Leaderboard

A young man is driving down the road and breaks down near a U.S. Marine Corps base. He walks to the front gate, and says to the sentry, "My car broke down. Do you think I could stay the night?" To his surprise, the Marines accept him enthusiastically. They feed him at the officer's club, they fix his car at the motor pool, and they even allow him to sleep in the VIP quarters. But just as the man tries to fall asleep that night, he hears a strange sound. The sound continues all through the night and it stays with him through a restless sleep. The next morning, he asks the Marines what the sound was and they say, "We can't tell you. You're not a Marine." The young man is disappointed but thanks them anyway and goes about his merry way. Some years later, the same but now older man breaks down in front of the same Marine Corps base. Again walking to the sentry the Marines accept him enthusiastically, fix his car, and allow him to stay in the VIP quarters. That night, he hears the exact same strange noise that he had heard years earlier. The next morning, he asks what it is, but the Marines reply, "We can't tell you. You're not a Marine." The man says, "All right, all right. I'm *dying* to know. If the only way I can find out what that sound was is to become a Marine, how do I become one?" The Marines reply, "You must go to Parris Island, there to undergo several weeks of torturous behavior. You will be yelled at, put down, cut down, and physically exhausted. From there you will go on to receive infantry training. You will learn how to fight, fight to survive, and fight to win. You will learn how to act the Corps, breath the Corps, eat the Corps, sleep the Corps, be the Corps. When you finish these trials, you will be a Marine." The man sets about his task. He goes through boot camp, advanced infantry training, and is assigned to an MEU. While part of the MEU he is sent to fight in two small wars, and three "police actions." Three years later, while on leave, he returns to the Marine Corps base where he last heard that strange, strange sound. Standing there in his dress uniform, he says, "I have joined the Corps, and I have paid my dues. I have fought for the love of God, Country, and the Corps. The Marines reply, "Congratulations. You are now a Marine. We shall now show you the way to the sound." The Marines lead the man to a wooden door, where the Base Commander says, "The sound is right behind that door." The man reaches for the knob, but the door is locked. He says, "Real funny. may I have the key?" The Base Commander gives him the key, and he opens the door. Behind the wooden door is another door made of stone. The man demands the key to the stone door. The Commander gives him the key and he opens the door only to find another door made of ruby. He demands another key from the Commander, who provides it. Behind that door is *another* door this one made of sapphire. So it went until the man had gone through doors of emerald, silver, topaz, amethyst... Finally, the Commander says, "This is the last key to the last door." The man is relieved to no end. He unlocks the door, turns the knob, and behind that door he is amazed to find the source of that strange sound. I wish I could tell you what it was he saw but I can't tell you because you're not a Marine.

F-35 + LHA OPS

Strela soldiers can be anywhere... Direct SA-7 hit...

The crusty Navy Master Chief noticed a new seaman and barked at him, "Get over here! What's your name sailor?" "John," the new seaman replied. "Look, I don't know what kind of bleeding-heart pansy crap they're teaching sailors in boot camp these days, but I don't call anyone by his first name," the chief scowled. "It breeds familiarity, and that leads to a breakdown in authority. I refer to my sailors by their last names only; Smith, Jones, Baker, whatever. And you are to refer to me as 'Chief.’ Do I make myself clear?" "Aye, Aye, Chief!" "Now that we've got that straight, what's your last name?" The seaman sighed. "Darling, My name is John Darling, Chief." "Okay, John, here's what I want you to do ...."

G'Day all, It's been a while, but that doesn't mean I haven't been working! This is my latest: the RAAF's new all through pilot training aircraft. 2FTS paint scheme: Bump and specular mapping: ARDU (aircraft Research and Development Unit) paint scheme: 1FTS and CFS (Roulettes) paint scheme: Finally, 4 SQN (FAC): I'm just doing some final touches on the flight model but I'm planning on releasing the aircraft with my AT-6 pit as a place holder while I work on a pit for it. Dels

Okay so the Rolling Thunder campaign was never my favourite campaign from the series, in fact might be the most bland. The main reason for this was most probably the fact that there is no forward line of troops and tank columns to fight it out, and gain or lose ground after each mission. Rolling Thunder for real The campaign namesake this is based on was one of the most disastrous and misguided campaigns in the history of aerial warfare. What was hoped would be a few weeks of bombing missions to get North Vietnam back to the negotiating table to stop them trying to invade the South, turned into 3 or so years of bombing targets selected by Washington. Or to put it another way pussy footing around bombing things that did nothing more than improve North Vietnam's resolve to continue on its agenda and also allow it to build up its defenses with the help of the Soviet Union and China. So, 3 years of bombing targets – many times the same targets over and over, and never achieving the desired US strategy. Rolling Thunder in game In the Strike Fighters game engine this translates to what seems like a string of single missions and yes you don’t have much of an objective other than to try and not get shot down. However, unlike auto generated Single missions, Campaign missions are more content filled and almost always include strike packages and flights that help you do your job (If you at least meet your timings). Not only that all the units have their markings and decals as they should. Like history there are no SAMs until mid 1965 and the MiG regiments are limited in number. One great thing about TKs games is the use of "dates", so the game engine can just plonk in the correct objects (Guns/SAMs/MiGs) depending on the date you are flying. This also includes getting rebased and upgraded to better aircraft during the campaign. Vietnam Gold Like most things in Strike Fighters World, mods can really help and I am using the Vietnam Gold mod with a variety of my own changes. This comes with quite a fearsome atmosphere with a ton of guns shooting at you with purple stuff, red stuff and grey puffy stuff. A major benefit is a bigger variety of targets and not just the sodding comms building again. Gameplay Feb 24 1966 and I am flying from Da Nang in an F-100D (1964 version) for the 416th “Silver Knights”. I don’t know what it is about the F-100D that I like because it is outclassed by pretty much all the MiGs. The Lang Chi Electric Power plant is my target (a welcome addition from gold pack I think) – and I need to be on target for 09:10 on the dot. I am maxing out the M-117s here – there are plenty of them available. The SF2 Super Sabre also allows TERS to carry 4 on the inner pylons by default but with extra drag. How to get there hmmm. Those that played Wings Over Vietnam will know various routes into the North to minimise exposure to the SAMs, some of which had a 90% plus probability of kill if you were not flying at about 5ft off the ground. Luckily the SAMs in SF2 and this pack allow you to fly a bit more as they tended too back then! With a target near Yen Bai I can use the highlands as cover and cross in over South NVN where there are little to no SAMs. The Square box waypoint (the Initial Point /IP) is also the spawn point if you use Alt N, so can be moved around if you don’t have time to fly there. Waypoint 3 is fixed as a rendezvous with other flights. If SF2 had been developed, it would have been nice to change the waypoint details for the flights like in Falcon so you could move the fixed waypoint for all flights. Another thing that could have been improved was seeing your actual target area before flying. If you consider Jack Broughton spent all night memorising features etc before going on a mission you can understand the point of just marking the actual target with Padlock or a red dot! As you can see only 2 MiG regiments active with MiG-17F and MiG-21F-13. First Lt Eldon Atterbury is my wingy today. If you do take time to nurture the pilots their stats do improve (if they survive) Let's go then As we fly towards the target other flights are also on route to their targets. After a while several fights occur Due to meticulous planning we reach the target just fine and we roll in from above the cloud base I hit the target but get peppered by a lot of triple A Phew heading out but think my Wingy is a bit lost. Try to search, but no sign of him and no beeper! so off home alone Mystery solved, a MiG-21F-13 gunned him down and I had no idea that was in the area! If only all Vietnam mysteries could be solved so easy! I then went on to fly A-4C/Es for the US Navy in which you get to take off from Carriers in the Gulf on Tonkin Mr SAM is always happy to see you This thud was just lucky! This thud was not so lucky What are all those blotches So still quite intense flying through all the anti air and check 6 for those MiGs as always!

Try looking at the cockpit.ini file for the aircraft and change the Mirror node's type from "MIRROR" to "inactive" and see what happens. [Mirror]--------------------->[Mirror] Type=MIRROR---------->Type=inactive NodeName=Mirror--->NodeName=Mirror

For those who have downloaded Geezer's lovely Pfalz D.III WIP (also the D.IIIa on the Screenshots thread)...the info. below might come in handy as you fly these Pfalzes and learn their peculiarities. Von S Tips: - watch tight turns that drop below about 110kph (might drop into a spin...using rudder in the direction of the tight turn might drop you into a spin even if you're as high as 120-130kph) - take offs are best around 115-120kph in both variants; use gentle movements of elevator - loops are peculiar in the type with lots of coordination needed: in the D.3 get up to about 220-250kph in a dive before attempting a loop, be moderate on the back stick and then ease up towards the top of the loop and try to go over the top at no less than about 90-100kph...otherwise you will slip out of the loop at the top; for the D.3a with its 180 horses, it's good enough to get to about 200kph in a gentle dive before attempting a loop...same rules apply....be coordinated and gentle, otherwise you'll fall out of the loop literally - try using opposite rudder to do a combo sideslip/tighter turn in the types....can be maintained for about 10-20 seconds before requiring that you level out - she lands nicely but watch your engine management on takeoffs, also the tail skid; digging roughly into the dirt with the skid can sometimes spin you out on the ground, causing a crash, especially if you're above 50-60kph - top speed on the D.III near sea level is about 170kph, top speed on the III.a is about 181kph (as historical) - the III.a is slightly easier to handle in tight maneuvers (bigger elevator surface and more rounded contours to the edges of the bottom wings)

I didn't really see that coming. They have been cruising along like everything was going great. But they were far from feature complete and had no plans to support VR. The battle right now is between P3DV4 and XP11. Flight Sim World was too far from matching either one in features. I have them all and P3DV4 with TacPack is the only one I like at all, and I still fly it rarely compared to DCS World. Sad to see another option go out of business, but how many versions of FSX can make it in what already is known to be a niche market?

The TW A-7: Cockpit F-14: Object39 You can use the LodViewer tool to view any lod, simply make a ini file in the Aircraft folder (others may work as well) with the correct reference to the lod file. See attached examples. ShowCOCKPIT_A-4F.zip

I know I can't make a beer can in blender, but for the sake of those who can, can we elevate Mue to Modder God status, or something? Thank you, Mue.

View File LOD Exporter for Blender I tried to implement the exporter only based on the information I found by investigating LOD files. I'm not a 3D Modeler myself. I only tested the exporter with rather simple object (hierarchies). The bottom line is that I have no idea if the exporter works for you. So please give feedback. 1.) Installation Open the Blender User Preferences - Add-ons Tab (File -> User Preferences... -> Add-Ons) Click "Install from File..." Browse to and select the exporter python script "io_export_sf2_lod.py" Click "Install from File..." (or double click on the script name) In the Add-Ons Tab under Supported Level select Testing and enable "Import-Export: Strike Fighters 2 LOD Exporter" The LOD exporter is now installed and enabled. Under File -> Export you should see the menu item "Strike Fighters 2 LOD (.lod)". It's greyed out until an exportable object is selected. 2.) Usage Select the object you want to export and click File -> Export -> Strike Fighters 2 LOD (.lod) The file browser opens. In the lower left area you see the LOD exporter options: -enable/disable writing the out file (text file with information about the exported object(s)). -enable/disable animation export -allow decals: This option is similar to the option in the original TW-Exporter: "Exporting using AllowDecals=0 causes the vertex to be shared, so it can reduce the size of the .LOD but also causes decals to "bleed" along the edges." This dialog setting is used as default for all objects to be exported. However, it can be overwritten by each individual object via the custom object property "AllowDecals" = 0(false) or 1(true) The selected object and all child objects are exported. Two custom object properties are supported by the exporter: -AllowDecals = 0 or 1, This option is similar to the option in the original TW-Exporter: "Exporting using AllowDecals=0 causes the vertex to be shared, so it can reduce the size of the .LOD but also causes decals to "bleed" along the edges." -UseFlatNormal = 0 or 1, if set to 1 then all vertex normals are pointing straight up (normal = (0,0,1)) in the objects local coordinate system. Please note! The objects must meet the following requirements: -No scaling in the Transform Properties allowed (that means: scale x = y = z = 1.0). If your object has scaling, it should be applied to the mesh (Ctrl-A) Scaling is only allowed for animations. -A material must be assigned to the object. Only the first material of an object is exported. The following material parameters are exported: -Diffuse Color (the lod file format also contains ambient color. Currently the exporter set ambient color = diffuse color) -Specular Color -Specular Intensity -Specular Hardness (I think in 3ds Max it's called glossiness) -if "Shading -> Emit" > 0.0 then self illumination is enabled -Transparency (if transparency is enabled, then the object doesn't cast and doesn't catch shadow. if transparency is disabled, then the object cast and catch shadow. The specific LOD format version the exporter writes, doesn't support arbitrary cast/catch shadow combinations. The other LOD formats I don't understand enough (yet). Sorry!) -Alpha -Mirror Reflectivity -Diffuse texture image name (as diffuse texture the exporter uses the texture where "Influence -> Diffuse -> Color" is enabled) -Normal map texture image name("Influence -> Geometry -> Normal" is enabled and the Normal value is also exported) -Specular map texture image name("Influence -> Specular -> Intensity" is enabled) -Normal and specular map can only be used together with a diffuse map. (If I exported a normal or specular map without diffuse map, then the LOD wasn't shown in the game or the game crashed. I don't know why...) Animation Export: This exporter supports the following object animation types: location, rotation and scaling. Frames 10, 20, 30, ..., 100 are exported as animation 1 Frames 110, 120, 130, ..., 200 are exported as animation 2, ... 3.)Credits: Thanks to logan4 and angelp who provided me with specific lod files that helped me to understand the lod file format better. 4.)Changelog: Version 0.1: -initial release Version 0.2: -bugfix: didn't work in blender version 0.79 Version 0.3: -animation support -added custom object properties: "AllowDecals" and "UseFlatNormal" Submitter mue Submitted 04/30/2018 Category Utilities / Editors  

Been busy with Real World stuff, but squeezed in some work on the Pfalz DIII (not DIIIa). The LODs now show up at a distance - WIP below. Pfalz DIII.rar

The Chief was bragging to the Ensign one day. You know, I know everyone there is to know. Just name Someone, Anyone and I know them. Tired of his boasting, the Ensign called his bluff, Okay, Chief, how about Tom Cruise. Sure, yes, Tom and I are old friends and I can prove it. So they fly out to Hollywood and knock on Tom Cruise's door and sure enough, Tom Cruise, shouts, Chief ! Great to see You! You and your friend come right in and join me for lunch! Although impressed, the Ensign is still skeptical. After they leave Cruise's house, he tells the Chief that he thinks his knowing Cruise was just lucky. No, no, just name anyone else, the Chief says. President Obama, the Ensign quickly retorts. Yep I know him, let's fly out to Washington. So, off they go. At the White House, Obama spots them on the tour and motions them over, saying, Chief, what a surprise. I was just on my way to a meeting, but you and that Ensign come on in and let's catch up. Well, the Ensign is very shaken by now, but still not totally convinced. After they leave the White House grounds, he expresses his doubts to the Chief, who again implores him to name anyone else. Pope Francis, the Ensign replies. Sure, I've known the Pope a long time. So, off they fly to Rome. They're assembled with the masses in Vatican Square when the Chief says, this will never work. I can't catch the Pope's eye among all these people. Tell you what, I know all the guards, so let me just go upstairs and I'll come out on the balcony with the Pope. He disappears into the crowd headed toward St. Peter's. Sure enough, half an hour later, the Chief emerges with the Pope on the balcony. But by the time he returns, he finds that the Ensign has had a heart attack and is surrounded by paramedics. Working his way to his side, the Chief asks the Ensign, What's happened to you? The Ensign looks up and says, I was doing fine until you and The Pope came out on the balcony and the people next to me asked, Who's that on the balcony next to the Chief?

Nice one's :) A few from my Boatswain years in the RCN cadets : 1- While working on the engine room on a training ship we had a problem on the compressor and i said we were having trouble getting steam under pressure and a newby asked what we should do. The other boatswain asked him to go get a steam bucket in the chain room. We wera laughing our asses when he went for it. When he came back he said he was sorry, but when he left the steam was in the bucket but on his way back he spilled it everywhere :) Smart guy! 2- On night duty watch on an island we had way too much time to waste :) So in the night we buried a garden hose and made it pop out from a wooden pit that covers a drain hole. The next morning we told a recruit that if water was coming out from the hole he should warn us because it means the island integrity is compromised and the island itself was sinking. We waited about 45 minutes and open the garden hose. When the water went out straight in the air we heard : ''The island is sinking, the island is sinking'' along with a boy running in every direction. Priceless! 3- We asked a recruit to go get the parade square keys at the main warehouse. He looked at us like you're kidding right? The Gunny next to us smell the joke and looked at him and said : ''Look son, I asked them to ask you. Do i look like i make jokes?'' We heard no Sarge, sorry sarge, i'll be right back sarge! We had to tell the boy 4 hours later to stop his search as he went from dept. to another as everybody was diving in the joke... But he was thinking now the key did exist :)

Armed recce for crocs !?!

Cuba OTC terrain... always worth a visit (or not..)

Southwest United States

What terrain , please

Playboys over a really big ocean................

Painted zippers... love 'em!

The Army and the Air Force Try to Work Together There's an Air Force guy driving from McChord to Ft Lewis, and an Army guy driving from Ft Lewis to McChord. In the middle of the night with no other cars on the road they hit each other head on and both cars go flying off in different directions. The Air Force guy manages to climb out of his car and surveys the damage. He looks at his twisted car and says,..... "Man, I am really lucky to be alive!" Likewise the Army guy scrambles out of his car and looks at his wreckage. He too says to himself, ....."I can't believe I survived this wreck!" The Army guy walks over to the Air Force guy and says,...... "Hey man, I think this is a sign from God that we should put away our petty differences and live as friends instead of archrivals" The Air Force guy thinks for a moment and says, ...... "You know, you're absolutely right! We should be friends. Now I'm gonna see what else survived this wreck" So the Air Force guy pops open his trunk and finds a full, unopened bottle of Jack Daniels. He says to the Army guy, "I think this is another sign from God that we should toast to our new found understanding and friendship" The Army guy replies, "You're damn right!" and he grabs the bottle and starts sucking down Jack Daniels. After putting away nearly half the bottle the Army guy hands it back to the Air Force guy and says, "Your turn!" The Air Force guy twists the cap back on the bottle and says, "Nahh, I think I'll wait for the cops to show up."

anybody in need of a Budweiser

well, after three kids, i can attest through watching my wife that those that are pregnant can move VERY fast when full of piss

WIPs of the Pfalz and Nieuport are posted on the previous page. Mike Dora, VonS, and several other guys are carefully revising and testing new files for these aircraft, eliminating a lot of rough edges that have accumulated over the years. The goal is to produce a unified series of aircraft and file mods that live up to FE2's potential.

It takes as much time to set up the files as it does to construct the models and skin them. Mike Dora and VonS are busy fixing many subtle file problems left over from FE/FEG - these aircraft are for FE2. Meanwhile, the aircraft are available as WIPs - note the files are still rough. WIP Nieuport17c.rar WIP Pfalz DIIIa.rar D3a Templates.rar N17 Templates.rar Pilots.rar