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

For those interested in flying with other fighter jet fans, we have this discord group going. Totally casual, open to all jets and skill levels. Formation flights, carrier landings, mountain hopping, site seeing … whatever makes it fun while being in your favorite jet with other jet fans.

We’ve been flying the F-14 and loving it. The F-15 was my go to favorite but I think this tops it. Great work DC Designs team!

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All - Test flights, yes two.

  1. C-17 - KMGE, parking area - ILS/VOR to KPAM. ATC Controlled TO/ILS Landing. FSX has RW 31R, but in Real World 32R, because of Magnatic Deviation since was created. No, absolutly no issues. Pefect ascent, reached cruise, perfect controlled decent into KPAM, took over plane at 1000’ and flew her in landed, in FSX, using Honeycomb TQ, cannot seem to arm spoilers, manually deployed, also cannot get Reverse Thrust to work, using F2 key. Regardless, all systems were a go.
  2. F-14 B - No navigation instruments at all, mouse will not turn on, so flight tips showed me the way. I love this plane, it’s fast, it climbs quick, several rolls, steep ascents, controls work excellent, found trim for elvators is touchy, never could level perfectly, that is more than likely me. KPAM and attempted to land, ok this plane has some gotchas in landing. No navigation data period, HUD inop, both other readouts blank. Missed RW and went around, slowed plane apparently too much and crahsed into trees. If my screens worked, believe navigation would have worked, and could have possibly caught unfavorable flight and recovered. Still, this plane once if I can get switches working is a wonderful thing. Top altitude about 38,000, was worried about running ouf of fuel. Dont thinki I have wings extend/retract setup properly, and again, some switches don’t operate for me.
    Comparison - FSX is long in tooth, but works perfectly, since all buttons work, it’s not PC or mouse. albeit old, ATC works fine. I did modify “aircraft.cfg” file so flight number is same all the time. MSFS-In 747/F-14/787, many lights do not work, HUD-avonics in F-14 cannot turn on. MSFS issues have been plaging me since Aug 2020 upon release, Complete total PC OEM rebuild and complete MSFS reinstall less than month ago, (takes 20+ hours for me to DL game and another 3-4 for content manager addons, so my issue is buried someplace in the code, which I cannot ferrit out. I have decided to remove MSFS from system. Going to clean registry of every MSFS entry, and if necessary, OEM Rebuild of PC again to get rid of all the code. I am then leaving MSFS for 6-12 months because its going to take them that long to get most of the bugs fixed. I will check in on forum peiodically to see if anything has changed concerning bugs. I can contribute nothing else here for F-14, but it’s a great plane. Thank you again DC Designs and all here having fun. Later.
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Ah I see, so when using flight plan it’s in the default gps mode, in approach phase I should switch it to VOR mode, then if I want manual flying just switch off ap

Liking the Tomcat!

I’m currently working on an Iceman repaint.

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Had a lot of fun in the Grand Canyon tonight with the F14A! This plane is just so enjoyable for high speed flying!


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It’s very strange about the F-14A / B having different cockpit responses, as they use absolutely identical code, but keep me informed if you find a solution ( or a cause ) as it sounds like there is something going on with the simulator there rather than the F-14s that Asobo should probably know about.

Awesome work! :slight_smile:

Hi, all of your suggestions are very cool but there is no way to implement them into MSFS at this time ( although flares might work as an effect ) as the animations and AI / MP sensor variables to not exist that would be needed to code such features.

But if those features become available, I’ll be on it. I like a dogfight as much as the next guy, and I’m hoping that weapons systems will come to MSFS for aircraft like the Tomcat.

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get Jack to do it. he can figure it out…BTW, when is the aero overhaul 3rd patch coming? :slight_smile:

NOT the F-14, must be underneath in code someplace. I zendesked this issue months ago, no response. Took MSFS off PC last night, tweaking FSX as we speak. Will wait 6 months as stated, just too many bugs to have fun. Good Luck All.

Thanks! This information was very helpful. One additional observation, don’t make the initial mistake that I made and just add the 'NodesToHide=“PILOT_VISIBLE” to the bottom of the camera.cfg. It won’t work because there is already a ‘NodesToHide=""’ above it in each of the custom camera definitions. Add the PILOT_VISIBLE to the existing NodesToHide line.

Also, I tried to modify it real time while in cockpit and the change didn’t immediately take. Not sure how to refresh this cached setting. Thus, you may have to reload your flight (not the sim) to have the change take affect.

Thanks again, I certainly prefer this approach rather than setting the pilots weight to zero and turning off the mask.

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I bought your F15. After it is listed in the in-game mall, I will also buy F14. I want to know a few questions. Will F14 be listed in the in-game mall? About when? I only have two free planes in DCS, because I don’t like war, but I want to try to improve my operation level. Without using autopilot, I can fly in formation, land aircraft carrier and refuel in the air. Obviously, this is the existing advantage of DCS, but DCS gives me the feeling of driving in space. I feel that it doesn’t help me to improve my operation level, Is the F14 you developed based on 2020 closer to the real driving experience than the F14 of DCS? There is g force in DSC. I don’t know what G force is. I guess it may be the limit of human body in flight. Is there any in 2020? I have never and cannot touch real planes, so I want to determine these doubts. In addition, I’m sorry. I downloaded the pirated F14 to experience it. It’s much cooler than F15. I didn’t find the switch to control wing expansion, but I observed that it will expand to the maximum at about 300 knots, and F14 has height and speed adjustment knobs. So you don’t have to worry. I think I will buy the genuine one. Because, I know you will constantly update and strive for progress. My expectation for the fighter in 2020 is that I can land it from one airport to another through autopilot flight like an airliner.

I picked this up (as I felt the need… the need for speed) and took the F-14B for a quick joyride from Miramar up to 60,000 feet, back down and over the desert, and landed at Las Vegas. Quite fun! :smiley:

The main difficulty I had doing a cold start from a ramp was figuring out where the fuel cutoff valve switches are – they’re clearly labeled but half the text is hidden on the default cockpit view for me by the gauges next to them. :wink:

I expected that the checklists would highlight the controls like they do on the Asobo aircraft, but nothing was highlighted as the evaluation went through the checklist. Clicking on the eyeball icon did nothing that I could see. Not sure if I had accidentally switched off some assistance option, but I don’t think so as a startup in the TBM 930 yesterday highlighted the controls during evaluation as I expected.

The manual has screenshots and lists the items, but doesn’t point to them in the pictures so it’s sometimes a little tricky to find things…

Overall, looks great, feels awesome! And the HUD is looking great – I know it’s not properly collimated due to MSFS limitations but at least I don’t see any blurring from the antialiasing like I remember having in the F-15. Nice!

Definitely a good addition to my warbirds collection; even though I’m more of a GA fella I like a good fast fighter now and again. :wink:

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I’m impressed with the developer interaction in this forum. I’m planning to buy the Tomcat this week.

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Just watched top gun for the first time and you would not believe my excitement when I saw the planes were the F14. I’m currently just having a blast flying out of Miramar and blasting top gun music in my room😅

Oh the only problem I seem to have is the flaps seem to move on there own, is there something I need to do to stop this auto movement of the flaps from happening?

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Seems that’s true for the real plane also. Nice easy that I don’t need to change flaps manually when it flies real fast. I somehow feels landing is difficult to be smooth as an airliner and the angle needed to counter cross wind is a lot larger.

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@DEAN01973 @CodenameJack447 Gotta see this one :joy: it’s from Flightsim.to site
The nerve or the stupidity on that guy…

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Shame on you for downloading the pirated F-14. You are giving the pirates a platform. Without people downloading stolen products, pirates… ah… why am I even explaining this?

It also takes a special amount of audacity to admit to a developer you used a stolen version of their work, whatever your justification is.

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I am not the developer. So, bark at the correct tree. Second, you are still trying to justify acceptable use of piracy and then have the audacity to tell me that calling you out for it is “childish”. Your circumstances are of no consequence for justification of piracy. Your network’s inability to download product or your location’s currency details does not give you a right to engage in piracy. Simple as that. I don’t understand why there needs to be a discussion of that. You are engaging in stealing, end of story.

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shouldn’t a moderator ban for life these users?

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