General Discussion about High Tier Jets

[Malekitth]

Let us discuss loose topics related to multiple aircraft here, the general state of balance, and thoughts.

[Giovanex05]

Most of top tier aircraft in the game are overperforming, the main reason for the over performance are 2:

Missiles used to have higher drag than real life 3 years ago, and most E-M diagram for aircraft have missiles onboard, so that now results in overperforming aircraft.

Second reason is that some manual use the “load factor” nz (perpendicular to the aircraft velocity vector and to the airflow) instead of the “normal load factor” Nz (which is perpendicular to the aircraft body).
This is especially important for aircraft whose flight model was adjusted after a bug report, because most people do not know (and I don’t blame them because both are usually only labelled as “G load” or just “load factor” in the manuals).
What ends up happening is that the aircraft Nz values (Ny in local host because Russian manuals seem to use Y instead of Z for the axis perpendicular to the wing) ends up being tuned to follow nz values, and this results in a higher turn rate than real life, because for the same turn Nz < nz.

I’'ve found about that very recently (yesterday actually) when looking at the F-15A, because turn rate values didn’t match while overload was matching:

@Giovanex05

Does anyone know what Load factor is used in this chart? Is it the normal load factor N_zNzN_z like in the F-16 manual or the load factor n_znzn_z ?

(N_zNzN_z is the forces perpendicular to the aircraft body divided by the aircraft weight, aka it is:
N_z = \dfrac{(Lift * cos(AoA) + drag * sin(AoA)}{Weight} Nz=(Lift∗cos(AoA)+drag∗sin(AoA)WeightN_z = \dfrac{(Lift * cos(AoA) + drag * sin(AoA)}{Weight}

while n_znzn_z is perpendicular to the airflow: n_z = \dfrac{(Lift * + thrust * sin(AoA)}{Weight} nz=(Lift∗+thrust∗sin(AoA)Weightn_z = \dfrac{(Lift * + thrust * sin(AoA)}{Weight} ).

I’ve noticed at mach 0.3 sea level that both the F-16 and the F-15A are doing around 17 degrees per second, but the F-16 has an indicated load factor of less than 3 while the F-15 one is above 3.

Turn rate as a function of load factor n_znzn_z is: ω = \dfrac{g \sqrt{n_z^2-1} }{V} \dfrac{180}{π} ω=g√n2z−1V180πω = \dfrac{g \sqrt{n_z^2-1} }{V} \dfrac{180}{π} , and in a sustained turn (right now not bothered to write how it is derived) in a sustained turn n_z = \dfrac{N_z}{cos(AoA)} nz=Nzcos(AoA)n_z = \dfrac{N_z}{cos(AoA)} .

If we take 2.9G as a value for N_zNzN_z for the F-16, get n_znzn_z considering that AoA is ~23 degrees and we use the formula above (mach 0.3 at sea level is around 99m/s), we get exactly ~17deg/sec, which is the value of the manual.

Doing the same thing for the F-15A (AoA is close to 22 degrees) with the ~3.15G value we obviously get much more than 17 deg/sec, around 18deg/sec.
If instead we use 3.15G directly as n_znzn_z we get 17deg/sec.

So either the turn rate chart is wrong (discrepancy is too high for it to be just mach to m/s speed conversion due to air temperature/pressure) or the overload in the chart is n_znzn_z instead of N_zNzN_z, which means that the aircraft is modelled wrong in game.

[Malekitth]

Well, which aircraft in particular?

[Giovanex05]

In terms of Nz vs nz
F-15A and F-16A both have this issue (F-16A is even kinda my fault because I had reported the at the time even more excessive STR in October and I reported it without thinking which overload was used in the manual).
Idk if other aircraft also has the wrong overload modelled.

In terms of “Missiles had higher drag” MiG-23ML, phantoms and basically most 3rd gen aircraft are overperforming

[Malekitth]

Since you are the original reporter of the F-16, can’t you report it once again?

[Giovanex05]

I can and I will in not so distant future, but first wanna look at all other aircraft, same for all the 3rd gen stuff, because nerfing some of them would result in unbalance.

[IFirekeeper]

So I assume gaijin also took the wrong nz right ?

Anyway, I hope it may bring balance to most aircraft we have in game and buff others, feels like F-15, F-16 and even F-14 may overperforms
so much they overshadow their counterparts