DCS: F-14B Tomcat | How to Dogfight! | BFM Tips & Tricks 

Dogfighting in the F-14 is a lot of work, but if you can master her quirky flight mechanics she is an absolute beast in a close in Guns only knife fight! Every bit of support helps me keep bringing you awesome DCS Content! www.patreon.com/Spudknocker

The F-14 feels extremely realistic. We should never give in to people who would advocate to make the flight model easier to suit their ability or wants. The F-14 requires skills, that is what is so awesome about it. The hard work required to get up to a good level is what is so awesome about DCS!

Try the same thing against an AI F 5 and watch him not only go vertical with you but actually out climb you.

The best cornering speed I found is around 325 Knots and 15 degrees AOA

I cut my teeth on the old IL2 flight sim way back when, so it didn't take too much practice to retrain myself to use rudder all the time. My only problem (aside from the spotting issues in DCS, but that's another discussion :) ) is that the Tomcat's engines are so powerful, that I find myself repeatedly exceeding corner speed. It would be incredibly helpful if Heatblur would tweak JESTER so that he would perform as you say and give airspeed call outs while you're busy trying to kill your bandit. I emphatically agree with you though. It DOES take practice, but it's worth the effort. As you say, it's quirky, but the enormous lifting surfaces and the monstrous power of the F110s make the F-14B a very good BFM machine. Grumman Aviation knew what they were doing. The Navy knew what it wanted and got what it paid for.

Great vid and good tips! My biggest problem still is spotting enemy planes on high resolution screens. So most of the time I fly loops and circles and think: “what the hell is jester talking about?”

Really interesting and helpful. It's definitely a different feel compared to the F/A-18, more visceral and raw, but nonetheless satisfying. I suspect the AI pilots can always see you, compared to player vs. player engagements, where loss of sight actually plays a component to the engagement. Thanks for posting, will need to try this out.

Great video. F-14 was a phenomenal dogfighter. It was extremely maneuverable for its size and could carry energy throughout the fight and even add energy in vertical fights. It was very technical and pilot-oriented to master, but it ultimately had much higher limits in the envelope because it was so directly controlled. In a vertical fight, it simply was very difficult to match or beat.

I REALLY struggle to spot targets in DCS these days. Even on a 1080p monitor, my eye sight isn’t quite as good as it used to be and they seem to have totally done away with the “dots” that would make locating aircraft actually feasible. Now it’s like trying to “spot the pixel” especially if the target is low and amongst terrain. I’ve resorted to having the dot labels on aircraft otherwise it’s a bit of a joke.

Looks like if Heatblur were to decide that they want to an F-4 or F-14D as their next project, they're more than halfway there.

ive watched your video and the one grim reaper did on dogfighting in the F14 and its realy awesome if you combind the two. Go about 300kts wings out, pull into the turn, full burner and use the flaps to turn even tighter and when you get out or lose sight just pull up and over to spot the bandit again. I just love the F14

The thing about Jester spotting enemies, it already happened in 1994 with F-14 Fleet Defender!. What a great game that one was.

I have to fly it like I am riding a skateboard on a half-pipe hanging 10 then 160* behind the enemy on the way down, lots of half loops they fly by me but I am so frustrated its like riding a wooden roller coaster flying off the tracks. Yeah, no way near a top gun. 24 hours later, I fine-tuned the pitch axis from 100 to 60, rudder 70, it's smooth flying now, not much of a wooden roller coaster ride.

Hey Spud, nice initiative. It would help tremendously, if you have the controls indicator (RCTRL+Enter) active, when showing rudder inputs, or focus more on the actual axis inputs you use in certain situations. Victory205 over at the Eagle Dynamics forum, did a nice write up on the handling and rudder input. That still was a good video on flying the F-14B in BFM fights. I need more of this, as I am coming from bomb trucking and need to relearn a lot when going to fight through an air cover... ;)

You should consider talking about the manouvering flaps too.they are extremely valuable once your wings are fully swept forward.

Is the footage in this video VR gameplay or something else? I have an excellent PC and my F14 isn’t nearly as detailed. The detail in the cockpit looks totally different, doesn’t adjust perspective or anything else. Can’t tell what I am doing wrong but this looks totally different from my experience. Any idea what I might be doing wrong? Thanks!

PvP Gun's only. F-5 is so inferior to F-14. Go against human SU-27, F-18, & the game changes. Then dogfight against them with IR missiles & F-14 is toasted. F-14 is an Ok dogfighter, but best? not IMO. BTW good video :)

A lot of people put the F-14 into the 4th generation category of aircraft along with the F-18/16/15 etc. It was very much a late 3rd generation aircraft with far more in common with the F-4 Phantom than anything more modern.

On my first days I couldn't even survive the AI on the Instant Action scenarios. The plane felt like a bus and everything I did was so clumsy. Not that I'm as refined as I should be, but things got so much better. Great usage of your verticals, interesting pacing on the engines too. Thanks for doing this!

Excellent, that's what we were waiting for.

Great vid Spud, could you do a similar video featuring the F-14 against other 4th generation fighters like the Eagle, Fulcrum, and Flanker? Many people still doubt it's ability to compete with them, and I haven't the time to fill every one of them with 20mm HEI to prove the point.

Grim reapers with vhs training in the f-14 is amazing about using flaps and slats and throttle and rudder use

Oh those agressive pulls, maintenance will be mad at you! LOL You can see the G-Induced Damage on the navigation system at the end when the attitude indicator loses its calibration. I used to get that until I noticed it was the agressive pulling... Actually you shouldn't pull more than 6Gs on the F-14 if you can. But if you have to pull 10Gs.. Just know that you're hurting her pretty bad

I'm on the fence with the F18 and f14, but i think im gonna go f14 because it's a good aircraft even though it doesn't have all those computer systems that the F-18 has

Fantastic Spud - I came from Aces High online for 20 years, and all fighters there are mostly split into turn and energy fighters. Nice to see someone in the DCS world giving some explanations as to how to use a fighter like the F14 which takes advantage of both, and can really use the energy fighting tactics well. Very good examples here of when to break off trying to get your nose into an advantageous position and go back up into the vert using superior thrust and the F14's ability to "out pitch back" pretty much every fighter out there in DCS. We were lucky in Aces High to have a former F14 pilot in the game, who was a TG insctructor as well as flew with the VX squadron and flew those black Vandy planes. He also had more Aim54 shots than probably anyone alive outside of Iran. Lots of what you mentioned here was an echo of things he had posted over the 10 years he played AH2/3 (Mace2004 on the forums there).

@2:45 You can pull those desperate high G maneuvers in the FA-18. All you need to do is pull the lever on the stick (lever that disengages autopilot), hold it down, and as long as you are holding down it will turn OFF the G-limiter on the FCS. That 7.5G limit will be gone giving you unfettered access to all the G's your body, speed, and the airframe are capable of. This feature is specifically for reasons like were described here in his gun shot and various other emergency situations. I very rarely use it, but when I do it's brief such as getting my nose quickly on the ahead of a bandit to make a snap gunshot early in a merge or to avoid hitting the ground when I do something stupid. You lose tons of energy extremely rapidly if you just hold down the G-Limit override paddle and keep pulling...even if your F-18 is in A/A config with no wing tanks. The only NATO aircraft of the same era as the F-18 that can sustain these insane high G's without loosing energy is the F-16 at low altitude. Other than that great video! Here's a video (for anyone who hasn't seen it) showing actual tactics taught to F-14 pilots at Miramar against F-4's and F-5's. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-7RaMp2r7eWI.html

What is the padlock view command to lock onto the target? For some reason I cannot figure out which one it is. Beside period specific setups, why would anyone choose F14A? Does it have any advantage over B?

Ooooh GREAT video ! And yeah this beautiful baby deserves the best of ourselves, thanks so much for this ride. As always... ANYTIME BABY !

Does your friend in the F-5E do videos? He seems really good at BFM.

Yeah I agree... first minute of me trying the f14 and I tore the wings off as I was so used to the fa18... now I love the f14, all its quirks and moods

If you keep up flying like this, you are flankers favourite in the menu. Pull up, then he'll lock you and blow you out of the sky. Simple as that. Btw Jester is too slow to keep up with the turns... he tells 2 while tally already is 7 o'clock. Useless....but still the the big cat remains a beast you gotta love 😊

Spudnocker's sparring partner seems to know what he was doing, at 2:45 Spudnocker failed to reposition and he probably planned and saw that. He reversed, letting Spudnocker overshoot his 3/9 line. Spudnocker then continued 2C and he also saw that, reversed again and was offensive. If he was flying something better than a F-5, Spudnocker would have had a bad day. From my experience most DCS pilots start getting problems at either aircraft handling (-> stall, no control over airspeed) or BFM basics. Before you can make up tactics, you need to learn the rules (like in chess). Nevertheless Spudnocker did a great job flying and editing.

I like the FM of the DCS Tomcat, but I wonder what the actual RL F-14 Veterans have to say about it?

1) How in God's name are you able to require so well? I always have to resort to F5ing the camera to get a padlock. Otherwise, I would NEVER find the bandit in a knife fight. 2) What is your head tracking setup (gear and settings)? Looks great. Like butter.

GREAT Vid Spud!! Can't wait for the chance to fly with you, ANYTIME BABY!!!

Yeah this is a 2 year video and I had to revisit it and so happy that jester is calling out speed now what a very huge improvement now. The Tomcat is my favorite mode. Thanks again!

Coming from WW2 planes, I definitely like the F-14. FBW aircraft seem so bland and boring regarding the flying. Tip for turning - you can go below optimal speed and help yourself with flaps in 1 on 1 with tight turner to get extra lift. Helps against AI F-5s and MiG-21s.

Thanks for the nice video. Am i correct that you use Jester mainly in BVR and during startup?

Hi Spud! I really enyoing your videos. Do you use any sound mod in this video? Just because when you complettly pulling back your throttle and pushing it back again, there is a cool “bump” sound what I haven’t heard on my tomcat. I realy like that sound!

Thank you for great Dogfight video and Could you please how to Lock the target for the gun fight Which radar did you set ? PLM, TDC HI,LOW etc...

Is there a way to show your throttle stick and rudder position and maybe a numeric speed, altitude etc for when you make BFM tutorials? Food for thought maybe?

Brilliant video dude. My mates and I have been commenting on how real world Tomcats pilots who transitioned to Hornet, could hold so much love for the legacy type. Or course there must be a reason and it sounds like practice practice practice is the only way to get the most out of the Cat. I got rudder pedles and thought I'd blown it, as I can't yet see the advantage. So again, I need to tweak things to get the most from the set-up. Tomcat is shaping up to be my favorite module, just getting tired of having my arse handed to me LOL. Cheers Spud, keep up the great vids.

I am getting alright at dogfighting but I always use way too much fuel. Any tips for using less fuel in a dogfight?

LOVE Love the f14 I have a 30 dollar shirt that has the f14 tomcat on it and says aviation at it's best where it alot

There's no beating the M2000 in dogfight

dude, that jink to change to barrell roll onto your tail at 2:35 is some serious maneouvering

Guns only is so much different to the sidewinder game. Ir missiles and the Hornet or the F 5 can give the Tomcat a hard time.

Hi I’m looking for this simulator can I download that?

For myself, the F-14B Tomcat is the best all around dogfighter for me that I have flown and is an excellent air defense fighter. With it's good low-speed handling, some air craft will suffer but the same cannot be said about the tomcat at such given situation.

I tried the F-14 the other day and Jester does read your airspeed. Was this an update?

This may be the best DCS F 14 video I’ve seen yet. thank you and I really need the help. As I’ve said before any man that uses the beepers soundtrack to blue thunder in his videos is a friend of mine.

Cool video :) I have a bit of a correction though - the F5's area of comfort is most definitely not sub 300 KIAS. Its max instantaneous turn rate is somewhere around 350/380, and maximum sustained turn rate is achieved a bit over 400. Even the official manual states that the F5's maneuverability greatly degrades below 300 knots. On a related not I think it's interesting how I see other pilots discuss the F14's FM. I flew the F5 rather than the F18 and while the Tomcat is certainly challenging in BFM, it doesn't feel that hard to fly, just a bit grumpy sometimes.

Yeah this is my experience in the Tomcat also, just go into the verrtical and then dive down in an advantageous position on the bandit if they stay low. If they try to come up with you, they just have so much less energy that you can easily run rings around them. But I do find you don't want to get below 200 knots too often, is quite slow to accelerate again unless you are going down hill. Being on the other side of the equation it is very frustrating fighting an aircraft than can always position higher than you whilst maintaining energy, and any time you even try to put your nose up in his direction he will have the advantage energy-wise and position his aircraft with ease. Also absolutely agree, you just can't beat those direct flight controls! Best feeling aircraft to fly in DCS to date!

"...Tracking tracking tracking...guns kill". "Good kill, knock it off." "Copy, knock it off".

Having an energy fighter like the F-14 is really nice, but my problem is that I almost always loose eyetrack on the enemy, which makes it really hard for me to do high yoyo maneuvers while keeping an eye on the the enemy. I get disoriented so often. :(

The Grumman heavy iron needs heavy feet for dogfighting! 😉

What does BFM stand for?

Agree that the Cat is really good. But try that “over the top” tactic against an F-15C, or a MIG-29. It would, and will, be awesome once we have some more 70s-80s era jets to compete with it.

Great video!

I am pretty new to DCS, I come from X-Plane, so military aviation and dogfighting is a whole new experience for me. The F-14B is my first payware Aircraft since I've always been a huge fan of Top Gun. And I have to admit flying this beast in VR against F-5's (MiG-28's :P) is just so much fun. Honestly one of the best gaming and vr experiences I've ever had. :D

Good tips, I got some practicing to do 😁👍

Classic 109 Vs spitfire tactics

You make it look so easy!

The next time you do one of these Spud, maybe turn on your Controls Indicator so we can see your inputs during the fight. Would be quite helpful.

Great vid....as usual 🙄 I was doing bfm yesterday against the ai and decided to use boom and zoom. Worked very well to a point. Wish they would sort out the AI for the enemy just as I wish they would mend the save track. Don't know why they just don't do it, enough people gripe about it. My other problem with my resolution is spotting the enemy I find it very difficult, but hey that's my problem lol Thnx again for the tips 👍

Awesome work Spud! Thanks for your hard efforts!

Thanks for taking the time & effort putting your vids together. Bought the Warthog HOTAS, rudder pedals and Track IR. Younger bro (expert with computers) says..."Dude, time to upgrade." Uggg...$5,000 spend starts Monday....

Cool video, but I was really looking forward to seeing your control inputs especially the rudders. I'm still unsure how and when to use them correctly. Thanks for sharing tho.

Was his dad your RIO in this?

Excellent presentation!

Great video, as usual! Many thanks!

Hey peoples! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Sooooo I'm looking for help to get me into the DCS world....I'm starting completely cold! I'm looking to pay for someone in the New Jersey area to help me recommend a HOTAS, computer, VR and help me download DCS and bind the game controls to the HOTAS... I'm not advanced computer savy so I don't feel like 2 learnin curves!....got a decent budget so this could be a good project for someone! Hit me up of you can help!

No Pallets or bags and about fifty percent of fuel? I'm in there like swimwear.

Making it look easy!

"Violent left and right rudder inputs' ... that may be just what I needed to hear to learn our beloved Tomcat. I'm a good Viper pilot and want to learn the Tomcat so much. Thanks for the upload. Please do another F-14 lesson. Thanks bro.

Rudder control helps a lot. You don't have to have fancy rudder pedals though, I use the pedals that are attached to my steering wheel. You can often buy that set up cheap second hand :)

Violent maneuvers and departures.... more like violent and rapid unscheduled aircraft disassembly 😒

While I understand why you say rudder pedals are essential. They just aren't. Anyone who can fly a helicopter in DCS on a twist stick will agree. Enough practice and tuning can make anything work.

Good job not updating this when HB changed the F14 flight model a shit ton in 2020. Way to keep me up to date. Thanks for nothing Chudknocker

Above 6G or higher, you will constantly or instantly fuck up your gyroscope alignment. Radar and weapon system relly on that. Those will be rendereed useless.

How can you tell if you’re in the cockpit of an F-14A or and F-14B? (What changes are there in the cockpit

Did anyone else notice you can see the F-18's afterburners or a little dot mid fuselage when it passes through the canopy frame of the F-14? Is that a bug?

Good stuff, well needed.

Thanks for the tips, great video! One question, your snap movements seems very smooth, which is difficult on some controllers. What HOTAS are you using and did you programmed some curves in your axes?

Great vid, I keep getting my ass handed to me by the Mig 29A on Nevada.

i did not realize how much rudder input would help me keep it flying, thank you so much

What speed are you aiming for when engaging? I find myself struggling against f16s and 18s

Thanks for the video! Would love to see you fight James with him in F15/F18!

i can never get jester to lock on to anything i could be right on the ass of a b17 .2 out and ask him to lock and he would allways say he cant

A fun video, but it would have been much more informative if we could have seen your controls and throttle inputs in real-time within the video.

i have been struggling with trying to engage ai jets.. trying to dodge missiles.

What sort of maneuvers do you need rudder for?

Would you be willing to share your trackir profile?

Are you flying in the ‘basic’ DCS world Module? If not what arena are you flying in please ?

My first dogfight in the f14: "ahhhhhhhhhhhhh shit!!!!!!" Boom

Why is it when you lean forward the horizon doesn't zoom in like I see on other DCS videos? I love it, it's realistic.

I have a question, when it comes to dogfighting, do I keep the dlc axis to full so it uses it constantly or only use it during AOA and constantly move the axis

I tried this vs an f16 and he just keeps pace with me!

Im just irritated because i cant afford it.. :|

The F-14 may be able to out turn the Hornet, but in my opinion the Hornet is more easily controlled pulling a lot of alpha. Based on that capability in some instances someone in the Hornet that is aware of the situation may be able to end a fight before a Tomcat can start out turning him. It's a low percentage shot that will leave you slow and dead if you miss, but when it works it's a pretty savage kill.