I hope gaijin not forget considered Litening III replace Litening II first major update. but change radar to PS-05A/ Mk.3
And add Mk.13 & Mk.18 Paveway II on SAAF Gripen C
The canards are another thing currently not well-modelled. I have read in several places that they do not participate in rolling the aircraft (only the elevons should), but I haven’t found a good source for that. Anyone have one? In game they move when rolling.
Btw, can we edit the title? This discussion is not exclusively about the SAAF Gripen.
we should also be able to use them as air brakes on the ground, but currently doesn’t seem to work completely even pitching the nose down.
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Just curious, currently the gripen is among the best FMs if not the best FM for realistic battles. Is the gripen arguably overperforming or are the turn rates and energy retention actually correct besides the G-load limits people are discussing above?
Well people are saying it G limits might be too low so i think its fine in the turn rates
The F16A is still the better FM
There is a huge misconception going around that the Gripen is a bad dogfighter due to the lower TWR and that is has a low rate speed due to it being a delta wing.
I think most people picked up this misconception from content creators and armchair experts.
The Gripen has a super advanced/modern airframe with far lower drag and way better aerodynamics than something like an F16, so despite its lower thrust to weight, it can still outperform the F16 (keep in mind there are multiple F16 variants out there with varying thrust and aerodynamics, so it depends)
From what I’ve learnt from actual fighter pilots - the Gripen is very similar to the F16 in dogfighting capabilities - but the Gripen (despite far lower thrust to weight) can regain it’s energy better.
I think the Gripen in the game is currently pretty accurate - F16A is still better than it in the game, which I’m not sure if it should.
The high speed maneuverability is where I don’t know how accurate it is from real life, but we also have to consider that war thunder allows it to pull more G’s than real life would - same with F16
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It can literally go vertical and lose little to energy like an F15, rate better than a tomcat or F16… still is good in 1c but it’s a UFO RN
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It’s a design that stemmed from the late 70s using a delta wing and canard. The relaxed static stability helps to mitigate issues deltas previously suffered from like trim drag.
There’s no excuse for the overperformance in-game, trying to rationalize it makes you an armchair expert as you said.
I stated previously, no one knows until we have substance to discuss. No documents have been forwarded (yet) to show how it should perform.
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Whilst yep, until we have more data we dont know for certain, I think what Apollo was getting at is that there is a tendency to believe that US = Better/best and so the Gripen cannot outperform/match the F-16 because its not American. Seen that sentiment more than a few times online, not just on the forums.
Perosnally I actually think its current performance feels about right, based upon both first hand experience seeing it at airshows and videos i’ve seen online. The only thing that might be wrong is that it seems to retain energy better than expected. (though after the Tornado for an entire year, everything retains energy better than expected)
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I think the sentiment comes from the poor static T/W and the fact we know the actual by-airspeed thrust output thanks to it being the Hornets engine.
No, I take it that 9x1.5 is the point of irreparable wing damage and instability. Structural limit =/= destruction limit. 12G causes undue stress on the airframe but does not make it unserviceable. If 13.5G were the true point of catastrophic (rip) failure, then 12G IRL would trash the airframe. Saab would not be running 12G test flights and racking up millions in damage with the plane disintegrating just 1.5G higher. I would consider 12G to be “normal” if they repeatedly do it in a test flight.
This is what @Celestia has been trying to tell you. 13.5+ would indefinitely ground the aircraft but the actual “rip” Gs would be much higher, at a likely 12x1.5. The plane does not disintegrate 0.1G over the ultimate safety limit. Since War Thunder only models wing rip, the game should allow the pilot to pull up to 12x1.5 - just as it does for other vehicles.
@Flame2512 @Morvran are there any outstanding reports for the G limit? Getting it to 13.59G at the correct weight (7,875kg) is one thing, and we should probably still push for 12x1.5 .
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I concur. I think the “base” G-limit should be taken as 12G not 9G and so the 1.5x applied to the 12G limit.
The aircraft can handle 12G and under normal conditions, the pilot can reach that hard-limit of 12G. So as we see in SB at least, 12G is the max. If Gaijin then applies a 1.5x multiplier to that figure, then it should be 18G.
I have no idea Im afraid, I’ve submitted one today about Hard limit for SAS mode, but I dont about its RB performance.
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I assume if 12G SAS passes the argument for 12x1.5 will become a lot stronger for followup reports. Thank you guys for all the research and reporting work you’ve been doing.
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Yep, it might, though in manual mode, it can already reach 12G. So its interesting they are choosing to base the WT G-limit (Max Gx1.5) on the soft limit not the hard limit. Thats what Im unsure about.
If the G-max was 9G IRL, then using 9G would make sense. But as it has a 12G hard limit IRL and can pull 12G in SB already. Then using the 9G figure just seems a little confusing to me.
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Not completely.
The South African Gripens also had BAe do some work on the engines, as initially they had issues starting in warm weather.
7530kgf = 73844N
So does that mean the static thrust is actually underperforming?
I wonder if these G-limit reports go through and are implemented will we get a gripen pulling 16+ G again like in the dev server? It seems the elevator deflection at speed gets adjusted with new G load when it went from dev to live.
Yeah War Thunder adds compression up to the rip speed in game. The result is that the gripen loses most of its nose authority at speed and flies like its on rails.
@SlowHandClap I believe the thrust is a bit lower due to channel loss, correct me if I’m wrong.
We’re trying to get it’s wing rip speed raised to around that mark, there’s no reason why the F16 should be able to rip at those G-loads, but not the Gripen. They can keep the G-load wing rip for what I care, but then we need to lower the F16’s wing rip.
Having a higher G load for wing rip doesn’t necessarily mean it will maneuver like it - the reason it doesn’t maneuver like in the Dev server is because it’s had FM changes.
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That’s the thrust Saab quote for the aircraft though, wouldn’t that already account for losses etc?