The plane I hate to love...

I'm the type of person that really likes legacy aircraft. Give me some steam gauges, an ADF, hold the MFD's, and I'll go do an instrument approach. But I have to say this module is so good I find it frustrating! How can I justify my love of 60's tech when this thing is around?

What I mean to say though is thank you ED and great job so far. It continues to improve and at a steady pace and isn't too buggy. I look forward to seeing the rest of its systems and weapons come online.

Yep, Hornet is true flagship project in DCS to me.

I feel the same way. In real life GA flying I keep a GPS only for backup because I simply enjoy navigating more with VOR and NDB. But in DCS I’ve reluctantly fallen in love with the Hornet’s modern(ish) avionics and weapons systems. Everything is so logical and easy to use. It has me wondering how much time I’m actually going to spend in the F-14 once the “OH-MY-GOD-I’M-FLYING-A-TOMCAT” wears off. I suspect I’ll be more fascinated by the -14’s unique aerodynamics and flight modeling and end up using the -18 for actual combat employment.

The term "legacy" refers to an aircraft that has completed development, completed fielding, no longer receives updates or field mods and has an operational successor. This is why the Hornet A/B/C/D is often called the "Legacy Hornet", and use of the term only came into common use among military aviation circles when the Super Hornet/Growler series came to be. The term has since been applied to the first generation of Predator Ground Control Stations (GCS), and this occurred following the advent of more modernized CGS's like the OSGCS and UGCS.

 

Aircraft are not legacy simply because they have steam gauges. An airplane can be a new model right off the production line with traditional indicators vice a "glass cockpit", that does not mean it's a "legacy" aircraft.

 

I just thought you might be interested to know that.

I wrote up something sarcastic about you correcting me but fact is legacy means something different to different sectors of aviation. In the military it means one thing, in firefighting and utility aviation, where I work, it means something completely different. You're right though it's a military aircraft so I should use that definition. Thanks for setting me straight. Hey look I still got some sarcasm in there, oops.

There's definitely a sweet spot where I like my technology for aircraft, both in sims and real life. The F/A-18C is a nice enough jet where you can relax and let it fly itself, but there's a certain degree of satisfaction from more manual interaction. At the same time, I don't enjoy WWII warbirds or old GA aircraft like Pipers/Cessnas as much. I feel like the upcoming (1 more day!) F-14B is going to be right where I like it. Enough rope to hang yourself with in the sense that it's all you flying the aircraft, but not so much of a headache also running the radar, managing engines, or (unless you want to) manually sweeping the wings.

The hornet is gradually overhauling the Harrier as my favourite module...I love the flying versatility and challenge of the Harrier, but the Hornet will soon be superior in all respects once a TGP is added in multiplayer servers like BlueFlag and Georgia at War. If you purely love the challenge of flight, then I think the Harrier and Tomcat will have continuing appeal. It does not matter if using these jets in multiplayer denies you some decent toys and capability. What might be interesting is to see how capable the Tomcat is in multiplayer...I imagine there may be a proportion of Tomcat players whose concept of how good it is may have been skewed by some romantic expectations. I for one was taken aback by seeing how vintage the Tomcat cockpit was...I am sure it will be a challenge and a hoot to fly but I think that anybody thinking that they will be able to easily translate that vintage tech and testing flight model into winning results will have their work cut out for them! Good luck to them...especially if they have come from an FC3 module! Lols.