F-111A can’t even take off anymore on the Afghanistan map; it’s already hard to take off even with bombs for 2 bases. Today, on the Golan Heights map with 48 500lb bombs, the plane wasn’t even close to taking off and rammed the trees at the end of the runway while not even close to taking off. Even when in the air, A10s out-accelerate it, and by the time you’ve taken off, A10s are 3 miles in front of you. With the current size of the top-tier airfields being around 1.9-2.1 miles long, it’s nowhere near big enough for a loaded F111. Even without any weapons, the F111 needs 1.2 miles to take off according to the stat card in-game, so with a bomb load of 48 500lb bombs, it can’t take off a 2-mile runway. So, with an educated guess, I’d assume it would need 2.5 miles because it was barely close to taking off by the end of the runway. With the recent nerf to the engines, it has over 1000kgf engine power less than in real life (source: Wikipedia). In-game, it has 7110 kgf of engine power at afterburner, while in real life, it’s at 8391kgf, which is a huge difference in engine power. It can barely even hit Mach 1 anymore with a bomb loadout for 2 bases. Another issue with the F111 in-game is the lowered amount of bombs it can carry. In the dev server, it could carry 50 750lb bombs, but now 38. In the first place, it wasn’t even overpowered in that way; the aircraft could barely fly in that configuration and was an easy target for enemy SPAA and fighters. Also, its air-to-air missiles are horrendous. I wouldn’t mind losing its 8 AIM9Bs for a trade for 2 AIM9Gs or Ls.
Suggestions for Game Developers
- Adjust Runway Lengths: Extend the length of runways on top-tier maps to at least 2.5 miles to allow for the F-111A to take off with heavy loads.
- Review Aircraft Performance: make sure that the in-game F-111A’s engine thrust and other performance characteristics align with historical data, specifically the real-life engine thrust of 8391 kgf.
I’m sure other players have crashed after take off too, or noticed that its engines are underpowered. Hopefully, this will catch the attention of the developers and they can resolve this issue.