Woohoo great responses! I think I’m going to go with the Harrier.
Although I have been waiting for a proper SEAD A/C I think the Harrier will satisfy me for now. A/A has always been in an FC3 aircraft but the F-14 will be a great A/A jet for me.
The hornet will be on the back burner
I think you will enjoy it. If you have VR then the Harrier cockpit is great, with an awesome view.
Definitely pick up the Hornet at some point as well though. It is a great module that is constantly getting even better.
Give me a shout if you want someone to make your flying look awesome!
I suck at flying the harrier but I love it so much I keep going back
Harrier is a great module and lot of fun. Will be excellent as it gets closer to completion. The Tarawa is a lot of fun to take and land from, and the night ops equipment gives you some capabilities that no other aircraft can compete with currently.
I bought it on pre-order and haven’t regretted it. Just wish the systems will be completed soon. Lots of little things missing/broken, but honestly you probably won’t notice.
I think as a module the Hornet is superiour in quality compared to the Harrier in pretty much every respect. Personally I have been pretty disappointed by RAZBAM’s attempt at the Harrier. The very core of the AV-8B as an attack aircraft, the ARBS and AUTO/CCIP bombing modes, are not correctly modeled. I think basic stuff like this should be correct when you go into early access, let alone over a year later. This really left an impression on me with regards to RAZBAM.
It’s quite a shame as the Harrier is a nice aircraft and vertical landings are a ton of fun.
I think you have a point there and if you look at the way the F-14 and the MiG-19 are releasing, the way harrier was released obviously was not the most optimal way of doing it. I still have unbroken faith in Razbam’s willingness to keep buffing the harrier’s systems to fine shine.
The Hornet is far from done…there I said it! 
If I had to do it over, I would have gotten the Harrier…or maybe the Mirage.
When it is finished the Bug will be awesome. 
I’ve owned the Harrier from day one, and it has come a long way, but it’s still missing some pretty mission essential features.
Hornet will be miles ahead capability wise once it’s completed, and really, once it gets the TGP it will surpass it.
Totally agree…100%…the key caveat being “once it’s completed”
Ok, when did the Harrier get the parking brake/throttle lock added? I hadn’t touched the Harrier in a bit and went to fly it last night and spent a good 15 minutes sitting there trying to figure out why the engine would just sit at idle and not budge!
I like it on the Hornet, where it changed to spawning in on the Carrier with wheel chocks in place. You need to get the ground crew to remove them. I’ve spooled up one or two times with a sort of panicked expression on why I wasn’t rolling forward…
as far as I know, its always had a lock to move the throttles out of the engine start position. I think its “P” on the keyboard.
Just spool up pass 90%, youll be good.
I do agree that some of the A2G systems should have been working far sooner. The fact it took almost a year to get the intervolometer working was a bit of surprise. The AUTO/CCIP symbology issues aren’t as big an issue to me, as they do fundamentally work, just not quiet the way the NATOPs says they should. Maybe I just have low slow standards, or got used to systems modeling back when the large printed manual from Microprose was all the info you had on how the system actually worked.
The biggest issue I have the Harrier, is a DCS issue versus a RAZBAM issue. FLIR. Right now it’s basically a graphics filter, and poorly done at that. Right now you are far better off fighting at night with NVG’s, rather than using the FLIR which most of time would be more useful realworld to hunt for targets.
The one that blows my mind is that the MiG-21 is still in early access?!
I can’t back this up. And I further acknowledge that with each FM complaint my credibility sinks further in the mire. But I don’t like the F-18 flight model. There is something about the way the pitch leaps with the retraction of flaps and the huge onset of drag as you approach 8 degs AoA. My friends tell me that flyingbthe F-18 is child’s play compared to the real planes we have in common. But I don’t find the F-18 easy or even pleasant. I can fly it around the boat or tanker no problem. But there is this j’ne sais quoi about flying the bug that leaves me wondering if the handling is even close.
Real Hornet drivers have commented that it’s fairly spot-on (I believe even the pitch up moment when retracting flaps), but they also say it does feel a bit draggier than it should.
My two biggest irritants with the Hornet are the messed up/missing ground effect and the incredible ballooning that goes on in the carrier pattern.
Does this apply to all FLIR? Currently the only FLIR I have is the Gazelle - the ATGM station. It looked good to me…vehicles and people show up bright because they are hot, other things don’t because they are cold-ish…but not truly accurate, which I would expect in a sim.
…but it is not really, is it? I’ve seen a few minor changes but nothing that dramatic…heck the upgraded Viggen radar was more update than what I have seen in the last year-ish with the Mig-21.
Back on topic…the parameters provided were Harrier or Hornet. To which I would first say, Viggen, then Mig-21 and then Mig-19 (a good but bit buggy EA). I have found the older aircraft much more fun to fly. Their systems are crude (not many modes and buttons) but not necessarily easy to master (I have yet to get a sold radar lock with the Mig-19) which makes things interesting. If one definitely wants an advanced cockpit, I recommend the A-10C, if for no other reason, everything works.
I am finally listening to the FPP episode with Wags ( little late here I know ) and Wags mentioned there that not only some systems of the Hornet are still classified but also some aspects of the FM so that they had to ’ tune it down ’ so to say.
If its classified we’ll never know for sure what we’re missing anyway. Some even say the dcs a-10c is slower than the real one as its exact speed is supposedly classified. I wouldn’t know, I managed to hit the advertised mach 0.75 on it.
I think some of that information can be found if you look hard enough, but ED wanted to take the moral high-ground and nerf that stuff for the sake of OPSEC.