Mirage 2000 is limited to some ~30 degrees AoA +/- 2 degrees. The F/A-18 is free to perform AoA excursions >60+ degrees and maintains a high level of stability for making shots at 40 degrees AoA. It will beat the Mirage 2000 in turn radius, nose authority, sustained turn rate, gun laying, and it comes equipped with a better radar, better missiles (currently)… the advantages of the Mirage 2000 are in top speed and acceleration in level flight.
I’m curious how mouse aim will affect its maneuverability because it does seem to take off a significant amount of AoA from aircraft.
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the documentation you linked in the mig29’s topic mentionned a 54kts/s speed decrease for an instantanious turn at sea level for the f18. The speed at the start of the test is sadly not mentionned. 1 circle is all about being slow, and considering mirage is a delta, i very much doubt a f18 could break faster.
As for the missiles, i think early f18 were only equipped with aim7, and mica is ahead of aim120A or B (but i note that you said “current mirage”, so nvm that)
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What’s the acceleration difference? I always see that the F-18 is stated as slow and had “bad” acceleration, how does it compare to, for example, Mig-29, Mirage 2000, F-16 or something similar?
That’s not considering the aero braking and lowering throttle… Although positioning to start with is more important. The only trick the M2K has is slowing down to cut inside or force overshoot. F/A-18 has many more tricks.
Even the F/A-18 was later equipped with AMRAAM. Even without that, AIM-7P with datalink and lofting, superior ECCM is worthwhile and superior to the super 530D.
The Mirage will get through transonic regions in nearly half the time. The F/A-18 is just draggy. Has high lift for good sustained turn but bad sweep angle and such for acceleration and high speed flight.
(It better suited modern air combat).
I have a graph for the F-18.
“All graphs are for a fully armed aircraft with 60% fuel, at Sea Level.”
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Errrr, says who?
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Airbrakes on mirage work really well, you slow down super quickly
As for the “many more tricks” well if you can’t get slow enough, in a 1 circle you lose, it’s simple as that really. If the f18 has a slower stall speed than mirage, then maybe it can beat it, but considering the mirage is a delta, i very much doubt it, the thing basically never stalls, you can just sit in the air at 90 knots.
F18 can only get the upper hand if the m2k enters too quickly or at the first turn, then it will get more complicated.
Not to mention it has to go around mach 0.75 to obtain its maximum rate, which rarely happens in game, becomes of mouse control and Fox2 becoming more and more maneuverable.
At close ranges it isn’t, the 530D acceleration saved me many times against AIM7s of all sorts.
Not to mention at high ranges, the draggy nature of the f18 won’t help it to get high and fast, therefore limiting the capabilities of the missiles carried.
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It is. Above mach 1 and +20kft isn’t its arena. A legacy f18 with 2SW+2SP at 60% fuel will take 4.15 minutes to reach Mach 1.45 from Mach 0.82 at 40k ft. A 220 eagle at 55% fuel 4SP+4SW+ Centerline pylon will take 1.87minutes. The max speed of the eagle in this config is 2.2Mach, the F18 is 1.56. And the superhornet is worse. 2SP+2amraam at 60% will take 5.7 minutes and has same max speed of the legacy hornet but will take 12 minutes to reach it.
Straight from acc charts
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There are benefits and drawbacks. The benefits being that the AIM-7P should be able to guide on HPRF waveform, receive mid-course updates and track better from side and rear aspect where the Super 530D is currently much more vulnerable to chaff and such.
As you said, the F/A-18 has very high drag in comparison. I also very much doubt the Mirage’s airbrakes will compete with this monster.
fair enough.
I never use the 530D with the 2000-5F, only on the 2000C, which is a HDN only, so i don’t have much problem with the radar.
2000-5F still misses the TWS in PD mode, so i carry the 4x magics (and with the HMD and recent buffs, it’s easy to use)
Someone tried different airbrakes in DCS, and the M2K’s airbrake was the one which would slow the plane down the fastest. I’d have to find the video back and link it if i can. Then again DCS is DCS, not reality, but when it comes to airbrake, bigger != better, especially considering m2k are smaller, but there is 4 surfaces.
The same game where the Mirage 2000 out-rates everything else in the game and has a completely made up FM? The only module where the devs can’t point to a single document showing the “datapoints” they claim to match it up against?
In spite of multiple sources showing similar performance for the plane (Russian, British, American) they claim it has some extraordinarily high performance for a conventional delta modified with relaxed stability.
I also forgot the Legacy Hornet uses the rudders pointed inward as airbrakes as well as the airbrake itself.
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Oh and
The F/A-18’s stall speed on maximum thrust is around 65-70 knots.
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Depending on the load and variant, its subsonic with load at SL…
not from what i’ve seen, it basically gets out rated by everything
As for the airbrakes, the whole wing can become an airbrake if you turn hard enough, that’s the advantage and disadvantage of a delta… Not to mention the F18’s stall speed and M2K stall speed aren’t even in the same realm
What do you mean they’re not in the same realm? The delta is not special in being an airbrake at sufficient AoA. The F/A-18 can attain AoA that would cause total airflow separation over the wing.
They’ve admitted as much in the past but never fully corrected it. It’s a little bit better than the F-16C still to this day if I’m not mistaken.
Also please keep in mind I’m talking about the basic F/A-18 legacy hornet. There is a model with improved thrust engines as well.
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it very much is. That’s litterally one of the main characteristics of a delta. At low speed, high AoA, it acts as an airbrake…
As for stall speed : Community Bug Reporting System
You were in this bug report yourself, so 100 knots for horizontal flight as Smin said. If the plane is climbing, it can be even slower (40 knots according to the source used in the report). F18A and F16C are stated to be around 130 knots and around 130 - 200 knots respectively, from what i could find (sources are really vague for the f16).
To summerize, a f18 will fall out of the sky if it tries going slower than a mirage. Simple as that.
As for ratefight, f18 is better, but it doesn’t really matter because 2 circles isn’t meta anyway, and it will become even more true when more advanced missiles are added. What you want is point the nose quick and get a missile off. Ratefighting is just a way to get killed : it means you have to position yourself well, which takes time, and time is important in a dogfight, because the longer it lasts, the higher the chances of getting third partied. Not to mention a slight mistake means you have to restart it all.
It works well with slow aircraft with poor missiles, but it won’t last in the future.
I was actually referencing the F/A-18A NATOPS. Stall speed is approximately ~70 knots at critical AoA (not vertical). It can and will maneuver better at low speed than the Mirage 2000.
F/A-18 can maintain a steady 35-40° AoA, Mirage 2000 is maximally limited to ~32°… The F/A-18 will dominate a Mirage 2000.
And as I said, the F/A-18 just gets better engines and performance as later models are introduced… (not discussing the Super)
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not like the thrust to weight is impressive in the first place…
which doesn’t really matter, since just like for the mirage and its 40 knots stall speed, it will probably get limited by gaijin’s instructor (also 40 knots is inferior to 70)
got a source on the 70 knots btw ?
look up a1-f18ac-nfm-200 on google, page 748. Section 11 page 21. at 25k lbs GW(empty), stall speed is 68kt at max thrust(level flight sea level), eagle same condition empty has a stall speed of 51kt. Is it better?
Dude literally made a comment before saying that the F-18 has a better T/W ratio than the Mig-29 depending on the loadout, and now you’re also trying to say that 40 knots stall speed is worse than Mirage’s 70 when you were arguing the Mirage’s stall speed is much lower? LMAO