Caesar

Happy Easter/Passover!

Felix Natalis Tibi!

The only thing that concerns me with long ranged weapons employment is that even today, we don't always know who is out at those ranges. This was something Gen "Boots" Blesse noted back in the 1970's during an interview following the conclusion of ACEVAL/AIMVAL. Unless you're on Blue Water Ops, or in a region where the only planes coming from a certain direction are obviously hostile, you need good communication with an AWACS or an E-2 in the area, hope everyone's IFF is working right, and have ROE that allow such long range engagements. An example, in the book Black Aces High, on Tomcat crew related that on one of their night missions, their IFF failed (neither sending nor receiving), and they were painted by an Air Force bird, who was told by AWACS to VID the bogey aircraft (them) before firing (the Pilot and RIO disagree on whether the aircraft was an F-15 or an F-16). The Tomcat crew, which had heard the information that the "bogey" was in their area had their heads on a swivel, not knowing the "bogey" was them. When they saw a torch in the sky, and their RWR started going off, they called out "Hey! Friendly F-14!" The AF jet broke off. If they hadn't been ID'd visually, there would have been a friendly fire incident. This took place in 1999, with improved IFF systems from those available in the 1970's when "Boots" had made his comment on long range attacks. A B-1R armed with 32 AIM-120D's and a powerful radar certainly could be useful, but if ROE necessitates VID, there's no point; I wouldn't bet my money on a B-1R outmaneuvering a fighter after getting VID, nor getting VID first by a long shot. Now, in a theater where it is obvious only hostile aircraft could be coming from an area, I'd say a B-1R would be an excellent defense interceptor. The problem is that the only time I could see a stand-off scenario is blue-water ops like in the Cold War, or the initial attacks against a large country, before we begin to press into that country, and subsequently put friendly AND enemy A/C within coverage of a long-range radar/weapon system (the IFF problem). BUT! I'm neither a pilot nor strategist, so my opinion on that matter doesn't mean much. With regard to the original question; if Britain hadn't gone with the Tornado, I'd think they'd have stuck with the Phantom. I base this on the fact that the Tomcat was considered, but was too expensive, the Eagle (as has already been noted) wasn't a 2-seater (functionally yet, though the F-15B could have been used), the TSR-2 wasn't available, while the Phantom was.

Bravo Zulu, Southernap. Glad to hear you've returned!

Felix Natalis Tibi, Dave!

Chuck Norris once went to give blood at a local Red Cross, carrying a bucket and a .45. He was unable to donate, however, as the .45 proved incapable of penetrating through Chuck Norris's arm hair. This incident has solidified the theory, and probable fact, that only Chuck Norris can damage Chuck Norris.

EDIT: He's entitled to his opinion. Mine of him is not going to be put on this forum. What I'd love to see done to someone like that won't be either. As far as I'm concerned, I never want to hear of this nutjob again.

Props to C5...I don't think I'll ever get that out of my head ever. Based on Dave's posted converstation, I really do wonder if this individual is severely bipolar, or on some other kind of medication that he/she/it is not taking. This person is completely irrational beyond anything I've ever seen. For example, he/she/it seems to have enjoyed the fact that the FCC might be notified, stating "good" as if it were his/her/its objective to get such a possible response, or as if he/she/it thinks he/she/it is making Dave or FC or community members nervous. Also, the fact that he/she/it is using proxies and other masking techniques to show back up here is just insane. Just a personal thought - don't communicate with this guy/gal/thing anymore. Ban outright and don't even touch him/her/it. It's like he/she/it lives off this and cannot await your response.

Yeah, sounds like my own experiences with FM...it took me 2 months to get paid back when I got to Vandyland. Seems like they at least got it right when I left for Thule.

Just heard about this this morning. Sucks; he was a fine actor. Great to hear he was also a fine person.

Gah! I wish I could see those previews up here! (connection is WAAAAAY too slow) At least I should be back state-side when the movie actually comes out.

Check the date. It slipped my mind; I was supposed to notify MOD/STAFF about that - I noticed that the entry dates cut off at 2009, so if you make a new entry it defaults to 2004, making the next entry appear as the last entry. If you were to post today, you'd see a date of 14 March, 2004, and it would be the last entry in the lineup. When I made my new entry, I used a later 2009 date than my former, and made a pre-note of the actual entry date. Don't know how complex it is to fix, but that seems to be the issue for me at least. EDIT: Yep, just checked - it's defaulting to 2004 and the last year you can select is 2009.

Not unlike Have Donut/Ferry/Drill/ Constant Peg. I'd suspect performance profiles were flown, and comparisons and exposures made against their own aircraft. This is only speculation, based on the fact that that's what we did with the MiG-17/-21/-23 between the '60's and '80's.

Felix Natalis Tibi!

A little late, but Congratulations!

Bah, hanging would be too good! Get Medieval on his ass! Would be nice to see him "spread-eagled" if it weren't considered cruel/unusual. If you can't find it online, it involves the words: "still living," "split the chest cavity open," "lungs," and "crows, or other scavanger birds." Think you get the idea. Just do so as quietly as possible.

Polished off my last Weihenstephaner Heffeweissbier and a Rusty Nail. Been a long week.

Congratulations!

Ok, Copy all, and thanks for the replies. Looks like I'm either gonna have to get a good chunk of time at the community center or have my brother download the Feb patch, burn it and send it to me. Thanks again! V/R, Caesar

Salvete, Omnes, Had a question here. Being that I fly the F-14, F-8 and A-4 more than anything else, I hadn't tried to fly the Phabulous Phantom in a while; indeed since the December patch came out! Well, recently, I figured I'd start a new mercenary campaign, but when I went to my arming screen, I was being assigned an IL-28. That's strange. Shouldn't I be in an F-4C or something? Well, I exited, came back, and was then randomly assigned a MiG-23 Flogger-B. That ain't right either! I tried to go to the pull-down menu to buy another jet, but couldn't. So I go back to single mission to find all but three Phantoms are gone! I have Israeli, German and Brittish phantoms, but no American models. Going through my install, I found that there are no files being pointed to in any F-4(x).ini, only paint schemes (i.e. no LOD directives, not even the aircraft name/avionics/data pointers at the top of the file!) I figured I might be able to extract the LODs and other files to try to force the sim to see the planes as if they were third-party mods; ran each ObjectData cat file through Cat Extractor, and no LOD files were found. Apparently ObjectData005.cat is completely gone. I'm running a combined install of SF2, SF2E, and SF2I (why I haven't gotten SF2V is beyond me, guess it just skipped my mind) patched to December standards. The thing is, I had the Phantoms prior to the December patch, and they dissapeared after being patched. Anyone else experience this/know of fixes, or am I looking at a re-install? Thanks for responses! V/R, Caesar

Good to see you at CA again, C5!

Concur, Jon, that be it! Typhoid, aren't you on that recording?