The Iwo Jima is infamous in engineering circles because of the catastrophic steam line rupture casualty the ship suffered in 1990 that killed ten of her crew. I still shudder just thinking about it.
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Well thatās horrifying.
Wow, Wasp and Iwo Jima class. They really want to flesh out things!
I think especially the Iwo Jima LPH opens up some interesting options. In case of a global war, the Navy could have put some Harriers on some of its less capable amphibious ships (LPHs) in order to create Sea Control Ships. These would then have provided some air power in low priority areas around the world where the Navy would not have had a full CV to spare. The Strait of Hormuz map would actually be a prime area for this. Contrary to popular belief, the Persian Gulf was not regarded as very important in a global war between the USSR and the USA. The Navy might not have dedicated even one CVBG to the area. In such case, an Iwo Jima Harrier-carrier could have been used to provide convoy escort or cover anti-mine operations in the strait.
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FYI, I think that the Wordpress web servers are attempting to distribute malware. When I go to the timmothycummings link I get a popup that my iPhone is infected. Some of my customers reported the same thing yesterday.
When is wordpress not distributing malware? 
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When it is crashing again for no reason.
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Hard to say honestly,
Of course, it looks pretty. But he got out of the chocks without bringing up an engine page, running any of the BITs, aligning anything, etc.
So, the systems could be anything from highly accurate to not accurate at all. 
Iām very happy to see that he fixed the nose (or the NAVFLIR, which seemed to be a little far forward previously).
The only other two things I noticed:
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The sound. Harriers have that High Bypass Turbofan whine. Much like an A-10, the sound is somewhere between a test signal and a coffee grinder as I think someone mentioned above. You really need that sound to feel at home in the Harrier.
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Canāt be sure, but the flaps donāt quite look correct. The VSTOL mode is selected according to the message line, which should set a minimum of 25 degrees. Those look a little less than 25.
Of course, Iām away from home and watching on an iPad, so Iām not getting the best view.
It does look like itās coming along though. If RAZBAM is dedicated to getting it right, they are certainly off to a good start. 
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I think I remember Zeus (the Razbam guy) saying they had placeholder sounds in right now. It was made clear that the signature engine whine would make it into the module. If they get something as obvious and distinctly āharrierā like that wrong, I wont be buying it.
Considering that (no offense to ED) the M2000 had some of the best sound design I had ever heard in DCS Iām pretty confident they will get it right lol
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Deacon how does this one sound?
Hey Gunny,
Thatās from the FSX version I take it. The sound is good but perhaps out of synch? The external idle sound is clearly taken from an actual Harrier. The internal sound is decent to start. The engine spool up sounds very good, but it sounds a bit low idleā¦that whine is always there.
When he does the VTO, the sounds continue to sound like he is at taxi power even though he should be at or very near mil. At 5:00 or so he accels out and that spool up sounds very realistic but should have been at takeoff. As heās flying around it seems again that he should be a little higher on the power and that grinding sound should always be behind the roar, throatier during RPM change, but always there.
So overall, good pieces of sound, just not necessarily all in the right place.
On another note, please tell me how much you want to know. The chance of any sim aircraft being EXACTLY like the real thing is very small, even in the sims at Yuma and Cherry Point.
I understand that the AV-8 is a work in progress. I think that RAZBAM looks to be off to a good start. At this point, there are still many systems things that I hope will be corrected (the solid bomb fall line in CCIP which should be segmented as just a random example).
But I donāt want to comment about a house not having walls when the builder isnāt finished yet.
And if I said nothing about some of the more esoteric issues, like being able to select multiples of bombs with no interval (which I suspect will be addressed), Iām not sure many people would noticeā¦unless I act like a fun sponge and point it out. 
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These all sound pretty good. They all, the Nalls one in particular, likely have a little air noise from the ECS which isnāt that noticeable IRL.
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Deacon,
If you were a Harrier pilot, I highly suggest contacting Zeus and letting him know what needs to be changed. I was never a pilot, but did some time with the BLT on a MEU and had some limited experience with them doing CAS in training. The sound is very distinct and impressive.
From the outside looking in, when recreating these modern aircraft it seems like if the goal is for as realistic as practically possible, it would be darn near impossible to accomplish without some sort of committed SME. Someone who is knowledgeable with both theory and practice of how it is āsupposed to workā. Seems like so many caveats that may not be covered in a manual.
Edit: I Honestly have no idea what Razbam has for info resources. I have enjoyed their m2000 and look forward to the AV8 also.
On any module, there are two things that stand out as deal breakers for me:
- Flight Dynamics. It must āflyā as realistically as possible.
- Sound.
The rest is icing on the cake. The catch here is that 95% of people have no experience flying, much less flying military aircraft, so determining its realistic flight capabilities is kind of vague. This is were the actual pilot input would be awesome, but even then its still hit or miss. 2 examples that come to mind are the Gazelle and the MiG21. Both supposedly had real pilot input, more so on the MiG21, and both have had drastic flight model changes throughout its life cycle. The sound is one thing that can be easily verified.
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Thatās true!
And the problem with using āreal pilotā input on a flightmodel is that we pilots are often used to simulated flightmodels not being up to snuff. And most of us arenāt coders, or maybe even flightsimmers. So if a coder tells us that this is as close as he can make it, we believe him.
And, as you say, most users wonāt know the difference. As long as top speed matches some manual or anecdote in a book, theyāre happy.
But if you really start to pick a flightmodel apart, you will find discrepancies.
Thatās true.
Itās very hard without specific gauges in the plane and charts to really tell how a sim plane flies even if youāve flown it in real life. You might get the feeling that a plane seems to bleed too much in a turn, or that the nose sits too high at approach speed, but even with VN diagrams itās hard to translate that into words a coder can use. And fixing one thing seems to break another.
Fighters in X-plane for example always seem notoriously slippery to me. But supposedly the sim uses the actual shape of the object to determine its flying qualities. So how do you tell a model builder that the actual airplane shape doesnāt fly like the actual airplane.
@Gunnyhighway. Semper Fi! I did a couple of tours as a FAC. In answer to your question, I believe that Snark made an offer to RAZBAM on my behalf, but I never heard anything in response. Back when the last patch was coming out for the FSX version, I exchanged a few emails about some of the systems workings with them. But, after a point I never heard anything further, which is why I said that I thought that they had decided to be done with the project at that point.
In any case, it their baby so they can do as they like. I just hope that they have some one who really understands the systems and does them justice.
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