streakeagle

I love the effort you put into getting all of the details correct on the F-4. I hope Heatblur's F-4E cockpit will be as well researched and correct as your cockpits. I know the person that developed the analog pulse radar for the DCS A-4E-C free mod. He is working with Heatblur to get the APQ-120 correct on their F-4E. Up to now, no one has really modeled F-4 radar any better than Third Wire's Strike Fighters series. The Milviz F-4J/S, Milviz F-4E, and Simworks Studios F-4B were detailed with a lot more functionality, but Third Wire's simplified implementation was more accurate for actual combat employment.

It looks great, but it is early access, so a lot of things are missing and/or don't work as they should. I have two problems with this modules: 1. There isn't going to be an AI WSO back seater. 2. I can't remove the CFTs to make it more like an F-15C for air-to-air. Both of these facts were announced before I bought it, so I was not surprised. But after having the very useful AI RIO in the F-14 and the somewhat useful AI gunner in the Mi-24, I expect something similar for the F-15E. For some reason, the F-15C has never been made a full module, so I would very much like to be able to use an F-15E without CFTs as a slightly heavier substitute. In its present state, the cockpit and external model look amazing. When the avionics are fully functional and work correctly, it will make people who loved Jane's F-15 Strike Eagle very happy.

Nothing new. Fighter Ops comes to mind. But I can think of several other flight sim scams both civil and combat versions.

Check out the screen shots and videos for each version of Falcon on steam to appreciate how far PC combat flight simulators have come. Those old games pushed the limits of what could be done on a PC at the time, but now look little better than Atari home system and arcade games, complete with cheesy digital synthesizer music.

I would assume you already stumbled upon this, but it was great information with great photos about RAF Phantoms getting the ALE-40 around the time of the Falklands War: AN/ALE 40 :: David Gledhill (david-gledhill.co.uk)

With three different TO's resulting in the same cockpit images in the February 1979 manual, I wonder why there were three different TO's and when each one was initiated? But 1978 is absolutely the latest date it can be given a very early 1979 manual citing the changes.

Howerver, my manual, TO 1F-4E-1, 1 February 1979 clearly shows the chaff/flare dispenser panel present with the note: AFTER TO 1F-4E-588, TO 1F-4-1056 AND TO 1F-4E-614. Find the dates on those field changes, and you get your answer when the chaff/flare panel was installed.

"The Modern Phantom Guide" which is often the only reference I have that goes into depth on even the smallest details says:

I doubt there would even be photos of such field changes. During Vietnam, the Navy and USAF had so many field change variants that they had to organize programs to bring the majority of their aircraft to a common standard. The F-4E was still the USAF's frontline fighter and as such was constantly being improved. The birds in the USAFE would have been where the newest modifications were implemented before becoming the official standard after Vietnam ended.

The manuals don't show my throttle handles with bolted on switches and wiring dangling from them for field changes. I have the throttle handles. They existed, in the manual or not. The manuals are very important, but not always the sole arbiter of fact, including real performance vs. charts in the manuals.

This post which includes comments from Ed Rasimus and 2nd hand observations from front line F-4 maintainers should make it really clear about the implementation of the decoy dispensers on F-4s. The short story from Ed is that the F-4E got the dispensers in 74-75, the F-4C never got them, but F-4Ds still in service finally got them "some time after 1977". F-4 chaff/flare loads (narkive.com)

It has always been a luck of the draw for me. VorpX constantly changes. Sometimes it works really well for SF2, other times it doesn't. The Reverb G2 can be used one of two ways: Steam VR or Open XR/Windows Mixed Reality. I have not run it in a while, so I am not sure if it is currently working for me. The last time I used it (months? years?), it worked really well for the G2, but I couldn't get it working at all with the Quest 2.

I spent some time flying the new release last night. The main problem I have is the Flaming Cliffs radio implementation. There is a button for toggling the level of comms, but the default is to pick up every radio transmission. Even using the minimum comms setting, navigation beacons blare constantly with no way to reduce the volume. Aside from that, it was fun to fly despite any inaccuracy in the flight model. It is a huge step up from the original release that used the F-15C cockpit and it is a decent step above the first dedicated cockpit release.

This adds the new cockpit, but the real upgrade comes when it is converted into a stand-alone mod like the F-4B. Unfortunately, progress is slow and the development team lacks the manpower and skillset to make these two mods as realistic/accurate as the A-4E-C. But when you compare where they started to where they are now, it is a giant step forward and comparable to the earliest iterations of the A-4E-C.

This discussion includes Ed Rasimus and other F-4 pilots describing chaff/flare deployment on F-4s, including clarification on the F-4C and F-4D in the 1970s: F-4 chaff/flare loads (narkive.com) As I originally posted: F-4Cs: never, F-4Ds late 70s/early 80s.

I can assure you that the F-4D got the countermeasures retrofitted toward the late 70s early 80s. They wouldn't have put on the pylons without putting in the panels. The F-4Cs were going out of service, and therefore did not get updgraded.

F-4Ds eventually got the same wing pylons as F-4Es with the countermeasures mounted at the rear. F-4Cs never got those pylons, and hence never got built-in countermeasures.

Back in the day when I got my first PC for home/gaming (around August of 2000), I saw three WW2 flight sims on the shelf: EAW, Jane's WW2 Fighters, and Fighter Squadron: Screamin' Demons Over Europe. I studied the information on the boxes: flyable planes, screenshots, etc. It was a tough call, but I already owned Jane's Fighters Anthology and loved the graphics on the box, so I went with Jane's WW2 Fighters. WW2 combat flight sims have never stopped evolving and far surpassed those three sims, so I never did go back and buy or play EAW despite my years of dedication to TK's Strike Fighters series.

I used an X-52 Pro for many years and loved it. It still works, but the twist rudder axis needs to be cleaned/replaced. My X-52 Pro was from the initial release by Saitek. The quality was great long hours every day over a lot of years. Later batches under the MadCatz years were notorious for inconsistent quality. I have no personal experience with the Logitech generation of Saitek sticks. If they are making them as good as Saitek once did, I would go with an X-52 Pro.

This has always been a promising sim for tablets with steady improvements. But I don't really play sims on tablets or phones. Since these are able to run on phones/tablets, they should be targeting Quest 2 VR. I already have WWI and WW2 VR sims which are somewhere between arcade action and a lite sim. If Gunship IV could be adapted to the Quest 2, it would rule: a VR equivalent to the Strike Fighters series.

Turtle Beach continues to impress me. Their rudder pedals look pretty cool. They come with both types of pedals, i.e., full footrest or heel on the floor types. You can adjust the pedal width. They remind me of Saitek pedals, but with more and better features, such as all hall-effect sensors. I would be tempted to buy them, but my Saitek pedals still work ok. If I did buy another set of rudder pedals, I would probably spend the extra money to get Thrustmaster TPRs again - I love the one I am presently using. I don't how well the Turtle Beach hardware holds up under continuous use, but if it is as good as my really old Saitek hardware, then it looks like a great mid-range priced choice.

While my F-4 cockpit remains a work in progress, I have ended up with everything WinWing sells for a DCS F/A-18C Hornet cockpit. I don't use the stick, because I prefer the feel of the VKB Gunfighter and I have about 7 or 8 different grips I can use with that base. But everything else is WinWing. It isn't exactly a 1:1 copy of the real cockpit. But it is reasonably close and provides additional controls. The whole package makes a great generic modern fighter cockpit that is adaptable to almost any aircraft, particularly in DCS World. The MFD displays are natively supported in the F/A-18C, F-16C, AH-64, and A-10C. For some reason they did not provide an automatic profile for the AV-8B. With hardware like this available at a reasonable price, I don't see any reason to build expensive, custom replica cockpits that are optimized for one type of aircraft. I mainly fly in VR, so the MFD displays were a guilty pleasure (waste of money), but it is so cool to see the controls and indicators match the screen. If you have the money to burn and like flying modern jets and helos in DCS World, this is a fantastic setup.

What an amazing trip! It must be great to meet all of these internet friends face to face while also touring so many places and seeing so many airplanes.

At one time, it worked great with VorpX. But in recent history, I have been unable to get the Quest 2 to work with SF2. It is possible that it is working again, but I haven't tried in a long time. On the other hand, the HP Reverb G2 was still working great the last time I tried, but that was several months ago. VorpX constantly goes through patches/upgrades (as do gpu drivers), so there is no telling when compatibility will be broken and/or restored. But if you can get it working correctly, it isn't as good as a natively VR sim like DCS World, but it still looks amazing. When you fly mods that have full 3d cockpits like the recent F-5 releases is when it looks its best. Stock cockpits were never built to let you look all over in the vertical and horizontal.

Mods are just that. For me, YAP was always a source of 3d models beyond the missions. WTR is a complete mod like Desert Storm or Korean Air War. I don't see any reason why you can't mix the two as you see fit as long as you know what you want and how to edit ini files. The principal difference is YAP has files available for download now. WTR progress has been slow and from an end user perspective remains only screenshots. If WTR ever becomes available and its quality is as high as intended, it probably won't need objects from YAP to improve it, but YAP covers a much wider time frame: take the best of both and make one massive, great install.