streakeagle

One little problem with using the SF series for modeling orbital flight: the game uses a flat square map with solid wall boundries. In other words, you can't orbit! If you enjoy orbital physics, I suggest you try the free sim, Orbiter. Besides the stock Space Shuttle, there are some great user made addons including Mercury, Gemini, Apollo and some sci-fi stuff like the Eagle from Space 1999.

There is a huge difference in turn performance between F-4s with the hard wing and the slatted F-4E, F-4F and F-4S, both in real life and in the game. Do some 1 vs 1 against a MiG-21 using the single mission provided by TK (you can change the F-4 to any type available for that date after you start the mission). A hard wing Phantom cannot get behind a well flown late model MiG-21 even using the vertical. The F-4 must either get a head-on kill or survive long enough for the MiG-21 to run out of fuel and disengage. The slatted F-4E can almost turn with the MiG-21 and has a fair chance of getting into a firing position. Make no mistake, the MiG-21 was an excellent fighter in a dogfight against the F-4 in terms of flight performance. The only reason F-4s did as well as they did against the MiG-21 due to a combination of factors: pilot skill, view from the cockpit (MiG-21 pilots were pretty much flying blind, even compared to the F-4), and weapons/avionics. With a decent bubble canopy and Western avionics/weapons, the MiG-21MF and MiG-21bis would have been very competitive against the F-16. In the game, AI flight tactics and possibly FMs have gotten much better with the release of SF2. I used to be able dust MiG-21s easily in any version of the F-4 without a gun and could even beat MiG-17s with some patience. Now, the unslatted F-4s are total dogs against AI MiG-21s and MiG-17s and the value of the F-4E with its internal gun and maneuvering slats can really be apprectiated, especially if the only IR missiles you have available are the AIM-9B/E/J series or AIM-4Ds. Now, if I fly fearlessly/carelessly trying to maximize my kills, a MiG-21 will sneak up behind me and get me with either an Atoll or guns. The last time I remember that happening with any frequency was the old SFP1 SP2a patch level, though WoI marked a big step in the right direction.

Absolutely outstanding! I love the T-38A in Thunderbirds scheme and with bump mapping it looks even better yet. Keep up the good work!

I just got around to installing BoB 2.10 + Battle of France (with new 3d models) on Windows 7. Again I can't praise this game enough. It is clearly one of the best sims you can get if you don't mind focusing on the Battle of Britain. Sometime this year there will be a version 2.11 patch with even more features and before that happens, there will be a Tiger Moth flight training addon.

Thanks! Grumble... Grumble... Grumble... The last "happy birthday" I had was when I turned 21. Since then it has been all down hill. 42 today. Yuck. If I died my hair and lost 25 lbs, I wouldn't look much different than I did at 32 years old.

File Name: Wings Over Israel MiG-21 Cockpits File Submitter: streakeagle File Submitted: 18 Feb 2009 File Category: Jet Cockpits MiG-21 Cockpits for WOI ----------------------------------------- ORIGINALLY BY: MAGO aka PALADRIAN, BADGER the BAD, & FUBAR512 Modified for use with WoI and multiplayer by: streakeagle Released with permission from: PALADRIAN ----------------------------------------- INSTALLATION ----------------------------------------- Extract the "Objects" and "Sounds" folders from the WOIMiG21 zip file if you have not done so already. Copy these two folders to your main Wings Over Israel directory. That’s it! I have also included the original documents from the other cockpit releases. ----------------------------------------- COMMENTS ----------------------------------------- This mod proivdes only a basic package. It upgrades all of the stock MiG-21 variants in Wings Over Israel to be flyable. It primarily adds 3d cockpits previously released for SFP1/WOV/WOE MiG-21 mods. They are slightly tweaked: 1. Increased transparency for all glass. 2. Removed head-bobbing, which made gunsights too difficult to use. 3. Added preview patches to each skin. 4. Translated the Arabic decals to make lists for selecting the nose numbers. 5. Other files such as flight models and weapons loadouts were omitted. Omitting the custom flight models and loadouts ensures 100% compliance with the stock game. This mod allows hosting/joining multiplayer sessions with others using stock installs. The addon does provide two advantages over pure stock installs: radar and rwr support. AI MiG-21s already have these systems as they should, so can it be considered cheating? This mod also ensures that the AI will continue to function as Thirdwire intended. So, game balance and campaign play in single player are unaffected. Yet, the MiG-21s are now flyable with appropriate 3d cockpits and avionics. I have included a text file listing real nose numbers from photos. This list could be used to make the game's nose decals more historically accurate. Click here to download this file

That is certainly one reason why you can fly long range missions without refueling. Another reason is that the drag coefficients are usually too low allowing a much lower throttle setting (and lower fuel consumption) to maintain high subsonic speeds.

I didn't build the cockpits, I just made it so you could drop what was already available into the game without disturbing the existing flight models. The person who made the cockpits used his references to make the most accurate versions he could from the photos available. However, some cockpits were reused between similar types. At the same time, the stock 3d models of the MiGs are not necessarily 100% accurate since you weren't meant to fly them and should only see them from a distance while fighting them not as much time was spent detailing them. If want specific issues addressed with the cockpit details, you will have to contact the modders who created them. If you would like to see fixes to the exterior 3d models, go to the third wire forums and identify the faults to TK (with supporting documentation to support your claims). I don't see Third Wire making any stock flyable MiGs any time soon, if ever. Thankfully, some people fill in the gaps missed by TK FOR FREE!!!

The N-102 Fang was Northrop's proposal to compete for the USAF F-104 contract. This aircraft deserves a life in the SF series as much as any other "what-if"! Go here for some info: http://sobchak.wordpress.com/2009/08/10/northrop-n-102-fang-il-progenitore-del-moderno-caccia-leggero/ Like the F-104, it was to be powered by a single J-79 engine. The layout is very similar to the MiG-21, except that it has an underbelly intake scoop much like the F-16. When you consider the date of this design (1953), it was top notch. Unlike the F-104, I bet this baby would have been competitive in the turning arena while still climbing and dashing as fast as the F-104. For some reason, Northrop is always cursed when it comes to winning contracts and producing aircraft for the USA. Northrop designs are usually great, but almsot always get blackballed for numerous political and economic reasons. It is a shame it never got past the mock-up stage.

As Andy Bush pointed out, the Germans were one of the few users of the F-104 that had problems with high loss rates. The problem was that they were trying to use a high altitude interceptor as a multirole low-altitude penetrator. Because of the major stability problems of its configuration (i.e. the t-tail), Lockheed added an automatic system to push the nose down if the angle of attack started getting too high. So, if you are flying a lot of low altitude terrain following missions and you pull back on the stick too hard trying to climb over a ridge or pull out of a bombing run, the system overrides the pilot stick and pushes the nose right back down... into the ground. The t-tailed F-101 Voodoo suffered from the same problem, was just as dangerous, and ended up being tasked with a low altitude strike role as well. These t-tailed fighters with short, high loaded wings were disasters. If these countries loved the F-104 so much, Lockheed would have gladly sold them new ones at a real good price to replace them. As I have posted previously, those countries that could afford to do so replaced their F-104s. The F-104 was produced in significant numbers and served quite a long time in quite a few countries. But it was never meant to be a multirole fighter, which was what the main production version, F-104G, was supposed to be. In many cases, the US was giving them away via the Military Aid Program (MAP). For some perspective, the F-4 was not given away to allies. It was the most complex and expensive fighter built in large numbers until the teen series fighters replaced it. Yet, nearly twice as many F-4s were built than F-104s. F-4s were still in demand and being produced in the USA until 1979! F-4s are still in service with several countries to this day. If the Luftwaffe, Japan, and Spain loved the F-104, they could have bought more. Instead, they bought F-4s. The F-104 was a historical achievement: the first Mach 2 fighter jet (at least in Western air forces) with great climb rate, etc. But it simply was not that useful operationally, which is why the USAF never bought or used very many. The English Electric Lightning was pretty much a contemporary to the F-104 and the F-4. It was even better than either one from a performance standpoint with tremendous climb rate and decent agility. Many claim it was superior to the F-15. But like the MiG-21, it lacked in avionics and armament. I am at a loss as to why the Lightning was not developed further and the British chose to buy F-4s rather than rely on their own awesome aerospace industry. The F-104 never even had a shot of getting a British contract. They were mainly bought by countries that couldn't afford anything better.

If you believe this statement: "Other points..... no other fighters used the wing design? Yeah? And......? That just means there were other goals in mind. Has nothing to do with the price of tea in China. Ditto the T-Tail." I can't have a rational argument with you. T-tails are an absolute disaster for combat aircraft since they become ineffective when pulling high angles of attack. No fighters use t-tails. Likewise, low aspect ratio wings with high loadings optimized purely for speed are an equally terrible design choice for combat aircraft. The F-104 was the only design to go to that extreme and that mistake was never made again by Lockheed or anyone else. That isn't heated rhetoric, its physics. Most of the early supersonic designs had poor handling qualities, but the X-3, F-104, and F-101 with similar wing/tail layouts were all poorly designed for high angles of attack. Many planes and pilots were lost because of this design. The F-104 looks cool and thanks to its engine, the J-79, was a world class technical achievement, but its combat record is less than stellar. It was only produced in significant numbers because Lockheed used dirty politics to force it on our allies seeking an affordable supersonic fighter. Those countries that flew the F-104 the longest were those that didn't have the budget to replace them. Some pilots did love the F-104 (Andy Bush at SimHQ is one of them), but most of those never flew the F-104 against MiG-21s and Hawker Hunters. I don't know what history you are reading, but the Luftwaffe hated the F-104. They kept upgrading their F-4s, though.

Looks like a compromise between the YF-23 and the Su-27. I would bet that it is a match if not better than the F-22 in terms of flight performance/agility, but the key to beating the F-22 is being just as stealthy while having a comparable radar capability. I have no idea how good the Russians are at making aircraft stealthy. But it sure does look nice.

For the most part, these are readily adaptable to the SF2 series, but the base bitmaps are the old 512x512 templates. Of course, most of the details are done with decals. So, if you don't mind less detailed panel lines, these skins still look pretty great. In some cases, you might be able to use the newer SF2 bitmaps. But on the one skind I converted (VF-92 1968), some of the unit colors are painted on the bitmaps. Also, some of the markings are on the decals and on the newer bitmaps, you have to edit the decals to mask out the stencils that have been duplicated (or paint over the duplicates on the bitmaps). I have gotten lazy, so I just used the orignal skins as is (with the bitmaps renamed as necessary to match the version of the F-4 they are being used on). I would like to see MyTai01, Sundowner, and Paul Nortess (Fist of the Fleet) combine their knowledge, attention to detail, and skills together to produce a single set of skins for all USN aircraft that would be near flawless.

Aspect ratio heavily influences lift/drag ratio and lift induced drag. The F-104 style wing was only used on a few aircraft: X-3, F-104, and X-15. The only use for that wing is low zero-lift drag, which is good for maximizing top speed if you have enough engine power to go fast enough to make enough lift without using much AoA. This wing is OK if you want to point your nose up, climb to 50,000 feet, level off, and go supersonic. It is worthless for just about anything else. With such a small wing, any external payload hung on pylons will quickly kill the low drag advantage by significantly increasing the zero-lift drag AND requiring a higher AoA to maintain level flight. The deltas and very similar swept trapezoidals (basically deltas with clipped tips) live with a higher zero-lift drag, but have advantages as transonic and supersonic speeds are approached. They are also much better than the short, straight F-104 wings at low speeds since they can generate quite a bit of lift at high AoAs if you have the power to compensate for the drag. The ultimate proof in the flaw of the F-104's wing design was the fact that virtually no other fighter aircraft used it in the 50+ years since it was originally designed. Modern high T/W fighters with LERX wings can go as fast or faster than the F-104 AND turn AND land at half the speed. The F-4's wing was already superior to the F-104 overall, but the F-104 had high-speed maneuvering flaps that made it a bit more competitive at lower speeds. Once the F-4E got slats that were equivalent, it performed much better than the F-104. The only other fighter in service with a wing similar to the F-104 was the F-5, but the F-5 wing was not designed with Mach 2.0 in mind, has a higher aspect ratio, and a lower wing loading. Once the F-5E arrived with a few refinements, it became one of the most agile fighters in the world at low speeds. The F-5's limitation was thrust-weight ratio, which was fixed two different ways: they heavily redesigned YF-17 and the very similar F-5G/F-20. The key upgrade Lockheed made to try to make the F-104 competitive with modern lightweight fighters was change the wing and tail (the t-tail was a huge problem as well... look how many modern fighters use those). But bad politics and a bad reputation kept the Lancer from ever seeing the light of day no matter how competitive it would have been. The F-104 was a response to Korean War F-86 pilots tired of having MiG-15s able to climb above them to safety and attack or retreat at will: boom-n-zoom energy fighters. But given the same data, look what the Soviet response was to the Korean war: upengine the MiG-15 and add a good gunsight, double the engines to make the MiG-19, but sweep the wing a bit more to get a higher speed. Neither were as fast as the F-104, but F-104s would have a very hard time consistently beating either one using guns or the AIM-9B. But the MiG-19 was the contemporary of the F-100, the Soviet match for the F-104 was the MiG-21, which was as fast as the F-104 AND could turn better than any other Mach 2 fighter. The price the MiG-21 paid for its advantages were short range/low endurance and very little payload. In daylight conditions with ground controlled intercept and well trained pilots on short range intercept missions, the MiG-21 was clearly the most effective fighter of its generation (think Vietnam). But, mess with any one or more of those variables, and the big F-4 style fighter dominates (think Israeli wars). Many Arab MiG-21s were lost to empty fuel tanks that didn't get counted towards the Israeli's arleady superior kill ratio. The Fang would have been the US equivalent to the MiG-21: no range or payload, but a hell of a fast, agile aircraft. The F-5 was more or less a more marketable derivative of the same development path using smaller, cheaper engines and not trying to optimize the design for top speed. I think if the Fang had been built and served in Vietnam instead of the F-104, the US would have gotten a better measure of exactly what type of fighter its next generation needed to be. The Fang would have done a great job as an air superiority type used for CAP and sweeps, especially if it had a refueling probe. The MiG-17 would been much less of a threat. The MiG-21 would have been dominated. The US might have built a fighter more like the F-16 or F-18 instead of the F-15 instead of waiting for budget cuts and political pressure to force them to build/buy lightweight fighters. As it was, as soon as the cold war budget expanded with Reagan's election, the military was back to making huge fighters. The F-22 is huge. Only advances in materials, engines, controls, and aerodynamics allow it to be more agile than smaller F-16s despite being larger than F-15s. But once again, the budget cuts have come, and the F-22s have been canceled. The US will be lucky to get a useful number of F-35s. The F/A-18Es may be less than impressive aircraft compared to the F-22 and F-35, but the Navy actually got away with buying them. After all this time, the optimum size for a multirole supersonic fighter jet in terms of dimensions and weight is still the size of an F-4 (compare the numbers with a Super Hornet, they are darn near identical if you don't look at the actual shape/layout). The F-16 size is much cheaper, but can't carry the payload and avionics you can cram into a fighter 50% larger.

The carrier model has to be built with aircraft on the deck. I believe the latest betas of Digital Overload's Nimitz class is availble for free with F/A-18 Hornets on the deck.

This is a thread about posting screenshots. I took some screenshots and posted them. End of story. If someone isn't happy with the content, then maybe they shouldn't have sold their soul to the devil... I mean done business with 05.

The successes of the F-105 against the MiG-17 is what helped seal the deal to make the gun armed F-4E. The F-105 was far less maneuverable than the F-4 and its pilots were only tasked and trained for strike missions, yet it was getting a good number of kills. After adding the gun, quite a few more MiGs were killed by F-4s than there would have been if no gun or gun pod was ever carried. I wonder how many opportunities the Navy missed because they almost never carried guns in Vietnam? Of course, the majority of kills were still scored with missiles, but the threat of the gun makes the enemy a little more cautious, especially with head-on passes.

CVAN-65 USS Enterprise circa 1968 with VF-92: By streakeagle at 2010-01-24 By streakeagle at 2010-01-24 By streakeagle at 2010-01-24 By streakeagle at 2010-01-24 By streakeagle at 2010-01-24 Notice in these photos as in my screenshots that 215 is an F-4B (67) with the RWR tail cap and chin pod, whereas 214 is an early F-4B with the slick tail and chin pod. TK's attention to detail on the F-4 variants (both inside and out) make the SF2 series well worth the money even if you are happy with the SF1 series. By streakeagle, shot with HP pstc7200 at 2010-01-24 By streakeagle, shot with HP pstc7200 at 2010-01-24

The weight quoted on that page is the maximum takeoff weight, which is much lower than an F-104G. But what matters is empty weight, so that if both are carrying the same amount of fuel and ammo, the one with the lower empty weight will have the better thrust:weight ratio. As for the efficiency of the F-104 wing: no other fighter used anything like it until stealth considerations entered the picture. It was a great wing for low drag but a poor wing for high lift. Aircraft dogfight at subsonic speeds and the ones that can generate the most lift at the lowest speeds are the ones that turn the best. Delta wings in one form or the other are the best for supersonic flight. Why else would Concorde and the Tu-144 use such wings given they wanted the best shape for high endurance at supersonic speeds. But if you have tremendous thrust with correspondingly high speeds, you don't need much of a wing, so the X-15 used a wing very similar to the F-104. In general, most fighter planes need to do more than fly straight and level at high speeds, so the F-104's wing turned out to be a very poor choice. Lockheed understood this and developed the Lancer to try to solve the problem, but the Lancer was a decade too late. The F-16 was a much better solution than the F-104 ever could have been. The N-102 Fang doesn't have the advanced body blending and LERX wing of the F-16, but in many ways, it would have been like having an F-16 long before the F-16 was even on the drawing board.

I think it was even lighter than the F-104. Sustained turn performance would have suffered much like the MiG-21, but thrust-to-weight would have been outstanding and improved as the J-79 improved. The USAF simply had no interest in light weight air superiority fighters and only bought the F-16 when it was forced on them. If this aircraft supported in-flight refueling, it would have made a huge impact on the air-to-air kill ratios in Vietnam. But it might have suffered the same endurance problems as the MiG-21. Of course, all I can do is speculate. If the F-5 had been designed with that kind of thrust-to-weight ratio and wingloading, it would have been even more successful than it was. Of course, that is what the YF-17 was all about. From the Fang all the way to the F/A-18 was a steady evolution. But the final F/A-18E/F design is anything but a cheap, lightweight fighter!

This was the first time I had a chance to build the mission to do this since the F-101 and F-102 became available. It is rushed, so the location is terrible (SF fictional desert) and the skins are defaults with whatever unit was programmed in by TK. To save time, I simply extracted one of TK's missions (F-4 vs MiG-21), put the MiG flight far away, then copy and pasted the player flight repeatedly only editing the start position. So, you have to be fast on the "pause" key or they start maneuvering to engage the enemy and/or merge toward a common waypoint. As I find the time, I will find a better location, maybe Germany? The pyramids? Low pass over a good looking base? Ultimately, I would like to do a little fraps video and have waves fly by: F-80/F-94/F-84G/F-84F/F-86A/F-86D/F-89, F-100/F-101/F-102/F-104/F-105/F-106, and F-4/F-5/F-111/F-15/F-16/F-117.

Yummy!

Generations By streakeagle at 2010-01-10

I love the mods, but I have been focused on flying mainly stock aircraft way back when I hosted multiplayer all the time. I recently started using mods again for several reasons: 1) There is no longer any multiplayer in SF2, so I don't have to match the host and or have clients match my host. 2) My 3 year old son likes to "fly" (more like crash) airplanes that match my models hanging on the ceiling or those in his die-cast collection, which includes aircraft like the C-130, Jaguar, and Constellation. 3) The release of the F-101 and F-102 allow me to fly the entire the Century series. 4) I also tested all of the Razbam stuff for compatibility and still love flying the F2H. The SF2 series makes it so much easier to manage mods, especially weapons and fuel tanks, that I don't mind suffering through re-installing mods corrupted by patching.

Impressive work. It is a shame that TK doesn't use an accurrate shape for the globe instead of forcing you to deal with the same problems cartographers have always had converting a curved surface into a flat one. While there are a few other game engine design choices that annoy me, the flat maps with miles scaled down to kilometers is a big limitation keeping this lite sim from being turned into a great hard core sim. But, TK only intends for this sim to remain lite and fun, so who am I to complain about the world being flat and badly distorted?