Mr manboobs on the right, standing tall before the man all pretty in pink.
âMr manboobs on the rightâ is wearing a red flight deck jersey - he was the squadron ordnance officerâŠour âGunnerâ
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Good thing iâm 1000 miles away in a âfriendlyâ country with a rather low chance of being a legitimate target for JDAM greeting cards 
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Thatâs entirely valid, and in no way am I trying to argue it wasnât. Iâm well aware that for the majority of the Tomcats career the Phoenix was doctrinally an insurance policy against Soviet Naval Aviation. The comments that kicked this off were perpetuating the myth that the missile itself does not have the performance to engage fighters.
That is false, itâs been false since the 60s, and it was false right up until the motors started falling apart. Whether or not thatâs the best use of the missile in any given situation? not my department.
Unrelated
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OKâŠI must have speed read through those posts.
Oh heck yes it has the performance! If we think about it, this missile was designed to hit targets over 50 Nm away. Take that energy and point it as something 15-20 Nm awayâŠIâm not saying it will perform like the SAMs in Behind Enemy LinesâŠbut, as one of our RIOs once said, âIt will find you and it will kill you.â
We were at a Red Flag. They didnât let us use AIM-54 until the last day. The last day morning âbattleâ started. Red Air had 4 x F-15s topping off from a KC-135 at the western edge of the range. We killed the tanker from the other side of the range. They didnât like that. There was some discussion at the debrief as to whether just the F-15 tanking at the time, or a couple of the F-15s waiting in line should also been kills since being in formation with an exploding KC-135 was likely least FOD an engine. They really didnât like that. 
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Heâs got a point. When you canât remember the startup sequence by memory but know exactly how to re-light the engine every time, your aircraft might have some issues.
Iâd imagine this was followed by the guys at the top telling them that âIf you guys want GBUs, just ask. You donât need to keep throwing AIM-54s into the dirt!â
Itâs fair to keep in mind that the Iranian pilots were far superior to the Iraqi ones, so Iâd bet most of the Phoenix kills were done to unaware targets. It doesnât negate the success though; just makes it clear that the old adage of whoever sees the other first has won half the battle. The AWG-9 goes a long way (heh) toward that bit.
I donât know enough about the AIM-54 to say what it can or canât do; my perspective is more than much will depend on the skill of the crew employing it within DCS. Once again, given unlimited stores of missiles that donât have a chance of a malfunction, donât cost anything, and offer superior range and guidance, why wouldnât you use it? Same effect as you see with the AMRAAM, R-77, etc. â if itâs available, it gets used.
So far, my hit rate with AAMs in DCS is pretty abysmal, so I treat missiles as a way to force a target into a defensive posture for a gun kill. Save for a few times of a runaway gun on the Bug, itâs yet to fail me.
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Are we still talking about the Viggen?
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Yes. Honestly, what kind of fool puts a VHS player behind the pilot? And then puts a tiny little tube on the dash to watch the film?!
Because BetaMax was considered a US military secret.
Ok, so we misinterpreted the HUD acronym⊠Who knew Hole Upon Dash wasnât correct?
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The superior Iranian pilots also had a version of Combat Tree according to them giving them a massive SA advantage in cases where it paid offâŠbecause of course the less said adage is you ainât firing Jack if you cant identify what you are firing at!
Have to correct me if Iâm wrong here but âoneâ of the reasons the USN F-14s were kept back in the Storm was lack of a decent NCTR capability presumably the Iraqis had by this time remembered to switch off their IFF on the ramp.
Coopers book has 4 different figuresâŠfor 71 AIM-54 fired you get a range between 16 to 78 (lol) kills unless I canât count of course. Not saying it is a bad book as long as you remember it is only the Iranian side of the story and for confirmed kills read âclaimsâ instead.
Not much in the public domain on the AIM-54 or the AMRAAM beta as I like to call it other than what I scraped off the DCS forumsâŠ3 fired in combat by the USN so useless. Likewise test environments totally useless - the AIM-4 Falcon and every other missile tested shot down everything it hit in a test environmentâŠanyway
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F-14 LIVE! Join us this Saturday evening for the first ever live look at F-14 Gameplay, Live from the team in Stockholm!
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When is the Early access over ? Donât want to miss the discount 
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Wait⊠I was sure the 'cat wasnât available for the public until well into 2019.
The goal is December, the âpromiseâ is no later than the end of winter
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In which hemisphere? North or South? 
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Iâve been a really good boy, Iâve eaten all my vegetables. Ive worked hard all year. I have worked 2 jobs for 8 months. Iâm not asking for much. Please please donât make me wait till next year
Admittedly Iâm enjoying the scooter. But my life wonât be complete till my wings sweepâŠ
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Like I said before, they need at least a year of delays to get the A-6 ready. Q4 2019 is a much more realistic goal.
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Cruel. Your a cruel person.
Pessimistic helicopter dude*
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