JB3DG

As a programmer who has played around with AI, nope. Not a chance. AI is ok for generating snippets of known solutions to known problems. Ask it to generate code that is more than 100 lines tends to get very iffy. Bottom line, it still takes a professional programmer to know what questions to ask the AI, and then integrate the output into the main program. And AI's biggest weakness is that first part: Asking the right questions.

I had a corporate exec from an IT company ask me what separated the programmers at my job (company that does commercial and entertainment flight simulation software) from theirs. He was a bit stymied when I asked how many of them could do hydraulics or electrical simulations in code, or understood aerodynamics enough to get a decent flight model. Or could do navigation systems involving kalman filters and Schuler tuning an INS, or knew what doppler notching was in the case of radar. Or were capable of creating a 2D vector graphics engine from scratch using D3D11 or D3D12. It has taken me 14 years to get to where I am now and I am by no means at the top of skill in these areas although I do have some understanding of these fields, some more than others. Flight simulation is inherently multi discipline which makes anyone who can do it worth their weight in gold.

For the sake of infodumping/geeking out, the differences are due to the PMP (Propulsion Modernization Program) upgrade and it had some intriguing results. They changed the intakes and I believe a few other engine components to improve low altitude acceleration and turn performance. The intakes however had a costly side effect. They dropped the top speed from Mach 1.6 down to barely Mach 1.05 in a very tiny altitude/weight window. So in short, you will be hard pressed to go supersonic in this bird.

The first time I sat in a full cockpit sim at Sheppard AFB along with the VR sims I worked on for the T-38C and got to try their super heavy active force feedback sticks was when I really realized how your average desktop simmer isn't getting anything really transferable beyond button pushing and number memories. Totally different experience when you have $20000+ hardware involved. I suspect most desktop sticks would snap if they had to deal with the actual stick forces in the real jet.

It's questionable whether they will be able to come to a stop without running out of runway though given the approach speeds required. Tires are likely to catch fire.

This is where I anticipate many users coming unstuck. I remember back in the FSX days with the Milviz F-15E and F-4E, people were complaining about the jets being impossible to land at 150kts. Yeah don't try getting down to 150kts with a full internal fuel load + weapons. Not gonna happen.

I would more likely believe this about the early F-15As than the E. The early E is PW-220s with increased weight, so it is more of a pig compared to a F-15C. The F-15A is considerably lighter than the C, and even with the lower thrust of the earlier F100 engines it still had a superior thrust to weight ratio.

As I recall though, to get actual A-G ranging into the system the WSO does actually have to go full trigger action on the A-G range return even though it is slaved to the gunsight. There's a chance he can end up locking a sidelobe return which will result in inaccurate ranging.

Almost correct. Root extensions are basically just the first few feet of a delta wing applied to a more regular wing. Delta wings and root extensions apply a common phenomenon. Large vortices that stick to the wing at high AoA. Read about Chuck Yeager's testing of the XF-92, the predecessor of the F-102 and F-106. He was able to land it at under 70kts thanks to this feature. Controlling how it develops is a large part of creating a delta wing design, which comes in the form of shaping the delta, or adding root extensions on a more conventional wing, or with the use of canards.

I do find targeting lasers from AI go through them, but not self lased. Had many bombs go stupid because a cloud got in the way of my self lase.

I recall seeing pics of Hornets carrying navigation FLIR pods on their cheeks along with the targeting pods. LANTIRN was a big favorite for a while until the early 2000s. I have a video somewhere specifically on the challenges of low altitude night flight, has a ride along in an F-16 out of KEDW testing the Digital Terrain System (DTS) as a replacement for TFR along with NVGs. Mentions the lack of depth perception in NVGs which caused 4 different aircraft in the Gulf war to crash into sand dunes.

Last I knew from the -1, there is no such thing as no selected steerpoint. Maybe it might not give distance/heading info if it treats a lat/lon of 0,0 as undefined, and exclude all such points from auto sequencing, but even the F-16 and F-18 have an initial waypoint regardless of the mission editor, be that 1 or 0.

Nope. That's just the jet's internal navigation system. You can set STR B to always take you back to starting point, but SP 1A is always going to be active (even if the lat/lon is 0,0) unless otherwise selected.

Actually the LO/MID/HIGH are the PRF indicators. HIGH PRF indicating that the SAM is tracking, not just scanning. While this is for the APR-25, not the 45, it gives a little insight into how the older RWRs work:

EA-6B prowler would be fun too....