Propeller fighter?

[sinful zephyr]

It’ll be nice to have a prop fighter in the game!

[worthy ether]

I think something jet powered in between Cricket and Compass would be more appropriate. Prop fighters are pretty much obsolete now (or have been since the 50s), let alone in 2070s

[sinful zephyr]

right

[worthy ether]

Don't get me wrong, I love warbirds, but I just don't think prop planes would be able to compete with what we already have in the game

[sinful zephyr]

how about something along the lines of the A-29, AT-6, B-250 and KA-1 then?

[hard pulsar]

prop planes are wayyyy gone
utility roles such as AWACs? may exist
but as fighter planes they're gone

[south pagoda]

cricket already is as much "prop fighter" as you'd need tbh. maybe a little slow, but a prop plane specializing in speed makes little sense in the era of supersonic-at-sea-level fighter jets. I propose simply letting cricket take more missiles at once :3

[sinful zephyr]

then the Cricket should be made into a jet lol

[lyric girder]

A turbo prop cheap fighter could be nice, im sure something futuristic could be done, the us tried those concepts for a while in the 50s !

[sinful zephyr]

Except it doesn’t look like a fighter nor something that would be used for aerobatics.

[worthy ether]

Iirc that thing was developed to be potentially used on carriers and shorter runways. The propeller gave a quicker start compared to contemporary jets

[south pagoda]

it has plenty enough wing area to turn tightly, and the pylons for a useful amount of missiles. it's an excellent turnfighter in the context of NO, only the chicane is better via stretching the definition of "turnfight"

[sinful zephyr]

Yup

[south pagoda]

"doesnt look like a fighter" also feels like a weak argument. the p-38 also looks weird as hell, aye?

[sinful zephyr]

It’s a heavy fighter just like the Mosquito and Bf-110

[latent ice]

I hate to tell you this buddy, but prop fighter is going to be terrible. A fighter by definition does air to air

[sinful zephyr]

then make it a fighter-bomber

[south pagoda]

then you're making a sad compass

[sinful zephyr]

laughs in Ukrainian Yak-52 bringing down a drone

[south pagoda]

yak-52... so, a cricket?

[latent ice]

Ah yes. A prop aircraft destroying a drone means that it can compete against 5th/6th gen fighters armed with fox 3s

[sinful zephyr]

Yes

[latent ice]

No lmao. Those can’t compete tho against 5th gen’s

[sinful zephyr]

Or something like A-29, AT-6, B-250 and KA-1 where it’s based off a trainer

[south pagoda]

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bb/Yakkes_Yak-52_RA-3085K.jpg yak-52. forget cricket, this plane belongs in civilian hands. cricket far and away outperforms this in any role a prop plane could, and still struggles to find relevance except for weird cricket appreciators like myself

[sinful zephyr]

the Cricket resembles a purpose-built light attack/COIN aircraft

[latent ice]

The only propeller aircraft they should add is a vertibird vtol tilt rotor/wing

[sinful zephyr]

what is missing is a turboprop counterpart of the Compass since it’s also a trainer

[latent ice]

A trainer like you’re talking about wouldn’t be on the front lines. The prop trainer the us operates, the t-6 Texan, isn’t a combat aircraft. It’s only used for very basic flight training, then they switch to jet aircraft

[south pagoda]

the cricket can easily serve the trainer role too, it's got two seats and everything. i prefer it over the compass in most ways, i only use the compass if i need a fast bombtruck

[sinful zephyr]

A-29 and KA-1 are frontline combat aircraft

[latent ice]

In vietnam yes. By the time of the game, over 100 years have passed since then. The cricket serves the same role of the Tucano. It’s not a trainer

[south pagoda]

supertuc, ka1, ia58 etc etc... those are cricket equivalents!!! they just look conventional thats all

[sinful zephyr]

definitely not aerobatics

[latent ice]

We don’t need aerobatics in a nuclear war dude

[sinful zephyr]

uhh A-29 and KA-1 aren’t Vietnam-era.

[south pagoda]

have you tried aerobatics? i promise you the cricket handles just fine, i think you're just getting caught up with looks for... some reason

[sinful zephyr]

no, we do.

[latent ice]

Same general design as the a1. They’re COIN aircraft. Coin aircraft operate against insurgents, not against superpowers that have strategic nukes

[sinful zephyr]

then remove the Cricket and Chicane.

[south pagoda]

what im saying is your wish is granted in the form of the cricket, so stop sneering at it just because it looks like an arhlac rather than a supertuc

[latent ice]

The cricket is useful because it is used at the beginning of the game. The chicane is always going to be useful for CAS. I don’t see the role of a new prop plane, unless it would serve as a cricket analogue for the opposite team

[sinful zephyr]

A new prop plane would be useful to intercept Chicanes.

[latent ice]

Just use a revoker or compass, or the new multirole. We don’t need a terrible new plane just so we can intercept helis

[sinful zephyr]

nah jets would be overkill

[coarse stump]

i've never had a problem taking out helis with any aircraft. hell, even the darkreach has a favorable matchup if it has some agm68s

[wary stratus]

Bombs, including 1.5kt

[coarse stump]

mans is orang now?

[wary stratus]

Team won their game at nocs, but I was the backup

[static shuttle]

A turbo prop for the other faction would be nice yes

[latent ice]

Tf you mean “overkill” 💀. Nobody is making aircraft specifically to intercept helicopters, or making them worse because overkill. We don’t need an interceptor for every single aircraft. Like, I don’t even understand this train of thought bruh

[tawny spire]

cricket has a propeller and already catches a lot of flak from people for being underpowered, another prop plane would just catch the same hate

[drowsy stream]

I'm sorry what the cricket is a child that must be cherished

Yall are all sleeping on the turboprop gunship idea

[tawny spire]

this would be the only way i see it, if the cricket were to be allocated to one side when faction-specific aircraft come and the other side needed an equivalent prop plane, but if not then it just doesn't make sense, it would get roflstomped and called bad

[radiant spruce]

May I introduce you to the Cricket?

[coarse stump]

fr, it has the best turning circle of any fixed wing in the game

at least in terms of sustainable rate, the revoker can technically pull tighter but it drops out of the sky like a rock afterwards

[grizzled schooner]

is about 95% certain OP is trolling, the other 5% thinks he's just stupid and stubborn :L

[wary stratus]

Trolling on there internet, never....

[grizzled schooner]

shrugs Take it or leave it I don't really care.

Though if I may pitch in. If ANYTHING prop related should be added to the game, it is as one person mentioned a tilt rotor in the same vain as an Osprey or just....not make the Cricket based on the OV-10 Bronco which is slower than most mid-late war WWII props by about half, nevermind the superprops that made it too late for the war....and upon doing some quick research for this post the Cricket is only 45kph faster than the Bronco.

Should it be a dedicated air to air platform? Absolutely not, but giving it a slightly higher speed (Say 100kph faster bumping it up from 515 to 600ish) and MAYBE access to S3s instead of only S1s might help it be a tad more decent in terms of both getting to target, running away and self defense. We could also go the extra mile and give it a tad more flares if not also a jammer pod hardpoint for dealing with SARH missiles. And both the missile upgrade as well as the jammer pod would of course add weight that could be used for air to ground ordinance.

Though unfortunately as far as not making it Bronco based that is pretty out of the picture as it would require a complete redesign of the aircraft model. But the next best thing might be giving it a countra rotating propeller (two props spinning in opposite directions which both increases propeller effectiveness and counters torque roll, granted I can't tell if the Cricket even has any. outside of a small amount on takeoff) which might require minimum effort as all you'd really need to do is swap out the propellers and cone. Anything more than that would just be giving it a better engine under the hood which requires little if any modeling since that's just a stat tweak.

So it would be possible to give it a still balanced, reasonable but decent upgrade if any or all of these were done. A compass would still be better, but the Cricket wouldn't be as bad for some people.

And that is how you make a legitimate suggestion and argument for making something considered weak and widely disliked better. <~<;

[wary stratus]

you know the cricket can use S3 in the middle mounts right?

[grizzled schooner]

I did not or forgot, but that's actually really good to know

[wary stratus]

the real wish is throwing some dual s1 launchers on the cricket for more A2A funnies

[coarse stump]

in general i dont believe the cricket should get a buff, but to get the chicane's dual S1s on the cricket would be a dream

[radiant spruce]

Real, especially for balling in altercation

[tawny spire]

unnecessary

[grizzled schooner]

I mean everyone was seeming to fall for it but whatever.

[clear cipher]

Actually having a heavy superprop type aircraft ingame would be pretty interesting, as an analogue to the Cricket for one side. Let me explain:

Say you had the Cricket on one side and something like maybe an F2G Super Corsair or A2D Skyshark-type aircraft on the other. They both perform the same role, but go about it very differently. The Cricket is, well, obviously the Cricket. The heavier aircraft is faster and carries a few more weapons, but is hard to maneuver and has a significantly higher IR signature. Then just give the Cricket dual S1 launchers and things should be relatively even. Course the heavier prop plane would be able to use the vertical to compensate for being much less maneuverable than the Cricket (at least to some degree), but the minute a Compass spawns in, the heavy prop is worse off than the Cricket due to lack of acceleration and maneuverability, not to mention being easily outrun by a Compass.

This might not work out like I just outlined, but it's an interesting idea none the less

[sinful zephyr]

jets are harder for the Chicane to keep up with, it’s like using a 5th gen just to shoot down drones when props are good enough lol

[tawny spire]

chicane purpose isn't to chase down aircraft

[south pagoda]

if the drone is a sufficient threat, that the 5thgenner is comical overkill is irrelevant. it's what's in the air and able to respond, so the raptor shoots the drone. let alone in NO where a red 5thgenner won't be far away from said red drone

[sinful zephyr]

nah it’s like the Yak 52 shootdown lol

like why use a flanker when a yak is good enough lmao

[tawny spire]

this mindset doesn't make sense

[grizzled schooner]

Hints what I said earlier...

[latent ice]

The problem isn’t that you could just use a cricket instead. What doesn’t make sense is that you are saying we need an entirely new aircraft to deal with the heli because the current fighters are overkill.

[sinful zephyr]

well not just helis but also ground targets

the Cricket can’t use MMR-S3

[tawny spire]

(it can)

[coarse stump]

suggesting that we need an entire aircraft to hunt helis is wild. i have never once felt the need to load up specifically for killing helis, i just see them and shoot them while im already in the area

[tawny spire]

yea this is just kinda pointless, even if there were another slow plane in the game people would just use faster ones for interception

[clear cipher]

What he's really asking for is more like this: https://discord.com/channels/909034158205059082/1230723562143354953

[grizzled schooner]

I was pingused but then it got removed just before I could get here it seemed

[latent ice]

Nah he literally asked for a propeller air to air interceptor

[clear cipher]

I know, but realistically that's probably pie in the sky. Compass would just be all-round better

[latent ice]

Yes, but he won’t listen to logic

He thinks we need a ww2 interceptor specifically to intercept the chicane, because, “jet interceptors are overkill”

Look in the chat above if you think he just wants a coin aircraft

[wary stratus]

compass can chase down choppers easily, and in modern times anything meeting that performance spec would be used (or better) to take out a offending chopper. The real defense against the faster planes is to have a team mate prove air cover so the choppers can ground pound

[radiant spruce]

Ye just gun them from above and they're helpless

[wary stratus]

nah, i would rather disrespect the chicane with a 250, glide, 500, auger or even 1.5kt

[hard pulsar]

defending yourself in the chicane is shooting everything that comes at you (including missiles) and hoping nobody decides to bother with murdering you

in the case that they do, they either do something far too risky and get obliterated by your IR-S3 or you die horribly

[wary stratus]

the glide bomb, 500kg and 1.5 nuke are go to

[hard pulsar]

not if my ir-s3 says something about.. oh

[radiant spruce]

Man I can never hit a chicane with a glide bomb, the 1.5 kt I can see tho

[wary stratus]

gotta come in with high angle and some speed

[radiant spruce]

Ah ok, or hit them with an AGM-48 lol

[wary stratus]

they are actually producing a prop CAS aircraft in 2024

https://www.defensenews.com/air/2022/08/02/how-l3harris-created-us-special-operators-new-plane-to-hunt-and-strike-terrorists/

[grizzled schooner]

No, their converting a long existing crop duster into a light CAS aircraft. And the Cricket is described in game as a light CAS aircraft.
They also chose this over the making a brand new aircraft or acquiring Super Tucanos because the US is run by penny pinching con artists >.>

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L3Harris_OA-1K_Sky_Warden https://i.imgur.com/2Ywrwo8.png Because I'm extremely exhausted and cranky after having to put a dust cover on a full sized mattress before finally making myself dinner .-.

Meh...sorry. No think right when extremely low energy and very hungry....

[coarse stump]

we have this in the game and it's called the cricket

[cunning hollow]

Cricket crop duster attachment when

[radiant spruce]

Fr we need this 🙏

[sinful zephyr]

hmm how about a prop/jet hybrid?

[south pagoda]

cricket cropduster attachment but it sprays mustard gas instead

[coarse stump]

do you mean a turboprop or like a convair b36

[wary stratus]

a b36 style bomber would be very ace combat, but cool, thing had like 7 ballturrets

[coarse stump]

i only brought it up because it has both propeller and jet engines

[sinful zephyr]

Something like the Thunderscreech

[coarse stump]

so a turboprop

[wary stratus]

you know the thunderscreech sucked right?

[sinful zephyr]

doesn’t matter

The I-250 is another alternative

[graceful vapor]

I could go for an analogue to the super tucano

[coarse stump]

it was experimental, so it's a little incorrect to say it sucked as it had no operational history. as an experiment, it actually gave us a lot of information on how propeller blades behave when moving at mach speeds and on the negative affects of exposure to extreme vibration and sound on humans

[wary stratus]

yeah, supersonic airflow over lifting or control surfaces = plane no workie, we have know this since the 1940s, im not sure why they even built the XF-84 in the first place.

[grizzled schooner]

It flew multiple times, the main problem was the same reason it was named the Thunderscreech. The specially designed propeller made to work with the jet engine was making constant mini sonic booms which made it one of if not the outright loudest propeller driven aircraft ever made to the point it made multiple ground crew physically ill causing them nausea and I think even in some cases fainting. It was also so loud it could be heard from supposedly 10-15 miles away according to civilians in the area, of which some recordings exist that seem to back this up.

To add to this, some test pilots were utterly terrified of it to the point one of the test pilots (upon double checking to make sure I get this right, there may have also only been 2) said "You aren't big enough and there aren't enough of you to get me in that thing again" before quitting. If I remember correctly he was the first test pilot. Plus the Thunderscreech was disappointingly slow.

You know if you would actually do some proper research on these topics people wouldn't have to constantly correct you....though as for why it was build, this was at a time where jet engines were still in their infancy, thus unreliable and slow to adapt to throttle changes. I don't remember the EXACT reasonings for why they decided to do it but the idea of a pane with a jet in the back and prop in the front as a middle ground to compensate for this goes back as far as the 40s as well, usually on naval aircraft....

[south pagoda]

i think its worth noting the tu-95 is a similarly silly aircraft
obnoxiously loud propeller plane
blade-tips go supersonic at cruise speed
deafens everyone onboard
except it's also a successful mass-production craft, with an airline variant (just as deafening), capable of mach 0.95 or so while getting remarkable fuel economy
so really, the thunderscreech concept is workable; transonic prop plane... it just needed a lot of workshopping... and tolerance for ridiculous noise levels

[quasi roost]

Wait, the Bear has an airliner variant? How did I not know that?

[south pagoda]

tu-114. the most hilarious long-distance airliner i can think of <3

[quasi roost]

Oh my
That sure is quite the thing