FSX-MS Aircraft overstressed!

[Saucey12 38]

Here's the scenario.. I got a freeware f-14 tomcat from flyawaysimulation.. Its typical freeware but not bad honestly for what it is.  I have fsx.  Anyway, I have the fsx realism setting set to realistic as usual, the label it as "hard".  Im flying this new aircraft and i attempt to hold an inverted level flight doing right at 200 tas.. Wings are fully extended on the f-14.  5 seconds after holding the inverted position fsx says oops your'e dead, "aircraft overstressed".  Do you guys think this is a realistic simulation given that particular aircraft and scenario?  It never happens with that default f-18 that fsx comes with in the original program. I'd just like to hear the thoughts of others on here who may have experienced the same thing? 

[HighBypass 2,339]

To clarify: You were just flying straight & level (and inverted), not inadvertently piling on some -ve G's?

If no excess -ve G's then I'd say unrealistic. HOWEVER the F14 is limited to about 10 seconds inverted flight in afterburner and about 20 in military. After that, the fuel system cannot feed the engines and you flameout. Not overstressing the airframe, but still an emergency for which the freeware jet gives you a no-no. Maybe a quick and easy way of saying don't fly inverted for very long by the developer?

https://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/the-five-maneuvers-that-were-prohibited-in-the-f-14-tom-1757179036

[Chock 17,769]

I suppose it is conceivable that you might inadvertently overstress it fairly easily in inverted flight. If I recall correctly, the real F-14A was stressed for -2.4G, and of course when you're inverted, even with no load on the controls you're already at -1G, so if you pitched the stick forward to increase the wing's angle of attack and did that fairly swiftly, you'd only need to load an additional -1.4G on the airframe and you'd be at the limit. Now in reality what an aeroplane is stressed for and what it can actually 'take' are not the same thing, but in a sim if it was in the 'stats' for its flight model that -2.4G was the limit, that might be your answer. 

Thing to bear in mind with the F-14 is that despite all that Top Gun Fighter Weapons School malarkey you see in the movie of the same name, the Tomcat was really more of an interceptor rather than a dogfighter, so it was never  envisaged that it would be seriously piling on the Gs too much in a typical fight, if all went to plan. It was intended to pick up potentially threatening targets literally hundreds of miles away which were inbound to its carrier group, then hopefully engage them with the AIM-54 Phoenix missile from about 100 miles out so that nothing ever made it close enough to launch a missile at the carrier. Being that it could carry four AIM-54s capable of doing that, which could in fact be 'lofted' out to about 130 miles range (giving the carrier group a protected zone with a diameter of probably at least 300 miles). Thus it was hoped that the F-14 would never really have to do a close-in dogfight at all.

However, in tests against QF-102 drones configured to emulate MiG-21s, the best it ever managed with four AIM-54s was direct hits on two, completely destroying those, a damaging but not disabling hit on a third, and a complete miss on the fourth, which meant for that scenario, it was out of missiles with one, possibly two MiGs still in a position to be able to come for it. But, this doesn't take into account that the F-14 would have a wingman which would also have four unused shots too, so the chances are that a flight of two F-14s would win against four MiG-21s.

Nevertheless, since it wasn't a guaranteed victory, not least because the Warsaw Pact got hold of several AIM-54 Phoenix missiles and not only duplicated it, but also developed countermeasures against it, obviously the US Navy had to teach F-14 crews how to dogfight the thing if necessary, which is what all that Top Gun school is about. But in all honesty lots of that ACM stuff would probably have been vertical stuff rather than high-G turning fights, in order to play to the F-14's strengths, and or controlling the distance by virtue of the thing being pretty fast in a straight line compared to what it might be expected to come up against when out at sea carrying out a BARCAP mission. 

Anyway, in FSX you could always turn off the 'stress causes damage' option. 😉

Edited September 25, 2020 by Chock

[Saucey12 38]

10 hours ago, HighBypass said:

To clarify: You were just flying straight & level (and inverted), not inadvertently piling on some -ve G's?

If no excess -ve G's then I'd say unrealistic. HOWEVER the F14 is limited to about 10 seconds inverted flight in afterburner and about 20 in military. After that, the fuel system cannot feed the engines and you flameout. Not overstressing the airframe, but still an emergency for which the freeware jet gives you a no-no. Maybe a quick and easy way of saying don't fly inverted for very long by the developer?

https://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/the-five-maneuvers-that-were-prohibited-in-the-f-14-tom-1757179036

Thank you so much  The webpage was very informative.

[Saucey12 38]

2 hours ago, Chock said:

I suppose it is conceivable that you might inadvertently overstress it fairly easily in inverted flight. If I recall correctly, the real F-14A was stressed for -2.4G, and of course when you're inverted, even with no load on the controls you're already at -1G, so if you pitched the stick forward to increase the wing's angle of attack and did that fairly swiftly, you'd only need to load an additional -1.4G on the airframe and you'd be at the limit. Now in reality what an aeroplane is stressed for and what it can actually 'take' are not the same thing, but in a sim if it was in the 'stats' for its flight model that -2.4G was the limit, that might be your answer. 

Thing to bear in mind with the F-14 is that despite all that Top Gun Fighter Weapons School malarkey you see in the movie of the same name, the Tomcat was really more of an interceptor rather than a dogfighter, so it was never  envisaged that it would be seriously piling on the Gs too much in a typical fight, if all went to plan. It was intended to pick up potentially threatening targets literally hundreds of miles away which were inbound to its carrier group, then hopefully engage them with the AIM-54 Phoenix missile from about 100 miles out so that nothing ever made it close enough to launch a missile at the carrier. Being that it could carry four AIM-54s capable of doing that, which could in fact be 'lofted' out to about 130 miles range (giving the carrier group a protected zone with a diameter of probably at least 300 miles). Thus it was hoped that the F-14 would never really have to do a close-in dogfight at all.

However, in tests against QF-102 drones configured to emulate MiG-21s, the best it ever managed with four AIM-54s was direct hits on two, completely destroying those, a damaging but not disabling hit on a third, and a complete miss on the fourth, which meant for that scenario, it was out of missiles with one, possibly two MiGs still in a position to be able to come for it. But, this doesn't take into account that the F-14 would have a wingman which would also have four unused shots too, so the chances are that a flight of two F-14s would win against four MiG-21s.

Nevertheless, since it wasn't a guaranteed victory, not least because the Warsaw Pact got hold of several AIM-54 Phoenix missiles and not only duplicated it, but also developed countermeasures against it, obviously the US Navy had to teach F-14 crews how to dogfight the thing if necessary, which is what all that Top Gun school is about. But in all honesty lots of that ACM stuff would probably have been vertical stuff rather than high-G turning fights, in order to play to the F-14's strengths, and or controlling the distance by virtue of the thing being pretty fast in a straight line compared to what it might be expected to come up against when out at sea carrying out a BARCAP mission. 

Anyway, in FSX you could always turn off the 'stress causes damage' option. 😉

Thanks for your response. I am not really a fighter pilot type guy. I usually fly GA or the old birds like the DC-3, im well aware of their limits lol.  I did play around some more today with the f-14. I did the same manouever at a slightly higher speed, 250 vs 200 when it collapsed.  It went fine, held the inverted position for 30 seconds or so.  I believe the first time I just had a little too much down pressure on the yoke. And for the record. I was a young kid in the 80's , first time I saw Top gun I knew that hollywood entered into a lot of the real life scenarios. I Just love it because its yesterday and its iconic.  And after two days Ive made some pretty sweet landings, unloaded and low on fuel that is.. Carrier landings.. hmm im not there yet. I have only had 3 successful ones according to fsx lol.