streakeagle

Based on my experience with the MiG-21, I have zero confidence in Leatherneck. I hope they can produce a respectable F-8, but if it ends up being comparable to the quality of the MiG-21bis, it will end up a hangar queen if I even bother to buy it.

Both the Hornet and the Tomcat like very low speeds. The Hornet has issues with its G restriction, so you have to go slow to access its full maneuverability. The Tomcat has to be flown very carefully... too fast and it accelerates even more rather than turning. Too slow and its speed bleeds very quickly. Finding and maintaining the sweet spot is challenging. I find the F-15C more forgiving than either one. I can adjust my AoA to build energy or trade speed for angles. Keep your speed between 300 and 450 knots, and you will do fine. If the F-15 had been given maneuvering flaps and leading edge flaps or slats, it would have dominated ACM aside from its large size being too easy to spot. I like the view out of the F-15, too. Right now, I think the Hornet is a good choice for most people: it can dogfight, it can pound the ground, and despite all the buttons and menus, it is very easy to start up, take off, fly, and land. Once you get its speed low enough, it is incredibly agile. For pure air-to-air, the F-15C would be my favorite, but the lack of full systems modeling / clickable cockpit is a huge drawback. If I wanted to fly a "lite" sim, I would have stayed with SF2. But that simplicity makes it so much easier to employ effectively with little or no practice. So, for me, the F-14B is the coolest of the available US "teen" fighters. It is probably the most capable, but requires a lot of skill and knowledge to operate correctly... and you have to deal with an AI RIO and/or switch seats to get certain things done. I haven't used the RIO much. If I ever learn how to use the Voice Attack / VAICOM Pro correctly, the RIO will be more realistic and useful.

The F-14B is an amazing module. It is largely old-school analog... roughly the same tech level as the F-4J. Even with its powerful engines, you aren't going to beat small, agile fires by just pushing the throttles forward and yanking hard on the stick. I can't wait for the F-14A, whose power-to-weight is very close to the F-4J. It will even more skill and patience to wing gun fights. This module will keep me entertained until the F-4E is released. I question the performance modeling of the F-15C vs the F-14B. The F-14B should be somewhat equal or better than the F-15C over most of the flight envelope. Yet, I can win just about any dogfight quickly and easily in the F-15C but have to work my butt off to win in the F-14B. Is the F-15C overmodeled? Is the F-14B undermodeled? Or are they are both dead-on and I am ill-informed? I am uncertain of the validity of the attached graph. I would have expected the F-16C and F-15C to be have their data lines swapped based on pilot anecdotes. This only shows the F-14A. It shows the F-4E and F-14A to be very close at Mach 0.8 or above, which largely agrees with the info I have available. Most published data on F-14 vs F-4 is against a hard wing F-4J rather than a slatted F-4E.

Very nice!

Each aircraft module is effectively a complete study sim (some more complete than others). The fact that they share the same free graphics engine and base world maps doesn't change the fact that one aircraft is modeled to an incredible amount of detail. Microsoft FSX / Lockheed P3d is far from cheap. Buy the base games, then go get an Accusim aircraft like the P-40, P-51, and/or Spitfire. Buy TacPack. Buy Orbx terrain addons... Hardcore simulation is labor intensive, and labor costs money. I said many years ago at SimHQ that I would easily pay $100 or more for a study-sim of the F-4 and MiG-21. I am halfway there ;) I have all of the DCS World addon aircraft. It wasn't cheap. But I have spent far more on hardware: joysticks, HOTAS, gpus, RAM, entire new machines, etc. Once purchased, the modules are good until ED goes bankrupt... which is a lot longer than my much more expensive hardware has lasted and will last in the near future.

Warthog Throttle removed, real F-4 control panels surrounding the throttle levers installed.

I used to own every air combat wargame I could find, both board game and miniatures rules as well as most modern armor board games and miniatures rules. I had GHQ 1/285 miniatures to support US Army battalions of M60A3, M1A1, and M2/M3 with infantry stands and USSR T-72/T-80/BMP-2 regiments. I played using the GDW Command Decision Combined Arms rules where 1 miniature = 1 platoon (3-6 vehicles). But I had some miniatures rules and board games that were 1:1 scale, too. Avalon Hill's TAC Air board game had 1 counter = 1 battalion, so the hardware details didn't matter, but it was fantastic for recreating the tactics needed to hold or break a line using combined arms: armor, infantry, artillery, helos, air support, supply, and command/control. TAC Air would have been even more fun to play with a large scale 3d map and miniatures. My favorite 1:1 scale board game was Air Cav. Board games and miniatures are a very different experience than PC games. I miss playing them, but they are no fun if you always have to play by yourself. PC games' inherent support of single player is what makes them the dominant way to play wargames in the present. I threw all my games away when I moved to a new house. The only game I have left is a very realistic air combat game: Birds of Prey. It plays out 3d 1:1 scale dogfights nearly as realistically as PC flight sims. Very good physics, but a little slow and painful to play with multiple people if none of them know the rules and/or have never played a wargame before.

FM is not dead on, but mostly OK for the player. AI is allowed to cheat in many ways, including the ability to catch up and get in formation faster and easier than a player could under the same circumstances.

I know the A is coming later. Originally the A was the focus... but everyone that really wants a D begged for the B. The F-14A is the aircraft I grew up with and is the one I want to fly. The F-14B (F-14A+ to me) was just going into service when I went into the Navy and I saw one of the F-14D prototypes at Miramar's open house/air show in the 1989/1990 time frame with its distinctive double nose sensor. The F-14B is an F-14 on easy mode. I want to fight the TF-30 engines and struggle to manage energy as the F-14A had almost the same T/W as the F-4J. The TF-30 had a lot if issues that made it difficult to employ in a dogfight that might require rapid throttle changes between idle and Max A/B. You don't fly the plane, you fly the engine ;)

I will have to settle for the F-14B. I prefer the F-14A.

On the joystick side of this problem, I have an extra B-8 style grip that doesn't have a multi-pin mil-spec connector like the real F-4 B-8. Instead, it was designed to screw on to a stick and run the wires down the to the controls, presumably for a helo stick like the OH-58 Kiowa or the UH-1 Huey. I have ordered the VKB addon space grip for my MCG Pro stick. I didn't want or need that grip, but I bought the cheaper version with fewer analog axes for $70 so I could open it up and transfer its guts to my xtra B-8 (a $250 purchase from an aviation parts supplier). That should give me a fully functional B-8 grip that screws on to my VKB stick just like the MCG Pro grip. At the same time, I have two Warthog sticks because when my throttle died, I couldn't get a spare board to fix it, so it was more cost effective to buy an entire HOTAS with both throttle and stick for $380 from Germany than to by the throttle by itself for over $300. The new stick is smoother than the old one, perhaps better lubrication? or a molded gimbal without the rough texture? So, I may reinstall my real F-4 stick with its awesome springs that provide not only centering but an awesome feel much closer to the artificial stick forces provided on a real F-4 but this time connect it to sensors and buttons from my old Warthog joystick providing higher resolution and maintenance free hall sensors as opposed to the BU0836X 12-bit analog usb board with industrial linear potentiometers that eventually required daily cleaning with alcohol to minimize electrical noise from dirty contacts lines.

I am not sure what would cause this problem. Try deleting your controls ini file and using the default keyboard assignments. If those work, then the file isn't taking your input mapping correctly. I like merging the default key mappings with my custom stick mappings as a secondary control set so I can use either/or. To do this, I create a custom ini named after my stick (I have more than one type and have to make a custom map for each type). I map the inputs for the stick then edit the file to have all of the customized stick mappings in a secondary set while copying/pasting the default mappings to the default/primary control set.

So I need to re-engineer my wooden left console to mimic the dimensions and geometry in the photos. I currently have a 3/4 inch thick piece of very nice wood covering the top, but I think I made it just wide enough to accommodate my paper printout from the manual and not the bordering frames. I can get cut two new pieces of wood with the right shape and dimensions, then route the edges to support angled aluminum frames, then attach imitation DZUS rail tabs made from angled aluminum to match the geometry of my panels as shown in the above "before" photo. If I can get a clear weekend, I can probably get it done in less than a day. Then all I have to do is come up with a mechanism that replicates the throttle quadrant size/range of motion complete with the finger-lift idle detents and the movement of the throttle levers to the outboard to engage afterburners. I want to make the whole thing adjustable so that I can match the angles described in the manual and/or adjust the stops to meet the DCS World implementation of the after-burner detents. I would also like to modify Strike Fighters 2 to precisely hit 100% military power at the MIL detent, then allow afterburner staging after moving to the outboard position. I can't wait for the DCS World Mi-24 and F-16 to be delivered so that the former Belsimtek can return to the F-4E they had started before ED absorbed them and focused their effort on the F-16. After years of hoping for a Falcon 4.0 study sim focused on the F-4 and MiG-21, ED is going to finally deliver my dream with its highly developed version Flanker/LOMAC/Flaming Cliffs/DCS game engine. DCS World will probably never equal SF2's plane set with its huge range of flyable and AI aircraft with countless minor variants reflected in cockpit models, external models, and systems modeling. But I am already very happy with its multi-generational survey library of great air superiority matchups modeled beyond the Falcon 4.0 study sim level of realism: P-51/Spitfire vs Bf-109/Fw190, F-86 vs MiG-15, F-5/F-15/M2000/F-18 vs MiG-21/MiG-29/Su-27/Su-33. With the MiG-19 and F-14 about to be released, the F-16 within the year, and the MiG-23 and F-4 on the horizon... it is an extremely bright future for me! Not to mention the other aircraft and helicopters already available and an F-15E and an F-105G in Razbam's future plans.

I so badly needed a photo showing the left console/throttle quadrant with all of the panels removed so I could try to replicate its geometry now that I have real panels. I have been searching the internet for information on the F-4 throttle quadrant for many years (more than a decade?), and just when I need it, this pops up: a before and after photos set of a an F-4 left console being restored. Perfect :)

In comparison to the F-4, P-51s are a dime a dozen. I see two P-51s flying near my work place almost every day giving paid rides. The Collings Foundation F-4D Phantom is the only privately owned operational F-4 in the world to my knowledge. I think Congress had to approve its sale. It would be an absolute treasure to get this F4H-1F/F-4A fully restored and flying the airshow circuit. There are plenty of F-4s at museums (including this limited production early prototype), having something like this touring the country and/or world for public airshows would be awesome. When I got out o the Navy, I went to the Mac Dill AFB open house airshow nearly every year until I got married (and went to a couple more after my son was old enough). For me, the star of the flight demonstrations was the F-104 team with their awesome J-79 jet engines, which have a distinctive sound compared to all the more modern turbofan engines. It reminded me of my childhood airshows at Mac Dill with F-4s, which sound even better with twin J-79s :) Don't get me wrong, I love the P-51 Mustang. But they are fairly common compared to the F-4 unless you happen to live in one of the countries still operating F-4E variants. As for the one-piece front windshield, it was developed to increase resistance to bird strikes and also increased forward visibility. I would think it would be hard to get one, but maybe modern manufacturing techniques made it cheap to make a new one or they recovered a spare from one of the very few upgraded F-4s? As a safety upgrade with its much greater strength and much better forward view, I don't mind considering the goal was to make this aircraft flyable.

I doubt I will ever be able to afford either one, but that F-4 is pretty special. Look at the nose. It is a version prior to the F-4B, most likely designated as an F-4A in later documents. It looks like the front windshield has been replaced by the single-piece version used on a handful of F-4Es, F-4Gs, and RF-4Cs. That would be a sweet ride if restored to flying condition... but it is a hard wing that will bite you at high AoA.

My F-4 throttle handles and associated panels arrived. They are in pretty good condition. There were some buttons on the left throttle whose function I couldn't identify. After searching the internet, I found a reference from a book I have read that revealed the functions of the unidentified buttons. From Ed Rasimus' "Palace Cobra: A Fighter Pilot in the Vietnam War", "... and simultaneously reach over the front of the inboard throttle to hit the dogfight button on the front that will switch the radar to five-mile scope and boresight. All I'll have to do is put the gun sight on the MiG and the radar will feed the AIM-7 a lock-on. If I need the gun, a flip of the tiny switch on the outboard throttle with the pinky on my left hand will give me the Vulcan." So in the early 1970's, F-4s were already modified to have a basic HOTAS: a button to engage boresight radar mode and a switch to enable the gun. Not too much later, the famous 556 mod would give the F-4E an outboard throttle grip pinky switch to select guns / AIM-9 / AIM-7. As the DCS World F-4E will be a late ARN-101 version, it will probably reflect the 556 mod or better. I may need to modify my authentic throttle grips to account for later revisions of their switch configuration.

I think I spotted two SF screenshots.

That is my WSO. He isn't very good at operating the radar or navigating, but he barks at anything that moves or makes a sound and stays by my side as long as he is fed a steady diet of treats.

I need to model the flaps lever and mount it in the correct position, outboard of the throttle, behind and above.

I have replaced my Warthog stick with a VKB MCG Pro, which has been great. But I have been getting the itch to make progress on making a more complete F-4 cockpit experience in anticipation of the future DCS World F-4E that may be only a year or two or three away. I have throttle handles, the panel with the slots and brushes where the throttle protrude, and the panels to either side on the way. I have a Warthog throttle that "bricked", so I am finally going to order a board and try to fix it, then hopefully use it as the base for making an F-4 throttle. I have two Warthog sticks as a result of buying a replacement for the broken throttle, so I am thinking about adapting it to my real F-4 stick so I don't have to clean pots like a did the last time I used the real F-4 stick. Alternatively, I may buy another VKB grip and gut it to adapt an extra B-8 grip I have to fit on the VKB stick. I may end up with two sim pits, one dedicated F-4 pit and one designed to be reconfigured to support several DCS aircraft. The F-4 pit would be in front of my PC and the generic/adaptable pit would be in front of my son's PC. I just need to upgrade his gpu or better yet build a new PC for me and give him my current PC. Just a matter of time and money along with some creative engineering.

I have never been much of a campaign person. I prefer flying generic 1v1, 1v2, 2v2, 1v4, 2v4, and 4v4 single player missions to test particular tactics and types against each other or fly historically accurate single missions. So what matters most to me is the accuracy of the flight models, the weapons/damage modeling, and the behavior of the AI. I haven't played CloD enough to really get a feel on how it compares to my other sims. But I have played BoB2:WoV enough to know that I love the Spitfire, Hurricane, and Bf109 flight modeling as well as how the AI flies those aircraft when set to the highest skill levels. The SFP1/SF2 series has some of the most entertaining/challenging dogfight AI of any flight sims I have played... but it has cheats that make it so. SF2 AI can always see you without regard to canopy/visibility limitations even if you are low and on its 6. SF2 AI knows if you are looking at or targeting it even if it can't see you... so the enemy almost always reacts to your presence and will probably engage you rather than other AI enemies. BoB2 seems to do a much better job of having dynamic AI reacting to the entire situations instead of just you with the skill level somewhat realistically affecting its choice of tactics. So BoB2 AI is as fun and challenging as SF2 AI, yet doesn't appear to be cheating as much if at all. There is nothing that can replace the experience of trying to defend Britain against a sky full of Nazi bombers and fighter escorts with but a few Spitfires and/or Hurricanes. I can only imagine how the real pilots felt having to face those odds day after day. If Germany had stayed focused on bombing the airfields and other strategic targets rather than trying to break morale by bombing the general population, one can only wonder whether the UK would have been able to hold on and maintain a Western front to help the USSR stay in the fight. CloD may not be as good as BoB2 at modeling the full scope of the Battle of Britain, but the graphics and plane set still let you experience aspects of it in a way that the very dated BoB2 can't. But if I could only have one, it would be BoB2. But the truth is that I don't have the time to play all of the flight sims I have accumulated over the years. I used to focus on the SFP1/SF2 series because of my preference for the F-4 Phantom and MiG-21, but the halt in SF2 progress followed by the rise of DCS World forced my transition. Lately, I have spent more time in civil flight sims than I ever have due to FSX/P3d having TacPack supported F-4s and AeroflyFS2 and X-Plane 11 also supporting VR. But I by far spend most of my time flying all of the DCS World modules. It is hard but fun for me to try to maintain basic proficiency with such a large library of aircraft modeled to a study-sim level. So BoB2 isn't even installed and CloD is only on my hard drive as long as I have room for it.

Setting modded files to read-only always worked for me.

The AI wasn't designed to leverage the abilities of the MiG-29 and Su-27. Those aircraft are really beyond the scope of the game. MiG-29/Su-27 AI should have their radars off and be positioned by GCI/AWACS, then try to use IRST, laser ranging, and HMS to avoid lighting up RWRs. In the right circumstances, MiG-29s and Su-27s could rack up kills way better than the VPAF did with MiG-21 hit-and-run Atoll tactics (which were really effective against rigid USAF formations and tactics). If you are in a fairly big fight, your RWR may be lit up my multiple bogies from multiple directions. The RWR can only give you so much information. I was a submarine sonar tech. Submarines have WLR systems (sonar warning receivers). They false alarm quite a bit. When you get a threat alarm (i.e. torpedo homing sonar), you have to decide is it real or false. If in doubt, you execute standard torpedo evasion maneuvers... which the enemy may know and intentionally force you to execute to draw you into a trap. Electronic warfare is a difficult game to win at 5 kts (typical submarine speed while trying to be quiet), way harder at 500 kts. Keep in mind, the SF2 game is very predictable despite TK's efforts to make it otherwise. If you play enough, you will learn situational awareness, of which the RWR is only one part. You will learn the flaws in the AI logic and once you do, the AI will only beat you if you are tired, distracted, or go out of your way to avoid exploiting their weaknesses. Fly an F-4 against a horde of MiG-17s, MiG-19s, and/or MiG-21s. Fly a MiG-23 against a flight of F-4Es, F-15s, or F-16s. If you fly the same missions over and over, you can learn to win them. Once you do, the game becomes an algorithm... execute the right moves to avoid attacks while patiently waiting for useful/effective firing opportunities. Later patches made most of the missiles somewhat reliable when fired within parameters. You can get between 50% and 75% hit rates with early AIM-9, AIM-7, and R-3/K-13 (AA-2 Atoll) missiles if you are patient. With later variants, you don't have to be as patient or you can get 90% or better hit rates.