I want to pay attention to double standarts when it comes to how developers model FMs of certain aircraft, specifically Japanese F-2A and Soviet MiG-29M. I’ll attach examples and numbers to make it clear.
F-2A in game on min fuel (30%) is 2100kg heavier than the F-16A which is equal to be 24% heavier and its engine produces 27% more static thrust. Wing area of the F-2A is 25% bigger than that of the F-16A
MiG-29M in game on min fuel is 1437.1kg heavier than the MiG-29A 9-12 which is equal to be 12% heavier and its engines produce 17% more static thrust. Wing area of the MiG-29M is 10.5% bigger than that of the MiG-29A 9-12 (cause of enlarged ailerons that also apparently fixed issue with reverse roll at high angles of attack but that’s questionable and might be a later modification for the 29M-2).
Now look at the perfomace diffirence between F-2AvsF-16A:
MiG-29M performs almost the same as the MiG-29SMT (even has worse energy retention than the SMT at 800-1100kph range of speeds) and incomparebly worse than the MiG-29A 9-12.
Now about drag polars. MiG-29M is known for being specifically designed to minimize drag and to do so they welded most of the parts of its fuselage to get rid of rivets
Here’re photos of MiG-29A and MiG-29M 9-15 for comparison:
And finally about lift polars. Situation is the same as for drag polars. 29M and 29A have identical lift polars for fuselage, vertical and horizontal stabilizers and only differ for wing. Now again, they got rid of rivets on the 29M which made air flow over all control surfaces, fuselage and wing more stable which should reflect in increase of lift coefficient and critical angle of attack neither of those is present in WT besides for the wing.
Statshark is not accurate - true. But the goal wasnt to point at the exact numbers but to show differences (or lack of difference). Statshark uses data from the game files which means that if polars are identical then the values for lift/drag are identical in game too which is obviously wrong but cant be reported cause depelopers do not allow to use data from the files of the very game to use as a basis of a bug report.
Also if Statshark shows that one jet has better or worse STR and other SEP lines than the other - then it is the case in game with minor differences in exact numbers (difference in STR for instance never gets close to even 1deg/s) which can be easily proven by simply testing the flight models with sim controls. For example statshark shows that MiG-29M has worse STR and almost half the enegy retention at higher angles of attack than the 29A. We were dueling a lot with one of the best sim duelist (and were switching jets to remove variables such as style and skill difference) and 29M being worse in energy retention and STR in WT is a fact. And F-2A being significantly better than the 16A in terms of perfomance is a fact too. I dont say that F-2A FM should be revisited, I say that MiG-29M FM should be reworked before it’s on live server with more attention to details and obvious things such as lower drag and higher lift coefficients of other parts too rather than just wing since it cant be bug reported. (Not to mention that its 3D model is also wrong)
Isn’t that for the modern mig-29m?
Old 9.15 mig-29m has same wing area as normal mig-29 at 38.1 m^2.
from yefim gordon so take with a grain of salt tho
so in other words, it should basically just be the SMT with just better thrust. I think it’s fine the way it’s modeled in game, with it being essentially a mig-29 with comical acceleration at higher speeds.
SMT with noticeably less drag (even compared to the in-game one cause in game SMT has copypasted drag values from the 29A which is also wrong), more lift, higher critical alpha (it’s modelled though) and noticeably more thrust
Considering that idle bleed rates for all present overloads perfectly match manual it isn’t the problem with them having less drag but wrong dynamic thrust modelling
It’s a known issue that developers ignore too. As “practical aerodynamics of the MiG-29” states “Characteristics of the RD-33 engine on mil power and full AB are present in charts 3.16 and 3.17. They are calculated for standard atmospheric conditions and include intake losses and not complete expansion of gases in the nozzle”
So according to that book Soviet MiG-29As should have 8000kgf static INSTALLED thrust
no I was thinking of page 151 from the aerodynamics manual, where the 9-12 overperforms slightly at high speed at a weight of 13000 kg.
Blue is values that I got
thrust to me seems essentialy correct mostly
I don’t think it’s missing thrust at all
Yep, blue (and the black line that it should match) is available thrust. The lower line is required thrust (drag). You can calculate acceleration by using this formula Pp/Xн*G
You just missed one little bit very important thing, it’s thrust for 1G flight (straight flight). There’s additional line that shows AoA and at 0 airspeed AoA is near 90deg to maintain straight line trajectory. This chart includes intake loss when a jet is pulling certain AoA. So at 0 TAS AoA is near 90 and intake loss is significant
