correct based on available performance documents fm accuracy

[eatthis]

How accurate is it? iv just started flying and and my god it feels strange compared to a tomcat lol 
does it rate like it should?
is the prodigious speed bleeding accurate? 
 

[Temetre]

Idk if its finished, but the flight model should be pretty damn close to reality by all accounts. Youre probably doing something wrong or get confused by the planes intricacies, thats at least what happened to me. Though Im surprised you find it strange compared to a Tomcat of all things!  

General rule with F-16 seems to be, watch your speed. If you drop below 400 knots, the plane increasingly feels like a boat. Low speed manveuring is not impossible or even terrible in an F-16, but more difficult and less efficient as in F14/F18/Mig-29. Well, except maybe the F-14, handling that thing at the edges of its flight regime can be very difficult, even if AFAIK it should do a lot better at low speeds than the F-16, in theory.

To get a better feel, try to keep the plane above 400 knots. Use the acceleration to get even more speed, then use that speed to do high g-turns or go vertical. Thats how you play to your strengths with the F-16.

Edited May 4, 2023 by Temetre

[WHOGX5]

2 hours ago, Temetre said:

Idk if its finished, but the flight model should be pretty damn close to reality by all accounts. Youre probably doing something wrong or get confused by the planes intricacies, thats at least what happened to me. Though Im surprised you find it strange compared to a Tomcat of all things!  

General rule with F-16 seems to be, watch your speed. If you drop below 400 knots, the plane increasingly feels like a boat. Low speed manveuring is not impossible or even terrible in an F-16, but more difficult and less efficient as in F14/F18/Mig-29. Well, except maybe the F-14, handling that thing at the edges of its flight regime can be very difficult, even if AFAIK it should do a lot better at low speeds than the F-16, in theory.

To get a better feel, try to keep the plane above 400 knots. Use the acceleration to get even more speed, then use that speed to do high g-turns or go vertical. Thats how you play to your strengths with the F-16.

 

The corner plateau in the F-16 is between 330-440 KCAS, meaning that you'll have optimum sustained turn rate at all of those speeds.

[Temetre]

vor 25 Minuten schrieb WHOGX5:

The corner plateau in the F-16 is between 330-440 KCAS, meaning that you'll have optimum sustained turn rate at all of those speeds.

Interesting, I wasnt aware that it got so low. Would 330 be an almost empty fuel tank? Personally I found it risky to drop below 400, because its very easy to bleed a ton of speed by accident, and it can be hard to get back up to speed. Its like the plane starts to react differently to control inputs around that area.

Which I would assume was OPs mistake.

Edited May 4, 2023 by Temetre

[eatthis]

15 hours ago, WHOGX5 said:

The corner plateau in the F-16 is between 330-440 KCAS, meaning that you'll have optimum sustained turn rate at all of those speeds.

oh im deffinately not used to it, the control response feels almost like theres a curve on the roll and pitch, ie 50% stick travel doesnt do much and then it ramps up, obviously this is all compared to the cat which isnt fbw and is 100% direct, you tell it to do something and it does it, it doesnt care what youre telling it to do lol.
my 1st attempt at formation flying in the f16 resulted in alot of pio lol small inputs didnt give me the desired response and big inputs were huge

[Cepheus76]

1 hour ago, eatthis said:

my 1st attempt at formation flying in the f16 resulted in alot of pio lol small inputs didnt give me the desired response and big inputs were huge

I think that is because the Viper's flight control system is designed in such a way thst  stick displacement doesn't command a discrete control surface displacement but a desired rate of change- that is, if I remember correctly.

[eatthis]

41 minutes ago, Cepheus76 said:

I think that is because the Viper's flight control system is designed in such a way thst  stick displacement doesn't command a discrete control surface displacement but a desired rate of change- that is, if I remember correctly.

i think the real 1 is pressure sensitve, does this translate in dcs to rate of change in stick position?

[5ephir0th]

Non FBW vs FBW aircraft, pretty big difference

[Dragon1-1]

There's indeed something weird going on with the Viper, in that it has a deadzone that probably shouldn't be there for the optimum experience with a typical desktop stick. ED seems to be trying to simulate the force sensing stick on the real thing, but the way they do it works poorly on anything but an actual force sensing stick. Good on you if you have the RealSimulator base, not so good in all other cases.

Curves are there on the real aircraft, as well. Those actually work OK. As for bleeding speed, well, you really need to watch your G in the Viper. You've got small wings and only one engine, not like the Tomcat at all. Viper lives by keeping its speed up.

[eatthis]

1 hour ago, 5ephir0th said:

Non FBW vs FBW aircraft, pretty big difference

very much so, a big difference is the lack of buffet feel through simshaker, i can really FEEL what the tomcat is telling me but there seems to be only a faint audio cue when you pull too much aoa in the viper, thats just gonna take practise to feel when im bleeding too much speed i guess

1 hour ago, Dragon1-1 said:

There's indeed something weird going on with the Viper, in that it has a deadzone that probably shouldn't be there for the optimum experience with a typical desktop stick. ED seems to be trying to simulate the force sensing stick on the real thing, but the way they do it works poorly on anything but an actual force sensing stick. Good on you if you have the RealSimulator base, not so good in all other cases.

Curves are there on the real aircraft, as well. Those actually work OK. As for bleeding speed, well, you really need to watch your G in the Viper. You've got small wings and only one engine, not like the Tomcat at all. Viper lives by keeping its speed up.

well i said i felt like theres curves on the stick, i checked in the controls and there is lol 20, iv zeroed it and tried my 1st aar, much better! fell off twice but did go to transfer complete. just gotta work out my references now and i should be good to go

[Dragon1-1]

8 minutes ago, eatthis said:

very much so, a big difference is the lack of buffet feel through simshaker, i can really FEEL what the tomcat is telling me but there seems to be only a faint audio cue when you pull too much aoa in the viper, thats just gonna take practise to feel when im bleeding too much speed i guess

Look at your HUD/HMD. The easiest way of managing your speed in the Viper is to simply check your speed. If it's dropping too much, ease up on the stick. You literally got all the info you need in front of your face.

[eatthis]

1 minute ago, Dragon1-1 said:

Look at your HUD/HMD. The easiest way of managing your speed in the Viper is to simply check your speed. If it's dropping too much, ease up on the stick. You literally got all the info you need in front of your face.

thats what ive been practising, thats a very different method to what im used to, i barely look at the speed gauge at all in the cat and theres no speed in the hud

 

[Dragon1-1]

Yup, because it's out of the way. In the Viper, you have the HMD for this. Our Viper is very different aircraft, from about three decades later than the Tomcat, and it shows. You do a lot less by feel and more by numbers in the Viper.

[eatthis]

2 hours ago, Dragon1-1 said:

Yup, because it's out of the way. In the Viper, you have the HMD for this. Our Viper is very different aircraft, from about three decades later than the Tomcat, and it shows. You do a lot less by feel and more by numbers in the Viper.

yeh its a fun learning curve, similer performance in alot of ways but they work very differently

[WHOGX5]

On 5/4/2023 at 5:41 PM, Temetre said:

Interesting, I wasnt aware that it got so low. Would 330 be an almost empty fuel tank? Personally I found it risky to drop below 400, because its very easy to bleed a ton of speed by accident, and it can be hard to get back up to speed. Its like the plane starts to react differently to control inputs around that area.

Which I would assume was OPs mistake.

 

The 330-440 KCAS span is practically independent of your weight. At the lower part of the span it is a lot easier to bleed off speed by accident as you have a lot more control authority. You just have to be more careful and make smaller inputs with the stick when you fly slower and monitor your airspeed in the JHMCS. The reason this corner plateau is so useful, is that it allows you to, for example, enter a fight at 500-550 KCAS and do a max G pull with a very high instantaneous turn rate down to 440 KCAS and then maintain that speed for an optimum turn rate. Once you get a good opportunity, you can pull harder again and bleed down to 330 KCAS to get a better position on your opponent and still be able to maintain that speed without losing any sustained turning performance. If you ever feel the need to accelerate again, just ease of the stick a tiny bit and you'll still have a respectable turn rate while accelearating a few knots a second until you're back at 440 KCAS and still at optimum sustained turn rate. Of course there are many more tactics that need to be used to win a fight, but this corner plateau is an attribute that's quite specific to the F-16 and you should always keep it in mind when dogfighting. It allows you to to a lot of things that other aircraft can't do and you need to use it to your advantage.

If you want to read more about the F-16, there is a website called Blu3wolf which hosts a number of real life F-16 manuals. You can find a lot of useful information there that's F-16 specific, especially in the MCH-11 and the BEM.

[Temetre]

vor 5 Minuten schrieb WHOGX5:

The 330-440 KCAS span is practically independent of your weight. At the lower part of the span it is a lot easier to bleed off speed by accident as you have a lot more control authority. You just have to be more careful and make smaller inputs with the stick when you fly slower and monitor your airspeed in the JHMCS. The reason this corner plateau is so useful, is that it allows you to, for example, enter a fight at 500-550 KCAS and do a max G pull with a very high instantaneous turn rate down to 440 KCAS and then maintain that speed for an optimum turn rate. Once you get a good opportunity, you can pull harder again and bleed down to 330 KCAS to get a better position on your opponent and still be able to maintain that speed without losing any sustained turning performance. If you ever feel the need to accelerate again, just ease of the stick a tiny bit and you'll still have a respectable turn rate while accelearating a few knots a second until you're back at 440 KCAS and still at optimum sustained turn rate. Of course there are many more tactics that need to be used to win a fight, but this corner plateau is an attribute that's quite specific to the F-16 and you should always keep it in mind when dogfighting. It allows you to to a lot of things that other aircraft can't do and you need to use it to your advantage.

If you want to read more about the F-16, there is a website called Blu3wolf which hosts a number of real life F-16 manuals. You can find a lot of useful information there that's F-16 specific, especially in the MCH-11 and the BEM.

Thank you for the tips! Im currently working trying to learn F-16 dogfighting, again, and Ill try to put that band to good use.

Currently im just going over basic dogfighting theory. Ive played a bunch of flight sims, mostly WW2 before DCS, but usually flew by feel. Can beat the AI with F-16, but im working into the how and wanna try multiplayer later. 

 

Btw, the behaviour ive been talking about? I think that was more like a semi-stall that i was experiencing. Actually had a double check looking at the AoA indicator, but I was like >20 degrees off. Weird thing is, the FBW system made it feel like im still in control of the aircraft, that threw me off. Doesnt happen like that in the F-18, and the Hornet has a pretty useful alpha-indicator on the hud.

Just a weirdly unintuitive thing I havent experienced in this way in any other aircraft. Definitely gotta work harder to keep my F-16 at a the right angle. 

[eatthis]

1 hour ago, WHOGX5 said:

The 330-440 KCAS span is practically independent of your weight. At the lower part of the span it is a lot easier to bleed off speed by accident as you have a lot more control authority. You just have to be more careful and make smaller inputs with the stick when you fly slower and monitor your airspeed in the JHMCS. The reason this corner plateau is so useful, is that it allows you to, for example, enter a fight at 500-550 KCAS and do a max G pull with a very high instantaneous turn rate down to 440 KCAS and then maintain that speed for an optimum turn rate. Once you get a good opportunity, you can pull harder again and bleed down to 330 KCAS to get a better position on your opponent and still be able to maintain that speed without losing any sustained turning performance. If you ever feel the need to accelerate again, just ease of the stick a tiny bit and you'll still have a respectable turn rate while accelearating a few knots a second until you're back at 440 KCAS and still at optimum sustained turn rate. Of course there are many more tactics that need to be used to win a fight, but this corner plateau is an attribute that's quite specific to the F-16 and you should always keep it in mind when dogfighting. It allows you to to a lot of things that other aircraft can't do and you need to use it to your advantage.

If you want to read more about the F-16, there is a website called Blu3wolf which hosts a number of real life F-16 manuals. You can find a lot of useful information there that's F-16 specific, especially in the MCH-11 and the BEM.

yeh its a rocketship in that midrange speed bracket! the tomcat isnt exactly sluggish but damn the viper is great there, that aoa limiter makes low speed a bit of a dead end though, apparantly that was a noted thing in bfm for real, clever/good pilots would try to force the viper slow and then drive the nose of their jets around knowing the viper simply cant 

[WHOGX5]

6 hours ago, eatthis said:

yeh its a rocketship in that midrange speed bracket! the tomcat isnt exactly sluggish but damn the viper is great there, that aoa limiter makes low speed a bit of a dead end though, apparantly that was a noted thing in bfm for real, clever/good pilots would try to force the viper slow and then drive the nose of their jets around knowing the viper simply cant 

Yeah, it is absolutely essential to stay fast in the F-16. Most aircraft in DCS prefer lower speeds than the F-16, so the only thing you have to do is to not get baited into lowering your speed and stay fast. If the opponent starts slowing down and is turning inside of you, take it out of plane into the vertical and use your energy advantage to defeat him. Like you said, the AOA limiter in the F-16 prevents you from outmanouvering practically all aircraft at low speeds and it will also take you ages to accelerate up to a higher speed again so it's best just not to slow down in the first place.

8 hours ago, Temetre said:

Thank you for the tips! Im currently working trying to learn F-16 dogfighting, again, and Ill try to put that band to good use.

Currently im just going over basic dogfighting theory. Ive played a bunch of flight sims, mostly WW2 before DCS, but usually flew by feel. Can beat the AI with F-16, but im working into the how and wanna try multiplayer later. 

 

Btw, the behaviour ive been talking about? I think that was more like a semi-stall that i was experiencing. Actually had a double check looking at the AoA indicator, but I was like >20 degrees off. Weird thing is, the FBW system made it feel like im still in control of the aircraft, that threw me off. Doesnt happen like that in the F-18, and the Hornet has a pretty useful alpha-indicator on the hud.

Just a weirdly unintuitive thing I havent experienced in this way in any other aircraft. Definitely gotta work harder to keep my F-16 at a the right angle. 

Yeah, because of the AOA limiter you'll basically never enter a real stall in an F-16 unless you do some really specific maneouvers or run some crazy assymetric loadout. Usually when you get slow it just gets kind of sluggish before the FLCS starts slowly letting the nose down. In an F/A-18C, for example, you have so much AOA available that you can practically point the nose anywhere you want at low speeds. The F-16 is so limited in AOA that even if you're well above the stall speed you still can't really move the nose anywhere but down towards the ground.