I don't think any of that matters, what counts is what aircraft ED have software contracts for or can pitch for contracts with as a tech demo. Availability of info is important as well, if large portions of the systems are classified then there's no point modelling the aircraft.

Every plane mentioned here has already been in a past sim. Therefore, the "too classified" excuse is bogus.

Anyway, no sim from the 90s did things as complex as DCS except for F4.0. They were closer to LOMAC, but more complex. In other words, between LOMAC and DCS, but a lot closer to LOMAC. Of course, LOMAC was several planes (a big jump over the 3 in Flanker 2.5) and there was a reduction in complexity due to that.
However, Jane's F-15 and Longbow 2 were 2 of the most complex sims ever made, and were more complex than any sim released in the last 10 years aside from DCS and the F4:AF re-release. I spent many long hours flying them.



The Jedi Master

This statement is not correct. The US DCS aircraft are made with information from and blessing of some parts of the USAF/ANG. I won't go into details, but neither F4 or any other sim have the level of fidelity that DCS has when it comes to modeling a particular aircraft as whole.

I agree with that. A huge amount of information was declassified for DCS A-10 to happen. Its just not possible to make any DCS aircraft (besides maybe the F-16) without getting more information from the government.

F/A-18E or Eurofighter Typhoon

This just in!



Next US fixed wing aircraft will not be from US. :P

Uhh.... what?

um, so why is it "too early" to reveal what the next one will be? Scared all those competing developers of high-fidelity study sims will get the jump on you?

Yeah, flight sims are a cut-throat world now. You got one company announcin something and 5 others copying right away to beat them to market. Hell just yesterday, i was in the software store and the shelves were full of flight sims and PC games........


Uh wait, i think i'm flashing back to 15 years ago when game stores actually had PC games and weren't wall to wall console.

I agree, but only because i'm rediculously impatient. I NEED TO KNOW ED!!

AV8B!

Ok, just popular with me then

As much as I'd love carrier ops, gonna bet on an export block F16.

That is the best post on the subject I have ever seen.

You are so right, if this was a first person shooter on a console perhaps I could agree with the statement that it is "too early", but in the flight sim genre, hardly

AV8B was popular 20 years ago as far as I recall

Umm, why do you need to know right now? It's too early to tell for reasons that are good whether you want to like that or not

Man, I'm old - how did that happen?

I guess it's declassified now though?

That's a big assumption. It depends what you mean by 'declassified'. There are operator's manuals out there and you can probably use them to get a pretty good flight model, but you'll need SME's to get it exactly right.

Weapons systems? ... Radar warning equipment? Certain countermeasures? They are never 'declassified'.

I for one have a love/hate relationship with the suspense of not knowing. Nice to have a surprise but nice to know too! I can wait it out, it's not like I have a choice anyways.

As its a US fixed wing, I'd be quite surprised if its not the F-16 then.

Why would you be surprised if it ended up being an F-15, F-18 or AV-8? Or maybe a C-130 or C-17?

If I have a choice between a sim with DCS' level of detail that can't be done because of classified systems, or a sim with less than that done with the available info and then the blanks filled in with guesses, I'll take the one with guesses.

NO sim will always lose out to a lower-fidelity sim because there is no way to enjoy NO sim.


"Well, here I am staring at a photo of a Super Hornet. Sure glad I'm not playing some mid-level fidelity sim of it, that would suck because there's just so much that wouldn't be accurate enough to satisfy...whoever, it's better to just stare at a photo and NOT have it. Think I'll enjoy some of the others in my vast library of nonexistent sims."


The Jedi Master