuals don't actually cover how to combat the hornet trickery. The USAF is all about aligning turn circles to kill, and you can do that pretty well against non-high-AOA fighters. But a high AOA fighter (and the navy in general) strive to have misaligned turn circles both offensive and defensively -- which allows them to change the plane of motion in ways that the opponent can't follow without overshooting. This is the classic hornet ditch -- but that ditch needs to be executed when there are misaligned turn circles, and the cue for that is seeing aspect angle out of synch with angle off nose or tail.  I think this is stuff that's a bit over the nugget of most DCS players, and if they are operating from IFF manuals or the korean 3-3 viper manual -- it's just not covered in there. A lot of people's complains with flight models in BFM probably stem from this.

Anyway -- bottom line is that the big engine hornet can in fact rate as well as a clean viper, but 99-100% of the time the navy is leaving 4 pylons on the hornet, where the viper maybe has 2 -- and so the advantage goes to the viper in BFM. Clean vs clean, and we just have a very small advantage in the F-16.

Cheers

Edited February 24, 2023 by wilbur81