Caesar

Falcon, Glad to hear your operation went well! Keep your spirits high; you got this.

Many thanks, Erik!

Here's a few: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-YJyffWh3s

Good luck, Falcon!

Good luck, Falcon!

Dave, Sent a donation.

ToS, I've looked back into it, and as it turns out, I had it wrong - the cockpit is correct as it is currently set up with LANTIRN feedback on the VDI. Since we're dealing with a single cockpit to function as two cockpits, and the RIO sees the LANTIRN feedback on his TID, I had made an assumption that the pilot's LANTIRN feedback was also on the HSD (which does TID repeat (radar screen), NAV and ECMD mode). I've re-checked the manuals and the pilot's LANTIRN feedback is on the VDI, NOT the HSD! So, we ought to leave the LANTIRN feedback on the VDI as that is actually accurate.

Dave, Here's for your consideration (from the Lost Boys):

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Good luck, Falcon!

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Antares, The TCS can't be slaved to the radar in the Strike Fighters series. We've tried, others have tried, it isn't a function yet. Right now the best we have is a fixed camera. Another limitation is that wherever we put the TCS is also where LANTIRN feedback will be. We can't split it LANTIRN to HSD, TCS to VDI - we tried that, too. What seems to be the problem with the swing wing and glove vanes?

VF-24 Red Checkertails is done... Onto VF-211...but Geoooooodaaaaamn! I hate those racing stripes!

This seems like your typical fighter pilot/inter service rivalry humor. Could be about either the F/A-18 or about the Navy, and if the former, it's been around for a long time. Some of the earliest examples I can think of come from when the Bug was new on the block, and they and the Turkey communities would make jokes and innuendos about each other; long history there between fighter and attack squadrons, and it wouldn't surprise me if the Intruder folks were involved as well. As it was explained to me by the Fighter side, and this was a few years ago so I'm not going to get it exactly right, you had your Fighter Guys and your Attack Guys. When the Bug showed up, you had Fighter Attack Guys. Spell that as an acronym, and that's the joke - it would come off as something like "The Bug's a neat little plane with the Fly By Wire controls, air to air and air to ground weapons and all. But if I wanted to fly one I'd have to become a FAG." Yes, it is homophobic. It was also still among jokes executed when the F-14's were retiring - in the last Fighter Fling movie (2004) there is a cutaway joke where a voice over asks "What else is on" - the channel changes from 14 to 15 to 16 to 17 to 18. On Channel 18 is a rendition of the introduction of "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" but with F/A-18 squadron patches flying around making a bunch of changes. The voice says something along the lines of "This sucks, change it back to 14." and the video continues. Ironic, now that the F/A-18 has taken over for the F-14, and some of the guys making those jokes have become Fighter Attack Guys (and Gals). Now, I'm not sure if the picture above is a shoot on the Bug or on the Navy, considering there is an F-16 it may be the latter. I hear jokes like this about the Navy from the USAF side to this day, though it's fairly uncommon where I've been stationed and usually comes from some old-hat. They aren't right in any way, by any stretch of the imagination, but they are something you'll run into even if you look back less than 10 years. EDIT: Come to think of it, just such a joke was originally in the script for TOP GUN the movie. An earlier rendition had this happen in the club: "NEARBY - AN A7 pilot stands by the bar. He knows Goose and speaks loudly for his benefit.. A7 PILOT You know the Fighter Pilots motto? It's better to be dead than to look bad. They grin broadly. Goose replies as they brush past. GOOSE I don't know, Frank, anybody gets off on bombing the shit out of dirt has got to be queer. Goose exchanges friendly punches with the attack pilots. " Not right, but common.

The F-111's TF-30's were updated several times, to include increased thrust (the P-9 was one initial improvement and P-100 was another from later). The thing is, the F-111 didn't need an engine like the F-14 did - different jets in different roles. The F-111 was a Strike platform, the Tomcat was a Maritime Air Superiority Fighter and had to be able to jump into the dogfighting arena and turn and burn with enemy fighters. The TF-30 did not help them. Stable enough at full afterburner or full military power, trying to change throttle settings at high alpha and slow speed, where a dogfight can easily end up, didn't always turn out too well (one Tomcat driver explained "you could move the jet, or the throttles, just not both at the same time.") The F110, apart from adding a good amount of thrust, more importantly added great reliability. The F-111 didn't have those requirements.

On to CVW-9! Red Checkertails (Renegades) WIP:

Chris, Those look great! Neat to see the wear on the later bird's cockpits, too. Keep up the good work!

S!

Happy Birthday, Oli. I can't even count the hours of enjoyment your works have provided me over the years.

The Tomcats in SF2NA are configured as Block 60/65 (F-14A) and Block 90-ish aircraft (F-14A_77). The reason I know that is the ECM suite on the TW F-14A utilizes pre-ALR-45/50 receiver bands in its data.ini, the cockpit is set up more closely to the early Turkey configurations before the ALR-45/50 lights were added to the right side of the HUD/windscreen, and it doesn't have automatically deployed maneuver flaps and slats (among a few other smaller hints). The ALR-45/50 was introduced in Block 70, and it was Block 70 F-14's that made the first cruise to Vietnam in 1974-75 (VF-1 and VF-2 initially were equipped with Block 60 and 65 aircraft before the cruise). F-14A_77 has the newer bands for its warning receiver and lights on the right side of the HUD, the new UHF/comms frequency selectors and lowered clock on the right cockpit, among a few other tweaks. Of note, the baseline F-14A was not modeled with the early-configuration beaver tail/airbrake, so that makes it a bit harder to identify. The TCS pod was experimented with during ACEVAL/AIMVAL on Block 90 birds in the mid-1970's (at the time called TVSU), but was not implemented with active squadrons until the early 1980's (~1981-1982), and even then took until about 1985 or so to finally make it to all the fleet squadrons (I recall a Tomcat driver saying in 1984 not all their aircraft had them yet). If the book takes place in 1986, then the majority, if not all F-14's would be equipped with the TCS pod. One of the anachronisms that Clancy did have was in Hunt for Red October where the F-14's were already using the F110 engine. I can't recall if this is ever mentioned in RSR, but the F-14B didn't enter service until 1987.

Ah, got my memory screwed up. HARM did still play a role in LANTIRN integration, as you wrote, with the adapter, NOT the stick/screen. "Hey Joe" Parsons (involved in that integration) explained: "The Tomcat never received HARM in the fleet although testing was accomplished. Note: one of "miracles" in LANTIRN integration was that HARM adapter was just right to carry LANTIRN thereby eliminating need to develop an adapter (a showstopper)" Good call.

Well, not all was a loss: the HARM trials were instrumental for the cockpit configuration when they started putting LANTIRN pods on the jet - the stick and screen on the left console were holdovers from HARM trials.

They'd be in your install's flight folder (not the flight folder in your mod folder). e.g. C:\Program Files (x86)\ThirdWire\Strike Fighters 2 North Atlantic\Flight