streakeagle

The Skyhawk has been a work in progress that I was following in the DCS forums, but it is now publicly associated with VEAO. If the VEAO Hawk is any indication of the kind of product the A-4C Skyhawk will be, we are in for a treat. However, for me, the most important part is the flight model. The Hawk will be released with an SFM. I don't know how much time and effort it will take VEAO to develop its own EFM comparable to an ED PFM. I can only hope the Skyhawk will follow the same path: release it with an SFM to get it into players' hands then offer a PFM quality EFM as an addon when it becomes available. This business model may work better for 3rd parties, at least until they can get a handle on building detailed and accurate EFMs. For comparison, Belsimtek has gone straight for the PFM on its helos and provided the PFM for the F-15C. So, it is possible to produce/release PFM quality from the start with a bit of debugging after the beta release. So, overall, I am optimistic about the possibility of a DCS:A-4C Skyhawk from VEAO with the realization that there isn't even any kind of projected release date. I hope somewhere along the way a MiG-17F, even as an AI-only enemy, joins the party to provide a suitable opponent. Of course, the AI MiG-15 bis being supplied as an enemy of the F-86F will have to do in the mean time. Is it too much to ask for a Vietnam era aircraft carrier and terrain? I have visions of having the scope of Wings Over Vietnam combined with the detail/realism of DCS. DCS:Vietnam? Of course, I may be long dead and cremated by the time Edge and 3rd party terrains are released!

That is the document I had already stumbled into while searching for loadout details ;) It has quite a few numbers that are extremely useful if you know all the constraints used to qualify them. Unpowered stall speed gives a great estimate of CLmax at that speed, the only question is with or without flaps deployed. I wish it would include both so that I could figure out how effective the flaps are.

If you take the total MiG-15 claims by US pilots of 792 and divide it by the 78 Sabre losses admitted by the USAF, you get an overall kill ratio of 10:1. Of course, MiG pilots claimed to have killed about 600 Sabres. When you read detailed histories, the kill ratio bounced up and down throughout the war from quarter to quarter as tactics and hardware evolved. The ratio was actually going against the USAF towards the end when the MiG-15 pilots had perfected attacking patrols just as they were getting low on fuel and heading for home. If the Wiki entry is accurate: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_F-86_Sabre Not having read either of those sources, consider the implications if both of those 2:1 estimates are correct. Assume the US is correct in assessing 78 losses in air-to-air, then F-86 pilots only shot down at most 156 MiGs. From my studies of Vietnam losses that have been supplemented by the other side's data, I would bet that the USAF always assumed a loss was anything but an air-to-air kill unless a first hand eye witness said otherwise. Pilots that are shot down don't always know how they got shot down or don't survive even if they knew. In Vietnam, air-to-air kills were relatively rare compared to AAA and SAMs, so if in doubt, it could be assumed that a missile hit was a SAM or a cannon hit was AAA. Not only was that a legitimate assumption, it also has the added benefit of making the air-to-air kill ratio look a bit better than it might otherwise be. I would be curious to know exactly how those two references arrived at a 2:1 ratio. I am buying the Osprey book [32] to find out ;) Suddenly all those years of having the "10:1" in Korea versus the "2:1" in Vietnam have been erased. While the kill ratio in Vietnam could have and should have been better, it is suddenly no worse than Korea historically. By the way, the RAND report is interesting and can be read here: http://www.mossekongen.no/downloads/2008_RAND_Pacific_View_Air_Combat_Briefing.pdf

I am thinking about looking at it. I have a climb rate curve that theoretically gives me specific excess power which gives me T-D/W at max thrust and I have a max speed curve that gives me T-D = 0 at max thrust and max speed. Just enough data to make useful estimates of thrust and drag versus altitude. I don't know if I have enough data to figure out CLmax (max lift), but given T, D, and W and the ceiling, I can estimate it. As this aircraft is marginally transonic in level flight, I don't have to worry about complex lift/drag/stability issues. It has been a long time since I worked on this, and it is a lot of work... but I am thinking about it.

Yes, that is much more fair. However, maybe they did this on purpose: release the not-so-good-plan, if people really hate it, then release the not-as-bad-as-the-not-so-good-plan. There was going to be shock at the loss of the generous original kickstarter rewards, but by making it look like you were going to get screwed royally, then the alternative that otherwise might have been rejected suddenly looks like a great idea :) Gas prices went from $2 to $5 then down to $3-$4. While $3-$4 is a huge jump, it is great after having a taste of $5.

A bit better. Didn't want or need another P-51D key. I will take the Fw 190D-9 and the next one to be released. So, I get 2 of the 5 available aircraft and a map for $40, less than 1/3 the new release retail value. If this had been the original kickstarter plan, I would have put in the $80 or $100 depending on whether the Me262 goal had been met, but the $40 deal is what it should be: better than just getting one new plane for 80% of retail.

The whole point of flying F-4s and MiGs in Vietnam Israel is to have intense dogfights in the struggle to get a kill with crappy missiles. If I wanted pushbutton kills, I could play any modern F-14/F-15/F-16/F-18 game or even the F-15/F-16 in SF2E/SF2I. But, even with unrealistic lethality, the dogfights are pretty good. In 1 vs 1 against a max skilled AI pilot, an unslatted F-4 with no guns has to work pretty hard to hit a MiG-21MF once you get in close. Good enough for me to have some fun without resorting to multiplayer to have a good dogfight.

It is an outstanding release. I love the F2H-2 to begin with and RAZBAM made it very well. I just wish the shadows could be fixed. Folding wings would be icing on the cake. I found some flight manual performance chart information on the F2H. It is a subsonic aircraft, so... if I put a bit of time into it, I could probably get the lift, drag, and thrust curves in the ballpark fairly easily. I simply never gained the ability to develop and tune the stability/inertia aspect that affects the "feel" so much. Not having done any measurements, I have enjoyed the FM provided by RAZBAM (column5?). It is predictable and stable as a simple subsonic straight wing aircraft should be, but can be stalled/departed. It also captures the underpowered feeling of early jets, especially on a catapult takeoff with a full external weapons load. I always enjoyed the original SFP1 KAW even long after WoV and WoE came out: the SP2a AI made for great dogfight's and the A-Team's F2H-2 was adequate at the time. Now that I finally took the time to get SF2 KAW fully as implemented as possible, I am even happier. Great stuff! Thanks for the all the hard work from Wrench and the whole MiG Alley team! Thanks for the feedback and the files :) I guess I wasn't alone in having MASH be the first thing that came to mind when trying to find a Korean War theme.

I had withdrawn my original higher level donation after carefully reading what was being said on forums by those seeking the money. But I weighed the possible outcomes and $40 was a small amount to risk for 5 DCS level aircraft I didn't have and would eventually buy if they were created: Fw190, Spit, P-47, Bf109, and Me262 was a steal... less than $10 per plane. Even if I only got just the Fw190, $40 was a fair price if it is as good at the P-51D. I am not surprised by the failure of RRG Studios to complete this project and deliver the promised goods at the promised prices. I am surprised that DCS has tried to pick up the tab and keep the ball rolling. So instead of losing $40, I end up getting the Fw190 and the new map... $20 each. Probably the price they will be selling for by Christmas, but I will get the Fw190 now. The P-51D key is worthless to me, I don't think ED will let me trade it, I already have one, and I would be lucky if I could sell it for $5. Perhaps I can give it to a friend/relative? I am not sure how to interpret the $20 per plane. It seems they provided the bonuses at that rate, adding 1 key per full $20 donated. Can I buy the later releases at that price? If so, that's still a great deal compared to $40 or $50 per plane on initial release. While I am disappointed in the loss of the other four "freebies", I am not angry. I am actually relieved that I will get an Fw190 without paying a penny more. But I will say that I still don't have a MiG-21bis (presumably fix that this month or next). I don't think I have to swear off DCS kickstarter campaigns, because I doubt there will ever be any more! The real question is, after everything is all said and done, is ED going to still be running at a profit and continuing to expand and refine DCS World? I am happy to hear that DCS WW2 won't be a separate install. That just didn't make sense. DCS World should end up like SF2 with everything integrated together to allow mission designers complete flexibility. All I can do is wait another month and see what comes next. If ED and the 3rd parties have their dates squared away, there is going to be a flood of releases all at once. I have already paid for the Fw190 and the MiG-21bis. In theory, I have a coupon from the UH-1H pricing gaff that will pay for most of the F-86F. That leaves me paying full price for the Hawk should it come out as well. That's a lot of DCS goodness for minimal expense if everything goes as planned. But with ED, that is a huge IF! Originally, I backed $75. A bad price point for the new scheme: $35 more and only 1 more item (Bf109). Any even multiple of $20 was the sweetspot. If they let me buy later releases at $20 each, then that allows me to match donors of $60, $80, $100, or $120. I don't know how they feel about that, but it is okay with me.

What theme music does everyone use for KAW installs? Top Gun and Iron Eagle that I typically use don't cut it in this case! For now, the only theme I can associate with the Korean War is the theme from M*A*S*H, so that's what I will use until I figure out something more appropriate.

I liked the original effectiveness of missiles in SF/WoX and early SF2: Far lower reliability/accuracy that seemed very close to historical data. With the patches after SF2NA, "playability" complaints were addressed by increasing missile effectiveness, particularly for players. I never bothered to identify what changes TK made in the missile data if any or to identify if it was something hard-coded in the game engine. I will say that MiGs with AA-2 and AA-8 are now on par with pre-AIM-9L/M Sidewinders, which makes for better play balance/more of a challenge.

Given the above responses: no AHM detection on RWR, then the game is working quite correctly when someone targeted by a MiG-31 never gets a lock-on warning. AHMs and IRMs do no require locks, so any aircraft carrying only those types of missiles can and will fire without warning if they have a TWS radar. This isn't a bug, but rather the way it should work in reality. Of course, the game could support having modern RWRs detect AHM radars with the correct ini configs? But the only AHM in the game is the Phoenix and most likely none of its opponents would have had the tech to detect the AIM-54 radar lock. So this capability is really beyond the scope of the game.

If the game is modeled per reality and the MiG-31 engaged you with an AA-9 using TWS similar to the F-14 and the AIM-54, you would never see a lock-on warning until the missile lit you up with its radar. Are active homing missile radars detectable by RWRs in SF2NA?

TK went from one extreme to the other: the original AI always acted surprised (more like comatose) unless tasked with some sort of anti-air mission AND at the waypoint where the mission was supposed to take place. That caused tons of complaints from just about everyone that ever played the game from the original Walmart release of SFP1. So, rather than make some complex AI that carefully evaluated what each pilot should know and how they should react to that knowledge, TK went for the simple solution: make the AI see everything all the time. Blind spots specified in data.ini files are worthless: not used by the game. I like to design historical missions from Vietnam using the Red Baron reports, but I can't simulate surprise. The moment a mission starts, all the enemies approaching from blind spots are automatically called out and either evaded or attacked. Aircraft with bubble canopies are penalized by this behavior. However, this all-knowing capability makes almost every dogfight fun/challenging at the expense of realism. Despite the cheats and limitations, SF2 AI is pretty much the most interesting I have ever fought against. Give the AI a good turn fighter, or better yet an aircraft that has power and can turn, and the AI gives me a decent run for the money!

Projected schedule from ED announcement: August 2014 – Fw 190 D-9 Dora October 2014 - BF-109K December 2014- Spitfire IX March 2015 - P-47D-30 May 2015 - Normandy Map with period AI units Other features like the Me.262A-1 and AI-only B-17G are also in development we but do not have a delivery data estimate at this time until these other features are further along. Fw190 might actually be delivered per the schedule, but that is easy because they waited until they were nearly finished to announce these tentative release dates. I know the Bf109K looked like it was coming along nicely, but I would be surprised if we got it before Christmas 2014 given past performance. At that pace, maybe Spit by spring or summer 2015 instead of the Thunderbolt. Leaving the P-47 to pop up during the summer or fall 2015? Normandy by the following Christmas 2015? Perhaps I am being to generous in sliding the schedule by only 6 months. Individual DCS aircraft tend to overshoot their projected release date by a year or more and multiply that by the number of airplanes after the nearly finished Fw190: 3 years to finish the main planes. Hopefully the map actually comes out sooner. I can see the Me262 and B-17 being 4 to 5 years away at the present rate of development.

Per Wags@ED, $40 backers like myself should get their Fw190D license ASAP. 1 down, Spit, Thunderbolt, and Bf109 to go. Dare I hope for the Me262? But how many months or years will it take to finish them all and the Normandy map?

If you have the fuel to do it, having the speed/power to avoid the enemy until he runs out of fuel works in reality, too. Duke Cunningham's 1v1 with a MiG-17F in the vertical didn't end in a win because he outflew the MiG, it was because the MiG dove away and tried to extend, presumably to disengage. A number of MiG-21s went down to lack of fuel in the Middle East. Unlike SF1 AI, SF2 fighter AI does have a tendency to perform evasive maneuvers even after running out of fuel and attempting to head home. But I can assure you that I was hearing stall sounds and/or departing to get my nose on the MiG-15s in an F-101. I think a falling refrigerator can turn inside a Voodoo!

There is no other sim that supports the Century series so well. DCS will never have this planeset (at least this century!). When I hosted and played SFP1/WoX online, quite a few of the people joining were somewhat new. So, I frequently flew the F-100D, F-104G, and A-4E while they learned to use the F-4 or flew much more maneuverable MiGs. With the advent of WoV, the F-105D was added to my stable of aircraft I could fly against newbies. Aircraft with major limits are fun and challenging for me. Though, it is nice if they have at least one strength that can keep you alive or even allow you a shot at winning.

SF2 AI most certainly has some cheats. It can see you even when you are low and on its 6 o'clock. It knows when you are targeting it. But then TK made some cheats for the player after SF2NA: player missiles are more effective than AI missiles, particularly with regards to decoys. But SFP1 AI was just plain (plane?) stupid from WoV until WoI introduced what would evolve into SF2 AI. From WOI forward, missiles and radar locks had problems when used at low altitudes. Given a choice between SFP1 and SF2 for single player, I take SF2. For all of its faults (and there are many which didn't exist in SFP1 or earlier releases of SF2), the final SF2NA game is still the best for dogfighting with jets, particularly of the Korea to Vietnam era. My favorite aspect of flight sims is the flight model. SF2 still holds up fairly well in this area. But ED has finally surpassed SF2 in the area of detailed/realistic flight modeling. The DCS flight models are sheer joy whether it is a prop like the P-51D, a jet like the A-10C, or a helicopter like the UH-1H. DCS flight models are not dumbed down to make them more accessible. But, if you flew in the First Eagles beta testing or flew the various marks of the Lightning in the expansion pack, then you know that TK could make extremely challenging and realistic flight models with no changes to the SF flight engine. I primarily fly DCS now because of my love for detailed/realistic flight modeling. But I won't stop flying SF2 until someone gives me a sim that models F-4 vs MiG-21 combat better. An interesting comparison is to fly SF2 F-15A vs MiG-23MLD and then fly DCS:F-15C vs MiG-23MLD. Aside from the big difference in the terrain rendering (DCS is easily a win even with highly modded SF2), the main difference is in the AI performance. Despite the cheats or perhaps because of them, SF2 is a bit more fun: less predictable and better tactics. But, the solution is to play DCS online with skilled human players, which SF2 cannot do at all. SFP1 was fun in multiplayer, but was nowhere near as flexible and capable as DCS multiplayer. But in recent years, I don't do multiplayer at all, which leaves SF2 as a viable game for me. I have never stopped playing SF, just slowed down quite a bit while a wait for DCS to surpass it. Aside from AI issues, DCS needs a much more diverse flyable planeset and a lot of new terrains with appropriate period objects. These problems are being solved slowly but surely, but not any time soon. So SF2 is going to stay on my hard drive for some time to come. I wish TK would continue working on it.

That doesn't shock me. The first time I went into LOMAC to build a custom mission and discovered that it didn't include the MiG-21bis, I was shocked. LOMAC/DCS included the F-4 and F-5, but not the MiG-21? That was a crime! Even though I am not much of an A-G guy, I love the Skyhawk and if I am happy with the flight model, I will fly it frequently. At some point, I won't have enough time to enjoy everything I have bought. Presently, I timeshare between the P-51D, F-15C, UH-1H, and Mi-8. I fly a bit of MiG-29/Su-27/Su-33 as well. I also flip between basic combat missions and start-up/take-off/landing practice. I have a very simple reason for not flying the A-10C that much: I like to fly it with the Warthog HOTAS, but my setup is dedicated to using my F-4 Phantom B-8 stick, which just doesn't work with the stick-hat intensive A-10C control scheme.

Where on Earth is the info showing that the US claimed kills based on 2-6 hits of 0.50 cal on gun camera footage? The 792 to 78 ratio is a simple total of official "verified" MiG-15 kill claims versus official admitted F-86s for the entire war, not one specific time period. When the "official" USAF numbers are used over time periods, it gets pretty ugly for the USAF during the final months. The USAF was flying predictably and the MiGs adjusted their tactics to spank them bad, diving from above to catch aircraft departing with low fuel. My focus on the 0.50 cals "ineffectiveness" is against the Russian pilot's bragging about MiG-15s watching the 0.50 cals bounce off of them, which is an easy way to explain how the USAF thought they got 792 kills when they only fatally destroyed about 200. But that would indicate a really poor standard of verifying a claim. In Vietnam, someone had to witness the target hit the ground or enter a cloud in a non-recoverable attitude/altitude, such as vertical at low level, or the gun camera had to show fatal crippling such as wings being blown off or the pilot ejecting. A lot were verified by calling out visuals on the parachutes of the downed pilots. Given the similarity in the appearance of the F-86 and MiG-15, I could believe that there were more than a few confused situations that would have made friendly fire likely. I would hate to think that it actually resulted in downed aircraft more than a handful of times. As my Vietnam era aircraft/aces Osprey library is nearly complete, I am going to start collecting the Korean era aircraft/aces books and get more up to date analysis as well as some entertaining anecdotes. Osprey books may not be perfect, but there are few other sources that go into such detail about each enagement. I just got the USS Constitution vs HMS Guerriere duel book and was thoroughly impressed by the quality and quantity of information concentrated in such a small book in a format that was easy and entertaining to read. I had previously read every book I could get my hands on about the USS Constitution and "Preble's Boys" and still learned quite a bit more.

Simply pulling g is being evasive against guns with lower rate of fire and lower muzzle velocities. It takes skilled gunners to pull the necessary lead with the necessary precision to use slow firing, low velocity, heavy cannons. Play any decent WW2 sim and try using German cannons, especially the 30mm versus using 0.50 cals or high velocity Hispano 20mm cannons. The MiG-15 was a hotrod design, but with several key flaws. As with many US planes, its key flaw was simply being large and heavy. If the 0.50 cals were so truly ineffective and the larger cannons so effective, how could the US still get a better than 1:1 ratio against comparably trained USSR pilots who had the acceleration at high altitude to have energy advantages in speed and altitude? If the USA had successfully mounted the 4x20mm package prior to the war, would the kill claims of 792 been true? What is not really clear is exactly why the overclaims were so high. If the rules for making a claim are good, you don't get credit unless reasonably certain from gun camera footage or an independent witness that the aircraft was fatally disabled or completely destroyed. Based on recent studies comparing North Vietnam's claims and losses to the USA's claims and losses, there was very little overclaiming and even some underclaiming of enemy kills. The problem area was identification of the cause of a loss. If in doubt, the USA would claim flak or SAMs, which in a war with relatively few air-to-air fights and losses, artificially inflates the kill to loss ratio.

Interesting information. While the kill ratio drops from 10:1 down to 2:1 (actually a bit less at 1.8:1 overall), keep in mind that the aircraft are almost equal and in the key areas of climb, acceleration, and ceiling at high altitudes where combat took place, the MiG-15 had almost everything in its favor. The armament comparison fails to mention how the MiG-15 guns lethality was degraded by rate of fire and accuracy against an evasive target like the agile F-86. So, given all the limits the F-86 pilots were up against, a 2:1 kill ratio indicates that their training/skill/tactics were still the key difference, as further reflected in the lower 1.3:1 ratio against veteran Soviet pilots. In Vietnam, we had numbers and to some extent aircraft quality on our side, and still only averaged 2:1 due to a decrease in USAF pilot quality. With the same principal fighter (the F-4) or even one with slightly lower performance (the F-8), USN pilots could get a much better kill ratio on the order of 4:1 when trained (all F-8 pilots and later F-4 pilots), or do about the same 2:1 as the USAF with intercept-only trained F-4 pilots. In the end, the hardware mattered little, it was the pilots and air combat doctrine that had the greatest effect on the kill ratios. Political restrictions in both Korea and Vietnam kept the USAF from doing as well as it did in World War 2. You don't win air superiority by engaging in large furball dogfights or small duels, you win it by bombing/strafing the air fields, which allowed prop planes to overwhelm even the much superior Me262. Unable to cross the Yalu in Korea and just flat out denied the right to take out airfields in North Vietnam were costly restrictions.