I come in peace! I work at a company that makes fighter jets so I’m all in, but I’ve been wondering about this for a while now and I’m curious to get your input.
As the title suggest I’m a bit confused about all these fighter jets being released for MSFS, including the upcoming Hawk that looks absolutely beautiful. I am actually a bit tempted to buy it when it’s released, but then I ask my self the question I’m about to ask you. What am I supposed to do with it once the first excitement has passed, which may take anywhere between 2-20 flights.
It’s not particularly good for IFR and it’s probably a bit too fast for doing any sort of VFR sightseeing. The armament is just eye candy and if I want to do any kind of tactical flying I have DCS. And I can’t think of any kind of Neofly/OnAir mission where a Hawk would be the platform of choice.
So for those of you that have bought a fighter mod and/or is planning on buying the Hawk, what is your motivation? What kind of flying do you do with them? Or are they collecting virtual dust in your community folder?
Flying fighter jets in MSFS is huge fun, for a start, and having the whole world to explore is vastly more interesting than DCS World, which is great at systems and weapons but not much else.
MSFS is about aviation, in all of its forms, so any type of aircraft is valid, military or otherwise.
I have had full-on dogfights in MSFS, and the only difference is that there is no weapons release at the end - same as 99.9% of real life training dogfights. Formation flying, tactical low-level time-on-target training, the lists of possible flights in MSFS fighters is pretty much endless. There are entire squadrons of F-15s that have formed and are operating out of the same bases that they use in real life - can’t do that in any of the combat-orientated sims.
For the future, weapons add-ons are sure to be released - I already know how to do this ( in principal ) but of course time is an issue so not sure when I will get to it, and it would only be available on PC, but it can be done.
Every sim has its place, of course, but MSFS is the only one where users can fly any airplane they want, anywhere in the world, and for visual and meteorlogical realism, nothing else comes close.
Because MSFS is the only game/sim in existence that lets me fly an F-14A out of Miramar NAS through the deserts of SoCal, then an F-15E at low level across the Fulda Gap in Germany an hour later, and then later that day take an F-14B out of Honolulu and dart down the Hawaiian Islands. When the GOTYE F-18 comes out, you ■■■■ betcha I’m gonna have fun flying that one too.
The same argument might be made regarding the vintage warbirds but I love them too. The FlyingIron P-38L is sublimely great, and though I’ve never had the same affection for the Spitfire, I’m tempted. I’ll probably buy the Milviz Corsair though, because it also looks fantastic and I’ve got a soft spot for that idiotic 70’s TV show BAA BAA BLACKSHEEP.
Fast jets fly very differently and need different skills, so offer a different challenge to traditional GA or Commercial aircraft.
If mastering those skills isn’t something that particularly appeals to you that’s perfectly fine but for other people that is just what they are looking for so really I’m just happy to see high quality options for as many different kinds of flying as possible.
I flown fast jets in FS9, FSX and P3D. The Hawk is definitely not a fighter, although it can carry armament.
How many fast jets are flown with live ammo each day anywhere in the world? Very few. With Rick Pipers Hawk for argument’s sake, or Dave Garwood’s hunter in FSX, I would fly them on training sorties, in the Welsh Valleys or Scottish highlands. On occasion formation flying online.
Sometimes fly them from the UK to Cyprus or Gibraltar.
So I will buy the Hawk, and that’s what I intend to do with it. Flying the Mach Loop from Llanbedr etc.
Not with this level of visual fidelity and immersion. But go ahead and use X-Plane if you want - life’s too short to tell someone else they’re having fun wrong.
This topic is not exactly new. If you check the search function I am sure you will find many more arguments pro fighter jets. But basiclly the most important stuff has been said already
Because they’re simply fun to fly and gorgeous looking too…they’re my favourite kind of aircraft and loved the noise and speed ever since I was little kid falling in love with the Vulcan…now I can fly in VR a F-15 through the Mach Loop which NEVER gets boring ( I photograph the real things flying through there as it’s near where I live )
I can now take a Tomcat through Star Wars canyon and be grinning like a Cheshire Cat during the entire flight… the Hawk is going to be special to me as see the real ones (T2 but still a Hawk) at my local base RAF Valley…fighter jets have just as much right to be in this sim as the most detailed study level tubeliner too
I can definitely imagine that the experience in VR is on a completely different level! Unfortunately I think my setup would suffer heavily with a decent VR headset but it’s Christmas soon
I intend on getting the Hawk. Along with flying out of Valley I intend on researching where the plane was exported to and where it was based, making my own training sorties. Indonesia, Saudi Arabia for example.
I have another cheaper fighter jet but no longer fly it as its a very poor model. I need realism and a degree of fairly high fidelity and it looks like the Hawk will provide that.
If I want to dogfight and use the systems of a fighter jet in the thrill of mulitplayer I play dcs. If I want to fly low and fast in some amazingly rendered scenery I will fly the Hawk with msfs. Both are or will be adrenalin rushes. I find room for both simulators depending what I feel like doing.
In a months time everyone will have a free F-18 with the sim anyway so everyone can experience the fun of fast jet flying. I don’t know if anyone caught this evenings live Q+A session but the F-18 sounds incredible and all the extra features will be available to third party devs too so fast jets really will be top notch now. You’ll even black out momentarily if pulling too much G force. Also, if I caught what they said correctly how long you black for will be tied to the type of G suit you wear in the plane. Great attention to detail.
Less than 0.1% - weapons are very expensive so they’re rarely used in live firing exercises, mostly weapons deployment is “simulated” either with tactical pods or internal systems that track the computed trajectory of the ‘released’ weapon and send the data back to TACTS ranges or similar for debrief.
Having spent time as an armourer on a RAF ground attack squadron I know that nearly every sortie involves releasing ordnance if you consider 3 and 14kg practice bombs. Not so much will full HE bombs, if I remember correctly there is only a small uninhabited island off the coast of Scotland where these can be dropped and not that often. For air to air the aircrew went once a year to Valley to fire at drones over the sea, but every “normal” sortie they would carry the fake sidewinder.
I’d imagine the States has a lot more room for dropping live ordnance and a bigger budget too so I’d expect their pilots to do this more.
