Is the FM right? This thing is like acrobatic supermaneuverable wonder.

[DmitriKozlowsky]

Real VIggen cant be THAT good, as far as maneuverability. With AKN pod, cannon pod, and 2 C RB-24J (9L) and 70% fuel (no center ext tank), its like flying 21 st Century supermaneuverable dogfighter. Obviously I don't know any better, but if I received DCS: GrippenNG with same flight dynamics, I'd be darned impressed. Roll is like incredible, slow speed handling, pre-stall high G buffer is low. Seems it would be able to out-accelerate and turn inside Mirage 2K, if both just had cannon and 2 missiles and 70% internal only gas.

[kengou]

Are we flying the same jet? Viggen loses speed like crazy pulling decent Gs. Slow speed handling is going to be good for a canard-delta fighter designed for STOL. Sea level acceleration is also of course excellent since it was the design goal; it has a very very powerful engine. Roll rate should also be fairly good, although I don't think it's that exceptional. But in any kind of sustained turning maneuver, the Viggen really wallows and has trouble regaining speed without serious unloading. It's good for one good instantaneous turn but that's about it.

[TLTeo]

Yeah, what kengou said. There is absolutely nothing remarkable in the Viggen's maneuverability. It's adequate, ITR at high Mach numbers is fair if you care to bleed your energy, and that's it. Even the roll rate you mention is nothing to write home about compared to e.g. the Viper or Mirage in Cat1/AA mode.

Edited January 14, 2021 by TLTeo

[Machalot]

I second what @kengou and @TLTeo said, and add that the compressor stall at alpha of ~20 deg is the kiss of death in a dogfight or at low altitude.

[kengou]

Out of curiosity I went back and did some BFM between Viggen and MiG-21s. Viggen is really kind of a dog. At high speed it can do one decent instantaneous turn. After that, the only real gameplan is 1 circle and scissors, but it's really hard to recover speed if you force an overshoot. I couldn't win that way, only hope to stay alive. And the roll rate is actually pretty poor when slow (and it's not really great even when fast, just average). And the compressors stalls are nasty. In a comparison to a Mirage the Viggen is worse in every conceivable way but STOL.

[TLTeo]

Sustained turn rate at high Mach numbers (0.8-0.9) is not bad either (you can sustain like 4.5ish G), but it's hard to stay in the sweet spot because as soon as you pull a little too much, you bleed tons of energy with no chance of recovering it. Also, you need to be at full A/B all the time, and often that means you barely have enough fuel for one dogfight before having to RTB.

Edited January 15, 2021 by TLTeo

[Qiou87]

I came here expecting a video, to show me how I have been flying this thing all wrong. I basically use its horrible speed bleeding when turning to come in fast and just line up/slow down from 800 to 400km/h in one turn before dropping the gear and landing. So to read that this thing is a wonder in dogfight, well... I respectfully have a very different experience. But i'd be happy to see the OP show us a dogfight video against F/A-18 or F-16 to show what he means.

Edited January 15, 2021 by Qiou87

[Skysurfer]

The fact you can go M1.45 at sea level until your fuel runs out should raise somequestions. Despite what some people say the thing can turn and outclimb anything in the game.

[Freefall57]

Dmitri and Skysurfer should go online and use this new found super maneuverability of the Viggen to dominate. Out turn and out climb them all!

[Skysurfer]

4 hours ago, Freefall57 said:

Dmitri and Skysurfer should go online and use this new found super maneuverability of the Viggen to dominate. Out turn and out climb them all!

 

I did not say it outturned anything I said it turned fairly well all things considered if you kept the speed up. And it for a fact will outclimb a Mig-29, F-16 etc. People need to stop looking at EM charts and start looking into employing the jet properly.

 

And as a matter of fact I have used the Viggen online in the past against 4th gens with pretty decent success.  

 

 

 

 

Edited January 15, 2021 by Skysurfer

[Rudel_chw]

But what is the point of using an attack aircraft as a dogfighter ?  it kills realism.

[Skysurfer]

Just now, Rudel_chw said:

But what is the point of using an attack aircraft as a dogfighter ?  it kills realism.

 

You don't use it as a dogfighter. The AJS37 with 4x AIM-9L's is an excellent interceptor and boom and zoom aicraft. Does it better than anything in the game since the operational limit of 1350kph doesn't seem to apply in DCS.

[Rudel_chw]

14 minutes ago, Skysurfer said:

 

... The AJS37 with 4x AIM-9L's is an excellent interceptor and boom and zoom aicraft. Does it better than anything in the game since the operational limit of 1350kph doesn't seem to apply in DCS.

 

Really? an aircraft with no Air-Air radar?  Any real fighter, like the F-14, F-15, F-16 or F/A-18 will kill the Viggen from a far longer range than its Sidewinders, before the viggen has even seen its enemy.

[Skysurfer]

13 minutes ago, Rudel_chw said:

 

Really? an aircraft with no Air-Air radar?  Any real fighter, like the F-14, F-15, F-16 or F/A-18 will kill the Viggen from a far longer range than its Sidewinders, before the viggen has even seen its enemy.

 

In an ideal scenario yes. There's also an advantage in not emmiting anything and sneaking up to say an unsuspecting Tomcat with GCI guidence. Literally how iraqi Mirages and Mig-23's got kills on Tomcats. Point is, no matter your airframe, no one has "global SA".

[DmitriKozlowsky]

Hey, I quit mission, and went to double check my settings that flight model was set to SIM not GAME.

[QuiGon]

13 hours ago, Rudel_chw said:

 

Really? an aircraft with no Air-Air radar?  Any real fighter, like the F-14, F-15, F-16 or F/A-18 will kill the Viggen from a far longer range than its Sidewinders, before the viggen has even seen its enemy.

Our Viggen has an A/A radar mode which is enough to lock a a bandit and get range and gunsight indications, which is really any worse than other interceptor radars of this era (F-5, MiG-21, ...).

[TLTeo]

Eeeeeh, that's quite the stretch. The Viggen a/a radar only displays range to tell you when you're close enough to fire AIM-9s. It doesn't compute lead for a gun shot, nor does it easily display contacts unless you are at pretty high altitude, and even then, the display is not as clear as the Mig 19/21 or F-5. It's more like the Sabre's radar, but for missile employment only.

 

I'm also still eagerly waiting for a track that shows this supposed unrealistic maneuvering performance.

Edited January 16, 2021 by TLTeo

[Dragon1-1]

It's not unrealistic, there's a reason it's called "AJS-37". Remember, it's a supersonic aircraft with a very powerful engine and canards, meaning it's actually a surprisingly competent fighter. Yes, M1.45 at sea level is realistic performance for an engine this powerful. It can turn and it can climb, and it can carry four Sidewinders. This would put it in league with the MiG-23, sans the radar. However, if you're launching heaters under GCI guidance, the Viggen's radar works just fine... which is also how you would use a MiG-23 with GCI.

 

Viggen isn't very competent in guns combat, but that's because its gunpods are inaccurate and way too spread out to be really good at air to air, not to mention it has to sacrifice a pair of Sidewinders to carry them, which are its real teeth. As a fighter, the AJS-37 works exactly like it does in ground attack role. One pass, haul ass. It's not the greatest interceptor in the world, but it's not the A-10, either.

 

Case in a point, it's the only aircraft that is acknowledged to have locked the SR-71 up on FCR. I don't think it was the AJS-37 specifically, but the Viggen seems to have changed relatively little between versions.

[Rudel_chw]

26 minutes ago, Dragon1-1 said:

 

Case in a point, it's the only aircraft that is acknowledged to have locked the SR-71 up on FCR. I don't think it was the AJS-37 specifically, but the Viggen seems to have changed relatively little between versions.

no, it was the real interceptor version of the viggen, the JA-37 which had A-A radar and Fox-3 missiles: 

 

https://theaviationist.com/2018/11/29/that-time-a-crippled-sr-71-blackbird-was-intercepted-by-four-swedish-viggens-after-violating-swedens-airspace/

 

The DCS aircraft is the AJS-37 and its Sidewinders were meant strictly for self-defence, not interception. This model does not have an internal gun and its gun-pods were intended for ground attack.

 

Having a powerful engine does not transform it into a real air-air fighter, in spite if what you may have seen on air-quake servers.

Edited January 20, 2021 by Rudel_chw

[QuiGon]

14 minutes ago, Dragon1-1 said:

Case in a point, it's the only aircraft that is acknowledged to have locked the SR-71 up on FCR. I don't think it was the AJS-37 specifically, but the Viggen seems to have changed relatively little between versions.

Oh, there are a lot of differences internally between the attack AJ(S) attack Viggen and the JA fighter Viggen. The latter has a digital moving map display and data link among other things.

 

Edited January 20, 2021 by QuiGon

[Skysurfer]

1 hour ago, Dragon1-1 said:

 Yes, M1.45 at sea level is realistic performance for an engine this powerful. 

 

No it is not. The AJS-37 manual specifically states Vne as 1350kph - operational limit. How would you know anything about its engine? It is literally an airliner engine (JT8D) with an afterburner slapped onto it. The thermal heating at 1.45 at SL would be pretty insane - comparable to Mach 2.5+ at high altitudes. Let alone the effect of such speeds on the engine. The Viggen is mostly made out of steel and yes it can go really fast, just not that fast. This may be physically possible given the thrust and drag values etc. but the consequences of entering this speed regime and maintaining it, ignoring published ops limits are simply not modelled in most DCS modules. The F-16 can do it, the 29 can mostly do it too. At least on the Mig-21 your engine will literally shut off when reaching the limit speeds. 

Edited January 20, 2021 by Skysurfer

[Dragon1-1]

OK, I didn't consider thermal limits. However, keep in mind that it doesn't necessarily mean it wouldn't go that fast. It's just that the engine might not be good for much afterwards.  There is that story of a MiG-25 getting clocked at M3.2 despite normally not being rated for such speeds, that didn't do wonders to the operational life of the engines, but neither would a missile up its tailpipe, so there are cases where it could be warranted. Perhaps dynamic campaign could simulate some of those consequences, such as locking out the airplane with a "pending engine replacement" caption. 

 

Sidewinder's a Sidewinder, though, and the F-16 did all right with a heaters-only loadout. Those JA-37s had better radars and avionics, but not better engines, from what I can gather (which is admittedly little, since I don't speak Swedish). The fact remains, a Viggen, using more or less the same souped-up airliner engine, got close enough to an SR-71 to lock it up. I don't think it was in heater range, but it's still impressive.

 

You shouldn't be getting into dogfights with the AJS, but it's very much viable interceptor. It's not JA-37, for sure, but for GCI-assisted IR intercept it'd be fine. Indeed, the campaign gives you a few chances to do just that.

[QuiGon]

11 hours ago, Dragon1-1 said:

Sidewinder's a Sidewinder, though, and the F-16 did all right with a heaters-only loadout. Those JA-37s had better radars and avionics, but not better engines, from what I can gather (which is admittedly little, since I don't speak Swedish). The fact remains, a Viggen, using more or less the same souped-up airliner engine, got close enough to an SR-71 to lock it up. I don't think it was in heater range, but it's still impressive.

 

The JA-37s did have improved engines (RM8B) over the AJ(S)-37 (RM8A). The biggest difference was, that the improved RM8B was less susceptible to compressor stalls at high AOA, making it a much better engine for dogfighting. The non-fighter variants of the Viggen never recieved the RM8B and used the RM8A throughout their lifetime.

Edited January 21, 2021 by QuiGon

[Barbar]

19 hours ago, QuiGon said:

Oh, there are a lot of differences internally between the attack AJ(S) attack Viggen and the JA fighter Viggen. The latter has a digital moving map display and data link among other things.

 

 

I would love to see this variant in DCS.

[Rudel_chw]

16 minutes ago, Barbar said:

I would love to see this variant in DCS.

 

+1 ... Wish Heatblur reads this topic ... I'd love to fly the JA  ... maybe they could sell is as an expansion Module with a price lower than the one of a full Module