correct as-is F-16 performance in dogfight

[darkman222]

Thanks for the long answer. Shorter one from me though, as we have been there thousand times talking AI vs players.

The AI seems to fly efficient compared to players, which is not the case. It uses a simplified flight model. Dont practice too much against "Ace AI" and think its an ace. Its a cheater.

The point you're at you should consider transition to fight players only, you might get bad habits fighting AI. There is enough dogfight servers online.

In a guns only scenario, especially experienced players are going to dodge bullets, make you slow, then turn into you in a M2K. You wont be able to follow. Because slower rate and even radius. The M2K will smash you there. This AI dude is still flying speeds the F16 is manoverable at. 330 kts is much faster than any compentent player will be with you at this point. Sorry to disilluision you there. Also with the new thrust modelling its gonna gain energy back faster than you, to get to its rate speeds. Thats why I was asking. I dont think the thrust modelling is taken too much, or maybe even not at all taken into account by the AI flight model.

Winning snapshots is a matter of nose authoritiy which the M2K has in every speed range over the F16.

I have read Shaws book and I am pretty sure that when it comes to lag pursuit rolls and displacement  rolls comes at the point before the fuselages are aligned. At 1:11 your fuselages are alingned at these manover lose pretty much all of their effectiveness, because its now throttle position which controls the overtake. And that is when the smaller M2K turn radius comes into play. The M2K does not have to create a 1C, it already is. The AI just does not know what to do with it.

If your guns mechanics arent on point at 1:05 and you dont kill him, this is when a competent player ususally will make you over shoot and sit behind you killing you with a smile on his face and not fly a fancy air show like the AI.

 

I really would adise you to go on a server like "dcs dogfighters" challenge a competent M2K driver there. And put it to the test what you think you have learned.

And @Jasiński the original poster. All of what I wrote will happen vs an F18 too.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 9 by darkman222

[Keith Briscoe]

Just a +1 on the notes above from @darkman222 (by the way, pretty sure I've seen you on DCS Dogfighters).

I'm still new to DCS overall, but it was essentially night and day when I went to PvP dogfight arenas.  Viper vs F18 is not fun... but Viper vs M2K is just sort of funny (and depressing), unless perhaps the most advanced Viper DCS pilot is at the controls.  I've personally been on the losing end (not a big surprise) of a dancing/floating M2K several times.  Forget the guy's name.  But, my only "wins" (that's what I call it) were 2x managing to pull him from behind me into some sort of spiral / scissors where I brought him close enough to me that we collided (twice!).  Hey, he didn't get to shoot me - so I'm taking the "W".  Oh, I just remembered... I was actually in a Hornet because I learned the Viper gets killed even quicker when I'm piloting it.

BFM vs players is hard!  But fun.  But really hard.

Edited January 11 by Keith Briscoe

[Selliese]

It is impossible to defeat Hornet with the same level of pilots. With the same AB-time refueling, Hornet has a larger T/W. Viper loses more speed in turns than it gains in straight flight. Hornet has better cornering acceleration, which is the most important thing in dogfights. Viper, before the advent of the F-15E, was the worst fighter in dogfight.

Edited February 24 by Selliese

[darkman222]

The LOT 20 F18 in DCS has the enhanced motors the  F404-GE-402 and not the regular  F404-GE-400 engines. It seems to have no drag for that reason. I am wondering how many LOT20 F18 were actually produced.

Then people use the paddle switch constantly. That makes a 7,5 G rated fighter to a 10 G fighter. But it can even peak at 13,5 G as I tested it. So you have almost double the amount of G available. I am always wondering where are the EM diagrams to model the 10 or 13,5 G regime from.

Long story short. Dont try to dogfight a DCS F18. Before the AOA 35 -> 55 update you could at least spend all your energy in the inital turn after merge, and shot it in the face. Now it'll even turn around faster to shoot you first. He will always outrate and min radius outturn you every time. Its the plane, not the pilot, Maverick.

 

Edited February 24 by darkman222

[F-2]

Quote

One last anecdote about aircraft configuration versus pilot ability. Fought a slick Block 52 Viper flown by an experienced flight lead the other day in a 2 wet Hornet with a centerline LPOD. Guns only, neither were able to gain a positional advantage but I was able to maintain a -9x LAR for a majority of the fight and had a few snap shot gun employments whereas he did not. It's all about understanding your aircrafts capabilities and your opponents, denying their fight and pushing your own, but also having the ability to do so.

https://www.f-16.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=55&t=58250&start=105
 

from what I gather from this and the GAO report the 402 hornet is similar to the block 52 in terms of its traditional dogfighting performance but has its high AoA capabilities. Block 50 is a bit better then the 52 in this regard but probably not nearly enough to overcome the high AoA advantage. 
 

it seems the hornets high AoA is no joke

 

I recall but can’t remember where a Raptor pilot called the 402 Hornet the toughest opponent in BFM

[darkman222]

If the high AOA capabilities would not be realistic ED would not have implemented them.

G modelling plays into the hands of a 1C fighter in DCS. If you want to pull a bandit in the HUD in the F16 the pilot blacks out.

If you end up behind the F18, then they will just jink you slow and then pull. You wont hit them while jinking. Worse is if a desync component comes into play, your chances to get a hit is even worse. Then youre slow, by trying to get a hit, and he is slow. And youre in his gameplay already because you cant speed up quick enough.

Even if. With the excess thrust the LOT20 has, you dont have an acceleration advantage in the F16. Said simple. The the excess thrust does not punish the F18 to spend energy. Even the F15 gets stuck when its bled all his energy. The F18 has an advantage over all fighters in DCS. Its the best aircraft not to learn BFM in (aka flight control, flight control !)

 

 

Edited February 24 by darkman222

[The_Tau]

On 2/24/2024 at 10:56 AM, darkman222 said:

 I am wondering how many LOT20 F18 were actually produced.

Apparently just 10 made

 

[darkman222]

2 hours ago, The_Tau said:

Apparently just 10 made

Thanks. And thats the point. So you have the 10 overpowered unicorn F18 world wide vs a mass produced F16 Block 50. Quite sure that these two aircraft types did not see a lot of dogfights against each other in real life. 

[Selliese]

1 час назад, darkman222 сказал:

Thanks. And thats the point. So you have the 10 overpowered unicorn F18 world wide vs a mass produced F16 Block 50. Quite sure that these two aircraft types did not see a lot of dogfights against each other in real life. 

Цитата

Lot 15.
Blocks 38, 39 and 40.
Delivered in FY93, the Lot XV series F/A-18 integrated an
enhanced engine into the airframe. The F404-GE-400 Power Plant was replaced by the F404-
GE-402 EPE. The new engine provided increased power, coupled with reduced fuel
consumption. Additionally, the XN-8 Mission Computer and the 91 series Operational Flight
Program (OFP) were introduced.

 

[Glide]

On 2/26/2024 at 3:13 AM, darkman222 said:

Thanks. And thats the point. So you have the 10 overpowered unicorn F18 world wide vs a mass produced F16 Block 50. Quite sure that these two aircraft types did not see a lot of dogfights against each other in real life. 

Now I have a mission to build!  Thanks!  I fly the Viper into a dogfight with AB on around 25000.  This gives me high rates for a good few minutes down to 5000 lbs of fuel.  Surviving the first few minutes is critical against a twin engine.  Ride that afterburner folks.  It's a ton of fun now.

Update: I made my usual 8v8 guns only dogfight, me with 6 9x's, and we wiped them out very quickly  6 for 6 with the sidewinders.  They don't have the same rate of chaff/flair dispensing that the Mig-29s have.  I'll test a few more times.  I know this is not strictly Viper performance related, but I did not feel threatened by the Hornet AI's the way I fear the Mig-29s.  They weren't even in the fight.

Edited March 5 by Glide
update

[GGTharos]

On 2/26/2024 at 6:13 AM, darkman222 said:

Thanks. And thats the point. So you have the 10 overpowered unicorn F18 world wide vs a mass produced F16 Block 50. Quite sure that these two aircraft types did not see a lot of dogfights against each other in real life. 

F-18Cs were getting delivered with the EPE since lot 15 IIRC, so I don't see the unicorn thing.

[MTM]

I love the viper, but like the OP I'm not having much success dogfighting with it. 

For practice, I set up a head-to-head guns only fight with an AI MiG-29A. Both aircraft clean (except pylons) with full internal fuel. Merge at about 15k feet. Keep the fight 2 circle. The fight always ends up on the deck. I try to stay 420-440 knots which ends up being about 7G sustained. And the fulcrum ALWAYS out-rate's me. A sustained turn fight on the deck is where the viper shines, isn't it?! I've tried it at higher speeds. Lower speeds. Offset the circle. Doesn't matter. The fulcrum always wins the 2 circle fight unless it flames out first.  

Those of you who have mastered dogfighting in the viper, what's going on here? Analyzing the replay in Tacview, I noticed I'll get to 20-21 dgr per sec turn rate, but only for a few seconds. My sustained turns are usually more like 17-18. Am I not fully maximizing the viper's turn performance? 

Any thought's you guys have would be appreciated. I've read all the previous posts in this thread and there's definitely some great advice being shared. All very helpful! But I'm still getting smoked by the Fulcrum. I love the viper and I'm not giving up on her... yet.

[Glide]

You want to ride the afterburners at about 25000 pph to keep your rates up.  You have about 5 minutes at this rate before you need to cut back to full mil power.  Still, they will  outrate you every time.  Try against an AI Viper to see if you can keep up with a single engine.

[Raven (Elysian Angel)]

You can't really judge a player-controlled aircraft by dogfighting against AI, because of the current state of said AI. The GFM should improve things dramatically in that regard.

[MTM]

Just sparred with an AI viper and it took a full four minutes but I won the 2 circle and gunned it down. I'm satisfied. The AI Fulcrum cheats. Hopefully when the full fidelity Fulcrum is released, that won't be a problem anymore.

[NineLine]

4 hours ago, MTM said:

I love the viper, but like the OP I'm not having much success dogfighting with it. 

For practice, I set up a head-to-head guns only fight with an AI MiG-29A. Both aircraft clean (except pylons) with full internal fuel. Merge at about 15k feet. Keep the fight 2 circle. The fight always ends up on the deck. I try to stay 420-440 knots which ends up being about 7G sustained. And the fulcrum ALWAYS out-rate's me. A sustained turn fight on the deck is where the viper shines, isn't it?! I've tried it at higher speeds. Lower speeds. Offset the circle. Doesn't matter. The fulcrum always wins the 2 circle fight unless it flames out first.  

Those of you who have mastered dogfighting in the viper, what's going on here? Analyzing the replay in Tacview, I noticed I'll get to 20-21 dgr per sec turn rate, but only for a few seconds. My sustained turns are usually more like 17-18. Am I not fully maximizing the viper's turn performance? 

Any thought's you guys have would be appreciated. I've read all the previous posts in this thread and there's definitely some great advice being shared. All very helpful! But I'm still getting smoked by the Fulcrum. I love the viper and I'm not giving up on her... yet.

Always good to include a track. Best way to get input on what might be going on 

[MTM]

Many thanks, Nineline. Track file attached. 

Notice, for the last 20 seconds, I'm right at corner speed, but the fulcrum is consistently outrating me by at least 1 dgr per sec. 

Any chance you can upload a track of your own to show me the right way to do it?

F-16C vs MiG-29A.trk

[BIGNEWY]

Thanks for the track.

It helps us diagnose your report. As you can see in the attached track, we don’t see any bug, the F-16 will certainly outrate the MiG-29 in a Ps fight when correctly flown. Based on your track, you started at 100% internal fuel, and you were not very efficient in your airspeed control to maximize sustained turn rate. It’s important to understand the relationship between altitude, airspeed and gross weight in such a fight, and also remember that the MiG-29 is hardly a slouch in a sustained-rate fight.

thank you 

18-FF-Not-Errortrk.trk

[MTM]

Thanks BN. I appreciate you taking the time to look at it. I know I didn't hold corner speed until the end of my track. I wanted to hurry up and get the fight down low without the track being too long. 

All things being equal, it sounds like the lesson here is don't take 7,000 lbs of gas into a gunfight with a Fulcrum. And I suppose that's not a realistic scenario in real life anyway. External tanks will likely be dry well before the viper gets to the fight. 

Nice flying by the way!

[BIGNEWY]

32 minutes ago, MTM said:

Thanks BN. I appreciate you taking the time to look at it. I know I didn't hold corner speed until the end of my track. I wanted to hurry up and get the fight down low without the track being too long. 

All things being equal, it sounds like the lesson here is don't take 7,000 lbs of gas into a gunfight with a Fulcrum. And I suppose that's not a realistic scenario in real life anyway. External tanks will likely be dry well before the viper gets to the fight. 

Nice flying by the way!

No problem, but it's not just that, you should not expect 9G and a great sustained turn rate until at a lower altitude. This all comes with practice and we get to have fun doing it in DCS.  

[darkman222]

The thing is that its not just about rating around a bandit for 3 minutes and flying a nice air show. All of the tracks of the fights above wether its a kill or not took way too long. If there were other aircraft around you would not have the time for 8 or more circles. Especially a human opponent would not wait patiently for you to outrate him.

If 7000 lbs of fuel in a dogfight is realistic or not. You decide. You came from a ground strike with 3 bags. Get ambushed. Punch your tanks. Now youre in a dogfight with 7000 lbs of fuel. Totally realistic. Would you decide to fight or to bug out? Possibly bug out. Thats also realistic. Not to choose to fight. If you decide to fight, be aware of that an F16 with full tanks needs a higher speed for optimal rate performance (460 kts) than a 3000 lbs fuel F16 Bignewy flew ( 420 kts).

You also need to consider when to spend your energy. If youre just rating, it will take for ever. You need to use the speed and bleed it down to bring the nose on the bandit. That would have saved a lot of time. But currently in the G modelling you cant do that. If you rate around a bandit your pilot is way too exhausted to withstand the final pull to get the bandit in the HUD. So you have to rate around just endlessly as you cant pull him in the HUD exchanging speed for nose position.

Also I noticed both of you did that with G effects off. Try it with g effects on. Like it is on public servers. Thats a whole new level now riding on the edge of conciousness

 

 

Edited March 18 by darkman222

[darkman222]

@MTM Although you can outrate the Mig as  @BIGNEWYshowed, it took him 5,5 circles and 2 minutes to get into the control zone. You want to kill as quick as possible and not to be proud to maintain the perfect rate speed all the time until the wingman of the Mig killed you with a heater while you were doing your airshow.

If you start with excess speed, climb, bleed the speed down to gain angles, then speed up again, and repeat: You can do it in 44 seconds for the first shot opportunity and you can be in his control zone after 3,5 circles or 1:20 minutes. Thats 40 seconds less for his wingman to potentially shoot you. But only if you DISABLE G effects.

You can watch the tacview the track file creates and count the completed circles in each engagement. And watch the control indicator in the video how often I just go for full stick aft bleeding down my speed to gain angles.

The thing why I am saying this is because people have the impression that the F16 is a bad dogfighter. This is not necessarly the case. The DCS pilot is bad and blacks out after a few seconds. So the only thing that remains as gameplan is to fly at rate speed not exceeding 8G to keep the DCS pilot awake. This thread is about the DCS F16 performance in dogfight. And if the pilot is the limiting factor for a jet that was designed to pull 9G with a reclined seat, I find it totally legit to bring the g modelling into this discussion... again. It is being worked on, I know. And in the respective threads there are documents that state that an F16 pilot needs to be certified for at least 15 seconds of 9G tolerance. If not even 30 seconds. How should you fly and win in a jet as it was designed to be flown with that limitation created by the DCS pilot.

 

kill no sustained turning3.trk

Edited March 18 by darkman222

[BIGNEWY]

Hi Darkman 

the threads topic is about the F-16 not being able to outrate the MiG-29, not how to BFM with the F-16. The F-16 will certainly outrate the MiG-29 in a Ps fight when correctly flown. 

thank you 

[MTM]

@darkman222 Watched your YouTube vid (and gave it a ). I’ll download the track when I get home this evening. Thanks for sharing!

[darkman222]

The topic is  "F16 performance in dogfight" and initially it was asked about outrating an F18. To which the answer is simple. You just cant outrate a player flown F18 in an F16 in DCS. About the question @MTMbrought up later in the discussion, outrating a Mig29 but not being able to sustain 21 degrees per seconds is related to when to utilize the max turn performance that is only available pulling 9G which is of course not sustainable in the F16. To make it clear to @MTM.

Thats what my video should illustrate. You need to use the 21 degrees per second under 9G at certain points in the engagement for a certain amount of time. Which was a maximum of 13 seconds in the test I did. Just to compare it to the requested minimum of 15 seconds 9G tolerance for the DCS pilot which make total sense in watching my engagement flown with G effects off. This is even more important against an F18 that you cant outrate. When people talk about dogfight performance its just not only sustained turnrate that counts. I am pretty sure the OP is also happy if someone tells him not to just lock the stick at max sustained turn rate and wait.

Edited March 18 by darkman222