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Doing some Helo flight....

two weeks

God I miss Hi-Vis colors....TA-4J of VF-126 "Bandits" during America's Bi-centennial 1976.

Battle of Dieppe

Below are Lewis gun armed Nieuport 17 and 23 WIPs. Lewis Gun Nieuports.rar

Also, below is the VERY ROUGH Caudron R.11. I "borrowed" Stephen1918's excellent Caudron G4 files, and substituted my R.11 model for his G.4 model. Anyone interested in developing new ini files is welcome to try their hand. WIP Caudron R11.rar

Still busy with the Real World, but spent the morning working on Breguet 14 gunner and armament.

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!

For those testing out Geezer's lovely WIP models for the Caudron R.11, also the Pfalz D.IIIa (not the D.III) - included below are the latest FM tweaks. The R.11 has a top speed of about 191kph near sea level - is fairly maneuverable too and can perform a modern Immelmann. Also included are some cockpit seating tweaks for the R.11. The D.IIIa file is not interchangeable with the Pfalz D.III (that download, in this thread, already contains the latest FM - the D.IIIa download is under the screenshots thread). Von S Edit: R.11 data ini has been removed, replaced with newer version posted below in this thread. Also removed is the Pfalz D.IIIa file. Please see the all-in-one download in this series of posts.

Thanks. I corrected those.

WIP terrain...

Hello everybody, The time has come to tell you more about the historical timeframe of Battle of Bodenplatte. As we said in our previous Dev Blog #192, we're making all four different seasons for this map. Some might think that we'll model only 1-2 days of the actual Bodenplatte operation when the Luftwaffe made the all-out attack on the Allied airfields near Brussels and Antwerp. However, our “Battle of” series is much more than that! The Career mode for this new theatre of war will last from September 17th, 1944 to March 28th, 1945 – 188 days of war in total. Historically, 11 significant engagements took place in this area during the given timeframe. In the Career mode, you'll see your area of operations, mission types, acting air force units, their home airfields and other details that correspond to the historical data. You'll be flying in and around many famous operations and battles. Of course, we can’t model every skirmish or battle on the ground, but we will have an exciting Career spanning this later stage of the war when the Allies were fighting their way into Germany. Operation Market Garden (September 17 – 26, 1944) Battle of Aachen (October 2 – 21, 1944) Battle of the Scheldt (October 2 – November 8, 1944) Operation Queen (November 16 – December 15, 1944) Operation Watch on the Rhine (December 16 – 25, 1944) Allied Counter-Offensive (December 26, 1944 – January 25, 1945) Operation Bodenplatte (January 1, 1945) Operation Veritable (February 8 – March 10, 1945) Operation Clarion (February 22 – 23, 1945) Operation Grenade (February 23 – March 10, 1945) Operation Plunder (March 23 – 28, 1945) As said above, we won't be able to recreate these ground operations in super detail, but the overall situation, mission tasks, home airfields and mission targets will change as they should historically just as you experience with Stalingrad, Moscow and Kuban. This, along with the corresponding features of the Career mode like pilot biographies, squadron histories, newspaper articles, videos, squadron rosters, medals and rank progression will create an authentic experience of flying on the Western Front during the late war period. The whole timeframe will be divided into 5 chapters: Chapter 1: Fighting in Holland (September 17 – October 1, 1944) Chapter 2: Autumn Offensive (October 2 – December 15, 1944) Chapter 3: Battle of the Bulge (December 16 – 25, 1944) Chapter 4: Allied Counter-Offensive (December 26, 1944 – February 7, 1945) Chapter 5: Battle of the Rhine (February 8 – March 28, 1945) To create this new theatre of war, a thorough research will be done on where the units of both sides were based, their tasks and what aircraft they used day by day. Two new award systems for the US and Great Britain are to be created from scratch, as well as the late war pilot models for Luftwaffe, RAF and USAAF along with their chutes. The Newspaper articles is a huge task on their own and takes several months to complete. If you’d like to help with this contact Jason. We also plan on making additional mission types for this unique location and timeframe. All in all, this will be a lot of work for us, but progress is already being made. For example, we have finalized the map boundaries and the airfield locations. This map is bigger than we initially planned (flyable area is 401 x 324 km - it is 129.900 sq.km) and several compromises will have to be made to make it a reality. It will stretch us to the limit of what is possible in our development schedule, but as with our other maps it will be really cool when it’s done. You can discuss the news in this thread

“La Muerta Negra” (The Black Death)

Small update on the pit from Logan!! Im so excited!!! The pit mesh itself is borrowed from the exterior model and is WIP, but his panels and new parts as you can see in this and the last pictures, are great! Thanks Logan!

How low can you go...