streakeagle

I never intended to be an A-1H fan and certainly not to release any mods for it. I was trying to do Vietnam missions for all of the famous MiG kills for the DRV terrain. For some reason, I started with the Vietnam A-1H MiG kill missions and really got into the history. In the process, I realized how flawed the skin was. I have always been disappointed with MarcFighters' skins lack of decals. The way the A-1H was mapped only amplified the problem: AK would be mirror imaged, so Marc used AA! I spent many nights experimenting with different decal combinations trying to overcome the mesh limits by consolidating decals while not filling up my video ram so much that the game was locking up. I couldn't make it perfect, but I am very happy with the final skin. I got as close to the photos as I could given my limited skinning skills ;) During flight testing of my missions, I found the A-1H practically unflyable due to cockpit visibility considerations. How are people supposed to fly a plane in combat if they can't even seed through the gunsight/canopy/propellor? Until someone does a proper pit, I find the A-4 pit plenty good enough for hunting MiG-17s :) Of course, at the time I was doing all of this, I noticed that the latest versions of the A-1H weren't even available for download anywhere. So, I posted the last version released by DO, my revised skin, my solution to the cockpit visibility problems, and my mission packs all around the same time. DO responded promptly with the "5.0" package. I haven't messed with that version at all. Maybe I should do some research and release a 5.0a mod to clean up the remaining problems? Anyhow, it is nice to know someone was actually using my last release :) When WOV came out, I was disappointed that it didn't come with the A-1H :( It also put a damper on my enthusiasm for making missions. Some day, I will get around to adapting my historical Vietnam mission packages to WOV and finish all the other ones I had planned.

I grew very fond of the A-1H while making the MiG Killer missions for it. So much so that I improved the MarcFighters' skin to be far more correct and released my custom ini at Avsim to make the cockpit usable for air-to-air combat by changing back to the A-4 pit and using a more transparent prop TGA. This is an outstanding aircraft that deserves to be modeled as well as any other rather than the "officially" released mess.

I will be adding more later, but I am taking a break for a while.

SFP1 fell to zero flying activity, so I have finally stopped switching between hosting SFP1 and WOV every day. I do have a copy of Strike Fighters Gold now. I am willing to host SFP1 or SFG by special request. Just contact me via the forum or email me to set up time. Every day from 25 Mar and later is WOV, except by special request. Thursday (24 Mar) was WOV Wednesday (23 Mar) was SFP1 & WOV Tuesday (22 Mar) was WOV Monday (21 Mar) was SFP1 Sunday (20 Mar) was WOV Saturday (19 Mar) was SFP1 Friday (18 Mar) was WOV Thursday (17 Mar) was SFP1 Wednesday (16 Mar) was WOV Tuesday (15 Mar) was SFP1 Monday (14 Mar) was WOV Sunday (13 Mar) was SFP1 Saturday (12 Mar) was WOV Friday (11 Mar) was SFP1 Thursday (10 Mar) was WOV Wednesday (09 Mar) was SFP1 Tuesday (08 Mar) was WOV Monday (07 Mar) was SFP1 Sunday (06 Mar) was WOV Saturday (05 Mar) was SFP1 Friday (04 Mar) was WOV Thursday (03 Mar) was SFP1 Wednesday (02 Mar) was WOV Tuesday (01 Mar) was SFP1 Monday (28 Feb) was WOV Sunday (27 Feb) was SFP1 Saturday (26 Feb) was WOV. Friday (25 Feb) was SFP1 and crowded all day long! Thursday (24 Feb) was WOV. Wednesday (23 Feb) was SFP1. Tuesday (22 Feb) was WOV. Connection went sour after 10 pm :( Monday (21 Feb) was SFP1 again. Sunday (20 Feb) was WOV. Saturday (19 Feb) was SFP1 and had a great turnout in the evening. Both servers are clean installs with the latest official patches and addons (no mods of any kind !): Service Pack 3, F-4J, and A-4F for SFP1 Patch 1 for WOV. This has proven to be the best setup for attracting useful numbers of players. However, I use all hard settings, so my servers aren't very friendly to new players who rely on icons and don't know how to handle the F-100, F-4, and F-104 at high angles of attack. Perhaps this is a mistake on my part since easier settings might be dramatically more popular like the mod-free installs. But I reserve the right to be selfish: as long as I find people showing up and flying with me, I'm not going to make things any easier. Hosting SFP1/WOV mutliplayer is no fun for me if I can't enjoy it. I would like to put the "sim" back in "flight sim". If others start providing hosts with icons and normal or easy settings, I am sure some if not most online players will migrate to those "arcade" servers. But for now, I am rid of the silly icons and easy flight models that I absolutely despise ;)

Finally, a performance chart: MmaxAltitudeTable Mach maximums plotted as a function of altitude. Red = Twet (afterburner) Blue = Tdry (military) Keep in mind that the data points are sampled from the Altitudes of the AltitudeTable. So, I left the other button to get precise values from any altitude. This provides some very useful information! I was able to quickly see errors with the current F-4 flight models.

Awesome! Reminds me that I am still waiting for the rest of the Century series, especially the F-101 Voodoo.

Awright ya lazy bastiges, I gots most of the links I know added to the "Strike Fighters Sites" link list. Anyone that knows links I missed needs to get their tail in gear and submit the website links themselves. go here to check the list: http://www.combatace.com/component/option,...id,28/Itemid,4/

Another "Streakeagle"? Interesting. I have never seen that name used by anyone else besides me. It is so rare that the son of the fighter pilot that flew the world record setting F-15 Streak Eagle contacted me to find out why I use that name after my website popped up to the top of the yahoo search for "Streak Eagle" ;) Some other people must use it though, because I had to register my hotmail as streak_eagle since streakeagle was already taken. But I have never actually encountered anyone else using that alias.

Another great addition to the lineup :)

Technically I have always been here through the various site/forum moves of Biohaz. But I was never that active here since I spent most of my time at SimHQ. I hope everybody relocates here since I don't plan on posting at SimHQ any more. I hope the same "political correctness" that dominates so many other forums now doesn't creep in here. There are still too many damn forums to track beyond this one: C5, Third Wire, and lurking at SimHQ.

Okay, I am here. Will this forum really become the center of SFP1/WOV activity? I guess time will tell.

Once you have installed the WovQmd and have it pointing at the right map and mission folders, it is very easy to use. All you need to do is open the msn file, select the F-4J from the list, use the drop down list to choose any installed aircraft, then click save. Note pad works, but requires typing which could lead to mistakes since you need to type exactly the right thing.