w.i.p. Flight Model Overperformance

[nikoel]

51 minutes ago, Figaro9 said:

Oh boy, what a mess.

Nikoel started this topic / bug report. With an EM Sketch which cannot be verified due to lack of very basic information.
In the meantime, this chart seems to have disappeared. How do you think this should be verified?

And then he came up with cl’s em-chart. Do they proof the edf18 fm wrong? Nope. It doesn’t even compare edf18 to rw f18.

Others chimed in, some telling nonsense. 
HWasp finally confirmed with accurate tests that the edf18 and edf16 do have a max str within 0.5dps under same conditions at sl. Kind of proofing the withdrawn op em-sketch wrong… kind of confirming wilbur.

It is going to be hard to verify, even more change the fm based on th change the fm based on that i guess.

Just wanted to quickly chime in, I don’t know what happened to the chart in post one. For me the image tries to load but doesnt. For the record I haven’t deleted it

The figures I’ve read 19.#’ for Viper at 9.3G’s. @HWasp did your model begin to GLOC?

Hornet is 21’ - so that’s close two degrees per second, not 0.5. @HWasp was this at 380, or the spicy 400ish? At 7.5 it gets difficult as the speed can runaway from you but that’s where the max performance is for me when I tested it a few weeks ago
 

Similar to what was mentioned in my post, the video I posted and the graphs by contact light and what other users confirmed too

It is true I opened myself up to criticism, some more earned than others. It’s a shame that something that I perceived as obvious and common knowledge took so long to prove. In my defence I wanted to present evidence/arguments without getting anyone in trouble.

So what we have to go off are the interviews which mostly say the same thing as Wilbur’s post and the aerobatic videos to late 90’s metal music. My personal conversations with pilots who have flown in the military have concurred all this too, but this “just trust me bro” argument can only go so far especially second hand 

What we have proven is this is not currently the case in DCS. The only way to get close to this condition is by artificially fattening up the hornet and putting the fighting falcon on a diet

Now some do think that F/A-18C can confidently out-rate the Block 50 Viper in real life with equal fuel endurance. I’ve been lead to believe that this is not the case in real life 

My intention was to see if devs wanted to revisit and continue developing the flight model and present arguments with whatever limited information we had and allowed to disclose

Hope that all makes sense 

Edited June 28, 2024 by nikoel

[Cab]

57 minutes ago, Cab said:

Thanks for taking the time to do that. What STR did you get for the Hornet?

Okay, great. That's all I was curious about: STR without the paddle anywhere in the turn.

 

Thanks again

[HWasp]

27 minutes ago, nikoel said:

Just wanted to quickly chime in, I don’t know what happened to the chart in post one. For me the image tries to load but doesnt. For the record I haven’t deleted it

The figures I’ve read 19.#’ for Viper at 9.3G’s. @HWasp did your model begin to GLOC?

Hornet is 21’ - so that’s close two degrees per second, not 0.5. @HWasp was this at 380, or the spicy 400ish? At 7.5 it gets difficult as the speed can runaway from you but that’s where the max performance is for me when I tested it a few weeks ago
 

Similar to what was mentioned in my post, the video I posted and the graphs by contact light and what other users confirmed too

It is true I opened myself up for criticism, some more earned than others and it’s a shame that something that is obvious and common knowledge took so long to prove. In my defence I wanted to present as much evidence possible without getting anyone in trouble.

So what we have to go off are the interviews which mostly say the same thing as Wilbur’s post and the aerobatic videos to late 90’s metal music. My personal conversations with pilots who have flown in the military have concurred all this too, but this “just trust me bro” argument can only go so far especially second hand 

What we have proven is this is not currently the case in DCS. The only way to get close to this condition is by artificially fattening up the hornet and putting the fighting falcon on a diet

My intention was to see if devs wanted to revisit and continue developing the flight model and present arguments with whatever limited information we had and allowed to disclose

Hope that all makes sense 

 

 

I turned off G modeling, it would be miserable to test this otherwise, also fuel is set to unlimited to give me time to do the same exact circle over and over again, with the exact same weight.

[HWasp]

1 hour ago, Figaro9 said:

Oh boy, what a mess.

Nikoel started this topic / bug report. With an EM Sketch which cannot be verified due to lack of very basic information.
In the meantime, this chart seems to have disappeared. How do you think this should be verified?

And then he came up with cl’s em-chart. Do they proof the edf18 fm wrong? Nope. It doesn’t even compare edf18 to rw f18.

Others chimed in, some telling nonsense. 
HWasp finally confirmed with accurate tests that the edf18 and edf16 do have a max str within 0.5dps under same conditions at sl. Kind of proofing the withdrawn op em-sketch wrong… kind of confirming wilbur.

It is going to be hard to verify, even more change the fm based on that i guess.

 

Big mess, as always...

I think, it's important to note, that with the usual dogfight server setup, where fuel is set to give 5 minutes of AB time, people will start with a 83% F-16 against a 50% F-18, that is why Contactlight's F-16 chart is set for that weight, so people will experience a 19dps F-16 against a 21 dps F-18 in practice in DCS intially.

Both at 50%, STR is close indeed. It's important to note though, that the F-16 does not get the advantage at any point afaik. If we take the text quoted by Wilbur as a datapoint, we'd need to see the F-16 ahead somewhere a little bit, in my opinion.

[wilbur81]

Fellas, just to be clear: That 'peek into the vault' anecdote sent to me that was shared was courtesy of one of our DCS closed beta testers here in these forums. He's not a "Hornet-Driver-Forum" guy, but a Viper guy in DCS...according to the threads he does comment on. His story is courtesy of a friend of his in the fighter community who has classified clearance, so he's just another real world voice (take him or leave him) saying that the blk50 and lot20 aircraft are nearly identical when it comes to this very flat performance conversation. All of the Tacview tests in this thread basically support that...

I tend to agree with Darkman's comments above...What's going on during crazy BFM takes us into a different realm than mere turn circles and flat rate performance (one of the points made in that Vault anecdote). Chuck Magill goes into this more dynamic exploitation of the Hornet here in this video clip on BFM in the F/A-18A (he mentions a 20+ deg turn rate in the Hornet...if flown 'right'):

 

 

Edited June 29, 2024 by wilbur81

[HWasp]

4 hours ago, wilbur81 said:

All of the Tacview tests in this thread basically support that...

 

Yes it's close, but "anecdote" clearly states, that the F-16 has the slight advantage. That does not happen in DCS, so we can't call it perfect just based on that.

"Clean vs clean, and we just have a very small advantage in the F-16."

"Both Clean wing, and they are virtually the same with a slight advantage to the F-16."

This is not the case in DCS. If the F-16 had that little +0,5 dps at some point, then we could say case closed.

 

Edited June 29, 2024 by HWasp

[HWasp]

What is the situation with the F-18's fuel burn review? There was a thread, already closed about that topic, but it looks like, it's not fixed yet.

 

I've just tested it in DCS at around 360 kts (just because it works for both jets):

The F-18 burns around 64000 lbs/h there in full AB (total) while the F-16 burns around 68000 lbs/h

So:

F-18 -- (total static thrust : ~157 kN)   ---- fuel flow: 64000/h

F-16-- (total static thrust : ~131 kN)    ---- fuel flow: 68000/h

 

This looks like unrelated, but it is not, because this has an effect on the starting fuel requirements and therefore weight. So this is very much connected to the bfm experience in DCS in practice.

 

[ChaosRifle]

As for the government accountability office numbers on the F-18C, assuming the numbers published are in fact correct - they state their test conditions as 2x aim9, 2x amraam, and no bags. they do not mention pylons.. @nikoel's EM chart shows a clean F-18 with presumably no stores, weighing in at only 14176kg. A hornet, as tested by the claimed accountability numbers, actually weighs at least 15022.98kg without pylons, and with all pylons, would be 15648.94kg... thats ~847kg - ~1473kg... You are saying that the numbers should match for a jet that is 850-1500kg heavier than your data from DCS. The lighter jet SHOULD be better performing than that data, because it is lighter. Substantially lighter. I am not ruling out that it may deviate from real numbers, but given the deviation here is only 1.7 (using the 20.9 of contacts chart) degrees per second, for a jet that is substantially lighter weight, I am going to call this pretty much correct for being bang on the numbers of the GAO. That sounds pretty much perfect to me, given the huge weight discrepancy of the comparison.

I would like to see an EM diagram for a hornet tested at the same weight as the GAO data, with the same barometric pressure and same drag. Anyone got a script floating around for generating them easily?  This provided data is *NOT* apples to apples.

[HWasp]

4 hours ago, ChaosRifle said:

As for the government accountability office numbers on the F-18C, assuming the numbers published are in fact correct - they state their test conditions as 2x aim9, 2x amraam, and no bags. they do not mention pylons.. @nikoel's EM chart shows a clean F-18 with presumably no stores, weighing in at only 14176kg. A hornet, as tested by the claimed accountability numbers, actually weighs at least 15022.98kg without pylons, and with all pylons, would be 15648.94kg... thats ~847kg - ~1473kg... You are saying that the numbers should match for a jet that is 850-1500kg heavier than your data from DCS. The lighter jet SHOULD be better performing than that data, because it is lighter. Substantially lighter. I am not ruling out that it may deviate from real numbers, but given the deviation here is only 1.7 (using the 20.9 of contacts chart) degrees per second, for a jet that is substantially lighter weight, I am going to call this pretty much correct for being bang on the numbers of the GAO. That sounds pretty much perfect to me, given the huge weight discrepancy of the comparison.

I would like to see an EM diagram for a hornet tested at the same weight as the GAO data, with the same barometric pressure and same drag. Anyone got a script floating around for generating them easily?  This provided data is *NOT* apples to apples.

 

In GAO config (60%fuel, 2xaim-9m, 2xaim-120b) I'm getting 19,8 dps at 405.

That's 0,6 above the published data. (19,2)

Tacview-20240629-182709-DCS-F_18_STR_GAO_405_2.trk.zip.acmi F_18_STR_GAO_405_2.trk

[Wizard_03]

11 hours ago, HWasp said:

 

Yes it's close, but "anecdote" clearly states, that the F-16 has the slight advantage. That does not happen in DCS, so we can't call it perfect just based on that.

"Clean vs clean, and we just have a very small advantage in the F-16."

"Both Clean wing, and they are virtually the same with a slight advantage to the F-16."

This is not the case in DCS. If the F-16 had that little +0,5 dps at some point, then we could say case closed.

 

 

Which F-16 is this anecdotal quote referring too? 

[Stackhouse]

12 hours ago, HWasp said:

 

Yes it's close, but "anecdote" clearly states, that the F-16 has the slight advantage. That does not happen in DCS, so we can't call it perfect just based on that.

"Clean vs clean, and we just have a very small advantage in the F-16."

"Both Clean wing, and they are virtually the same with a slight advantage to the F-16."

This is not the case in DCS. If the F-16 had that little +0,5 dps at some point, then we could say case closed.

 

 

Since out-of-context data keeps being mentioned from the DCS Dogfighter server relating to this topic folks need to take a breath and recognize that the setups that are in 99% of Contact Lights diagrams are *not* reflective of setups that real world pilots were using at the time that they had in their own 16 v 18 setups.

 

If you'd like to have an experience which typically aligns quite well with real world anecdote there are two arenas on Mobettas DCS Dogfighter server that will help with that. There is a 'Mil-Sim' arena where we took a loadout from a real world 18 buddy and copied a loadout from one of Hasard Lee's videos. If you go into that arena 16 v 18 and request that the 18 pilot not use the paddle you'll find that the match is very very even, if not slightly in favor of the 16.

 

You can also try the 80% fuel match arena which largely eliminates the fuel weight advantage that the 18 typically has in an a/b time balanced arena. (but in this arena each wing will be clean). Still, it's a close fight if the 18 is not paddling.

 

For most of the people arguing here I'd say the milsim arena will suit you fine and you'll realize that ED has gotten it far far closer than not.

[wilbur81]

34 minutes ago, Stackhouse said:

There is a 'Mil-Sim' arena where we took a loadout from a real world 18 buddy and copied a loadout from one of Hasard Lee's videos. If you go into that arena 16 v 18 and request that the 18 pilot not use the paddle you'll find that the match is very very even, if not slightly in favor of the 16.

You can also try the 80% fuel match arena which largely eliminates the fuel weight advantage that the 18 typically has in an a/b time balanced arena. (but in this arena each wing will be clean). Still, it's a close fight if the 18 is not paddling.

For most of the people arguing here I'd say the milsim arena will suit you fine and you'll realize that ED has gotten it far far closer than not.

Thanks, Stackhouse. 

1 hour ago, Wizard_03 said:

Which F-16 is this anecdotal quote referring too? 

Block 50 that we have simulated in DCS. 

[HWasp]

16 hours ago, Stackhouse said:

Since out-of-context data keeps being mentioned from the DCS Dogfighter server relating to this topic folks need to take a breath and recognize that the setups that are in 99% of Contact Lights diagrams are *not* reflective of setups that real world pilots were using at the time that they had in their own 16 v 18 setups.

 

If you'd like to have an experience which typically aligns quite well with real world anecdote there are two arenas on Mobettas DCS Dogfighter server that will help with that. There is a 'Mil-Sim' arena where we took a loadout from a real world 18 buddy and copied a loadout from one of Hasard Lee's videos. If you go into that arena 16 v 18 and request that the 18 pilot not use the paddle you'll find that the match is very very even, if not slightly in favor of the 16.

 

You can also try the 80% fuel match arena which largely eliminates the fuel weight advantage that the 18 typically has in an a/b time balanced arena. (but in this arena each wing will be clean). Still, it's a close fight if the 18 is not paddling.

 

For most of the people arguing here I'd say the milsim arena will suit you fine and you'll realize that ED has gotten it far far closer than not.

That's understood, thanks.

Just to avoid any possible confusion, that last post was based on my own test submitted here previously, at equal fuel levels (both at 50%), not based on Contact Light's work.

I think ED-F-18 vs ED-F-16 basic performance in-game should not be up for debate, that is something we just need to test with reasonble accuracy, and that's it.