Aim-7M problem

After the most recent update, the Aim-7m and Aim-7mh on the hornet shoot up into the atmosphere like an Aim-54 after launching on another aircraft. Is it just me or is everyone seeing this? Behavior noticed in Open Beta and Normal version.

you can turn off lofting in the stores page

this shouldn't be a surprising thing there are many functionalities that still have yet to be implemented so expect behaviors of various weapons and systems to keep changing as the simulation is improved

Yeah last patch they for some unknown reason set the loft angle to 30 degrees for 4 seconds no matter the range... which well results in what you see. It used to be ~15 degrees for 10 sec. which from my understanding of lofting curves makes much more sense.

you can turn off lofting in the stores page

 

this shouldn't be a surprising thing there are many functionalities that still have yet to be implemented so expect behaviors of various weapons and systems to keep changing as the simulation is improved

Turning lofting off doesn’t always work, but, I guess it’s all WIP.

Yeah last patch they for some unknown reason set the loft angle to 30 degrees for 4 seconds no matter the range... which well results in what you see. It used to be ~15 degrees for 10 sec. which from my understanding of lofting curves makes much more sense.

Given the way the missile is designed, this behavior is likely closer to reality, excluding the fact that it always lofts now. The Mk58 rocket motor is a 2 stage where the first boost stage is only 4.5 secs long and a sustain stage of 11secs. So it gets up to speed in 4 secs levels out and sustains said speed for 11 secs. Its a way more efficient profile than what it used to be, and gets to target with way more energy. ATM it out ranges non lofting MRMs that are otherwise faster. This does mean setting up the BVR engagement to where you should try to take a shot before an opponent armed with ERs or 530s, from further out.

Its the DCS AIM-7F that has "interesting" behavior. Given that it doesn't loft and just drops before the rocket ignites it ends up climbing up to the target in the terminal phase when launched on co-alt non-maneuvering target. This hampers low altitude launches if fired without pitching up, but is something noted as an improvement over the F by the M IRL. The M/H in game will always pitch up at least 5 degrees at launch. The one other odd thing about the F is that it always rolls out 20 degrees from side its fired. If this is actually intentional then I've already worked out the logic behind it.

This high loft angle is an improvement from what I can tell. The AI has to turn and run from shots up to 20-25 miles because of the more efficient trajectory. The Sparrows really feels like a MRM now. Watching the AIM-54 made me think that steep trajectories are the way to go. Get to the thin air faster and cruise while keeping all of your speed.

IMO the excessive loft its good for longer range but at closer range it just jumps up super high and then either can't come back down or has to burn its energy in the hard turn, hence why imho its not a improvement. Especially considering most AIM-7 shots tend to occur at short range to counter the notch.

Also concerning lofting this is what i've found so far (note not from any military manual but from "Tactical Missile Design Second Edition") This is what I based my statement of 15* being more reasonable. Maybe i'm just misunderstanding this, if so do tell.

I did test a few close in shots, but I was more focused on medium range. The loft seems to help at close range too, although the AI was running from me in most cases, so perhaps that helped.

As for the diagram, the glide angle isn't really specified, a missile probably has terrible L/D though so I'd expect a steep angle. The diagram also suggests that you can either glide or cruise, the latter to me implies holding altitude and then turning down on the target once you get close.

The AIM-120 in DCS uses a shallow loft and it doesn't seem to do much good. It just brings it into dense air sooner and degrades range.

EDIT

OK with more testing the AIM-7M loft range is 5 miles. It won't loft below that distance. I'm not sure if it's optimal, but 6 mile kills are definitely possible. A player might be able to take advantage of the loft at 6-8 miles and dive steeply though.