I’m guessing the last three letters are “The Fighting Falcon”
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My first thought was Fix That Fearless Frog on the title change request… 
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I read they pushed it back because they were gathering info for the AH-1Z.
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…Good things come to those who wait (and play all the gobs of other stuff we have to play with)
I for one, though I lament the fact that a phantom is years off, look forward to DCS F-16. You see, I’m dutch. Vipers have been in our skies for the last 40 years. I will not turn my nose up at flying one of those in DCS. I have flown enough falcon 3 and 4 to still probably quite comfortably find my way around the vipers’ pit and systems.
While the viper now is the middle-road, the boring thing other things are compared to, the base line, back when it was new, it was sierra muffin’ hotel.
It was the incarnation of Spey and Shaw’s theoretical work and it rocked the world with it’s over 1:1 thrust-to-weight, it’s 9G all day any day, its recliner seat and see-all bubble top from the shoulder up. As a fighter, in the 80s, it was truly awesome.
That’s why I dont want a block 52 C model with all the gizmo’s and warts and lumps. I want a block 15 A model. Six -mike sidewinders and a centerline tank. Drop some cluster bombs on a truck park with that sweet CCIP it had. Out-fly those poor suckers in their floggers and fishbeds and phantoms like a freaking UFO.
I rest my case.
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If only!
I for one am looking forward to flying a DCS F16. It will be awesome to fly a high fidelity Viper in VR. Of course, I want the F4 too. Yesterday would be great! 
Gimme a Viper as well, and I don’t give a fruit loop about BMS comparisons or dynamic campaigns, either. I just want to fly and enjoy the F-16 in DCS. 
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Very disappointing news. When the F-4E was announced last year, I was under the impression that it would come in the foreseeable future. It seemed it would go into full production after the Hornet. Now it seems as we wont see the Phantom for many years. It was my top wanted aircraft in DCS. I still love the F-5E in DCS and the Phantom promises to combine the diversity of a modern strike fighter with the pure fun of the Tiger.
I recognize that the F-16 is an iconic aircraft and has its place in DCS. But now that we have the Hornet, I personally have very little interest. Both aircraft are very similar in terms of roles, capabilities, sensors and weapons. In fact the F/A-18 offers quite a bit more of diversity. Or do you think people are going to fly circuits for weeks in the Viper as they do in the Hornet now? There is probably too little new for me to invest the time to dive deeply into both aircraft. Things might have been different if it was an early block F-16A from a different era.
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I too am sad, and if we had to choose, I would take phantom over viper but we don’t so I won’t.
There’s a silver lining to phantom coming later rather than sooner: Look at the quality difference between DCS A-10C and DCS F/A-18C…
QED.
Yeah, the one is a capable single seat aircraft, the second one is a brick that has found itself to come into existence at an untimely demise above the surface of a non-descript planet, I believe its final thoughts were “Oh no, not again”.
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I feel you, brother. I absolutely love the Cobra. However, I’m waiting on an Apache or Longbow. I think Jane’s is responsible for making me believe I can fly them (I put mad hours in the Jane’s Longbow series).
Anyone remember years ago an independent group announced an F4 simulator called “Rhino?” The group ghosted and I can’t find any reference of the sim. I almost feel like I’m in the twilight zone.
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Perhaps I’m talking out of my butt, but I strongly suspect that the F/A-18C’s success has really taken off and thus doing another popular airframe like the F-16C is likely to pay a lot of bills. The F-4 really just can’t match the popularity that the F-16 has.
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I’d second the idea of a F-16A being a dang good DCS module, it’s basically a hotter, faster version of the F-5. The technology is all already present in DCS to be able to build the module (no need to develop new radar tech, etc), and as several people have noted, it was THE iconic fighter of a lot of Western nations in the cold war.
With that said I think the F-4 would have the same market as the F-16A, which is smaller than the market for the F-16C. The F-16C will sell as depending on the block model they use for DCS it is a a “current” generation Western fast jet, just like the F-18.
The good news at least, is that the F-4’s in the pipeline with a reputable dev team, so it will happen. I just wish it was sooner.
To be honest I’m surprised it’s not Heatblur working on the F-4. They have all the right technologies available for it (including the Jester RIO AI) and it would be a logical next step for their Tomcat. I’ve always found the F-16 a bit uninspiring (gasp!)… I dunno, the Vietnam-era aircraft always appealed to me more for some reason.
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I’d take an F-16A Blk 15. That’s a little get that has character. I don’t mind the F-16C Blk 50, I just don’t see what it brings to the table over, say, an F/A-18C Blk 20. I definitely want it eventually, but now that I have a Gen 4 Wunderjet I’d prefer the novelty of a Gen III bruiser over another wunderjet.
I’m hoping that if the mysterious new HB jet isn’t an A-6, it’s an F-4J or S. I’d love a B, (or any, really) but the idea of a carrier capable Phantom with a first generation look down/shoot down Radar and AIM-9L / AIM-7F is intoxicating.
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I had the same thoughts. I wonder if or how ED coordinates or shares resources between third-party devs. The Phantom, being a two-seater , will most likely benefit from from “Jester AI” or at least lessons learned from Heatblur.
Interestingly, the F4 will bring some interesting flying to DCS due to some of its unique flight characteristics. I saw somewhere that the Phantom is flown differently at low VS high AOA. I believe at high AOA rudders are used to turn but at low AOA ailerons work as intended. I think adverse yaw was something F4 pilots had to learn to deal with. I anticipate a few of us will encounter a few tail strikes taking off at combat loads and can also see several incidents of PIO. Pilots will have to stay ahead of the jet because of how it behaves in different flight regimes. I suspect we will see a lot of happy or frustrated pilots depending on level of experience.
I can also see people referring to the F4’s flight behavior as buggy. I must admit, I am looking forward to flying the Phantom. Learning to fly the F4 is going to be hella fun.
Now that the Belsimtek/ED F-4E has been postponed indefinitely (Chizh), this has just become a lot more likely.
Happy to wait for the F-4E and MiG-23 - will give me time to spend with the others I have bought - the F-16C think I will give that a miss.