DCS: F15 Eagle vs F18 Hornet Dogfight PvP 

Why does it seem like the MIGs are better aircraft than American F class fighters ?

The F15 in DCS is quicker and faster, will out climb and I'll smoke the F/A 18 every single time.

Where do you buy this game? What are system requirements?

Buddy, if you F-15 can't turn as good, you need a wider radius to attack. Another great thing to do is use your speed and thrust that an F-15 has, to climb, make an opposite turn, then come in to get him. You can distance yourself from the enemy a lot quicker than he can get you with the F-18, it's a matter of knowing your jet compared to his. Criss-cross his leading path , you will strike and he will die.

@Scott Worley. Good question, im not expert in this but i believe its not that one were more superior than other, it depend on their fighting philosophy & style. Mig usually focus more on maneuverability & close combat, thus their fighter were lighter & more agile. The F series mostly focus more for long/med range battle thus they brought more electronic & weapon equipment, make them heavier & less agile. In Gulf war, there's skirmish in which a lone f15 downed three mig29. (In term of maneuver mig29's better than f16, f16 better than f18, and f18 better than f15). So the winner is depend on who could expossed the other's weakness. In this dogfight f18 could be assumed as the mig, while f15 is the f series. So there is a handicap if we were fighting w/ gun only.

solid tips there petar, i'll keep those in mind for the next fight thanks man.

Correct, Force him to fight your fight. when the 18 is low e you can pull out of the turn fight and extend, separate return to BnZ Great vid! It was just delta's day

I definitely think that is true but in this particular situation the Eagle was pretty slow at the top of the climb and the Hornet had some built up energy. I think the Hornet was still in the driver's seat, at least for the moment. I could be wrong though.

@@311Gryphon your only right if you flew a eagle in that situation

glad you enjoyed it. and I'll deff look into that rematch time permitting

@@GrowlingSidewinder Yes I would love to see a re-match where the F-15 is flown to its strengths, i.e. very high energy maintenance to achieve better turn radius (also BVR weapons).

i'm happy u stumbled over here too mate

@@GrowlingSidewinder Cheers, brother!

Yes me too! He is the reason why i bought my first module (f15) to learn with hotas and vr.

a solid point.

That’s how it is with rc planes too. Fly ahead of the plane. That shit ain’t got brakes

Least the streamer got pointers on how to fly f15 properly!

haha its the turn I did a the top that bled off my energy and allowed him to catch up. but ya that was weird for me too, thats why I thought I had more time next thing I know i'm being riddled with bullets.

Growling Sidewinder you didn’t stay vertical long enough - even a few more seconds and you would have had the advantage. As you alluded to - he was able to stay with you in a steady climb while observing, maintaining energy as you made extreme maneuvers and dumped speed. If you had gone vertical full afterburner, you should have been able to maintain (and increase) separation till he couldn’t hang anymore. Would have had a decent shot if you slowed down at the top and found him when you pitched-over.

@@GrowlingSidewinder you reversed your turn at the top and solved his angle problem for him. You would only want to reverse if you could force a 6 o'clock overshoot inside your turning radius.

a very interesting idea

F-15 is more on energy retention which is why its too hard to fly but when you fly it well. You are basically untouchable. You can use its superior thrust to weight ratio to defeat the enemy.

TheRoshan not to mention it’s the fastest active duty plane in the usaf

It’s cheaper than the other planes and it’s an f15 so why would it be looked down on, that’s stupid. I think the f15 is a good plane to learn on

People nowadays look down on F15s because they can’t do much for the ground and haven’t scored a kill in 20 something years I believe

@@nedbainbridge308 - In fairness, there has only been one air to air kill over the last 20 years in the entire U.S. military. It was a Super Hornet that shot down a Soviet-era attack jet (either Su-24 or Su-25) in Syria a few years back.

Why it's hard to see. Same thing for the F5.. It was so small. You had to have eyes like a Hawk to spot one. Usually when you do see it. It's too late. Their close already..

The F-15 is jokingly called the "Flying Tennis Court"

That’s the f-14

F-15s are surprisingly great at maneuvering

thank you. much appreciated

Thank YOU! I just downloaded DCS a few days ago (coming from decades of flight simming) and have yet to sim in flight combat. I am using your tutorials as my own personal flight school, so I appreciate all the work that you've put into them as they are helping me out a ton!

thanks for letting me know youre finding them helpful im glad to hear that. hope you enjoy DCS, I love getting new pilots into the sky.

thanks man, glad you enjoyed

just wait till the add the F16

lol glad u enjoyed mate

Thanks Brian, and Yes, I've been learning it, I was going to look into doing one very soon, I just wanted to get permission from the guys that made it first also, and they also have gave the all clear for the video productions so I will deff be doing the A4E very soon.

@@GrowlingSidewinder That's great! I'll be waiting for it :D

@@GrowlingSidewinder Needs an F8 -js

thanks man, will do.

thank you, I appreciate the support welcome to the channel.

Besides a vertical fighter, what's your take on the F15 and its high speed turning fights? Rocketing around the slow energy fighters like the Mig29 and F18. The F15 has limited turning ability at prestall speeds, but at 500+ the thing can out turn almost anything else in the sky. Any strategies?

So ignoring weapons and systems the F-15 is frankly the best aircraft in the game in my opinion. It absolutely dominates everything on high speed turns (450 knots), stays ahead at 350 knots sustained, and still sits slightly ahead of (but close to) the vast majority of aircraft at 200 knots sustained. 200 knots instantaneous (ie ability to point the nose) is really the only area it doesn't beat every other aircraft in the game, and that's one which on its own isn't going to be a big deciding factor in fights. It doesn't get a whole lot out of using flaps, but some aircraft like the Russian fighters can get a good deal extra turn rate and pointability with them (along with the significant drag increases) which is really the only point the F-15 isn't ahead of or equal to the competition. But if they don't capitalize on the advantage quickly they will lose too much energy and get killed. Of note for later is the fact that the F-15 engines are significantly more powerful at higher speeds (eg. over 350 knots) whilst other aircraft have this effect to a lesser extent. This goes beyond dogfighting speeds, supersonic for example, but isn't really relevant here. The disadvantage for the F-15, and the reason other platforms are considered the premier dogfighting aircraft for competition play, is the weapons and most importantly the HMS (or lack thereof). A good HMS is a massive leap forwards in lethality, and ultimately it means even if an aircraft like the Su-27 might get beaten in every single important metric there is it still has an advantage in getting a kill shot. With that in mind HMS aircraft will, in theory, want to finish the fight as soon as possible as every second longer the F-15's performance is putting it in a better position. In reality, however, the threat of a HOBS shot will allow the other pilots to push the F-15 in a disadvantageous position, forcing it to lower speeds quickly will reduce its advantage (such as the slow speed engine performance) and allow the enemy pilot more time to get the kill shot. The opposition pilot will want to force a radius fight, one circle, scissors etc which demands the F-15 drop its speed to 250 knots or below at which point its pointability and HOBS advantage will give it the advantage not seen in a guns-only fight. The F-15 will want to play a rates fight, two circle fights etc, and remain at about 400 knots. The dramatically higher sustained performance will mean it quickly gets the advantage. However this likely won't be possible with the enemy forcing a radius fight. Therefore the F-15 will want to try to retain as much energy as possible and when the opponent has aggressively pushed for an advantage the F-15 will hopefully be in a position it can recover energy and/or use its advantage through converting a flat scissors into a rolling scissors and later using the vertical and out of plane responses whilst the opponent is frankly limited in that regard. One thing not seen as much as it should be in DCS, on the attack the F-15 will want to retain a higher energy than the defender will manage. To get the kill it will need to extend whilst keeping its speed (and thus advantage) up. That obviously demands things like lag pursuit, plenty of high yo-yos, things not seen in DCS much. Essentially trying to avoid the single minded focus on lead pursuit and staying patient. The Mig-29, I love the aircraft but its performance is really lacking. Both the F-15 and Su-27 beat it in almost every area, and by quite a distance in some of the more important aspects. Its engine performance isn't a huge issue in a dogfight and its lacking turn performance really is. Frankly I see it as a high workload, low SA BVR fighter. High risk, high reward sort of thing. The F-14 I haven't done enough testing at all to say for certain but looking at it briefly it seems to do best at the sustained turn performance 350 knot region. Flown properly the F-15 should still be king, it's advantage at 450 knots is so far beyond all other aircraft whilst at 350 knots everything seems significantly closer and the F-15 is still king over the other aircraft there at least. Still DCS players tend to dump their energy very early and don't manage it well so a small advantage at 350 knots would likely do better for them than a big advantage at 450 knots. That said proper testing might show something else, a few aircraft have changed my opinion dramatically after testing. The Viggen being one, it is legitimately as good as (or better than) the Su-27 if weapons are taken out of the equation. The F-18 also hasn't been tested as well as I would have liked, I'm leaving the proper tests until after they're completely finalized. And when I have enough DCS time of course. TLDR, against the F-15 turn hard and be aggressive as is the norm in DCS. With the F-15 you need to fight properly and of huge importance is managing your speed and properly deciding when to slow down or speed up. The F-15 is OP, the helmet mounted sights are brutal. Just remember fighting the F-15 vs Su-27/F-18 its rates vs radius. Let me know if I've been incoherent anywhere, I wrote it out at 4AM.

@@olivialambert4124 Damn, im impressed. Do you have any spare time to teach more about these strategies? Im interested now haha

I mean I'm happy to help if people need a hand. Unfortunately I haven't really seen an online resource or video I can point to as trustworthy or reliable as far as ACM goes. A lot of people seem to have read the other poor resources, think they know a lot more than they do, and thus give poor suggestions or incomplete conclusions. On top of that it isn't something which is learnt in an afternoon. There's a mass of information and it takes reading practicing and repeating for months to years before the pieces all fall into place. That said there is a book I can fully recommend as utterly incredible for online and real world pilots alike - Fighter Combat: Tactics and Maneuvering by Robert L. Shaw. If I remember correctly he is a Top Gun graduate who essentially helped develop some of the later tactics used. The book can be pretty dense especially for people who don't have a full grasp of the subject so expect it to take about a year or two of reading and practicing before the pieces start to fall into place but as you can imagine its completely reliable and doesn't have the misinformation online sources tend to. It's also a pretty well rounded book with just about everything ACM you could want but also tactics, 2v2 and 4v4 are pretty rounded, larger strike packages are touched upon but nothing more than a chapter or two for a subject which deserves its own complete book but its certainly going to set the foundation for further reading if that's important. Ultimately though a proper source, practice, and time are all needed to get there. For practice I actually recommend War Thunder. Its more of an arcade than a sim but everything real world tactics applies just as completely in War Thunder than anywhere else. More importantly I can't think of any other resource where you can get 30 dogfights an hour with real world people and complete unpredictability from jump ins, teammates attacking you by mistake, just about everything you need to help you take the tactics from theoretical to thinking and responding in real time properly and correctly. Anyway good luck and remain patient.

thanks glad you enjoyed it.

haha thanks brother I appreciate that.

unfortunately theres no f16 available to players in DCS, only AI and they're too dumb to make an interesting dogfight.

It all depends on the pilot. But if i truly had to pick one i would say the F-16

haha ya i'll do that asap, the f15 would probably destroy the hornet with full BVR capability. especially since the hornet doesnt have TWS yet.

thank you very much, I appreciate that.

thank you, no my intro sound was off google lol. i just typed sidewinder lock on tone and grabbed the first one I got

ya its a beaut I love it too

yup, to be fair to the eagle, i didnt fly it very well, but I think what ur saying is still very true, no matter how well u fly it, the eagle well have trouble against the hornet low and slow. you'd have to be a great f15 pilot to kill a skilled hornet at low altitudes in a turning fight.

@@GrowlingSidewinder Well for what you were doing with the F15, don't see how else you could've flown it. It would be interesting to see what a real F15 pilot would do, other than climb out of there. Maybe if he was able to keep his airspeed above 300knts? I cant believe how the F18 was able to build up the energy for the over shoot and when he shot you down... Gotta be a physics thing?

I think I was bleeding tooo much energy which gave the illusion the f18 was building massive energy advantages. a few people have pointed that out in this video tho, I myself did not expect him to build that kind of energy which is how he caught me off guard and killed me. I personally can't explain it 100% if i'm being honest.

@@GrowlingSidewinder I don't get it either, he was maneuvering hard too. I figured the F15's bigger engines and bigger wings you should've just muscled your way out of there to a better position. But then again you were staying down low staying with the merge. I have to be missing something, probably something easy. Or just the F18 is better lower and slower? Its just hard to believe, the F15 is,,,, a F15...

glad you enjoyed it brother. thanks for ur support with the channel from the start man, you guys are always appreciated.

TheRoshan I’d personally drop 100 bucks for a full fidelity F-15 lol. Not that i want it to cost that much....

sounds a lot like what tom cruise did in top gun haha. thanks buddy glad u liked it.

Growling Sidewinder yeah I realize this, however it’s advice I read from an actual Tomcat driver lol, he did aggressor training in 16s and 18s against 15s.

the point was to show that the f15 can't out turn the f18. when it comes to turning at low speeds on the deck yes the f15 is outclassed by the f18.

@@GrowlingSidewinder my bad, a lighter, newer fa18 can turn inside an f15 when the f15 is low/slow. Rate kills.

Can't wait!!

Non existent most likely

Well I'm lookn back 50 years and technology has came a long way but not so far that I see us getting away from air to air combat.

this is a super old video, I don't even remember the specs of this PC

Andre Santa Maria ya it's supposed to be an example of what not to do. Thanks tho much appreciated bro.

this is the DCS Persian gulf map

well I thought I could force a mistake and survive long enough to exploit that mistake and maybe get the kill. and also to prove its a bad idea. lot of people on this channel are new to DCS and this kind of thing will help them learn what not to do and why its a bad idea. its basically more of proof of concept.

@@GrowlingSidewinder so you suffer for us, in order to teach us valuable DCS lessons? That's a commendable reason!

@@Telsion haha and also cuz I learn from it man. its always good to get ur ass kicked so you can look back and analyze it and see what u did wrong

hey man, join my discord and send me the file. I'll give it a try for sure

First few minutes of this video show pretty much that, albeit without a relevant talk-through. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-C8ShS7fhTds.html

well ya if hes got missiles its a different story, but it can be done, just needs to be done correctly at the right time

hey lucas, i'm glad u liked the videos and welcome to the channel i'm actually not using VR i'm using something called trackIR 5. its another kind of head tracker.

yesss, a huuuuge difference.

DCS is a free download. so you can download it and check if your computer can run it. u get 2 free planes to start and with a new a4e mod (you have to install it yourself) you essentially get 3 free planes. then you'll need a trackir or a VR set as you said, and then a joystick. and thats it. you're done.

hi there, thanks for watching the videos even though you don't play DCS, the overshoot situation was more of an instinct built on experience, I've tried it so many times at this point I do it instinctively, although I try to explain and talk through while I'm doing it to let people see my thought process. nothing here is just raw "instinct" its build up experience that translate into instinct. the more you dogfight the better you get at it and the better those instincts will become. as for how much of the tacview is instinct and how much am I consciously thinking during the fight its probably like 40% instinct and 60% conscious thought reaction to moves hes making. like if I see him go vertical I know hes going to trade speed for altitude and if I dont want to overshoot I better ease off on the throttle...thats built up instinct, I dont even have to think about that at this point. but if its something like ok hes now turn fighting me on the deck then I can't use instinct I have to start doing math, ok his advantage is this and that, mine is this and those, so I should do....this. I hope that makes sense.

sorry man no f16 in DCS as of right now

come in the discord mate, there is no FC3 tutorial as far as i know, I had the same problem. you need to start watching youtube tutorials to get the idea thats the way to learn DCS, also join my discord as I said lots of people there to help noobs link in my recent video descriptions

There is not su 35

hawk Arab You are wrong mate. nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/russias-su-35-spooks-us-air-force-heres-what-we-can-tell-you-55802

Generally means the aircraft can stay on site longer than interceptors etc due to size and fuel load. Doesn't mean it's perfect for a furball.

American fighters aren't designed for turn-radius, they're designed for high turn-rates (and being able to sustain them). Real life F-15 pilots are actually really good in dogfights; they know how to manage the F-15C's superior ability to maintain energy in turns to control the fight and let F/A-18 (not Super Hornets) and F-16's (not equipped with GE engines) maneuver themselves into low-energy states. Super Hornets and F-16's with GE engines are more on par with the F-15 with gaining and sustaining energy in turns, but the F-15C pilots are generally better because they only train in air-to-air whereas the Hornet and Viper pilots with equal flight hours train in a wider variety of missions (CAS, SEAD, etc).

At a certain speed, F-18's turning radius is actually better than the F-15's. There are many ways to define "maneuverability," F-18 may not have the energy advantage the F-15 have, but its post-stall characteristics is better.

Mickey G Why would an F-15 try to follow into a tight turn radius when the F-15 was designed for sustaining energy in high turn rates versus bleeding energy in a tight turn radius? Why would an F-15 try to follow an F/A-18 into a post-stall flight situation when the F-15 was designed for gaining and sustaining high energy states as American air combat doctrine and tactics are based around Boyd’s Energy Maneuverability Theory?

@@namja01 ah okay I see now thanks

thrustmaster 16000M with a warthog throttle no pedals.

in DCS, the Hornet can out turn and out rate the F-15 if you're losing to the F-15 its because you're not managing your energy well stay around 350-360 and just rate fight him.

@@GrowlingSidewinder Hey man thnx so much for the reply ,just got the game yesterday so I'm not that great and need all the tips I can get : )

Essentialy, with a big fat aircraft (eagle raptor, pak and so on) you don't want to go on a merge with a smaller one. But in this very case (given DCS would model the raptor correctly) the Raptor has much better kinematics than an Eagle even @ the slow and low regime.