All the aircraft I want and know I'll never get

[Gorn557]

Hello everyone:

There’s a bunch of crazy aircraft I’d love to see in DCS. I own almost every plane already and I realize that realistically even if they never released another starting tomorrow, I’d never learn in depth even half the planes I already own over the rest of my lifetime because of the amazing depth and quality of the modules that already exist. I've also heard Wags on some interviews saying essentially we'd love to do everything, it always comes down to just available resources and time. As a real-life program manager myself, I resonate with that.

But... because this is the internet, I want a whole bunch of other stuff anyway!

I realize a lot of these will almost definitely never happen, at least not for a long, long time, but I figured I’d throw some ideas out there. Heck, maybe I’ll inspire someone to at least make a mod one day (and I know some of these are mods in the sense that there’s an external model you can fly, but I’m talking at least "unique cockpit" fidelity). I’d love nothing more than to come back here in 2030 and find I was wrong and a bunch of these are in the game!

So, without further ado, my list:

1)      The aircraft: B-1B, B-52, and B-2

Why I realize we’ll almost certainly never get it in the foreseeable future: There has not, as far as I can tell, been a post-WW2 multicrew bomber sim since the 1990 game Megafortress. There either isn’t much demand for it, or it’s just been deemed “less cool” than fighters. Also, since these are still in service and carries nuclear weapons, probably classification issues. And of course, multicrew makes it more complex, though this is certainly a solvable problem with multiplayer/AI.

Why I want it anyway: The flip side of there never having been a real post-WW2 bomber sim is that there is an enormous class of missions that has never been simulated. Imagine flying low over the pole at low level, at night, at supersonic speed, screaming in to deliver a nuclear payload… flying transatlantic to strike Iraq with AGM-86 CALCMs…. carpet bombing the Vietcong  or Taliban as you drop hundreds and hundreds of Mk 82s on them… there’s an entirely new type of aerial warfare that we’ve never really had access to as flight simmers. I liken it to the situation with WW2 first person shooters – how many times have we stormed the beaches of Normandy, while meanwhile most of the geographical scope of the conflict is totally ignored – the troops slogging through the Aleutians or the Burma Road, the intense fights at Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, Tinian, the desperate struggles of the Norwegians to keep the Germans from overrunning their peninsula, etc. I love my F-15s as much as the next guy, but there are so many more aircraft to fly than that!

 

2)      The aircraft: Tu-160, Tu-95

Why I realize we’ll almost certainly never get it in the foreseeable future: All the same reasons, plus the difficulties of doing REDFOR aircraft right now. It’s a shame; as recently as 1990 the US Defense Secretary (Frank Carlucci) was invited to tour a Tu-160 from the inside; obviously world events have changed.

Why I want it anyway: Same reason as for 1) – totally different kind of mission from anything that has ever been simulated before, plus all the maritime variants of the Bear mean you’re basically getting a P-3 Orion of sorts included as well.

 

3)      The aircraft: Tu-22M

Why I realize we’ll almost certainly never get it in the foreseeable future: REDFOR again.

Why I want it anyway: Similarly to the above, we have a supersonic attack bomber, though in this case I could squint and imagine one – it’s just a two-seater. Its mission was much like that of the F-111 – low-level supersonic swing-wing ground attack. Most importantly for me on this one, though, is that we’ve been flying the “F-14 defends the fleet from Backfires” mission on PCs since the 1980s. It’s high time we get to fly this mission from the other side! Plus there’s just something unique about this aircraft- sleek, high speed, variable geometry, heavy attack load, defined US carrier defenses for a generation – there’s no other aircraft quite like it.

 

4)      The aircraft: Su-24

Why I realize we’ll almost certainly never get it in the foreseeable future: Same as above, unfortunately.

Why I want it anyway: Also pretty similar reasoning as to the Tu-22. The Su-24, on the other hand, being “more tactical” and more of a 1:1 comparison to the F-111, I could also see fitting more readily into the gameplay pattern of DCS as it currently stands. On the other hand, this makes it less interesting to me as it isn’t quite as unique a mission, and we have e.g. a Tornado coming which is similar in profile. I know there was a mod in development for this which looked amazing, but it seems to have been abandoned.

 

5)      The aircraft: Su-34

Why I realize we’ll almost certainly never get it in the foreseeable future: Same as above- front-line, high-end REDFOR aircraft.

Why I want it anyway: All of the above plus cutting-edge armament and glass cockpit? Count me in!

 

6)      The aircraft: F-111

Why I realize we’ll almost certainly never get it in the foreseeable future: I do actually think we’ll get this one one day- it’s old enough that it should be declassified, there are Americans and Aussies who love it, and it’s two-crew so it should be manageable – again much like the Tornado.

Why I want it anyway: The F-111 hits that sweet spot between, say, a Tu-22 and a Tornado- it had that unique deep strike mission, but also performed tactical strike missions in Libya and Iraq. Again in that “kinds of missions that haven’t been flyable in a sim ever before”, imagine flying Mach 2.5 (OK, Mach 1.2 at sea level) screaming over the treetops with your TFR, racing in to deliver your nuclear payload against the Warsaw Pact, or crossing an ocean to strike at Ghaddafi’s forces with pinpoint precision, unloading tens of thousands of bombs on an airfield in Iraq – even the Tornado doesn’t get quite get there with these kinds of missions.

 

7)      The aircraft: Mi-28

Why I realize we’ll almost certainly never get it in the foreseeable future: A front-line, probably classified REDFOR aircraft, and it’s had struggles getting into service its whole career. Even now it’s still not 100% clear how functional it really is in combat.

Why I want it anyway: If you think about front-line modern attack helicopters, the most prominent ones are the AH-64 (check), AH-1 (not in the game yet, but I think it will show up eventually via mod or official module), Mi-24 (check), Ka-50 (check), Ka-52 (not in-game, but “close enough” to the Ka-50)… and the Mi-28. This is the only missing premier front-line attack helicopter in DCS, at least among the two major players (though I wouldn’t complain seeing a Eurocopter Tiger/Z-10/T129!). To me the DCS helicopter stable is sort of “incomplete” without one.

 

8 ) RAH-66 Comanche

Why I realize we’ll almost certainly never get it in the foreseeable future: Never entered service. Just a prototype.

Why I want it anyway: Continuing along the same lines as above, this is the only other concept for a completely new US attack helicopter since the Apache arose in the late 1970s. (putting aside the currently ongoing FARA competition). And, come on… a stealth helicopter! What more need I say? Plus glass cockpit, air-to-air weaponry, retractable weapons bays and gears, incredible maneuverability… if I have to justify it to you at this point, you’ll never get it. Hopefully we can at least get it as a mod one day.

 

9)      YF-23 and X-32

Why I realize we’ll almost certainly never get it in the foreseeable future: Same as above- just prototypes.

Why I want it anyway: Look at pictures of those freaking things. If those sexy stealth aircraft with glass cockpit and next-gen avionics don’t excite you, well… I won’t be able to do it in words. I’m hopeful we can get one of these or the Comanche at least as mods one day.

 

10)  SR-71

Why I realize we’ll almost certainly never get it in the foreseeable future: Kind of a difficult aircraft to simulate- hard to handle, only does a reconnaissance mission (and I can’t think of a single game simulating a reconnaissance-only aircraft via a non-mod), only does a single mission and needs a lot of room in which to do it.

Why I want it anyway: I don’t think I even need to explain this one. Again in that category of “things you’ve never been able to do in a sim” – skimming the coasts of the Soviet Union at Mach 3 and 85,000 – overflying the North Korean DMZ or Hanoi in a literal spacesuit, hoping the MiG-25s don’t come up and notice you, while they take potshots at you in SA-2s that can’t quite get all the way up – there’s never been a mission as dynamic and high-performance as the SR-71’s primary task. I know there’s a mod for this one, but it’s not really that functional.

 

11)  MiG-25

Why I realize we’ll almost certainly never get it in the foreseeable future: This one I do think we could theoretically get one day – after all, a NATO nation (Bulgaria) operated it for a time – but it’s probably a long way off.

Why I want it anyway: I don’t think I even need to explain this one. Well, it’s the other side of the SR-71 mission. Mach 3 and 85,000 feet to intercept an SR-71, plus high-altitude reconnaissance of its own. Imagine the possibilities- scramble to intercept a flight of SR-71s of XB-70s (and man would I love an XB-70, or a B-58 for that matter but I won’t even bother to ask for those here), high-altitude, high-speed photography over Israel or Pakistan – there’s never been an aircraft quite like this in a sim. I’ll lump MiG-31 in with this as well since it’s a very similar airframe and mission.

 

12)  F-117

Why I realize we’ll almost certainly never get it in the foreseeable future: This one I do think we’ll get one day at least in a mod (there is a mod right now, but it seems to have been abandoned and isn’t really functional). You can fly it right now in MSFS, though of course it doesn’t simulate any of the systems. But the immediate problem is that I imagine much of it is still classified.

Why I want it anyway: You either want to fly the Wobblin’ Goblin or you don’t. That mission during the first night of the Gulf War, flying in to Baghdad, guns and missile blazing, completely undetected to open the conflict- it’s one of the most iconic of all time. Here we did have the great Sid Meier sims of the late 1980s, but they weren’t accurate (not that they could have been at that time). It’s actually a rather simple aircraft that just has one mission- essentially deliver its two GBU-12s and go home. I think it would actually be much simpler to learn than many DCS aircraft.

 

13)  Tu-128

Why I realize we’ll almost certainly never get it in the foreseeable future: It’s just a really niche aircraft. I bet even a lot of people here have never heard of it. The heaviest fighter ever to enter service, almost 100,000 lb. Its sole mission-  long range interception to defend the borders of the Soviet Union. This one you could probably do, I just don’t think there’s enough of an audience for it (though someone could build one with an amazing module…)

Why I want it anyway: Beating the dead horse of “unique combat aviation missions that have never before been possible in a flight sim” – take off in your barely controllable 100,000 lb behemoth to fly 1,000 miles at 60,000 feet to try to knock down the B-52s before they can unload their devastating nuclear ordnance on Soviet cities, using nothing but your garbage R-4 missiles and GCI. I don’t know. Probably I’m the only one who finds this really compelling. But I’d love to fly that mission.

 

 

Honorable mentions to the F-22 and F-35, which I’m not including because 1) there’s a great, fully-functional mod for the F-22, and 2) I think there will inevitably be an F-35 mod someday, just a question of time. Goes without saying, it’s a classification issue with regard to official modules for those two aircraft. I’d love a B-36, B-58, or XB-70, but the latter never entered service, and I think the former two are so niche that it would be hard to get enough people interested. But I can dream!

 

Oh, and V-22 anyone?

 

Here endeth the list of dreams.

Edited March 12, 2023 by Gorn557

[upyr1]

The F-111 might be possible 

[Gorn557]

7 minutes ago, upyr1 said:

The F-111 might be possible 

Yeah, like I said, I think we'll get an F-111 eventually. 

[SharpeXB]

Gee are there any you left out? You should do a search on these topics before starting yet another post on them…

[Gorn557]

7 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

Gee are there any you left out? You should do a search on these topics before starting yet another post on them…

You don't have to want them.

Actually if you read it I was very thorough about the status of each, which have mods, which we might get, etc. But this is the internet, so people tell you you're wrong even to wish you had something... 

[SharpeXB]

8 minutes ago, Gorn557 said:

But this is the internet, so people tell you you're wrong even to wish you had something... 

Well a simple search of this section would have saved you the time of writing all this stuff. Most all of these like the experimental or currently classified aircraft could never happen, neither can any of the Russian aircraft as ED can’t have access to that info for full fidelity modules.