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Weekend Flying..........Hawks, Harriers, & Mirages, in all kinds of weather, and an A-7 out over a REALLY BIG ocean.

SF2: RAF The stunning Photo Real British Isles terrain and a selection of the RAF aircraft and skins available to fly over it:

Northrop fighter programs and luck are not things you will often hear in the same sentence. Here we look at the short lived Tigershark and some of its contenders for the lucrative 1980s export market. In the 1960s and through the 1970s Northrop produced and sold the superb F-5AB Freedom Fighter and F-5EF Tiger II to the export Foreign Military Sales (FMS) market. In fact over 30 countries had procured 2600 F-5s in 28 different configurations by the mid-1980s. In the late 1970s Taiwan had a requirement for a fighter that could fire BVR missiles like the AIM-7 – unfortunately the US government had to appease mainland China so the F-4/F-16/F-18 were out……… and so the US Department of Defense (DOD) asked Northrop to adapt the F-5E. F-5E Aggressor (Airliners.net) Sadly, with AIM-7s and a bigger radar, performance of the new F-5E was lackluster and Taiwan was not interested. So, the DoD asked Northrop to look into a more suitable configuration, which ended up with a new F404 engine and the designation of F-5G. The Carter administration at the time decided to put a cap on exports to certain developing countries and stipulated the US would only export fighters that were modifications of existing aircraft and thus "inferior" to US front line fighters. Also, any company submitting proposals had to fund it themselves! The ruling favoured the less advanced F-5G and not the F-16A, so with Northrop already having the F-5 market to themselves it sounded like a risk worth taking. The FX proposal (F-5G Vs the F-16-79) The requirement for the FX was for a fighter with performance somewhere between the F-5E and the F-16A, and so Northrop and General Dynamics submitted their proposals. Northrop F-5G The proposed F-5G turned out to be far superior to the F-5E, the choice of GE 404 turbofan engine in 1978 gave the F-5 around 60% more thrust (16,000 lbs max) and really was the jewel in the crown here. This engine was also being used for the FA-18 and despite not being mature it had potential to be simpler, lighter, more reliable with less IR signature than the old turbojets (like the J79) with far less fuel consumption. With Digital Engine Controls the pilot didn’t have to worry about compressor stalling the thing. This certainly looked to have superior performance to the F-16-79 on paper. Northrop would have to develop avionics inferior to those in the F-16A for export purposes and looked at bids from Westinghouse, Emerson, Hughes, Norden and General Electric (GE) however none were chosen before the F-5G configuration had to be upgraded. General Dynamics F-16-79 RAND called the F-16-79 half hearted, however General Dynamics had to find ways to cripple the F-16 in certain areas and one way to do this was to use the J79-GE-17X engine. The idea was that there were a lot of used J79s available in the world………so in theory this would be cheaper and easier to maintain and upgrade for these export customers. · The J79 engine was a slightly enhanced version of that in the F-104 & F-4 (was originally for the F-4). It had around 18,000 lbs max thrust and a bit more with a feature called “Combat Edge” that could be used for very short periods. · The F-16-79 had over 2000 lbs extra weight due to the heat shielding for the J79 and different Air intake and changes to the rear of the fuselage. · Range was significantly reduced. · Despite inferior performance to the F100 in the F-16A, the F-16-79 was actually faster top end due to the J79 and the different air intake. It is the only F-16 to fly over M2.1 in level flight as known. Plenty flew the converted F-16B Block 0 (75-0752) and no one was impressed. It lacked performance where it mattered and more importantly the USAF were not flying it. For some reason Foreign Military Sales (FMS) customers decided to get delusions of grandeur at that period in time and expected to fly what the top air forces flew. F-16-79: note the very different engine! (Lockheed Martin) Disaster strikes As is life with any risks a government can come in change things for everybody (not just large corporations). In 1981 Jimmy Carter was out and Ronald Reagan (The actor!*) was in the White House and things quickly went south. Carters export policy was backed at first but it would seem export customers were not happy unless they were flying the same toys as the USAF. Export restrictions were lifted in 1983 and the F-5G was now competing against the real F-16A. (bollox) Let’s look at what Northrop was now faced with: · The F-16 was an established Air Force program with a Multi Staged Improvement Program and established logistics chain. · The USAF flew the F-16……………. again FMS customers were now picky and wanted to fly a jet the USAF flew and supported. · The F-16A was superior in turn performance, range, payload, comparable in climb and had better growth potential. · Buying more F-16s would favour the US by keeping the cost of them lower and the cost was now getting lower due to more buys from the Reagan Administration. Ronald Reagan in Spitting Image form (ITV) Changing a Tigers stripes Not giving up Northrop decided to roll up their sleeves and get busy……or throw lots of money at the problem. All they had to do was make the F-5G beyond exceptional and also somehow pander to the US Government and the USAF to get them to buy it…. simple. Northrop now had to market the F-5G as a 4th Generation jet somehow, so the F-5G first became the Tigershark, which later became the F-20A Tigershark. Northrop had decided to concentrate all their funds on the one area they could compete………. that being avionics. The F-20A takes off The First Pre-Production Tigershark (82-0062 / GG1001) first flew in April of 1982 with a 16,000 lb thrust YF404 engine and revised rear fuselage with larger tail. It also had an hydromechanical flight control system with a computer-controlled Augmentation system (CAS) F-20 #1 (Northrop Grumman) Avionics extraordinaire In June 1981 Northrop had taken the step of telling General Electric (GE) to build a radar above and beyond the export spec and ideally superior in every way to the AN/APG-66 in the F-16A except range………. this was given the designation AN/APG-67. Ex USAF fighter pilot Pat “Gums” McAdoo was hired by Northrop as a consultant and used / saw some of the avionic developments, and confirmed they were far better than what was in the F-16A and in some ways better than what was being done for the F-16C Block 25 at the time. · Pilot interface was very easy to use for non-geeks and had been developed partly by an ex F-100 pilot. Some of these concepts were similar to the FA-18 and some found their way into later versions of the F-16C · The APG-67 radar was way Beyond the basic APG-66 radar and had more modes such as Track While Scan, Velocity search and a great Ground Map · Ring-laser Inertial Navigation System (INS) made start up very quick. · Had visual and radar bomb modes (CCIP / CCRP). · Flight control system in development was similar to the FA-18 a Fly By Wire augmentation system with hydromechanical backup. The F-20 was the ideal foreign military sales jet. It had short legs, but very quick response times from a cold start. The RLG inertial was awesome. The radar was way beyond what the Viper had at the time - track-while-scan, velocity search, really nice ground map, etc. The data entry design was awesome. Using the entry panel below the HUD was really easy, The most surprising thing was the MacIntosh-style stuff on the MFD's. I had not even seen a MAC when I showed up. But one great example was the radar display on one of the MFD'S. If you moved the cursor over to a radar mode or a range indication, then you got a pop-up menu and could cursor to desired mode and hit the "designate" button. Pats involvement also gives us some insight into what the USAF considered important in a combat jet at that time. The avionics were vastly improved thanks to digital computers but they were still just a step up from the 3rd Gen paradigm with many flaws. The F-20 was a very capable interceptor with a great radar and great performance. RLG inertial that took less than a minute to align, TWS radar, extremely easy to use all the avionics. In short, I liked it. But I liked the Viper more, despite its crappy hands-on controls compared to the F-20. It had better turn performance and much better legs and could carry more pig iron. AN/APG-67 in TWS mode (Northrop Grumman) Head Up Display (HUD) in CCIP mode (Northrop Grumman) Let’s sell this thing anyway Another consultant and ex USAF legend working with Pat at Northrop was Charles “Chuck” Yeager who also flew the pre-production birds. Chuck was used on the promotional videos and you can hear the sales pitch here: How to rub salt into wounds In 1982 (Just as the F-20 marketing began to get into swing) under pressure from China, Reagan had vetoed the export of the F-5G and F-16 to Taiwan and thus the launch customer and the whole reason for the F-5G existing went down the pan. Luckily for Taiwan (and less luckily for Northrop) a program to develop another fighter was started in its place with rival General Dynamics (probably to the slight annoyance of Northrop). This fighter developed by AIDC and General Dynamics was to become the F-CK-1 Ching-Kuo and to rub in more salt they even incorporated the APG-67 radar developed for the F-20! AIDC F-CK-1 Ching-Kuo (Airliners.net) Let’s now take the urine In 1983 Reagan allowed funding for Israel to start development of their own fighter in this class that turned into the IAI Lavi. Clearly from Northrop’s point of view the logic that US tax payers should pay for the Lavi while Northrop funded the F-20 by itself seemed a tad off. Eventually this logic may have caught up with the US government when Israel cancelled the program in 1987 influenced by a clear change of attitude from the US. IAI Lavi (Military-Today.com) In part 2 Northrop hire Pierre Sprey..................... * Yes that is a reference to Back to the Future........I thank you.

When you simultaneously rammed two enemy airplanes and are still alive, remember - this is the time for a BAIL OUT! Laughing out loud :) The screenshot has been edited with Adobe Photoshop CS6. Unexpected turn, right?

Royal Norvegian Air Force F-16 Agile Falcon Concept in action! From the excellent Mitsubishi F-2A by Dels

Got the new Breguet 14 fuselage mapped, and made some new escadrille markings for the Nieuport 24. When this stuff gets released, the files will include templates and sample colors so guys can make new markings.

So sad to hear this! But you've given so much to us Ace Combat fans! Thank you very much and best of luck, mate.

Ok we can start very early, camo and a Fitter ...not the "M"

And I had downloaded that already! Damn, looks like I am getting old. Well said. I am so happy to see that we're reworking ODS and that you, PFunk, are updating Operation Darius as well. When I started to remake the terrains, I was hoping for something like this to happen. So, I'm very glad to be part of such development team!

A Sea Venom.... Did you change the name of the lod in the ini? You do have the lod from Capun?

Testing sorta/kinda realistic battle damage for the wooden fuselage and cloth covered wings.

It's the weekend...gotta love tail beers.

Needs packaging and 1-2 smaller fixes...for you Crawford ***Update*** - Files/skins uploaded, pending approval - see 'Other Central Powers Aircraft Skins' ohh btw the decals gave me an awfull lot of headache

Don't see many of these at the movies http://www.imdb.com/title/tt7515456/plotsummary?ref_=tt_ov_pl

Good Day proud members of the Combatace SF Community, Over the past few months, I've made 16 skins for Strike Fighters 2, for 14 aircraft types, accumulating around 800 downloads in total. I would like to take some time to express my gratitude and thanks towards every one of you. Thanks for all the help you've given me that have helped make some of the skins I've created, your invaluable feedback as well as the many kind comments you guys have left on my downloads. I would like to give special mention to Menrva, who has been a good friend and an extremely helpful senior in the community. Having completed my conscription service in the Singapore Navy as an Underwater Combat Medic in January this year, I had hoped that the next few months (University starts in July) would have been a great time for me to focus more on my hobbies such as reading about history, learning how to drive, and of course, continuing to create skins for SF2. Unfortunately, this will not be the case. Last week, after 5 years of exemplary service, my laptop, having served me faithfully as the tool upon which I would create most of my work, finally died. Everything, from my SF2 installation, all my templates, screenshots and tools I used were gone. Having gotten a replacement laptop, I had initially hoped that I would be able to salvage the data from old computer and continue my work. However, my worst fears were confirmed when I booted up my hard drive into a external reader, and it read RAW. I brought my hard drive to a data recovery service, which quoted the file recovery at approx SGD1400-1700 (They were nice enough to give free evaluation and testing, then asked whether you'd like to continue with the recovery). With no college degree yet let alone a full-time job, I decided that it wasn't worth the cost. And so today, it is with deep regret that I let you guys know that I will no longer be able to make skins for SF2. The problem isn't money though, it's just.... I cannot justify the amount of effort I'm using to continue a hobby. It took my months to create my "perfect" SF2 installation , and paying over a thousand dollars for a hobby which doesn't pay isn't my priority at the moment. In future, when I've had enough money leftover and when it's convenient, I may come back to skinning, but until then: I'm Zachary, this has been zachtan's Ace Combat Skin Collection, thank you very much :) and goodbye :(

Do you guys realize you're the last development team making modern combat flight simulations that isn't Eagle Dynamics?

I really wish I could take a look at that hard drive. I had done miracles in the past at my workplace and with my own hard drive not long ago. Do NOT discard it or let anyone to disassemble it. Im sure it can be salvaged. I did lost EVERYTHING I had, not so recently, but I did recover it all before the need to climb up the attic with a rope... )) Now I have expanded my NAS server, and made it RAID. Devil never sleeps...

The key was renaming the LOD!! Thanks a lot!

I tried to install the Scimitar... even adding the needed LODs all I get iare hanging weapons in mid-air :( Some pics of Fleet Air Arm, the beautiful albeit really slow Sea Venom.

Republic Aviation FGA.1 - No.20 Squadron, Royal Air Force Middle East Command, 1956 The delay in both the Hawker Hunter and Supermarine Swift programmes saw an ailing RAF adopt the swept-wing F-84F Thunderstreak in several versions starting with the Sapphire powered Thunderstreak FGA.1 which served in Middle East Command from 1955, although with marginal thrust it was not really suited to the hot and dry conditions and were tied to runways of at least 7,000 foot length. Equipped with the ASSa.6 version of the Sapphire (rated at 8,300lbs thrust) the Thunderstreak also featured uprated outer wing weapon stations to carry standard 1,000lb bombs. Featuring a lovely Desert Camo skin by 'whiteknight06604'.

Zachtan I can understand the frustration and hope you will be back and I am sure many appreciate the work you carried out for the SF community. One thing we have not done for a while is remind everyone to back up their data....maybe everyone assumes people just do this now? Simply if you only have one local copy of something there is a good chance it will be lost. (applies to all on any device Desktop,Phone, Tablet) Years ago we backed up to CDs and DVDs which was hell because of the time it took........but more recently USB hard drives became the norm and are much easier to use. There is of course cloud based services these days but even they are not really true places to back up long term due to the policies they have........there is also no guarantee on the data and for some it is not an option due to the bandwidth required for GBs of data. So if you do invest in something get an external HD say 2TB and start backing things up..everything important not just SF stuff.........just plug it in when you need it don't keep it plugged in...it will require some discipline.

first bit of research, as ot what was there, what is in mod currently and what needs fixed or added. posted publicly for those that want to see whats going on and maybe join in. pinkish bars are not available, yellow is DAT (so considered not available), green go and red no. ships list out tomorrow, then vehicles and sams next week. Menvra, in the unit columns each one has its location listed as best as i could find. except for BUFFs, need abit more time to get bases down for the provisional wings. will attempt to do similar for ships, esp the carriers and amphibs viper63, if ya catch this looking to use your upgrades for several aircraft skins (tho i will be using my own Hercs!) ODS Aircraft.xlsx

Just great thanks. Just wished some of the other plane skins in FE2 were this good.

View File F-84I 'Sharav' for STRIKE FIGHTERS 1 (WOI c/w Add-On) Republic Aviation F-84I 'Sharav' for Wings Over Israel c/w Add-On The Armee de l'Air received its first F-84F Thunderstreaks in 1955 and it was in French service that the Thunderstreak saw its only actual combat during the Suez Crisis of October 1956. French Thunderstreaks from the 3rd Escadre moved to RAF Akrotiri on Cyprus whilst the 1st Escadre were deployed to the Israeli base at Lyddia where they supported the Israeli forces that invaded Sinai on October 29th. Despite seeing intensive action only one F-84F was lost and the tough and rugged aircraft so impressed the Israeli Air Force that they ordered 50 F-84F-70-RE aircraft before the end of 1956. The F-84F-70-RE featured the more powerful J65-W-7 rated at 7,800lbs thrust which helped with the initial climb rate and the combat ceiling and these were among the last Thunderstreak's to roll off the Farmingdale production line in the Summer of 1957. In 1962 the entire Israeli F-84F fleet was grounded due to the same corrosion of control rods that had affected the F-84F worldwide but they were soon restored to full operational capacity, eventually serving with distinction during the 1967 Six Day War and surviving in Israeli service until 1973 when stress corrosion eventually forced the retirement of the Israeli F-84F fleet. Ignoring by own backstory I've given the 'Sharav' Suez stripes and a 1956 start date! I've previously released this in SF2 but thought it would be nice to release it in SF1 but please note that it does require both Wings Over Israel and the Add-On Expansion Pack. INSTRUCTIONS 1. From the AIRCRAFT folder drag and drop the F-84I folder into your Aircraft folder. 2. From the DECALS folder drag and drop the F-84I folder into your Decals folder. CREDITS Thanks to TK and Third Wire for a great little game/sim. And thanks to everyone in the wider Third Wire community. Regards Spinners Version 1 - 03/03/18 Submitter Spinners Submitted 03/03/2018 Category Fictional Aircraft, Experimental and UAV's  

Tonka F3 HUD from this to this (with wip new gunsight) repainted new gunsight and MRAAM Skyflash mode (2M = 2 MRAAM remaining, also counts SRAAM and gun ammo) What started as a quick new gunsight mod went out of control...

Paulo....can you send me a PM? Maybe upgrade your pack?

Thank you! These new skins are just wonderful . But I have only one small remark: You do not need to add anything! Since there is already the TextureSet.ini file in each folder, the game by itself will add this skin to the main Hansa_BrandenburgDI.ini. Just drop all the unpacked folders into your Hansa_BrandenburgDI folder, and you'll see how after the game starts new available skins appear in Loadout.

Many thanks, Comrade! These are excellent skins and I'm sure they will be interesting not only for me.

‘Fist of the Fleet’

An option that wasn't explored when the USN Banshees were purchased.

AV-12A Seahawk...

South Atlantic theater...

TA-4"What if" skin somewhere over South China Sea

I didn't fly sukhois until saw the photos....., now i want to fly everyone

I think, that the soviets relied more on standoff jammers. In early 1973 they tested a SPS-141 jammer, which was placed on the truck, in Syria, near the Mount Hermon, which was in israeli hand and was defended by a HAWK SAM battery. They were able to neutralize the HAWK completly, so that no missile hit a MiG. After the unification of Germany the Bundesluftwaffe tested the soviet jammers and found out, that they were capable to jam nearly all western systems. During the tests, they put the SPS jammers on a F-4F Phantom and flew it against all available systems. Some tests were done in Decci (Italy), where they simulated figtherbomber attacks on NATO warships. In all simulated attacks, the ships were not able to lock on the plane when it was in direct approach. Under the hand, the soviet jammer technology was praised by the german Luftwaffe testers. The soviets were very reluctant to sell sensitive technology. They had 3 levels of weapon technology. The highest was for soviet use only. The second for close allies in WP. The third for unreliable allies like Romania and Hungary and the rest of the world. So the really important systems came not in danger to fall in western hand. Captured planes and systems would always have a weaker performance than original soviet ones. One example. The first soviet T-72 for third world had a front turret armour of 280 mm. In the same time, the WP T-72 had 355 mm armour and the soviet T-72 had had around 400 mm. Whith the result, that the NATO standard gun L7 (M68) caliber 105 mm could at a distance of 1.000 m easily destroy the 3rd world T-72, had some problems with WP T-72 and was unable to penetrate the soviet T-72. The same structure you see with planes, missiles, sensors, jammers etc. If really neccessary, the soviets adapted very fast protective systems, as you see in Afghanistan war when the Manpads appeared in Maddjehedin hands. In few weeks the soviets installed flare dispenser and later IR jammers etc. Only one year after the israelis used reactive armour plates (ERA) on their tanks in Lebanon war, the soviets installed ERA armour on their tanks. The rest of the world got no ERA.

The VSF squadrons regularly carried Sidewinders as standard. Their mission was as fighters for the smaller CVS carriers. A-4s in the attack role in VAs did not carry Sidewinders because their primary mission was bombing. VAs had VFs with F-8s and F-4s to do the fighter work. Rule of thumb, if your jet says VSF and you are flying a CAP mission then you have Sidewinders. If it says VA then you don't. A big reason there has been the legend of the Atoll armed MiG-17 is because that is what we would have done if we had them. This legend is never spread in USAF circles, but in the late sixties with the advent of more advanced air to air combat training by the USN, the USN experts determined that an agile MiG-17 with Atolls would be the ideal worst case scenario. They trained for that scenario and briefed their pilots to be expected to see that. Not because of hard evidence that the VPAF was arming 17's with Atolls, but because it was feasible to do so and the USN would have done so if they where so equipped. That explains the appearance of Atoll armed MiG-17s in some USN reports. Earlier in the war the VPAF did arm MiG-17s and MiG-21 with rocket pods. The use of unguided rockets in the air to air realm was a standard VPAF tactic. A Skyraider pilot seeing a rocket wiz by could assume that he was just engaged by an Atoll.

Dedalus: Only on the MiG-21MF. I have read reports of some MiG-21s dumping flare during Linebacker, so I added them to the MiG-21MF, which starts in '71. Eric Howes

doin my research, and i thought we had an RF-5E. I'm I missing something or is it out on somebodies HD?