I’m with you there. Plus, IMO at least, the TGP is more immediately useful.
Looking forward to the day the Hornet is as feature complete as the Hog.
Hornet Mini-Update 2018-11-02
https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=3675985&postcount=83
Automatic range scale adjustment was added to the internal build today for testing.
Automatic range scale control is enabled when the radar is operating in STT, or if the RSET pushbutton switch is pressed. If the L and S, DT2, or STT target has a valid range and is within the tactical area, then it is used as a range scale control target.
The digital data computer automatically adjusts the range scale so that the furthest range scale control target is displayed at between 40% and 90%of the selected range scale. When the display is expanded about a range resolved L and S target, the digital data computer dynamically adjusts the range scale so that the L and S target range is at the center and the display range limits are that range ±5 nmi.
Automatic range scale control increments and decrements the range scale in STT, but only increments the range scale in TWS. If the range scale is manually adjusted then automatic range scale control is disabled until the RSET pushbutton switch is pressed.
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Not to steal any of Nine’s thunder, but Wags posted a nice video today showing 9x use with JHMS which will be playable in a few days.
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So in preparation for this, I set up a Time Pilot mission with a large staggered group of 109s all going after your carrier,. You take off, and with unlimited 9x winders, you annihilate the Nazi hordes. Or that’s the idea. I was testing today the old fashioned way with ACM modes, mostly vertical and boresite, and the missiles seemed sort of buggy. Anybody else notice this? Like I get a lock, fire a couple off and they just fly straight ahead? Not always though. Maybe doing something wrong…
edit: As a side note, 109s won’t actually go after the Stennis. But they will go after speedboats. I made one invincible and suck it inside the Stennis, same speed, same route. Totally worked. Those little 109s just try to go to town on that carrier and hilarity ensues. One of them may have, er, shot my Hornet down during testing. Soooo embarassing.
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AIM-9s are sort of picky about when and where they lock, especially against prop planes which aren’t quite as hot as jets. I would avoid using the radar to guide them and strictly rely on the missile’s seeker for a lock.
Hmmm. I guess we will see with the JHMCS, but I swear, I caged, uncaged, locked from miles out and put that damn seeker head right on the plane. Fired multiple missile and they would just say “yay! I’m free and getting the hell outta dodge. Not interested in what you want me to do.”
I’ll test more in a bit. Maybe doing something stupid. I suppose I could post a track over at DCS forums if it still seems a bug. I know the Hornet is early access and all…
@schurem can’t wait to have you test. It nicely flows narratively from the last mission, where you are landing on a heavily attacked carrier. Payback time.
The seeker is being slaved to the position of the radar contact. That does not necessarily mean that the missile has acquired the target, it just means the missile’s seeker is being told to look there. Unless you’re hearing the missile’s lock tone, it doesn’t actually have the target.
DCS’ IR missile model is based around a broad extrapolation of how heat seeking missiles worked from the 40s up until the early 90s. We’re talking real general strokes here, but basically the missile scans an area, sees an area that is hotter than something else, and continues to move towards the hotter area. DCS then models factors that effect an missile’s ability to find the hotter area: the position of the sun, countermeasures, engine heat, and relative aspect.
Your average world war II aircraft is not going to be putting out as much heat as a tube that works by dumping raw jet fuel out the back. Nor is it going to be going fast enough (I think), that aerodynamic heating will be sufficient to provide guidance. That means that a traditional IR seeker may struggle to maintain lock against something like a piston engine fighter that is aggressively maneuvering.
In reality, the AIM-9X uses an IIR (Imaging Infrared) seeker, which is able to lock onto contrast between the target and environment, which shouldn’t have any problems killing the Messie. In DCS, the AIM-9X is a traditional IR seeker that has obscenely good CM rejection. So again, it may have issues guiding on WWII aircraft.
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For the most part, IR missiles track piston planes fine, but they seem to require one to fly closer than usual from when I tested a couple months back.
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Progress is so cool 
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I take this is going to be an exciting week!
This is good, as I am at the stage where I’d really like a FPAS page on the Hornet, as it this will be so handy. Sorry for making everyone wait. 
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You are right, of course, and that is likely some of what I was running into. I was guilty of the cardinal sin of playing without sound.
I tested with headphones and sure enough, tone was flaky as all hell with the 109s. Still might be a bug… got nothing from 500 meters with the plane positioned in the center of the seeker head. This was engaging head on.
Strangely, the first couple lock up OK, but after that, really difficult.
I actually had more success mad-dogging a boatload of 120s (which really was pretty fun).
We will see what the helmet brings us tomorrow.
What does it mean when your VV is way off from your fall line while bombing or shooting rockets? Perhaps asymmetrical load on the aircraft? I was running into this last night while practicing CCIP.
Crosswind?
Another overly long treatise:
Frontal aspect (head on), is the regime where you can expect the worst performance from a traditional heat seeking missile. In the earliest days the missile essentially needed to see straight up the tail pipe of the enemy jet to have a chance of success. Successive improvements increased the sensitivity of the seeker so it could lock onto that hot plume of gases from greater region to either side of the back of the plane until eventually they can get a lock from anywhere behind the 3/9 line of the enemy aircraft.
The problem remained, how do you lock onto a jet when the fuselage and wingy bits are in between your seeker and the tail pipe? Well it was by that point well understood that at the speeds most aircraft of the day were flying, friction from the atmosphere created aerodynamic heating upon the leading edges of said aircraft. It was a matter of making a seeker sensitive enough to reliably find and seek in on those relatively warmer surfaces. This is your AIM-9L/M. The compromise here is that that aerodynamic heating is still much colder than the exhaust plume you would see if you were behind an enemy jet, and is accordingly more difficult to maintain a lock on. A frontal aspect target will be harder for the missile to acquire, and it will be easier for the target to decoy using flares.
DCS simulates this to a point. What I’m less sure about is the extent to which piston engine aircraft are effected by this, to which extend DCS models that effect.
Tl;dr Always maneuver for the rear aspect shot if you can.
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Great information, and I’m sure you are right, of course. Thing is, ALL the engagements have been head on and the first couple consistently work from quite a ways. It may be the sun is coming into play, or the ocean… I’m not sure.
Happy that DCS seems to be modeling some of the subtleties, and it looks like I have a good mission set up to test the limits of them.
In this case, it might be more reliable to shoot off boresite with the helmet, as the seeker has a better profile…
Or mad-dog spaamrams. Those are always fun
I’d also double check and make sure the IR COOL switch is set to NORM.
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