Because 1.5 is the ratio between their structural and allowed limits.
F-16 is a 9G plane and is built to structurally be able to sustain 13Gs (or at least I think it is, the important part is that they allow the plane to go up to what it is the point were wings would start breaking/bending).
An example of which I would be more certain is the MiG-25: irl it was limited to 4.5G, but during testing it was able to pull 11 without breaking the wing. In game it would pull 11G.
(for those wondering the MiG-25 would pull 11 at mach quadrillion or some stupid high speed, certainly not at 1000kph, it would still remain a brick)
Another example is the F-18. It is limited at 7.5G in real life but can go well past that without breaking (should be around 11-12G which, oddly enough, is 1.5 times 7.5)
It’s one thing if the airframe can pull that, but can any human being withstand 18Gs? How would that not just kill you on the spot? Taking it with a grain of salt, Google says the average human can withstand 4-5Gs before passing out. I have to imagine 18Gs is lethal to anyone, trained or not.
Does Gaijin need to implement (I guess what we would call) a “soft death” mechanic where your pilot’ just dies from sustaining a high G load/maneuver? Can’t imagine that being very fun.
You don’t think the Gripen can structurally support more than 12 G’s? You don’t think the engineers at SAAB realized that they too should have some extra room for the structural G-limit of the plane? The F-16 can not structurally tolerate 13 G’s and be perfectly fine, it would not be destroyed but the wings would bend and need maintenance, same goes for the Gripen. The Gripen can pull 12 G’s and structurally about 1.5x that (like all aircraft, as you mentioned) before being damaged, note again, that it does not destroy the jet to experience these high G-forces but it is considered to not be “Structurally fine” which is important to differentiate between.
I don’t see how this is relevant. Gaijin looks at the max G-load for an aircraft and multiplies it by 1.5, if a pilot would survive this multiplication is irrelevant. Most pilots won’t survive (and definitely won’t be awake within a few seconds) after pulling over 9 g’s for several seconds. They already have a function for the passing out of the pilot, giving the Gripen the G-limit it should have has nothing to do with this function for passing out.
The Gripen is limited at 9G normally, but you can pull “harder” (meaning the stick will try to do resistance) up until 12G (only at higher speeds), then fly by wire controls will prevent you from pulling any further.
That’s very different from what is happening in something like the hornet, where the G limit is set at 7.5, but you can push a button and disable it and then the aircraft will pull whatever it can and you must be careful to not break the wings.
There’s no such function for the gripen (or at least as far as the bug report sources go), and the jet will never pull more than 12Gs no matter how hard you pull on the stick or what buttons you push.
And on top of all this you could make a plane capable of resisting 40000Gs, but the plane must be also be capable to pull that much from a dynamics point of view.
For example the structure on the MiG-29SMT isn’t any weaker compared to the MiG-29A, but it pulls less G compared to the A because the elevators can’t do enough torque to pull 12Gs with all the extra weight the SMT has.
The amount of torque the elevators on the gripen would need to do to pull 18Gs (especially considering that we are at high speed where there’s a lot of compression) is astronomical
Also (although I have no source/proof of this so I might be wrong on what I am about to say), I’m pretty sure the gripen doesn’t have a 1.5x safety limit when pulling 12Gs, considering that it is not something you would do under normal operation.
They would certainly need maintenance (or at least a full check), but they shouldn’t bend. A safety limit is a buffer up to which you shouldn’t have consequences.
Any actual stats for anything meaningful on the tank to back that up? Any use in combat, anything besides manufacturer claims? Because for all anyone knows, it might as well be a 2S25 in a different shell.
The Gripen most definitely does have some kind of buffer, it would not let the pilot pull 12 G’s if that was also the limit of the aircraft (hence why no Gripen has ever lost a wing), if it is 1.5 times I do not know but I don’t know why the Gripen would differ from all other aircraft in the game.
The safety limit is not a buffer to which you shouldn’t have consequences, that would be the normal G-limit before using the override. The switch lets you pull extra, allowing you to damage the airframe in exchange for not crashing the aircraft and destroying the entire jet (I assume you see the beneficial trade here). If not bent, why would the airframe even need maintenance?
I could be wrong but I’m pretty sure the reason why a heavier aircraft turns slower is not because of limits on the elevator motors, but since an object with more mass accelerates less with the same force of an object with less mass according to newtons calculation for acceleration (a=F/m)
Because fatigue wearing exists. Pulling more than 7.5Gs in an F-18 will results in components wearing much more and in ways that could be different than what would happen by just operating the aircraft in his standard limits
In the case of the SMT vs MiG-29A the weight and the fact that the centre of mass position has changed is what causes it to pull less, but at the same time if elevator motors were stronger the aircraft would be able to pull harder and pull higher Gs. The point is that the SMT can’t pull up to its structural limit.
Physics wise it’s a bit more complicated than simply F=ma, if you are interested I can go a bit deeper in it.