[Storebror]

Maybe you can map the shift between automatic - manual only mod to one of difficulty level options? For example "limited ammo" or "no padlock" ?

While that's a good approach to QMB users, I guess it will not suit others fine.
Currently I'm thinking of providing two different options for the Sidewinder ordnance, one with automatic engagement and one with manual mode selection. That way the user can choose between those options by selecting the right ordnance collection.

Are you sure it did deatach like this though it was mounted on rail? Maybe it didn't use rail but pylon? And maybe after modelling the few seconds arming delay after launching missile maybe there will be no risk of being blown up by own missile?

I'm not sure, I can just guess and estimate according to things I can find on the internet :wink:
One thing which points into the direction of being right with the drop pattern is that the F-86 likely would have suffered from flameouts if the Sidewinder would swoosh off the current rail positions. They even had this issue when using the experimental 20mm cannon equipment in Korea, and the gas emission of the cannons is likely less than what would have taken in from the Sidewinder's rocket engine emissions.

I'm afraid that one of things that are uber for early version is the missiles FOV. You said it has 4* seekers FOV but with mirror the FOV is 25* (or 30*, I don't remember). However, althuogh the whole field that mirror can observe is 25*, the angle that it can see at one time is only 4* that seeker looks in at the moment - and at the begining it looks straight. It won't even know about the enemy inside 25* FOV untill it pass trough the central 4*, gets spoted by seeker and starts being tracked - the lock want be broken as long as enemy stays inside 25* FOV then. Am I wrong?

I'm not entitled to judge what's right or wrong here, I'm not the leading engineer of the Sidewinder construction team.
However I read the functionality of the combination of mirror and seeking head different.
First of all, later versions of the Sidewinder were equipped with seeking heads with significantly narrower FOV, e.g. 2.5° or even 1.25° depending on the version. If the target in question always would have had to pass that FOV area, this wouldn't have been an improvement, but vice versa.
My understanding is that the mirror reflects the signals by rotating in front of the detector, and it reflects signals from it's whole FOV of 25° to the detector. The "decision" whether the target is close to the center or off from it depends on the length of time it is visible to the detector. Targets being at the edge of the 25° FOV are being reflected to the detector for a short period of time during the turn only, while those being right in the center will hit the detector all the time.
The 4° field of the seeker comes in place where we're talking of separating different targets from each other. That's why having it narrowed was an improvement to later versions of the Sidewinder. The AIM-9B just cannot distinguish between two targets being within an angle of 4° or less from the missile's POV, they just look like one single target to the missile.

Best regards - Mike