Tom Cat F-14 a tad disappointing....

I've been off the radar for a while.... got back today and thought time to download the F-14... It's always been my favourite Fighter Jet... I had so much fun with the FS2004 Jolly Roger F-14 many years back... So I was excited to be able to tick it off the MSFS2020 wish list today.... However the controls response sucks I mean really sucks imo.. I do hope it gets better with updates the one for FS2004 was way better than this to handle... you could do tight turns and steep climbs in the FS204 F-14 where this one lacks that manoeuvrability... I do hope it's a work in progress for now 7/10

 

Edited September 27, 2021 by daspinall

Sometimes FS versions of fighters aren't all that... realistic in handling. I don't have this so I won't comment directly on this product/addon.

 

Keep in mind though that many fighters become sluggish and not very dynamic, at low speeds and very high speeds (where it's possible in FS to pull well beyond 9 G's). Also, at very high speeds, many fighters are limited to very low G ratings, because the OVERALL airframe stress, or angles of attack, become too much.

 

Examples of such extremes:

 

a Hornet will depart controlled flight and possibly become unrecoverable at 80 knots, turning into a "falling leaf".

 

The Avro Arrow (experimental interceptor from Canada) was rated for Mach 2 intercepts, but at those speeds, it was limited to 2 G's sustained. I'm certain that it was no G monster, but I'd bet that at 3-400 knots it could probably do 5 or more G's.

 

Then there is the F-104 Starfighter, which was really fast, but couldn't pull G's to save it's life... speed was both it's weapon and it's protection too, fast in fast out. The Starfighter had such tiny wings it could stall almost without warning, and required approaches faster than 200 knots! Any less and you might thunder into the ground, and the earth has a Pk of 1.0 ... so yea.

 

 

If you want an exceptional Tomcat, you might want to try DCS and it's Tomcat module, it's absolutely superb... but then it's not in FS, but rather a full blown combat simulation, with realistic carrier ops, an AI RIO or a human RIO, realistic Vulcans 'Winders and Phoenix (maybe a Sparrow or two as well). Watch the vid, and no, none of that is pre-rendered cutscreen action, it's real live in-game action... yes it really does look that good, and don't stop watching as the vid is 9 minutes long! :

 

https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/products/planes/tomcat/

Edited September 28, 2021 by Herc79

Thanks Herc... I tried ripping through some mountains low level, it was too lackadaisical! With its current flight dynamics, it would lose in a dogfight like a sitting duck... however, the cockpit is awesome in VR..... Just checked, the DCS is on Steam is free wow so adding it to my growing Steam collection £64 for the Tomcat ouch, but well worth it by what you say! cheers for the thumbs up..... I'm sure they can tweak the flight dynamics on the MSFS Tomcat.... Edited September 28, 2021 by daspinall

The Steam DCS is good, but you'll get updates faster with the DCS straight from Eagle Dynamics, and the non-Steam has an easier time with addon mods like the Hercules, A-4E Skyhawk, T-45 Goshawk and Littlebird. Just FYI. DCS itself is free, you get two maps and two planes. It's the addons that cost you, like additional terrain maps, and the really nice addon aircraft.

 

They have the Tomcat, Hornet, Viper (F-16), Mi-24 Hind, Harrier, Mirage, Sabrejet, Mosquito, Spitfire, A-10C and P-47, and so many more. Purchase terrains include the Persian Gulf, Syria (amazing), Normandy, the English Channel, and the NTTR which is also known as Las Vegas and Nevada which includes the famous party city, the Area 51, and where Red Flag and the Navy's decendent of "Top Gun" that now operates out of Fallon.

 

A few, the very inexpensive ones, are also nice, but are older and very simple: they were basically from an earlier sim, "Flaming Cliffs" or "FC" for short... these would be your F-15 Eagle, Su-27 and Mig-29, all good, but no clickable cockpits and simpler flight dynamics, older textures.

 

Upcomming addon modules include the OH-58D Kiowa Warrior, AH-64D Apache Longbow, F4U Corsair. Further into the future, we might see the completion of the Eurofighter EF2000, F-8 Crusader, and maybe an F-4 Phantom.

 

For more info on all that I've joined the ED forums: https://forums.eagle.ru/

 

 

As for MSFS Tomcat, I wonder if you couldn't improve it with just a few edits of the .cfg file? I used to do this for FS2004, but I can't recall much of that it was so long ago, and I know the new system doesn't look at most of that data anymore.

 

Can you be more specific? Is the roll rate low? Or slow to react? Or is the pitch not very good?

Edited September 28, 2021 by Herc79

Roll is good Pitch sucks so I downloaded DCS last night and bought the F-14 wow one hell of a difference A bit steep at £64.99 but with over 4 years of development you feel it in your hands so to speak, so well worth it...... I managed a few flight tests without attracting any bogies.... All in all a good shout out Herc cheers.... MSFS2020 I been known to do the odd edit in FS2004 many years back, with this sim I've not got round to edits yet... I'm hoping the developer fine-tunes the Tomcat at some stage..... there's a huge gap between Microsoft and their unrealistic deadlines for going to market and developers like DCS Tomcat that have spent over 4 years in development... The only developer I've ever trusted for quality aircraft in MSFS's are PMDG products..... they say there are limitations with MSFS yeat many many other AAA games have perfectly looking realistic skies and scenery, and I guess that's what I was expecting with MSFS2020 but it now seems after a year of updates most of them presenting new bugs, they just can't hack it! They even came up with a performance tweeks 6 months into the release, which should have been done before the software came to market which has cost the FS community a fortune in unnecessary PC upgrades!!!!! MS really are bad boys....... Edited September 29, 2021 by daspinall