Leaderboard

September 3rd 1943 Eight P-40M fighters of No. 16 Squadron Royal New Zealand Air Force provided bottom cover to a force of USAF Consolidated B-24 Liberators bombing Kahili. On the way home, two Kiwi pilots dropped back to cover a damaged B-24, which was under attack by eight to 10 Zeros. They were successful in driving off the attackers and escorted the bomber safely back to base. For their efforts, both pilots, Flight Lieutenant M.T. Vanderpump and Flight Sergeant J.E. Miller, received the American Distinguished Flying Cross, the first awarding of the decoration made to RNZAF personnel.

Scramble!!!

1st ACG

I was drawn to SFP1 by the F-4 Phantom. At the time early work in progress screenshots of SFP1 were being posted at SimHQ, I was flying Jane's USAF because it was the best option for the F-4/Vietnam era at the time. Wings Over Vietnam provided what I thought SFP1 should have been upon release: historical Vietnam map with carriers, the only thing missing was clouds. Wings Over Europe added clouds and the F-15A. But the user made addon, Korean Air War, was the outstanding centerpiece of the SFP1/WoX series. MiG Alley was the go to sim for the Korean War and allowed the player to experience the F-86, P-51, F-80, F-84, and MiG-15. But SFP1 KAW brought a much more up to date platform with superior modeling of everything except the gunsight. Fast forward quite a few years to the release of KAW for SF2. The terrain pushes the limits of what is possible in SF2. The available plane set is simply amazing. My preference is flying the Razbam F2H-2 payware addon aircraft, but the option to fly F7F Tigercats and F3D Skynights as night fighters isn't possible in any other sim. The experience is almost as good as possible on a PC at present. Only DCS World is poised to surpass SF2 KAW, but to date, no announcement has been made to support a Korean War map/objects and the only available flyable aircraft are the F-86F, P-51D, and MiG-15bis. Unless DCS decides to step up to the plate, I doubt there will be any combat flight sim that will surpass SF2 KAW in the foreseeable future. It is a shame that the Korean War isn't more marketable and that Third Wire never produced their own KAW product, but the free user made KAW SF2 would be hard to beat.

WIP Camo... from the MiG-29K templates. This camo needs several adjusments!

Another T-43A

Looks pretty nice. if you are doing IDS & ECR variant i can jump in for some German skins...

Ok, new nozzles ;-)

Configuracion final de el IA-37

Kim's toy...

582nd IAP Combat Maneuvers. 'Tho' much is taken, much abides; and though We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are; One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.' Rostock High Speed Pass. Phantoms Feint of the Cobra And I Missed...

I'm very happy to present the new CAF team plane, the MiG-19SK. The CAF team is formed by Cocas, Wrench, Coupi, Nyghtfall, Valastur and Stratos. The MiG-19SK has been a truly team effort to deliver a fun, challenging and realistic plane for a early carrier based soviet navy squadrons. It all started thanks to Dizzyfugu, a WhatIf master, with this entry. https://www.flickr.com/photos/dizzyfugu/page22 Then everything started to move forward in the CAF team. We asked permission to Dizzyfugu to release the plane, and he kindly agreed, so kudos to him! Thanks mate! So without more waiting, the MiG-19SK story... After the success of the Soviet Union’s first carrier ship, the Moskva Class (Projekt 1123, also called „Кондор“/„Kondor“) cruisers in the mid 1960s, the country became more ambitious. This resulted in Project 1153 Orel (Russian: Орёл, Eagle), a planned 1970s-era Soviet program to give the Soviet Navy a true blue water aviation capability. Project Orel would have resulted in a program very similar to the aircraft carriers available to the U.S. Navy. The ship would have been about 75-80,000 tons displacement, with a nuclear power plant and carried about 70 aircraft launched via steam catapults – the first Soviet aircraft carrier that would be able to deploy fixed-wing aircraft. Beyond this core capability, the Orel carrier was designed with a large offensive capability with the ship mounts including 24 vertical launch tubes for anti-ship cruise missiles. In the USSR it was actually classified as the "large cruiser with aircraft armament". Anyway, the carrier needed appropriate aircraft, and in order to develop a the aircraft major design bureaus were asked to submit ideas and proposals in 1959. OKB Yakovlev and MiG responded. While Yakovlev concentrated on the Yak-36 VTOL design that could also be deployed aboard of smaller ships without catapult and arrester equipment, Mikoyan-Gurevich looked at navalized variants of existing or projected aircraft. While land-based fighters went through a remarkable performance improvement during the 60ies, OKB MiG considered a robust aircraft with proven systems and – foremost – two engines to be the best start for the Soviet Union’s first naval fighter. “Learning by doing”, the gathered experience would then be used in a dedicated new design that would be ready in the mid 70ies when Project 1153 was ready for service, too. Internally designated “I-SK” or “SK-01” (Samolyot Korabelniy = carrier-borne aircraft), the naval fighter was based on the MiG-19 (NATO: Farmer), which had been in production in the USSR since 1954. Faster and more modern types like the MiG-21 were rejected for a naval conversion because of their poor take-off performance, uncertain aerodynamics in the naval environment and lack of ruggedness. The MiG-19 also offered the benefit of relatively compact dimensions, as well as a structure that would carry the desired two engines. Several innovations had to be addresses: - A new wing for improved low speed handling - Improvement of the landing gear and internal structures for carrier operations - Development of a wing folding mechanism - Integration of arrester hook and catapult launch devices into the structure - Protection of structure, engine and equipment from the aggressive naval environment - Improvement of the pilot’s field of view for carrier landings - Improved avionics, esp. for navigation Work on the SK-01 started in 1960, and by 1962 a heavily redesigned MiG-19 was ready as a mock-up for inspection and further approval. The “new” aircraft shared the outlines with the land-based MiG-19, but the nose section was completely new and shared a certain similarity to the experimental “Aircraft SN”, a MiG-17 derivative with side air intakes and a solid nose that carried a. Unlike the latter, the cockpit had been moved forward, which offered, together with an enlarged canopy and a short nose, an excellent field of view for the pilot. On the SK-01 the air intakes with short splitter plates were re-located to the fuselage flanks underneath the cockpit. In order to avoid gun smoke ingestion problems (and the lack of space in the nose for any equipment except for a small SRD-3 Grad gun ranging radar, coupled with an ASP-5N computing gun-sight), the SK-01’s internal armament, a pair of NR-30 cannon, was placed in the wing roots. The wing itself was another major modification, it featured a reduced sweep of only 33° at ¼ chord angle (compared to the MiG-19’s original 55°). Four wing hardpoints, outside of the landing gear wells, could carry a modest ordnance payload, including rocket and gun pods, unguided missiles, iron bombs and up to four Vympel K-13 AAMs. Outside of these pylons, the wings featured a folding mechanism that allowed the wing span to be reduced from 10 m to 6.5 m for stowage. The fin remained unchanged, but the stabilizers had a reduced sweep, too. The single ventral fin of the MiG-19 gave way to a fairing for a massive, semi-retractable arrester hook, flanked by a pair of smaller fins. The landing gear was beefed up, too, with a stronger suspension. Catapult launch from deck was to be realized through expandable cables that were attached onto massive hooks under the fuselage. The SK-01 received a “thumbs up” in March 1962 and three prototypes, powered by special Sorokin R3M-28 engines, derivatives of the MiG-19's RB-9 that were adapted to the naval environment, were created and tested until 1964, when the type – now designated MiG-SK – went through State Acceptance Trials, including simulated landing tests on an “unsinkalble carrier” dummy, a modified part of the runway at Air Base at the Western coast of the Caspian Sea. Not only flight tests were conducted at Kaspiysk, but also different layouts for landing cables were tested and optimized as well. Furthermore, on a special platform at the coast, an experimental steam catapult went through trials, even though no aircraft starts were made from it – but weights hauled out into the sea. Anyway, the flight tests and the landing performance on the simulated carrier deck were successful, and while the MiG-SK (the machine differed from the MiG-19 so much that it was not recognized as an official MiG-19 variant) was not an outstanding combat aircraft, rather a technology carrier with field use capabilities. The MiG-SK’s performance was good enough to earn OKB MiG an initial production run of 20 aircraft, primarily intended for training and development units, since the whole infrastructure and procedures for naval aviation from a carrier had to be developed from scratch. These machines were built at slow pace until 1965 and trials were carried out in the vicinity of the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. FROM NOW ON IS MY WORK. STRATOS. With the reception of the first new carrier in late 1965, the new aircraft began sea trials during the spring of 1966 and for summer the first planes were permanently deployed on board. The ship and it's planes began a cruise around the world doing good will port visits showing the flag and the new capabilities of the Soviet Navy. The carrier was permanently escorted by USN info gathering ships monitoring the capabilities of the new vessel and its air component. The first real deployment with combat ocured in the Pacific Ocean in 1969, in a dare move, the carrier slipped into the Yellow Sea during the night and launched it's aircraft at first light, the planes strike several military facilities in China mainland, specially around Shangai, and the first A-A combat took place when a pair of SK's engaged intercepting J-6 of the PLAAF while escorting strike armed SK's. All the soviets returned to the carrier that was already steaming to get out of the South China sea trough Tsushima straits. By early 1972, new models are being introduced into the fleet and the SK's started to show their age in the fast pace of aviation during Cold War, so as soon as the new models completed the air component the SK's were passed to train new naval pilots on the fleet training installations in Crimea, were it served with distinction until the last cells were too worn out to be safely operated beyond 1980. So the SK's story came to an end with the honor of being the first real combat aircraft onboard soviet carriers, and the plane that first tasted the blood for carrier based pilots. And some pictures of the plane itself. There will be several skins included in the release. The plane will be available for download pretty soon. Thanks.

adjusting serials for units can sometimes be harder than learning gimp or photoshop...

where did you get this Flanker mod?

It is my favorite mod also, for all the reasons you mentioned, although others are extremely good. The KAW mod just puts you there, in a way that not many mods can. It amazes me sometimes what I've gotten for free around here, and the KAW mod amazes every time I fire it up.

ok to clarify abit whats your willingness to learn those programs? having learned both (PS in a classroom, GIMP on my own) i would say that Phostoshop is easier, but GIMP is free and has over 80% of the features of PS (over 95% for modding uses). to get someone else to make it requires their time and interest, but this community is generally willing to assist new modders. i suggest reading through the knowledge bases for Wings over Series and SF2 before proceeding. personally i dont think decalling is very hard at all, and i got into it because i wanted post Vietnam markings for Phantoms. it is abit tricky at first like pretty much any new human endeavor. as to which serial to which unit, google search helps some. what you cant tie to a specific unit, add in a batch of the other historical serials. if you proceed let me know, will shoot you a font for the serials.

MiG-19 with side air intakes. Deck version. Perfectly. Will I see this in downloads? I already want to see the collection "parallel world"

Experimenting with rudder decal.

Hello The term of "mixed formation" used by the French in wwI is not the notion of mixed formation as we (or at least I) usually use it. Most of the time, a "mixed formation" of bombers is a formation of bombers of different types flying in respective fixed positions in order to benefit from mutual protection. This was not exactly the case, actually, a better word would be "close escort" as the R11 were moving around the Breguet formation so as to position between the ennemy fighters and the bomber they protected. In FE2 words, an "escort mission" would be good to descibe how they behaved. This is clearly outdated, as more archives where made available that improve the view we have of the R11 career : For instance, the mission described there : Was the only publicly available account of a R11 mission for years. Now, lot of reports are available for periods from May 1918 to the end of the war outlining that when escorted by R11, bombers suffered less casualties and were more accurate in bombing. Still, the efficiency of the R11 is a valid question, but the above mission is absolutly not representative of the R11 career. It would be a little as if we judged the TBM Avenger based only its performances at Midway ! There are also accounts of Caudron R11 missions here : (available there : http://www.asoublies1418.fr/index.php/cahier-des-as-oublies/la-guerre-du-ciel-1914-1918) : This collection is basically a recollection of various french army reports, archives and personnal diairies On 6th of October, a first mission of 1 recon + 3 protection R11 was met by Fokker D7 (8 according to french archives) : One Caudron was damaged, another was shot down, the mission was a partial success, but a second mission the same day (escorted with Spad this time) was a success In Icare N° 213 : Journal de Jules Abel [1] 1916-1918 : pilote de reconnaissance, Jules Abel flies a R11 as artillery spotter for quite a short time as "gotha" bombed the airfield and put out of action most of the unit's Caudrons In Fana 535, they were used as "picket" patrols (translation for "guet", the plane had to give a warning when some enemy planes crossed the line), in groups of 2 or 3.

Thanks! Two more shots showing progress this morning over coffee.

56th FG

Well, we are working on a massive overhaul of the Tornado. Will include minor changes in the 3D Model, Armament & skins. BTW, original creator of the Tornado 3D model is AD....