F-4E Phantom Development Report - DCS Newsletter 31/03/2023

[bones1014]

44 minutes ago, G.J.S said:

Only on shutdown . . . .

 

 

(sorry, couldn’t resist!)

I won't fault you for that. So it'll be the smokey one. That's too bad. I'll still enjoy it.

[Raisuli]

2 minutes ago, bones1014 said:

I won't fault you for that. So it'll be the smokey one. That's too bad. I'll still enjoy it.

Well, it's not quite that simple.  The more smoky one or the less smoky one?  Does the other guy see your chemtrail from a hundred miles or only ten? 

[Iron Sights]

Might be like the MiGs, I don’t think it will make much of a difference. For me it’s a give away at fairly close range.

[Stackup]

22 minutes ago, bones1014 said:

I won't fault you for that. So it'll be the smokey one. That's too bad. I'll still enjoy it.

What's wrong with smoky engines? 

[bones1014]

Just now, Stackup said:

What's wrong with smoky engines? 

Only thing would be higher visibility.

[Ramstein]

JP-4, and the Navy used JP-5 Jetfuel (during and a long while after Veitnam), had a lot of benzene in it, a lower flashpoint than later jet fuels. and burning 1,500 gallons per hour, average. The engine parts, at that time were designed for the specific fuels.

[schmiefel]

9 minutes ago, Stackup said:

What's wrong with smoky engines? 

It just could find some info that the German F-4 had either some special settings or even separate engines so that only during peace time flying the engines were smoking that much, to keep wear and service costs lower. In a war setup they wouldn't smoke that much but won't last that long too. So maybe we could ask for those 'special settings' - and getting weared out gear over stress and time would be a great thing for dynamic campaigns too

[Grimleo]

 I want the Smoking Thunder Dog. From miles around, MIGs will start running away. For I am the badest bird in the sky. 

[Yannick Pancake]

12 hours ago, schmiefel said:

It just could find some info that the German F-4 had either some special settings or even separate engines so that only during peace time flying the engines were smoking that much, to keep wear and service costs lower. In a war setup they wouldn't smoke that much but won't last that long too. So maybe we could ask for those 'special settings' - and getting weared out gear over stress and time would be a great thing for dynamic campaigns too

The F-4F had 2 settings for the engines. As you said, one smokey peacetime mode an a less smokey wartime mode.

The twi modes had different temperatures. The wartime setting burned hoter which reduced the smoke but also put more stress on the engineparts.

I asked if the USAF E's also had this option, but iircc nobody knows about this on the E model, so I would doubt, that we will get this. 

[303_Kermit]

13 hours ago, Yannick Pancake said:

The F-4F had 2 settings for the engines. As you said, one smokey peacetime mode an a less smokey wartime mode.

The twi modes had different temperatures. The wartime setting burned hoter which reduced the smoke but also put more stress on the engineparts.

I asked if the USAF E's also had this option, but iircc nobody knows about this on the E model, so I would doubt, that we will get this. 

Army on both sides used to think different that time (I mean '70 & '80). Some sort of "military introducing" we (in Poland) had in elementary school. I remember how we learned on one of lessons:
in case of WW3:
 

-expected time to die of soldier - 2min.
-expected time to die of tank crew - 10min.
-expected time to die of pilot - 2 hours.
"Our army has for time "Z" shells that can penetrate everything, but barrel wore our after 10 shots, our planes can reach higher thrust, but engines melt and total wore out takes 2-3 flights.

in '70s we were born, and we grown with a calm awareness that soon WW3 will broke out and we'll die. We just adopted that knowledge. Somehow still a threat of WW3 and atom holocaust isn't scary for me.

I don't think that such "engine setting" made for "Z Hour" would be "a nice to have in game". I flew MiG-21 for a couple years and somehow never drop "A" bomb, but I remember my childhood. I am sure that there are more such "surprizes" in case of time "Z" in many military planes, tanks, rifles. Let's pretend that there isn't.

My best regards
Green ugly fellow

Edited May 9, 2023 by 303_Kermit

[Super Grover]

The plan was that the initial release version (non-DMAS) would be smokier, and the DMAS version would be the version after the upgrade, so the less smoky. OFC, everything is subject to change™

[Yannick Pancake]

11 hours ago, 303_Kermit said:

Army on both sides used to think different that time (I mean '70 & '80). Some sort of "military introducing" we (in Poland) had in elementary school. I remember how we learned on one of lessons:
in case of WW3:
 

-expected time to die of soldier - 2min.
-expected time to die of tank crew - 10min.
-expected time to die of pilot - 2 hours.
"Our army has for time "Z" shells that can penetrate everything, but barrel wore our after 10 shots, our planes can reach higher thrust, but engines melt and total wore out takes 2-3 flights.

in '70s we were born, and we grown with a calm awareness that soon WW3 will broke out and we'll die. We just adopted that knowledge. Somehow still a threat of WW3 and atom holocaust isn't scary for me.

I don't think that such "engine setting" made for "Z Hour" would be "a nice to have in game". I flew MiG-21 for a couple years and somehow never drop "A" bomb, but I remember my childhood. I am sure that there are more such "surprizes" in case of time "Z" in many military planes, tanks, rifles. Let's pretend that there isn't.

My best regards
Green ugly fellow

 

Cool Informations

 

But regarding the F 4F, I don't know for sure, but from what i've heard is that the wartime setting wasn't a "melt the engine" setting. It was the normal operation mode of the j79 in the 104, or pretty close to it. 

At least on the F 4F there was a setting to reduce wear in peacetime. I don't know if this is specific to the MTU build engines or if it even was later introduced in an upgrade (maybe peace rhine or even ICE). I can imagine, that it was only done to our Phantom (I'm from Germany) to reduce maintenance costs and time. 

 

 

[lobo]

I hope there is lots of smoke. Except in burner.

[cfrag]

On 5/8/2023 at 7:31 PM, G.J.S said:

Only on shutdown . . . .

Technically, only AFTER shutdown (couldn't resist either  )

[Viper1031]

It'll be perfect for my Iron Eagle 2 recreations!

[Volator]

On 5/8/2023 at 9:00 PM, schmiefel said:

German F-4 had either some special settings or even separate engines so that only during peace time flying the engines were smoking that much, to keep wear and service costs lower. In a war setup they wouldn't smoke that much but won't last that long too.

 

On 5/10/2023 at 10:05 AM, Yannick Pancake said:

At least on the F 4F there was a setting to reduce wear in peacetime. I don't know if this is specific to the MTU build engines or if it even was later introduced in an upgrade (maybe peace rhine or even ICE). I can imagine, that it was only done to our Phantom (I'm from Germany) to reduce maintenance costs and time. 

 

 

Yep, fact. Several F-4F drivers told me that. In wartime, engines would have been tuned to higher burn temperatures to get rid of the smoke, at the cost of shorter engine life time / overhaul cycles. 

Edited May 17, 2023 by Volator

[Bremspropeller]

The difference is rather simple - it's just a basic mixture tweak, so the derated engines are running at a slightly fatter mixture (colder, consequently more soot/ smoke). The de-ratng or up-rating (leaner, and up to stochiometric, hotter mixtures) should be performed in a couple of minutes if you don't need to pull the engine or associated components for the tweak. Not sure if the components were easily accessible on the J79/ F-4 to perform the change on-wing.

The actual smokeless-mod (e.g. on later US jets, called J79-GE-17C on the Echo jets) was a different thing and required some parts changes in the hot section - mainly burner-cans and also the injector spray-nozzles. Hence the engines needed to be pulled and sent to the shop.

[SgtPappy]

4 hours ago, Bremspropeller said:

The difference is rather simple - it's just a basic mixture tweak, so the derated engines are running at a slightly fatter mixture (colder, consequently more soot/ smoke). The de-ratng or up-rating (leaner, and up to stochiometric, hotter mixtures) should be performed in a couple of minutes if you don't need to pull the engine or associated components for the tweak. Not sure if the components were easily accessible on the J79/ F-4 to perform the change on-wing.

The actual smokeless-mod (e.g. on later US jets, called J79-GE-17C on the Echo jets) was a different thing and required some parts changes in the hot section - mainly burner-cans and also the injector spray-nozzles. Hence the engines needed to be pulled and sent to the shop.

Would you have any info/sources to share on the latter -17C mods? It's been a while since I've been able to find anything technical or timeframe-specific regarding this upgrade.

[Bremspropeller]

44 minutes ago, SgtPappy said:

Would you have any info/sources to share on the latter -17C mods? It's been a while since I've been able to find anything technical or timeframe-specific regarding this upgrade.

It's not quite ABOUT the -17C, but there's some peripheral info in this report (about fuel character effects on the smokeless combustor section of said engine), which mentions the changes that were made to get the -17C:

https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA095057.pdf

 

[SgtPappy]

20 hours ago, Bremspropeller said:

It's not quite ABOUT the -17C, but there's some peripheral info in this report (about fuel character effects on the smokeless combustor section of said engine), which mentions the changes that were made to get the -17C:

https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA095057.pdf

 

Super. Thanks for sharing! Though it's a shame such a mod wasn't available for the Vietnam or Middle East wars, at least the smoke was gone in burner. And I bet it will help perform IFF in DCS

Edited May 18, 2023 by SgtPappy

[ThorBrasil]

 

[ebabil]

still waiting for the Phantom version of this video...

 

[pii]

On 4/1/2023 at 5:45 PM, Baco said:

yeah imminent is within the week, not even a month, but yeah whatever... at this stage everything is a big unknown F-4, F4U,  F-15, 135GR early, .. we are entering Q2 and not one single module was released... oh well. 

(Speaking generally not exclusively about Heatblur of course)...

 

 

These will all be released in two weeks, trust me. 

[1BRAVO9]

5 minutes ago, pii said:

These will all be released in two weeks, trust me. 

 

 

All 4 planes will be released in two weeks?

[G.J.S]

1 hour ago, 1BRAVO9 said:

 

 

All 4 planes will be released in two weeks?

. . . . Guessing you’re new here . . . 
 

 

*2 weeks is a running joke

Edited May 20, 2023 by G.J.S