streakeagle

It is a shame the F-104G could not still be in this package :(

Did you see the cockpit textures? My hi-res mods for the F-4 may have just become mostly obsolete! http://www.thirdwire.com/images/sf2_05.jpg You can see at least 3 different F-4 pits in the screenshots and the hi-res skins look great too. Look at the F-4E, it has the short gun muzzle, maybe even the hard wing with no slats? Strike Fighters and its 3d models are being brought up to the WoI graphics standard. It is already on sale and I have already bought it. Will install it and play later tonight... I am late for work now.

Historically, the North Vietnamese had so few MiGs while the USAF/USN had an overwhelming number of aircraft that the MiGs were generally restricted to flying radar directed point-intercepts of vulnerable bombers attacking North Vietnam. So, it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to create a separate campaign with no MiGs for South Vietnam action.

While I would be happy to fly a Cessna 152, Piper Cub (especially a tricked out Super Cub), or better yet a Pitts Special biplane... But I think getting the chance to fly the X-15 would be the ultimate: a spaceplane. The X-15 was to the space shuttle what Project Mercury was to Project Apollo. It was the small, sports car version of the shuttle. Like the SR-71, it looks advanced enough to be featured in modern sci-fi movies as a space ship. Space... the final frontier... Air is good, space is better

The Cobra maneuver as executed in airshows may be of little defensive value, but the point of the maneuver was to show how superior the Su-27 was to F-14/F-15/F-16 aircraft in high-AoA flight which translates into high pitch/turn rates and superior controlability at the limits normally used reached and exceeded during air-to-air combat. The F/A-18 was the only US fighter prior to the F-22 capable of similar performance, though of even less usefulness due to its much lower thrust-to-weight ratio compared to the Su-27. The ability to instantly point the nose of your aircraft in any direction without losing control is extremely useful both offensively and defensively since the best defense is a good offense: i.e. imagine being able to snap back 120 degrees to lob and AIM-9X at a target who thought he was pursing you. The US and Germany teamed up to build the X-31 to specifically explore post-stall maneuverability even more aggressive than the Cobra. While not as maneuverable as the X-31, the F-22 is certainly more capable than the Su-27 in this area. How many Su-27s have you seen perched at 5,000 feet with their nose about 80 to 85 degrees pitched up while the aircraft is moving horizontally at less than 50 mph, almost a hover? I have seen an F-22 do that while waiting to perform at an airshow and was duly impressed with the awesome controllability this displayed.

For perspective on aircraft technology, consider the time it took to develop and produce the A-12/SR-71 compared to the F-22. Sure the F-22 takes advantage of modern materials and micro-miniature electronic technology, but the idea for this aircraft started around 1980 and they are just now entering service in significant numbers over 25 years later. The A-12/SR-71 is in some ways still a more advanced airframe and propulsion system. It was conceived around 1958 and flying operational sorties by 1963. To me, the aerospace technology explosion peaked with the light-weight fighter program (F-16/F-17) and the last Apollo mission. The space shuttle was under-funded and as a result lacked the performance that would have made it truly useful and cost-effective compared to conventional rockets. Now the budget has shrunk so much, we are taking a step backwards to Apollo-like conventional rockets and to do so, we first have to ground the space shuttle so we can spend a few years funding development for its replacement. Imagine if the USAF had to ground the F-4 in the middle of Vietnam to afford development of the F-15 and that the end result was a based on the previous generation, the F-86. That is the direction our manned space program is heading. Fortunately, the commerical space industry is finally going the direction that NASA originally wanted: an orbiter with reliability, maintenance requirements, and turn-around time little different from an airliner... and if they succeed, not only will they have done it on a fraction of the budget NASA has ever had, but they will actually make a profit once fully operational. If anyone can pull this off, Burt Rutan can. He is already an aerospace engineering legend, but if his work on a commercial space shuttle is as successful as it promises to be, it could put him up there with Werner Von Braun and Kelly Johnson.

Had the money kept rolling in and NASA continued to be lucky in terms of avoiding fatal accidents, we were supposed to have a permanent moon base by 1980 and be attempting a trip to Mars by 2010. Living on the moon would have accelerated the R&D necessary to survive an extended trip to mars as well as providing a great staging area/launch platform. Even with the current space station in place, the limited budget has kept the pace of advancement down to a crawl compared to the Mercury/Gemini/Apollo whirlwind. Space travel costs, how far do you want to go? I am of the opinion that it is critical to the survival of the human race for people to permanently live on Mars and/or any othe inhabitable body in our Solar system independent of all support from Earth. That way if a catastrophic disaster kills off everyone on Earth, humanity will still be around. Of course, if we are able to spread to other locations in our solar system, then our next goal should be to get to another star system before our Solar system dies. We need to simultaneously dump a ton of resources in Mars colonization via conventional technology and alternative sub-atomic faster-than-light theories that might be extendable to the macro world. It would be cool if before we could build a conventional spaceship to get to Mars, we figured out how to instantly jump there within the next 10 or 20 years

As I figured, combat is a downgrade compared to anything released since 1999... But, when used for its intended purpose (learning to fly airshow routines), it is both fun and challenging. Basically, you see the required flight path in the sky as a flat ribbon. You fly the path as closely as possible staying withing the ribbon by pitching and rolling. You are scored on how well you can match the ribbon in %, so 100% represents a perfect flight. If you aren't flying solo are flight lead, i.e. you are wing or slot, you can focus more on staying in formation instead of imaginary ribbons (such things can be turned off if you think you can fly the routine without them). The problem I see is that the view system is lacking for proper formation flying... TrackIR is unsupported and your view always auto centers. As yet, I am unsure of how well multiplayer works. With good net code, it could be the best way to play once you get the basics down in single player.

I met a former Romanian MiG-29 pilot on a jobsite one time. I had no trouble grilling him for as much information as he could give me. There was a bit of a language barrier, but he had picked up English very fast in the year he had been working here as a maintenance supervisor in an injection molding plant. It bothered me greatly to see someone who once flew fighter jets working so hard for so little money. I hope he succeeded in transitioning to commercial flying in the U.S. I have forgotten his name, but always wonder what happened to him.

It isn't that much more to get a 4870 instead of a 4850, so why did you take the lesser card? If I were building a PC right now, I would bet getting a 4870 with 1GB RAM. But I won't be building any PCs until I move to Kissimmee... need to keep cash in the bank for down payment/closing. After I move and see how my finances are doing, I will start looking at new PC options. By then, AMD might have a competitive cpu which will help drive prices down even lower than they are.

But TK had very specific terminology: A service pack was a major update to the core engine that in later implementations (starting with the 051506 service pack) could be applied without installing any prior service packs or patches. Whereas the 083006 patch consisted of minor fixes and required that the 051506 service pack be installed before it could be applied. So, you must have both the service pack and the patch to achieve the 083006 standard or a downloaded version of the games which have single file installation exe files that install the game already patched to the 083006 standard. Originally, with SFP1 TK required each service pack to be applied in succession to try to keep the download size as small as possible. Over time, high speed internet became a lot more common and some people were having issues with applying the right patches in the right order, so TK made the 051506 "rollup" service pack to simplify the process. Obviously, TK has completely given up trying to manage minimize internet bandwidth for both him and his customers, as he now makes nearly every patch a complete standalone capable of patching any installation at any prior patch level up to the current level.

If you buy (bought? don't know if TK has updated them yet) the download versions of the game, they install already patched to 083006... so no worries about patching anything. Of course of you want to play an earlier version (especially SFP1) you still need original CD releases, but is there anyone still interested in flying SFP1 at SP1, SP2a, or SP3 (post WOV) levels? SFP1 patches were initially called service packs. SP2 had a major glitch, so TK re-released it as SP2a. The release of WOV led to SP3 for SFP1 to bring it up to the same standard. AI and FM problems in WOV led to a series of hotfixes which started to confuse the service pack naming convention. The release of WOE marked the end of the original service pack 1-2-3 designation system. TK switched to using dates, which made a lot more sense since WOE had no service packs while SFP1 would need its fourth service pack to be brought up to WOE standards. The 051506 service pack for SFP1 was never officially called SP4 (which would have been SP1 for WOV). The 083006 patches were the cumination of various hotfixes for WOE (which never had a service pack). The release of WOI has marked a slight modification to the service pack/patch naming convention to make the release date more clear. According to TK, this is the final update for SFP1, which is technically SP5... an amazing number of major updates for any sim. If you can live with the AI, SP4 is fine... but the October 2008 release is better in so many ways: terrain, AI, weapons performance, damage modeling, formation commands, etc. The only consistent flaws I see in this latest revision are AI ground impacts when being tailed and difficulty ordering your wingman to attack your target. But having both friendly and enemy AI capable of getting missile and gun kills and Sparrows that actually miss a lot of the time especially at low atlitudes are worth these two little flaws.

Historically, no single political entity be it a mere country or intercontinental empire has lasted indefinitely. The last vestiges of the British Empire are still lingering, but has definitely been on a downslide since the rise of the United States from WW1 to WW2. The United States may as yet get stronger before it is supplanted by the next world superpower or it may already be on the verge of disintegrating... only time will tell.

Matrox has resolution limits for there triple-head system. I am pretty sure they can't do 3 monitors at 1920x1080. For now, I think the best option would be a 1080p HD projector for screen size (though a 65" LCD isn't too bad). But for resolution, the 30" monitors at 2560x1600 would be impressive... especially with high resolution cockpit textures. Whenever I get around to building a new PC, I may get a monitor at that resolution as I greatly appreciated the jump from 1024x768 to 1600x1200. My current PC simply does not have the CPU power to match up well with a heavy-duty video card like an ATi 4870 or an NVidia 260/280. For that type of resolution, it would be even better to use SLi/Crossfire, but Third Wire games aren't supported for multi-gpu setups. So, I will keep dreaming...

Only 37"? I am much happier with 46":

I love MiG-21s. Great video of the cockpit... love seeing gunsight and radar operation. Sound of the jet engine is nice too.

I think modern evidence/analysis of the Zapruder film is fairly conclusive as to how the "magic bullet" wasn't so magical and confirming the location of the shooter. However, there are still some strange contradictory events/facts that make me ask why does Oswald have to be the shooter? Oswald's background does make him look like a lonely loser that could have been a lone disturbed shooter... but if there was a conspiracy, it would have been hard to find a better patsy. But his background does include something that is exremely peculiar for the time frame: he managed to defect to the Soviet Union (how many Americans did that? and of those how many were ex-US military?) AND he returned to the US to live a "normal" life with a Soviet wife. This was the just after the era of the McCarthy witch hunt and the Cuban missile crisis! Why would the US take him back with a Soviet wife and not even keep an eye on them? Independent of Oswald, Kennedy was considered at risk and only at his own refusal did he not have a bullet-resistant bubble on his car, yet the Secret Service alters the route to one that permitted the "easy" shot at the slowed down convoy?... Mr. President, we have decided to choose an alternate root that will maximize the risk on your life and we are going to make sure the media broadcasts the new route so that everyone will know when and where you will be. The number of potential witnesses to various conspiracy theories that met untimely deaths is also still suspicious. Jack Ruby's assassination of Oswald was just a little too easy and convenient as well. Finally, for those that are so sure that JFK's assassination didn't involve any kind of conspiracy and was just a fluke, I submit to you the assassination of RFK. Compare those two situations to the shooting of Ronald Reagan: the lone nutcase was quickly and easily caught, was clearly the guilty party, and can be interviewed to this day. With the exception of Kennedy's death, Oswald should have been handled and lived through a trial just as John W. Hinckley Jr. was when Reagan whas shot.

A further complication of the CPU intensive nature of this series is the fact that dual/multi-core cpus are not supported... i.e. the games run on a single core. An Athlon 4800X2 (2.4GHz) is roughly the same as my Athlon 3800 Venice single core (2.4GHz). So, in this case, your 4600X2 (2.2GHz) is a bit more like running a 3500 single core. I run everything maxed out on my video card (FSAAx6, AFx16) and max out almost everything in-game for 1600x1200x32, but limit horizon to near, shadows to medium, and mirrors off to keep my fps typically at 25 to 35, though it still drops below 20s under certain conditions. I can tweak a few other ingame items like terrain to sustain 40 to 50 fps. Not sure why your performance at much lower settings (lots of medium) is still giving you such low frame rates. How much RAM do you have? I am running 2GB. How much video RAM do you have? I am running 512MB. When SFP1 was first released, it ran fairly well (30-40 fps) at 1600x1200x32 with FSAAx2 and AFx16 on a 128MB Radeon 8500, prior to that I had it running well at 1024x768x32 on a 65MB Voodoo 5500, my P3 1GHz PC had 1GB of PC133 RAM. Each game release after that pulled down my FPS. I had upgraded to a 9800 Pro 128MB and a P3 1.2GHz by the time WOV was out. I played at 1600x1200x32 with FSAAx4 and AFx16 but still had to leave shadows and mirrors turned off to keep FPS at 30 to 40. WOE dropped me down to the 20s to 30s. I built my current PC, which allowed me to play maxed out with mirrors and shadows at 45 to 60 fps, only busy places like Hanoi could take down fps with all the sounds and effects due to AAA and SAMs... especially all the "SAM launch" calls. First Eagles added all the ground objects and droppedmy current PC to 15 to 30 FPS... with a few adjustments, I could maintain 50+. WOI dropped me solidly into the 20 FPS range, forcing me to go with medium shadows and no mirrors with a near horizon to get my FPS back to 25 to 35 (normal horizon is playable but costs me at least 5 FPS). Its all about an increase in the number of objects and an increase in the texture sizes. It looks really good, but comes at a price in performance.

The SR-71 still looks ahead of its time... the aerodynamic lines are unsurpassed. I would bet application of modern materials and engine technology would allow a similar aircraft to be built in such a way that operational costs could be dramatically reduced... Or if cost reduction was unimportant, it could be given much higher performance. The question is, does such an aircraft already exist? Aviation Week rumored that some kind of military hyperspace plane/space shuttle (presumably the notorious project Aurora) has already gone out of service for the same reason as the F-117: too old and too expensive. If we can blow $700 billion on bad mortgages, surely we can afford to pump some money into the aerospace/defense industry to stimulate the kind of technology revolutions that occurred in the 1950s and 1960s due to the cold war/space race (which were really one in the same).

The current patches fixed the CTD due to the terrain pixel shaders, but TK's stated intent is to release new versions of the sims for Vista which organize the game files according to Vista rules. I am hoping he does the DX10 upgrade and multicore upgrade as well to more fully take advantage of modern OS and hardware (better yet would be a 64 bit version). He also may update the games to some extent with higher poly models with higher res textures. No exact release date was ever specified, but by the end of this year was the original goal.

Carriers may not do 100+ knots, but they are much faster than the usual public figures of 33+ knots. Nuclear carriers were required to be able to generate enough wind to launch aircraft no matter what the wind conditions. The aircraft carriers are the fastest ships in the Navy counting the PHMs that did 55+ knots. Submarine sonar techs estimate the speed at about 70 knots, at which point, the aircraft carrier is hydroplaning (bow out of the water) and making a bit of a rooster tail. I have never seen such a thing, but during my service, I met people who had.

The next round of copies will be the "Vista" updated versions. Of course, I don't have Vista yet, but once TK supports Vista properly, preferably with multicore and DirectX10 support, I will finally be able to justify building a state of the art machine with Vista (or better yet, Windows 7).

While I am not particularly interested in flying the Black Shark, I am very interested in the first true hard-core sim released since Falcon 4.0 I hope it is successful enough that the series continues so that it ultimately becomes the first sim to simultaneously be hard-core study sim and multi-plane survey sim. I do wish that they had not selected Star Force for their copy protection scheme, but I won't let that decision stop me from getting the first decent combat flight study sim released in 10 years. When is the English version due to be available for purchase?

I don't have access to Red Flag excercise results, nor do I have access to the simulation rules... So I have no leg to stand on to dispute your Red Flag claim. What I can say is that in high threat environments against enemies that did not have any pulse doppler radar, low-flying, high speed aircraft still took unacceptable loss rates. Strategic bombers always flew high to avoid losses, ever improving SAMs forced them down low since it was presumed losses at lower alt, but stealth wasn't developed because the USAF just wanted to spend a lot of money... They didn't want to face the kind of losses encountered in Vietnam and 1973 Yom Kippur due to intense flak/SAMs/fighters. Pulse doppler radar and AWACS technology have only made the situation worse. Current Soviet radars were developed to try to detect, track, and kill Tomahawk missiles. I am sure they were successful to some degree and a B-1 is a whole lot bigger in size and RCS than a Tomahawk.

So, you think a lone B-1 could penetrate against AWACS with pulse doppler radar? The RCS of a B-1 is much lower than a B-52, but it is not a B-2... it can be detected and tracked on radar at respectable ranges. Beaming a radar to reduce doppler only works well if there is a single radar... a few well-placed AWACS make that tactic useless. Su-27 flights with active radars would further reinforce that. You don't need a look-down shoot-down missile to beat the B-1... you just need to know where he is. An interceptor like the Su-27 would have no problem catching up with the B-1 and closing to gun range, or even a WW2 style ramming attack if need be. A B-1 would be hard pressed to drop a nuclear bomb, or even a nuclear stand-off missile without being detected and shot down first. The goal of low-level penetration was to get in undetected. Low-level penetration was the stop-gap measure to penetrate until stealth technology could be developed. As stealth technology is defeated by new sensor technology (no doubt in my mind that it will be if it hasn't been already), we will be back to square one: How to penetrate defenses without taking high losses. In the mean time, the F-117 approach of flying high in the dark undectected by radar is the only safe approach against well-defended targets. Any bomb-truck with ECM and decoys available will do against undefended targets. In my opinion, the way to penetrate low level would be with very slow flying aircraft/missiles... Low doppler no matter where the radar is. So maybe something like a stealth blimp moving at 50 mph? Virtually undectable by doppler radar (if you turn the doppler filter down to that low of a speed, you get a lot of clutter).