DC Designs F-14A/B Tomcat Announcement & Discussion

[CodenameJack447]

Hold on a sec…

@KinkedoNau1

Now to the main problem for A/P, firstly I set up in game flight plan, after engaging the AP and ATHR it seems it just flew randomly up and down… I checked the manual and it seems I need to switch to GPS mode? but I can’t find the button. also for V nav or select altitude I tried the right panel but it just ignore my inputs, any guide on how to use it?

Default mode is GPS, you should swap to VOR mode when you were following VORs or doing ILS landings. To do so (VOR/ILS) set a frq here:

And swap to active, so you can visualize it here:

@KinkedoNau1

the flaps extend and retract itself, is it working as intended or there’s something like AI piloting I need to disengage?

Working as intended and explained here:

DC Designs F-14A/B Tomcat Announcement & Discussion

Is correct due to Maneuvering Flaps and Slats that the real plane has according to natops, but we have simplified it for MSFS: The real aircraft has 3 flaps positions and 3 slats position: 0, 10, 35 for flaps and 0,7,15 for slats. As you have noticed in game you have 4 levels and not 3. That extra level is 5 for flaps and 3 for slats as part of the maneuvering system. The maneuvering system can swap flaps/slats position automatically depending on Mach and AOA and its function as you know i…

@KinkedoNau1

I flown full manual today, while it’s a lot of fun, I found the aircraft without AP engaged pitching rather violently and changes itself with steady thrust, like at 600 knots with steady engine power and I trimmed it to fly almost level and it will suddenly have VS in the +/- thousands. is that normal or is that some hidden automation in play?

If you are talking about 600knots at sea level means you are transitioning to supersonic speed so is normal. The real F-14 is an aircraft that forces you to continually review the trim due to the maneuverable flaps and variable geometry, however it has a system called ITS designed to correct trim variations produced by transitions to Mach and flaps variations, but we have not wanted to introduce it yet in this launch phase, since that would create more confusion among users,
also we also want to implement it correctly and verify that it does not interfere with other aspects of the flight model:

@KinkedoNau1

• for cold and dark startup, the manual said make sure the batter switch is on and I can’t find that after an hour…

From left to right: Battery, HUD power and Avionics.

@KinkedoNau1

back to the A/P, i see a pitch mode switch on the panel, if I want to use altitude selection like an airliner, should I switch that off? Coz with that the right side panel alt button seems like having no reaction.

If you want to use altitude selection a way to do that is press alt hold and autopilot to maintain the flight level, once you do that you could use the alt knob to set the desired altitude, the plane should start to climb or descent and if you want to increase the vertical speed you can use the vs knob (no need to press vs hold but you could anyway). Once you reach the altitude, if you were in VS HOLD it will automatically swap to ALT HOLD.

@KinkedoNau1

when I engaged auto throttle and auto pilot I found it seems to follow the target speed in knots as selected by the right hand side speed selection knob, but is there a way to change the speed display to Mach numbers? As I wanna try to use AP to do high altitude route.

No, we have not enabled that feature on the F-14 because the real one does not incorporate it. However, there are conversion tables from knots to mach for high altitude like this one:

and anyway above mach 1 is not recommended to use autotrottle since you would need afterbuner for it and the automatic throttle would make too many corrections. Anyway max airspeed settable is 950 knots, enough to cover the F14 flight envelope.