streakeagle

Long before "Top Gun", there was a TV movie called "Red Flag" about an F-4 pilot obsesed with beating his old Vietnam War buddy who keeps kicking his butt with an F-5 Aggressor. It lacked the star power and music of "Top Gun", but the plot lines are not that much different. If you are a true aviation fanatic as opposed to being obseesed with the Tomcat, I think it is worth watching just to compare. The only real movie I can think of that showcased the F-4 to some extent was "The Great Santini", but the movie was more about the how the family of an alocoholic career fighter pilot struggled to overcome their problems with only a little footage of the F-4 at the beginning and end of the movie. The main character of the TV series "Call to Glory" (played by Craig T. Nelson) was and F-4 pilot, but it was more of a soap opera about life on the ground. A few episodes showcased various aircraft including the F-4.

Reread my post... it inlcudes the reference, an Osprey Combat Aircraft #67.

I am sure the Tomcat overshadows the F-4 and F-15 among its cult, and to a certain extent with the kids that grew up with Top Gun, but I am quite sure that the B-17, P-40, P-51, and F4U are as more widely known as American symbols than the Tomcat. After the WW2 generation, I am not sure which is more widely recognized: the F-86 or the F-4 and UH-1. Given the lack of coverage that Korea gets compared to Vietnam on TV, in the movies, and even in games, I am willing to bet the F-4 and UH-1 beat out the Tomcat as well. When I was a kid (prior to the movie Top Gun), more people knew and loved the F-4 and/or F-16 than the F-15 and F-14... and the all-glass-MFD Star Wars-like F/A-18 was viewed as out of this world. Yes, top gun made the F-14 a movie icon, but I think you will find that outside of Hollywood fame, the F-16 and F-15 have bigger fan bases. The F-16 is truly multinational and pretty much known and liked by everyone who flies it. The F-16 also got a nice plug from Hollywood from Iron Eagle. Despite its abilities and combat record, the F-15 has never been as much of a popular showboat with the general public... until the Strike Eagle. There were two stars of Desert Storm as presented by the news media: the F-117 and the F-15E. The F-14 was pretty much benched during Desert Storm since its primary capability, the AIM-54, was too expensive and increased the likelihood of friendly fire kills. In the flight sim world, the F-16 is the clear winner with the F-15 and F/A-18 following in close for 2nd place. What computer geek hasn't played some iteration of the Strike Eagle series and/or Jane's Strike Eagle? The market meets the demand (if they want to make a profit), so the most popular aircraft get modeled over and over while some of the more interesting planes get passed over. When survey sims were common and carriers were covered, the Tomcat always got on the flyables list... but otherwise it has been all Strike Eagle/Fighting Falcon/Hornet. Meanwhile, the older more challenging aircraft like the 1950s and 1960s USAF and USN fighters were largely left alone... until SFP1 came along. I would say the Tomcat has been left out of flight sims because of: 1) its complexity, but then the Strike Eagle and Hornet were way more complex than the F-14A and got full hard-core sims. 2) the complexity of carrier operations, but the Hornet has those. 3) its 2-man crew, but the Strike Eagle has a crew of two and Strike Eagle 3 had the coolest feature ever: front-seater/back-seater co-op gameplay, only Dangerous Waters gives you that kind of gameplay in a hard core sim. 4) its age: the cockpit, like the F-15A looks more like a Vietnam era pit than the glass MFD look of the Strike Eagle and Hornet... Maybe I am on to something as there are not any truly hard core sims of any aircraft that don't have glass MFD pits. The only decent 3d sims were: Falcon series, Strike Eagle series, Jane's Strike Eagle, Jane's F/A-18, a few F-22 sims, and Flanker 2.0, which evolved into a the semi survey sim LOMAC. LOMAC is the only one that defies the glass pit cockpit rule... but then compared to Falcon 4.0 and Jane's Super Hornet, it is not quite a hard core sim. The most classic survey sim of all time, Jane's Fighters Anthology, featured both the Tomcat and the Phantom, but modeled all pits using generic pop-up MFD displays along the bottom of the screen. MiG Alley was the only jet sim without glass cockpits, but it was really an extension of Battle of Britain with the jet cockpits looking hardly different from prop planes. So it seems it is the generation between 1950 and 1980 that has been slighted by the fligth sim developers. It makes sense. The flight models are much harder to simulate than subsonic WW2 planes and digital fly-by-wire modern jets. The cockpits are filled with complex avionics that are difficult to model in detail. These aircraft have missiles and possibly radar, but they don't work very well and generally don't dogfight very well even if they do carry guns (F-14 and F-15 excepted on the dogfighting part, but their original missiles were Vietnam era and were not quite the AIM-120/AIM-7M/AIM-9M experience typically modeled in Strike Eagle/Falcon 4.0/Jane's F/A-18). So SFP1 is really the first sim that has even tried to model the 1950-1980 era decently with detailed accurate cockpits, flight models, and to a certain extent, the weapons and avionics. In that regard, the SFP1 game engine is a huge step forward from Jane's Fighters Anthology and Jane's USAF. Hopefully, TK uses the next release to add in the components needed to model the F-14A, AWG-9, and AIM-54A correctly, perhaps with a few carrier ops refinements? A combined historical/fictional Libyan terrain/campaign/mission set would be nice. Perhaps adding the F-111 to the stock flyable stable as well to permit the infamous "around France" F-111 raid? Though it would be more useful to provide A-4, A-6, and A-7 variants. Back on topic... I disagree with any assement that the F-14 is as American as apple pie as compared to the other "teen" fighters. In fact, most publications treat all four aircraft as one homogenous symbol of America's total domination of the air after Vietnam. Only the varous books on the individual aircraft ever really try to name one as being better than the others... and like the flight sim developers, they are just catering to their market. Who else is going to be reading a book on a jet fighter other than someone who is already interested in that fighter in some way?

Sharing 3d models and textures would be very useful. Both communities could benefit. But right now, Targetware mainly has WW2 planes, which could be useful for some SFP1 fans, but jets seem to be the focus of most people given they can already get WW2 planes from a number of sources. Targetware's lack of support for avionics and weapons of the 60's era and later means there isn't much use in porting SFP1 jets into Targetware yet either. So while I like the idea, I don't think it makes too much sense at the moment. If I were a 3d modeler, I would gladly share my 3d model with any sim community able to use it.

Which is why I poked fun at the Tomcat in the first place with the F-15 patch making fun of the 'anytime, baby' theme. You would think the Tomcat was the greatest plane that ever flew from the following it has... it is almost a religion! If you want to worship a plane, the F-4 Phantom is clearly the better choice: it was so good, the USAF was forced to buy it after it outpermformed more specialized aircraft in extensive "fly-offs". The F-4 was a better all-weather radar missile interceptor than the F-106. The F-4 climbed better than the F-104. The F-4 was a better strike aircraft than the F-105. The only thing the F-4 wasn't good at was turning with MiGs, and a few weeks of Top Gun school gave Navy pilots the ability to outfly the MiG-17 close-in despite being unable to turn... especially considering the Navy refused to put slats on their F-4s, which not only reduced turn performance, but made the F-4 very likely to depart controlled flight in an unrecoverable manner. While a few Tomcats still fly with Iran, the F-4 is pretty much flying with every air force who ever flew her (Korea, Japan, Israel, Germany, Greece, Turkey) except the USA, UK, and maybe Spain, predating Tomcat service by more than 10 years, yet still flying as a frontline interceptor and strike aircraft to this very day! Yet there are some people who harp on the Phantom as being at best a mediocre aircraft just because it couldn't turn as well as MiGs and didn't have a big bubble canopy. I wouldn't be surprised if F-4s were still in service long after the F-22 has been retired.

It was not possible to afford the better aircraft or the Navy would have bought it. I was in the Navy in the 1990s, the budget was axed on everything including people. The Navy was smarter than the USAF, at least they got new airplanes. The USAF decided to put all their eggs in the super expensive F-22 basket, now look what that got them. They can't afford to buy adequate numbers of F-22s and the F-15s are literally falling apart. Better to have new, slightly less capable aircraft on every carrier deck than have carriers with undermanned wings. If the F-14 wasn't so expensive, there never would have been an F/A-18. There is no doubt the F-14 couldn't perform every task filled by the F/A-18... the Navy could have created the F-14D in the early 70s. But even at the height of the Reagan era, there wasn't enough money to buy hoardes of F-14Ds. Now with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the money for everything is gone... No LHX, no Sea Wolf submarine, barely any B-2 bombers, etc. The loss of the F-14 wasn't a bad spending decision, it was a necessary one. Most taxpayers want to keep as much of their money as possible while still allowing to the goverment to provide the services they want and need. Continuing 1980's Cold War defense spending levels without a Cold War threat would have ultimately lead our government down the same path we push the Soviets: total collapse. To date, I don't think one battle has been lost or one mission has failed due to using a Super Hornet where a Tomcat would have. The Super Hornet is inferior, but only marginally so compared to the difference in price.

When buying an aircraft, cost effectiveness is a huge factor. Both the F-15 and F-14 pushed the limits when it came to cost, which is why the F-16 is the most produced western fighter in service right now. If you are going to dogfight, clearly the F-16 is better suited for that role than any other aircraft: small not only means agile, but also hard to see. But, dogfighting means risking your aircraft as even the best dogfighter can be beaten by inferior aircraft with correct tactics: think F4F vs A6M. Also, dogfighting requires good visibility. The original YF-16 was pretty much a daylight/fairweather dogfighter, fortunately it ended up with the APG-66 which gave it some night/adverse whether interception capability... but then its AIM-9 armament was still limited by those conditions. So, cheap dogfighters will not meet all mission requirements. Bring on the all-weather interceptors. Of course, Vietnam experience with the F-4 Phantom showed that even high-thrust-to-weight all-weather interceptors need the ability to dogfight: bubble canopy, good turnning ability, and a gun. Both the F-14 and F-15 were products of this experience. The F-14 leans more toward the long-range interceptor. The F-15 leans more toward the dogfighter. The tunnel between the engines allows big AIM-54s to be carried with less drag than when hung from pylons... not extra lift. Lift comes primarily from the large smooth area on the top of the wing. The F-14 only has outstanding lift when its wings are swept forward where its glider like high aspect ratio provides excellent lift-to-drag. The F-15 also enjoys a fairly low drag configuration from its conformal Sparrow carriage and enjoys the same large smooth area on top of its wing. What the F-15 is sorely missing is combat flaps and/or slats. These high-lift devices were omitted to keep complexity and cost down. So the F-15 has no variable geometry to make up for its fixed wing with a sweep angle optimized for supersonic flight. Even crippled in comparison to the F-14, F-16, and F-18, the F-15 still out turned all of the threats it was designed to beat using thrust to compensate for some of the missing lift: the MiG-21 and MiG-23. If you are willing to spend the money to buy an F-14D, then why not get and F-15C or F-15E with uprated engines? The only loss is the expensive AIM-54, and AMRAAM largely replaced the AIM-54 except in maximum engagement range. There was no conspiracy against the Tomcat... just the beancounters making the decision could see the existing ones cost quite a bit and building new ones would cost even more. Given the historical record, there was no encounter the F-14s handled during its service that the Super Hornet couldn't handle... though with a few more aerial refuelings. The AIM-54 ability was never needed nor was Mach 2.3+ speed. Can't fault the government for trying to buy what is needed rather than what is wanted.

Anytime, baby?... anytime before the last airframe was retired The F-15 may break into pieces if you pull 8gs, but it is still serving. If the Israelis aren't lying about their losses, the F-15 is the only fighter in history to go undefeated in air combat while also being one of the longest serving. Whereas Iraqis have some Tomcat wreckage to plant in their gardens. One guncam pic of an F-15 in an F-14 does not mean the F-14 was better at dogfighting. No doubt the Tomcat served long and well as a very capable platform... but when the Israelis needed a true air superiority fighter which did they pick and why? The Israeli evaluation team wanted to have a head-to-head fly-off between the F-14 and F-15 to really see which one was better in a dogfight, but the US would not permit that (I think the reason is obvious: neither service wanted to risk losing funding to their programs if Israelis tests produced a clear winner). So here is what the Israelis had to say about the F-14 versus the F-15 in dogfighting situations as quoted from Osprey Combat Aircraft . 67 Israeli F-15 Eagle Units in Combat: David Ivry, who headed up the IDF/AF's Air Department/Group from 1973 to 1975, had flown an F-14 from Naval Air Station (NAS) Miramar during a visit to the USA in early 1974. The sortie involved several Dissimilar Air Combat Training (DACT) scenarios against an A-4 Skyhawk flown by an adversary squadron. Ivry later recalled; "I was impressed with the F-14, even though it was heavy on the controls. The aircraft's engines were also sensitive, which meant that it was impossible to fly the Tomcat agressively as we would our jets." Israel Baharav was intimately involved in the evaluation of the F-14, and he later recalled; "During our evaluation of the F-14 and F-15 against the F-4 and A-4, we stuck firmly to the principles of the superior fighter versus the inferior jet. We prepared ourselves accordingly, and were thoroughly familiar with the performance statistics associated with all four aircraft. We instinctively figured that the F-14 and F-15 would carry more energy coming into the fight, but that they would turn more slowly than the A-4 in particular. Despite our preparations, we were simply amazed when we flew the F-15 against the F-4. The Eagle maintained its thrust-to-weight advantage and turned much quicker than the F-4. Here we had a superior fighter that was also more maneuverable than the inferior jet! When we evaluated the F-14, the US Navy pilots at NAS Miramar told us that the Tomcat could perform equally as well in a dogfight with an A-4. This did not prove to be the case, however, for when I flew the TA-4 against the F-14, the end result of the engagement was embarrassment for the Tomcat. Not only could the TA-4 out-turn the F-14, but during the turn itself, the Tomcat's energy state dropped so low that I was able to fly the TA-4 in the vertical as though the Skyhawk was teh superior fighter than the F-14 the inferior! Assaf Ben-Nun also flew a two-hour sortie in a TA-4F that included DACT against the F-14, and he too was disappointed to discover that the Skyhawk was superor to the F-14 in the WVR air combat scenario. He then flow a one-hour Tomcat mission from Naval Air Facility El Centro, in California, with the US Navy pilot Keith Sheehan in the back seat. Ben Nun remembered; "The F-14 lacked thrust, was complex and not user-friendly and was not aerodynamically clean -- indeed, the jet shuddered every time I pulled high-G or high angle-of-attack. During my sortie, I flew DACT against Amnon Arad in a Skyhawk, and although we finished with honours even at the end of the session, I found it hard to believe that the F-14 had no edge whatsoever over the A-4 in WVR air combat." The TF30 turbofans were the downfall of the F-14A, making it both unreliable and underpowered. The F-15's F100 turbofan had its issues, but when it came time to upgrade engines, the F-14 and F-16 got major upgrades first while the F-15 kept its old F100 because the thrust to weight of the F-15 was considered adequate without an upgrade. With uprated engines, the F-15 retains the thrust-to-weight advantage it always had over all other US fighters until the arrival of the F-22. Of course, while Israel chose the F-15, Iran chose the F-14... both countries could have had either one yet chose differently. I do not know the criteria that caused Iran to choose the F-14 over the F-15, though I would guess that they wanted the Phoenix weapons system to shutdown MiG-25 overflights. Of course, Israel found the F-15 was adequate in that role while being far more useful in the WVR combat situation they normally encountered. While I am sad to see the Tomcat retired, I certainly don't see it as such a great aircraft that no other could equal it or replace it. Of course, it would be nice if the Navy had replaced the Tomcat with an aircraft that actually had better range, payload, and preformance... but such is the way of politics and budget slashing in this post cold war world: the Super Hornet is smaller and cheaper.

If that is the case, maybe it was hacked? For some reason, SFP1 modder sites have always attracted hackers. I don't know if the hackers were motivated because they were fans of competing sims... Or maybe they stumbled onto fun/easy targets? Or maybe they were fans of SFP1 and had issues with the people they attacked? Of course, as many longtime SFP1 website managers know, ISPs can dump your files on a whim due to incompetency, accidents, or whatever excuse they give. Maybe Dave's site needs to fall on the CombatAce.com realm... The only thing I dislike about consolidating all resources into CombatAce is that if it ever gets dumped or hacked, everything may be lost.

There most certainly is a multiplayer tutorial. While I have never edited it to reflect the release of First Eagles, it is an SFP1 based sim, so the tutorial I wrote for SFP1/WoV applies. There is a version of this tutorial at this site, but I lost the rights to edit it, so the only copy I maintained is the one stickied at the top of the ThirdWire general forum: http://bbs.thirdwire.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1410

Dave is still floating around on the net, just not active in this community any more. I don't know if there is a way to contact him. Perhaps one of the other modders still stays in touch? He last posted at Third Wire forums in April 2008... so I am sure he can be contacted through their interface... If you are lucky, you can email/pm him through Third Wire by listing the forum members and looking for Armour Dave.

I assume he did it as well... but a link to nowhere is no good. I may not check my links as frequently as I should, but I try to make sure all of my links go somewhere that actually has something you can download for the SFP1 series. Armour Dave and I seldom agreed on anything... But I respect his enthusiasm, talent, and work. His addons and the website that hosted them were part of the foundation of the SFP1 modding community. I know he was angered when TK unexpectedly released WoV. But he shouldn't have given up on his Vietnam addons. YAP proves there was plenty of room to enhance the sim, and Armour Dave would have provided the same or higher quality terrain/ground object detail for free. Dave was a pillar of this community and his addons make sure he is not forgotten. At this point, there are a lot of newbies from First Eagles, Wings Over Israel, and even Wings Over Europe to some extent. I am sure they don't really know about the early days of SFP1 and who Armour Dave is... The loss of his website almost guarantees this unless someone is looking for 2-seat F-105 or Japanese WWII aircraft, they won't come across his name (lord knows almost no one reads the readme files so they won't learn his name from readme file credits). As newer models come out and replace his early ones, his name will eventually fade from even the readme credits. This makes me sad to see such a great contributor to this community fade into obscurity.

While I miss hanging out in hyperlobby and playing WoV online... I am having lots of fun with my boy and when my wife, kid, family, friends, and work aren't hogging my time, I just want to relax. To really enjoy online multiplayer, I have to have lots of time free: 1) I have to waste a lot of time waiting for someone else to show up. If I try to do something else while waiting, I either miss someone showing up or get so involved in what I am doing that I no longer care about playing online. 2) When someone does show up, a lot of time may be wasted solving install issues. Is everyone using stock/patched installs? Are there any inexplicable conflicts? Is someone running Vista? Is voice chat software being used? I hate having to troubleshoot install conflicts, so I try to go online only with stock/patched installs... but sometimes when I am testing stuff, I accidently disturb my online installs. I also like to fly MiG-21s, so I typically like to have my "stock" install modded to have the MiG-21 cockpits, but I have to do so in a way that doesn't conflict with the stock install. I finally solved that problem by making my own versions of the MiG-21 pits that don't change any stock files except adding the lines that point to the cockpit files... someday I will finish this mod and publish it for others interested in playing online with stock installs AND MiG-21 pits. 3) Even if everything is installed correctly, even more time can be wasted on connectivity issues: routers, firewalls, connection type (DSL, phone modem, cable, etc.), internet service providers, bugs in the game network interface, and some inexplicable problems. Hamachi solves a lot of those problems, but then that becomes another installion issue followed by brief training on how to use hamachi. 4) When I finally do get into an online session, I may be flying with veterans, casual players, newbies, or some kind of mix. I don't get to fly like I used to, so veterans spank my butt... so I may waste a lot of time waiting to respawn in a dogfight session or waiting for a co-op mission to complete if I was flying opposition. Despite my lack of practice, I usually spank anyone else, so I end up wasting some time waiting for them to respawn. Newbies require tons of training to fly in a useful manner on Hard settings, which can really kill some time. When I was working away from home, I could stay up all night playing online. But now that I have a job that lets me come home every day and spend time with my family, it is a struggle to come up with 1 or 2 hours each night, and 2 hours is the bare minimum time for online play given the above factors... and I can't use voice chat since the baby is usually in asleep in the next room by the time I have free time. As the baby gets older, maybe things will change, but for now, the only time I expect to get for online multiplayer is when I am either out of town or my wife takes the baby home to Colombia while I stay in the US (maybe once every 2 years?).

I mostly play WoV and in that game fly F-4B/F-4D/F-4E/F-4J and MiG-21PFM. I like the challenge of early missiles/no gun and unslatted wings with the F-4B and F-4D in 1966 (I never fly with gunpods and strip them off my wingmen as well). The F-4B is what I use for carrier ops. When I want a gun, nice missiles, and slatted wings, I fly the F-4E in 1972. The F-4J provides carrier ops and even nicer missiles (AIM-9G/H) than the F-4E, but lacking the gun and slats means I fly it a lot less than any other F-4. For me, the MiG-21PFM has the best balance of looks, performance, and armament: 4 missiles and a gun with adequate power and turning ability. I know the MF is more powerful and carries more fuel, but I think the PFM looks prettier The cockpit of the MiG-21C is by far the best for dogfighting (less window frame), but has the least power and only two missiles. When I play WoE, I rotate fairly evenly between the AV-8A, A-10A, and F-15A... if I am going to fly F-4D/E, I want historical Vietnam. With the release of WoI, I have shifted my playing habits to flying primarily F-4E in 1973 and F-15A in 1982. When WoV is fully patched up to WoI standards, I will probably go back to focusing on WoV I use SFP1 for messing with mods or... flying the F-104G. I used to fly the F-104 a lot, but as I am a beta tester for TK, I usually end up playing the latest releases to help with debugging them. When SFP1 is fully patched up to WoI standards, I will certainly squeeze in more F-104G time.

The AIM-9J was little better than the AIM-9E, which was little better than the AIM-9B. The USAF simply did not focus on the part that was most important the seeker/guidance systems. At least in the J, they went with fins optimized for more maneuverability. The AIM-9G and AIM-9H were only slightly less capable than the AIM-9L... but the big jump between the AIM-9H and AIM-9L was the seeker. I have actually been fairly happy with AIM-9D/G/H performance. I can tell the difference between using a B and a D... the D is much more likely to track a target that is maneuvering and allows you to pull more g while launching the missile. The G and H likewise expand the allowable angle-off at launch and are therefore much more useful in a dogfight than the B or D. Their main weakness compared to the AIM-9L against MiGs with no countermeasures is the lack of forward hemisphere attack. Until WoI (unpatched, WoI intially broke all the missiles), I got really good kill ratios with the D, G, and H compared to the B. Kills with the B pretty much require the target and firing aircraft to be flying almost straight ahead with a very narrow effective range (too far, run out of speed, too close, not armed). Whereas the D allows both target and firing aircraft to pull a few g's, and the G/H allows expanded aquisition angles as well as more g-tolerance. The AIM-9J on the otherhand, was largely an AIM-9E with more acceleration and bigger front fins... however, enchanced maneuverability and speed did no good without a sensitive/stable seeker head to take advantage of it... But there is a reason the USAF did such a crappy job on developing the AIM-9... they put their money into the Sparrow and developed much better variants than the Navy... So, that by the late 70s/early 80s, they were sharing each others improvements giving both services the best possible RHMs and IRMs. I think existing combat results show that there have been no better missiles than US missiles within their class: AIM-7M and AIM-9M have not been beaten by any other missiles in their class (AIM-120 is a whole new class!). The AIM-7F and AIM-9L that preceeded them were certainly the best available at that time... though the British Skyflash was an AIM-7E with a seeker equal or better to the AIM-7M.

I think the integration of C5 with CombatAce is a natural, logical progression... The only down side I see is the loss of one more independent source of files. Now we have CombatAce.com, Check6, and Avsim... but despite its free access, Avsim has not been utilized by most people to host files, so we really only have two main sources for most public files. Of course, Capun's work is largely maitained on only a single host at this point, so the CombatAce/Check6 redundancy is a far superior situation.

The Mk48 should still use a 650lb warhead. It is the precise location of the detonation that makes it so effective: Create a pocket of no water (vacuum? or gas?) under the hull and allow the weight of the ship to break itself in two.

Keep making whatever it is you like for whatever reasons. Don't let anyone discourage you because your interests don't fit into their agenda... Unless they want to pay you and you accept their offer of payment. I happen to agree with you that far too many of the stock aircraft have been neglected far too long in favor of the primary flyables. TK plans to update the early stock flyables like the F-4 to match the quality of the new flyables such as the F-15 and F-16, but most of the non-flyables are even less detailed/accurate than the early stock flyables... and will not be updated AFAIK. Of course, while actually flying missions from in the cockpit... only the cockpit details are readily apparent. But while in formation, taxiing on the ground, or just taking cool screenshots, it would be nice if all of the planes in the game were detailed and textured to the highest practical standard. So regardless of anyone elses' belief that making new MiG models is a waste of time compared to other priorities, I will gladly cheer on any efforts to make these neglected aircraft as good as they should be.

There is no easy way to attach the F-4 stick to any joystick shaft... The way I am doing it right now precisely echoes the exact angular movements made with the F-4 stick. The F-4 stick has a barrel which transmits the roll angle by rotating and a pushrod that transmits the pitch angle using back and forth linear motion. Rolling the barrel rotates the linear pushrod/pipe. My solution was specially constructed to permit sensing roll and pitch separately and precisely: there is zero interaction between the mechanicals. To properly use an intact joystick frame would require mechanicals even uglier than what I have done to create a linkage that would faithly move the tick the correct x and y angles with no interaction between the two. I looked at a lot of homebuilt projects and almost all of the sticks use a long central stick that almost directly connects to the joystick on the floor. Some have linkages (that in general were bulkier than my little R/C pushrods), but none of them use the actual barrel/pushrod mechanism that the F-4 has, so I didn't see anything that would work the way I needed it too. If you look closely at the photos of my contraption, you will see that the entire pitch sensing mechanism is mounted on the rolling barrel so that the linkage between the pot and the moving pushrod does not have to deal with the push rod's rotation. Also, the length of the lever arm between the pushrod and the pot is the same as the distance between the stick's pivot axis and the pushrod attachment point, which solves the problem of the vertical movement of the pushrod as the stick rotates about its pivot axis... the rotation at the pot end perfectly replicates the rotation at the stick grip end. The other pot is hooked up in a similar way: the angular rotation of the barrel produces the same rotation of the pot. It may look ugly... but it is engineered to produce exactly the inputs I wanted to the joystick pots. I don't like using pots, but in this case, they are by far the best solution to my problem and is the reason I decided to cut up my MS stick rather than my X-45. I don't believe I could have rigged the X-45 internals to give me this precision without making a large and complex linkage system requiring fabrication of specialized parts. Wood is ugly, but easy to work with and I have plenty of it laying around. Once I have all the electrical components assembled and working, I can worry about trying to make a nice enclosure to hide some of the mess. What I really wanted to do was use a rumble pad controller since my F-4 stick has a stick shaker that I could probably modify to be driven by the rumble force feedback logic. But the little joystick nub of the gamepad controller would have been as hard to use as a joystick base and I have no way of knowing if the real F-4 stick shaker is still functional or whether I would be able to easily generate whatever voltage signals it needs to work (possibly some form of 400 Hz power since it is an aircraft?).

The Saitek throttle looks and functions more like a military throttle. The only issue I had with the look of the X-36 was the handguard... don't know why they insist on keeping the hand guard. Overall, I really like the look, feel, and functionality of the X-52 Pro. The "space glow" LEDs can be toned down or even turned off completely. I can remember when you were very pro Cougar and were considering buying/installing the mods to make it better. With the force sensing stick mod, it makes the Cougar an extremely accurate simulation of the F-16 stick. If I had been an F-16 fanatic the way I am about the F-4, I would have a Cougar with all the mods. While expensive, a fully modded Cougar is very authentic and has outstanding quality. My F-4 stick has easily cost me more than a Cougar with mods and is only a stick with a trigger, 4-way thumb hat, 3 buttons, and 1 lever switch. Of course, other than the lack of mechanical connections to control surface hydraulics and the lack of an artificial feel weight system that provided real F-4 pilots with force feedback, my stick is 100% what real F-4s used (and mostly the same as the F-15 and A-10 with nearly identical versions of the grip being common to quite a few other past aircraft including some helocopters). Bank account down quite a bit... but greatly enchanced immersion for combat flight simming from the P-80 to the F-15A for the rest of my life is priceless! If you don't mind the look and feel of CH Products, their quality, customer support, and software can't be beat... But for my purposes, Saitek has been the better choice aside from the never ending revisions of the buggy software: 1. Better price than CH Products ($100 was the most I paid for complete stick/throttle HOTAS, and that was for the X-52 Pro). 2. Comparable durability (all of my Saitek sticks are still 100% functional after years of nearly continous use!) 3. Closer in fit, looks, and function to my ideal (something resembling F-4/F-15 sticks/throttles). I think the X-36 USB was their best release as the throttle and stick both had exactly the look/fit/functionality I want. If the X-52 Pro's higher quality components were used to make a new X-36 with the handguard removed... then I would have pretty much my ideal HOTAS in terms of looks/functionality and quality.

USB rudder pedals (in their current implementation) are standalone controllers. As long as a game is capable of recognizing more than one controller, any USB rudder pedals are compatible with with any game controller... However, configuration software might pose problems. Saitek software is notoriously buggy, but I know of people who used Saitek throttles (thru Saitek sticks) at the same time as CH Sticks and pedals with no problems, presumably using both CH and Saitek software at the same time.

At one time, gogamer.com had the x-52 pro for $100... so I grabbed it and used the $100 I saved to get the Saitek Pro Rudder pedals to match. Haven't regretted it one bit, but I have always been happy with my X-36 USB and X-45. But I built a custom stick using a real F-4 phantom stick and grip which uses an MS Sidewinder Precision Pro 2 for the usb interface. So, I am mainly using the X-52 Pro for its throttle. My main problem with using CH Products would be their throttle. I just don't care for it at all... look, feel, or functionality. I don't care for the quality of Thrustmaster's products at all other than the feel and look of the Cougar. Now if CH Products bought out Thrustmaster and mixed their quality components and customer support with the Cougar's externals... So, as far as I am concerned, there are only two choices for sticks/throttles/rudder pedals: Saitek Pro series and CH Products. Either one should work well, just personal preferences (actually getting to put your hands on them and try out the mechanisms is very important) and price need to be considered to pick one.

Google "F-14 Tomcat glove vanes" to get lots of links. This is from Wikipedia: Two retractable surfaces, called glove vanes, were originally mounted in the forward part of the wing glove, and could be automatically extended by the flight control system at high Mach numbers. They were used to generate additional lift ahead of the aircraft's center of gravity, thus helping to compensate for the nose-down pitching tendencies at supersonic speeds. Automatically deployed at above Mach 1.4, they allowed the F-14 to pull 7.5 g at Mach 2 and could be manually extended at above Mach 1. They were later disabled, however, owing to their additional weight and complexity.

NASA had to solve several problems after the Challenger: 1) Convince the public and federal government that the problem was understood and that it could not happen again. 2) Get the shuttle flying as soon as possible and as often as possible to keep the program alive and not fall further behind (the shuttle was 2 or 3 years behind its original projected schedule before it even launched and never achieved the theoretical 1 shuttle launch per week rate that had been envisioned with multiple shuttles and landings at Kennedy). 3) Do whatever it took to make sure 1 and 2 would not be compromised in the future. Anything requiring extensive investigation and engineering would have been unacceptable. Whether it was the primary cause or not, the O-ring and Morton-Thiokol were the perfect scape-goats to permit rapidly arriving at a solution that would permit returning the shuttle program to flight status as quickly as possible. There is contradictorary data on the cause of the disaster. The official answer is that the o-rings failed due to weather. Some footage from the initial launch provides evidence that the liquid fuel engines had an inexplicable flame shooting out toward the solid booster before the shuttle even cleared the launch pad... But I never saw clarification why that footage was disregarded. If there was a conspiracy, it would have been to hide the engineering problems with the liquid fuel main engines that might have grounded the program permanently. NASA continues to struggle with the main engines and many launches have been postponed due to problems with them. I see space shuttle flights as being a lot like airline flights, for obvious reasons, you don't make your problems public. You solve them as quickly and correctly as possible while telling everyone else it is something minor. As long as you don't get caught making a mistake, such a policy results in much better publicity with no consequences. Of course Columbia proved that nothing had really changed since the Challenger: NASA procedures and safety were warped by the political/economic need for flights. Essentially, given key decisions involving risk assessment such as extremely cold weather on the launch pad or external damage to the airframe, the people making the decisions did not receive or ignored negative feedback from knowledgable engineers in the quest to stay on schedule and given the historically good success rate the shuttle enjoyed. I hate to see the shuttle program end... especially when it has no real replacement and our manned program is farmed out to the Russians until the Apollo rehash pseudo-replacement arrives. In order to save money and reduce risk, we our taking steps backward in our space program. The shuttle never met the original design goals of fully reusable launch vehicle, useful orbit altitude, and 1 week turnaround time mostly due to budget cuts and partially due to unwillingness to take the risks on new technology required to do it right. The next step should have been a program that overcame the limitations of the current shuttle and met or exceeded the original 1960s goals. A proper space shuttle design would be cheaper and safer than any conventiol rocket design: winged aircraft for the mother aircraft and orbiter mean less weight spent on fuel and structure while in the atmosphere. Fortunately, Burt Rutan got funding from someone other than the government and is proving that it can be done on a shoe-string budget compared to NASA programs. The private-industry is taking greater risks, but I'll bet it pays off and that their risk level will have to be much lower than NASA's before they can start taking passengers up on a routine basis.