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Flying the F-4C in 1986 is a challenge. You hope for the F-15s to take on the Flankers, Fulcrums, and Flogger Ks, but no they're off dealing with some Frogfoots, so it's up to the Weekend Warriors from California in their 20 year old crates to deal with them.

Also some shots with SU-34 model:

Back in the Bad Old Days, attrition was going to be a serious problem for NATO forces, forcing you to sometimes go with what you got for the mission tasking. So let's go kill a Hardened Shelter. This is called the I Lost sight of it: Where The F**k is it???!!!??? maneuver. Lost my wingman who decided to go chasing after a Sam Site....and ran into a nest of ZSU-23's. But the target was hit, and home at last.

Over the North Cape . . .

Well then I'm doubly glad that you are now a member of the combat ace community.

This one and his expansion bought on a budget box I still have. (now stored inside the big box of the deluxe version shown below, also wit its expansion). One of the best sims ever, was really really fun to play.

Just learn about Blender and Virtual 3D Modeling couple days ago.. I Haven't create anything yet.. just slowly learning about it. For now, what I can do is scavenging free 3d model, import, export, basic blender tools, what tools for what, put the result in SF Mod, trial and error.. etc.. time consuming and head-scratching.. but its fun! Thanks Mr. Mue for this Gem, and Mr.Nyghtfall, who patiently tutoring me.

oh, gosh... let me think ....lots wore DOS based, and needed boot discs (remember THOSE??). Aces over the Pacific, Aces over Europe, Megafortress, A-10 (don't remember full name), Red Baron (iirc). Some sub game (688??) been a long interestering road

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004, followed by Wings Over Europe. I apologize for making any of you feel old. Truth be told it definitely seems like I missed the golden age of flight sim options.

Everything started with this beauty....

This is a major problem for the active homing missiles (guidance type 13). The AA-9B is particularly problematic in this case as the seeker range is set to 120000. There is no such thing as an active homing missile with a seeker range of 120000 meters. You can fix this by going to the data file and changing one line. Set SeekerRange=120000.000000 To SeekerRange=20000.000000 This will prevent the computer from firing at you until it can get an accurate range on you with its radar or it closes to within 20000 meters. This will force it to respect the same constraints the player must follow. You can also reduce the firing range by changing this line. MaxLaunchRange=120000.000000 Note that changing this line will also prevent the player from firing the missile at a longer range regardless of other factors. I recommend against changing the SeekerRange value for semi-active homing missiles (guidance type 12) as the computer must first lock you up before firing regardless of the range of the seeker so there is no point in reducing that number. Also, the missile seekers do not appear to be affected by aircraft RCS. I have had MiG-31s fire at my stealth aircraft from the maximum missile range without ever seeing me on radar. This stopped when I adjusted the seeker range.

Figured as much. Guess it's time to do the Vietnam thing and stuff some chaff into the airbrakes with some ini editing.

Tornado by Spectrum Holobyte

The original Gunship and Ace of Aces both for the Commodore 64 probably would be my first simulator games.

Yes it was me lol 😆

Strike Eagle on the C64 was the first sim I really got into. I still play SEII under dosbox.

Yes me too but I am one of the old members lol started 1991 with flight simulator, I remember going to the PC shop and paid a lot of money for 4 MB RAM and16-bit VGA graphics card to get the game running good and I was so amazed that my dream become a reality and I can fly. lol

Flanker 2.0, IL2 Sturmovik and... SFP1 At school around 1985 I tested one (monochrome) of the first version of Flight Simulator. This needed a lot of imagination...

Back then, Falcon 3 was on the home computer briefly. But it was too difficult for me at the time. Instead I played F-15 Strike Eagle II by Microprose, Novalogic's Comanche, also Secret Weapons of the luftwaffe SWOTL a bit. Soon after: EA's US Navy Fighters + Advanced Tactical Fighters took over.

Falcon 3.0 1991

Fifty years ago we would commandeer the Academy's IBM mainframe and spend time attempting "to go where no man (or Cadet) had gone before" while blasting Klingons and Romulans in the process. The only available video was a small PDP display screen which showed something like this:

Go to flight/HUDDATA.INI and change DisplayDebug for TRUE.

Well, I have good news and bad news :) The good news is that we managed to bring (don't ask how, for the moment LOL) both models , SU-34 and AIDC F-CK-1 Ching - Kuo. They are already saved in 3DMax format (and BOTH models are LEGIT, if anyone is wondering), they just need to be "worked"/transformed for SF2 environment only. The bad news is that the man responsable for the modelling bailed out on us kindda thing. I won't say more. Even so an esteemed collegue of CombaAce community agreed to help, in principle, but it would take some time extra. (I am just preparing you for the worst LOL). Meanwhile, for a week or two I will skimm the horizon (internet) and my relations to find a 3D modeller to work his magic on the models for preparing them for SF2. So I need you to be patient on this one. The main thing and the hardest part was solved, we have both models in 3D Max format, as I already stated above. If, by chance, you can recommend anyone with 3D Max skills please come forward with that. It will help a lot, I am open to suggestions. Here's a preview fo AIDC F-CK-1 Ching - Kuo 3D model: 3D Model Preview AIDC F-CK-1經國號戰鬥機(Blender),Taiwan (Update).mp4 As always, let me know what you think. Your input is important.

The C's and D's were pretty much interceptors by then and more likely to be used to defend CONUS than the Fulda Gap. so not so much of a need for countermeasures some D models went to Ramstein at about that timeframe with Montana and North Dakota ANG while the 86th TFW was converting to Vipers. but pretty sure they would have had countermeasures. push come to shove, do in the data.ini what the crew chiefs would have done: jimmy rig something!!!!

I feel I've been around since the down of Personal Computers. It was with luck that our High School started a Computers Class my Sophomore year and I soaked it all up. Started on old CP/M machines learning CP/M, Assembly Language and other programs my first year. I remember 8" Floppy Drives. We were so bored by our Senior Year that when the instructor said he didn't have anything more for us to learn (Software wise), we started repairing all the failed PC's, Printers, and other hardware from around the whole school district. We wrote the Attendance Program the schools was using and had our own BBS. Yes, sorta dating myself. But for graduation I built my own computer. Took it off to College in 1987, and remember hooking it up to a 46" Sony TV playing Jet 2.0. Loved it.

ok i just found out the AI pilots aren't hampered by avionic limitation and are able to fully utilize the max range of their missile regardless of their aircraft's radar range. is this on the difficulty setting if not, is there any workaround for this? thanks in advance!

I must rework the river mouth, because it does not really fit to the other coastal tiles. So it looks now:

That's an issue which will remain to be seen...AFTER the releasing of the SU-34 and AIDC F-CK-1 Ching -Kuo. ;) Until then my plate is ...full. We'll talk about how difficult is then, also.

I totally forgot about the Jane's sims -- USNavy Fighters, Fighter's Anthology -- man, I built dozens and dozens of missions for them!!

If the enemy fighter is an Su-35S you will get outranged because his radar will burn through your jamming before you can burn through his and fire. These reduced firing ranges also put both combatants well within the no escape envelopes of each other's missiles so the player can't just turn and run away at full afterburner. Players must then defeat the missile with chaff as the ECM is of no value against a missile and a kinematic or seeker track rate defeat is unlikely. The Su-35S radar data is obviously lifted directly from Russian promotional materials and is suspect to be fair. I have adjusted all the range, impulse and drag values for the AAMs in my copy of the game and limited their useful ranges to the range at which their velocity drops below Mach 1 based on the Missile Range Simulator projections as the missile likely has little energy left for an interception at this point.

Young blood detected on radar!

My first game was called "Spitfire 40" back in 1986. I played that on my friends Commodore 128.

We had the stolen reverse engineered version in East Germany.

Just tried it for the first time. It's a fun change! T-33s and Sea Furys prove to a decent opponent for a Scooter. Encountered the same early ending after only two missions though. Is it possible that the campaign ends if too much of the enemy air force is destroyed?

Nope, I don't fly Hard mode, because why make a simple operation difficult?

Cool. F-16 is like real (if you have proper imagination). My fiirst sim i played a campaign from beginning to the end was DID (Digital Image Design) EF2000 I play it from 1998 till present day. Best game ever.

Argentina's Mirage 2000-AR performing Close Air Support and Combat Air Patrol missions during Operación Darius.

I was not happy with the Mirage IIIEBR from the download, because it is a EBR-2 with canards. I wanted one without canards. So i took the Mirage5SDE, from TKs DLC pack 28, which looks like a Mirage IIIE, gave it the blue stock french Mirage IIIC skin (okay i modded it a little bit), made some decals magic and there it is: Mirage IIIEBR close to the look of 1982 (I know, they had not had the name FAB on the fuselage, but with it it looks much cooler.) If you meet a argentinian Mirage IIIEA in the air you have a plane and weapons of the same performance. Then decide the skill of the pilot.

Night recon...

Beauty .

Imperial Iranian Air Force F-4E 1972 cockpit based on the original flight manual radar off , texture not yet final radar on TISEO on AGM-65A selected mirror position corrected

The Soviet PVO used missiles, unguided rockets and guns - even Tu-128s were used to shoot at them. A lot of missiles of course missed, sometimes a direct hit by the missile was enough. See defending Rodinu vol 2 by Krzysztof Dabrowski. flying directly at a balloon at 60000ft means you have to be fast so getting out of the way is going to be problematic. an off boresight shot was the best way to keep things as cheap as possible.

this might of of interest

Folks, I've taken down some of the posts, as they got wwwwwwwwwwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy off track to the question at hand Lets try and be a little more civil and polite, please? Life is fucked up enough without adding anger over a game. Be cool, as is said. thank you

Much cheaper than live fire tests. Those target drones cost more than $12.😂

It could be a negative habit transfer from the simulator. The missile may work just a little differently there and it could throw the pilots off the first time they fire a live missile.

i if it was a balloon (if that is what you are referring to) with minimal thermal signature and not a high-performance combat jet with portable hell in its engine exhaust. i suppose it's excusable for the sidewinders to miss.

Greek Eyes

Good to see more people starting to play around with Blender. I learn it myself mostly by trial-and-error. Doing smaller objects and fakepilot-parts has helped me a lot to learn basic things of 3D-modelling and it was and often enough still is a big struggle to get things the way I want them to be. Finding helpful tips and shortcuts to functions was a big help and makes life _a lot_ easier, when you know them. So here are some things and infos that maybe help you guys, that are complete noobs in 3D-business, like myself: Feel free to add more tips, hint and useful infos. They are always welcome! Tips: - set units to metric in your project, so you can see actual measurements of your objects. - useful tools from the tools-section include * subdivide -> split edge or face in 2 or more sections * loop cut and slide -> have a cube and cut it into 2 parts along a loop, you can then slide the cut along the object - remove double vertices: when editing stuff, you sometimes get 2 vertices that are on top of each other. Those should be removed, as they affect shading and other stuff. When in edit-mode, in 3D-view-window, select "Mesh"->"Clean Up"->"Remove Doubles". Mapping: - recalculate normals -> blender tries to find the correct direction of faces (inside/outside). Flipped faces may result in visible holes. - smooth your objects to get rid of hard edges --> "Shading/UVs" in leftside menu of 3D-view-window --> smooth faces, edges, vertices - if a vertex/edges/face does not need to be smoothed, select it and hit flat/sharp/sharp - i recommend also enable autosmooth: properties-window (right side bottom) -> select the triangle-icon and under "normals" select autosmooth and an angle (60° works mostly for me, but sometimes have to be adjusted) - unwrap-menu->unwrap: works best, if you have marked seams on your model. marked seams are the edges, the model will be cut to get the 2d mapping of your 3d object. - unwrap-menu->project from view: works best for complex objects. Attention though: if you do this for example for a cube, the top and bottom-surfaces are just a line in your 3d-view, as those face are rotated 90° to your view. the mapping of those areas is stretched in your final object and can lead to visual distortions. Shortcuts: - Numlock 1 : front view - CTRL + Numlock 1 : back view - Numlock 2 : rotate view horizontal in steps in one direction - Numlock 3 : left view - CTRL + Numlock 3 : right view - Numlock 4 : rotate view vertical in steps in one direction - Numlock 5 : View changed between Orthographic-view (like Drawings) and Perspective view (like Photos) - Numlock 6 : rotate view vertical in steps in opposite direction as "4" - Numlock 7 : top view - CTRL + Numlock 7 : Bottom view - Numlock 8 : rotate view horizontal in steps in the opposite direction as "2" editing (if the key is followed by x, y or z it only affects the according axis. you can also give a value by typing in 2.0 for example): - TAB : changes between Object- and Edit-mode - Shift + s : set cursor to a certain location or move selection to cursor --> useful for scaling, etc. - a : select everything (in edit-mode: vertices/edges/faces, in object-mode: objects) - e : extrude selection --> for example start with a circle and extrude it to get cylinder - s : scaling, "s x 2.0" for example means you scale up the x-axis of your object by factor 2.0 - g : select a vertex, edge or face and move it. - r : rotate --> you should set the cursor with "Shift + s" to set the center of your rotation - CTRL + SHIFT + b : create rounded corners from a vertex or edge. mousewheel changes number of segments ...to be continued...