streakeagle

If they sounded like they were lying, they wouldn't be very good recruiters ;) My Navy recruiter was very honest about almost everything, but he did distort his answers on my questions about the typical daily work schedule on a submarine. He gave the ideal, best case answers that made it sound like you could relax and enjoy the ride after putting in your 6 hours. He left out the drills, clean ups, training, qualifications, etc. that made it difficult to get the rest needed to stand a good sonar watch. Of course, as you get more senior, there were times when I was 6 hours on, 18 hours off, bored silly, and unable to sleep. Whereas, the days I went 9 hours on and 9 hours off made sure the time went by faster. But of course, a lot of the USAF types are 9-to-5-ers with a nice base to live and work on

I prefer dealing directly with the software writer. Plenty of distributors/major software companies have had problematic DRMs. My favorite one-man opearation, Third Wire, has had no DRM of any kind and you can re download the software at any time. If you lose your link, you can email him to get a reply with the same link. Now do I need to list all of the big names that charge you double what Third Wire does for a game and require you to have online access to not only activate but in some cases simply play the game? Aces High is a very small company and is extremely reliable with no DRM. The disaster known as StarForce was used in many major releases, never an independent developer. So, I would never claim adding middlemen is a benefit. Each company needs to be assessed individually regardless of size or reputation for EACH individual piece of software they release. I prefer no DRM at all, but as long as Steam doesn't go out of business over the next 10 years, I don't mind their system either. If I actually believed that Steam would be available the way it is now for the rest of my life, I would even say it is the best way to go. Otherwise, any software that requires me to communicate with a server to activate an install will eventually be worthless when that server is no longer available.

On the one hand, it is really a very minor change. On the other hand it is revisionist history, i.e. altering historical facts. Where does it stop? To meet German laws, photos with Swastikas have to be retouched, model airplanes have to leave those decals out, even games have to delete them entirely or make them an optional download. For me, the ultimate is in the country that made freedom of speech one of its founding principles, I can burn the national flag, an effigy of the President, or even make crude cartoons about God/Jesus of the dominant religion, but the moment you talk about burning the Quran or having Mohammed appear on South Park, it is the end of the world. So, people within the USA can do things that are utterly offensive to the majority of our own population, but they are severely discouraged from doing the same types of things if outsiders threaten to react violently? The system has been utterly broken since the emergence of the term "politically correct" -- which is quite the oxymoron as most politicians say and do things that are anything but "politically correct". The editing was far superior on the Dambusters video... so, I liked that one much better even if I am more of a Mosquito/633 Squadron fan. There was a movie made in the early 80's that had clips from the Dambusters, one of my all-time favorites: Pink Floyd the Wall, and they didn't dub out the name of the dog either!

The lines of a Spitfire are timeless. Just looking at them from various angles is so pleasing to the eye :)

It is a known bug recently reported at the Third Wire forums to TK. USAAF is there to support the P-51 Mustang which can be flown before 1947 when the USAF came into existence. However, the game engine seems to randomly toggle between the two names independent of the date you are flying. TK is looking into it. There are a number of glitches in the latest patch release, so I expect a minor bug fix patch as fast as TK can investigate and correct the bugs in this newest release set.

What about "department stores" ?

The F-14 sim will be the first to drop support for DX9.

There was a proposal (late 70s?) to try to make special refueling trucks that could go fast enough to refuel an aircraft from the ground while the aircraft flew inverted. The artist concept I saw showed an F-15 upside down over a tanker truck with a refueling boom between them. Obviously, it didn't go past the discussion stage as it was obvious that the truck would have to be very fast and have a very long level run to be able to keep up with a jet fighter. Meanwhile, the fighter would have to be at the edge of a stall while trying to maneuver for the boom while inverted! I don't know who proposed it, but it never should have even reached the artist concept phase!

Well, with high-end HOTAS, you pretty much get what you pay for (notwithstanding the Thrustmaster Cougar that orignally cost quite a bit AND needed aftermarket mods to fix its shortcomings raising the cost to the $800-$1000 level). I have had Saitek X-36 USB, X-45, and X-52 Pro. All of them are still operational, but the X-36 is not officially supported in Win 7. The insides of the X-52 Pro in terms of X and Y axis are much better than most until you get to the Warthog and Logitech G940. The G940 has far more problems than any Saitek stick I have had and costs a lot more, so I would not even consider that an option unless Force Feedback is really important. Given that I can't afford a Warthog right now, there are only two useful choices for a HOTAS: Saitek or CH Products. I don't like the F-16 style stick of the new Saitek. Doesn't interest me at all. So I have din't have a stick right now, the only two I would even consider are the X-52 Pro and the CH Products Fighter Stick. I could afford a CH Pro, but I much prefer the ergonomics of the Saitek sticks over the CH Pro, especially the throttles. So, from my perspective, there is only one stick I would buy: the X-52 Pro. There is a Thrustmaster that has advanced internal components, but I don't want a stick that isn't optimized for flight sims both in terms of appearance and functionality. Aside from the Cougar and the Warthog, Thrustmaster products seem to be about as good as common Logitech sticks. The Saitek products were progressively becoming worse as the X-45 and X-52 looked more and more like some kind of kid's space toy and used cheaper and cheaper components compared to the X-36 USB. If the X-52 Pro had not provided a "black" stick with high-end analog axis components, I would be flying with a Figther Stick right now.

I got my X-52 Pro for $100 (special sale at GoGamer when X-52 Pros were just hitting the shelves). It is far superior to the X-45. Haven't really had any problems with it, but the centering spring design makes small movements a little sloppy when the stick is close to center. But compared to the X-45, it is way smoother. Saitek progamming software has always been a little buggy (been using it since 2000 with an X-36 USB on Win98SE), but the current release is fairly stable and gets the job done. If you can get one for $150 or less, the price/performance ratio is pretty good. Mine works as well as it did the day I got it and I have used it quite a bit over the years. For $200, CH Products becomes a better option and for another $100 more you could gamble on a Logitech with force feedback. If I had money to blow, I would get a Thrustmaster Warthog :)

There is a really old (likely incompatible as it was released in 2003) Red Flag campaign at avsim.com, it is a mod of Dave's original Top Gun campaign to use F-4Es vs F-5s. http://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?CatID=sfmup&DLID=41515

Graphics look good. Not my style of gameplay. The mouse and keyboard is used to direct the spaceships rather than "fly" them. Kind of similar to Knights of the Old Republic. Instead of needing first person shooter/flight sim skills, you need World of Warcraft button pushing menu selection skills. For instance, in SF series, you fly the target into your sights, then squeeze the trigger. In BSG Online, you select the target then use the mouse to point in the general direction of the target and it automatically fires. On the bright side, the spaceships look pretty good and you can dress in new or old style Colonial uniforms.

You can't download them. You must purchase WoE if you want the Third Wire LOD files for the AV-8A. TK is pretty open about what can be shared, but stock Third Wire 3d models are not on the list of things that can be legally uploaded and shared.

What wedding? Who's getting married? ;)

I recently had the same thing happen. The view control settings probably got reset to use the arrow keys instead of the mouse. You can go into the control settings, click on whatever is currently assigned for moving the view, then move your mouse to assign it to that role.

As it is, WoI was nearly up to SF2 standards and with only DX9 support, its performance showed it on my machine. Despite the slight degradation in performance, WoI looked so good and played so well that it was worth it! I even got some online multiplayer time with WoI. The AI improvement was the best part for me. For the first time AI would fly low and terrain masking would block and/or degrade radar and missiles. The F-4 lost its unrealistic ability to snipe with Sparrows unless the target was clear of ground clutter. This made flying F-4s far more challenging and historically accurate, especially if it was a variant without a gun. I had bought a new machine between WoV and WoE and it ran great even with mirrors and shadows. The only graphics setting I knocked down was Horizon to Near. With each release after WoV, my machine got slower and slower as increases in poly counts, texture sizes, pixel shaders, etc. took their toll. By the time WoI was released, I felt like I was playing on my old P3/Radeon 9800 Pro machine having to turn off mirrors and shadows to get good frame rates. The arrival of SF2 with DX10 support combined with an OS upgrade to Win 7 64-bit and a Radeon 4890 1GB brought mirrors and shadows back, though I still play with Horizon set to Near.

Now you need to do a skin for the proposed F-15N ;)

But I was primarily addressing your suspicion posted above as to what it was, regardless of what the "expert" said. The lady didn't know what she was talking about, but she knew it was mounted on F-4s and knew it involved heat-seeking... which is pretty damn good for someone who otherwise has no idea what an AAA-4 or F4H-1F is. It would be cool to have, but I wouldn't pay much for it just to throw it on a shelf or a desk. It would be much more interesting if they had the chin pod fairing to go with it.

She didn't claim it was the guidance system for the Sidewinder, she claimed it was installed in the F-4 to help guide sidewinders... The label on the device said: Cradle Carrying IR System F4H-1 & F4H-1F So what you have is the carrying cradle for an IRST from an F-4A or earlier with an actual F-4 IRST still in it. The name plates were intact (looked like new from this footage), so everything could be precisely identified if so desired.

I think my 1.2GHz P3 with a Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB is a better rig than yours for playing just about anything as long as my gpu memory is enough ;) The increase in texture sizes in SF2 could only hurt it as I used to resize addon textures down to SFP1 stock sizes to help out performance.

My rig is a dinosaur rig, but it has the 2 key components to make SF2 glide: a DX10 OS and a good DX10 card. SF2 is playable on XP in DX9, but I was in the 20-30 fps range with some 15 fps drops, not even doing heavy Hanoi/SAM missions. Switched to Win7 and HD4890, now play in the 30-50 fps range with some 20-25 fps drops even while doing heavy Hanoi/SAM missions.

If you have a Windows 7 PC with a decent DirectX 10 or 11 video card, don't hesitate to get into the SF2 series. Get SF2E to try it out. If you like it, get expansion pack 2 to get the built-in mission editor. If you are still happy, make sure to buy everything and then install them in the right order to get a hassle-free merged installation. There is really only one loss with the SF2 series: multiplayer, which is no loss at all for most SF fans. In all other ways, SF2 is noticably better: graphics, frame rates, RWR displays, aircraft variants, cockpit detail, AI, etc.

Because the sim has very few limits on addons, modders tend to make addons that push the limit of the current hardware, so it is difficult and expensive to try to future proof a PC you are buying now. The core game benefits from quad core and higher now, so if you have the cash/option, at least get a quad core. I am able to run the stock installations at 30-45 fps using my old 2005 AMD64 3800 / PC3200 2GB RAM / Radeon HD 4890 with nearly maxed out settings (limited horizon range and medium shadow quality), so any PC with a modern Core i5/i7 (or AMD equivalent) with the industry standard 4-12 GB RAM with at least a $200 GPU should keep up with a 60 Hz LCD display with vsync and maxed out card/game video settings. I would make sure any PC I build/buy has at least a decent 650 watt power supply to support maxed out single gpu card options. If you are the kind of person who insists on using multi-gpus, you need a much better power supply. But I don't think SF1 or SF2 support SLI or Crossfire, so if that is the main purpose of your PC, getting multiple gpus may be a waste.

There is not multiplayer in any SF2 games. Only SFP1, SFG, WoV, WoE, and WoI (as well as FE). If you want to try multiplayer in SFP1/WoX games, you need to make posts on all of the forums: Third Wire, SimHQ, CombatAce, etc. and/or hang out in either the sfp1 or WoV chat rooms in hyperlobby until you get lucky and have someone show up. I haven't seen anyone in hyperlobby for a long time, but I don't check that often anymore. Try staying logged in (and active) in HL from 8pm to 11pm EST for a week, and you might find someone if you are lucky.

I used to kill the text in the jet games... but it kills all messages. In the jet games, some status messages are things that you would easily know in real life, like what positions the flaps and speed brakes are in. Without such messages, it was a lot more difficult, i.e. accidently flying around with the speed brake deployed for awhile. But I can see in the WWI era, there are far less messages that you should have, if any at all. The file you seek is the huddata.ini which has to be extracted from the flightdata.cat file and put into the flight folder of FE, or create a flight folder in the mod folder for FE2. Among the things defined in that file is the location and font of the text. There are various ways to change that file to get what you want (my way was to move the text off screen, others had different and maybe better ways which I am sure can be found in the SFP1 knowledgebase somewhere). If you don't like the results, just delete the file to go back to system defaults.