Time to fix the Harriers Gaijin.
There are numerous bug reports all backed with credible documents and well written arguments. Some of these reports have even been labeled as accepted, well that is almost a year ago and still no changes Gaijin. If you can redo an F-15 FM in a few hours following a Bug report then I think its fair you fix the harriers after several months of bug reports.
Bug reports include but are not limited too:
Sea Harrier having the wrong HUD with no symbology also lacking EEGS
Engine IR signatures being vastly hotter then they actually are irl
Engine weights and thrust are incorrect.
Flap Mechanisms deploy incorrectly and at the wrong airspeeds
Turn Radii and rate are all incorrect as suggested by NASA evaluations and flight manuals.
Every Harrier 1 has the Gr3 cockpit from the outside looking in.
Sooty engine exhaust as in the real world the Pegasus engine was smokeless.
Edit: After receiving my request from the National Archives I’m very happy to say the the Harriers underperform even worse then I originally thought. Says here it could sustain almost 6.5G at .7 Mach and using the USMC Turn capability chart that I have in other posts your looking at around 15 degrees a second turn rate with a full combat load.
Newest Intel on the Harriers (All Declassified and clear for the public)
This can’t be fixed without a complete rework of how IR signatures work in game. Currently they are based on the thrust output of the engine, and the harrier produces a lot of thrust.
Engine weight is only a stat-card value, it has no impact in game. If anything the current max thrust is quite generous in game because it lets you use the VTOL thrust ratings in level flight (which was theatrically possible if the pilot disabled the limiters).
The NASA document appears to be giving instantons turn performance rather than sustained. RAF manuals suggest the maximum sustained turn rate is about 11°/s.
I do wonder though, if there is any new code/options that have been made available via the F-117. If I understand correctly, it has a reduced IR signature in game. Even if they cant model the heat sig fully, they might be able to lower it a bit for the Harrier and at the very least. Bring its temp in-line with other aircraft
That is a good point. I guess Gaijin could just apply a somewhat arbitrary multiplier to the Harrier’s heat signature using the new code from the F-117. But then there’d probably be a deluge of other reports for different aircraft and they’d have to justify giving the harrier special treatment. The ideal fix would be a rework of the whole heat signature system.
Certainly there is a system that could be better than thrust=heat signature, that isn’t too complicated, but i don’t have a clue. But I do find it hilarious that the best IR missiles in the game can’t lock an Me-163 that turned its engine off because it produces no thrust.
That would be the ultimate goal, but I do hope they consider an exception for the Harrier. Especially as part of its struggles originate from the fact the Harrier has too much thrust due to the VTOL bodging they had to do. (At least I assume it has an impact on the heat sigs)
How did you get RAF manuals lol I’ve looked everywhere for those. And yes for the thrust I wouldn’t mind even having less thrust in forward flight in they fix the way the engine operates. The NASA research is also just buffet onset so pulling up to the point where you experience any airflow separation. So naturally its not instantaneous turn but unfortunately it doesn’t give sustained, but what it does tell us is that the harrier in game at any given airspeed and altitude in a turn at no more then 14 degrees AOA is underperforming when compared to NASA research.
Well I just got my documents from the national archives and quite impressively we are both incorrect on sustained turn performance. At 10 AOA the tested harrier Gr.3 with 2 aim9g and 2 fuel wing tanks but no gun pods at M.7 and no flap deflection can sustain around 6.5 normal G acceleration without gaining or losing any Lateral acceleration this is then a 6.5G sustained turn at .7 Mach. M.7 = 466.71 knots at sea level and if we look at the NATOPS AV-8A Turn Capabilities chart that almost exactly 15 degrees a second if not slightly over. Again that’s sustained as in not losing or gaining airspeed. This document also lists installed engine thrust at sea level for different Mach values.
A train ticket to London and a day spent at the National Archives taking many hundreds of photos.
Interesting, which documents did you get? This is the one I found 11°/s quoted in:
Unfortunately the sustained turn rate graph was completely blank because the manual in the archives is a photocopy and you can’t photocopy clear plastic, which is what the graph was printed on.
One of the most useful pages in the manual, and it is literally the only one that didn’t photocopy properly.
I posted my documents above and its called The Effect of In-flight Thrust Vectoring on the Characteristics of the Harrier Gr Mk.3 Aircraft in Combat Configuration. Its catalog number is AVIA6/25706 and it does in fact have all the data graphs lol. Looking at yours thought it assumes the Gr3 has 5 pylons fitted and 2/3 internal fuel.
Seems a bit odd for it to hold 5G and only turn at 11 degrees a second that .6 Mach becomes 400 Knots at sea level and if you look at the Turn Capabilities chart for the AV-8A with the Pegasus 11 engine its doing almost 15 with the 400 knots and 5g. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was intentionally underplayed in this document to maybe fool the soviets.
I don’t want to see anymore of that cope, we we’re not putting false information in our secret level documents provided to aircrews to fool the soviets…
I wouldn’t say cope lol. Why would the Royal Aircraft Establishment release false data. What it does say very clearly is that at just over 10 degrees AOA at Mach .7 zero flap and zero nozzle deflection it will will do about 6.5 G without gaining or losing any longitudinal acceleration.
Different testing conditions can lead to different results. We were not providing our aircrews with false information on how to fly their aircraft on the off chance the Soviets got a hold of the document. That is cope and incredibly dumb when you think about it for even a singular second.
Alright so then what’s the general consensus, does it underperform in game compared to the various sources or not. For one the document the states 11 degrees a second doesn’t even have a graph or flight test data to use for referencing. Where as the AVIA document and the NATOPS documents all do and are based on flight tests and wind tunnel tests with specific weights and configurations.
I don’t know, your FM report is a total world salad then breaks off talking about the HUD and other topics. Then is talking about dog fighting F-5’s etc.
It needs to be simple and clear.
In X manual the conditions for X have been tested and I achieved X with the same conditions.
Yes I agree lol and I apologies for that as well. There are many issues with them and I shouldn’t group them all into one big word salad. I and one other person on the forum have conducted a similar test for sustained turn performance at 300 knots and could only achieve around 10.8 degrees a second. My source says .7 Mach so it looks as though I will need to test more in game again.
