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Mirage Factory F-4G

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Mirage Factory F-4G


This is the latest and greatest high fidelity F-4 by the Mirage Factory. It features improves model and texturing. Vastly improved FM as well. Please make sure you read any readme files included.


 

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Honestly the best Phantom I have ever flown. If anything in the pit changed I don't know becuase I was in aw at the textures and the sound.

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Yes! Finally a G model to fiddle around with! Geat work guys, keep it up :good:!

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This is one beautiful bird, thanks guys.

 

I have a question on the new flight model. It's nice to have an F-4 that departs controlled flight. I believe that the F-4 generally did this while under the influence of adverse yaw at high angles of attack. I.e., if the pilot tried to use ailerons to roll when at high AOA, the aircraft would yaw in the opposite direction and stall/spin. Hence Phantom pilots rolled with the rudder at high AOA. I always thought that TK did a good job with this in SFP1: if you pull lots of G in any of the F-4 models, you get the stall buffet and then the aircraft gradually yaws outside the turn and you have to apply in-turn rudder to keep it going the direction you want (though of course there is no departure). In this F-4G flight model, the departure occurs with an in-turn yaw, and is in fact controllable with out-turn rudder. Isn't this the wrong way around? If so can it be changed?

 

I merely ask as it would be fantastic to have an F-4 that combined departure with adverse yaw.

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Of course it could be changed... I'm not a rhino driver so I have no idea how she's supposed to stall/spin in RL.

But I can try what you describe. Any inputs from F-4 vets we have around are welcome too...

Edited by kreelin

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Thanks Kreelin. As evidence see the following:

 

From the book "Sierra Hotel":

 

http://books.google.com/books?id=3bABwDOEx...IKHKd2khraXq0aI

 

From the Natops manual:

 

http://books.google.com/books?id=oeJuJtjK4...k_mg7wXsMNNPrTg

 

Andy Bush discussed the SFP1 F-4 flight model here: http://www.simhq.com/_air/air_030b.html

 

good info, thanks. TK's flight model was way too easy on the stall spin but without any real rhino drivers it has been difficult to know exactly how to implement this. The stall spin seemed right to me but without any experience in the Phantom its hard to judge. This version does a roll into the stall and tucks in hard which is what has been described to me. If you put aileron in when in the stall the result is quite exciting! Actual recovery technique when under 10k is to pull the yellow striped handle.....

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I don't pretend to be a real anything driver (well OK, BMW), but this is a well-known flight characteristic of at least the hard winged F-4s, i.e. that it should yaw away from the direction of intended roll. So if you have left aileron on in a left hand turn, too much AOA (how much is too much? No idea) will result in a rapid yaw to the right and departure.

 

Now I don't know if the F-4G was hard or slatted wing or a combination depending on model, but I think that a combination of adverse yaw effects and departure would make for a pretty sweet F-4 flight model.

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The addition of slats to the F-4E (which the F-4G was converted from) pretty much eliminated the nasty departure characteristics of the F-4.

It is the primary reason that slats were added.

The enhanced turn performance was a nice secondary gain.

 

With slats, the F-4 could pull a lot more AOA before stalling and had a nice docile mushy stall rather than snapping into a flat spin.

 

The slatted models were: late F-4E (early F-4E was upgraded except for Thunderbirds), F-4F, F-4G, late F-4S.

All others would have the nasty stall/spin behavior with only a modest excursion beyond the safe AOA limit.

 

From the USAF pilot's manual (TO 1F-4E-1):

Accelerated stalls produce only mild to moderate buffet. Wing-rock normally does not occur below 25 units AOA, and often does not occur until reaching 28-30 units AOA. Departures which occur above 30 units tend to be gentle, and are predominately roll rather than yaw. Normal recoveries are positive. Prompt neutralization of controls will generally effect recovery from accelerated stall approaches. Control of angle of attack with stick position is of paramount importance to effect recovery from the stall. Oscillations in roll and yaw which may be present during recovery should be allowed to damp themselves out and should not be coutnered with aileron or rudder.

 

In other words, when you depart, the aircraft pretty much just rolls to one side and if you let go of the stick, it will fix itself. This is quite different from the F-4B/C/D/J which will depart around 25 units AOA by yawing violently and most likely enter into a non-recoverable flat-spin.

 

For those of you have have never heard about it or tried it, I made a very realistic F-4B FM for Strike Fighters Service Pack 2a (SP2a).

My post at the Thirdwire forums contains a link to the file: http://bbs.thirdwire.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=7986#7986

If you make an SFP1 install and patch it up to SP2a, you will get almost exactly the stall behavior from the NATOPs manual.

 

After Wings Over Vietnam came out, SP3 was released, which changed the stall behavior. Most of the my F-4B FM works as originally intended, but accelerated stalls at high speeds will not depart the way they used to. Now you have to bleed your speed down quite a bit to get the aircraft wing rock/yaw behavior that leads to the flat spin. I am hoping that the next service pack/patch brings over the stall/spin code from 1st Eagles and permit me to restore the behavior lost after SP3.

Edited by streakeagle

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The addition of slats to the F-4E (which the F-4G was converted from) pretty much eliminated the nasty departure characteristics of the F-4.

It is the primary reason that slats were added.

The enhanced turn performance was a nice secondary gain.

 

With slats, the F-4 could pull a lot more AOA before stalling and had a nice docile mushy stall rather than snapping into a flat spin.

 

The slatted models were: late F-4E (early F-4E was upgraded except for Thunderbirds), F-4F, F-4G, late F-4S.

All others would have the nasty stall/spin behavior with only a modest excursion beyond the safe AOA limit.

 

From the USAF pilot's manual (TO 1F-4E-1):

Accelerated stalls produce only mild to moderate buffet. Wing-rock normally does not occur below 25 units AOA, and often does not occur until reaching 28-30 units AOA. Departures which occur above 30 units tend to be gentle, and are predominately roll rather than yaw. Normal recoveries are positive. Prompt neutralization of controls will generally effect recovery from accelerated stall approaches. Control of angle of attack with stick position is of paramount importance to effect recovery from the stall. Oscillations in roll and yaw which may be present during recovery should be allowed to damp themselves out and should not be coutnered with aileron or rudder.

 

In other words, when you depart, the aircraft pretty much just rolls to one side and if you let go of the stick, it will fix itself. This is quite different from the F-4B/C/D/J which will depart around 25 units AOA by yawing violently and most likely enter into a non-recoverable flat-spin.

 

For those of you have have never heard about it or tried it, I made a very realistic F-4B FM for Strike Fighters Service Pack 2a (SP2a).

My post at the Thirdwire forums contains a link to the file: http://bbs.thirdwire.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=7986#7986

If you make an SFP1 install and patch it up to SP2a, you will get almost exactly the stall behavior from the NATOPs manual.

 

After Wings Over Vietnam came out, SP3 was released, which changed the stall behavior. Most of the my F-4B FM works as originally intended, but accelerated stalls at high speeds will not depart the way they used to. Now you have to bleed your speed down quite a bit to get the aircraft wing rock/yaw behavior that leads to the flat spin. I am hoping that the next service pack/patch brings over the stall/spin code from 1st Eagles and permit me to restore the behavior lost after SP3.

 

 

I should preface my remarks by saying that I am not a flight model modder like Streakeagle and Kreelin, and I am totally in awe of their work. That said:

 

I was afraid that this discussion would get bogged down in specifics of F-4 models, specifically slatted vs. non-slatted versions. From what you say, Streakeagle, it looks as if Kreelin's current FM is pretty good for a (slatted) F-4G. It departs at about 25 units AOA instead of 30 and it kind of rolls/yaws (barrel rolls?) in the direction of turn (i.e. down). Neutralising controls works initially for recovery, or normal spin recovery procedures of stick forward/opposite rudder seems to work if a spin develops.

 

Trouble is, I believe that all of the F-4 models in the stock game at least are non-slatted and therefore prone to the issues I describe above. Selfishly, I would like someone to develop a flight model that I can paste into the other F-4s that exhibits departure/spin and adverse yaw, so that you have to use rudder to roll as described in practically every pilot's F-4 book. Personally, I am not a stickler for exact performance to the numbers, for a couple of reasons: (1) to the extent that the enemy aircraft are over-modeled, it is frustrating to be held to exact real life standards, and (2) the friendly AI have difficulty flying accurate FMs with stalls/spins as you note in your post Streakeagle.

 

To that extent, Kreelin's work on the F-4G seems great as the wingmen can handle it, and you are not punished too much compared to the Migs. However, this FM seems more appropriate to late F-4 models than the ones that populate the game - which is fine since it is appropriate to the model it has been released with. Selfishly, I would be very grateful if someone who knows what they are doing could make a FM that could be used for the other types of F-4. I realise that waiting for the new service pack makes sense, but seeing as Kreelin has done great work for this release, I wonder how difficult it would be to adapt this FM to model the behaviour of described in the sources above?

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The stock F-4 FMs are generous and forgiving as are the FMs of most stock aircraft.

This was a purposeful choice on the part of TK: make the FMs easy enough for anyone to fly.

At the same time, TK managed to keep a lot of the relative differences between FMs: a MiG-17 will pretty much turn tighter than any plane in the game while heavier aircraft like the F-105 have to rely more an power/speed and less on turn performance.

The main flaw I have found in many of TK's FMs is too high of lift/drag ratios.

Aircraft seem to float quite a bit with idle throttle making landings a bit difficult since the aircraft's sink rate won't drop the way it should as you cut the throttle.

 

The AI has gotten a lot better since I originally made my F-4B FM.

Presently, the AI can fly it fairly well.

TK added an AI FM customization feature that didn't exist when I made the F-4B, so the AI can be "taught" to fly it even better without messing up how they fly the other aircraft in the game.

 

At this point, the main problem with using realistic FMs is that they need to be implemented on every aircraft, or the game becomes very unbalanced.

 

As for stock hard wing F-4s (F-4B/C/D/J/K/M) vs stock slatted F-4s (F-4E), the relative differences between these aircraft are modeled aside from the departure characteristic.

The stock F-4E handles high-aoa hard turning much better and it really shows if you play online MP.

The differences are emphasized even more since the F-4E is not penalized in weight or drag for having an internal gun while all other variants carry a centerline gun pod by default.

 

Generating a realistic FM that has detailed and correct lift and drag characteristics is difficult and time consuming.

Adding stall characteristics is not.

If you can read a text file (which is what the data.ini files are), then you can see the obvious differences between aircraft that stall the way you want and ones that don't.

Stability issues such as how the aircraft repsonds to control inputs as a function of AoA are perhaps the most difficult to model since they partly depend on the lift/drag definitions but also include interaction between other parameters that are not easily estimated or adjusted.

 

Feel free to try FM modding.

If you do so, you will learn a lot about the math that goes into modeling flight and how much potential the SFP1 FM engine has.

You will also learn that the stock FMs aren't so terribly bad and even make a good starting point since TK has already solved most of the stability and control issues, leaving you free to focus on thrust, lift, and drag curves.

Alternatively, you may learn that FM data is incomprehensible to most people without spending a lot of time studying college level material on physics and flight dynamics.

Edited by streakeagle

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adverse yaw was a problem of all "hard-wing" F-4's, the slats ( "soft-wing" F-4's) virtually eliminated adverse yaw.

so the F-4G is correct as it is, it has slats ...

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The stock F-4 FMs are generous and forgiving as are the FMs of most stock aircraft.

This was a purposeful choice on the part of TK: make the FMs easy enough for anyone to fly.

At the same time, TK managed to keep a lot of the relative differences between FMs: a MiG-17 will pretty much turn tighter than any plane in the game while heavier aircraft like the F-105 have to rely more an power/speed and less on turn performance.

The main flaw I have found in many of TK's FMs is too high of lift/drag ratios.

Aircraft seem to float quite a bit with idle throttle making landings a bit difficult since the aircraft's sink rate won't drop the way it should as you cut the throttle.

 

The AI has gotten a lot better since I originally made my F-4B FM.

Presently, the AI can fly it fairly well.

TK added an AI FM customization feature that didn't exist when I made the F-4B, so the AI can be "taught" to fly it even better without messing up how they fly the other aircraft in the game.

 

At this point, the main problem with using realistic FMs is that they need to be implemented on every aircraft, or the game becomes very unbalanced.

 

As for stock hard wing F-4s (F-4B/C/D/J/K/M) vs stock slatted F-4s (F-4E), the relative differences between these aircraft are modeled aside from the departure characteristic.

The stock F-4E handles high-aoa hard turning much better and it really shows if you play online MP.

The differences are emphasized even more since the F-4E is not penalized in weight or drag for having an internal gun while all other variants carry a centerline gun pod by default.

 

Generating a realistic FM that has detailed and correct lift and drag characteristics is difficult and time consuming.

Adding stall characteristics is not.

If you can read a text file (which is what the data.ini files are), then you can see the obvious differences between aircraft that stall the way you want and ones that don't.

Stability issues such as how the aircraft repsonds to control inputs as a function of AoA are perhaps the most difficult to model since they partly depend on the lift/drag definitions but also include interaction between other parameters that are not easily estimated or adjusted.

 

Feel free to try FM modding.

If you do so, you will learn a lot about the math that goes into modeling flight and how much potential the SFP1 FM engine has.

You will also learn that the stock FMs aren't so terribly bad and even make a good starting point since TK has already solved most of the stability and control issues, leaving you free to focus on thrust, lift, and drag curves.

Alternatively, you may learn that FM data is incomprehensible to most people without spending a lot of time studying college level material on physics and flight dynamics.

 

Streak, I have the same feeling about the lift/drag, as I'm sure most people do from flying other sims. Maybe I'll give FM tweaking a go as you suggest, though my education in physics ended 20 years ago at school :biggrin: Otherwise thanks and I hope that more is achievable with the new service pack.

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adverse yaw was a problem of all "hard-wing" F-4's, the slats ( "soft-wing" F-4's) virtually eliminated adverse yaw.

so the F-4G is correct as it is, it has slats ...

 

I agree as I said previously.

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my dear.... before do mistake.. read some books.

 

F-4G (as late use F-4E) use High speed fuel tank.. from.. F-15

 

++

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my dear.... before do mistake.. read some books.

 

F-4G (as late use F-4E) use High speed fuel tank.. from.. F-15

 

++

 

Took care of the rivet counter....

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Took care of the rivet counter....

 

Guys, I am confused. I have tried to be polite and constructive in my discussion of the flight model. Also I admitted that I was wrong - though I think that the discussion was illuminating. Also there is no mention of fuel tank problems in this post. Have I transgressed any unwritten rules?

 

Streakeagle, you were right about the FM modding, it is a bitch. I have managed to get the stock F-4b to stall and spin but not in any recoverable manner!

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Guest Sony Tuckson

that's because the guy who spoke about fuel tanks removed his message

 

honesty where are you?

 

so crl848, BPAo 's comment was in no way meant at you

 

We accept criticisms, we try to use them to improve our productions

 

on the other side, if we accept comments, we are also likely to reply back if we feel like it ;)

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Great Phantom many thanks go out to the Mirage Factory :good::clapping:

 

One question I have installed the F-4 using the exe file but I have no access to drop tanks.....any ideas what I have done wrong....Thanks

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Great Phantom many thanks go out to the Mirage Factory :good::clapping:

 

One question I have installed the F-4 using the exe file but I have no access to drop tanks.....any ideas what I have done wrong....Thanks

 

 

IIRC there were drop tanks in the package. Did you add them in the weapons folder (do you have the old and new weapons packs at that?) and add the apprpopriat tanks to the Weapon Data INI?

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