The games vehicle addition rules have changed a lot and the FA.3 could be made a gap filler between the SHar and F35B (even if the P.125 was added (which it could) it would still be to advanced).
The Eurofighter wouldn’t be enough before the F 35 and we already got the last Tornado ADV
Never existed, so we have no idea of the flight performance. No idea if any of them carried additional countermeasures so 60 max based on the GR5 fuselage. No idea what the cockpit looked like. Basically nothing but drawings and a bit of text.
So no, I don’t think they should bother with any of them.
You posted some time ago picture of all 3?
Not quite, all 3 pics are proposals for the FA.3 so I chose the coolest one.
Finally its the day, i can finally post
How are peoples games going with it btw? Are people managing even/positive K/Ds? I am not playing Air RB so my gameplay is likely going different and I fear going back into it ha.
Doing fine. But no BOL, no HUD and the crappy RWR is making life much harder than it should be. But holding my own.
Seconding @Morvran comments.
Only addition is, I’m finding TWS mode and AMRAAMs being finicky.
Ghost Contacts meaning im getting a soft lock and firing at nothing.
And TWS lock not maintaining lock when it should.
Occasionally getting AMRAAM’s that fail to take the target out when it should have, and had them fly off at 90 degrees at the last second before the target.
Yeah, I had a AMRAAM decide to go for an entirely different target yesterday to what I had hard locked and TKed a teammate. It literally did a 90 degree to turn to dodge the target it would have hit if it went in a straight line.
I have noticed the missile doing this stuff especially if i am still locked to a target as I turn away from it, I have seen my missile decide to do a 90 degree turn in the same direction as me and just ignore the initial target, very odd.
Wasnt sure if it was just a “glitched” viewing of the missile or not and it was actually still going to the main target direction and just appeared like it was spinning but yeah, was very odd.
FA2s Flares are definetly bugged. When you cant even flare off an R-60M with 10 flares. Then something must not be right
This actually happened to me today. Confused the heck out of me, as I flared plenty in advance, and the R60 was fired from a ways back while I was turning and flaring.
Glad Im not the only one. basically spent the last 2 days unable to flares missiles 95% of the time. Even relatively “weak” ones. Im guessing its related to the Broken BOLs for now. But definetly something that will need investigation if/when they are fixed
It’s because IR temperature is directly related to engine temperature.
The sea harrier runs very hot, and even at 90% is hotter than an afterburning jet.
that’s actually funny. now I think about it, you could in theory resupply from the forward heli field and toss AMRAAMs from there
I have not had issues myself but I tend to fly around 70-80% power when I know an IR might come at me which reduced engine temps by a chunk, usually like 10% colder engines vs 100%.
I would recommend trying that a bit and see if it helps, the harriers engine is indeed a hot 1.
Had an AMRAAM go for a friendly instead of the plane I was targeting even though the friendly was outside the search area and I was hard-locking the plane that was flying straight towards me
when the missile doesnt know where it is, where it isnt, but knows that friendly is the more important target
got confused, went for phantom
Well, aside from the JA39C and J8F where all I had to do was research a modification, the Sea Harrier is my first researched FOX3 aircraft, and I am thoroughly disappointed. I can categorize the issues into three sections: balance issues, functional issues, and bugs.
Balance
The Sea Harrier is closest to the AV8B Plus, and it has the same BR. That said, the AV8B Plus can carry 4x AIM120, 2x AIM9-M, and a cannon, while the FA.2 can only carry 4x AIM120, or 2x AIM120 and 4x AIM9-M, with no cannon for either. If you want the extra countermeasures (currently bugged) the FA.2 is limited to 4 missiles, while the AV8B gets them either way. In addition, the AV8B gets the improved wing, and therefore much better flight performance. In loadout it also compares to the Yak-141 in this sense, with 4x 35G radar missiles being the sensible load in the current meta. The Yak-141 has better flight characteristics, and gets a cannon.
Functional Issues
The Blue Vixen radar is currently the worst behaving of any of the high tier radars I have tried recently. It loses lock on targets that are not notching correctly, if at all. With other high tier jets, I can use the radar to maintain a lock over the inferior integrated radar in the ARH missiles. In the FA.2, I find myself hoping the ARH radar will succeed when the BV radar inevitably loses lock.
Bugs - note some of these are suspected, but I do not possess the know-how to verify myself.
BOL pods do not work. In certain custom loads, the selection screen will show a maximum of 120 CMs, however never more than 60 are available in match.
Issues avoiding enemy missiles: I’ve had multiple situations where non-IRCCM missiles track the FA.2 even when the engine is below 100%, flares or chaff are dropped in advance, and the FA.2 is maneuvered to exit the missile’s path. I question whether the engine temperature is correct, or whether the countermeasures are bugged beyond the BOL pods not working. It could also be the poor maneuverability however making it difficult to fool even an R60M or AIM9G
Blue Vixen radar - problem described above. Everything I can find about the BV radar was that it was extremely competent, however in game it is pathetic, and seems to be outperformed by radar sets in older, or less sophisticated aircraft.
The AIM120s also seem to trust their own radar over the BV, and I’ve had them fly an entirely different path and TK a friendly F14 while I maintained a lock on an enemy F4.
To me the SH FA.2 exemplifies the problem with compression, and I think 13.3 should exist as a BR now to relieve pressure on the 11.0-13.0 range. If the SH FA.2 goes to 12.0 due to it’s lacking performance, it will fight aircraft without PD radar at all. At 12.3, it is struggling hard however, and is worse than it’s BR equivalents.
Im reserving final judgement until the million bugs and issues get fixed. But I do strongly suspect its over BRed and really needs to be 12.0
