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Martin-Baker Valente FR.II - No.680 Squadron, RAF Mediterranean and Middle East Command, 1947 The first flight of the Martin-Baker MB.5 prototype took place on May 23rd 1944 with Bryan Greensted (chief test pilot for the propeller manufacturer Rotol) at the controls. Greensted would fly the first prototype on several occasions and his view that it was a superb aircraft was echoed by the test pilots of the Aeroplane and Armament Experimental Establishment (A&AEE) at RAF Boscombe Down who enthused over its overall performance as it was both a highly maneuverable fighter for dogfighting but also an extremely stable gun platform. With a top speed of over 460 mph at 20,000 feet, an initial climb rate of 3,800 feet per minute, a service ceiling in excess of 40,000 feet and a range of over 1,000 miles the MB.5 was simply too good to ignore and in December 1944, even though victory in Europe was assured, a production order for 300 MB.5's was given to Martin-Baker Aircraft with the intention that the MB.5 would be deployed to the Far East as the RAF's standard fighter-bomber for 'Tiger Force'. In memory of company co-founder Valentine 'Val' Baker (who had been killed whilst flying the MB.3 prototype in 1942) James Martin of Martin-Baker asked air ministry officials to consider naming the MB.5 'Valentino' but this was not accepted. However, compromise was reached when air ministry officials announced that it was to be called 'Valente'. Development moved smoothly during 1945 but the sudden end of the Pacific War in August 1945 led to the cancellation of many production contracts and the Valente F.Mk.I order was reduced down to just 60 aircraft. With the Meteor and Vampire programmes both proceding well the RAF decided that it no longer needed a fighter or a fighter-bomber and instructed Martin-Baker to reconfigure the Valente for the photo-reconnaissance role specifying the carriage of two K-24 cameras with an oblique camera in the rear fuselage and a vertical camera placed in the mid-fuselage and just in front of the radiator. Entering RAF service in early 1946 as the Valente PR.II, the aircraft re-equipped No.208 squadron and No.680 squadron in the Middle East both initially flying surveying missions. No.680 Squadron moved to Ein Shemer in September 1946 and was immediately tasked with searching for ships bringing illegal Jewish immigrants from Europe. No.208 squadron moved to Petah Tiqva in December 1946 to also search for illegal shipping but both squadrons carried out anti-terrorist patrols and armed reconniassance missions in support of the 3rd Infantry Brigade from March 1947 onwards. By the end of the year, the UK Government had announced their intention to withdraw from Palestine as soon as possible with the United Nations susequently deciding to partition the country. From that point onwards both squadrons remained in Palestine to cover the final withdrawal of the remaining British forces until the Union Flag was finally lowered in Palestine on May 14th 1948. A few days later the RAF left Palestine forever.

now you see it , now you don't

1947: A new eye in the sky

I dont know, why they dislike me? I only want to take photos.

I hope this ship doesnt contain any of your Amazon or Alibaba purchases.

do not achieve a stronger reflection on the prop fast without greatly deforming the plate

This is bullshit. A 32bit OS will not allow you to use more than 4GBs, even if you have 16GBs on your machine. The same applies for software executables. Softwares which have been compiled to work natively on 64bit OSs will use more than 2GBs if available. If they are compiled as 32bit executables, only 2GBs (at max 4 in some instances) of your 16 will be allocated. It has been explained numerous times, Strike Fighters 2 is poorly optimized. The engine is outdated, it looks like a game from early 2000s, and yet it performs poorly on systems which are way powerful. If TW will make the next edition of the game work natively only on 64bit OS, together with latest DirectX 12 libraries, many will see improvements on FPS without the need to buy a super PC with NASA specifics. I have other videogames which look way better, and they even perform better than SF2 on my low-end machine.

First of all, I was talking generally, I didn't say explicitly that SF2 is 32bit, but guess what? It is. It's a game from 2009. Back then, 64bit OS were not exactly common. TW would have killed themselves by making a product which works only on 64bit. What's the point if only a smaller audience would actually get to play it? Agree to disagree. You basically suggested rlwicker1967 to upgrade the PC to have 16GB RAM, a top of the line graphics card with 8GB VRAM etc. Basically, a super gaming PC which is adapt for much more complex, modern videogames. SF2 is an old game (2009) which uses a game engine that dates back to 2002! It does not perform well because it's not optimized properly, not because rlwicker's PC is not adapt. He's not trying to play Digital Combat Simulator or Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020. Strike Fighters 2, for how it looks, should work much better than it does on mid-end PCs. Again, another ignorant statement. Nobody uses FAT32 anymore, fragmentation issues are minimum on NTFS systems. Defragmentation on NTFS will not solve any bottlenecks or hiccups dependent on the load on GPU or CPU, on bad programming or outdated libraries used by certain videogames.

Hi, Sorry for the late reply, it seems to be sorted now👍🏻. Think it was a mistake on one of the texture sets. Quite pleased with it. Thanks for all the help. Jeff

Not sure if i'm missing something here, I have SF2,E,V,I,EXP 2,NA, my SF2 folder is about 60GB with all the downloads i've got and i'm running W10 with 8GB RAM and I constantly get around 60FPS unless i'm flying a campaign around Hanoi which then drops to about 25-30FPS so I see no reason to spend $50 on purchasing SF2 complete unless i'm missing something I can't see what I would gain, maybe i've misread the replies? I create most of my own missions and add alot of ground objects and aircraft to my missions but i've never seen them lagging or choking out.

Somewhere is still Phriday

been there, done that

nueva piel del prototipo TA 152C y agregando una placa muy sutil al efecto del apoyo rápido

RAF Gosport, an airfield of the Coastal Command. It is situated between two forts of the westward fortification line of Portsmouth.

1943: Tachikawa Ki-36's of the Parani Army Air Force support ground units in the push towards Najahafi.

T-33s of Bolivia

Bogey identified and escorted out of UK airspace. QRA flight heading for home..

Phinally Phriday! CVW-3, VF-31 & VF-103, 1972 USS Saratoga.

Hawaiian Eyes

Don't forget it's Friday! VF-92 1971

i made 2 desert skins for my F-4E`s , a standard version and a lo viz version , the above is the low viz version

Looking good JSF_Aggie

F-4G from the 190th FS / 124th FG Idaho ANG

Peugeots on patrol