Leaderboard

3w has (sort of) discontinued support, in the fact nothing new or expanded will be released. Outside of the 'mobile games'. OTH, TK has put together an "all is one" package for 100 USD (approx) that is all 5 game, both expansions, and all 29 DLCs. I know you said in the first post that were issues with international ordering, but it might be worth investigating further. Simply put, a disproportinate number of all SF2 mods require a full 5 merged install with SF2NA. NA is most assuredly required for those aftermarket terrains that are "Naval Maps" (for carrier operations - no matter what anyone else says, its been proven - not all the CVBG coding is in the the other 4) And, also, we do NOT discuss pirate sites. Ever. I know you've been away for a while, but there's been some issue with that in the last few years, and those that espoused it have been removed (which I know YOU'D never do!! ) And welcome back! (any terrain with my name on it is one to get -- shameless plug)

Today I’d like to tell you a story about how our Tempest Mk.V came to be. Every once in a while, I get to stop being a producer and just be a fanboy and add something to the simulation to fulfill a dream. When I saw how well our Spitfire Mk.Vb turned out, I knew I wanted a Tempest added whenever possible. There is something very cool about these British birds. I knew a Tempest built by our team would be awesome. I’ve always thought the Tempest was really an awesome warplane. It just looked tough and mean with that huge air scoop under the nose of that powerful Sabre engine. It appealed to me as the perfected sibling of the legendary, but initially troubled Typhoon. The Tempest represented the pinnacle of piston powered late-war aircraft. The type of Allied fighter that could beat the best the Luftwaffe had and put the final nail in the coffin. As an American kid, the British Tempest looked uniquely cool and somehow different, but I could only see pictures in books and read about them. I never got to see an actual Tempest in the air. Unlike Spitfires and Mustangs, so few examples survived their service and performed to airshows in California where I grew up. So, when the opportunity came much, much later in life, I decided I wanted to fly one built to our specs in our engine with our team. Now it’s finally time. From the first moment I decided we should make the Tempest, I knew building it would be a challenge. I recalled from the days of IL-2:1946 that there was a real lack of quality references to make the plane to a high degree of detail, both in its physical shape and the engine’s performance. That Tempest model is a great accomplishment as well and I remember the enthusiasm that accompanied it way back then. I knew it would be the same difficult road today for our Tempest without a real effort and help from other people. And luckily, that is exactly what happened. Thanks to total strangers and friends in the community, this mission has been a successful one. In the past, other such endeavors have failed, so I am very excited that this one did not. 1CGS Office Las Vegas, NV U.S.A Last year I put out a call on the forum asking for help locating information and references for the Tempest. The community responded in force, and I was able to quickly get a grasp of what was out there. This got the ball rolling and I bought the team several books, drawings and sourced any operator manuals that were publicly available. I also learned what actual airframes existed and I started to try and make contact with their owners. Fantasy of Flight in Lakeland, Florida U.S.A. My first bit of luck was successfully making contact with Fantasy of Flight outside Orlando, FL thanks to social media. Fantasy of Flight is home to the famous Kermit Weeks, who’s videos of him flying many different aircraft on YouTube is legendary. I took a trip to Orlando and drove out to FOF to see the two Tempest airframes they have there. They have a Mk.V and a Mk.II. I was informed that the Mk.V was a front line WWII bird, but it had crash landed in the Netherlands and was recovered, but then turned into a test airframe for refurbished Sabre engines at a repair depot. I was told the Mk. II airframe was one of the prototypes. Both are in various stages of restoration, but the project manager was retiring in a matter of days and the planes were going into a crate and locked away for who knows how long. Matter of fact, a lot of the plane was already in crates! I had to act fast. I made it to FOF just in time and met with Andy, the gentleman who was retiring the next week. I learned as much as I could from him about the Tempest airframes they had and took lots of pictures for our modelers. Here is a sampling of what I saw there, which was two airplanes in bits with the wings and an incomplete fuselage. I was stressing this would not be enough. Fantasy of Flight has a great collection of aircraft and I highly recommend visiting it if you are ever in the Orlando area. It’s not a far drive from Disneyworld. Lots of interesting and rare aircraft in great condition. The staff there is great and really helped us out and they are willing to do so again in the future. A great outfit. www.fantasyofflight.com RAF Hendon, London, England, UK My second bit of luck was successfully making contact with the RAF Museum at Hendon. This took some real doing and I must thank community member EAF19_Marsh aka Ed for helping get me in touch with the right person. It looked grim and I was extremely frustrated with Hendon at one point, because I knew they had the missing piece of the puzzle, but they just were not responding to my requests. However, in the end it all worked out and Ed’s effort helped get things moving. I hopped on a plane to London and took the London Underground for the first time to Hendon. There I saw a real complete Tempest Mk.V in the flesh. Airframe NV778 was a former target tug, but other than the unique target tug equipment it was the exact airplane we needed. Here are some pics of it at Hendon. My worry was starting to subside, it looked like we could make the Tempest after all. I also encourage anyone who visits London to go to the RAF Hendon museum. Their collection is awesome and includes some real gems. The Lancaster bomber there is extremely impressive! Makes the B-17 and B-24 look small. The crew at Hendon did us a real solid. Please show them your support and thanks for helping us out. A special thanks to Ian Thirsk, Brendan O’Gorman and especially to Tim Bracey for his assistance in accessing the Tempest. www.rafmuseum.com While I was in London I met up with a few IL-2 community members and had some beer and some chat. Thanks to Custard, Herne, Elem and Royal Flight and a few other gents which I embarrassingly can’t remember their names of so many months later. My apologies. I had a great time with everyone even though I had caught a nasty cold. I felt awful and I apologize to everyone who came for not being my usual chatty self. Why is beer so warm in England? What’s up with that? Typhoon Legacy British Columbia, Canada Getting pictures for the Tempest model was a huge step, but what about other things like flight data, engine data and operator manuals? Without some kind of understanding about the performance of the plane we’d just be guessing and users would not be happy. Well, shortly after my original call for help on the forum I was contacted by community member [IV./JG54]Croquemou aka Nicolas who works on the Typhoon Legacy project. They are restoring a Typhoon and they had lots of useful info and references for us about the Tempest and Napier Sabre engine. They were kind enough to share this information with me and I passed it onto the Sturmovik engineering team. We acquired official manuals, parts lists, drawings, engine test data, flight-data and other small bits of info that should help us make the Tempest fly in a realistic fashion. Special thanks to Nicolas and Ian Slater for their help in acquiring this important information. www.typhoonlegacy.com 1CGS Office Moscow, Russian Federation Armed with all the information and pictures I could gather our modeling team went to work building the Tempest. It took quite a while, but Phil really did an excellent job capturing its shape and he somehow untangled the complicated cockpit structure to create what I consider a masterpiece. Here is Phil’s take on building the Tempest, “Each aircraft is unique, even within the same series, there will always be small differences. Working on a visual model of Tempest was not a challenge, but unlike many others, there were features that I could not foresee. The unique designs and decisions of British engineers were of great interest to me in the process of studying this aircraft, but, in turn, covered with the lack of references that were high enough for modeling, was affected by the great stress in the process of creating this war bird. Spatial frames, many open cabin panels, non-standard solutions of simple assemblies, many details, confusion of differences in series, all this at certain times became difficult, but no less interesting. Starting with the external model of the fuselage, you feel like a sculptor, deriving smooth contours, wide and graceful wings, a streamlined body - all this contrasts with the cabin, reminiscent of some kind of chaos of scattered parts, wires, hoses. One got the impression that this was done not at the factory, but in the field, or in the form of a prototype. But this style is observed in many British warbirds - Hurricane, Spitfire, and others. For me, the artistic process is inextricable with the study of not only visual references, but also the design of how it works and what it was intended for. Understanding the internal processes and historical decisions gives many details that affect the final result. You can also find interesting comparisons in the future. For example, I often find similar solutions in other planes of other countries. For example, in the Yak-9 - this is unbelievable, but there are many similarities with Tempest. Or at one time I found interesting comparisons in the models of Foke-Wolf Dora and Soviet Lavochkin LA-5. Returning to Tempest, I would also like to note that once it was one of my favorite airplanes. As a child, I often riveted such airplanes with large “beard” air intakes, but then cooled down to this design. Work on Tempest revived this love in me, and I hope you all will like it, and you will also feel the power of this bird. Feel the smell of fuel and oil. And shooting down an enemy plane you will feel like those heroes defending your country!” Any time we create an airplane model from scratch under our tight deadlines it’s a struggle to include all the necessary details without blowing up our polygon and texture budget. Lucky for everyone, Phil somehow got it done! Next came the flight model work and our engineer Alex dove right in. Even with all of the data I gathered, there is still some mystery surrounding the Tempest’s Sabre engine and certain engine limits and performance characteristics. Alex says, "The Tempest is a bit of a mystery plane in history. Not a lot of books and no flying examples like you get with say the Spitfire. There are several different versions of performance numbers in the data we collected and trying to weed through all of them and find the truth was a challenge. In cases like this, our aero model and our systems start to tell the story instead of the data telling us, which happens on more well documented planes. It's a bit like a detective story. We search for the truth with our advanced aero modeling and see what starts to line up. As I measured its shape and entered more and more data points into our aerodynamic and power models, its real flight envelope began to emerge and it began to line up with one or more of the data sources. The end result is a really great war-winning airplane that Allied pilots are going to like and we think is the most accurate Tempest ever made for a PC flight-sim." With the info we gathered, the Mk.V sub-variant we decided to build is the Series II with the Sabre IIa engine. The initial results of FM tests are very promising for fans of British airplanes and Alex has done another outstanding job. The Tempest is indeed a deadly plane and British pilots were lucky to have her. Without further delay here is a short movie featuring our Tempest Mk.V in Beta testing. As always, all textures, markings and even its performance are still a work-in-progress. We hope you enjoy and THANKS to everyone who had a hand in our research and its development. Truly an international effort by a wonderful community. You can discuss the news in this thread.

Just sandboxing, trying to envision the best places and proportions for markings. Full points to mue for the LOD Viewer. The Buccaneer stuff would have been possible without it - it would just have been twice as hard, and taken more four times as long.

No, those free download links are all illegal. Please buy the strike fighters games from the official thirdwire store!

View File Faroe Islands terrain Faroe islands 1.0 ***************************************************** This terrain is written for SF2NA. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ I. Short description: North of Scotland you will find small groups of islands, the Shetlands and the Faroe. They are nothing more than tiny rocks, surrounded by the icy waters of the Atlantic Ocean. On the first view completly unimportant rocks somewhere in the nowhere. But a second view shows high economical values. The islands sitting in the middle of rich fishing grounds, and then, even more, there is oil. North Sea oil. But not enough. A powerfull nation, that is able to install a base at the Faroe, rules all the waters between Iceland and the british islands. A hostile nation might be even able to raise a blockade over Great Britain. This makes some scenarios possible: First the classical what if the Soviets would had captured the Faroe and the US Navy starts an attempt to push them out. Second, what if America sends the Marines? Third, what if Britain tries to defeat the Soviets with own power? Forth, what if Hitler-Germany would have captured the Faroe? Fifth, what if the EU raise a blockade over a Brexit UK? Sixth, what if Britain was bought by President Trump instead Greenland and John Bull stand up to fight fort the british independence? ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ II. INSTALLATION: To run this terrain you need SF2NorthAtlantic. Unzip all files into your saved game folder ...ThirdWire\StrikeFighters2NorthAtlantic /terrain folder. Thats it. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ III. Modifications Faroe islands terrain is made so, that you can play it out of the box. You will find a classic Cold war scenario US Navy vs Soviet forces. Other possible scenarios are prepared. Open the folder Goodies and you will find the folder Nation ini In this folder you find 6 subfolders, one for each scenarios i have descriped above. Choose the one you like. In this subfolders you find the file FAEROER_NATION.ini. Copy this file to the Faeroer folder and let overwrite the existing file and enjoy the other scenario. (BTW personaly i prefer Brexit scenario. Flying Hunters vs Hunters is really fun.) Faroe islands terrain is made so, that you has 2 fixed carrer stations. For the red side a station north of the Shetlands. For the blue side south of the Faroes. If you want to have multible carrier stations, than you must open the Subfolder "multible carrier stations" and copy the file FAROE_WATER.bmp to the Faroe folder. When i started to make Faroe islands terrain i used TOD files made by M.Broers for the IcelandNA HFD terrain. Later i found out, that on the Faroes no trees exist. So i decided to remove the TOD files. If you want trees and TOD buildings, the copy the tod files in the Faroe folder. But be aware, there are not all tiles fitted with tods. It looks a little bit strange. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ IV. Credits. The basic Tileset i took from M.Breors terrain IcelandNA HFD. The basic files for the emergency runways, parking areas and quais are made by ErikGen. The OilRig was made by RussoUK for my PersianGulf terrain. I hope i have not forgotten someone. . ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ V. This Terrain is Freeware. Commercial use is not allowed. And i say it again for the YAP, YankeeAirPirates file thiefs, the use of this terrain and parts of the terrain for commercial use is not allowed. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ VI. For remarks, comments, bugs, etc please use CombatAce forum or send me a PM. Hope you enjoy it. Michael (Gepard) Made in Germany 31. August 2019 Submitter Gepard Submitted 08/31/2019 Category Full Terrains  

Thank to Sheriff001's Australian Buccaneer S22 available in the SF2 section, I finally had a good skin to use for a Rhodesian Buccaneer ! Doing so, I discovered how the Rhodesian serial numbers were made : R 6125 R 1626 R 1267 R 1286 R 1269 R 1630 R 6131 R 1632 (these ones are fictious as Rhodesia never flew the Buccaneer, and I made up a 6th squadron) [Edit : there were an actual 6th squadron, flying Jet Provost, so I changed the 6 to 9] Clever way to make serial numbers ^^ I love to learn new stuff like that.

Very interesting thread. It wasn't something I had thought of, largely because (unlike the Thuds, and Phantoms), I've never been hit, or even seriously threatened, in the Buccaneer. Nonetheless, I am editing all my Buccaneers. The good news is that I won't have to re-up my RAN Buccaneers when I get around to finishing them. They are a long way off, all I have are recoloured RN Buccaneers, and the skins are individual squadron skins. So I'll have to make a generic RAN skin with squadron decals. As to paint schemes, I have the RN colours. I'd also want to do USN gull grey over white, and the late-RAN camouflage (http://www.navy.gov.au/sites/default/files/Skyhawks 887 and 883.jpg). Possibly a couple of 1980s style schemes, perhaps something like this: https://www.cybermodeler.com/aircraft/a-6/a-6_profile03.shtml, and this: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sea_Harrier_FRS1_of_800_Naval_Air_Squadron_c1991.JPEG.

Hi Claudio I did not realise that you were still around, so it is good to see your post. I just checked your page at Sandbaggers, and there is a lot of great stuff still available

Please use this link to edit all the MinMaxExtent values : https://combatace.com/forums/topic/89365-buccaneer-update-minmaxextents/?tab=comments#comment-722439

Sorry have overseen your question. I addes following lines in the data.ini //---------------Parkpositionen ParkingChance=100 ParkingMaxSpan=15.50 Parking[01].Heading=280 Parking[01].Offset=26.30,-54.62 Parking[02].Heading=280 Parking[02].Offset=29.13,-65.86 Parking[03].Heading=280 Parking[03].Offset=30.69,-78.84 Parking[04].Heading=280 Parking[04].Offset=26.26,44.13

Hi Claudio, great to finally meet one of the founders of the EAW modding community. I'm a great admirer of your work and I thank you for the insight you've given me personally with your notes and explanations on the workings of EAW. A big S! to you Sir! VonBeerhofen

I was part of this and I´m proud of it. Congrats to all members!!!!

US Wings over the... Faroe Islands ! Thanks a lot !!!

I originally thought the drag tables were just a modifier for the headline StallDrag=xxx entry but noticed the TW F-16 has StallDrag=0.000 for both inner and outer wing panels while still using a stall drag table. That's just an observation I'm passing along because I'm not sure how it works either. The F-16 still generates a noticeable increase in drag at the buffet point so the table seems to be doing something. When building a new FM I just grab those tables from a TW type with a similar wing design and move along. The above statement caught my eye. I always assumed, because every TW FM has a CDL table that ended at 28deg, there must be a limitation in the flight engine. The 28deg limit is probably OK for most of the older TW aircraft but might be a bit limiting for people wanting to model some of the newer high alpha types. I made an expanded CDL table to check out the behavior past 28deg alpha and it seems to work OK but needs more testing: CDLAlphaTableNumData=31 CDLAlphaTableDeltaX=4.00 CDLAlphaTableStartX=-60.00 CDLAlphaTableData=225.000,196.000,169.000,144.000,121.000,100.000,81.000,64.00,49.000,36.000,25.000,16.000,9.000,4.000,1.000,0.000,1.000,4.000,9.000,16.000,25.000,36.000,49.000,64.000,81.000,100.000,121.000,144.000,169.000,196.000,225.000 The above table probably looks familiar to many. The 28deg version is used on many TW types and is what you get when calculating for a symmetrical airfoil with an aspect ratio of 2.0 and an efficiency ratio of 0.80[80%] The posted table is calculated to +/- 60deg. I'm not really sure how best to implement this table. CDL=drag due to lift and the lift stops increasing at AlphaMax=xxx so it might make sense to limit the table to the AlphaMax range. As an example, your flying the latest high alpha wonder plane and it keeps making lift up to 38deg AOA. In this case it might make sense to stop the table at 40deg, 100.00 on the table. On the other hand, after reaching AlphaMax, the TW flight engine maintains the lift in a straight line [flat line/constant lift] to AlphaDepart=xxx. For the new wonder plane the AlphaDepart=60.0 AOA so it also might make sense to just continue the 100.000 data point right to the end of the table. Or maybe not. I'm not really sure how the game is modeling drag post 'AlphaMax' [edit] and AlphaDepart, maybe it has something to do with the stall drag table Mue was asking about. I don't fly the modern planes very often but I'm trying this new table out on one and for the MiG-21 Bis FM I've been messing with I've got the AlphaMax=33 so I'm trying the new table with a range to 36Deg. The table is an easy copy/paste job if anyone wants to try it out on a high alpha plane that uses the standard 28deg TW table.

April 2020: VFA-14 Tophatters: Based on the USS John C. Stennis (CVN-74) navigating Gulf of Dhimar in multinational "Operation Dragonbreath". Our mission is to help Dhimar counter the increassing terrorist attacks, neighbouring Paran is in deep turmoil and there have been repeated attacks against border cities, some of them even including APC and targetting our troops in the ground. During early morning we got a call from USMC troops, codename Ravagers, while on foot patrol they got ambushed by enemy APC's and infantry squads in the market of the town.As QRA aircraft we are sent to deal with the threat and help the marines in the close quarters of the city. The bad guys... At the carrier deck We were launched with a heavy load, so we need to refuel on the way to the coast. After the refuel, we head to the coast, apporaching Moshak Marines are heavy pressed, and we start picking our targets in the streets of the city JDAM away. The USAF boys are heavy at work as well. Rifle: Shack! Our job is paying in gold, but we're getting fired as well. But now the enemy is in full retreat, the marines were able to disengage, and the help is on the way... Is now time to get back to the carrier. Circling... busy deck. And parked, time for some late breakfast. The mission was a total succes, killed 3 BTR60 and 2 BTR 152, the USAF killed some guys on the ground, so I got this... The mission was really fun, had to spend sometime designing it to have everything in place, but it was both fun and entertaining, and above all I felt like a real pilot in a close quarter situation. I aligned each shot to avoid hitting buildings in the ground, and tried to follow all the procedures I read on real operations books. SF2 still has some great potential! During the flight I palyed a real firefight between US troops and talibans, so it was more realistic trying to save those guys on the ground. Sorry for so much pics, hope you enjoyed.

May be the force with you. TIE fighter model WIP, made by Yakarov.

RAAF Starfighters

Yep - bottom line is that VEAO clearly did not have what it took compared to their peers.......as demonstrated by what was released.

Some final thoughts on VEAO and the Hawk, starting with VEAO's side of the story: Based on the way VEAO was branching out into other sims ( Flight Simulator World with their P-40F for instance ), I suspect there is more to the story than VEAO is telling. I am sure ED has a very different point of view as to why things went down the way they did. I am pretty sure the contract terms that VEAO refused to sign were principally introduced due to VEAO. Why would ED want to penalize buggy modules and want the rights to their IP? VEAO left, now people who paid for the Hawk have the option to stay with an obsolete revision of DCS World just so they can fly the most incomplete, buggiest and worst looking DCS World aircraft module. Furthermore, those that paid for the P-40F never got more than some screenshots and some videos. Imagine if RAZBAM abandoned DCS World and took all of its source code for its aircraft with it. How long would it take for those aircraft to become incompatible with the latest DCS World release? ED should have demanded sufficient rights to maintain code from the start, or they will never be able to support third party contributions over the long term. The fact that other developers overcame the same obstacles that VEAO faced to produce far more complex aircraft to much higher standards (AJS-37, F-14A/B, Mirage 2000, AV-8, etc.) over a much shorter time frame tells me a lot. I would have been happier if VEAO had been able to deliver all the aircraft they listed as being under development (many of them with screenshots of 3d models in advanced stages of completion). But if they couldn't handle a subsonic trainer with simple avionics and a very basic armament, then they had no business developing any further products for DCS World. To be fair, Eagle Dynamics development plans and execution has been very erratic. It must be extremely difficult and stressful trying to debug and keep modules working over the frequent and sometimes drastic changes to the core game engine. But again, I point to how other developers have weathered that storm and are still releasing more modules. The other third parties are far from perfect, but their initial releases tend to look better and function better than the Hawk despite having far less time to develop and debug them. So VEAO can play the blame game all they want, but the fact is they took peoples' money and made promises they couldn't keep. I think everyone is better off with VEAO out of DCS World third party development.