streakeagle

File Name: F-105 Early Tail Numbers File Submitter: streakeagle File Submitted: 18 Apr 2010 File Category: SF2 Series Add On Skins This mod is a quick fix to revise the default camouflage skin to have the early tail codes. I have used the stock silver skin tail numbers and added the "USAF" above them using a stock Third Wire "USAF" decal. I have included an Excel spreadsheet listing the tailnumbers included and documenting as much as I know about that tail number. I have also inlcuded jpg files from the internet that show what quite a few of them really looked like. There are three basic variations: all white, black "USAF" with white number, and all black. This is a completely separate skin so it does not overwrite any of the stock skins. It is a copy of the default camo skin with ini edits to use the new tail codes. To install this, simply copy the "Objects" folder extracted from this download to the "Objects" folder of the desired install's mod folder. This pastes in the new skin for the F-105D and F-105D_66 as well as a new folder for the F-105 tail number decals. This mod may be used by anyone to do anything as long as it does not involve payware. The base decals were stock Third Wire decals, so they definitely should not end up being reused in any form of payware. Click here to download this file

This was just a hasty mod. Using the jpgs, better decals could be made. But some of them would need custom skins and/or decal ini files to get it 100% correct. The point of my mod was to stick to the stock generic skin which is far more practical for campaigns and historical single missions. I made this for me, but like all of my other self-serving work, I don't have any problems with sharing it (in the hope that someone else will pick up the ball and carry it further than I did). The documentation shows not only a wide variance in the tail numbering color, size, and location but also at least 2 or 3 ways to paint the camouflage scheme. The game engine only allows you to assign one skin per flight and a starting tail number index for the first aircraft in the flight. So there are limits to building historical missions with the aircraft skinned 100% correctly. The only way I see to get around these skin limitations is to make all flights contain only 1 aircraft. Unfortunately, this results in strange behavior for the AI. Independent aircraft will not provide mutual support they way a flight will. i.e. if you have a 4 aircraft flight that gets jumped by a MiG, they will all engage the MiG and/or cover each other's tail... especially if the flight leader is the one being attacked and/or counter-attacking. Four independent aircraft will try to complete their assigned mission as long as they are not directly attacked. Engaged aircraft turn and fight while unengaged aircraft continue to fly waypoints. In some situations, this behavior is preferable, but most of the time it is more realistic if the entire group fights or flees together. I have been working steadily on one simple mission, endlessly varying parameters to try to recapture as much of the historical situation as possible. I have varied aircraft placement and grouping, AI pilot quality for both sides, environment, formations, etc. This also led to these tail number decals, as I discovered what the aircraft involved in the mission probably looked like at the time. I intend to release the mission in several variants so others can see how the game engine works and play the version they like best. While I intend to provide a version that covers the mission from takeoff to landing, this will be the worst version to play since the all-knowing AI make it impossible to duplicate the original surprise conditions. The enemy MiGs could magically appear at a certain time to create the element of surprise, but where will the player's flight be when this happens? I am favoring the board-game style approach of placing the aircraft based on the locations during initial detection. But again, the all-seeing AI that reacts to aircraft directly behind and below them makes it extrememly difficult to surprise the AI. The stock formations keep the aircraft far too close together compared to historical doctrine. The quick fix for the fluid four is to break the aircraft up into individual flights, but as I mentioned before, the AI doesn't fly to smartly in that situation. So I am favoring having two pairs. Historical spacing can be used between the two pairs. If the 2nd pair is assigned to escort the first pair, they still work together and per historical doctrine, the flight leader becomes the primary shooter while everyone else maneuvers to protect the flight leader. But a stock flight of four is much easier to place and still behaves better in some ways. Presently, aside from these decals, the only other thing I have released related to this F-105 mission is my hand typed copy of the original USAF Red Baron report, which can be found here: http://bbs.thirdwire.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=7540

Throw the right kind of rock into an air intake, then tell me throwing rocks won't do :)

The missiles of the time were slaved forward, but the IRST gave you a display that let you steer your nose exactly onto the target. Then it was just a matter of waiting for the target to come within range of the missile seeker. Radar would eventually have to be used to confirm range unless you got within visual range. The F-4Bs original purpose was to intercept bombers with the mission specified as "fleet defense", which is rather defensive. The USAF F-4D added a lot more support for ground mapping and bombing, making it a much better multirole aircraft. The F-4E not only added the internal gun and slats, but had an even more capable radar and weapon system for ground attack making it by far the best multirole variant. Whereas the F-4J, like the F-4B before it, was focused on providing the best possible interceptor until the F-14 could be delivered. Of course, thanks to digital technology, the F-4J was at least as capable as the F-4D in the ground attack mission. IRST was less important because radar was starting to work really well, even in lookdown situations and the weight and space it would occupy was much better spent on ECM given the SAM threats encountered in Vietnam.

The effective range would depend on the environment as well as the target. Clouds are made of water which block, reflect, and radiate IR energy. At high altitudes with cold clear skies, IR would work very well, especially against targets flying at high speeds with heat not only from their engines but from friction. IRST is a tool commonly found on interceptors. The F-4 and F-14 were both fleet defense interceptors. The F-102 and F-106 were continental defense interceptors. Interceptors in all of these cases meant stopping high altitude and/or fast Soviet bombers and/or cruise missiles. While radar has much better range and isn't blocked as much by clouds, IR is passive and much higher resolution. Before the age of uncaged IR seekers, it was also a good way to find and track targets for IRMs which could then be steered in acquistion parameters. In broad daylight with clear skies, the human eye is more than adequate, but at night is when IRST really shines as a useful sensor. But modern Thermal Imaging which provides a video rendition of the target is much more effective at providing the same service.

I understand that some of the work is copyrighted/payware, but it will be great if all the stuff that was freeware makes it back into this other game. No reason why two separate communities can't build a bridge and work together, even if the other community doesn't have anything to offer back in terms of addons. TK certainly won't mind the free advertising if his sim series somehow gets mentioned or if the credits otherwise lead more people to his games. Of course a lot of modders like to have their name out there and have others appreciate their work, too. So this is a win-win situation except for the original thief. He could have been the hero having done all the work, but he had no concept of respect for other people or their intellectual property. At least some good has come out of it with the two communities becoming aware of each other.

The F-4B was the only variant to ever have the IRST. F-4Cs came with chin pods for commonality of parts to simplifiy and speed up delivery. Late model F-4Cs and early F-4Ds had no chin pod. The chin pod was brought back for F-4Cs and F-4Ds to house RWR antennas. I can't recall off hand, but I am pretty sure even the F-4Bs eventually gutted their chin pods for RWR antennas, especially by the time they were converted to F-4Ns. The lack of the IRST on the F-4J should give you an idea of how much this system was liked/used by the USN. Of course, IRST showed up on the F-14A only to be replaced by TCS. Then both IRST and TCS were installed on the F-14D.

For the record, Jane's F/A-18 Superhornet was modded to allow flying the F-14, though it really is an F/A-18E in terms of flight model and avionics. LOMAC may have been modded the same way, so that at least graphically it looks like you are flying a Tomcat. But TK's new SF2 based sim should be the first one to do it right in a long time. However, his sim-lite approach may leave a few people disappointed.

While it would be nice to have a properly backlit control panel, I don't think TK will ever get around to doing that. As it stands, I almost never fly at night, so I didn't even realize the night lighting was broken in SF2 until I read about other people having problems and confirmed it for myself. Most of the historical missions I am interested in re-creating took place in the morning/afternoon and when I am flying just for fun, I enjoy dogfighting much more when I can see :) Now, for those simulating 1990's and later combat, you had better like flying at night since the US now uses this capability to reduce losses against our not-so-night capable enemies.

You have to change the aircraft type in the flight definition as well as the mission. The first entry you find is for descriptive purposes. Find the player's flight and edit the aircraft type in that flight to change what you are actually going to fly.

Cockpit lights were broken for awhile, but I saw someone report that the latest March 2010 patch fixes it. There is no command key to turn them on or off. I believe you are correct in assuming it is determined by an ini file, based on the time of day. When they work correctly, the pit has a dull purple glow, like this (just made this using SF2I with latest Mar 2010 patch): By streakeagle at 2010-04-10

J79 turbojets were thirsty engines and the F-4 fixed wing was optimized for Mach 2 not subsonic cruising. A swing wing F-4 with Spey turbofans (20,500 lbs of thrust each) would have down well with endurance and range. The F-14 was very heavy and used the rather poor TF30 engines (only 20,900 lbs of thrust each in a 60,000 lb plane). Of course, the British F-4s with Spey engines never got the full benefit as the installation altered the lines of the F-4 increasing its zero-lift drag. Given that the Phoenix was never really used or needed, why pay all that weight and money for it? AIM-7s held the line until AMRAAM finally became operational, and maybe AMRAAM could have arrived sooner if no time or money were wasted on development and fixes for the AIM-54C (which had a lot of problems). But whether the F-4VS would have been an acceptable downgrade is now moot. The Navy downgraded to the F/A-18E. Aside from avionics, limited stealth improvements, and the fact that they are brand new airframes, the F/A-18E is inferior to the F-14D in almost every way. Present politics prevents getting the best equipment. If you get anything at all, it better be cheap to buy and maintain.

All USAF variants retained the twin stick configuration: F-4C/D/E/G and RF-4C

SF has always been more satisfying for me. More about close in fighting than modern era AMRAAM style jousts. SF2 is even better. But if you are an F-15 or A-10 fan, LOMAC gives you the ability to learn a lot more about how to operate one than the SF series ever will. Of course, eventually DCS will do an even better job and FC2 will be the lite survey sim companion for DCS. While Falcon 4 may arguably remain the best hard core sim ever released, DCS may give it a good run on the cockpit portion of the simulation and certainly has much better graphics. I want a hard core F-4 Phantom / MiG-21 sim with multiplayer support, including the option to have a player controlled back seater that can operate the radar. If anybody ever does that correctly, that is where all of my free time will go. Until that time, SF is the only sim series that even comes close to giving me what I want without going back to Janes Fighters Anthology.w

I installed a clean unpatched LOMAC (original stand-alone Ubisoft version), installed FC2 and have had no problems. I have an HD 4890 1GB and it seems to like this sim (haven't really had any problems with any sim). I would bet on the relatively new 5850 and its drivers being the culprit.

All problems of inhabitants will be resolved the day the Earth runs out of resources. Some people want to fight wars, others want "free health care", but only a tiny few see every dollar spent on manned space flight to other planets as money well spent. Even if the entire world made an all-out effort to get to Mars and beyond, we might not make it there before our species faces extinction. But I know for sure we will never make it if we can't find the money to put men in orbit aournd the Earth or build a moon base. Without continuing significant research into manned spaceflight, this story has only one ending. Israel, the Palestinians, and everyone else will all die someday when we run out of either energy, air, or water or suffer some other catastrophic ending. With a lot of hard work and a little luck, humanity might be thriving somewhere else when this planet or even this solar system goes extinct. Too bad that most people are more interested in their own petty lives or in killing others in the name of their righteous religions and/or governments. Of course, a few world leaders could save us all the trouble and turn the world into a radioactive wasteland just to put us out of our misery.

Not knowing that there would be no World War 3 and that the F-14 would be retired without ever extensively using the Phoenix system in combat, the F-14 was the much better choice. But I think the Navy learned a lot from the F-14 and F-18: better to buy cheap less-capable aircraft and have them than go for the gusto and end up with few or no new planes at all. The F/A-18E was not the plane the Navy wanted, but so far it has held the line until something newer/better can replace it. Whereas the USAF put all of their eggs into the advanced next-gen stealth basket and have had to send all of their pilots into combat flying aircraft with extremely high hours on them and will get practically no return on all the money they spent on the F-22. The Navy has newer Super Hornets and will get F-35s just like the USAF. With 20/20 hindsight, he F-4 swing-wing could have held the line for a lot less money than F-14 until the Super Hornet took over.

A late but sincere Happy Birthday to ya!

I fly only on Hard settings, and per reality, my F-4Js don't carry gunpods, just centerline fuel tanks. Maneuverability also varies greatly with loaded weight. If you start a mission with 100% fuel, aircraft with high fuel capacities are at a major disadvantage. US aircraft are almost always not only larger in size, but carry lots of fuel. Aircraft with a low fuel fraction, like short range MiGs, don't gain as much performance as their fuel bleeds off. As for beating MiG-17s or MiG-21s with an F-4J in SF2, if you are doing so with turn performance, you are either flying against numerous aircraft and getting snapshot opportunities due to crowded skies, or the AI isn't as the higher difficulty levels. To see the F-4J outclassed by a MiG-21, the AI has to fly the MiG-21 almost at its best as it is only better than the F-4 by a small margin, especially down low. The guys flying multiplayer tried the SFP1/WoX Oct/Nov 2008 patch level and found with player vs player that the MiG flight models behaved like UFOs compared to the old 083006 patch level, so they refuse to play with the newer patch level. Also, to really get the feel of being outclassed by the MiG-21, you need to fly without using any views other than from inside the cockpit, preferably without any padlocking. If you can't see where he is or what he is doing aside from seeing a few glimpses in the rear view mirror, it is difficult to get your nose around on him, since you will waste degrees turning in a direction he may no longer be.

I would be pleased to meet you as well. While I have greatly enjoyed meeting so many people all over the world via the internet, there is still nothing quite like talking with someone face-to-face. With Operation Flashpoint, I was able to build a local group that came over to play quite often. I never did play with anyone else via the internet unless it was one of the regulars that couldn't show up in person (usually one of the married with children guys). The first guys might show up and start playing sometime between 4pm and 8pm on a Friday or Saturday afternoon. The last straggler would leave sometime between 3am and 6am. During the peak hours between 9pm and 12am, I had as many as 7 other people over eating pizza, drinking beer, and killing Commies. Whenever we had 6 or more, we would play team missions with 3vs3 or 4vs4. Otherwise we played co-op or deathmatches. My wife is going to Colombia for 2 weeks very soon and she is taking my son with her, so I may actually get to have an Operation Flashpoint night or two while she is gone If only I could have had an SFP1 group like that. The guys that showed up in Hyperlobby and Hamachi to play online were scattered all over the world and had widely varying schedules. It was difficult to get a significant number to show up at the same time on any given night. While we did have 12 guys logged in at the same time on a dogfight server one lucky night, that didn't last for very long and we didn't have time to set up a co-op team fight 6 vs 6. My dream was to have 8 vs 8 with no AI aircraft at all. Now, SF2 doesn't even have multiplayer

Just give me a little notice when you are coming so I can make sure I don't end up with a schedule conflict. I have hosted tons of my wifes friends and family visiting from Colombia. I am long overdue to have someone I know visit. We just had some friends from Miami stay with us last weekend because her husband, an Army Reserve special forces officer, had to be at MacDill on Saturday. If I actually get to see you, it will be the first time I have gotten to meet anyone from the SFP1 community face-to-face. I just can't seem to meet anyone that lives near me with quite my level of interest in PC flight simming and Third Wire sims in particular. I can get people to play Operation Flashpoint or Star Wars Battlefront 2, but people with the patience and determination to learn ACM are very rare. I just hooked my brother-in-law up with a joystick and installed Aces High 2 on a low-end laptop. It struggles to do 20 to 30 fps, but it is flyable and he is loving it. If his laptop will run SF2, I will buy him 1 or more of the SF2 games as well since he is more interested in jets than props. If he actually likes it over the long run and does well, I may actually have a local to play multiplayer. Too bad SF2 doesn't do multiplayer

If you are down my way, I would be more than happy to have you over for dinner. You coming to MacDill on USAF business or bringing the family to Orlando for a Disney vacation?

I am satisfied enough with the stock SF2 F-4 pits that I haven't even bothered trying to retrofit any photoreal textures to them. The only missing detail that is bothering me is the McDonnell nameplate that should be on the lower right and that is such a low priority to me that I haven't taken the 2 minutes it would take to resize it and paste it into the stock texture.