SF2 Series DACT Reports And Related A2A Discussions (Game only)

[+EricJ 4,245]

Took the zipper out against a Mig-21MF with Atolls.

 

3 Fights. 1st one was this vid. have an SA advantage due to the RED infos (cheating). Swung round wide. Mig never saw me until it was too late. First winder was a misfire (didn't have tone)

2nd fight was a 2v1. To my dismay the Mig-21s are very capable of catching the zipper past mach 1. The Fm on the games model seems to be limited to mach 1.3 and i still haven't been able to reach numbers close to mach 2. Ended up with an Atoll on my ass.

3rd is this vid. 2v2. Wing lost control and crashed during the furball. I ended up taking both Mig on. Swung round wide at near mach speed. They never saw me until i was under 5m off their six. 1 bandit tried a gentle break to the right i had tone and Fox 2! Sent a second Winder for good measure. Splash 1! The 2nd bandit was in a dive breaking left. With  gravity to aide me in my pursuit. I dove down and turned as hard  as the zipper can manage. Got tone and got too excited. I took a shot which will never hit. Tried to turn tighter. Got tone But i know now that the old winder won't be able to make that turn. The bandit rolled to his right and pulled up. I know that if i overshoot i'm dead and instinctively i also know that he may cut across my screen pulling that maneuver off. Pressed the trigger for 2 seconds and prayed. Mig- pulled up straight into the path of my cannon shells and its splash 2!

 

Nice one at the end, got real lucky...  But yeah one of the reasons I stay away from the "Legacy" stuff because of the poor turn rate as if you're pulling that hard against a more modern jet then you're just toast, but good fights nonetheless, liked how you snuck up on the Mig-21 (as if it was difficult).

Edited October 14, 2014 by EricJ

[Caesar 305]

Eric,

 

Welcome back! Shaking the rust off is a royal PITA, but just to let you know, with the debug on, I can see that the Su-27 is a UFO in the current patch, so I wouldn't feel too bad about it. It'll do repeated pulls to 18g+ and normally doesn't burn energy even around 9g at 400KIAS in AI hands.  That being said, the bird's FM was made for the SFP-1 series, and I personally don't remember it being that overpowered in that series, so I'm guessing something's changed between the two.  I took up an F-14D against it last week and the fights were basically energy circles.  When I pushed vertical, the Su was able to pull harder, but never got an effective shot.  Fights went 3 wins and 2 draws.  At least twice, I completely ran him out of gas, but that doesn't actually affect the AI, and during one fight I got the F-14 to about 90,000 feet with the Flanker in trail, departed the aircraft, recovered at about 35,000 feet, found the Flanker ran out of gas again, but I was bingo and had to RTB as he went his own way.  In reality, he'd have crashed.  Not sure if anyone will revise the FM, but in its current state at the current patch level, it is a bastard.

[saisran 84]

Good to see you again Eric. How about a quick DACT? there have been a lot of request on the hornet lately. :)

[+EricJ 4,245]

Yes it is... it took me a few to just figure out all the controls.... But Marcfighter I believe... maybe? Be involved with the Jet Thunder project as it was his baby from SF1 and obviously hasn't adjusted and makes me feel good it's not me :)

 

Sure saisran... what against what?

 

And yeah good to see you too, as said lurking more but had to help out kinda brought me out again...

Edited October 14, 2014 by EricJ

[+daddyairplanes 10,241]

good to see ya in here and not just on FB talking bout Hank the cat. 

 

as for Hornet v what.....   Fulcrums would seem rather topical...

[Robert33 2]

Took me a long time to do this fight. I can't find my old copy of SF1 good thing Wrench made this http://combatace.com/topic/57393-flyable-f-104s-for-sf2/ (For all wanting to fly the zipper). Also scanned a wiki article for the best match. Settled for a Farmer (don't have the Chinese version).

 

Playing arcade mode in SF1 was night and day to playing simulation mode.

 

First fight. I was testing out the limits of the zippers FM. as it turns out, it can't turn for anything. The phantom is like flying a saber compared to this. True to the articles read, you can't give the game zipper any hard angles. (really you cant give it any angles). And you can't slow down either.

 

 

 

However the zipper is fast. It climbs like a rocket and accelerate like an arrow. And flying wide circle at mach speed should be able to get you in a good position for an -H winder. The -B winders wont do you any good.

 

 

I did 2 more fights after this but i didn't record the videos. I was able to use the vertical a bit and managed to make the mig overshoot by using a huge difference in our climb rate and elevation. unfortunately my gunnery isn't good enough for a snapshot, so winders it is. Fortunately, tracked good and true.

 

I tried to go in a turning fight on the 4th engagement. pulling on the stick and raising the zippers AOA the plane will vibrate. ignoring it can put you in a spin even at 500kts. Ignoring it and allowing your airspeed to drop to 200KIAS WILL put you in a spin. Pulling hard also wont make the zipper turn faster. Each time i do this the mig gets right behind my six. The good part about this jet is once you jam the burners in and put the nose low. you can get 2m of seperation from the bandit in just a few seconds. Keep flying straight until gives up chase and circle round for another shot.

 

Will be going after the Mig-21s soon and see how it turns out.

 

P.S. a better aviator might be able to do more with this plane i i ever could. But one thing is for sure this plane will be really fun to use going after Bombers. High and fast is where this plane shines!

Thanks for fulfilling my request :) I'm just curious though... When you said you went vertical, what did you mean by "a bit"? I've read somewhere, most likely the same article DO335 posted here, that the Zipper flies and fights best in the vertical...

[+EricJ 4,245]

Everybody's a critic of Hank the Cat... :)  Sure I can do some Fulcrums.

 

Me: F/A-18F EPE with 4 x AIM-9X, 6 x AIM-120D, gun

Opposition: Su-27 Flanker with R-27s, R-73s, gun

 

Started off once he sensed me he basically tried to make me overshoot and porpoised quite a bit trying to slow down and again to force an overshoot.  Once I slowed down I did think of doing an AMRAAM kill and the fact he was ahead of me gave me time to mess with the buttons (didn't work, gonna have to re-figure that out) and proceeded with a 9X kill up the tailpipe.  Which goes to show you how easy of a kill it was compared to the non-EPE version of the Block I Super Hornet.

 

Takeaways:  I've always had the feeling that the game "Sensed" your capabilities of the targeted jet versus yours and always tried to outmaneuver you based on those capabilities, so when I shot off the deck in a more capable jet, the AI tried to as said, force an overshoot.  If you notice the enemy jet doing such thing, simply throttle down and setup your shot.  Again he'll try and maneuver but if you can turn (he did try and maneuver but I can easily match it) and still be on his ass, then he'll try the overshoot technique.  At the distance of the last shot I again could have pulled off an AMRAAM shot without being in Rmin, so yeah keep your options open, but again remember to keep your heaters for the knife fight and your long-range AAMs for the BVR fight.

 

BTW setting up a Super Hornet for EPE is simple, open the respective _data.INI and copy and paste these values:

 

[FlightControl]
StallSpeed=51.44
CruiseSpeed=277.8
ClimbSpeed=308.6
CornerSpeed=175.5

 

[Engine 1 and 2]

SLThrustDry=74730.12
SLThrustWet=117433.05

 

And I think that's about it for setting one up and I would recommend "creating a new" version if you want as well.

 

And as a disclaimer it's a best guess, not a hard figure so I may be off...

[+EricJ 4,245]

Last one for here...

 

Me: F/A-18A with 2 x AIM-9M, 2 x AIM-7M Sparrows, gun

Opposition: Mig-29A with R-27s, and R-73s (maybe didn't get a look at it's pylons), gun at least if it wasn't armed which may explain why it didn't press for a kill.

 

Started off behind the Mig and it was pretty much like the previous entry, a lot of trying to coax him to maneuver but overall he tried but gave up so I shot him with a 9M and returned to the deck, eventually.

 

Takeaways:  Really nothing exciting, loading the Mig-29 has always been an old issue but if it was loaded it didn't do anything to jostle in position.  So I'll probably learn how to shoot radar guided AAMs again...

Edited October 14, 2014 by EricJ

[saisran 84]

Thanks for fulfilling my request :) I'm just curious though... When you said you went vertical, what did you mean by "a bit"? I've read somewhere, most likely the same article DO335 posted here, that the Zipper flies and fights best in the vertical...

 

Well, in the unrecorded fight. I went neutral with the Mig in the merge so he can also get a fix on where i was. Went high but didn't pull though the loop as i was bleeding energy and fast so i rolled the zipper on its back and pulled, doing something that is sort of an aborted immelmann and a split s. Found the bandit circling round. I went past in an overshoot outside its circle and pulled right back up. I figured that my skill wont be able to give me a clear shot with the guns so i opted to re-position for a winder shot. The mig started a climbing in a left turn burners on. Got a good tone and that was the end of it. Just a couple of vertical maneuvers and that's about it.

 

 

Eric. I think the last request was for a non EPE Hornet VS an advance version of the Flanker.

[+EricJ 4,245]

Ahh yeah... I saw the mention of my very non-descriptive against the MKI.  I have quite a few, MKM, -35, and the MKI... I'll try... the -35 real quick.  Got some personal A3 stuff to do so give me a few minutes here.

[+EricJ 4,245]

Okay last one (For today anyway)

 

Me: F/A-18F Block I (non EPE) with 4 x AIM-9X and 6 x AIM-120D, gun

Opposition: Su-35 with... maybe some AAMs though first bout tried to spike me with gun so probably just gun...

 

First bout started off weird as I finally remembered/figured out how to lock a target with radar and could have shot an AMRAAM and killed him outright thus saving me the ordeal of being embarrassed about not raising gear so I fought the short bout with gear down... yeah.  Anyway I locked the Su-35 and realized he was coming towards me and shot a 9X at him.  At the distance and aspect I'm quite sure that I hit him and the log confirmed it.  So he retorted with gun (red tracers....) and proceeded to get into an energy fight and pretty much I was blacking out and recovered.  He came around in a circle and plunged into the ocean.  Maybe I hit him and it was his last attempt to get me but I saw he was acting slow and uncoordinated so he just flew into the ocean, so the hit did do enough damage to break him as he pulled g's.

 

Second bout was more sane and I kept it to IR AAMs only.  Once I got him padlocked and he got moving I found it easy to keep him in sight... for a bit. I got sucked into an energy circle but overall compared to the Su-27 it was much easier to manage despite the higher thrust and power of the Su-35.  After a minute of trying to not lose him and allow him to get a good position (he almost got lucky a couple times) he decided to slow things down so I got behind him and shot him down with a 9X.

 

Takeaways: In both cases the Su-35 has a better modeled FM than the "UFO" Su-27 so you'll see it use energy quick at the start but it also bleeds it off quick.  As mentioned above I pulled some hard g's so G-LOC was a concern so if you're tight turning and your vision is darkening relax stick and let your vision return and then again.. well.... continue to pull g's keeping in mind g load on you, not the aircraft because needless to say most aircraft (at least the more modern ones) can handle the strain better than the average pilot (regardless of gender) so again relax the stick, and re-orient.  That's to keep him from getting on your tail and shooting it off, as he will press and you'll feel the pressure which is fine, but remember work him out somehow (which is maneuvering and keeping padlock) and prevent him from getting a good shot in.  Once you work him out of the energy fight and he levels off, orient and spike him with whatever you want to hit him with.

 

And still have that forum bug of the screenshots...

Edited October 14, 2014 by EricJ

[Robert33 2]

Well, in the unrecorded fight. I went neutral with the Mig in the merge so he can also get a fix on where i was. Went high but didn't pull though the loop as i was bleeding energy and fast so i rolled the zipper on its back and pulled, doing something that is sort of an aborted immelmann and a split s. Found the bandit circling round. I went past in an overshoot outside its circle and pulled right back up. I figured that my skill wont be able to give me a clear shot with the guns so i opted to re-position for a winder shot. The mig started a climbing in a left turn burners on. Got a good tone and that was the end of it. Just a couple of vertical maneuvers and that's about it.

 

 

Eric. I think the last request was for a non EPE Hornet VS an advance version of the Flanker.

Ah, excellent maneuvering then. You seem to have a good grip on the Zipper :)

[saisran 84]

Ah, excellent maneuvering then. You seem to have a good grip on the Zipper :)

 

Not really. Just got lucky as the AI choose the wrong maneuver and i happened to guess right on what the zipper can do (scanned a few articles before flying).

 

 

@EricJ - just really read your DACTs. Great reports as always ( the work you guys did on the Hornets pit is really incredible)

[+EricJ 4,245]

Thanks!  I just remembered somebody mentioning the F-35A so I'll probably do that later on today as I'm pretty sure I did a long time ago, but maybe not... so yeah I'll get that done today.

[+SupGen 79]

  For you guys flying the Zipper; the real aircraft was able to deploy both leading and trailing edge flaps at speeds up to 550 KIAS. This helped immensely in a dogfight with most pilots saying they could easily out-turn an F-4, for instance. This is not reflected in the Data.inis of the stock F-104s. Under Control Surfaces use these values:

 

 

[LeftFlap]
SystemType=HIGHLIFT_DEVICE
CLiftdc=0.3200//0.3500
CDdc=0.0955//0.0355
Cmdc=-0.0063
DeltaStallAlpha=0.0//-5.81
AreaRatio=1.000
DeploymentMethod=MANUAL
Setting[1].Angle=15.0
Setting[1].DeployValue=282.9
Setting[2].Angle=45.0
Setting[2].DeployValue=123.5
MaxDeflection=45.0
MinDeflection=0.0
ControlRate=0.2
ModelNodeName=flap_left
ReverseModelOrientation=TRUE

 

[RightFlap]
SystemType=HIGHLIFT_DEVICE
CLiftdc=0.3200//0.3500
CDdc=0.0955//0.0355
Cmdc=-0.0063
DeltaStallAlpha=0.0//-5.81
AreaRatio=1.000
DeploymentMethod=MANUAL
Setting[1].Angle=15.0
Setting[1].DeployValue=282.9
Setting[2].Angle=45.0
Setting[2].DeployValue=123.5
MaxDeflection=45.0
MinDeflection=0.0
ControlRate=0.2
ModelNodeName=flap_right
ReverseModelOrientation=TRUE

 

[LeftLEFlap]
SystemType=HIGHLIFT_DEVICE
CLiftdc=0.0195
CDdc=0.0545
Cmdc=-0.0009
DeltaStallAlpha=2.79
AreaRatio=1.000
DeploymentMethod=MANUAL
Setting[1].Angle=15.0
Setting[1].DeployValue=282.9
Setting[2].Angle=30.0
Setting[2].DeployValue=123.5
MaxDeflection=30.0
MinDeflection=0.0
ControlRate=0.2
ModelNodeName=leflap_left
ReverseModelOrientation=FALSE

 

[RightLEFlap]
SystemType=HIGHLIFT_DEVICE
CLiftdc=0.0195
CDdc=0.0545
Cmdc=-0.0009
DeltaStallAlpha=2.79
AreaRatio=1.000
DeploymentMethod=MANUAL
Setting[1].Angle=15.0
Setting[1].DeployValue=282.9
Setting[2].Angle=30.0
Setting[2].DeployValue=123.5
MaxDeflection=30.0
MinDeflection=0.0
ControlRate=0.2
ModelNodeName=leflap_right
ReverseModelOrientation=FALSE

 

  To use this capability you have to manualy apply the flaps to the first (takeoff) setting as you turn; don't forget and leave them on as they create a lot of drag. Obviously, this will not turn the Zipper into a UFO, but it does help alot.

[zwz 0]

Okay last one (For today anyway)

 

Me: F/A-18F Block I (non EPE) with 4 x AIM-9X and 6 x AIM-120D, gun

Opposition: Su-35 with... maybe some AAMs though first bout tried to spike me with gun so probably just gun...

 

First bout started off weird as I finally remembered/figured out how to lock a target with radar and could have shot an AMRAAM and killed him outright thus saving me the ordeal of being embarrassed about not raising gear so I fought the short bout with gear down... yeah.  Anyway I locked the Su-35 and realized he was coming towards me and shot a 9X at him.  At the distance and aspect I'm quite sure that I hit him and the log confirmed it.  So he retorted with gun (red tracers....) and proceeded to get into an energy fight and pretty much I was blacking out and recovered.  He came around in a circle and plunged into the ocean.  Maybe I hit him and it was his last attempt to get me but I saw he was acting slow and uncoordinated so he just flew into the ocean, so the hit did do enough damage to break him as he pulled g's.

 

Second bout was more sane and I kept it to IR AAMs only.  Once I got him padlocked and he got moving I found it easy to keep him in sight... for a bit. I got sucked into an energy circle but overall compared to the Su-27 it was much easier to manage despite the higher thrust and power of the Su-35.  After a minute of trying to not lose him and allow him to get a good position (he almost got lucky a couple times) he decided to slow things down so I got behind him and shot him down with a 9X.

 

Takeaways: In both cases the Su-35 has a better modeled FM than the "UFO" Su-27 so you'll see it use energy quick at the start but it also bleeds it off quick.  As mentioned above I pulled some hard g's so G-LOC was a concern so if you're tight turning and your vision is darkening relax stick and let your vision return and then again.. well.... continue to pull g's keeping in mind g load on you, not the aircraft because needless to say most aircraft (at least the more modern ones) can handle the strain better than the average pilot (regardless of gender) so again relax the stick, and re-orient.  That's to keep him from getting on your tail and shooting it off, as he will press and you'll feel the pressure which is fine, but remember work him out somehow (which is maneuvering and keeping padlock) and prevent him from getting a good shot in.  Once you work him out of the energy fight and he levels off, orient and spike him with whatever you want to hit him with.

 

And still have that forum bug of the screenshots...

Seems in that game the Su-35 bleeds energy faster than a old flanker despite its higher T/W ratio. Do you think the Non-EPE bug could out turn a Su-35 in an energy circle?

[+EricJ 4,245]

If the Su-35 in-game maintained the same energy? No and that's what I probably failed to mention, that when the UFO Su-27 engages a non-EPE Super it'll fly circles around you while you flounder and lose a lot of energy and speed.

[cougar_1979 37]

Finally i got to fly some of the F-104's out there. I can't tell how authentic its flight model is, i just d-loaded it because it was the most d-loaded version. F-104C. My impression? The thing is very nimble, and if you stay in the high 300's and the entire 400 knots region, it turns quite well. Maybe even too well. It starts buffeting during hard turns in the mid 300's so you it works as a natural "tell" when to ease off on the stick. I dropped the model folder in my NF5 installation and then i found it along with some other 104's there. I wonder if NF5 had them before (i neve looked for them), but there was no override promt so....i guess not?

Anyway, for the fights.... the first one is against a MiG-17 and the second against an early MiG-21 (i think it's a C). Before engaging these birds one on one, i flew several fighter sweeps and combat patrols with 2 against many and 4 against many, fighting mostly MiG-17's. In both missions the entry conditions are the same. We start off neutral some 25nm from each other. We merge at around angels 10 and it's enyone's ball after that. We all carry standard air-to-air loads for out birds. My own load is 2 drop tanks and 4 winders, i have no clue what the enemy has, but i saw some tracers when fighting the 17, so i know they at least have a gun. 

Fight one

Starting level at angels 15, doing 400 knots. It takes some time to pick him up on the radar, or for the GC to call him out. The video starts at the point when the GC spots him out at 25+nm and pick up a faint blip some 20+nm. I follow a relatively level intercept course until i can get a radar lock, at which point i start decending in roder to bring my self to his altitude. At around 10nm away the red light flashes and i level my nose......5nm and closing i pull my head out of the instrument table and start looking for him dead ahead. I drop the external fuel tanks. At around 2nm i finally have a tally on the bandit and i bank right in order to avoind a head on merge. At the merge he passes me on my left side and look for him in the rear view mirrors for him to turn across my tail. He has a tighter turning bird, so will probably go for a single turn, nose to nose chace and try to stay inside my turn radius. My plan is let him do it and then turn the other way around in an oblique 2 circle engagement, either pushing for a turning rate fight and going vertical and bouncing him from above. I see him in my left mirror comming in left to right, so i roll left and start my turn. I try to keep my energy up and 1/4 into the the turn i realise i have enough excess energy to press the vertical. I roll level and start pulling, trying to get at least 10000ft on my initial altitude. I am still somewhat at awe of the climb rate this bird demostrates. In just a few seconds i zoom up to angels 20+! At angels 25 i roll inverted and try to pick him up visually, but he is not to be found, so he must have failed to follow me up. I go nose down, inverted dive, radar in boresight mode and try to find a proper angle for a high deflection shot. He's at 20000ft, recovering from his zoom. I complete my split-s and go right on him. I shoot a couple of short burst as we zeep across eachothers flight paths. The second burst connects. He never has a chance to pull his nose on me. I level off and prepare for another zoom. This time i move into a more oblique curve and spot him at my 10'o clock low, loosing altitude fast. I select sidewinders to go for a missile shot in case he tries to escape and just then he crushes into the ground! It seams that burst must have hit something vital. Quite a quick and boring encounter i guess, but i chose to upload it, becuase it shows the general tactics used in the least time possible. The only thing that varies is the angle at which you will allign your boresight for a guns kill. Don't even bother with the Sidewinders.....but more on that in the second flight.

Fight two

The starting setup is pretty much the same (no big surprise there, as i used the same mission template) ;)
The point of divergence start around 6-7nm away as he starts to move across my hud to the right right. This and the later development, makes me belive he has no internal guns, and only rear aspect heeters. I have never seen an AI try to avoid a head to head otherways. I drop the tanks and my visual on him. We are going to merge with a bit of lateral separation, him being on my right side. I slowly turn into him, trying to conserve my energy, expecting to see him cut across my tale at any point..... but he doesn't. I have never fought MiG-21s of this early generation before (certainly not in a century fighter), so this catches me in a bit fo a surprise. An AI that decides to avoid bleeding off too much energy and go for the tightest energy circle available? But i hesitate only for a second. If he doesn't turn into me, maybe i can turn into him. I have over  450KIAS to burn i start my break. At this speed i can pull quite some gees, and i am starting to get some angles on him. I decide to play optimistic for a change and i select winders. However, he decides he is going to break too, so we pass eachother. I try to stay with him and in doing so, my air speed drops bellow 350. The Zeeper starts to buffet, so i decide to unload and regain some energy. Et voila! 2s later i am at 360KIAS and accelerating. The amount of thrust this baby has is impressive. This time i try a more conservative sustained turn approach and there he is at my 2'o clock. I remember my F-14A VS M2000 fight and try to implement the same tactic. Build up energy and then maintain pressure by bleeding it off in short intervals. It works! Two presses later, his right in my boresight. and go my first gun attempts. I am a lousy shot though (and the fact i have the winders selected does not help my gun aiming abilities). I manage to stay with him as he bleeds off though. As i saddle in right on his 6, the unspeakable happens! A missile tone! FOX 2!  Nothing...... FOX 2 again..... again nothing..... I figure out these early winders are no good so i try to find the propper lead for a gun kill once more. Several iterations later and this MiG is a fireball. Splash one!

What can i say, against a competition of it's era, this bird is very capable and quite the performer. It's also a dream to fly and veru responsove if you keep it fast. She is also a beauty to behold. I just can't get enough of her, from all angles. And flying several Phantoms up to this point, i think even these early Starfighters are generally more to my liking.

@Caesar@Eric; when you mention the Su-27, what version of it do you mean? The one incorporated in the NF5?

[+EricJ 4,245]

Yeah... the only one done by Marcfighter so obviously we deal with what is available, and unfortunately/fortunately it's the only one we got.  It's only unfortunate because it;s not updated for SF2 so we get the UFO effect, and I never bothered with NF5, I got plenty of jets to keep me happy :)

[cougar_1979 37]

Yeah... the only one done by Marcfighter so obviously we deal with what is available, and unfortunately/fortunately it's the only one we got.  It's only unfortunate because it;s not updated for SF2 so we get the UFO effect, and I never bothered with NF5, I got plenty of jets to keep me happy :)

I never had the chance to evaluate the bird's (nor do i have the knowlege base to do so) flight model myself, but when flying against it, i don't actually find it that difficult of an opponent (like say the Mirage 2000). Is it possible that the Flanker's performance is somehow connected with the version of SF2 it is installed on? Or maybe i just haven't flown enough sorties against it like you guys did (especially not with external loads).  Generally speaking, within a guns only environment and starting from a neutral heads on postition, i get my nose on within 1-2 full circles, depending on my execution and the plane i fly in. In the early block I F-18E's a simple sustained level turn at 400+ knots is usually enough to get you there in 360-540 degrees. With an F-14A it's even easier (probably because i fly it more). That Su-27 never ran an energy circle i could not match so far, though if you let him come on your six, it is on hell of a task getting rid of.  I run SF2 on a merged install BTW. Maybe i should try flying the Flanker in configurations i can find performance numbers on and see how it handles?  

[Caesar 305]

So, I'm not sure if there's a difference in FM's, but the Su-27 I went up against recently was the original Marcfighters one for SFP1.  I had an experimental FM on another Su-27 from about two years ago which gave it better slow-speed pitch authority, but it wouldn't sustain a turn worth a damn in AI hands - straight up instantaneous.  That's the one I had been flying against for a while, which is why I considered it an easy opponent.  The SFP1 variant, significantly different.  I'll have to check out the NF5 one, there could be changes to it.

 

EDIT:

 

Yes, there is a definite difference between the SFP1 variant and the NF5 variant, and I'm guessing the ones I had been going up against prior to re-installing the SFP1 version were either the NF5 version that I had forgotten about, or a version that led up to the NF5 one.  This also explains why I remember them being so easy (I stopped fighting them a while back when a patch broke the bird.  I recently remembered an easy fix was to delete the shadow file.  Voila!  It works again!).  While, yes, the NF5 Su-27 will pull very high "g" in a hard press as one would expect, it actually loses energy when it yanks 12g unlike the SFP1 version running in SF2.  I brought up an F-14B not knowing what to expect.  Basically, we merged, the F-14 pulled vertical, the Flanker turned, then tried a very high "g" pull as the F-14 came down, but didn't get nose on.  The F-14 was still descending and the harsh pull burned all the Flanker's energy.  This is when the Flanker entered into a "death porpoise" pitch/push cycle, but because it has such good control authority at high alpha, it didn't depart.  The F-14 turned into the Flanker, which had managed to pull and get its nose to under 90 degrees angle off the F-14's nose continuing hard pulls, but as the two aircraft closed, the Flanker pulled right into the F-14's gunsight and took on a face full of 20mm, ending the fight at 1 minute 59 seconds.

 

Lock, in the turn as the Flanker works all the alpha in the world for nose position:

 

Splash off the nose:

 

Takeaways:

Like the F-14 in AI hands, the AI piloted Su-27 (non-SFP1) gets too slow, too quick and winds up a sitting duck.  While, yes, it does have exceptional nose-pointing authority at those slow speeds, it gets SO slow that as you can see from the screenies, I was out turning it at about 150KIAS.  Granted, I was nose low, blower selected, so by the time he got around, I had already gained about 110 knots, while he was fighting gravity, but he needed a lot more speed than that, or to pull less harshly to threaten me.

[Caesar 305]

So, I decided to fly the Su-27 just to see what's going on with it: I think the big difference is that there is a limiter on the NF5 bird, because when I jumped into the cockpit, it is still ridiculously overpowered.  It'll accelerate through 15g at 1.1M and 18g at 1.3M, then the "g" bleeds off again probably because of the horizontal tail authority.  The Flanker also doesn't bleed energy in a climb until probably over 20,000 feet.  So, it is still a UFO, but, as alpha builds, it actually causes drag for the NF5 version vice the SFP1 version, and that's probably why its easier to deal with, and why it gets as slow as it does.  Will have to see how the Su-33 handles when it gets released, given that it is being developed for the SF2 series, rather than SFP1.

[+EricJ 4,245]

Me: F/A-18F Block I (Which should be redundant as I have a separate EPE version from the Blocks I and II so no longer going to mention this because naturally Block Is don't have it anyway), 4 x AIM-9X, 6 x AIM-120D, gun

Opposition: F-35A with I would guess (forgot the key for viewing air targets) some AAMs or not.

 

Started off accelerating towards the Lightning II and once it sensed me did a lot of slow turns and tried to I guess force an overshoot which maybe one time I should do to see how aggressive it is but overall for a few minutes I managed to stay on it's six and for giggles fired an off-boresight shot just to do it, as I could have shot HUD and still would have shot down the enemy pilot.

 

Takeaways:  Really not much to report when your opponent really isn't that aggressive.  He tried to turn out of my HUD but with a 9X already locked on and the slow relative movement I would have killed him easy either way.  But since somebody is looking for specifics not much to give as I would have preferred a human pilot to the AI pilot anyway for something like this.  Granted the more aggressive jets give you a workout but when they don't it's just boring.  In hindsight if he had an internal gun he probably would have pushed harder but since it doesn't...

Edited October 15, 2014 by EricJ

[Robert33 2]

Finally i got to fly some of the F-104's out there. I can't tell how authentic its flight model is, i just d-loaded it because it was the most d-loaded version. F-104C. My impression? The thing is very nimble, and if you stay in the high 300's and the entire 400 knots region, it turns quite well. Maybe even too well. It starts buffeting during hard turns in the mid 300's so you it works as a natural "tell" when to ease off on the stick. I dropped the model folder in my NF5 installation and then i found it along with some other 104's there. I wonder if NF5 had them before (i neve looked for them), but there was no override promt so....i guess not?

 

Anyway, for the fights.... the first one is against a MiG-17 and the second against an early MiG-21 (i think it's a C). Before engaging these birds one on one, i flew several fighter sweeps and combat patrols with 2 against many and 4 against many, fighting mostly MiG-17's. In both missions the entry conditions are the same. We start off neutral some 25nm from each other. We merge at around angels 10 and it's enyone's ball after that. We all carry standard air-to-air loads for out birds. My own load is 2 drop tanks and 4 winders, i have no clue what the enemy has, but i saw some tracers when fighting the 17, so i know they at least have a gun.

 

Fight one

 

Starting level at angels 15, doing 400 knots. It takes some time to pick him up on the radar, or for the GC to call him out. The video starts at the point when the GC spots him out at 25+nm and pick up a faint blip some 20+nm. I follow a relatively level intercept course until i can get a radar lock, at which point i start decending in roder to bring my self to his altitude. At around 10nm away the red light flashes and i level my nose......5nm and closing i pull my head out of the instrument table and start looking for him dead ahead. I drop the external fuel tanks. At around 2nm i finally have a tally on the bandit and i bank right in order to avoind a head on merge. At the merge he passes me on my left side and look for him in the rear view mirrors for him to turn across my tail. He has a tighter turning bird, so will probably go for a single turn, nose to nose chace and try to stay inside my turn radius. My plan is let him do it and then turn the other way around in an oblique 2 circle engagement, either pushing for a turning rate fight and going vertical and bouncing him from above. I see him in my left mirror comming in left to right, so i roll left and start my turn. I try to keep my energy up and 1/4 into the the turn i realise i have enough excess energy to press the vertical. I roll level and start pulling, trying to get at least 10000ft on my initial altitude. I am still somewhat at awe of the climb rate this bird demostrates. In just a few seconds i zoom up to angels 20+! At angels 25 i roll inverted and try to pick him up visually, but he is not to be found, so he must have failed to follow me up. I go nose down, inverted dive, radar in boresight mode and try to find a proper angle for a high deflection shot. He's at 20000ft, recovering from his zoom. I complete my split-s and go right on him. I shoot a couple of short burst as we zeep across eachothers flight paths. The second burst connects. He never has a chance to pull his nose on me. I level off and prepare for another zoom. This time i move into a more oblique curve and spot him at my 10'o clock low, loosing altitude fast. I select sidewinders to go for a missile shot in case he tries to escape and just then he crushes into the ground! It seams that burst must have hit something vital. Quite a quick and boring encounter i guess, but i chose to upload it, becuase it shows the general tactics used in the least time possible. The only thing that varies is the angle at which you will allign your boresight for a guns kill. Don't even bother with the Sidewinders.....but more on that in the second flight.

 

 

Fight two

 

The starting setup is pretty much the same (no big surprise there, as i used the same mission template) ;)

The point of divergence start around 6-7nm away as he starts to move across my hud to the right right. This and the later development, makes me belive he has no internal guns, and only rear aspect heeters. I have never seen an AI try to avoid a head to head otherways. I drop the tanks and my visual on him. We are going to merge with a bit of lateral separation, him being on my right side. I slowly turn into him, trying to conserve my energy, expecting to see him cut across my tale at any point..... but he doesn't. I have never fought MiG-21s of this early generation before (certainly not in a century fighter), so this catches me in a bit fo a surprise. An AI that decides to avoid bleeding off too much energy and go for the tightest energy circle available? But i hesitate only for a second. If he doesn't turn into me, maybe i can turn into him. I have over 450KIAS to burn i start my break. At this speed i can pull quite some gees, and i am starting to get some angles on him. I decide to play optimistic for a change and i select winders. However, he decides he is going to break too, so we pass eachother. I try to stay with him and in doing so, my air speed drops bellow 350. The Zeeper starts to buffet, so i decide to unload and regain some energy. Et voila! 2s later i am at 360KIAS and accelerating. The amount of thrust this baby has is impressive. This time i try a more conservative sustained turn approach and there he is at my 2'o clock. I remember my F-14A VS M2000 fight and try to implement the same tactic. Build up energy and then maintain pressure by bleeding it off in short intervals. It works! Two presses later, his right in my boresight. and go my first gun attempts. I am a lousy shot though (and the fact i have the winders selected does not help my gun aiming abilities). I manage to stay with him as he bleeds off though. As i saddle in right on his 6, the unspeakable happens! A missile tone! FOX 2! Nothing...... FOX 2 again..... again nothing..... I figure out these early winders are no good so i try to find the propper lead for a gun kill once more. Several iterations later and this MiG is a fireball. Splash one!

 

 

What can i say, against a competition of it's era, this bird is very capable and quite the performer. It's also a dream to fly and veru responsove if you keep it fast. She is also a beauty to behold. I just can't get enough of her, from all angles. And flying several Phantoms up to this point, i think even these early Starfighters are generally more to my liking.

If SF is accurate to what real flight is, then there is truth after all to what the Zipper veterans have been saying all along in spite of the genuine article's combat record. Come to think of it, one of the reasons as to why the Zipper has a "poor" combat record in Vietnam is because whenever the Zippers take-off, the MiGs stay on the ground. In hindsight, your video somewhat mirrors the performance of the Zipper that I have in my mobile version though of course, the mobile version is way less accurate and capable, being a mobile game.

 

I've read somewhere that during the early Eagle (F15) days, F-104Gs were used in certain DACT exercises to simulate Floggers as they have similar performance. Next comparison maybe?

[cougar_1979 37]

 

EDIT:

 

Yes, there is a definite difference between the SFP1 variant and the NF5 variant, and I'm guessing the ones I had been going up against prior to re-installing the SFP1 version were either the NF5 version that I had forgotten about, or a version that led up to the NF5 one.  This also explains why I remember them being so easy (I stopped fighting them a while back when a patch broke the bird.  I recently remembered an easy fix was to delete the shadow file.  Voila!  It works again!).  While, yes, the NF5 Su-27 will pull very high "g" in a hard press as one would expect, it actually loses energy when it yanks 12g unlike the SFP1 version running in SF2.  I brought up an F-14B not knowing what to expect.  Basically, we merged, the F-14 pulled vertical, the Flanker turned, then tried a very high "g" pull as the F-14 came down, but didn't get nose on.  The F-14 was still descending and the harsh pull burned all the Flanker's energy.  This is when the Flanker entered into a "death porpoise" pitch/push cycle, but because it has such good control authority at high alpha, it didn't depart.  The F-14 turned into the Flanker, which had managed to pull and get its nose to under 90 degrees angle off the F-14's nose continuing hard pulls, but as the two aircraft closed, the Flanker pulled right into the F-14's gunsight and took on a face full of 20mm, ending the fight at 1 minute 59 seconds.

 

 

 

Takeaways:

Like the F-14 in AI hands, the AI piloted Su-27 (non-SFP1) gets too slow, too quick and winds up a sitting duck.  While, yes, it does have exceptional nose-pointing authority at those slow speeds, it gets SO slow that as you can see from the screenies, I was out turning it at about 150KIAS.  Granted, I was nose low, blower selected, so by the time he got around, I had already gained about 110 knots, while he was fighting gravity, but he needed a lot more speed than that, or to pull less harshly to threaten me.

That pretty much described the Flanker's behaviour 90% of the time when i fly against it!

 

So, I decided to fly the Su-27 just to see what's going on with it: I think the big difference is that there is a limiter on the NF5 bird, because when I jumped into the cockpit, it is still ridiculously overpowered.  It'll accelerate through 15g at 1.1M and 18g at 1.3M, then the "g" bleeds off again probably because of the horizontal tail authority.  The Flanker also doesn't bleed energy in a climb until probably over 20,000 feet.  So, it is still a UFO, but, as alpha builds, it actually causes drag for the NF5 version vice the SFP1 version, and that's probably why its easier to deal with, and why it gets as slow as it does.  Will have to see how the Su-33 handles when it gets released, given that it is being developed for the SF2 series, rather than SFP1.

After reading this i went and tried it as well. Although the bird does not show any exceptional turning characteristics (not more then expected anyway), however its sheer thrust is something to be at awe with. Coming from virtually any energy state, you can simply point your nose high and out fly virtually any oposition in the vertical. It almost feels like you fly mounted on a Saturn V or something :)) It even leaves the Eagle down in the dust.

 

If SF is accurate to what real flight is, then there is truth after all to what the Zipper veterans have been saying all along in spite of the genuine article's combat record. Come to think of it, one of the reasons as to why the Zipper has a "poor" combat record in Vietnam is because whenever the Zippers take-off, the MiGs stay on the ground. In hindsight, your video somewhat mirrors the performance of the Zipper that I have in my mobile version though of course, the mobile version is way less accurate and capable, being a mobile game.

 

I've read somewhere that during the early Eagle (F15) days, F-104Gs were used in certain DACT exercises to simulate Floggers as they have similar performance. Next comparison maybe?

What should be noted is that every energy tactic utilizing the vertical can be countered. There is no such thing as a clear victory path, even when enjoying a large energy advantage. The act of energy management itself is much more important then the pure quantity of it. If for example that MiG-17 was flown by a human pilot (or by an AI script that i've sometimes withessed in those Yak-9s i fight in the F-86) there is my no means a guarantee that he would oblige my ambition to shot him down. Instead of just "rolling on his back and die" there are quite a few alternatives to what he did. For one he could have pulled out of his climb earlier, level off and gain some air speed. This would have allowed him to counter my dive on him in at least two ways. First, he could have executed a hard break at the last few moments and thanks to his superior turning radius, there would have been nothing i could have done, except to try and reposition for another attack. A more offensive minded pilot could have used his preserved energy to pull up on me, threaten me with his guns, again something he could do faster because of his better turning ability. So, just because you have the energy advantage it doesn't mean you are sure to win. Don't let your self be cought in that Boyd-narrow-minded pattern of thinking. It is the AC with the energy advantage that detemines when and how a fight starts, that is true, but it is the AC with the angles advantage that decides how it's going to be fought. 

 

Add modern avionics and all spect missiles in the pot and you have even less certainty. That stunt that let me hang inverted at 25000ft doing 200KIAS? I would have made a juicy target for Mike or X-ray, with my afterburner plume against the sky, and airspeed that low. Even more so on my way up, especially cause i lost sight of him. It's just a lucky expolit (as Eric mentioned), that an AI equiped with a gun, is often more aggresive and will risk more to get its nose on you for a shot. Against a another human..... you would usually need some kind of a "tell" he is out of energy, which means you can safely push for the vetical.

 

About the comparisson, you mean an F-15 against the F-104 or a MiG-23 against F-104?