cougar_1979

Allrighty then. Here is the recording of this morning's second flight. The first one was pretty much the same, except for the fact that i managed to empty the entire ammo belt without hitting the thing (i am still getting used to the Bug's gun sight and cannon position). We started off neutral at 15000 ft, 25nm away from each other. I could not pick him up on my radar until he broke 10nm. Went into a har left hand turn, tail on tail chace. Started off in a conservative manner, to avoid bleeding off too musch too fast (new to the plane again). On few ocasions i let my angst get the better of me, i went bellow 300KIAS, but only for a few seconds and only a couple of times. Overall the above mentioned tactics work though, even if it takes roughly 7 minutes to get into a position for the first shot. One thing worthy of mention, that kind of helped me; as i flew i remembered that there is one thing that is actually more important to monitor as you fly then your airspeed. For a given throttle setting and air speed, your energy management is dependant purely on your angle of attack. There is value for which your induced drag matches matches your generated lift and this is your sustained turn rate. Get your AoA higher and you bleed off, get it lower and you unload and accelerate. In fact, in most other sims i almost always fly by my AoA and not by my air speed. And almost all new AC have an alpha indicator on their HUD. As soon as i figured this out, it was only a matter of time before i found my zone. 16-17 alpha, best sustained and the GodCat never had the initiative for the entire flight. This allowed me to engage him in the high 300's and after around 13 minutes if turning i shot off his port spoilers or tailerons. He tried to reverse, but in the process lost control and crashed in the ground.... Spalsh one GodCat, mission complete, RTB.

Thanks! It worked :) 5 engagements so far. 2 draws, we both ran out of ammo. 1 kill for him, we went nose on nose and he just got lucky. 1 kill for me. 1 me shoots at him, his starboard engine goes offline, he pulls into a vertical climb at mach 1.1 and bugs out at 100000ft. No detailed reports yet and no recordings. But i've reached the following conclusion. This fight will be much harder on a Tomcat driver then on anyone else. Reading on both Saisran and Caesar reports i already had some idea what to expect, and having fought the M2000 in the F-14A i had a plan about what might work. Fist of all If you chose to fight him in a Tomcat, you must be prepared that will be better at everything in you or equal, except for the flaps at very low speeds. There is almost no weakness for you to expolit, unless you lure him very low, very slow and have the will power to turn with him for 20 minutes. Even then you might not get a good shot. So be prepared to give you A game and still not win. Second, as there are few AC in the known universe that have more excess power then this baby, i would advise taking it out in something that can beat him aerodynamically. Unfortunately there aren't many birds out there that can beat Tomcats aerodynamics, and even those that can, seldom have enough extra umph on them to actually use it decisevely. Aside from this, you need some good power and sustained ability in order to recover from your attacks and keep the pressure on him. I went for the Super Bug, as it has the most authority (at least to me) in a hard pitch, it has somewhat better ITR and although it could benefit from more thust it has enough of it if you fly it well. The strategy is almost the same as in the F-14A VS M2000 except for one important detail, you will almost never have an energy advantageover him, so lead pursuits are out. What supstitutes them is flying "close". I used the same tactics that Bug drivers always used on Vipers. Stay inside his turn and use your nose to constantly apply pressure and be a threat to him. But, at the same time be midful of your own energy state cause if you bleed off too much and extends without you being able to couter that extend with a good shot, he will accelerate, turn on you and you will have nose on nose faceoff. Not a good thing that. That is how i got shot on my 2nd sortie. So, stay inside him at all times, you will be a little sower then him, but that will work to your advantage as you will not black out as often. Use every possible moment to build up energy and then to use it for another "close in" turn. Once you are withing 1/2 mile of him, you are relatively safe as he won't be able to reverse on you, without you having a good shot on him. But it will also be harder to build energy so stick discipline is paramount. I am still learning the F-18E behavior, but it seams that although it can sustain a good turning rate bellow 250KIAS, you should avoid going that slow unles you are sure you eill get a good shot and even more sure it will be enough to bring the enemy down with that one shot. Preferably, don't bring it bellow 310-320KIAS and if you hit that low of an energy state in your attack, unload right away and accelerate. Try flying it around 380-390KIAS and bleading off periodically to try and get a good lead. Just like in the F-14A VS M2000, at the right moment (when you are close to him and your off angle is as between 5-20 degrees and his aspect almost 0) you start your leading break. Line up the gun sight first, then point your nose and hope for a lock (in my 2 draws i lost 5 clean shots, because the damn radar would not lock), and then finally pull! Again, don't expect a clean shot. This will be a high deflection kill if a kill at all. Try not to be an inpatient blockhead like me and waste your ammo on shots without a lock. You will need it, trust me. I Hope this helps, Good hunting!

Thanks mate, i just did that and the GodCat was there (broke through mach 3.2 in a verttical climb with it at 100000ft) but there was no gun on it. Did i mess something up? I could not load any ammo for gun, but i could mount missiles on it. I first thought of something being wrong as the bird refused to engage me.

Flying the A's above 35000ft (from what i've read) was generally tricky, mostly because of the engines and their tendency to sometimes "choke" for air. They would sometimes even completely flame-out on transitions from full military to afterburner power. You had to deal with them and monitor them closely. During ACM, the rull of the thumb for avoiding flamouts or compressor stalls was to lock the throttles in afterburner and keep them there. The acceleration under military power in the PW TF30's was inadeqaute at best anyway. This as we might imagine did not improve the fuel economy, but did work to lower the risk of experiencing flameouts and compressor stalls. EDIT: @Saisran, what ini file do i need to mod to test the GodCat? :)

True that. After all they were built exactly with this in mind. I have never came across an AC that could fly top cover as well and that is what air superiority is all about, not turning and burning in the weeds. IMO, it was probably the best air superiority fighter ever built until the advent of the 5th gen birds. Sure you could outfly them or outsmart them upclose, but if properly imployed they should never be dragged upclose. Good advice and worth a try, especially if the AI is really overpowered. There is a good chance it will run itseld in the ground. BTW.......F-4E VS M2000?! that is one fight i would love to see!

Yep, it was him. What i find hard to handle in the F4 F-15 is the AoA build-up. I am not sure why it happennes, but i know that planes with an AFM installed do not suffer from it. As you pull on the stick the AoA values seams to rise very fast and the only way to make it stop is to unload. When i worked on the BFM for the F-14 and i removed the AFM file, i found similar increased senistivity to stick input as far as the pitching momentum went. A partial solution (though i have not experimented with) might be to decrease stick senitivity to the extreme, but this might make rolling harder and slower then it should be. The alternative is to fly the big bird with very slight, very controlled inputs (i once managed to down an F-14 this way, guns only, above angels 20), almost like flying with a needle and not a stick. Cause as soon as that AoA meter goes above 15 degrees there is no engine in the world that will help you sustain a turn or accelerate for that matter. Just open the lift-drag tables in the FM files and compare the rise of the drag over lift quotients in regards to the angle of attack, you'll see what i mean. Many people often fail to consider the induced drag rise consistent with high AoA flying when debating ACM. The Eagle is not one of the better birds out there in this department, so when using it, stay fast, stay high and apply LOTS of vertical. I lured to fly bellow 15000ft, don't. Disengage ASAP, extend (either in the horizontal or in the vertical-prefferably) and if possible engage again with an energy advantage. Think P-47 tactics :)

Then back to the drawning board i guess..... Is there an actual parmeter that definies the ability of a jet to build up g's in the FMs? If so, does it simulate analogue controlls or pitching momentum? Or is just inertia related? EDIT: There was once a guy in the old Falcon forums, that thought the AI of Falcon did not handle the F-15 in a proper manner by doing exactly what we are observing here with the F-14 and Su-27 (and to some extent F-15), namely that it just tends to bleed off too much. At the time he wanted to make a separate FM version for the AI controlled AC that would in a way "force" it to fly it more in the STR then the ITR envelope, by restricting its high AoA capability. At the time he claimed to have achieved a satisfactory resault with the F-15's AoA limited at bellow 15 degrees true angle of attack. This however made the AI almost completely unable to break, so it was not considered the best of options to implement for the entire sim.

This gave me an interesting idea, maybe i should experiment more with AI difficulty setting instead for going to the expert level at all times, might get more variaty that way.

Could be. I'm not sure yet, but i just flew several sorties in big planes and small planes, VS big planes and small planes. I chose to fly the AC with FM that i am familiar with and after about a dozen flight i think i have a hypothesis. Maybe it's not size or weight per se. Here is what i observed. An AI, no matter in what plane is turning (horiznotal, vertical or oblique), when neutral, tries to stay at best sustained turning speed. As soon you get a nose on it goes for the best instantaneous turn or corner velocity. After that break the AI tries to go back to best sustained. This in turn has some direct effects on the AI's performance. When the AI is in a plane that has a relatively high corner velocity (F-15, F-16) the AI ends up not bleeding as much energy in the break and thus having it easier to recover. However when the AI is in a plane with low corner velocity (F-14, Su-27) the break (especially if executed for more then a 1-2s) lives it very low on energy (250-300KIAS), so low that even the extra thrust the Flanker has can not help it recover in time. This may even not be a direct effect of the low corner velocity, but the high values for the AoA at which these velocities are met. At high AoA the induced drag of these AC is so large, that has the above effect, slowing the AI down. The extra thrust always helps to remedy this, but only up to a point. As soon as any bird ventures in the 20+ degrees true AoA region, the drag is too large for any engine to compensate, no matter how pwerful. This is actually quite realistic, as this is the way it would happen IRL, if one tends to break too hard (the whole point of making an oponent overshoot). It just seams that the AI doesn't always handle it the best. Actually it seams like it handles it the same way in all AC it is given, thus the diference in performance in different planes. I will have to fly several sorties agains a Bug and Super Bug to see if this will apply to smaller planes as well.

Must have been one hell of a fight! I noticed the AI likes to keep it 2D, and will seldom engage in another plane unless you initiate it yourself. What i found the most odd was when opserving how a fight eveloves after i get shot. When i was flying a Bug against the F-14A, guns only, neutral at the merge, the thing actually went complete 3 circles at 350-360KIAS, and it was only at the 4th circle when he cornered and bled out (which as usual costs him his life). However, if i die first in my flight of 2-4 Tomcats, they are very quick to get them selves stuck. Usually only after only one turn. Maybe it's the loadout? When i fly many VS many, i usually bring along at least 4 heaters. While my one on one are usually guns only. So. maybe the AI has trouble flying with externals? Or is it only the big planes that it finds difficult to manage? Those M2000's gave me quite the trouble :))

So here is the 2nd one, same setup as before, only this time we don't get a bandit call, so we had to ID them visually. I try be more careful this time. At 4 miles they turn into us and we let them fly between and above. Visual confirmation, 3 F-5s. I set my eyes on #3 and make a wide right hand turn after him. calling my wingman to attack. As we turn into him i notice the entire flight on our right. We are doing 4 more turns managing to keep the bandits boxed on the inside of our turns. I pull some lead, get a good tone and fire FOX2.... the missile fails to hit . He dives so i go after him. At the bottom of the dive i put another FOX2 into him and it's another miss! Pulling some more and getting off another FOX2, but by this time he has already gotten enough lateral separation for the missile to have a chance. As we go for yet another right turn i notice how #3 extends while #1 peels off in a hard right break. I figure my wingman can take care of #3 now, so i am going for #1 as i don't want him to turn back and sneak on our tails as was the case in the previous hop. A few seconds after that i hear my wingman calling guns and shooting down the target. The numbers are now even. Going into a shallow dive, pulling up on the bandit and seing him on the clear blue sky i figure this would make a perfect FOX2 opportunity. No such luck....another miss, switching to guns. I have a boresight lock, pulling some lead, guns guns guns and splash 2. #1 is down for the count. That only leaves #2 to deal with but we have no joy on him. So i switch the radar to search mode and call for some GCI/HAWKEYE support. Fortunately GC finds him on our 8 'o clock. Looks like he decided to call it a day and bug out. I think my wingman has still some missiles left and send him after the bandit, with me flying support. My wingman goes full burner and is soon upon him. Turns out he is out of missiles as well and goes guns on him.....for splash 3. Mission acomplished :) Lesson learned.... i need much more practice with rear aspect heaters :)

Thanks for that info! Have you moded the speed restriction as well? If i recall the inlet ramps were scheduled for mach 1.88 in order so save on maintenence time, while the unrestricted bird could easily go beyond mach 2.3 I always pays off to know your ride's performance numbers well.....it pays even better to know the enemy ones :) I have 2 version of the same hop today. They are from last night. After shooting bandits one on one with guns i decided to take on some more diversive approach. This misison is a mid 70's ACM training exercise. 2 AC, multiple bogies (F-5's). The loads are all WVR, rear aspect Hotel Winders and guns. The goal is to intercept and identify the bogies, then engage if hostile. I try to make the mission more challenging by flying in F2 view and using the instrument panel to check on my speed and alpha. Having a small screen does not help though. Shooting a gun at moving dot is not easy. I can't descern it's wing orientation and estimate lead. The enemy skill level on expert (as usual, though this time they are supposed to represent adversary pilots). The hop starts 15nm away from the contacts. We fly pure puruit on them when the Hawkeye/GCI calls bandits on the contacts. I go zone5 to gain some speed and altitude and check on my wingman. Maneuvering to put them on my left side and trying to stay as wide as possible so i can keep my eyes on them for as long as possible before we merge. This way i hope to spot any possible trailers that decide to stay back and come on our six after we turn on the lead element. There are 3 bandits, closing at over 900knots as we pass each other. I send my no2 on the widest circling bandit, hoping he can get a clear shot (a label him no1) in the least time possible, while i go for the next one (no2). At 3:01 i think i have a good tone and go for my first FOX2. It looks like it will track, but it ends up a dud. 2nd FOX2 follows suit and i beging to think the aspect may be too large for the Hotel to handle. FOX3 doesn't even begin to guide when i hear "missile inbound" at which point i start kicking flares. Pulling some more lead and as we both break even slower it's FOX2 again. This one finally conects, splash one and i am out of missiles. Diving immediately to recover some energy as i have a feeling no3 is on me by now (hence that missile inbound before). Just as i do i hear another missile warning and i kick some more flares as i pull up. And there it was, a missile trail zipping on my 11 'o clock high. I get a tally on the bandit, go after him and make the first great mistake of this flight. I tell my wingman to go after him as wll. My logic at the time was that we guns only it will take me too long to down the bandit. In turn what i did, was lost sight of no2 and let him come back on our backs to bite us. Wingman goes FOX2 two times. First is a dud, and the second misses. Just then i get a call for "bandit on my six" and missile inbound. I assume i am the target and drop flares and go evasive. My second great mistake, as the next thing i hear is my wingman going down in flames. It would help if my RIO and wingman had diferent voice actors. And if they were making accurate radio calls. Like Cowboy#2 , #1 you have a bandit on your tail, he's going for a shot. And it would help if the RIO was always calling altitude, air speed and bandit/bogy position, closure. Alasm it was not to be. Now i am alone with no missiles and 2 bandits on me. At least the one on my six has no missiles as well. So i must not lose sight of the one i'm tracking. I go into an aggresive vertical maneuver and come on top of the #3. Turning against the F-5 at low speeds seams perilous. And is it me, or are these 74 Tomcats, jumpy on the controls? They seam more temperamental then the 80 version. He goes up though, and so im i. Taking a wide displacment roll at first, bit it is not enough to get an angle so i go into a high Yo-Yo. This puts me in a wide lag behind him, so go for another high Yo-Yo, this time almost an Imelman. Another wide hook and i'm finally behind him. Rolling out high for a better angle when i see tracers on my rear view mirror. #1 is on me. I'll need to end this fast. 2 high g turns and one near black out and i am in a firing psotion. He wants to bate me in scissors by i am not bying it. Going up in another Yo-Yo and then one more when i see the tracers again, this time much closer on my 7 'o clock low. I do a rolling reversal and drop right behind #3, but unfortunatly my radar won't lock! Another rolling reversal and again no lock! The heck with it, i'll go and shoot by eye. Guns....Guns-Guns-Guns and splash bandit 2. #3 is down so i have only #1 to deal with now. Going vertical to get a good look on my six, when there he is! Fyring tracers on my 3 'o clock! Rolling the cat on her back, then then roling after him, diving in the process. He goes up. I check my instruments. Air speed is good. I can follow. 1 and 1/2 vertical circles and i am in a lag pursuit, he being at my 10. Time to move in for the kill. Shallow dive to build up some energy, followed by a displacement roll and i am on his 6. Guns! Guns-Guns! Guns! Nothing. I can't estimate his vectror well. Guns follewd by an overshoot at which point i go into another high Yo-Yo. Not taking any chances this time, i switch to F1, Guns.....Guns.....Guns and it's splash 3! He must have hit bingo fuel as he was flying a virtually streight line.....Knock it off, head back to base..... This report took longer then expected, so i'll post the second one later. Here is the video

Sorry to double post again, i didn't plan to log in again tonight. But....i was flying some missile variations of the above mentioned hop (as expected the engagements are far shorter when you need no more then 1-2s to gain a good firying solution) when just for the laughs, i decided to try the F-14A+ instead of the F-14A. Now, i have never flown a GE powered Cat in anger before....but....OH MY GOD! 3 out of 4 fights ended in just one turn! One turn i tell you. I should have recorded at least some of the sorties. One circle, nose one, fire a Mike or two, and by the time the bandit was a fireball, i am supersonic again. I mean.... the thing can actually supercruise! The 4th fight was somewhat longer as all 4 winders failed so i had to gun him down..... but the extra power, man, i'll get spoiled if i fly this bird too often. Then i did 3 guns only. Not as easy kills as the heaters, but still, you no longer worry about bleeding too much. This bird can susutain a turn at corner velocity for crying out loud. In the second hop i even burned out the engines like Saisran did. Was this really possible IRL? It has jever happened to me before in a PW powered Cat. I start to feel sorry for the poor Mirage Anyways, good night everyone, enough of me bantering about how amazed i am of the bird

Fast thinking there, bringing the Cat on her back like that Ceasar! I was flying several hops last night (F-14A VS M2000), but as was experimenting (as usual) i didn't record any of them. most of them were over 15 minutes long anyway. One wasn't though and it was particulary interesting. As in all the examples of this training mission, we started level at angels 15, 15nm away from each other, on our respective 9 'o clocks. Guns only, 100% internal fuel tanks. As we closed the merge i decided to abandon the usual wide separation approach (follwed by nose on tail chace) and go for a somewhat risky heads on, very close to the bogey and merge with him going slightly above me. As soon as i got a tally on the bandit (Mirage 2000C, adversary markings) i made a shallow dive abd wound up some 2-300ft beneath him. As we crossed he made a hard jink thowards me and i insinctively went up. The bandit then went nose high and followed me in the vertical. At the end of the climb we both wound up above 20000ft and having manahged my energy better i had around 300KIAS on me, while he was probaby around 250 or bellow. I moved my nose on him and never let him recover energy. Being above 20000ft didn't help him much either. Soon i was all on his 6, and gunned him down. The mirage doesn't seam to like being above angels 20. I will have to work on this in following hops. And now for the encounter i did record, which was what i was wokring on the most. F-14A VS Mirage 2000C, guns only, distance 15nm, level at angels 15. As mentioned in previous posts, my goal was building up energy and using it in short surges to get a gun firing solution before i black out. To achieve this, i used the F-14's second "hump" (or peak if you prefer) in the level envelope. (For those that had no chance to study the flight envelope of the F-14A- unlike most planes that have a singular peak, or in modern cases plateau of tunring rate, that is an area if air speeds at which they have a best turning rate, the Tomcat has 2 when flown with the wings and maneuvering devices controlled by the FC. The first is around 330-360KIAS and the second around 400-450. These humps are most pronounced on low altitudes 0-7000ft and at high altitudes and high mach numbers above 20000ft, when the second hump is basicly supersonic. Courtesy of flying a swing wing fighter.) My strategy; use the second hump to fly wide pursuit and bleed the extra energy on a lead shot until i reach the first hump. Advantage, always stay high on energy and defendable. Trade-off, even more pronounced blackout management issues. Starting off as usualy. Banking into the bogey for a wide separation initial pass. Acquiring a visual on the target at about 3nm. Rolling into the bandit and starting a high g turn as we pass each other. I wind up with a slight angular advantage (some 20 degrees and 380KIAS) after the first pass and continue the press the attack while riding the second peak. By the end of the first circle i on behind him and he starts his high g breaking pattern, but we are still too far away for me to try and move in for a shot. By time index 3:00 he is into the saddle and burning across the sky at 340-380KIAS giving the best he has. I unload and buld my enrgy for the first attack, however i misjudge his lift vector and wind up with the bandit zipping acorss my HUD and me unloading to regain energy. I lose some patience and try to rush the second attack almost immediately after that, but the radar does not lock him up so i have to let him go again. We both recover energy (this is the time when if i was flying with hte loose deuce he would take over the attack and not let the bandit recover) and it's back to square one. Time index 5:20, the first of the high g blackouts. You get these alot and doing an 8G sustained turn at 460KIAS. But i do get a nose one. However the radar still won't lock! I try to make the next attack at lower speed and this time i do get a lock but i can't get enough lead. 7:26 Set up for another attack, buti don't estimate the turning plane right once again. Still pressing on and staying fast at over 420KIAS. Needless to say, black out begore before i can have a good shot (though this time i have both lock and vector right). One thing i do manage to get right is keep him defensive at all times. When i reviewed the recording later on, i noticed that while i kept my speed at 360KIAS and above (except for short excursions of 1-3s to maintain positional advantage) with every turn he lost more and more of his. Thus he never quite recovered enough to extend the fight indefinitely. Just when it seams he would regain energy i go for another attack as i keep my speed advantage almost constant. At 9:42 he breakes again and i fail to get a good lead, but i press again as he tries to level off and unload. He has to break a second time and loses all the energy he gained while i am ove 420KIAS. I bleed off until he is right itno my gunsight. 1/2 a mile ahead of me. I have a good lock, pull lead and hose him with a high deflection shot which connects at what seams to be almost a colision corse! I unload at 380KIAS and setup for another attack. The bandit is floating up against the clear blue sky harmlessly. It would seam that previous shot has crippled him. One more shot and his blown out...... Mission acomplished and still with over 8000lbs of fuel. It took 4 separate attempts by the strategy worked. Keep you energy high, make him bleed, press the attack, maintain the initiative. This would work better with a wingman, but it can be done when 1-1 as well. Next goal-try to go nose on nose chace after the first pass, or try so tricks to get him above angels 20.

That was some intense flying Saisran! And you have a way with words! Caesar, did several engagements today. 3 major strategies were tested. First i went for the vertical press. In an F-14A i just turned out to be a bad idea. Even with 50-100 knots on him, the little bugger can still recover energy fast enough, to meet any vertical oblique or vertical turn i can make, and similar to flying against a 29 or 16, there is no yo-yo you can pull the bandit can't counter by just pointing the nose at you and go up. He just has too much thrust. At the very best i can fly him to the ground, but than can be done bt going bellow 250 anyways. The second apporach was just that. Trying to get him bellow 300. Get him in a high bleed turn and then just pull until you are right at him. Unfortunately in the F-14A the window of opportunity you have to shoot at him is less then 10s before the thing unloads and regains energy to either turn on you or go up. In the 3 separate attempts i only managed one kill this way. I am just not precise enough to get him in such a short time. The thirds strategy was to stay fast. Above 380 or even above 400. In a way like i would fly a Hornet. Build and release the energy for position. I tried to work out the inherit blackouts by flying almost constant lag pursuit, untill he stated bleeding/breaking. Then i would pull on him at best sustained turn i could muster at 380-420KIAS. Got a good nose-on a few times, but as soon as i did, the would tighten his turn and i had to follow.....which as you may guess, leads to another blackout on my part. This repeated several times with similar outcome, me blacking out before i could get a good lead. The only benefit i got by flying fast was that he actually went through his fuel faster (or gave up faster) and i could catch him abd shoot him without burner with 5500-6500lbs of my own fuel remaining. Previously i usually got to around 4500lbs mark. Finally on the last flight, i tried to combine methods 2 and 3. The thing is, i noticed that as i start gaining nose-on during my high energy turn, he would increase banking angle in order tu pull ever tighter. This made him turn in a nearly 90deg bank, turning literally across the horizon. So as his plane of motion is relatively constant all i needed to know was his vector, or where he would be at the moment i need to shoot on only one axis. So started the porcedure as usual, pulling lag at 450-500KIAS. He was around 450-460 but was bleeding faster win the turn, despite the fact i was cathing on with his rate. At the moment i saw his wings go perpendicular to the horizon and condensation forming along his flight path, i alligned my vector with his vector and started pulling hard, near to the limit of 25 units. I started blacking out as usual. but the lead i pulled was supstantial and i still had enough awareness to put the piper in a paralel motion to the bandit. I estimated where he was going to be, gave him a 1/2-1s burst and boom he went at 0.4nm from me, 360-380kIAS, while i was still at 420-425KIAS, 11000+lbs fuel to spare. No video or pics of this flight as i simply did not expect itto last that short. All the previous flights were in the 20 minutes (or more) range. But i will continue to work on the procedure. If i can repeat it often enough i'll make sure to record it Cheers and safe flying mates!

Nice flying! I have always found those small nible buggers to be the most difficult ones to aim with. In fact the more responsible a jet, the harder time i have articulating it :)))) Meanwhile, i found my match in the world of AI controlled jets Not that he outflew me or shot me (i am consistently on his 6), but in 3 engagements one after another i manage to win either by i high deflection shot or by the thing running out of fuel and switching out of burner. Me being an F-14A and the bandit being a Mirage-2000. The thing can turn, the thing can accelerate and the thing is very small. If it wasn't for the blackouts, i think i could consistantly nail it above 400KIAS, as it doesn't sustian a turn all that well above 360-380KIAS. But i do blackout and the AI doesn't, not even when stuck in a continous highest performance turn until it runs out of fuel I may have to try some more decisive vertical maneuvers, but with the rate this little nasites accelerate, that might be head-on waiting to happen. A head-on against a smaller more nimble plane? I think i'll skip it. Dropping the flaps and going bellow 300KIAS in a bat turn might work, but it will be a gamble. If i miss he can just pop from 250 to 360KIAS in few seconds....or less, and go vertical on me while i am in a poor energy state. Heaters will get him cause i often get the angle, i just can't maintain a nose on long enough for a gun shot, but if i give him missiles as well, his performance would drop anyways. I preffer to keep the fight fair and as hard as possible. Have you tried going guns only against a M2000? What are your tips?

I just tried the F-18E/F. It felt proper for the most part when i flew against F-16 and MiG-29. A bit more sluggish in the transonic but more authority in the low subsonic. However when i flew against it i noticed something weird. I was in an F-14A right on its tail when he went vertical. And i mean right up, around 90 degrees. He started climbing at around 340KIAS while i was around 400. I decided not to shoot him as i suspected that by now we both had effective T/W bigger then 1 and that i would catch up with him, cause he started at a lower energy state. We went all the way up to 43000ft when i stalled out at aeound 140-160KIAS and had to level. He was around 93KIAS and i expected him to level off soon as well........ but he didn't. He kept his nose high and before you know it he shot for 62000ft and still climbing. The best i could do was follow him up to 57000ft in a supersonic climb but then i just gave up as my plane would not go any higher. So i decided to try this myself. I took the Super Hornet and flew against the MiG29, flew a bit with him, shot him down to expend some fuel (of which you BTW have more then 30000lbs) and then went streight up. I hit the ceeling at around 24-25000ft at 120KIAS, but instead of leveling off, i pulled back on the stick and stuck the nose up 30 degrees. Airpseed was at 96KIAS and i continued climbing all the way up to 57000ft. Then i leveled off went to mach 1.04 and pulled gently back, getting the nose up some 15-20 degrees....and....voila.... i saw stars! 63000ft and climbing, mach 1.06 and accelerating. This bird seams a bit overmoded. Maybe the thrust has been increased to match those 30000lbs of internal fuel? Or maybe the fact that the plane would not stall, means that it will continue to go up as long as there is thrust?

Question about the F/A-18E, how good is the flight model? Is it actually based on flight data/manuals? I mean about the level of authenticity of course.... BTW, tips for flying hornet like planes (as well a the F-14A i guess), i actually decrease joystick sensitivity and increase the deadzone a bit. This way i get more "sensory feedback" on the energy bleed and thus i find it easier to maintain a given g-load. It may be just my personal preference though. Anyway, try to keep the enerhy high and unload it in "waves" or "push-attacks" . Small periods of heavy turning followed by small periods of unloaded acceleration. And if your stick provides force feedback or vibration, try to fly on he edge of the feedback. This is probably your best turn rate.

It's not just that. All the planes feel like they "fight you" when you bring them bellow certain air speed. Not the Hornets though. You can bleed them off bellow 270 and they still feel lively. Not to mention there is no trace of any dutch rolls when pulling high g's at any speed. Truly the most easy and joyfull plane i have ever flown in any sim.

Here is a little legacy Hornet VS F-16 guns only, so it's plane VS plane, not missile VS missile. The starting premise is, a clean F/A-18A/C can sustain energy as good as an F-16 in the mid and early high subsonic part of the envelope, but can't match the late high and transonic performance of the Viper. However the Bug's nose pointing ability (and authority) as well as low subsonic performance is decisvely better. Alternatives to fight? If you can drag him slow, you will surely win. That is an IF. A better strategy is to use the energy build-up, energy bleed method. Start fast, use your better nose pointing to get a nose-on early on in the fight, but be careful not to bleed-off too much energy. Once you get a nose-on, unload and regain energy as much as possible. Wait for his next move. If he goes vertical you have enough energy to follow. If he continues to turn, you have more energy built up to push for another attack. Always keep the enemy on the deffensive by leading him with your nose across the sky. If and when he finally breaks too hard and bleeds off too much, you can just use your better alpha to gun him down easily. If he doesn't in a few turns you will be behind him anyway and can get a nice low aspect shot from behind his six. If the battle evolves into a pure vertical contest, the outcome is somewhat less predictable, but if you are carefull with the energy management , you can always at least get a draw. I found it somewhat surprising that in SF2 as in Falcon BMS i find the Hornet the easiest plane to fly with and implemnet the above tactics (in BMS i have went against a block 32 F-16C 1-1 for a kill ratio of 5:0 until i ran out of fuel and/or ammo on the highest difficulty setting). One more thing that helps is that the AI here in SF2 is not very keen on moving a fight in the vertical even in a plane that excells in it (like the F-16 here). This one however, did :) Here is the video, i hope you like it (my 4th flight in an F-18, first was against F-16, second against F-14A (he held out surprisingly long, longer then the Viper), third against the Su-27)

Here it is, unfortunalty it crashed (it someitmes does if don't stop tarps before i end the mission). I really lost count during this one. At the end it was probably 10+ bandits (mostly MiG-21) VS 2 flights of F-14A's. The F-14's were on CAP, hauling 4 buffaloes, 2 sparrows and 2 winders. End resault, all the bandits downedm 0 blue loses. Originally i was about to end the mission at around 10 minutes, but i got a wingman call that a bandit was behind me again. No fancy flying this time, just some SAM dodging and a bit of flight delegation. Both 2 and 3 did their jobs well and i can't tell about 4 cause the game crashed before i could read the stats. My general experiment was to target 4 bandits in TWS mode and order my wingman to engage my target. This way i hoped to get a more even distribution of long range shots and hopefully better accuracy. Also i hoped the wingman would not get killed. Half way through the merge i ordered the 2nd flight to engage all air. The opening volley seamed to have cost the enemy enough planes so that flight no2 didn't suffer any loses as well. I will have to try this several more times and see if the resaults will be consistent.

Sorry, i don't have late planes on my install, at most i end in the mid 90's. But an F-16C VS F/A-18C should be a similar encounter? Uploading a what-if middle east VS USNAVY CAP right now, late 70's.... will take a while though....

Not a lot of free time today, so only one post and one flight. My favorite gun duel, F-14A VS F-15C. Trying to make that one perfect first turn. And it worked :) The rest is just angling for the right shot. Any requests?