Latest / High Alpha Hooligans Podcast / The Team Behind the F-100D | Grinnelli Designs Full Team Interview

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The Team Behind the F-100D | Grinnelli Designs Full Team Interview · High Alpha Hooligans Podcast

• FiFi: Well, Scut's not here, and that's because he's recording his he's recording a a new album with his Billy Joel cover band that's goat themed, so it's called the Billy Goats. Imagine Scut in the goat costume. Jimmy: Yeah, it's it's kinda odd. They have like the hooves for the hands and they play all their instruments with it. It's not a deep part of the internet internet that anybody wants to go into. FiFi: Yeah. Yeah Jimmy: Yeah. ⁓ this episode's gonna be completely hun themed with the team that's bringing us the hun. ⁓ this is something that's new for us. ⁓ we've talked to developers before, but this is this is kind of cool because we're getting a behind the scenes look at kind of like what is on the dev's minds for the last stage development, you know, also hear about the history of the development of the aircraft and then pretty much who everybody is. ⁓ we've got a few people here today. ⁓ And what I wanna do to kind of kick this off, everybody knows who we are, you know, a couple fat 40 year olds that like video games. ⁓ let's go ahead and go around the room. Dude, mean average, you are actually the average age of this this show might be below forty, which could actually be like a first for us. So FiFi: Not forty, but I am fat. So yeah, going around the room, yeah. We Jimmy: ⁓ yeah, let's let's go around. ⁓ if we could start with, you know, Grinnelli, the namesake of the studio, you know, tell us who you are, what got you into DCS and your favorite module aside from the hun, ⁓ kind of, you know, give us the background who you are, then give us the ⁓ you know, the meat and potatoes. And ⁓ that's we'll get started that way. Grinnelli: Well, thank you for having us guys. ⁓ Joe Grinnelli here. And Wow, where to begin? It it it started around When I met Brandon and we decided it would be a good idea to try to make an airplane for a virtual air racing series. And ⁓ beyond that, the rest is pretty much history over the years of just experimenting and learning and building and kind of refining the skill to attempt to become a third party developer. And ⁓ Jimmy: Mm. Mm-hmm. Grinnelli: Yeah, we just kind of fell into enjoying the dev work almost more than the flying over time. And ⁓ now here we are, the hun on the verge, and ⁓ I'm a nervous wreck. FiFi: Yeah. Jimmy: I I don't think you have much to be nervous about. I mean, I I think so personal opinion, you know, I think I've said this a few times over the last week. I think it's already beyond like a release date of what other people other studios and what we've seen in the past. Not well, we won't say now, but like what we've seen in the past, I think the hunt is well beyond the traditional mold of what we see at release time. ⁓ question for you. Which was first when when you got into the air racing. Was it the five forty or the three thirty that was first? Which one was the ⁓ which was the chicken? Which was the egg? Grinnelli: The Edge five forty was the first of the official standalone mods that we did. Jimmy: Those are pretty good. We have ⁓ we have air racing nights actually on our servers and we use those along with the Christian Eagle and Yak just for like, you know, getting down and having fun. FiFi: It's true. It's true. It's true. They're staples. Actually, you know what's funny is my first like the very first third party like extra out there free mod, yeah, community mod that I ever downloaded was the F twenty two. So Jimmy: They are. Community mod. Think that's everybody's first. FiFi: Yeah, that was that that was a lot of fun. Because the 'cause you know it got into the liberation mission. Like it was in the liberation mission set. And so that was really fun. Yeah, that was really fun to ⁓ to like do a whole air to air campaign in there. 'Cause I would like sneak up on everybody. Yeah. So Jimmy: Series. Be invisible. I remember the first time I downloaded the F twenty two, I like, I'm gonna see how invisible this is and I just went straight into like an active server and I just started flying over everything. I was like I'm invisible. FiFi: So but yeah, moving on. ⁓ Nelson, you're on you're you're up to bat on this one. The man, the myth, the legend behind actually quite a bit here in DCS. So it's kind of fun to like force you guys into the spotlight now. JNelson: Not quite, but no, I've been playing DCS for longer than I've been developing it. Started me in about two thousand and twelve and I got into DCS development with the A4 mod. So a friend and I made the EFM for that and a bunch of systems and stuff, which is good fun, and then I eventually went on to work ⁓ Hepler, where I did the the radar and weapons and the RWR on the F four phantom. Jimmy: Beautiful mod. JNelson: And then after that was complete, ⁓ I found myself working with Grinelli on the F one hundred, doing similar kind of stuff, and it's been great fun. So yeah, that's pretty much the journey. Jimmy: Awesome. How was it coming from the A4? Like how I don't know, it was the word nostalgic, or what's what's the feeling to see that featured so many times? So many people praise that so highly, and for it to be like the forever-free mod. JNelson: Yeah, I mean it i it it's really nice to see that it's so beloved. I do think it gets a little bit unfair praise because because it is a mod. Like the amount of the amount of effort that goes into making a a full Fidelity module is so much higher. Like ⁓ like I I I do I do h hope that one day like that that the A four could be brought up to that kind of standard, but but yeah, no, it is it is great to see that people love it. Jimmy: You're crazy. FiFi: Yeah, we always say that the A4 is like the gold standard for like community mods for free mods. And it's the only community module that's and it's the only community module that's actually ⁓ like featured in an in like an Eagle Dynamics video. If you so that's that's something that's that that says something right there. So Jimmy: Dude, we Mm-hmm. That is what we measure everybody to. JNelson: Yeah, yeah. Jimmy: Yeah. The and beyonds. And it is the only third party mod that I know of that has been widely adapted with pictures of Fifi on the front console. JNelson: Yeah. FiFi: ⁓ yeah, that I forgot about that. Thanks for reminding me about that. Glue We y okay, so the picture that he put in there is actually when we went to the Pensacola Naval Air Museum and I was sitting in the backseat of the Tomcat and like we were messing around and I just like yeah, anyways. I took a selfie and then glue decided to just put that in there. I yeah, anyways. Jimmy: It's it's perfect. FiFi: So let's go with Thomas next. I'm just kinda going down my list of what's people around here. If you wanna introduce yourself to the people. Thomas: ⁓ yeah. So ⁓ I ⁓ I got into DCS and flight swimming in general probably in round twenty thirteen. ⁓ the A ten's my favorite plane ever and I think my first videos I saw of DCS, I think ⁓ I think it was Ralphie dude was flying it around w way back in one point two of DCS world and ⁓ got into DCS and a lot of the formation stuff and whatnot. And then ⁓ I ⁓ three D's my passion, three D graphic work and stuff's my passion and I thought how can I kind of put this to use ⁓ for some of my little hobbies and stuff with formation? I made a couple of mods for for the ⁓ Hornet that added like some blue angel equipment stuff on top and everything for the lights and smoke and whatnot, and kinda was in that formation, ⁓ virtual formation area, ⁓ kind of in the same realm as what Grinnelly was doing. And I think ⁓ he caught wind of some of my work I was doing modeling some high fidelity ⁓ airplane parts and brought me on board about a year into the project to ⁓ start working on the cockpit and get that fleshed out. Jimmy: That's awesome. So ⁓ fantastic. So saying FiFi: And the cockpit does l indeed look good. Yeah. Yeah. Scud Scud so Scud actually sorry Jimmy I didn't mean to cut you off. So Scud actually has this one gripe with all of like the old aircraft cockpits, like when you're talking about and he's always like, It's n it's too clean. It's not dirty. It doesn't look lived in. It's ⁓ I need to see dirt or something like that. And the one thing the first thing he said when we got in after like the latest update was he was like, ⁓ my god, there's actually dirt in here. I could see it's just it's perfectly dirty. It's so So if you can get Scud to praise you on that, then it's really that's that you've reached the pinnacle of anything, of everything, because Scud will find things to pick apart. And he couldn't find anything to pick apart. So Jimmy: Dude, the f my favorite part of the cockpit I think is like at the bottom of the throttle, you know, the little frame and how it has like chunks of the paint out of it and like you can see the lines from like wearing stuff. I don't I don't know. It just it that that like completes the look. The the age, the wear, the the visual fidelity of everything is is pretty good. So Thomas: Yeah, it's it's ⁓ it's the these jets have been flying for a long time now. Like these the high wire upgrade, like they've been flying for fift fifteen years. I I'm not sure off the top of my head, but it's just it's and I can understand wanting a clean cockpit, but it's so much fun giving ⁓ the cockpit more character. It just by giving it age and wear and stuff. It's just it's a lot more fun to texture and just yeah. FiFi: Jack. Jimmy: Mm-hmm. Well, we so DCS, the player base, loves full fidelity, loves to brag about this is like a one to one, you know, like, ⁓ if the pilot died, I could land this plane, you know. ⁓ and I think that's one of the things that the your work has like hit the best home or the most home or furthest home is it doesn't feel like it's just like a picture of a cockpit or anything like that. Like the fidelity is not just the systems work, not just that the flight model's perfect. It's that everything that you see in there is so immersive that you feel like you're jumping into a jet that's been, you know, on the line for like five, ten, fifteen years. You know, it I think it's I think it's really good. So FiFi: Yeah, we'll get into that in a little bit here. going on the list here, Arrow. Introduce yourself. Guy who's like convinced everybody to jump over here. Aero: Hey guys, ⁓ I'm Arrow. ⁓ I go by Brandon or Arrow usually. ⁓ yeah, I met Joe a long time ago. ⁓ I don't I don't even know how long it was. It was probably I'd say like around two thousand thirteen or so as well, maybe, and we were doing flight simulator stuff. We were producing a lot of mods, like you said. ⁓ we ended up doing the Ripe Flyer, we did an edge five forty, the ⁓ extra three thirty, ⁓ and a bunch of other stuff. Jimmy: Mm. Aero: ⁓ and then I got into like the aerodynamics work. ⁓ and I was responsible for doing ⁓ about ninety nine percent of the aerodynamics on the Hun. ⁓ to include like all the performance ⁓ stuff with the help of Nelson ⁓ and the and the tool we made, but we can get into all that later. ⁓ so I did like effectively most of the aerodynamic work and some system stuff, ⁓ and yeah. FiFi: So remember everybody, when you crash the plane, and you will crash the plane, if you have any hate mail, it goes to him. So it goes straight to him. ⁓ and last but yeah, last last but not least, panic. Glad to see you around here and stuff like that. Tell us about yourself and then we'll we'll get into the fun stuff. Because we got we got some questions. Jimmy: No, you just gotta look you gotta look it you gotta look in the mirror on that one. Panic: Alrighty, hey guys. ⁓ my name is Panic. I'm a 3D artist for Grinnelli Designs. ⁓ I started my DCS journey back in about 2013. ⁓ following similar path to what Thomas just described. I did ⁓ aerobatics for a while and then ⁓ kind of around the 2018, 2020 time frame, ⁓ I met Grinnelli and ⁓ I worked with him on the F twenty two Raptor V2 mod. So we ⁓ updated quite a bit of systems there, ⁓ added some new indicators and and new cockpit and and stuff like that. So that was a fun project and Grinnelli was really a mentor to kind of get me into the modding scene. ⁓ so that was fun and then ⁓ when Grinnelli design started, I originally was a ⁓ coder, ⁓ working on working on the plane and then found out that I wasn't very good at that. So I ⁓ I took some time off, learned ⁓ learned three D and with the help of Thomas I've now came and ⁓ I did all the the base animations ⁓ for the plane, you know, landing gear, flaps, all the all the stuff that moves, I did all the base animations and as well as just any sort of, you know, DCS work, as I should say, for the for the in external model and getting that in game. FiFi: That's awesome. That's awesome. Jimmy: What's what's cool to me about this is this is not I think when people look at a module in DCS like we just see, you know, A ten, F, you know, F one hundred, F eighty six, but we don't realize like there's such a robust team behind these projects. You know, and it's cool to see that one, all of you guys came from the community and you know, you started out in different places inside the community and then you slowly work towards you know, the production side we're actually building things and I couldn't what is could one of you guys sum up kind of like the difference in the reward level of, you know, maybe hosting a server versus like creating a mod or you know, like what's the what's the satisfaction level of creating something for, you know, the greater community? Aero: Yeah, I can I can touch on that a little bit. So ⁓ I think I think for the most part, I mean we all started in DCS as players, ⁓ and it's fun to like hang out with people and fly and ⁓ you know, just play the game together in general. But I think it's a h a whole new level when you start to go make things and then you can watch people enjoy those things that you make. ⁓ and I think all of us in general just have a a passion for ⁓ developing things and creating things and then Jimmy: Mm-hmm. Aero: ⁓ on the flip side, like I said, just being able to produce a product that people can enjoy is it's huge and I think that's where the passion and most of it lies for us. And the other thing is ⁓ being able to use the knowledge and that we that we ⁓ you know, gain to make things and see them work. ⁓ and I think that's like ⁓ it's a whole new level, at least for me, and I I I guess other people can touch on it too, but ⁓ hanging out, you know, with people is one thing, but then actually going to make things and watch people play the things you make and be able to fight with them is a whole new level on top of that. So I think that's what for me is like a huge driver in in developing ⁓ modules. Jimmy: Cool. ⁓ so I'm reminded when Kepler let the ⁓ or when they first released the F fourteen, the actual, you know, grey wolf was hopping in people's back seats and in public servers and just, you know, doing gesture lines from the backseat, you know, of people do you do you guys foresee yourself, you know, having any community ambushes like that in the Hun? Panic: ⁓ yeah, I I would say absolutely. I mean even even coming from, you know, the aerobatic side, I think it would be fun to to pull up on a group of dudes flying on an aerobatic server and fly in formation with them and just connecting with the community because in in all reality the community is what drives us to to make these awesome projects. So ⁓ without their support it none of this would be possible. So it's it's cool to be able to give back to the community a little bit and also just, you know, take some time away from development and go fly with ⁓ with new people and and get to meet them. FiFi: I'll say I gotta say this now that you mentioned the aerobatic stuff. I wish that we I I don't know. I'm gonna have to steal some of those pictures and the and the clips that you guys have been putting up of you guys like doing all like the aerobatic stuff in the Hun with all the matching s liveries. Like that is like every time I see that I'm just like, I'm just gonna go throw away all of my hotests right now. Because like I can like that is like the coolest thing to see. I wish like I understand why you know, you have to keep things, you know, under wraps when you're development and stuff like that because people the the the the public is crazy when it comes to certain things. But like there's some super cool stuff. that you guys have been doing that we've been lucky enough to like witness. And, you know, the nights where I'm I guarante I I I'm positive I saw you guys go like twenty six, twenty seven seven hours straight on like a marathon of just coding. Like I'd go to bed and I'd wake back up and you guys are still on there like run throwing code down and stuff. So like it's really it's it's it's been like a really cool privilege to be able to watch you guys like all work like that and then just basically having like the equivalent of like an office pizza party like pushing through for deadlines and stuff and and that's one of them, like just seeing like all the videos of the the video and the clips and the and the shots of you guys do and stuff. I think I have a really interesting question here that that came from one of our one of our crew here. And it's so how how did you guys evolve and change over like the f almost fourteen hundred days that this thing's been in development so far? Like what'd you guys learn? Like what'd you guys have to adapt to and things like that? Cause obviously like this is this is probably night and day difference over what your what your normal stuff is when you're like you're doing like community mods. I feel like those would probably be a little bit more relaxed versus, you know, dealing with the the tight deadlines of what We have to do it now. JNelson: Could could you repeat the first part of the question? 'Cause ⁓ there was a some some noise from someone else. FiFi: Yeah. ⁓ yeah. Plus I think plus nine jump actually joined. So so when it comes to so when it comes to like the group, right, and and Grinnelli designs as a whole, as as what you guys all are, like how have you guys like evolved as a group over like the fourteen hundred days that this thing's been you know, in development? in that sense? Like You know, how 'cause every every company kinda goes through like a restructuring as they it hit challenges and you know, what were some of like the craziest moments during the development process that you guys had to like really flex through? Panic: so regarding that, the I'd say one of the biggest things was 'cause I'll kind of touch on 'cause you said something about, you know, coming from a community mod to an official module. ⁓ the biggest thing is number one, is making sure you're not cutting corners and like certain aspects. ⁓ because it's easy with a mod to say, ⁓ this is you know an edge case scenario, we don't have to include this, you know, it's it's it's a free mod, it is what it is. So we need to be able to encompass everything and put it all together to make sure that the product is is as flushed out as possible. ⁓ so whether that's you know, adding a little bit more 3D ⁓ stuff here and there, like adding level of detail to it, adding a a a robust collision model. ⁓ any of that sort of stuff. Just speaking for the three D terms, I'll let the the code guys ⁓ jump in. ⁓ but just just trying to make sure that ⁓ it's it's as well rounded and well complete as possible. JNelson: I think from the actual ⁓ from the code side of things, ⁓ a lot in a lot of ways the structure of the company has kind of remained the same over the years. 'Cause Grinnelli, like Brandon and I, all kind of knew our specific roles. So in a lot of ways we've just kind of worked in our areas and been able to produce the various technologies which we'll use for the F one hundred and then the next plane. But ⁓ but yeah, no, it's it's i it's it's a nice chill environment. So and it's kind of remained that way the The entire time, so and we kind of work together as and when required. Jimmy: But do you Yeah. Would you say that this is more so looking back at it, you know, the total development of the Hun, was this more of like a a studio project or did it have more of like the feel of, you know, doing something fun with the friends? JNelson: ⁓ I I would say ⁓ for the most part, yeah, it was it was fun with friends type type thing, but obviously as you approach a deadline it has to ⁓ become more serious. Things have to be prioritized correctly. So so it has i in some ways as the pressure is mounted, things have become a little bit more serious, but I still think we we all it's it's it's it still has the same kind of vibe as it did before, for sure. Jimmy: Sounds very cool. You guys have been in development for over four years, correct? JNelson: ⁓ Grinelli would be best placed to answer that. I thought it was three, but I I've only been on the project for about two years, I think. So ⁓ Grinelli? Grinnelli: August nineteenth, twenty twenty two is effectively when we signed the contract and they announced the development of the project in the newsletter effectively immediately after we signed the contract. There was no there was no grace period or buffer. Jimmy: Th there w there was no hey, go celebrate, it was straight to work. FiFi: Straight, yeah. Get in the mines. It's time it's time to put out a time to put out a module. ⁓ man. Jimmy: How much going in and signing the contract, how much prep did you put into, you know, formulating a plan on how to approach creating a a full fidelity, you know, super saber? Grinnelli: Well, Eagle Dynamics has a pretty strict set of rules and qualifications that you have to meet regarding ⁓ you know approval for third party contracting. And ⁓ really we ⁓ we have to go through and you know, populate different charts and ⁓ kind of plot out what what the systems are. what the time frame is to develop these systems, what where the art is coming from, what module, you know, what it specific airframe or airframes are required. You know, there's a there's a whole checklist. They want SMEs and proof of manual or, you know, data that that that the data is just not coming out of thin air. ⁓ and you know, you kind of have a back and forth process with them. Luckily in our case, because we had Jimmy: Mm-hmm. Grinnelli: you know, community engagement, involvement and different areas of the community between the air shows, the air racing, you different mods and and different scenery and stuff. Eagle Dynamics definitely knew who we were and knew that we could do the job. And it was really just a matter of dialing in what what's a what's a good opener And ⁓ it landed on F-100. We had we checked all the boxes for F-100. And realistically it was a blessing in disguise because I got to meet people like Mr. Rick Sharp and Dean Cutshall that fly the last two F-100s. Now ⁓ Dean ⁓ subsequently has sold that airplane to ⁓ another kind of ⁓ you know, curator collector kind of guy. And ⁓ you know, these planes live on and ⁓ you know we got we got unlimited access. The both organizations were unbelievable in ⁓ th the amount of stuff that they let us do. Jimmy: Yeah. Grinnelli: and you know, letting me get hands on the airplane for days when there was an issue and, you know, they put me right to work and and it was a it was a once in a lifetime experience on something where, you know, any other Century Series fighter that we're gonna do, we're we're never gonna be able to get the that level of access and and ⁓ you know hands on w with something that's actually flying. So it it really was probably for the best. Jimmy: Yeah. So there's videos of you, Joe, ⁓ out there, you know, changing wheels, changing brakes, and I think it's some hydraulic work on some some Huns. What was it like to go hands-on on these jets and actually like turn wrenches, work on systems? And then later, as you guys are developing it, seeing those actual physical things like start to be represented by the 3D models. How like what in your brain, how did it how was how did you grasp going from the actual thing to, you know, probably one of the best history pieces now that we have, and that's the the Hun and DCS? Grinnelli: So it's funny, the the whole process kind of starts with ⁓ memorizing all the manuals and where stuff is in the manuals. And I remember Thomas and I had an opportunity to go to Georgia to scan General Goddard's F one hundred. And ⁓ I remember when we first got access to the plane, we grabbed the, you know The 16-foot ladder or whatever it was, and you know, scurried up to the cockpit. And I just remember diving over and being like, yep, the it's got the AWRS, it's got the right pylon control, it's got the high wire weapon control, it's with the AP and the ⁓ APR-25 is on the deck. Like we have everything that we could ever possibly need in this airplane. I remember one of the security guards or or one of the guys that was ⁓ you know, kind of an information. floater around the museum that kind of in interacts with the with the customers in the museum was like, man, yeah, you really know this airplane. And ⁓ from there, you know, it just furthered the the connectivity to the project. And then having opportunities to consistently go out and work with the ⁓ fine people in in Houston, Texas. And ⁓ having the opportunity to go out with the Super Saber Society with Dean Cutshaw. The by the time I got there, you know, they could say, hey, Grinnelli, go grab this and bring it there or do this to that. And we I knew what I was d doing. ⁓ also subsequently, ⁓ out of high school, I went to Lincoln Tech, got all my ASE certifications for automotive ⁓ technology and you know, I'm no stranger to getting my hands dirty and turning a wrench and and building stuff. So, you know, it was practically a dream come true to have access to be able to work on a plane with with that much history and not one but both. And you know, coincidentally both planes had issues every time I've been out there, there's been something wrong. So ⁓ you know, the F one hundred is is is just an amazing opportunity to You know, have these once in a lifetime changing experiences. Jimmy: I I like that. And kind of like one one thing you kind of lean towards was something that we've heard before. And that is like DCS is a special environment because a lot of these aircraft, they just don't exist anymore. And they live in history and and pictures, you know, and YouTube little, you know, history rolls of, you know, somebody talking about this plane could do this, you know. And your guys' work has literally, I think, created like a a new virtual museum piece that Everyone gets to a ⁓ experience now and fly. Grinnelli: I think it's also worth noting that throughout the process and getting exposed to all these special, wonderful people, one gentleman in particular, ⁓ Rick Sharp, flies the Collins Foundation F-100 and the ⁓ Bud Day scheme. ⁓ we've been able to build a relationship with him to not only get first-hand information from somebody that's flown the plane. the other day, as opposed to a lot of the SMEs that we speak to, it was 66, 67, or 70 or whatever it was. You know, however many years ago, the light the a lot of the times I asked these SMEs, what was the landing gear tone? What did that sound like? Or where you know, how did this work? Or what did this do? And you you know, one of the gentlemen I was I was working with ⁓ goes, Joey, I don't remember what I had for breakfast. How the hell do you expect me to remember what that landing gear tone was i i in the thing? I'm I'm you know, I'm eighty-five years old now. Like that was a long time ago. So having access to a a guy like Rick Sharp, you know, on multiple occasions when he was doing test flights and and preparing the F-100 for the air shows that they do, he would go up and specifically, you know, have a checklist. of items that he had to check for us specifically to make sure that it was right. Beyond that, Rick would fly the real F-100, the next day would go over to one of his buddies house that has a full sim pit. We would get him in VR, in a full SIM pit, in the F one hundred, in development stages, and have Rick communicate to us where are we right, where are we wrong, how do we you know, how do we reel it in and and get it as close as we can For the sake of ⁓ PC simulator software. And you know, it was a godsend to be able to ha one day he's flying the real one, the next day he's flying ours, the day after that he's back in the real one. And invaluable feedback that we'll never get from another Century Series fighter. Jimmy: That's awesome. And that plane just flew a couple weeks ago, actually. I think I saw ⁓ Diesel Thunder had a nice little video of it. ⁓ I think it did ⁓ a couple touch and goes, right? FiFi: Yeah. Grinnelli: Yeah, they're always constantly keeping those planes up and running. They were working on the Phantom today and yeah, I become really good friends with all those guys down there and I I can't wait to go back. Part of me wants to move out there. We'll we'll see. But ⁓ you know, the the the F one hundred usually gets ⁓ its its moment in the sun in ⁓ October for the wings over Houston show. Sometimes you know, there's so many planes that they have access to fly between the sky rater and FiFi: Yeah. Jimmy: Yeah. Grinnelli: The A four, the MiG fifteen, ⁓ you know, et cetera, et cetera. Brooks got an L thirty nine. ⁓ you know, they they fly as many of them as they can. And ⁓ you know, sometimes the the old hun gets her day and sometimes ⁓ she's blown up, you know, on the tarmac and ⁓ you know it seem it seems to be more often than not that there's something, there's always something. FiFi: Yeah. Well that's that that's that's one of the nicknames that the maintainers gave it, right? The hundred tons of fun. So 'cause Jimmy: So I I have a I have a question for the group, but first to Arrow. ⁓ this plane is definitely, this jet's definitely different than anything else with wings. What kind of the what as you were developing the flight model for this, was there like in the back of your head like any like thought going on that people are gonna hate this be just because of like the adverse yaw, the decoupling, like all that? And like how And for you, Joe, like when you did, you know, sign that contract for the F one hundred and you started to consider, you know, the unique flight characteristics of the jet, like what was in the back of your head with all that? Aero: Yeah, I can start. ⁓ these guys can tell you I've came in the Discord multiple times talking about the balance between like hyper realism and playability. ⁓ 'cause I mean, there's a point I mean, we want to be as realistic as as we can, but there's a point to where it's just, you know, so it just flies so terribly but realistic and it's just impossible for an everyday player to enjoy the plane. ⁓ and then on the opposite end there's there's the Jimmy: Mm-hmm. Aero: the point on the curve where, you know, everyone can fly it, but it doesn't represent anything the real plane ⁓ you know, how the real plane handles. ⁓ so I mean obviously we chose to get it, you know, as close as we can to to hyper realism at the same time trying to ⁓ manage playability as best as we can. I don't think we took many shortcuts, of course. I don't know how the real plane flies. I've never I've never flown a F one hundred, but We have a lot of data and tools to help us validate ⁓ the flight model and by all accounts the data matches very, very closely. ⁓ of course you can't match everything and and we can also talk about that later. It's a big in dimensional problem as we say. ⁓ one thing or two things or even three or four things might match, but ⁓ there's other points al along the flight model that ⁓ might not match perfectly. So we got everything as close as we can. ⁓ and we think Jimmy: Yeah. Aero: You know, there is a good balance there that we struck to keep it ⁓ playable for as many people as possible. but yeah, I was very worried about that. ⁓ it's it's a unique airplane. It's probably one of the hardest planes to fly in the game. ⁓ and and these guys can tell you, I'm sure Joe will talk about it, but ⁓ that's something I was worried about all the time ⁓ when I was developing it, so Jimmy: Yeah. How many people? FiFi: I'll say I'll say from ⁓ I'll say from our side, ⁓ when we were first starting starting to talk to all all you guys about about it and then, you know, when you guys decided to you made the decision to let us come in and help in the final final round of testing, I guess you could say. The first thing Scud and I were like was like, this thing's gonna kick our ass. Like we we have to fly this thing. And then and then is the the first night we downloaded it, like the first thing we did was like, let's go put it in a spin. Let's let's let's go let's go try to crash it. And so that was and then we realized how easy it was to do it. And ⁓ And then like on our first and then our to do that. And then on our first live stream, like Fade Fade augered the thing right on in short of the runway. He got caught in the dance because he tried to float the he tried to float the landing log and it's yeah. Jimmy: ⁓ yeah. Aero: Yeah. Yeah, there's there's definitely ⁓ you know, we've seen a lot of ⁓ of the testers fly it and it's we can tell it's definitely a little bit harder. ⁓ there's a lot of unknowns in the in the data. ⁓ there's there's certain data sets we don't know exactly how they were measured compared to other data sets. I mean we have thousands and thousands of points, probably, you know, close to a million data points if you total ⁓ all up. ⁓ but they're all measured a little bit differently and and then there's some there's some data that we don't have ⁓ for the response and stuff and so Those are kind of the areas where we can take a liberal guess on or a little ⁓ just a shot in the dark of like trying to balance the flight model a little bit. And we worked with Rick Sharp a little bit and ⁓ and some of the the other SMEs to to keep it realistic but also like very playable. And we think we struck a good balance where it's it's hard but it's it's easy to learn and if you get enough time in it you can definitely master it and and bring out the ⁓ the pluses and the strengths of the of the flight model, so Jimmy: ⁓ absolutely. I think I think you guys have hit the nail like breaking that balance, you know, between hyper realism and playability, I think you guys hit it very well and you did so specifically targeting, you know, the people in DCS in this ecosystem who take pride in that full fidelity because it doesn't fly like a traditional traditional plane and it doesn't fly like anything else in DCS. But just like you said, you know, if I could echo one thing, you know, if anybody out there has like reservations about getting this on day one, like I wouldn't worry about it because, you know, just like Arrow said, with a little bit of practice and learning those flight characteristics and features, you can master this thing. And and when you do bring out that that good, you know, that speed and that control that you have in in those different phases of flight, like there is no other jet like it. And the reward level is so high in this because you have to learn so many different things. Like not only do you have to learn some new systems, but you also have to learn how to get those systems to the fight. Plusnine: ⁓ i if I might add a little bit. I I am plus nine. I'm I'm kind of a a back end person on the F one hundred project, but I've I've done some of the sound design and some of the mission design that you'll see included with the project. But what I wanted to add about kind of the the funkiness of how do you create a f ⁓ a flight model that that allows the user to feel their way through it. FiFi: Yeah. Jimmy: ⁓ yeah, send Plusnine: Part of that it comes from the back end and our hope is that some of the sound design, whether that's wind that you're hearing or sound of engines or things that are specifically to ⁓ induct to the user through super low frequencies, if you own a butt kicker, you'll really appreciate that kind of thing. sp but but to give you additional ways of feeling what's going on with the aircraft. Jimmy: Can't wait. Plusnine: that are a little bit, you know, synesthetic beyond looking at a gauge or, you know, experiencing something with your flight controls, that there will be something that you can also maybe listen for that will be useful for you. FiFi: Yeah, we could I could I can easily talk to that because one of the first things I said when I was able to get into it and start flying it, especially recently, like the the most recent couple of updates ⁓ to it was Jimmy: Yeah. FiFi: seeing like I I got in and I was like man this thing's creaky like I can hear it I can hear the jet like I and it's like it's it's you did you guys did a really really really good job of ⁓ having it kind of talk back to you and giving you that giving you that feeling back to it so I can definitely appreciate that. Also I love the sound that the burner makes when it kicks in because I think that's just so violent. But that's like my favor I giggle every time like I don't even fly. I I haven't flown on the past couple streams because I'm too busy just watching it and I'm like in their ear like Jimmy: Mm-hmm. FiFi: screaming like hit the burner kick the burner on it sounds so cool when the burner kicks on. So yeah definitely that's like that's like a really that's a really big big point because there's there's some jets that do it really well. Plusnine: Yeah. It's it's my sincere hope that that after Ritter Pop will have even more impact ⁓ by the time we we hit final there. But thank you. FiFi: Yeah. ⁓ that's gonna be awesome. That's gonna be awesome. Jimmy: One other thing that I really like about ⁓ what you guys have done with this module is inside the special menu, you have a slider to allow the user to kind of, you know, define the expectation of how much movement you have in the cockpit for the jet to c to talk back to you. You know, so you have like the onset of like shake, you know, of your console as you hit those buffets as you start to depart flight. You know, and you know, some people who don't have a buck kicker or don't have force feedback, they can go in and turn that up, you know, so you get that visual movement, you know, to kind of give you that feedback. And then also with the sounds, like the one sound that I kind of enjoy the most is the movement of the slats. Like as you begin to like turn and pull and you can start to hear those like clunks of the slats. Like you know, you know, that wing is moving to, you know, redirect that aircraft. I like it. Aero: Yeah, and and and I'll add really quick that ⁓ there is actually a lot of documentation on ⁓ the buffeting and th and some of the noises. ⁓ the the real pilots flew this plane kinda by the seat of their pants by listening to those cues ⁓ of the buffet and different noises and and those are like very well documented in some of the manuals and write ups that we have and and ⁓ as Plus9 was kinda talking about it really helps to to learn those as well and that can help you master FiFi: So Aero: ⁓ the airplane 'cause they're very ⁓ very much alive in in the DCS version. We paid attention to all those. Plusnine: and we would be remiss if we did not mention the physics on that ring that's on the the right hand side of the cockpit. That thing is really cool because again, like it while you cannot necessarily feel MG forces in your home simpit, this is a thing that actually kind of gives you a visual representation of certain things that are going on that you could not otherwise experience. And ⁓ I gotta say Jimmy: Yes. Plusnine: Having spent a lot of time in the cut in the last four or five days writing tutorials and just kind of experiencing things and learning where things are, it's been it's been pretty cool having that as a secondary guide when I'm ⁓ pushing things. FiFi: Have you been have you been in on the game where everybody's been trying to fly the plane to get the ring stuck in the up position? 'Cause there's like a game that like a lot of the testing the testing team guys like have been playing. Plusnine: I think if we do that it plays asteroids on the APR, the the AN tw ⁓ yeah, the APR AN twenty five. FiFi: Yeah. Jimmy: It it's funny because so literally last night we were flying, ⁓ three of us, and that was like I don't know why I didn't see it before, but I saw like the negative G, like visual representation, because the ring would start to float up like as you hit those negative Gs. And we had like a fifteen minute conversation about just like the detail of the visuals that you get in this game, and it's all just this one little ring, you know, just floating up and down. Like it's cool. Aero: Yeah, you can you can thank Nelson for for that one. He's he's ⁓ responsible for the ring there. FiFi: And then And then and then and they can JNelson: I made sure when you when you flip the ring so that it lands on the top that the collision is all like ⁓ correct and and sound so it it can just sit there. So FiFi: Yeah. Jimmy: Dude. FiFi: And then and then you starve the motor and next thing you know it you're you're in the you're in the shakes because you your compressor's thalling. But moving on, I want to talk about speaking of the cockpit, like that's the area that everybody's gonna be staring at the most, right? So ⁓ because they're gonna be in the cockpit looking at stuff. And I wanna talk about the art of the cockpit, ⁓ because I think there's I I wanna know, this is one of my favorite things to do, is because when we started deep diving into things, like in especially maps, and we would talk about like like favorite things on the maps that are hidden in there by like the visual artists. Like example, if you go on the Persian Gulf map and you go over to Doha and you go to the Formula One track and Egodynamics on the top of the on the top of the paddock and the on the Formula One traffic track put like the Ego Dynamics logo on there instead of the Formula One logo is really funny. And then like when Scud and I would do like our when Scud would take me on sightseeing tours at the back of the Huey across like the Cold War Germany map and stuff. So the question is to to to the visual artists here, what is your favorite little hidden thing that you don't think any Anybody's gonna notice until it's pointed out that you've like put into the in into the into the aircraft, into the cockpit. Thomas: ⁓ I'd say there's the each part that has a serial number in it is is accurate to to what is in it, whether it be a sticker or a part label and whatnot. ⁓ there are gonna be a few Easter eggs we're gonna hide in it that you'll have to find. but yeah, it's it's ⁓ it's really hard to say one particular thing that is like a detail that Jimmy: Yeah, she was making that stuff. ⁓ Yeah, nothing too. Thomas: ⁓ there are some details I think that I think some diehards will definitely ⁓ appreciate that might get looked over. There there's some parts down in the throttle that if you know how it works and whatnot, like it it's ⁓ there's a plate in there you can adjust for like the throttle detent and everything that I modeled and just things that I think people with a really fine eye would really ⁓ appreciate and ⁓ I think that that level of accuracy was only possible because the ⁓ the the photogrammetry we took of it and just the ⁓ the ⁓ museum we went to, they were so excellent in letting us get access to it. Jimmy: And you guys actually have like a lot of the parts of the plane, right? Thomas: Yeah, yeah, a Grinnelli bot. ⁓ he has a c it it's it's a problem. He he has so many parts of this plane at some point. I he might be able to build one at some point. He has a throttle, gauges, two radios. We one of the radios actually, it's the ADF radio. And ⁓ we didn't we needed a picture of a certain part in this radio that we couldn't get because it was so deeply embedded in it. It's the top face of the frequency wheel of the ADF radio and we bought one of these radios and took it apart to to get a picture of this thing. And it's just it's it's it was quite a tough time getting it apart. but in a way, ⁓ we're preserving history with by doing this and whatnot. And ⁓ yeah, it's just yeah, it was just so many, so many it and that's gonna be displayed, I think, Lia ⁓ we had a display of all of it, of all the parts he bought at ⁓ FiFi: Dedication. Thomas: Flights at Mexico last year. Jimmy: Yep. FiFi: Yeah, one of the cool things is like one of the other cool things I noticed in the cockpit is all the safety wired pieces. ⁓ all like like the G s the G the G Limiter safety switch cover and stuff like that, all the stuff that's safety wired, none of the safety wires like the same. Like those are definitely all individually made. And so like definitely appreciate like all that, all all that super minor detail. And then What was something else that we said? ⁓ whoever's idea was to put the arm beam pins for the seat and ⁓ on the side of the seat, like I it catches me every time and I am I am really mad about that, by the way. ⁓ because like, did you take the pins out of the seat? Because ⁓ every time I try to eject, I'm like, I can't eject. And it's because those pins, like, they're so well modeled that you almost overlook them. And and then you're like, ⁓ crap, no, but there's a pin right there. And then the other thing I really like is the accuracy of all the modeling. Like I remember you guys I remember there was like a three day bender where you guys that you guys were on talking about just the accuracy of like, you know, what you see in the cockpit versus where you're clicking and what ⁓ how it actually interacts and the like this is the the the tolerances are super tight ⁓ that you guys do with it. Jimmy: And much often. ⁓ FiFi: and that. So we definitely appreciate that for sure. Jimmy: So I have a question, open question to everybody. on day one, what do you think is gonna be the number one thing that people kind of hone in on the most with, you know, first time experiencing the Hun? JNelson: The Zell probably I would have thought. I don't know if everyone everyone agrees. Jimmy: Yeah. The zero length launch. FiFi: man. Plusnine: And be ready to work the throttle slower than you ever thought humanly possible. Jimmy: you mean you don't like compressor stalls? And you heard pop. FiFi: Yeah. Plusnine: I don't and that was my biggest that's the that's the biggest thing I've learned over the last five days in the cockpit is be slow on the throttle. Be be that ⁓ spaceshippy automated effect that y the F T eighteen gives you that you wanna see in the world. You really gotta actually do that here. Jimmy: Y deliberate throttle management is absolutely required. Thomas: I I gotta say, I I ⁓ I'm working on the plane a lot, but I have flown a little bit here and there in between development and ⁓ I catch myself moving the throttle real slowly and deliberately in all these ⁓ this muscle memory that I've built up flying the plane. I'm like, wait a second, why am I moving this thing so slow? And I just slam it forward 'cause I'm not I'm not you know, it just it's really, really tricky. Jimmy: It is. ⁓ so one thing, Nelson, you said the the zero length launch, the Zell. I cannot wait to have Zell inside C T L D so that I can use like a Bracules to carry out a Zell and like a a Hun out to the front line and just launch like, you know, fifty miles from a target. I think that's gonna be like awesome. FiFi: Jimmy's been talking about this for a while. JNelson: I think it's gonna be pretty funny to see the kind of shenanigans people get up with get up to with the Zell. Like Jimmy: Well, dude, talk about like a sniper too, because like you could be on like a growling sidewinder, you could be growling sidewinder on their server and you could if they put C T L D in there and you could station Zells and just sit there and wait for somebody to overfly you and then just pop up with a couple, you know, heaters. I I think it I think it'd be fun. Plusnine: You haven't known it's a badass opportunity for a what if scenario, right? FiFi: ⁓ we have a new Jimmy: Yeah. FiFi: Yeah. ⁓ yeah. Like like ⁓ like what just like what the Grim Reapers just put out. That was that was pretty funny with their with their stuff. I love I love watching some of those videos that they do with it. ⁓ yeah. Jimmy: Mm-hmm. Panic: We've ⁓ sorry, real quick, we've we've already gotten a couple messages from the testers asking us to be able to put it on rooftops of places so people can launch it off of rooftops. So it's it is amazing to see what people what people will do ⁓ with the release. FiFi: I think one the other ones that we were talking about in the test in the in the testers was they wanted to see it they wanted to be able to like stick it on the back of a destroyer, on the fantail of a destroyer and be able to launch it off to the back of the destroyer. Jimmy: I want. JNelson: Yeah, w we had that thought as well. ⁓ I think there are some fundamental limitations with how farps work in DCS, but th we have R S D D for that kind of stuff, so FiFi: Right. Jimmy: Dude, I wanna be able to put it on like an on some of those seashelf items, like on an oil tanker or a gas rig, you know, and have like you know where the little hello pads are, just have like a couple zells with the Huns on there just waiting. FiFi: Yeah. Jimmy: I think JNelson: Yeah, that would that would be incredibly funny. FiFi: Okay. Jimmy: Then I I can't it's I can't wait to see what like the high level campaign builders do with it with the Zelda specifically. Because I think you know, because normally a lot of these campaigns, you know, you do that 45 minute drive of the fight, you know, if you die, you gotta reset. But if you have like those, you know, frontline capabilities and you're like exemplifying that in a campaign, I think it could be like a complete I don't know, not redefinition, but a a new definition to the game that. You know, we we get. ⁓ JNelson: Yeah. And the Zell, ⁓ I mean the Zell can actually you c you have a lot of flexibility with it because it is has such a large rocket motor on there. It was designed for carrying nukes. I mean that thing's a five hundred and eighty kilonewtons, which is about a hundred and thirty thousand pounds of f force. So like it's much more than the the F one hundred weighs, like it can easily propel that thing with full full weapon load into the air. Jimmy: Mm-hmm. Plusnine: You heard it here first, folks. ⁓ full campaign, the legend of Zelda. FiFi: ⁓ So ⁓ wait, so wait. I I just wanna I I just I just wanna clarify for everybody because everybody's gonna like there's a couple things that we've said in here that everybody's gonna like just latch on to. I never looked for it, so now's our chance to clue the air on it. There's no nuke on this plane, right, in the in the weapons loadout. It's only the Jimmy: You the legend of Zelda. JNelson: No, DCS doesn't support nuclear weapons at the moment. FiFi: Right. So only yeah, okay. There we go, everybody. So before you guys like lose your minds is be like, ⁓ there's a nuke on it, then we can finally have a nuke up blue. No. But you c JNelson: Yeah, that th I mean, there there are games out there which have shown the potential gameplay in like I don't know if anyone's heard of nuclear option, but there is there is potential gameplay there, but it would it would have to be something that would have to be led by Eagle Dynamics because it would need to be standardized and you need the correct effects and everything. So it's not something that any one third party can pursue. It would need to be from Eagle Dynamics specifically. FiFi: Right. Jimmy: But your first sentence is what we're going to hold on to. And you said not as of yet. FiFi: Yeah. JNelson: Yeah, I mean if Eagle Dynamics adds nuclear weapons to the game then yeah, we we can certainly consider it FiFi: That would be the worst. I honestly I don't I hope it doesn't happen. That would be the worst thing ever. Because everybody's just gonna go fly around and nuke each other and nuke each other. Everybody's gonna fly around nuking each other. Log into a game, spawn into a server, immediate just vaporization. No. That would just be terrible. Plusnine: The tough part would be I think you would need to set that mission order to not include nuclear weapons and rearmaments unless you had enabled it right. Jimmy: No way. Mm-hmm. JNelson: ⁓ well. I mean originally one of the wor ⁓ one of the problems that happened when the MiG twenty one was added with its nuclear weapons is that there wasn't really a good way of restricting weapons at the time. But I mean DCS now has a very easy way the the the the mission in the mission to yeah. Well the warehouse system was the original way of restricting it, but now you have the weapon loadout restriction. So you can very easily restrict the entire every plane on the map simultaneously. So that makes it a lot more possible in that regard, but Jimmy: Mm. Warehouse system. Mm. JNelson: Yeah, as I said, it has to come from Eagle Dynamics. FiFi: So here's a cool question. ⁓ maybe not a cool question, but I kind of put you guys on the spot a bit. So with the with the models, with the with the super sabers that are out there that you guys are able to climb it all over, those are F models. Those are two seat F models. Why, what was the what was the thought process behind doing the D model, the single seater versus the the F model ⁓ in that sense? Like what was the What was the the w why why choose the D instead of the F model? I know, I'm putting everybody on the spot and nobody wants to answer the question now. Thomas: So I think I'll I'll I'll add to this a little bit, but it's ⁓ it would be quite a monument monumental task probably ⁓ modeling would take a while. But I think and ⁓ systems complexity as well also multi-crew is pretty difficult to do. ⁓ as as a first module, I think. I think we wanted something that was ⁓ maybe a bit more bit more manageable possibly. Jimmy: Yeah. Thomas: ⁓ we also scanned the ⁓ F one hundred D is the one we got photogrammetry on as well for ⁓ for our modeling reference. And ⁓ I think ⁓ there's not too many F's out there that are in nice condition. I think there's a one that's quite difficult to get access to for ⁓ modeling reference as well. FiFi: There we go. Now now now we answered that one so nobody can do it. Well, 'cause the the thing was the the the big thing for me was like when we were going through and we were like storyboarding out all the stuff that we were gonna put out, I was like, ⁓ man, because I was a you know, I was out since I was a a JTAC in the Air Force, ⁓ Panic: Yeah. FiFi: At one point in time, like I was JTEC qualified. I wasn't an actual JTEC, but I was a JTEC qualified. like I was like, ⁓ man, the misty fast fact. Like I got really excited about that and I was gonna do it and then I realized that it was only an F model thing and then I was like, wait, this is a D model, can't do it. So that would that that was a question for me. That was a I had to I had to ask to to make myself feel a little bit better here. So thanks for answering that one. Jimmy: Yeah, like we said here's the thing. Aero: Yeah, I I will say too, it's it's also just resource intensive. ⁓ I we don't know exactly like what what the result is for like how many people are actually, you know, using the multi crew airplanes in the in the game, especially like tandem cockpits. ⁓ so it's like it's especially for our first module, like Thomas said, it's a balance between the amount of man hours and ⁓ like the time we have and it it just didn't seem like Jimmy: Yeah, most people. This was the idea of the twenty. Aero: the the risk was worth the the reward for it. So ultimately we chose the the D. JNelson: Th there's also another point where the the F one hundred F isn't as compelling as kind of other multi crew modules like for example the F four Phantom where the the entire back seat is dedicated to operating the radar and ⁓ the navigation systems. Whereas in the F one hundred F there's a perfectly valid reason why they had two seats at the time, but it's not as compelling in terms of D C S gameplay, ⁓ to have that second seat, if that makes sense. So that Jimmy: Yeah. ⁓ Yeah, 'cause you get the FiFi: Yeah, that's what makes the most sense. So more on the artwork. I know in the testing and what you know everybody's been showing on ⁓ out there now. And we're we're lucky be enough to be able to see, you know, a lot of the liveries that a lot of people are making and stuff like that when it comes to the to the artwork. How how much of what we're seeing is gonna make it to the to the module ⁓ out with release? Because that there are some really, really cool looking jets that are coming through there. What's the goal on that? Panic: Yeah, so I would say for liveries, the goal ultimately is to have as many liveries as possible. ⁓ I'm gonna put a little asterisk by that within reason, ⁓ because the more liveries you add, the higher gig the download is. So we want to make it reasonable for people to where they're not downloading, you know, 50 gigs worth of liveries that they'll probably only use two or whatever. So we wanna find a good balance there. Obviously. Jimmy: Yeah, yeah. Panic: We have some amazing livery artists ⁓ that are doing some awesome, awesome work and and ⁓ some of those guys, some of those skins will be in the game, ⁓ ultimately ⁓ for release. We're just trying to settle, I would say, on a good number. ⁓ and also a good variation too, right? Like we don't want to oversaturate it with just bare metal skins. We want some C camo, we want potentially, you know, some some like a QF ⁓ one hundred, ⁓ something unique. Jimmy: Yeah, yeah. Panic: So just trying to find a good balance there and then also looking at the the numbers and seeing if you know if it's gonna be a lot of livery ⁓ gigabytes or not and then trying to reduce that as much as possible. ⁓ and we have some tricks to to be able to do that, so Jimmy: And ultimately. Plusnine: I have personally witnessed several conversations just tonight on VRAM load and hard drive space among knowledgeable people. Jimmy: Yeah. FiFi: Yeah. That's something that we learn started learning growing privy to when we were ⁓ part of the the the C one thirty testing crew when they were talking about like the V RAM and having to keep it like under a certain number because of, you know, making sure it's accessible to everybody. So that's that yeah, that's it's definitely like a magical art magic that you guys have to work b behind the scenes on that. ⁓ Jimmy: It's a FiFi: I'm sorry, Jimmy, I kinda took over. If you got anything I see you sit over the sand over there. ⁓ Jimmy: I got, I got, I got one. So somebody asked us the other day, have you guys tried landing it on the carrier yet? And the answer was no, because we hadn't even thought about it. But in development, when you guys were working on this, was there any games that you guys would play or challenges that you would do, maybe like pop gear inspired or Anything like that while you guys were, you know, flushing out the module? Grinnelli: Count how many times I slam it into the ground. JNelson: See who can launch DCS. ⁓ I Panic: Yeah, there's an ongoing counter of how many times we've crashed the plane in development, so JNelson: I I was gonna say see how many times we can launch DCS in one night as well while working on the plane. Panic: Answer the question thoroughly though. I don't I don't think so. We haven't really sat down to to play it and that's where the testers come in a big role, right? Because, you know, we're so focused on development. ⁓ you know, stuff can slip through the cracks. So it's nice to have a whole group of testers that we can give the plane to and and tell ⁓ you know, go break the plane, find all the issues ⁓ for us. ⁓ it's it's good crowdsourcing. It also gets early access to people like you guys as well to to show off the aircraft. Jimmy: Yes. FiFi: Shout out to the test team for that because those guys were brutal on you guys for some of the stuff that was Aero: Yeah, I'll I'll I'll add that like mo most of us have have never gotten in the game, you know, cold started the plane, did a mission, land, and then shut it down. I don't think anyone in here has done that 'cause development's very different. You're you're hyper focused on one thing you're developing and then once you complete that task you move on. And then eventually everything interfaces together and there's, you know, bugs that that come along. So that's more of like a tester thing to actually fly it. But I can't say at least for myself that I've ever taken off and landed and then shut down, which is kinda weird now that I I think about it, but it's just how it goes. Jimmy: Well JNelson: W w one thing one thing I love ⁓ sorry. FiFi: Yeah, new n new Reddit headline. No, new Reddit headline developer team development team doesn't even fly their own aircraft that they're making. So JNelson: W one thing I learned with the A four is that it actually is kind of super useful from a systems perspective to actually fly the plane. So as we near the end of development here I start picking the plane up with my brother and a couple of other friends and we'll fly like missions or whatever. And as you go through you're like, Well, I know how that system's supposed to operate, but then when I actually use it in a real working environment, it's slightly different and then you realize there's a bug or whatever. So it's it's that can be quite helpful. FiFi: Yeah. JNelson: ⁓ it's also fun to shoot my brother down as well, so FiFi: Yeah. Shout out shout out to the testers. Plusnine: Yeah, same same thing here, just coming from the A4. The AWRS system is the same in this aircraft. So there's some things that I know and lots of stuff that I had to learn to to start it up and start it down. But again, with my main cockpit experience just being the last five days, it's been great. Jimmy: It's I'm gonna how much so talking about that feedback loop with the tester base, because I really do appreciate the feedback loop that you guys have created where the challenges break it, you know, and tell us what breaks. How much how instrumental do you think the feedback loop from the testers is or was to produce the product that you guys have now? JNelson: So good QA is is super duper important. ⁓ th I I I learned this from my first job, which was not in DCS. ⁓ I worked at on like ⁓ CAD stuff before and we had a like a professional QA team and a lot of people hate the QA team because they they say ⁓ this is wrong or whatever, but you actually really should love the QA team because they s make sure that your mistakes don't actually ever see the light of day. ⁓ and so having the test team is so su is super duper important because th the plane is so ⁓ like there's so much code that no one person could sit down and test all the possible code paths and all the different com combinations and it multiplies as well the more different the different code paths you add, like you you if you have ten in one area and ten another, then that's a hundred different combinations. So having all the testers just break it as much as possible, they really find all those edge cases. And so ⁓ it's really useful to get all those little bugs out. And if you don't do that, those will just be found instantly as soon as the plane goes live anyway. So so you wanna do that as much as possible before release. ⁓ obviously as soon as it hits like thousands of people, there will be more bugs found, but that's kind of inevitable with software development. Aero: Yeah, and and on top of that too, the the testers not only test things to make sure they match the manual and like see if there's bugs, but we also have to make sure like every switch flips the right direction and things like that. And there there's been so many like it it's I mean, I've been sitting there working on stuff and people come in and and talk about like, ⁓ when I click this switch, like right click versus left click, like it goes the wrong way, like it's not very playable. Jimmy: What? Mm. Aero: Like it doesn't make sense, you know, maybe we should do it the other way. And it's about finding those things too, just to make the experience a lot better. JNelson: That's a good point as well. And and you also have ⁓ not only the the area where the manual ⁓ like you're covering the manual, but the areas where which aren't in the manual where a real life pilot probably wouldn't operate the plane that way. And and so that y you're you're in these weird edge cases and so the plane has to do something in those edge cases, ⁓ that that is correct. ⁓ but you normally wouldn't have tested that as a developer. and then it gets brought to light because some tester did something really stupid. But that's good. Panic: Yeah, that that reminded me ⁓ the other day of a ⁓ bug report we had. ⁓ Nelson, you'll remember this one. ⁓ someone landed ⁓ with the speed breakout and it ripped the wings off and the plane was just kind of hovering in the air. So I think the decision was is to remove certain collision lines and collision parts to make it not Jimmy: What's Panic: hover in the air when you crash like that because you know, like that's such an edge case situation if that happened in real life, you know, and we're also working within the limitations of the of the engine. So that was that was an interesting one that I found. And it's it's kind of funny 'cause I I get some sort of satisfaction out of comf you know, fixing these bugs too, 'cause it's like, ⁓ that was a good one that I caught, you know, that could have been potentially in release if we didn't have these testers. So, ⁓ Plusnine: Ooh, amen. Panic: Yeah, you get you get ⁓ you can get so hyper focused on ⁓ on certain tasks to where sometimes things slip through the cracks and it's it's it can be detrimental sometimes if people don't catch it, so Jimmy: What do you think has been the Plusnine: The other side of that is how hard it is to be a good tester. How do you write a good bug report? How do you make sure what you've done isn't just an anecdote, but something that you can reproduce? Jimmy: Mm-hmm. What do you think has been the funniest bug that's come back from the testers that you guys were just like blown away, like would have never considered? Panic: ⁓ man. ⁓ there's a Tacan ILS light that sparked a debate for about three days whether it should even exist in the cockpit or not. ⁓ that was probably one of the the weirdest ones. ⁓ but they're ⁓ most of the time i they're all valid reports. Like ⁓ someone's is there's never been a report to where I look at and be like, ⁓ this is like just, you know, wild. Like this isn't even realistic. They've the testers do their due diligence and and you know If they don't think something's right, they reference it with the with the dash one and and most of the time, you know, they are correct. If not, it's something they're just not familiar with. And I think we're gonna get a lot of those bug reports too from from the player base of, you know, ⁓ this feels wrong because it just it doesn't seem right, but it's actually in all reality correct. ⁓ that's just the nature of this aircraft. FiFi: Yeah. JNelson: I did have a bug where the AI sent itself to the shadow realm. It would just inexplicably just disappear underneath the map. ⁓ f just for no reason. FiFi: Yeah. Panic: That was a good one. Aero: Well they're Well, another good one, Nelson, if you remember, I mean, we were talking about this the other day, that some people are able to fly the airplane with one wing. And and and one of our testers came to us and was like talking about is this realistic? And my response was, Well, there's no r real data on airplanes flying with one wing, so we don't really know. So I mean we take like a first prin principles approach to try to take a wild guess on how it would fly with one wing, but JNelson: ⁓ yeah, yeah. Aero: At the end of the day, like I said, it's an in dimensional problem and and the problem was being balanced in a way where you could fly the airplane with one wing and so there's I don't know, there's random things like that, yeah. JNelson: Conclusion was that it can't. Jimmy: I can I can FiFi: Yeah, I can barely fly that I can barely fly that plane with two wings. I don't I don't know how somebody's gonna try to fly with one wing. Thomas: I gotta say, I think the strangest bug I've seen, I think it was with the the AI ⁓ F one hundred. At some point we were F2ing around the different planes on the map and there was one plane at like twenty million feet in the air or something like that. I d I I we're we're I'm not sure quite sure what with ⁓ okay, okay. Jimmy: What? Panic: It was underneath the ground. JNelson: Yeah, that was the Shadow Realm one, I think. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. There was another one though where the AI just instead of taking off, it just ⁓ like hydroplaned across the sea just for no reason. Just ca it like it would try and take off, but then it would never take off and it just fly along the sea with its wheels on the Yeah, yeah. Well like you know like those those those stall aircraft where they like skim across the water. Jimmy: speed racer. FiFi: Right. Yeah, I remember I remember those kind of aircraft. That's that's pretty fun. ⁓ man. So ⁓ man, I just had a question. I just blanked on a question. You have to come back to me. I had one that popped up and then I just lost it. Jimmy: It's funny. So I I I got a question. ⁓ from a developer's point of view, with this, you know, nearing release, how do you think so the Hun is definitely early Cold War? It it is Cold War, early Cold War. How do you think it will change the multiplayer landscape of DCS? Or what impact will it have on the multiplayer landscape of DCS? JNelson: I think the zero length launch will have quite a big impact and a lot of mission scenarios that can be made. The hunt itself is is a is similar in terms of kind of capabilities as other aircraft that already exist, but it just adds another option I guess. So there's there's more kind of scenarios that can be played out. Jimmy: would I would not disagree, but I think the Hunt is very unique, especially with the like the CBU ones, the sevens, the thirty eights, like we don't have like that true capability of low level dispenser right now. And you know, if you look like a Cold War foothold type situation, the Hunt is gonna have that real low level capability for sneaking in under, you know, Sam's right now. FiFi: ⁓ man, it's gonna it's gonna be a yeah, it's gonna be a nightmare. JNelson: So the the CBU ones do actually exist on the F four. ⁓ and and actually they they've existed on the A four as well for a long time. And so I I actually wrote the weapon different definitions for the A four and then I ended up using those for the F four and then I've ended up doing that for similar weapons on the F one hundred as well. So it's like three I've done it three times now. But it's ⁓ Jimmy: ⁓ no way. What about the sevens and thirty eights? Are those new? JNelson: The sevens and thirty eights are new. ⁓ and the Phantom should be able to carry them as well. So I'm sure that they can be added to the Phantom afterwards, but but ⁓ Plusnine: I would also add that the radar provides a pretty unique mission designer perspective, just what's on the scope, the audio environment. ⁓ I mean come on, that's that's a whole other you know, if you enjoy ⁓ games like Res or whatever, any kind of relevant game but there's also vectors involved, you have a lot of you have you have some pretty fun mission design options. Jimmy: Mm-hmm. JNelson: ⁓ the roll? Yeah. Plusnine: For the F one hundred. FiFi: That's actually something I really wanted to get into was not get into get into, but ⁓ the Arha. ⁓ that thing, that's a work of art. That that is the that is the coolest thing about that jet. And it's it's yeah, it's so it's so much fun. ⁓ but Jimmy: It does everything. FiFi: like ⁓ artwise just seeing like the l the little squigglies going around and then of course like shout out to ⁓ to jove when he when he did the when he did the spacewall's reference on the ⁓ everybody caught that that was that was pretty funny the spacewalls reference on the ⁓ on on that one of the videos that just came out but ⁓ yeah that arha is really cool like ⁓ how did you how did you guys get the like one, the art data for it because I mean obviously it's not like you can go up and like sit in the jet and film it or maybe you guys did. I mean or maybe somebody did but and like film it working against like different sorts of EW threats. How did guys like figure out how to how to do that in when it comes if you can do it. JNelson: I don't think there would be any working examples of the that kind of equipment. I'd imagine that that kind of thing would be super duper classified for the longest time before it eventually got sold on, but but ⁓ no, there's actually a a a very interesting video on YouTube, ⁓ something like F zero zero eight two or something, and it and it has a it has a a description of how the ANA PR twenty five works ⁓ for pretty much all the angles and It explains all the bit tests and everything and the audio and what it and then has these close up shots. So a lot of the the look of the audit builder has been or the the raw has been taken from those that those close up shots. ⁓ well not taken, but I I I've like replicated shaders to make it look exactly like ⁓ like it does in those videos. And then a lot of sorry, go ahead. Jimmy: That's another kid. That that's another thing that I would kind of like say is unique too to the plane is the is that, you know, the arha, because using strikes with that is actually like pretty nice. It's a it's a nice change to that era that we have right now. And then having the arha to put those strikes with the CDI down below. Like you can actually use strikes accurately or at least get, you know, SAM systems to turn themselves off now with those instead of, you know, wildly throwing them everywhere. JNelson: You can see how they came to the synergy of having that kind of vector scope and then using the shrikes 'cause it is is very useful. Jimmy: Mm-hmm. It's easy too. Like it's very user friendly. FiFi: I mean, if you if you think about it, like somebody had to be able to use it while flying like 500 knots at like 250 feet across the across a jungle top. So it had to be somewhat user friendly. Unlike unlike having to arm all the weapons. Like that's that's a fun one. Dealing with like Scud Scud Augered himself in trying to mess with the weapons switches and stuff like that. So and I think there's certain things that like you can't replicate in DCS that Jimmy: Mm-hmm. FiFi: happen in the jet 'cause I remember like ⁓ like when you guys go back to talking about like all the Smees and stuff like that that come and help out and talk about it. Like always hear the stories from Bob. in in the Discord is really cool, like having it here and all the stuff and how he said, Yeah, you just kinda memorize exactly what those switches feel like down on your down on your hip when you're look doing the weapon stuff. But then in the DCS you gotta like s look down and stare at it and then you look back up and then you look down stare and look back up. Next thing you know it you're like you're you're exploding on the ground. So hopefully hopefully this jet for lack of better terms takes off well enough to where I wanna I wanna see people start building like super cool consoles just just for the jet. I think that'd be Jimmy: Dude, I own a button box for the army panel. FiFi: Yeah, a button box at the arm panel would be kind of cool. JNelson: Well there's a nice hack with the arming panel, you can just arm it whenever you fence in and because of the way the F one hundred works, it obviously it selects the pylons for you based on the weapon type. So you don't actually once you've turned them all on, you don't need to ⁓ you don't need to touch them again. Jimmy: Yeah the Actually so w I read the whole when we first started doing the our homework and flying it and learning like the air to ground weapons, I dove super duper deep into the manual with the pulsing logic even with how it directs by pylon and bi weapon. So it it it's cool because for anybody who hasn't, you know, seen yet the big part of the testing community that they've built is FiFi: I've been doing it wrong this entire time. ⁓ my God. Jimmy: They've put the actual documents from you know the 1950s and 1970s in there. And that's always the reference for go look here, and that's where your answer is. And it's cool to see those old documents being referenced rudimentary as like a base document for everything. ⁓ question for everybody. Anybody can pick it up at the ⁓ where everybody can pick it up. ⁓ with the release, you know, being pretty close, you know, you know, DCS two weeks away. ⁓ what ⁓ what advice do you guys have for players on day one to learn and succeed inside the hunt. Cause this thing is you know, we've talked a lot about, you know, it's hard in this characteristic, it's here, it's hard here. But every time we mention anything with it being difficult or it's it's just overshadowed a hundred times by so many other pieces because like those CBU sevens and 38s that, you know, Nelson was mentioning a minute ago, those things are brutal. And you can eliminate whole grid squares with those things. And Even like tanking. We were t we were tanking the other night and doing aerial refueling in this is pretty easy. Like I would say it's easier than like the the Harrier, you know. But ⁓ but what advice do you guys have for players on day one with the with the Hun? Panic: So my advice, and I tell this to everybody ⁓ that has the plane, ⁓ or will have the plane, is respect the boundaries. ⁓ if you fly it ⁓ like a hornet, you are going to crash. You cannot I mean you can in some flight regimes, you know, yank and bank and and really get it get the G's loaded up, but ⁓ just just respect the plane, respect its bounds, you know, ⁓ watch your airspeed. ⁓ watch your alpha. There's no alpha gauge, so just get get a feel for where your nose should be. ⁓ the next one Yeah, yeah, watch watch the ⁓ watch the ring. That'll that'll be the key. ⁓ your throttle inputs. ⁓ you're gonna be used to slamming the throttle forward and I still even have this issue to this day when I'm flying formation to where, you know, if I'm a l getting a little aft, I slam it forward and next thing I know I'm compressor stalling so Jimmy: You gotta watch the dingle dangle. Panic: ⁓ it's it's a little bit more forgiving at higher speeds and higher RPM. You can definitely jockey it around, it's not gonna kill you there, but ⁓ any sort of you know low ⁓ low RPM to high RPM it will ⁓ it'll bite you and ⁓ just ⁓ have fun learning the plane. ⁓ it's not as much of a beast as you think it is. ⁓ it'll probably seem like that once you get in it and then start flying it. But ⁓ and one more thing. ⁓ watch the negative G in Afterburner. You only have a four-gallon inverted tank. You will flame out. Jimmy: Yeah, I look. FiFi: Jimmy, Jimmy. Jimmy: Can't can't confirm. ⁓ JNelson: Sorry, it's it's actually one one point six gallons panic. I was wrong the other day. That's even less. But it's about two seconds of A B, ⁓ inverted. So Panic: ⁓ I'm sorry, okay. I got that. I was just a little generous there. Jimmy: Yeah. Can't still confirm. JNelson: Wa one thing I've I've noticed that people always struggle, ⁓ it's more of just a ⁓ strange thing because this is one of the first Century Series aircraft in DCS. ⁓ the throttle the way the afterburner works is not like most aircraft in DCS. ⁓ the the afterburner is either on or off and your throttle position always controls the RPM of your engine. So when you put the throttle into afterburner you're actually pushing the throttle outboard. Jimmy: Mm. JNelson: that engages the afterburner, it's just on or off. And you can still throttle the core engine RPM in after ⁓ in afterburner, but you're not actually throttling the afterburner, you're just throttling the engine. So just something to bear in mind. FiFi: That was actually a fun conversation I had with someone in our Discord. Someone in our Discord asked that question and like they couldn't wrap their head around it. And I finally had to be like, no, no, no, no, no. The afterburner is a completely separate thing to the engine sometimes with the way it acts with the way it acts and stuff like that. JNelson: I I've had more than one person say to me, The plane I I can't get the plane above three hundred and fifty knots. Like and they've got like a bunch of like weapons on or whatever. And ⁓ it they're just ⁓ well, one of them had their afterburner ⁓ had their throttle at eighty five percent where their normal detent is. So they were flying with only eighty five percent power and then another one had it full but they ⁓ they didn't realise the afterburner wasn't on, so FiFi: Mm. Jimmy: Mm-hmm. FiFi: Yeah, so that's that's that's gonna be a fun one. What's so clu getting getting close to the end here, what's something that you guys all hope to see besides people just enjoying it and having a lot of fun with it, what's something you guys hope to see like the community do with the jet? Like I there's gonna be a lot of cool videos of it, but what what are what are some of the cool videos you guys wanna see like the community make with the jet and like content? Jimmy: Yeah, what's our what's our homework? FiFi: Yeah, what's the community's homework, not ours? I'm done with doing homework. This this is I wanna see somebody else do it. Jimmy: Yeah. Panic: Excited I'm excited to see a lot of Sam hunting with the RAW. ⁓ that's always been kind of a special place that even I want to do, hopefully when the plane releases and I get some time is is to utilize that RAW and really learn how it works. ⁓ it's such a cool piece of equipment, it's it's ⁓ a little bit complicated, but ⁓ it's a cool system and I just want to see people enjoy the plane ⁓ for what it is. You know, do do whatever you want with it. ⁓ you know, do some bomb runs, go chase down some MIGs, You know, land it on a carrier if you want to. Doesn't matter to me as long as you're having fun with it. So and ⁓ another thing to note, ⁓ we will be at the FS Expo in ⁓ Minneapolis ⁓ June twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth. So you can swing by our booth there. We'll have a ⁓ combat arena. ⁓ it'll be a four four sim rig setup, so come hang out, test the plane, fly it against some MIGs, drop some bombs, and ⁓ we will also do a ⁓ ⁓ I'm sorry, it's Saint Paul. Saint Paul, Minnesota, not Minneapolis. It's close close enough. ⁓ we will also have a ⁓ couple times a day we'll do a live ⁓ aerobatic demonstration ⁓ with some of the guys from the team. I wanted to bring that up earlier, but I got a got a chance now. So I'll be flying in it and then a couple of our guys, ⁓ Cujo, Burner, and Dreadnought. ⁓ so we'll all be there having fun doing that. So come check us out there. Jimmy: Same same. Yeah. Well you'll be flying the demonstration live from the the four pit setup that you guys have? That's awesome. Yep. Panic: Yes. Y yeah. FiFi: Well, we know where we know where we're gonna be. Breathing over the shoulder with hot breath. Jimmy: So last year at Flight Tim Expo, ⁓ you guys had a pretty cool setup where you were giving everybody, you know, gun cam footage on the USBs. Will you guys have anything cool like that this year or you know, that you can discuss or that you want to let out? Or I know you I know you guys really, you know, you're a dev team, but I think you guys are artists. What will you guys be giving there? What's your unique piece this year for the Flight Tim Expo? Panic: ⁓ I'll let Grinnelli take that one 'cause I don't know if I can say it. FiFi: I like how you sign them up for that. Like you just sign them up that they're gonna be giving something away. That's that's pretty awesome. Grinnelli: Well Jimmy: Well, I mean, you know, Joe's not gonna let Joe of last year he's not gonna let past Joe outdo current Joe. You know, he's gotta set up future Joe for something else to compete with. Grinnelli: Yeah, I might have I might have gone a little overboard. we ⁓ we knew that that ⁓ from the fun that we had last year that something had to be done to upstage that in every way possible. So we will have a combat arena Jimmy: Mm-hmm. Grinnelli: That effectively has four chairs. We've partnered with Wind Control and Next Level Racing to really put together something really special, some special effects. ⁓ four, you know, chairs that everyone can fly together on ⁓ servers. We're gonna have some specific combat arena missions. There's some trophies. that will be going out to ⁓ some of the people that participate in that. ⁓ maybe do some dog fighting. Have just a dogfight arena going around. There's a lot of crazy stuff from the entirety of the show of what is the FS Expo is Panic mentioned. We're gonna have combat events. We're gonna have adult swim come in and fly the plane if if you don't want to go hardcore. Jimmy: No way. Grinnelli: i into a into a you know some kind of a sign up or an event with other people. We're gonna have, you know, the giveaways and ⁓ plenty of opportunities to meet and ⁓ you know kind of share your experiences with ⁓ with the team that'll be there. Jimmy: That's awesome. So better than a thumb drive with with gun cam footage. FiFi: Yeah. So ⁓ that's kinda cool though. Grinnelli: Right. Well the th w the the the ⁓ the gun cam footage from last year was actually probably one of the better ideas that we've had from a show standpoint, mainly because the Jimmy: That was fantastic. Grinnelli: The the the plane wasn't gonna be available for for quite some time. And ⁓ you know, if you were one of the people that went to the expo and you got to fly the hun and ⁓ you know, a lot of that footage wound up on Instagram and I think that's one of the things that I'm kinda most excited about too with what what the community will do with it. I a lot of people definitely have ⁓ you know taken the gun camera video that we put together and you know I'm already seeing ideas in the Discord and how they want to integrate it into not only mission making and debriefing but also just sharing, you know, on different Discords, social media. It it's ⁓ it's a really cool aspect of ⁓ how to capture what you're doing and maybe share it with people that aren't into the flight simulation genre and ⁓ you know maybe you have some friends that you play Call of Duty or Fortnite or whatever it may be and you know that there there's just an interesting there's an interesting way to connect with people outside of saying, hey let's ⁓ you know come around I'll tell you all about how it works. FiFi: True. It's that's actually how a lot of people have gotten into DCS. I had this theory about there's actually no person who originally played DCS. Everybody got into DCS from somebody else who got them into DCS. And you can never find patient zero. Yeah. It was yeah, you can never find patient zero. So Jimmy: Literally everybody in this room has said, Well, Joe, Joe, Joe, Joe, Joe Grinnelli's pilot zero. Pilot zero. So I no nope nope nope nope nope. We we got score to settle. ⁓ so we have a ongoing ⁓ query that we have with everyone who comes on the show with us. It's a hypothetical situation. And before we FiFi: Yeah, this patient pay pilot zero. There it is. So with that, I think we ⁓ no. Jimmy: proceed, you know, saying goodbye to everybody. Thank you guys for being here. We have to present you guys with a question and we need answers. You guys are getting put on spot. This is Jeopardy. Not really Jeopardy. FiFi: Some of the some of these answers are gonna be skewed because of like people's nationalities though. So you're gonna have to like You're stacking the deck. Anyways, whatever. Jimmy: You're already losing like twenty to one, dude. So so here it is. This is we've we've taken this all the way up to Wags. So Wags right now is the authority on it. We're waiting for Nick Gray. We'll get his answer on it, and that'll just be like the final answer. But you know, from the from the Grinnelli Designs studio, ⁓ this is purely hypothetical. So not the actors, but Ethan Hunt, as portrayed by Tom Cruise. If he were to fly in a P fifty one Mustang at nose to nose with Sean Connery as double O seven in a Spitfire, who would win that dogfight? Grinnelli: ⁓ boy. Jimmy: So you know, you can color it however you want. You can look at the the character, you can look at a plane. Grinnelli: So so wait a minute. Wait a minute. I'm I'm confused though. Th this is this is JNelson: Being British, I'm legally required to say the Spitfire. Jimmy: God, you're beautiful, Nelson. ⁓ my God. FiFi: Right. It's skewed. You knew you you knew what you were doing when you brought that up. No, so Joe, so it's who would win in a dogfight? Would it be Tom would would it be Ethan Hunt from Mission Impossible in a P fifty one? Or would it be James Bond in a Spitfire? That's like that's Grinnelli: Yeah. Jimmy: ⁓ yeah. Sophisticated. Grinnelli: ⁓ that's that's pr that's an interesting one. I mean, honest to God, ⁓ it well I thought I thought I misheard you. I thought you said Maverick versus Sean Connery, and it's like, well one of them is a fictional pilot and the other one is not is a is JNelson: No it's not. It's a spitfire every time. Jimmy: Yes. Nope, nope, nope. Nope. Nope. Ethan Ethan Hunt, Mr. Running Everywhere with the Hands. FiFi: Yeah. Grinnelli: I don't know, I mean Mission Impossible, the the the I don't know. I I they probably both slam into each other, honestly. Panic: I love how my analytical brain went to okay, how high are they? What's the air speed at the merge? You know, all the all the analytical stuff. ⁓ Spitfire can turn tight though. Spitfire can turn tight. Jimmy: No. Grinnelli: I mean the T fifty one is the better plane. Let's just be f let's just make sure that that's Plusnine: You guys are listening to the poem Aircraft Doesn't Matter, it's James Bond. FiFi: Thank you. Thank you. What ⁓ my god, this is unbelievable. Jimmy: C you have to have somebody with the with the refinement to weaponize these aircraft too. FiFi: Is is Jimmy is Jimmy paying you guys to say this? Because this is this hurts me. It's the answer is the P fifty one all day long. Jimmy: Is this unanimous, everybody saying P fifty one? Grinnelli: Well, you got two you got one Thomas: I'm gonna say I'm gonna say Spitf I'm gonna say Bond Spitfire. I'm gonna Grinnelli: Yeah, I mean Bond also flew little Nelly. You're you're forgetting you're forgetting Panic: Yeah, I'm gonna have to go Spitfire. JNelson: Can we just remind everyone that the P fifty one is powered by a British engine as well? So it's kind of a double win no matter what. FiFi: Yeah. Plusnine: Ha ha. Jimmy: Well, it's it's it's also being flown by a middle tooth, you know, secret agent who, you know, chases a C seventeen for eight miles. So FiFi: All right. Grinnelli: I think the P fifty one is the better plane and Bond would be the better pilot. Aero: Well it depends. Does it have clipped wings on it? Or are we talking about a full b full spitfire? Jimmy: See, you get you get to you get to bring that up. That's JNelson: The aerodynamicist chimes in. FiFi: This is what happens when we ask when we ask aircraft developers about this question. Because they're like, ⁓ but wait, did you think about this? This is what we get. whatever. I'm I'm disappointed in everybody. So with that. ⁓ my god. Jimmy: Your score's now thirty to one. Thank you. You guys are all beautiful. ⁓ no, no, no, I got one more. I got one more. I got one more. Hooligan stuff. ⁓ if you guys could snap your finger and put one plane into or helicopter into DCS right now, what would it be? Panic: Super horrid. Grinnelli: Raptor. Jimmy: Oof. Plusnine: Bull Dog. FiFi: ⁓ dude, that's a good one. That's a good one. The old O ones, yeah. Aero: It's actually a really good question. I if I could put anything in the game Jimmy: Mm-hmm. Aero: Hmm. I'll let Nelson go first. JNelson: I was thinking as well. Aero: I I'd like to see I'd like to see a B seventeen or something like that. I think that'd be sweet. Jimmy: Yes. We we have like an ongoing the common ones is ⁓ the fort and then the P thirty eight lighting. Those are like the the the common war birds. Aero: The the P thirty would be sweet too. Thomas: My favorite plan's already in the game that you tend, but ⁓ I gotta say it's an odd one. ⁓ B fifty eight. The hustler. The hustler. Jimmy: B fifty eight. ⁓ the hustler. Dude, the hustler's cool. FiFi: The hustler. ⁓ So Biggie Biggie's about Biggie's about to shit himself if when he listens to this because he is like his whole Discord profile is like set up around the B fifty eight hustlers. Yeah, he you made a best friend for the year. Jimmy: Hustler. The hustler's a cool plane. Aero: ⁓ y y you know what I'd like to see? I'd like to see World War One airplanes. I know that sounds dumb, but I think they'd be really fun. Jimmy: ⁓ dude. FiFi: Like an old Fokker Tri Wing would be cool. Aero: Yeah, I mean all you gotta do is get in and shoot people. Like it'd be you know, rise of flight, like that kind of kinda deal. I think it'd be fun for people. FiFi: Ha ha. That'll be cool. Jimmy: Multi multi crew would be somebody in the back with like a thirty eight, like shooting, you know, over the tail. FiFi: All right. Well we've held these guys hostage long enough. so really wanna appreciate everybody for showing up. ⁓ wanna appreciate everybody wanna say thanks to everybody for watching and ⁓ Aero: Yeah, I it'd be a blast. I mean FiFi: Shout out to all of our sponsors, partners, especially shout out to the entire Grinnelli Designs team that managed to show up tonight to do things. ⁓ don't forget, stop by our merch store. ⁓ subscribe to the Patreon for other stuff because we're gonna go do ⁓ an after show show now. ⁓ you guys can hang around if you for if you want to, if you want to go to bed or go be busy doing other stuff, you can. ⁓ but any any closing words, any final words from you guys? Jimmy: One I got Yep, there we go. Grinnelli: Pre order at Grinnellidesigns.com Aero: Yeah, I I would say I would say ⁓ don't be afraid of the plane. Like we hope you'd try it out even if you don't think you'd be interested, just give it a shot. ⁓ yeah. Jimmy: Hell yeah. FiFi: Yep. Links in the description. Panic: Yeah, thank you guys for the the support, the community truly. It's been awesome to work on this plane and ⁓ enjoy all the little custom knickknacks that we included. FiFi: Cool. Well, with that, everybody, till next time. We'll see everybody at Flights and Expo. This is our last podcast before we go to Flights and Expo. So and we'll see you guys there. ⁓ we'll sneak in some liquor. So in the in the prison pocket. So all right. All right, everybody, till next time. Thanks. See ya. Grinnelli: Looking forward to it. Plusnine: Well hey