This flight model issue with engine power is quite a bad news 
As far as I know, the Mig21 is not able to perform super-cruise. The current engine power curve is maybe a bit under the reality, if comparing with DCS, but I prefer that than over-powered.
As a consequence, I have created a quick save-copy of my current Mig21 folders, just in case, in hope I can revert to the previous version.
yeah, who knows ? in the update details the engine performance seems to be fixed but idk in which criteria, maybe we will have an answer from the dev .
Still not on ORBX…waited over a week now, not so patiently.
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I join…
not so patiently.
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Update is now available at Orbx.
After some more testing with the weapons version, it seems like the supersonic issue might be related to drag, since it seems to stay under Mach 1 with missiles loaded, but a clean config has it going supersonic with approx 90% n1
so after all, it is better or worse than before ?
Hello everyone,
I did a couple of quick tests and these are my first impressions.
- Gunsight: more visible than the previous one but THE PIPPER IS MISSING!!
- RADAR: no air-to-air function but cartography. It simply looks like a map and not a real radar track of the terrain. If you replace the VOR data acquisition keyboard with the radar one, the relevant buttons are now active and allow you to select different modes of the radar map.
- I didn’t fully test the speed performance but in any case with the ventral tank and 2 missiles (finally visible!) I exceeded mach 1.2. If the afterburner doesn’t start you won’t exceed mach 1. I’ll do further tests.
- The afterburner no longer switches on automatically but you must (depending on your peripherals) enable a function key or an axis of your trottle and then everything works normally.
- Flight model: the aircraft has become more agile and acrobatic and at this point the use of the airbrakes in some maneuvers becomes necessary, but their operation is a little erratic. A better performance of the flight characteristics of the mig is declared and I hope that this is the case, before it seemed underpowered and less agile than the real aircraft was considered, although it remains an aircraft that is not very easy to fly.
- To date the manual is not updated with respect to the changes and this leads to problems such as the new afterburner setting.
What do you think?
nah . still far away from reality . at least in flight model , look how fast the roll rate is here at 8:30 compared to the sim
When is it going to make it to Simmarket?
For point 3, I saw this as well but with a clean config it will exceed Mach 1 with power as low as 90% n1. Did you also happen to notice when taxiing it’ll gladly accelerate to 100+ kph at idle thrust?
Did another test,
I agree with phobos8287, taxing is a bit too fast, but this is a more general problem MSFS2020…
I have always carried out my tests with the standard load configuration of the MiG21 (1 ventral tank + 2 missiles) and actually at high altitude I reached and slightly exceeded Mach 1.8 and this is consistent with the real aircraft.
Roll speed, the mig is famous for a very high roll rate (comparable to the F16?) and if I’m not mistaken one of the operable controls is actually a roll damper. I’ll try to exclude it and see what happens…
In the sim, when you apply the afterburner the throttle starts to vibrate: I noticed (at least with the peripherals I use) that if you activate the two levers/controls located in front of the throttle (one should concern the afterburner) the problem is greatly reduced.
I believe that the flight model has improved a lot: in the first operational version of the real aircraft there was a single ventral airbrake, in subsequent versions the moving parts became 3 (!), indicating that the effectiveness of a single airbrake was insufficient. In the sim, before this latest upgrade, it was best never to touch the airbrakes because at low altitude the flight ended with a crash on the ground. With the new flight model the response of the airbrakes seems more harmonious and if you arrive fast you can easily use them up to the flap and landing gear extraction speed. Since the SPS must always be in operation, the engine must always operate at high speeds (like the F104) and here, after touching the ground, it is best to activate the airbrakes again BEFORE operating the brake parachute.
So my opinion is at least provisionally positive on this upgrade but I still have to explore the effects of the roll damper…
I hope that the author retraces his steps and reintroduces the PIPPER in the gunsight, which was actually valuable and that improves the radar part both in Air-Air and ground configuration. I hope I’m not asking too much, but at least the pipper…
Kind regards, I hope that what has been said is useful.
sorry for my mistake: all versions of the mig21 have always had 3 airbrakes, but their surface area seems to have been increased…
sorry again
The pipper is present for me if I start in the runway with engines running. Not sure how it’s normally supposed to be turned on
Hi, thanks for the report,
in fact the pipper did not appear due to an installation problem.
Deleted and reinstalled the product, now it works fine.
Roll rate: the two-seater training manual (real aircraft) recommends not to exceed 90°sec (!). I analyzed the footage from fungalPie273372 and made some changes like:
a) always engage aileron boosting (switch located on the left console in front of the throttle next to the afterburner lever).
b) set greater sensitivity on the joystick axis - a (small) part of the problem derives from the standard settings of the simulator, obviously on older computers this action will have fewer effects.
c) In the video you can see that when the pilot moves the stick to roll, the nose of the plane is never pointed at the horizon - that is, it is not in level flight. By simulating his maneuvers I actually obtained a roll response that was only slightly slower (but coherent) than that of the video, while if I started from level flight the roll was slower.
d) the speed at which the plane starts the maneuver is fundamental: the slower the plane, the lower the roll speed: for our Mig I saw that speeds of 600-700km/h have a lazier roll than those performed between 800-1000km/h. Unfortunately, from the video it is not possible to understand at what speed the pilot carried out the manoeuvres.
I tried the airbrakes again and I must say that they harmonize well with the new flight model, therefore
A “colour note”: the cockpit of the (real) Mig21 appears to be painted in two different ways - light blue or green. I assume but I am not sure that the factory-new planes for the VVS were light blue while those of the other members were green. Do you have any news on this? It would be interesting if this difference in the colors of the cockpits were also reported in this product.
Best regards
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thank you for looking after my concern, i will try again with aileron boosting and see what happens !
tested again . pretty much the same . another thing . this thing keeps the energy too high . i have seen the mig 21 around for more than 10 years and trust me . its very fast but looses the energy as fast as you turn . in the sim you can drag to 7 g with the same 400 kts which is imposible .
This version also has the weirdest throttle range. Idle thrust will gladly taxi it along past 100 kmh, however if you start on the runway, it won’t creep ahead until you touch the throttle then the absurd idle thrust comes alive, and at idle the hydraulic pumps can’t keep the system pressurized, but move the throttle a couple mm and all of a sudden your N1 jumps a good 10-20%, and in a clean config you can go supersonic at sea level with as little as 90% N1, which is just flat out wrong. Back in the hangar it goes until these issues are resolved or I can figure out how to tune it myself.
I think the new flight model is definitely an improvement.
If you read the real flight manual, the takeoff and landing characteristics are almost straight out of the book. However, the AoA indicator is off, or underreading. The landing and takeoff rolls are described in the manual as holding about 10-11 degrees of AoA while the aircraft is on its two main wheels with the nose up. It looks and feels all right, lift off and touchdown speeds are correct, but the AoA indicator under reads. I was unable to pull more than 15 degrees AoA and trigger the high AoA warning lights while in flight. You can observe the AoA indicator in the video posted above that AoA is frequently around 30 degrees during display with the warning lights frequently flashing (It might be worth mentioning, that the AoA indicator in the Mig-21 does not read the real, or the actual angle of attack of the wing. It is just a scale between -10 to 35 degrees. Stall occurs around 33 degrees indicated. The real AoA is around 27-30 degrees at the stall, if I remember correctly).
The aircraft is definitely way overpowered as described by others. The speed does not bleed in 8g level turns. The Bis does have a certain fuel load where this is actually possible with the 2nd stage afterburner at around speeds of 900km/h indicated, but not with the 1st stage. Speaking of the afterburner stages, the 2nd stage comes on even if the switch for it is in the off position. The afterburner can be lit with landing flaps with the SPS on which is not the case in the real aircraft, if I remember correctly. Speaking of flaps, the takeoff flap position does not retract or extends by itself due to drag as in the real aircraft.
These are my first observations. I really love this aircraft, and I think the devs are going in the right direction with it. I hope they will continue improving it, and make it as realistic as possible in the future. This is my favorite aircraft in the sim at the moment.
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Hello everyone,
I have done other tests and my opinion is that the roll rate is a little lower than that of the real aircraft, but you should not confuse the roll rate with maneuvering energy. In the previously commented video the pilot performs a long series of very fast rolls followed by prolonged sharp turns but the plane does not seem to be affected in the slightest. The mig21 is unanimously known for the rapid loss of maneuvering energy, so why doesn’t this seem to happen in the video? On the sim I tried to repeat such maneuvers and the loss of energy/speed was actually noticeable after a couple of sharp turns without afterburner. In the video, despite the terrible audio you can hear the afterburner kicking in and that’s obviously the trick. The after burner must be carefully dosed because with the second stage the aircraft (totally clean configuration) accelerates and this significantly widens the turning radius, which during a fight may not be what the pilot wants. In this respect the product behaves adequately both with and without afterburner and the roll rate is almost okay but could still be increased a little. So everything is fine with this upgrade? Not exactly. I did speed tests without afterburner inserted and clean configuration both at high and low altitude and actually touching Mach1 seems incorrect to me. That generation of jets did not have supercruise engines. For these aircraft it is not a secondary aspect and the problem should be corrected or at least mitigated. Also based on products from other brands, I think the problem of excessive taxiing speed is the price to pay for the limitations of MSFS2020 as a trade off for a more performing engine in flight. The developer certainly had to make compromise choices, but this compromise should be further refined. I hope there are more improvements because even though this upgrade is a good step forward, there is still plenty of room for improvement.
Best regards
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