Personally i think the F-16’s should not have those fly by wire computer limits, and neither should any future plane.
As we progress the tech trees, planes get nimbler, faster, better armament and now suddenly we put a stop to the agility?
If you are going to do it to one plane, do it to all the others. Make sure noone can pull above 12g’s without their pilot passing out for a long time, or even dying in a prolonged pull.
However, for anyone saying the mig-29 is better in every way and they always die to it? Skill issue.
I own both the mig-29 and the f-16 ADF and i come out on top almost every match in both planes.
I tend to lose more with USA though, cuz no offense to you murican mains out there, you are all horrible pilots at top tier, like seriously, 0 awareness, and the f4s phantom pandemic isnt really helping either.
The fly-by-wire is necessary, at least in sim. The instructor can only do so much when they begin to model aircraft with relaxed static stability. You’d be re-trimming constantly.
The G limiter in the fly-by-wire exists almost solely on the F-16 to my knowledge. The F/A-18 only has an AoA limiter, not a G-limiter so it would fit in just fine with all the other aircraft that can exceed the limits… the F-18 also has a lever on the stick that just allows the pilot to surpass any artificial stability limitation he has for AoA unlike the F-16.
There is definitely a place for FBW in the game, obviously it isn’t going to be completely accurate to real life but if we want these aircraft to be decent interpretations of their real life counterparts FBW is needed.
Like was said before, the G limit doesn’t need to be 9G for the F-16, it can be set to 11G or 12G easily enough, and as far as AoA limiters go, especially on aircraft that could turn off their FLCS an AoA limiter is going to be an amazing feature for conserving energy and speed which is crucial for succeeding at top tier.
Take the F-14A for example, great FM but underwhelming engines, so imagine how great it would be if you could flip a switch that stops you from pulling max AoA and dumping all your speed instantly, for mouse aim that would be a huge buff, of course this is never coming for the F-14s but the F/A-18 would have similar issues with high AoA bleeding all its speed, not having an FBW on that would probably make it a pretty difficult aircraft to use but with it I can see it being the best NATO dogfighter until the Eurofighter arrives.
If it was modeled properly there sort of is; There are two different programs for the automatic wing sweep system these are. Program 1: which is designed to provide the maximum available G loading to the pilot. Program 2: which was tuned to provide best acceleration (lowest drag) characteristics.
This of course isn’t properly modeled even though I submitted a report about it when the F-14A was on the Dev server, alongside one for the;
AoA Probe / Indexer / Lights.
AN/ALR-23 IRSTS.
That the 3D model being of a Block 130 not a -60.
The Fuel totalizer and how each element functioned.
The lack of detail surrounding the Aft Fuel cell(s).
Of course none of which have been fixed, and its looking like the F-14A won’t even get its External Fuel Tanks either.
And there does seem to be a habit from Gaijin to introduce these new 70s aircraft in a very incomplete state. You’d think they’d at least be able to get an accurate 3D model, like the one thing that should be relatively easy to obtain is an accurate image of the aircraft.
It’s all about BFM. If you could do 1400 IAS 12G turn it’s will like Star Wars.
Already slow speed agility in top jets are overperorm and make real tactics more or less usless.
Also when in RB is instructor who work like FBW I don’t see real reason to introduce any FBW system in the game.
SB is different case. FBW is pain. You pull above 850 km IAS nothing happen. When go below suddenly you already 400 km IAS. Is no revelation or feedback/feeling that you dumping your speed like crazy. In MiG 29 some how it’s mutch easy to maintain and manage speed
there is no FBW in game so it can’t be causing issues in SB, if the F-16 dumps speed like crazy that’s because the current FM without FBW is doing that.
Yeah, i’m hoping for fox-1 versions pf the JAS-39 and J-10 to come soon, however i think the F/A-18 is also a candidate to come soon, as it’s a true multirole aircraft and so it’s flight performance for air battles shouldn’t be too overpowered, specifically it will struggle with energy retention and BVR
The F/A-18A predates the AMRAAM so like with the F-15A it will probably just come with AIM-7s to begin, with that they can choose not to give it twin AIM-9 rails so it would carry 8 missiles with the wing tip rails only carrying AIM-9s and the fuselage slots only carrying AIM-7s and the 4 underwing spots carrying either AIM-9s or AIM-7s
Even if they give it twin rails, giving up an AIM-7 for 2 AIM-9s isn’t necessarily an upgrade, with the way CW missiles work I personally would take the AIM-7.
It will be a great dogfighter yes, but with the current way games play out that only really matters near the end of a match, and even then, the F-16 should be more than a match for it, same with the MiG-29
One of the major issues as well with the F/A-18 is that it has a relatively low thrust to weight ratio of around 0.96 compared to the F-16 at 1.10, MiG-29 at 1.12, and the F-15 at 1.07 which is more what I meant about potential BVR issues, like with the F-14A, it’s armament is great but it struggles to get both the speed and altitude to use them to their full potential in a match.
That’s my reasoning anyways, so long as they don’t give it twin rails I think it’s a perfect 12.3 addition, with the twin rails though 10 x AIM-9L and 2 x AIM-7M might be a bit too much right now.
I think the AIM-7P Block 2 is a good intermediate stop-gap that would fit the F/A-18A, I imagine it will be higher than 12.0 due to it’s immense air to ground capability in comparison to current fighters in the tech tree, and more advanced ordinance.
It heavily depends on which variant of the AAS-38 pod it gets added with (and which it should even have access to in the first place) since the Laser designator was only added with the -38A. so the basic -38 is really just a fancy FLIR and so useless, unless combined with IIR or GPS/INS(both were added with the A+ variants and later) ordnance of which the F/A-18A doesn’t have anything special (AGM-62 & AGM-65A & -B, AGM-84 & -88).
In short it is practically outperformed by the F-14B in terms of A2G already, and the edge in kinematic performance won’t count for much since most threats will be slinging equivalent Sparrows / Sidewinders, or better back so it boils down to an edge in a dogfight which is risky especially in a 1vx scenario especially considering the lack of a HMD, and an extensive CM count.
If they intend on adding the F/A-18 to other countries it would make more sense to start off with the F/A-18C anyway… regardless I feel the addition of the F/A-18A is pointless because they can either gimp it’s ordinance or give it everything it had later and it would suffer without AMRAAM.
I feel there are several things wrong with that, for one the only other F/A-18 worth mentioning in game is Finland, and if the Gripen is coming soon anyway I don’t see them jumping to the F/A-18C early just for that.
The other thing is that there definitely needs to be some separation in the tech tree between 3rd gen aircraft and AIM-120s, which is where these A model aircraft come in perfectly, the F-15A will likely have only AIM-9Ls and AIM-7F/M, same with the F/A-18A, and the JAS-39A, this will create a cushion filling BR 12.0 and 12.3 which means that when the F-16C is added with AMRAAMs at 12.7 there is enough aircraft in it’s matchmaker that are capable against it.
Now about the F/A-18A’s gimped ordinance, for one it couldn’t carry AMRAAMs as far as I’m aware, that came with the upgrade to the C variant, the A2G ordinance is likely to be decided more on balance than anything else, Gaijin have a multiple options that are historically accurate so they can give as they see fit. The only big question mark is weather to give it the AIM-9 twin rails, in a vacuum I’m against it, the thing would have 12 missile, however there is one huge reason for it getting that huge quantity of A2A missiles, that reason being the SU-27, because that thing also has room for 10 missiles, and it will be flinging R-27s and R-73 (or R-60Ms if Gaijin depending on Gaijin) that makes the F/A-18A the best counter to the SU-27 pre advanced medium range fox 3s because lets be realistic here, and F-15A with AIM-7s and AIM-9s is not the answer to an SU-27 with a greater number of R-27s and R-73.
Though honestly speaking for the SU-27 to not completely destroy the game Gaijin need to remove the R-27ER for now, I really hope that when they figure out the R-73 they decide to substitute it in for the R-27ER and the R-27ER stays locked away until AMRAAMs and R-77s are introduced.
Sweden’s ground attack without an F/A-18 seems… lackluster.
Why not give some of these aircraft AIM-7P Block 2?
I think your perspective will change when you see how they wish to add the AIM-120s later this year.
The only mention of more Fox-3s was made in the J8-F blogpost mentioning that PL-12s and contemporaries will be added in a later patch.
I also think that the F-15’s radar (AN/APG 63 for the earlier models, AN/APG 70 for the rest in layman’s terms) would be an advantage over the SU-27 to level the playing field.
