F-14B(?) Upgrade as featured in DCS 2025 video

[TomcatFan1976]

I'd just be happy with a Phoenix that can actually track something once and a better Jester that does what he's suppose to do....

[RustBelt]

Phoenix is all on ED. 

[VR Flight Guy in PJ Pants]

13 hours ago, TomcatFan1976 said:

I'd just be happy with a Phoenix that can actually track something once and a better Jester that does what he's suppose to do....

Humm...

 

Edited January 19 by VR Flight Guy in PJ Pants

[Spino]

Based on my information it should be able to hit things at low altitude.  One of its intended targets was cruise missiles (although ideally it would be used to shoot down the bombers carrying said cruise missiles before they could launch).

[scommander2]

On 1/18/2025 at 7:53 PM, RustBelt said:

Phoenix is all on ED. 

Indeed, the work has landed on ED according to HB:

I have no confirmation from ED that the task has been completed. Even the most recent change log mentioned AIM-54C fix in:

https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/news/changelog/release/2.9.8.1107/

for:

- Weapons. AIM-54C does not reacquire lock to target if lost while active - fixed.

 

[draconus]

On 1/18/2025 at 8:23 PM, TomcatFan1976 said:

a Phoenix that can actually track something once and a better Jester that does what he's suppose to do

Works fine here so a bit more detailed report is needed.

[RustBelt]

On 1/20/2025 at 10:25 PM, scommander2 said:

Indeed, the work has landed on ED according to HB:

I have no confirmation from ED that the task has been completed. Even the most recent change log mentioned AIM-54C fix in:

https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/news/changelog/release/2.9.8.1107/

for:

- Weapons. AIM-54C does not reacquire lock to target if lost while active - fixed.

 

I mean, you never will until it shows up on the changelog. Unless you speak Russian and can talk to the actual Devs, not the go betweens stuck in the middle. 

[scommander2]

35 minutes ago, RustBelt said:

I mean, you never will until it shows up on the changelog.

Yup and I agree with 100%.

[Horns]

On 1/19/2025 at 3:23 AM, TomcatFan1976 said:

I'd just be happy with a Phoenix that can actually track something once and a better Jester that does what he's suppose to do....

 

On 1/19/2025 at 4:45 PM, VR Flight Guy in PJ Pants said:

Humm...

 

Dear ED: Regardless of whether the AIM-54 can or cannot hit low altitude targets, you're doin' it wrong 

[mcfleck]

Actually now that ED is creating the F-35, the argument about the Iranians having tomcats in their arsenal and little avaliable information is not holding up anymore.
Just make things up straight from thin air and hearsay. Heck, what does even hinder you from crating the super tomcat? *sarcasm off*

[Dragon1-1]

Luckily, HB is not ED, they had always had higher fidelity standards than ED did. We may not get the AWG-71, but we know that what we do get is premium quality.

For what it's worth, the argument about Iranians is what the US government says to, or used to say to, anyone asking questions about the Tomcat. That said, AFAIK even the Iranians aren't flying the Tomcat anymore, so I don't know how it is now, but the Pentagon bureaucracy isn't exactly known for its responsiveness (though it might be worth shooting them some FOIA requests, just to see what they'll now say).

That said, I think we've got another way around all the secrecy problems. Just get Musk hooked on DCS and soon we'll be swimming in formerly classified aircraft documentation. Either that, or he gets shot trying to muscle in on some secret squirrels. I can see no downside to this solution.  

[Horns]

5 hours ago, Dragon1-1 said:

Luckily, HB is not ED, they had always had higher fidelity standards than ED did. We may not get the AWG-71, but we know that what we do get is premium quality.

For what it's worth, the argument about Iranians is what the US government says to, or used to say to, anyone asking questions about the Tomcat. That said, AFAIK even the Iranians aren't flying the Tomcat anymore, so I don't know how it is now, but the Pentagon bureaucracy isn't exactly known for its responsiveness (though it might be worth shooting them some FOIA requests, just to see what they'll now say).

That said, I think we've got another way around all the secrecy problems. Just get Musk hooked on DCS and soon we'll be swimming in formerly classified aircraft documentation. Either that, or he gets shot trying to muscle in on some secret squirrels. I can see no downside to this solution.  

Maybe we should release a Ukraine map, complete with biolab

[mcfleck]

Luckily, HB is not ED, they had always had higher fidelity standards than ED did. We may not get the AWG-71, but we know that what we do get is premium quality.
For what it's worth, the argument about Iranians is what the US government says to, or used to say to, anyone asking questions about the Tomcat. That said, AFAIK even the Iranians aren't flying the Tomcat anymore, so I don't know how it is now, but the Pentagon bureaucracy isn't exactly known for its responsiveness (though it might be worth shooting them some FOIA requests, just to see what they'll now say).
That said, I think we've got another way around all the secrecy problems. Just get Musk hooked on DCS and soon we'll be swimming in formerly classified aircraft documentation. Either that, or he gets shot trying to muscle in on some secret squirrels. I can see no downside to this solution.  

Do you REALLY think, that ED asked the US government if they could create the most advanced and still HIGHLY classified plane like the F-35 and the government would freely say "sure, why not", while when HB asked them about a plane from the 80ies they would answer with "hold your horses... There are maybe still a couple of F14A somewhere in the desert and after half a century in service we don't want Iran to get ideas from a commercial game/sim and try to retrofit some mid 90ies tech into their historic planes"?

Really? They seem to be contacting two entirely different departments as it seems.

The F-35 underlies ITAR regulations. Even the construction company that is building the hangars outside of the US for this plane has to be picked/agreed upon by the US government (just to be clear: in a FOREIGN country, that has bought the plane and is about to introduce it)

I just see two extremes while talking about this topic. If I absolutely had to pick one of the two, I would rather prefer the HB way.
But to be honest I think the best solution to problems in general is finding a a good balance between the extremes.

Do we really NEED to have the specific radar frequency, scanrate, pulse modulation, jam resistance, side lobe surpression/cancelation algorithms for the AWG in the game?
Certain things can be approximated and guesstimated. No one (except for the ones really flown the plane) will know the difference.
I mean the EF will also be redacted in all sensitive areas and no one will care, or or rather be glad to have it.

Would I love to see the F14-B(U) or even better the D? HELL YEA. Insta buy for me! If rhe B(U) comes as a free addon even better, as I already love my tomcat.

Would I buy the Super Tomcat 21? Probably not... But that is just my opinion. If the market is big enough for the DCS X-Wing, ED or whoever wants to shell develop it, as long as it does not have a negative impact on the "core" development.

[Dragon1-1]

Just now, mcfleck said:

Do you REALLY think, that ED asked the US government if they could create the most advanced and still HIGHLY classified plane like the F-35 and the government would freely say "sure, why not", while when HB asked them about a plane from the 80ies they would answer with "hold your horses... There are maybe still a couple of F14A somewhere in the desert and after half a century in service we don't want Iran to get ideas from a commercial game/sim and try to retrofit some mid 90ies tech into their historic planes"?

That's exactly what happened. It's as stupid as it sounds, and multiple people admitted that, but that's US government policy for you. A lot of F-14 material, including spare parts and potential museum exhibits, was destroyed rather than risk them possibly ending up in Iran. This particularly applies to anything related to F-14D. The lengths the US government went to prevent anything F-14 related from getting anywhere near Iran are downright comical. For instance, they removed the PTID and radar scope from an F-14 exhibit because they were "sensitive material" (despite the fact if Iran wanted a better display, they could've bought one on Aliexpress at that point).

Some of that could be people in the government being butthurt about the USN's most iconic jet being flown by its sworn enemies, ones who hate the US largely because of CIA's meddling, to boot. Thankfully, this is a unique situation, other US foreign policy failures didn't end up with their enemies getting their hands on their most advanced combat jet.

2 minutes ago, mcfleck said:

I just see two extremes while talking about this topic. 

Breaking news: government policy is inconsistent, nonsensical and/or just plain stupid. Film at 11.

20 minutes ago, mcfleck said:

Do we really NEED to have the specific radar frequency, scanrate, pulse modulation, jam resistance, side lobe surpression/cancelation algorithms for the AWG in the game?
Certain things can be approximated and guesstimated. No one (except for the ones really flown the plane) will know the difference.
I mean the EF will also be redacted in all sensitive areas and no one will care, or or rather be glad to have it.

I think the issue might actually by the SAR mode. Two F-14Ds can combine their radars to form a single, enormous antenna, and the range on that is huge. The whole point is to deny everyone (not just HB) the ability to guesstimate real capabilities of the AWG-71. 

Also note, the real problem is that this information will be in technical docs for the radar, which is also where you'd find all the other juicy details. Sure, the government could redact the docs and only give HB parts that are not sensitive... or they could just blanket-deny the whole thing. Guess what is easier to do for pen pushers at the DOD? 

[Hatman335]

5 hours ago, Dragon1-1 said:

I think the issue might actually by the SAR mode. Two F-14Ds can combine their radars to form a single, enormous antenna, and the range on that is huge. The whole point is to deny everyone (not just HB) the ability to guesstimate real capabilities of the AWG-71. 

 

Have you actually read the response to the FOIA request pertaining the D manual supplement?

[Dragon1-1]

Actually, at one point I did, but I don't remember what it said, just that they weren't particularly open to releasing anything from the supplement. It was a while ago, at any rate, Iran's Tomcats were still flying then. I don't remember where, but I do recall the SAR mode being, at one point, singled out as a feature of AWG-71 that complicates its declassification.

Edited February 7 by Dragon1-1

[RustBelt]

All that effort, and parts still got shipped to Iran from the US. You can’t stop a black market. 

[Dragon1-1]

The real reason why it's stupid is a (quite frankly, bigoted) presumption that the Iranians would be unable to work those things out themselves, which is exactly what they did. They got some parts from the US, yes, but they also reverse-engineered the jets and made their own modifications. They didn't really need samples of fancy US tech to come up with their own solutions, and they certainly had little use for 30 year old US tech, but the US government and tech companies have a habit of not giving enough credit to anyone who isn't them (and then they act surprised when they see Russian satellites, Japanese cars, Korean TVs, Chinese AI...).

[JupiterJoe]

They certainly did an incredible job keeping those jets flying all this time.  The F-14 was notoriously maintenance heavy.  It's no wonder the US defence budget is so big when they're so wasteful.

Edited February 12 by JupiterJoe

[RustBelt]

1 hour ago, JupiterJoe said:

They certainly did an incredible job keeping those jets flying all this time.  The F-14 was notoriously maintenance heavy.  It's no wonder the US defence budget is so big when they're so wasteful.

They also have different use cases that help that. Land based operations, No actual fighting since the Iran/Iraq war, they had time to sit with busted airframes as they had other patrol capable aircraft, and they babied them like a classic car to save the wing pass through box. 
 

Aside from the spar box and the elevators, it’s all just metal and bits and such. I think it’s more that we didn’t want to politically look bad if a paper trail showed our “sworn enemy”(whatever) was breaking our virile and powerful embargo. I’m sure anyone competent at the DoD knows they can make their own stuff. But politically we didn’t want to look weak.

 Which was what made it all the funnier that they WERE still getting parts smuggled in from both our side by people who “shouldn’t” have been, and the USSR. 

[Rhrich]

23 hours ago, RustBelt said:

They also have different use cases that help that. Land based operations, No actual fighting since the Iran/Iraq war, they had time to sit with busted airframes as they had other patrol capable aircraft, and they babied them like a classic car to save the wing pass through box. 

This is very important. 
Yes, compared to todays planes with easy two screw panels the Tomcat requires more man hours, but those of us who where active in military aviation in the 70s and got to chat with USN personell then will remember that the Tomcat was actually very reliable when new. (I don’t remember numbers, but they where good). 

As a former leisureyachtsman I’m all to familiar with how the sea will destroy everything that isn’t 316. Living in the dry desert I would expect the 50 year old Iranian tomcats to have significantly less wear (from the elements) than the USN jets had when they where 10 years old. 

[RustBelt]

2 hours ago, Rhrich said:

This is very important. 
Yes, compared to todays planes with easy two screw panels the Tomcat requires more man hours, but those of us who where active in military aviation in the 70s and got to chat with USN personell then will remember that the Tomcat was actually very reliable when new. (I don’t remember numbers, but they where good). 

As a former leisureyachtsman I’m all to familiar with how the sea will destroy everything that isn’t 316. Living in the dry desert I would expect the 50 year old Iranian tomcats to have significantly less wear (from the elements) than the USN jets had when they where 10 years old. 

If you look at Iranian airbases on google earth you can definitely see that they leave quite a significant and distinctive leak footprint. All that oil must be good for corrosion prevention. 

[Joe1978]

All variable geometry aircraft are quite complex to sustain and the F14, despite its robustness, is no exception... Even the Mig 23 (much simpler) was a nightmare.

[MAXsenna]

All that effort, and parts still got shipped to Iran from the US. You can’t stop a black market. 

Fell off a truck?

Sent from my SM-A536B using Tapatalk

[RustBelt]

10 hours ago, Joe1978 said:

All variable geometry aircraft are quite complex to sustain and the F14, despite its robustness, is no exception... Even the Mig 23 (much simpler) was a nightmare.

Now, consider this, you're a smaller nation using them basically as a trophy for a war your fathers and grandfathers fought 50 years ago. All they have to do is fly around and look pretty. And compared to a nuclear development program, how much is it really costing them relatively to keep what 16 operating at 50% capacity?