Caesar

Typically the way I see it reported in the open source is static thrust against a given aircraft weight (i.e., the thrust rating of the engine on a stand, uninstalled, at 0 airspeed). This is misleading because of the dynamic nature of engine thrust. Sometimes some of the numbers are made public; for example, the F/A-18C (F404-GE-402) and F/A-18E (F414-GE-400) installed outputs were partially published in a GAO report during the whole "is the F/A-18E/F actually worth the money" debate of the early-mid 90s. Outputs around max sustained turning velocity (between .8 and 1.2M-1.6M depending on altitude) for altitudes of sea level, 5,000ft, 20,000ft and 40,000ft were published and should be pretty eye opening for folks who heretofore thought of thrust as static. What is the T:W of the F/A-18E at combat weight at 40,000 feet and .9M? 0.27:1! And yes, drag is another big performance inhibitor, not just in terms of max speed, but general fighter performance as well (sustained turning, acceleration, etc.).

Something to remember about T:W is that it isn't static. Even the advertized thrust is probably the engine sitting on a stand, vice installed in the aircraft. Installed thrust is almost always lower (sometimes by several thousand pounds) at zero airspeed. Of the same token, as speed increases, thrust increases (to an extent), while increased altitude causes available thrust to decrease. As such, installed thrust at 0 airspeed might yield a <1:1 T:W, but the engine might provide a >1:1 T:W for a region of the envelope as the aircraft starts moving. It may be able to maintain >1:1 at certain airspeeds as altitude increases, but inevitably will drop below as altitude continues up. A published example in the open-source is the TF-30 for the F-14A. Advertized max thrust is 20,800lbs/engine. Once it is installed in the aircraft, at 0 airspeed, it produces only 17,077lbs/engine. As airspeed increases, thrust increases, and the engine maxes thrust output at sea level at .9M with 28,000lbs/engine (56,000lbs total), before bowing back down as the ramps deploy to full to stop supersonic airflow from stalling the engine, before starting to increase again (different inlets have different effects). So, a combat-weighted F-14A (~53,000lbs) achieves a better than 1:1 T:W at sea level from a little before to a little after .9M. As altitude increases, that thrust "curve" decreases, so at, say, 10,000 feet, the F-14A cannot achieve a 1:1 T:W at any airspeed. For the Gripen, then, with the new engine, (and even with the old), there's probably a region of the envelope where the aircraft hits or exceeds 1:1, and regions where it does not.

If you check the Downloads section here at CA, you should be able to find a few Indian Ocean, Vietnam, and general campaigns where the Pacific Fleet squadrons would be involved. You can then adjust the units in the campaign to use the Super Pack F-14s (How-tos are in the Knowledge Base). Have a look!

Pensy, I think that's a game limitation. As you have said, on Single Missions, you can put your wingmen in the AI F-14s while you fly the un-limited version, and you can put AI squadrons into a campaign to make the AI forces more survivable and lethal, but I don't think you can assign a different airframe to your own squadron within a campaign, which sucks. I'd have to defer to more experienced campaign designers if they know more.

Very nice find!

Just in today from the Duffel Blog: http://www.duffelblog.com/2017/05/tom-cruise-top-gun-2/

All this TG2 talk, I had to watch the original again. Love it. As for Top Gun 2... Top Gun 2: Super Hornet Boogaloo Top Gun 2: You Found that Lovin' Feeling Top Gun 2: The Killing Jester Top Gun 2: Why jettisoning the canopy before ejecting saves lives Top Gun 2: Manual wingsweep and you...forcing the Tomcat out of a flat spin XD

I feel like this is going to face-plant like nearly every other movie attempting to capitalize on 80s nostalgia. The first one was highly successful because it was the right movie with the right formula at the right time. Great cinematography with live aircraft, loud music, explosions, and a paper-thin plot to tie it all together. 'MURICA! 80s! YEAH! I unashamedly enjoy the hell out of the original to this day and can say without question that it is the reason I am in the Air Force. But now 31 years removed from the original? I have no idea how they'll make anything that will successfully cater to a modern audience out of that. If they were going to make a sequel, the time to do so would have been somewhere between maybe 1988 and 1992. 2017!? Egh! But, I've been surprised before, so I guess we'll see.

Lookin' good!

Not sure if you're planning to do real bureau and modex numbers for VF-142 and -143, but if so, this is a good place to start: http://www.gonavy.jp/CVW6-AE1976.html Looks like they were Block 80 aircraft for the most part. You might be able to ascertain the missing BuNos with photos or by referencing the Mass Accumulation of Tomcat Stuff site: http://anft.net/f-14/f14-serial-04.htm#80 For example, looks like AE103 (not listed at the GoNavy site) was BuNo 159435 around the time of the first cruise. EDIT: Nevermind; I geeked out and figured them out: VF-143: 100 - 159434 101 - 159430 102 - 159438 103 - 159435 104 - 159441 105 - 159444 106 - 159447 107 - 159450 110 - 159456 111 - 159454 112 - 159457 113 - 159443 VF-142: 200 - 159446 201 - 159433 202 - 159439 (probably) 203 - 159437 (later MiG killer with VF-32) 204 - 159440 205 - 159445 206 - 159452 207 - 159448 210 - 159451 211 - 159431 212 - 159449 213 - 159436 (possibly)

Nah', but the call for the next one is out, so I may be applying again.

Jimmy, Jimmy, what are you doing!? You can't bank at that speed! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0hRoF1UFgg

Found two versions:

Oh, not this again, NOT THIS AGAIN! (Someone might get that reference, but I doubt it). Whoever is the more skilled pilot/aircrew, whoever knows his own and his opponent's aircraft better, whoever seizes his advantages while denying his opponent's, whoever makes the fewest mistakes, whoever exploits the mistakes of the opponent first, whoever is luckier that day...It ain't the crate, it's the crew!

New Turkey and hanging out in the City of Sin; but you already knew that!

Blackbird, Very last page of the 01-F-14ABD-1 flight manual has the avionics quick reference card. To cycle the HSD, which gives you the nav, radar and ECMD, it is the Bomb Ripple Interval (default "[") key. For the VDI, it is tied to the HUD.

Updated aircraft to v1.32 List of effective changes: 1. Added Direct Lift Control, based on Cliff7600's spoiler speedbreak mod 2. Added AI Phoenix missiles with Rmax of 65nm to improve AI F-14 Probability of Kill 3. Updated flight manual to reflect DLC change and AI AIM-54 (now 75pgs) 4. Assigned White external fuel tanks to F-14A_74 and F-14A_IR (IR does not carry externals by default) 5. Fixed White fuel tank capacity (was not adjusted with grey tank prior) 6. Updated Iranian F-14A loadouts to better match most current data from ACIG 7. Updated/Added Iranian AIM-7E-3 and AIM-9J models to equip Iranian F-14As 8. Changed F-14A_IR availability date to 2030

Tio, In-game the biggest problem is that the camera systems can't track aerial targets. This has been one of the biggest problems with the F-14's TCS, and the F-4's TIESO. They're just forward looking cameras at the moment, so they can't track a target like they could in reality (either by radar slaving or by contrast lock). Like the real world, the size of the target can dictate how far away it can be seen. An F-5 sized target, head-on, had an average VID by 7-8nm (roughly 13-15km) using TCS. From different angles, the ID range could increase as more of the plane was presented to the camera. Supposedly (quoted from "Grumman F-14 Tomcat: Shipborne Superfighter," pg. 84), "One RIO claimed to have routinely identified tankers and airliners at more than 40nm (46 miles; 74km) using TCS." Much bigger planes! Spotting an F-14/F-15/Su-27-sized aircraft would be further than the F-5, but closer than the heavies. BUT! In-game, there's a bit more to it. Since you have to drop radar to switch to TCS (at least in our SP F-14s, not sure if it's the same for any TIESO mod out there), you lose not only range to target, but also the target diamond, so you have to kind of approximate where the guy was and point the nose. Even then, it's shaky if the target is moving at any significant angle-off. Large bombers are much easier to see further away; I've probably gotten them on TCS at around 10nm (~18.5km), but most fighters that I've tried to get on the TCS (which are very few because of the difficulty involved), were usually no further than 5nm (~9.25km). What I will say is that by the time I had them on camera, they were already looking a little big (e.g., IRIAF F-4D), so they probably could have been on camera much sooner if I knew precisely where to point the nose. It's kind of like looking through a soda straw in an attempt to spot a bird at the current patch level.

Welcome back, Dave! Been a while.

I thought it was a good movie; captured the heavy lifting done by the scientists, engineers and mathematicians behind the scenes who almost never get the glory, and the difficulties faced by some of the most critical individuals behind the space program due to both gender and race at the time.

That certainly is interesting. I'm wondering where it was filmed.

Congratulations!

To save space, I didn't transfer all of the skins from the player F-14s to the AI folders; I think I kept it at two skins per model. If you want to transfer any other skins into the AI folders from the player aircraft folders, just copy and paste them in. From there, open the F-14x.ini and add in the texture set of the skin(s) you copied (copy/paste out of the player F-14x.ini). For example: If you wanted to add VF-142 Ghostriders to your F-14A_82_AI, copy the VF142IK83 skin folder from F-14A_82 and paste into F-14A_82_AI. Then, open the F-14A_82.ini and find the TextureSet entry for VF142IK83. Copy the texture set. Open F-14A_82_AI.ini and paste the texture set below the existing ones, ensuring to renumber the texture set to the next iteration. [TextureSet005] <-Ensure this number is the next iteration (that is, if your last skin was 002, change this to TextureSet003) Directory=VF142IK83 Name=VF-142 "Ghostriders" '83 Nation=USN Squadron=VF142 StartDefaultDate=1983 Specular=0.300000 Glossiness=0.750000 Reflection=0.000000 DecalNumberRandomize=TRUE DecalNumberBlockSize=24 DecalNumberStart=26 DecalNumberEnd=49 Alternatively, you could just copy all of the skins and the entire texture set over. Also, it looks like you tried to apply a skin from the ThirdWire F-14s to one of your wingmen, based on what you wrote. The TW skins don't work on the SP Tomcats, and actually shouldn't even be an option! That's strange, I don't know how that would happen.