Well with that stated, I've even landed and taken-off (within the game) from the Altis's small airfield in the north with an A-164. However, this is kind of hit or miss, or a gamble. I was trying to explain airport runway length from a realistic point of view, and landing and departing runways safely with jets. Again, from a realistic point of view. In real life, and within the US. ;-)
You did touch on one topic, heavily loaded aircraft should not be able to go vertical. Likely loaded with a couple of dumb bombs, aircraft would likely have a difficult time even maneuvering.
Another thought, this game was engineered slightly from a futuristic point of view. The enemy were supposedly initially designed as aliens. With that stated, it maybe the authors or engineers wanted a jet with maximum capabilities, for players to demonstrate all possible flight maneuvers, and then maybe a little more?
The Thrust/weight ratio table is extremely interesting!
I think you meant to say, "When the F22, F/A-18, and Eurofighter Typhoon can fly straight-up (ie. vertical), then according to the in-game physics, so can the A-10, Su-25 (bomber?), and civilian planes should be able to fly vertical?" In other words, the in game physics are unrealistic.
I tend to agree, however it would be nice to have at least one or two jets (especially within multi-player servers) that can fly vertical such as the F-15 within the game, but it maybe the game engineers ran short on time and resources, and had to compress aircraft features (or capabilities) into fewer jets, or had to work with what jets they already have within the game.
I must agree, I prefer flying the F-15 within game, but there currently are no F-15's within the vanilla game! I tend to agree the bombers should likely not be able to fly vertical, however on most servers, most map administrators will likely not put more than a couple or few planes on the maps at one time due to system resource requirements. So likely map administrators will only add bombers, and maybe one AA A-164 if you're lucky and pretty much useless unless there are plenty of enemy aircraft. (ie. AA only version of Neophron or A-164, etc)
But with that stated, there's this new virtual ammo vehicle and hanger idea, where players might be able to change load-outs extremely easily within a hanger.
With what is all stated here, it sure adds weight to my argument concerning safe landing of the Neophron! The Neophron acts like the flying weight of a tank, for which is manageable until landing. Landing on such a short runway of even the main airports, is nearly impossible with the Neophron! From my point of view, I think this jet needs double the length for safe landings.
Also, the Neophron should likely not be able to fly vertical with dumb bombs, etc. However, I'm more for waiting until the virtual ammo selection hangers are fully implemented and operational. However, I could always drop all munitions after take-off and then perform my aerobatics. But then there's currently absolutely no possibilities of performing aerobatics immediately after take-off unless I can somehow drop all munitions prior to take-off.
So I think we can all see some of the possible limiting factors here!