Do we develop the F-35
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Yes the fact that real documentation is sparse to non existent is obviously a problem. Nevertheless there is still an extreme ammount of public information available to work with, especially when it comes to the general capabilities of the F-35, its sensors and its PCD menu’s. And although we have no acess to accurate performance numbers, these are anything but impossible to reasonably estimate with some good research and cross referencing.
As a proof of concept i would really encourage people to take a look at what Dino Cattaneo has achieved with his F-35’s for P3D and MSFS. Whilst they may not be what many would consider full fidelity or study level, they till this day are the most accurate F-35 representations we have in any sim and would provide anyone with a good headstart of already conducted research.
And even if there is no possibility of making a one to one representation of the F-35, it would still serve the purpose of being the drive to improve BMS in some key areas (especially radar modelling and EW). And with the aircraft modding/development in BMS being stuck at porting F-16 avionics into pretty much anything, and the F-16 itself being modeled to almost perfection, there really isn’t anything that will bring meaningfull progress other than to develop an aircraft with clean sheet avionics.
So whats the worst that the F-35 being developed could cause? Progress, advancements in rather underrepresented areas and lessons for the future?
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I would say for those talented individuals go ahead as I would love to have a version of the F35 pit like in FreeFalcon I tried years ago by Halismojab, The F22 pit does not cut it for the F35 found in BMS needs its own at some point., going by the video I found for the Nordic theater below.
Hope someone pulls out a 3D pit soon!
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@MRTX Since the F16 isn’t yet “modelled to perfection” I, for one, wouldn’t want to take our developers’ eyes off the F16 ball. And if ever it is ‘perfect’, I would rather see a focus on developing similar generation aircraft- including Soviet and PRC models. The fact that F16s aren’t the newest kids on the block shouldn’t be a negative; after all there’s still lots of interest in WW1 and WWII sims.
After “perfection”, there remains plenty of room for developing other aspects of Falcon 4 BMS such as skyscapes, graphics, sound, terrain, busy air bases and so on. And of course, nothing stops “private development” of F35 models .
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Good Day, All. With OFMKTO 1.4 out we have time to do other things, and we made a lot of progress yesterday with the F-35 and the 5G Pit. When working with a cockpit our baseline goal is ramp starting the jet without the keyboard. We’re a lot closer to that today then yesterday. We, or rather Brother Eddie, figured out the OSB issue with the center MFD’s. That gives us something to work with with things like IIF functionality, which is fixed. There is more to do. TCN functionality is something to be figured out. We did some work with the gunpod and that seemed to cause an issue with AG master mode. We think we’ve made progress with that.
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@Reaperdog1 Wow, very decent legacy cockpit !
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It’ll be really nice to just have a F-16V cockpit and radar model. Also there are still some missing features systems wise in the new verison F-16’s that is kinda of a bridge into the F-35. If these systems are not developed For the F-16V than it’s kinda of pointless to develop the F-35 in game.
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Regarding a potential F-35 and it’s avionics and sensors, wouldn’t it be possible to use for the F-35 in BMS the Arcade avionics of Falcon 4 or a derivative of it?
I still remember a bit about the Arcade avionics of Falcon 4, namely it’s “radar” which was basically the TSD which showed all contacts more or less on 360 degree around the aircraft with the enemies being marked on red and friendlies on green (or blue?) and it showed both aircraft and ground targets.
This is actually and basically how the real F-35 presents the sensor/target information to the pilot.Actually and everytime, I watch the real F-35 simulator I think something like:
- That’s like playing a “realistic” simulator on arcade settings.
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So, I read through all 131 posts on this topic because I’ve been thinking a lot about the F-35. There is a lot of passion, and in some cases heat, on this topic.
Here’s my thoughts: Three things set Falcon BMS apart from the rest of the combat flight sim market:
- The level of accuracy in the F-16 simulation
- The sim’s TE and campaign simulating capabilities, which in my view already makes Falcon BMS more than an F-16 simulator.
- The dedication and unpaid contributions of the Falcon BMS community.
Falcon 4.0, and it’s development into Falcon BMS, has led to what is surely the most accurate F-16 simulator for the civilian flightsim market. There is a niche and demand for this level of realism and the BMS team has been right to focus on this goal. As such, I think the BMS F-16 focus should remain and hopefully expand into the Block 70 etc. That is supporting to one of the Falcon BMS product’s strengths.
At the same time, many in the community come to fly the Harrier, Hornets/Rhinos, Mirage, and more and many have contributed according to their interests and talents to improve these planes. I enjoy flying the F-16 and taking satisfaction of knowing the level of accuracy that has been achieved in the sim I’m flying. But I also enjoy flying other jets, even if they are not modeled to the same level and I enjoy flying them in the TE/Campaign environment that BMS offers. That is part of the value proposition with BMS. I think the BMS devs should do what keeps them motivated to keep working on BMS. And I think others that can contribute should also keep working on whatever jets or toher game aspects that motivate them to do the work and contribute to Falcon BMS. I have no idea what the recent news with Microprose will bring, and I won’t speculate. As it stands right now, so far as I know, nobody is here for a pay cheque. We’re here to enjoy Falcon BMS and ALL it has to offer. So if a group of people are passionate about the F-35 and want to build it up, I see no harm, only benefit. I would count myself among them. Many have said that the F-35 can’t be modelled accurately (classified systems, game engine limitations, etc.), or that there would be no point as an F-35 would dominate. I agree with the first argument, but not the second (that there would be no point). I like flying the F-4 Phantom II in the Vietnam theatre. That the F-16 could dominate it does not stop me from flying Phantoms. If I’m flying the Phantom in Vietnam, I’m fighting SA-2s, MiG-19s and MiG-21s, not SA-10s and Flankers. Invent the conflict parameters you want, and enjoy.
Can the F-35 be accurately simulated? Almost certainly not to the extent of the F-16. All these jets are on a spectrum of realism. If the F-16 can be developed from 90% to 95%, go for it. If the F-35 can be developed from 20% to 25%, go for it. (Please don’t argue about percentages, their illustrative to my point, not meant to be an actual fidelity metric).
With the F-16, the BMS devs set a high goal: “As Real as it Gets!” and they continue to have amazing success on the road to that goal. As I said in my 3rd paragraph, I think they should stay the course. It’s a pillar of Falcon BMS’s success.
But as I said in my 4th paragraph, for those more motivated to contribute in ways not related to the F-16, those contributions should not be turned away. In the case of the F-35, I would look at the “low hanging fruit” and start there. A lot of work has already been done on the F-35, and while we will almost certainly not get an F-16 level of accuracy, building it up to its own next level can start without massive effort I think.
F-35 Tweaking and Development Ideas
The real world F-35 has the following systems the can be replicated to some degree in BMS in the manner described in parentheses. Some systems I’ve grouped together as they are fused from the pilot experience perspective.
EOTS - Enhanced Optical Targeting System
(OFM F-35 has internal TGP)SEAD/DEAD/Electronic Warfare Capabilities
(OFM F-35 has internal HTS/HAD)
(Possibility? Upgraded OFM F-35 jammer to growler level. Do not require jamming steer points to use jamming. Turn on and off as per normal?)Radar - AN/APG-81 AESA
(Possibility? Enable constant full forward radar coverage to full limits of F-16 radar gimble limits?)
(Possibility? Enhance radar senstiivity?)Radar Cross Section
(Could not find OFM F-35 data on this?)IR Detectability
(OFM F-35 appears to have 30% the IR signature of the F-16 and F/A-18C, so IR masking seems to be implemented)Terrain Following Radar
(OFM F-35 appears to have this. Have not tried it.)DAS - Distributed Aperture System, Networked Sensor Data Fusion and HMDS
(OFM F-35 already has internal LANTIRN built in)
(Turn on full screen NVGs in settings)
(Turn on labels in settings, activate “label near” and “labels far” in 3d. This would be a cheat in most planes, maybe not so much so in an F-35)
(Turn on “Infobar”, “Engine Display” and “Flap Display” in 3D)
(Possibility? Augment the HUD information on JHMCS to replicate HMDS?)
(Possibility? Internal data link pod. Haven’t worked with IDM or Link 16, so can’t say much here)Cockpit
(Possibility? Remove F-22/5th Gen HUD frame)
(Possibility? Arrange 3 standard MFDs horizontally into a Panoramic Cockpit Display PCD-EU arrangement. Use “touch screen” hotspots instead of physical button hot spots.)These are the things that have been done, can be done through standard settings etc, and might be possible without (hopefully) too much effort. They won’t make a high fidelity F-35 simulator, but they might be a quick start to improving the F-35 experience.
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@lfortanet - the Harrier is probably the single best subject for an “improved” higher fidelity BMS sim. I’ve found quite a bit of NATOPS documentation for it online, and it’s a pretty simple airplane in most respects. Even the Harrier avionics and cockpit could be done more correctly, without simply putting another dress on a Viper. Not to mention it’s performance - which is totally out to lunch in VSTOL currently.
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In reviewing the original subject matter and all of the comments in this thread, it is very clear that the majority of people now, both users and clearly some devs as well, lack the personal historical perspective of the apparently few who have been with this simulator from its very beginnings decades ago.
The name ‘Falcon’ should explain it all. This started out as an F-16 simulator, period. Every minute and every resource spent developing other flyable airframes are minutes and resources taken away from further development/refinement/improvement of the F-16 Falcon airframe.
I know this old-timer’s comment will receive little support, because most of you have no personal knowledge of this simulator’s roots, and have little or no loyalty to the original Falcon simulator concept. The comments made in this thread make it clear that there are few purists left. In my opinion, this is a big reason that there are still today many areas/issues of the simulator’s F-16 that have been in urgent need of addressing/improving/fixing.
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While your comments weren’t directly directed to me, they were a response to my post and I was expecting to catch some heat on this topic, so I’ll just say that to the degree that I may lack personal historical perspective, have no personal knowledge of the sim’s roots, have little or no loyalty to the original Falcon simulator concept and may even somehow be part of the reason there are areas of the F-16 sim leaving room for improvement, I apologize.
I’ll admit that while I’ve been flightsimming for a little over 30 years, I only started with the Falcon series in 1998 when 4.0 was released (beautiful spiral bound manual!). Before that, Back to Baghdad (1996) was my F-16 sim. I never flew 3.0 or earlier.
That said, I think I agreed with you that the BMS devs SHOULD focus on the F-16. “Falcon 4.0, and it’s development into Falcon BMS, has led to what is surely the most accurate F-16 simulator for the civilian flightsim market. There is a niche and demand for this level of realism and the BMS team has been right to focus on this goal. As such, I think the BMS F-16 focus should remain and hopefully expand into the Block 70 etc. That is supporting to one of the Falcon BMS product’s strengths.” “With the F-16, the BMS devs set a high goal: “As Real as it Gets!” and they continue to have amazing success on the road to that goal…I think they should stay the course. It’s a pillar of Falcon BMS’s success.”
But, not everyone in this community is going to work on the F-16. Some will want to work on and fly other planes. They can do that here or they can do that elsewhere. They chose to be here.
As for the F-35, the question was asked, I contributed my thoughts, paid respect to the history, strengths and work put into Falcon BMS and the F-16, highlighted some work already done for the F-35 and offered some hopefully easy and non-disruptive ideas that could be done outside of the BMS dev team work and that might satisfy those interested in the F-35, myself included.
I recognize it’s a divisive issue in this largely passionate community, and I respect where you’re coming from in wanting to keep the F-16 focus or exclusiveness. I think without that focus, Falcon BMS would not be where it is today.
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@SoBad Dont worry. There are still more than enough devs interested on the F-16 and all its variants etc.
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@DeepSimulations - Definitely not “directed to” you. Your well thought out comment was just the springboard of my response.
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@SoBad said in Do we develop the F-35:
@DeepSimulations - Definitely not “directed to” you. Your well thought out comment was just the springboard of my response.
Hello, SoBad. Just in case your comments were “directed” at the OFM, I thought I should reply, and I have several comments.
First, a bit of history. We did not bring other jets to Falcon. Some very smart people(Devs all) developed the Hornet and others. And, BTW, I am very aware of Falcon’s roots. I was there, too.
Secondly, the inspiration for the OFM came from a Dev coming on to the old Forum . He expressed the wish that some “third party” would come on board and help with the other jets. That was the inspiration that took us from 2 guys fixing 4.35 cockpit hotspots to what we’ve grown into.
Thirdly, what we do does NOT dilute the Dev’s work with the Viper. SoBad, that is simply not true. We do what we can “from the outside” , and without hard code access. OTOH, I talked to Bad Boy years ago offering to help wherever we can, including the Viper. That offer still stands,btw.
Finally, I believe in respecting others’ opinions. If you just want to fly the Viper, more power to you. But, I would ask you respect that the OFM and I disagree. -
@DeepSimulations Hi. Thanks for the great post, I’d like to respond at length. So, in the order you listed…
I should probably mention that what we can do always involves compromise. And I I mentioned to SoBad, we do not have hard code access.
Yes, the F-35 has the realistic internal TGP and built in HTS. It’s a logical supposition that with AESA some form of TFR may exist. OTOH, would they deploy a stealth fighter NOE ?
Speaking of AESA, that’s been a topic of conversation for years. The current consensus is that there isn’t enough real world data to model it . We’ve not really explored changing the radar’s modeling.
As for DAS, your use of labels and full screen NVG’s is interesting, but it brings up a main point. That is, just how far do we go and not “ruin” the other jets. RCS is a very good example if that point. We have currently “detuned” the F-35’s stealth in our theaters, for that reason. From the data I have found, the Viper has a frontal RCS of 5 meters2, and Amy has between 0,01 and 0.05. The way that RCS is implemented in BMS is that the Viper is a baseline of 1 and others jets values are a comparison to that .Actually, RCS in RL is a lot more complicated then apparently can be modeled So, we can easily make the 35 pure Stealth, the question remains do we want to?
As for the cockpit, we would love a real cockpit builder to join the Mob. There is a lot that could be done. Can we make a full JHMCS?
Anyway, as we did with the “Super Tomcat 22”, we are very open to new concepts. In that spirit, whatever you would like to share would be most welcome -
Just to throw some fuel on the fire, yes BMS is an F-16 sim. But with 4.37, it is finally branching out in a non-F-16 avonics still. As @drtbkj points out, Falcon 4.0 has had other planes done pretty well from a fairly early mod stage (there is a certain developer that seemed to have cribbed a lot of the F4.0 M2000 mod info for their pay mod for another sim…). The carrier ops support has had a lot of work done on it over the years, So despite being a F-16 sim, other planes have never been completely ignored in the F4.0 modding history. As @Mower would tell you, despite him being a huge F/A-18 fan, he flew BMS as a primary sim for a long time as a Hornet sim with Viper avionics and it worked out very well until he went to the dark side for the more accurate Hornet avionics of DCS. But he’s came back some and could probably tell you all the other downfalls DCS has compared to BMS.
And to be fair, besides for maybe A models and Block 60+ (which maybe hard to do without documentation), the F-16 is pretty much completely modeled. There isn’t much avionics work left that is Viper. Most of the things BMS devs would work on now like say… 🫣 …Link16 could transfer to other airframes.
4.37 is the first time we are seeing the new avionics possibility and apparently according to the u3 news will have some modularity that may be possible for groups like OFM to develop. I am very excited about the work @qawa @Topolo @tumbler and others have done on the F-15C but look forward others. (Edited to add more names thee to give credit)
The only reason I fly DCS any more is for some carrier traps that can be graded via the Supercarrier module and the F-5E. It is my favorite non-Viper plane of all that they offer because it’s a great mix of simple to learn, hard to employ. So I really hope the new avionics could allow something late 3nd gen like that (or 5th Gen to bring back to the purpose of thread), but even then the draw of other aircraft with full fidelity avionics of 4rd Gen will be a good thing. It will allow BMS to stay fresh. (edit to fix my generations).
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@Stevie Hornet and A10 would pretty much get me off DCS completely so I’ll second this…
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@drtbkj said in Do we develop the F-35:
So, we can easily make the 35 pure Stealth, the question remains do we want to?
What’s the point of spending time to model an aircrafts that has stealth as one of its primary attributes if you’re going to nerf that attribute?
If it’s a balance question, that feels a bit silly in a sim. If you want to fly as or against an F-35 it’s going to be pretty pointless if it’s modelled without a good approximation of its actual attributes. Otherwise it’s just a skin…
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Without data… the F-35 is just a shell…
There is nothing serious about such project or some people would be in serious troubles…