In a surprise blitzkrieg move which the French are historically better known for being on
the receiving end of, patch 1.73 has dropped early and brought the French aircraft tech
tree.
It's been barely a couple of days now, and already there are accusations of a new OP
top tier jet floating about.
Well, I don't go by rumours, so I've spent the past couple of days gathering the exact
stats of this aircraft in game, and we're going to debunk the hype once and for all.
Or maybe we aren't…
Oh, which aircraft you ask?
Actually you don't, it's in the thumbnail, but I need some way of segwaying into the
epic cinematic intro.
In any case, welcome back to BluePrints, et ceci est le
This video is sponsored by the Free Eagles App for Android, download it with the link
in the description and use the code for a 10 GE Bonus.
First things first, I want to get some things out of the way right away.
For one, I am not going to call it the proper French name, because I suck at French.
Instead I'll be calling it Vulture from here on out, because that's literally what
the name translates to.
Secondly, this video is going to be mostly based on flight stats rather than my own performance
with it.
Mainly because I suck in it, although I know exactly why and I am going to mention it later
on in the video.
Point is, every pilot is different, and I can guarantee you there are people out there
that can absolutely make this bird sing.
The cold hard stats however, they don't lie.
And finally, you can go ahead and dislike this video right now because I can already
hear you angrily typing.
On one side I'm going to have people absolutely furious with me for making this video because
they don't want more people to abuse it, and on the other side there's going to be
angry people yelling at me because they don't want it to get exposed and nerfed, so they
can continue clubbing.
In either case, informing you is my job, and it works.
Right, we're already 350 words into this script, time to start with the actual review
The Vulture is a French tier V twin engine jet bomber.
We have two variants in the game, the Vulture IIB, which is a dedicated two-seater bomber
with a bombardier crammed into the transparent nose, a bomb sight and no guns; and the Vulture
IIA, the ground attack variant which ditches the poor bombardier and loses the bomb sight
for 4 30mm cannons and a whopping 19 different ordnance choices, with the heaviest one of
them having a payload of over 6900Kg At a first glance, there are some obvious
comparisons to be made with the British Hunter F1.
You've got the same burst mass on the cannons, in fact the DEFA cannons fire the exact same
ammunition as the Hunters ADEN cannons.
The top speed on the stat card is very similar, and even the aircraft itself shares some resemblances
in how it looks.
But that's just skimming the surface really, the similarities to the Hunter go much deeper
than that, and for that purpose we're going to compare the Hunter and the Vulture directly,
stat for stat, both fully upgraded.
Let's start off with some of the basic characteristics The Vulture's engines are quite similar
to the Hunter's, if not slightly better.
Each one of them puts out 3360 KgF, putting the total thrust level at just over double
the Hunter's.
And it needs that, the Vulture is one heavy bastard.
Emtpy, that is without ammo or fuel, this thing weighs over 11 metric tons.
Add about 3 tons of fuel into the tanks, you're at over 14 tons.
Add the maximum bomb load, you're at over 21 tons.
The Hunter weighs as much as a paper plane in comparison.
Yet, despite the incredible amount of weight it carries with it, the Vulture's twin engines
pull through extremely well.
In fact, it has the Hunter beat in thrust to weight ratio, if ever so slightly.
This can give us an idea about the climb rate and acceleration stats coming up ahead.
There's one thing the engines can't compensate for however, and that is wing loading.
This is the total weight of the aircraft divided by the wing area, and gives a general idea
of turning performance.
Essentially, the lower the wing loading, the better you turn.
Now, the Hunter is by no means known to be a particularly well turning aircraft, so when
even it has you beat by miles, you know you're doing something wrong.
This thing is a damn lorry, and it flies like one too.
Finally, according to the official data sheet, the Vulture redlines at 1111 km/h IAS, but
I haven't really managed to ever get up to those speeds, so I wouldn't worry too
much about it.
In any case, you've got airbrakes, and you'll need to use them anyways if you're going
for a dive bomb, this thing has a nasty compression issue when you approach top speeds.
For transparency I just want to leave a note here, usually these following stats are taken
with full fuel tanks, but no one takes the full 27 minutes of fuel for the Vulture.
Instead I've tested the hunter with the full 17 minutes of fuel, and the vulture with
20 minutes of fuel, this shaves off about a ton of its weight, so keep that in mind.
You can shave off even more weight, over 2 tons, by going with the 7 minute fuel load,
but I believe the middle ground to be more representative of what most people are going
to be taking into battle.
Right, with that out of the way, is the Vulture the new speed king?
Not quite.
It isn't too far off of the Hunter in terms of top speed at all altitudes, but it is still
slower.
By extension, it's also slower than the CL-13 and the MiG-17, probably also slower
than the Sabre F-2, although I believe it's faster than the Mig-15.
I don't have the stats at hand right now, but I've done a comparison of top tier jets
before and the stats should still mostly hold true, so if you want to compare the Vulture
to the other top tier jets, you can find those stats in that video.
In any case, despite the top speed being technically slower, I still find myself outrunning top
tier jets quite often, and this is due to the acceleration.
Remember that thrust to weight ratio?
Yeah, these engines are just ridiculous.
Yes, you are seeing that right.
The Vulture out accelerates the freaking Hunter up to 1000km/h.
No wonder you outrun so many jets, they simply can't keep up with your acceleration.
And keep in mind this is for 20 minutes of fuel, with 7 minutes of fuel it becomes even
more bonkers.
And this is supposed to be a bomber.
One more thing, kind of something random in the middle here, the vulture has some interesting
quirks and features.
Most notably the landing gear consists of four contact points, with these little "Training
wheels" mounted into the engine housing, it's really weird but cool at the same time.
Also, the airbrakes are absolutely massive, and I've noticed they help you slow down
quite a lot, so for the first time ever I did airbrake deceleration tests as well.
And these are the results.
Not only does the Vulture accelerate faster than the Hunter, it also slows down faster.
These are some really good airbrakes, and they can be extremely useful in a dive to
get your nose up and avoid crashing into the ground, or to make someone overshoot, or even
just to land.
Speaking of landing, despite looking like it can engine land like the Me 262, it can't.
For some reason, even at reasonably low speeds, your wings just pop off on touchdown and leave
you unable to repair.
It's going to be tough landing this thing when you get your gear shot out, although
I've seen our local britman Squire being able to land on the remaining three wheels
after losing his nose gear.
Finally, climb rate.
Once again, even despite its weight the engines just pull this thing like crazy.
The time to altitude between these two aircraft is almost identical, to the point where I
wonder if they just copied the FM over somewhat.
It's astonishing how similar the Vulture performs to a Hunter.
But that is where the similarities end.
Earlier I mentioned how this thing flew like a lorry.
I meant it.
The engines might be powerful enough to overcome the weight of the aircraft when it comes to
speed, acceleration and climb rate, but they can't compensate for it when it comes to
manoeuvrability.
If you thought the Hunter was sluggish, the Vulture is substantially worse, with a horrible
sustained turn time.
Now keep in mind, sustained turn time isn't what you're actually using most of the time,
ideally you'd want something like G forces at different speeds, but there's no real
point to it.
This thing simply won't outturn anything.
I did throw in maximum G values for good measure though.
The vulture can at best pull 7G, whilst the Hunter can pull over 10G.
To note here is that the Vulture doesn't rip its wings off, whereas the Hunter definitely
can if you pull past 11G.
I've also mentioned it before but need to mention it again because it is important,
the compression is quite bad.
My first few deaths were all due to not being able to pull up from a bombing run and splatting
into the ground.
The airbrakes can help with this, slowing you down and pulling up your nose, so use
them.
Also something I need to mention, the negative pull is quite bad, you just can't get your
nose down very quickly.
Most of the time it's more effective to roll upside down and then pull the elevator,
rather than trying to pitch down.
And finally, to conclude our stats, the Roll rate.
Yeah it's pretty bad, as expected from something with engines on the wings.
You're not going to scissor roll anyone in the Vulture
At the start of this video I mentioned how I sucked in this aircraft, but knew exactly
why.
Well, this is why.
The Vulture has excellent flight performance, its fast, it climbs well, it has the same
energy retention as the Hunter, and it gets 4 30mm cannons in the nose.
The problem is, because of the sluggish turn and roll rate, it's really hard to get guns
on target.
If the enemy goes into a head on with you, or if you engage someone who's unaware of
you, you will completely obliterate them.
But if they are aware of you, you simply can't kill them.
Anything can evade this thing, you simply can't follow through with any evasive manoeuvres.
And this puts the Vulture in an interesting spot, much like the Hunter it's a perfect
support jet, being excellent at swooping in and reaping enemies busy with engaging your
team mates.
But once you run out of team mates, you simply can't carry well by yourself, it's too
hard to get guns on someone who knows you're there.
So let's go over the pros and cons then, we'll start with the cons first:
- Low ammo count: Those 400 cannon rounds are gone in the blink of an eye, and require
trigger discipline - Massive ordnance penalties: If you carry
the full ordnance load of bombs and rockets, you're extremely vulnerable.
Your speed goes down by 300km/h, you can't climb anymore and don't even try to turn.
- Flies like a brick house: Extremely hard to evade or get guns on target.
Poor turn and roll rate.
- Somewhat fragile: Can't engine land, and if even one of your engines gets slightly
damaged you're easy fighter prey - Prime target: I'm not sure if this is
due to the aircraft itself and the mentality of "Oh look a bomber, lets feast on it"
or if its because of who I am, but every single game I get half the enemy team chasing me
across the map.
And since it's so hard to get guns on someone who's aware of you, that makes it very hard
for me personally to get any kills - Heavy compression at speed: use the airbrake
or you will die when dive bombing - Limited to 4 per team: As it's classified
as a bomber, there's a hard cap on how many there can be in a game
Pros: - Very high top speed, close to the Hunter
- Incredible acceleration, might even be the best in the game
- Very good climb rate, no problem getting to alt
- Bomber spawn: You don't need to climb if you already spawn at 3km altitude
- Better ADENS: Guns are among the best in the game, if you can get them on target
- Incredible energy retention: on par with the Hunter, not only can you out accelerate
most opponents, you can also zoom climb away from them
- Incredible airbrakes: Very useful for various situations, saves you from splatting into
the ground - Versatility: It's like the Bastard child
of a Tu-4 and a Hunter.
At the start of the game you spawn at bomber altitude with 10 750lbs bombs, you take down
two bases, you're at top speed and now light enough to switch into fighter mode to catch
some afk climbers and outrun everything that tries to catch you
- Heavy ordnance: With up to 6900kg worth of bombs and rockets, it's likely you can
get all bases and the airfield with a 3-4 man squad of these
- Hilariously undertiered: Did I mention it's at battle ration 8.0?
Let me repeat that, 8 point nill.
This thing can and will face 7.0 jets.
This is the closest thing you can have to taking a Hunter against a P-80
- In theory, perfect bomber Hunter: The bomber spawn combined with the guns should make you
the living nightmare of Tu-4 pilots, but I haven't once gone up against the Russians.
I'm not sure if it's because of the increased repair costs of the Tu-4 or if the French
simply don't face the soviets, but I'd like to try this thing out in that role.
- Low repair cost: at less than 10k SL, you simply can't lose money in this thing.
Especially if you drop your ordnance on some bases before switching to fighter mode, you're
always going to be running a profit Before we head to the final conclusion, just
a quick tip here.
You can definitely just drop your bombs at the start of the game and go fighter mode
from the get go, but it's a waste.
The most efficient loadout is 10x 750lbs bombs.
You'll need 5 to take down a base, so you can take down two bases by yourself and have
plenty of energy left over to hunt the enemy.
I do not recommend taking any kind of rockets, not the 450mm pen Heat ones (They kind of
suck against tanks tbh, high pen but low damage, against player tanks at least.
Maybe for farming AI tanks) nor the 76 heat rockets in the rocket pods (Despite looking
awesome and providing incredible firepower, they too do little damage against player tanks,
but might wipe out ai tanks.)
The rockets simply slow you down too much, and you completely rely upon your ability
to stay away from the enemy to survive.
If they catch you, you can't evade, and you're dead, so don't waste it on lawn
mowing.
So in conclusion then, is the Vulture IIa broken and OP?
By itself, no.
It has comparable stats to the Hunter, even surpassing it in some regards, and a good
pilot can absolutely wreck face with it, but it's about on par with other 9.0 jets and
isn't really a dedicated fighter.
The problem is, it isn't a 9.0 jet, it's an 8.0 bomber, and at 8.0 it's just ridiculously
undertiered.
This is worse than the F-84G and G.91 when those first came out, it's ridiculous really
when this thing gets into a 7.0 match.
It definitely needs to be put at a BR away from 7.0 jets, maybe 8.7.
that way it still faces F-84Gs, which to be honest can kill you pretty easily if they
catch you off guard, that thing is just dangerous.
So yeah, definitely expect this thing to get nerfed some time in the future, especially
once more people catch wind of this.
I hope they don't mess with the flight model itself, or the repair cost, but instead just
put it at 9.0.
But in any case, this shall conclude this stat review, I do hope you guys have learned
something new, because this has taken days to make.
That's kind of the reason I don't do BluePrints anymore, they're just too damn time consuming.
But if indeed you did enjoy this kind of review, maybe you can turn that dislike from the start
into a like, and share it around with some of your French friends.
Just kidding, we both know you don't have any friends.
As always lads, my name has been MikeGoesBoom, and thanks for watching.
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