Leatherneck: F-14A/A+/B

[Minoslas]

Leatherneck Announce the F-14 Tomcat to DCS: World.

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=140017

SWINOUJSCIE, POLAND - March 3rd 2015 - F-14A/B (A+) Tomcat coming to DCS World

Leatherneck Simulations, in association with The Fighter Collection and Eagle Dynamics are immensely proud to announce the development of the F-14 Tomcat for DCS World!

The F-14 Tomcat is a fourth-generation, twin tail, supersonic naval interceptor aircraft, developed for the United States' Navy VFX programme.
After it's debut flight in 1970, and subsequent fleet introduction in 1974, the F-14 became the primary fleet defense and air superiority fighter for the U.S. Navy.
The legend of the F-14 only grew after the hollywood smash-hit "Top Gun" - in which it was heavily featured.

Key Features of DCS: F-14A & B include:
Highly Accurate 6-DOF (Degrees of Freedom) Cockpit
Highly Accurate avionics and weapons system modelling - including the vaunted AWG-9 Radar system and AIM-54 Phoenix missiles.
AIM-54 Phoenix Simulation with a CFD based AFM
'JESTER AI' - A Proprietary AI System for fully voiced, dependable and smart RIO/WSO
Highly Accurate Flight Model - Based on Real Performance Data
Both -A and -B Model F-14's
Multiplayer Multicrew capability. Fly together as RIO and Pilot!
Animated Crew Members - Closely Integrated with JESTER AI
Highly Detailed External Model, Animations and Textures
Highly Accurate Aircraft System and Subsystem Modelling
One Free Theatre bundled with the Aircraft
Full, lengthy single-player campaign
Full Suite of Documentation, including game manual, quickstart guides, and more.
Fully voiced and interactive training missions, teaching you to fly and fight.
...and much, much more!
At Leatherneck Simulations we strongly believe in raising the bar. We have never been comfortable with adhering to the status quo.
Currently we hope to complete development and enter BETA testing on the first version of the F-14 by the end of 2015. Subject to significant change.

For the Development Team, the F-14 will represent the culmination of years of experience and dedication.
Our passion is only rivaled by our ambition and we are pushing ourselves to be better than ever before.

So strap in and enjoy the ride, and get ready to experience the definitive F-14 experience.


Sincerely,
Leatherneck Simulations

NOTE: Due to an unexpected technical error in our website & subsequent down-time due to overloading the server, this is a limited, interim announcement.

[Minoslas]

Glowing Ammram working on a Trailer to the LN F-14 Module

https://www.facebook.com/glowingproductions?fref=photo

I am pleased to announce that I'll be working with Leatherneck Simulations and creating a trailer for the upcoming DCS: F-14!
Make sure you check them out over at https://www.facebook.com/leathernecksim

Here is an exclusive image (work in progress) for you guys.

[Herr-Berbunch]

Both posts are great news.

[Minoslas]

LN F-14 render cockpit update

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=141046

Dear All,

First off, thank you all for your kind words of support and positive attitude to our announcement.
It is a great motivator to put in those long hours when you know you've got such a great community behind you.
Sincere gratitude from the entire team. Also a big thank you to those of you who have gone above and beyond to spread the news of our announcement.
While it's still relatively early in the development process, it's good to get some awareness out there right off the bat.

We've been kind of quiet lately, but not to worry; it is simply an effect of the large workload placed on each and every member of the team.
Ambitious plans require hard work and much of our focus lies on attaining planned development sprints.

Unfortunately, a byproduct of this is that many of your questions about the F-14 have gone unanswered. I've been gathering many of these and they will be answered in the FAQ section of our new F-14 site section coming next week.
Therein you will also find a lot of information on various features of the aircraft and our design goals for e.g. JESTER AI.

We're due for a monthly update, which will have some information about other developments and the MiG-21.
Thus, I'll be keeping this F-14 specific update fairly short.

Art Development

We're now essentially feature complete on both exterior and interior models for the F-14, including the majority of integration work and animations.
Thus, preparatory work for diffuse, specular and normal map texture creation has begun.

With the F-14, we're pioneering several new techniques based on the tried-and-tested industry standard sculpting and baking workflow.
We've already put this to good use for our other unreleased, in development aircraft, but we're hoping to take it that one step further for the F-14.
We hope we can further enhance the realism of both our exterior and interior textures and the initial results are very promising.

It's very exciting for us as artists to have the opportunity to apply years of accumulated knowledge to a project such as the F-14. We hope to capture every minutiae detail, down to the touched up lumps of paint.

Something many of you have concerns about is performance. We're taking a very pro-active stance on ensuring that performance is optimal at release this time around.
We very much wish to ensure that the F-14 will perfectly on the vast majority of systems, and approaching things more carefully from the beginning will make it easier for us to make adjustments in the future.

Attached below you can see some Work in Progress renders of the cockpit.
Do note that these images have flaws, so take them with a few pinches of salt.


Codebase Development

Not counting the Radar and HUD (two big systems in themselves), the Tomcat contains, by our count, roughly 67 Major systems, of which 37 are related to Flight and Flight Controls.
In addition to this, one must take into account the size and difficulty of both the JESTER AI system and the External Flight Model. Noting that the F-14 is a massively difficult undertaking is putting it mildly.

Currently, heavy focus lies on creation of the AICS (Inlet Control System), Hydraulic System and Electrical System.
These systems, together with the Engine and grouped control systems lay the basis for the construction of the swing-wing EFM that will capture the spirit and real performance of the F-14.

There is yet a long road ahead, and many difficult tasks to complete, but we have absolutely no reservations about our capabilities nor our choice of aircraft.


We look forward to sharing more progress with you soon.
Thank you for your support,


Sincerely,
Leatherneck Simulations

[magicstix]

If it's a highly realistic F-14A/B, does this mean we can expect to flame-out our engines if we use the slightest bit of rudder? :P


I see a lot of these 3rd party addon announcements for DCS, but hardly any of them seem to actually get released... Where's my super hornet?

[Minoslas]

Two new renders and little update

Dragging our feet a little -- we're wrapping up some new sculpted artwork and finishing touches on the F-14 product page.
Thank you for your patience during the long publicly quiet period we've had over recent weeks.

We're not announcing any new products just yet, but will be telling you a little more about them and the technology involved. (Sorry to take the wind out of your sails there!)

We will be moving away from the monthly newsletter based updates and into smaller, more frequent updates as we move forward.

In the meanwhile;

[Minoslas]

Leatherneck May, 2 update, carrier deck crew and CV-70/1/2 progress.
http://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?...82&postcount=1

Hi All,

Many thanks for all of your support and excitement for the last update and additional images we posted!
It's always exciting to share what we're working on; and pretty soon we'll be coming close to sharing years of hard work with you.

As we move into May; the team progresses into a hard, month long crunch on the AJS-37 Viggen project.
Refrain from drawing any conclusions from this cursory information- but we're excited about growing closer to completing our second product and follow up to the MiG-21bis.

We'll soon be stuck neck deep in the superficial polishing stage.

In the meanwhile; we continue to work hard on the F-14A / B as well as the accompanying CV-60/1/2 Forrestal class carrier.
We've completed modeling of our flight deck crew; and will be modifying this base to suit all of the various crew you'd find on a busy carrier flight deck.


Smell my finger

We've also already created the low poly version of this particular character; baked him down and rigged him.
Generally, all of our characters will appear just as detailed in the game as they do in these renders.



As mentioned in the last update, our goal is to try and include as many deck animations as we possibly can. Of course, it's quite possible that this particular feature will not launch together with the carrier or aircraft.
However, that has not stopped us taking our first steps with Motion Capture.

Here's a rough capture (pre-cleanup) of one of the many animation sequences we'll be looking to recreate



The past few weeks have been spent shaping the hull and major structures of the vessel, as well as more detailing on the island and associated components.

It's still early days; and while our team has had significant experience in modeling naval vessels in the past months- the Forrestal class is certainly a challenge.
We'll take another pass at our new base, make sure it is correct, and then move on to detailing the hull and major hull components.







In the last couple of weeks, we posted a few images and .gifs in various places around the forum.
On the off chance that some of you missed these; here they are again.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record- keep in mind that these are still very early.





We still have lots of cool F-14 related stuff coming up before we wrap things up and unveil the Viggen, but in the meanwhile, many thanks for reading this short update and for all of your support.




Thank you!
LS

[Minoslas]

Foreign Relations by LeatherNeck XD

https://www.facebook.com/leathernecksim/?fref=nf

Keeping up Foreign Relations is an important milestone in the development process!

[Minoslas]

Other pic of the Leatherneck F-14

https://www.facebook.com/leathernecksim/?fref=nf

Carrier qualifications underway!

[Minoslas]

Leatherneck AIM-54 Phoenix flight model on develop to F-14 Tomcat

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=172708

Dear All,

For the F-14 project, we realized that we'll need to spend considerable time and effort with the development and research for the AIM-54 Phoenix missile.

Not only due to this weapons' unique place as a weapon designed specifically for the AWG-9 radar system, its' role as the tip of the spear of the USN air-to-air capability or even it's amazing range and performance-- but also to ensure that any advantages and disadvantages of the missile are accurately reproduced and respected.

It's quite likely that the AIM-54 will change the players' experience in the DCS multiplayer environment.
Thus, we consider it of the utmost importance to have a wide breadth of open and readily available research available to the community.

We have no horse in this race except for historical accuracy, and with Tom and Márton at our side, we're confident that we'll get as close as anyone ever has.
Please enjoy their initial development report on the AIM-54 below;

Basic Overview

Since the inception of the F-14 project, we have been working closely with Leatherneck to provide our expertise in providing the most accurate simulation for the AIM-54 that can be reasonably developed on a flight simulation game development budget. The iconic nature of the AIM-54 deserves this level of attention, especially due to its long range and advanced guidance systems; systems that were later incorporated into the AIM-120. It's also very important to maintain strict accordance with real life performance parameters, so that historical advantages and drawbacks are accurately simulated and have the appropriate effect on the multiplayer environment.

As it stands of writing, we are currently simulating drag effects at different velocities and altitudes to ensure accurate drag curves. This is perhaps the longest part of the process as each simulation takes hours to run.

This simulation is based off of a 3D CAD model from which has been created based on reliable source material as well as high resolution imagery. The model has been imported into Fluent where a mesh creation, testing and validation process began and has now been completed.

Once all the simulations have been run, we are able to take this data and then use it to create velocity/time diagrams. These will be matched against literature estimates to revalidate the model.

Once established, we will then be able to write DCS code which will mirror the in-game missile’s performance to that which has been simulated. The final step is to then assist Leatherneck with their work in guidance and radar algorithms. The missile has the range it does, not just due to its huge motor, but also its advanced lofting profiles. These exist in the game at the moment, but will be significantly expanded, as their simplicity often leading to worse performance than level flight.

Research

The first step in the process was to data mine as much as possible about the missile. Fortunately, due to its age and public interest, quite a bit of information is available. The most important information for us was the missile’s motor performance and dimensions, the latter being a relatively easy task if taken just from high resolution photographs.

As for the motor, there have been a lot of questions raised across the internet about the Mk-47 vs the Mk-60 motor, and which version of the AIM-54 received which- and why?

In summary, the first motor produced for the prototype was the Mk. 47, which yields 364lbs of propellant. The Mk-47 was produced from the mid- 1960’s up through and until ‘92.
In parallel, the Mk-60 motor was produced with 459lbs of propellant, obviously a much larger motor. However, due to rising costs, this motors' production was cancelled in 1978.

What this basically means is that the AIM-54A had the choice of either motor, and by the time that the AIM-54C was available in the late 70’s/early 80’s, the Mk-60 was no longer in production. The motors were not retired, however, and some were still in service in limited number. As the years progressed, the Mk-60 was removed from service as service life came to an end and the AIM-54C and C+ exclusively used the smaller Mk-47 motor.

CAD

As mentioned previously, the CAD model for the AIM-54 was created from reference material providing exact dimensions, with more specific details (e.g. angles, radiuses) taken from photographs.

We omitted details that would be otherwise masked by the resolution of the numerical mesh (small protrusions)

Figure 1. CAD Model used for the simulation


CFD

The simulation of the supersonic regimes was carried out using a density based solver with all compressibility effects and SST turbulence.

The mesh was created in a way so that it gives good shock resolution in the necessary velocity regions (M1-M4) and damps possible reflections from the boundaries.
The mesh uses hexahedral cells to reduce computational costs and improve accuracy.

The preliminary simulations managed to reproduce all expected shockwave behaviour and interaction phenomena. Currently, we are testing the mesh to make sure it produces the necessary mesh density convergence.

After this step is complete, we can begin the accumulation of data based on the simulations.

Figure 2. Unstructed mesh with refined shock regions


Figure 3. Oblique compression and expansion waves along the missile


Figure 4. Shockwave interaction along the missile, the image shows constant pressure lines


Figure 5. Bow shocks at low supersonic velocity, the image shows the density distribution (lighter = higher density)


Future Developments

Once the simulations are complete and we are happy with their accuracy, we will create a DCS AIM-54 based on this data.
Iterative tests and benchmarks will be run at altitude to ensure that it meets the CFD modelling.

Once the missile matches like-for-like, we will begin to look at the guidance and lofting algorithms.
There are a number of sources that already provide clear examples of efficient intercept and guidance laws that include lofting, one such source is directly from the US Navy Academy, for the then new AIM-120A.

Beyond literary sources, there are SMEs' willing to share their own accounts and insights into how the weapon is employed, and what we’d expect to see at different launch parameters.

There will be a lot of work and co-operation together with Leatherneck to ensure that the missile is expanded past current DCS guidance parameters.
This is the second most challenging part of the AIM-54's development, but I am confident that together with the Leatherneck team, we’ll recreate this iconic weapon to the utmost realism and standards available outside of military contracts.

Many thanks to everyone for reading. The team is hard at work on all aspects of the simulation!

Thank you for your patience and support, always,

Sincerely,
Leatherneck Simulations

[Minoslas]

Bunyap show a pre-Alpha develop version of Leatherneck F-14 Tomcat.

Actually F-14 Team has centred on develop functionality. The F-14 Team has separate of other LN project teams.

This is early development footage of the DCS: F-14A/B Tomcat module being produced by Leatherneck Simulations:

Check here for the latest updates:
http://www.leatherneck-sim.com/f14/
https://www.facebook.com/leathernecksim/
https://forums.eagle.ru/forumdisplay....

F-14 Tomcat Design Evolution:


One correction: The F-14 development team is completely separate from the Viggen team with programmers working on the Tomcat full time. It is only Cobra who is moving from one to another as I noted.

[Minoslas]

Update de Cobra
https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php...32&postcount=1

Dear All,

Bunyap was awesome enough to take the time and help us with releasing some very early carrier physics trapping and mechanics footage!

We've made a lot of progress over the past few weeks in implementing appropriate physics forces and other mechanics that allow for extremely accurate carrier trapping mechanics. This also brought with it a lot of work on the suspension of the aircraft.

Big thanks from the LN team to Bunyap and his awesome work to the community

Enjoy!

[Minoslas]

Leatherneck delayed F-14 Tomcat to Mid / Late 2017 on Hoggit.

https://www.reddit.com/r/hoggit/comm..._were/dajdo0l/

Development is progressing very well, with a slight dip in production speed due to the impending Viggen release. Mid to late 2017 is looking very likely, but we’ll keep you well informed until then. A HUGE amount of FM and systems work has been developed in the background for this Aircraft, and we are really excited to show it all off starting very early next year.

[Minoslas]

ED has added pics of HeatBlur F-14 to your webpage
https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.c...eenshots/1065/

[Minoslas]

Trailer of F-14 tomcat