US Navy Attack Squadron 97 (VA-97) "Warhawks" Skin Pack 1.0a

VA-97 was commissioned in 1967 and flew the A-7 Corsair. In 1968, the squadron deployed to Vietnam as part of Carrier Air Wing 14 (CVW-14) embarked on the USS Constellation. VA-97 conducted a second combat deployment with CVW-14 in 1969, where they flew over 2500 sorties. VA-97 conducted two more Vietnam combat deployments in 1971 and 1972. The Warhawks returned to Vietnam for a fifth time in 1975 in support of Operation Frequent Wind, the evacuation of Saigon. In early 1980, VA-27 provided air cover for Operation Eagle Claw, the failed attempt at rescuing the American hostages in Iran.
In January 1991, the Warhawks transitioned to the F/A-18 and were redesignated Strike Fighter Squadron 97 (VFA-97). Today the Warhawks fly the F/A-18E Super Hornet out of NAS Lemoore, CA, and they are slated to be the first fleet squadron to transition to the F-35.
This is a fictional skin pack of Su-25Ts painted like the A-7E Corsair II in accordance with MIL-STD-2161A(AS) with VA-97 markings circa 1986. There are four different skins with unique Modexes (side numbers) and historically correct BuNos (serial numbers). This allows you to create packages of unique aircraft. Each skin has a "normal" version and a weathered version. Weathered skins have a bleached effect as if the aircraft were heavily exposed to the sun for months on end. Normal skins include pilots with green flightsuits, while weathered skins include pilots with desert flightsuits.
Most markings have been westernized, and the pilots have been given US style flightsuits with US markings. The helmet remains Russian made (but with a black oxygen mask).

Note: this skin pack uses an EXE installer that creates common texture folders and an autoexec.cfg (if you already have one, you can make manual changes). I would like your feedback on this system; if it works I intend to apply it to my other skin packs.

For Compact Installations - A Note About Autoexec.cfg:

Rather than copying texture files to their respective livery folders, I prefer to use a series of common texture folders along with unique filenames. This allows a single instance of many of my common textures, and keeps the hard drive footprint to a minimum (especially nice if you run a SSD for your system drive).

The installer will add a series of folders to the DCS Texture path; if you do not have these folders created, then it is no problem. The autoexec.cfg included will automatically point to the Texture folder in your Saved Games\DCS folder, and regardless of whether you run the Open Alpha, Open Beta, or Release version of DCS, the path will always point to your Saved Games\DCS\Texture folder. Again, this saves space on your hard drive.

If you use your own Autoexec.cfg, then when prompted to overwrite you can click "no". This will create a file called autoexec.new, and you can manually make the updates as you like. Just don't modify the top line with the file date; this is used by the installer for version control. However, feel free to include it in your existing autoexec.cfg, so you don't get prompted to overwrite until there's another update to the autoexec.cfg.

If you inadvertently overwrite your autoexec.cfg, it is actually backed up as autoexec.old. Just open it and copy the appropriate information to the new file.

For Traditional Installations:

If there is an issue with textures not displaying, it is likely a problem with the installer. Please let me know what textures are missing so that I can troubleshoot the issue.

If you have any squadron requests, please PM me. If possible, provide top and profile views of the aircraft, preferably line art (much easier to extract color), and for CAG/CO birds, a close up of the tail fin is greatly appreciated.
You are free to use any of these skins in other projects as long as proper credit is provided in the readme file.

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