streakeagle

I love most of the announced DCS projects. The fact that this one is Vietnam era, I love even more. I am excited about the UH-1H as well. When/if they are completed correctly, the DCS plane set will be respectable. I just hate the fact that it may be 1-3 years before all the projects start being released. It is the price of high fidelity, and I am grudgingly willing to pay it. Hopefully, decent terrains are available by that time as well.

The key is to search SF downloads section for "Mustang", as that was the name it was given as a Rockwell (formerly North American Aviation) project). http://combatace.com/files/file/10496-rockwellmbb-f-31a-mustang-ii-version-10-for-sf2/

Finally have a fairly definitive answer on the AN/AAA-4 IRST: Only installed on the original F-4B, never restored after being removed as the system never worked very well. All should have been removed as ECM/RWR systems were retrofitted to all F-4Bs. The easy test: can you see a somewhat blunt round glass eye at the front? If not, the IRST is not there. Most photos of F-4s with chin pods (even of F-4Bs) show the more conical cover that replaced the IRST. Based on what I have seen of F-4N photos: none ever had the IRST. Given the number of F-4Bs produced, I can see where there might be a few exceptions, but I doubt it.

I have a lot of F-4 Phantom books. Many have lots of photos. Some have lots of text as well. Only one other has the kind of photos and detailed info as this one: DACO Publications "Uncovering the US NAVY Q/F-4B/J/N/S Phantom" by Danny Coremans http://www.amazon.co...ils_o02_s00_i00 The editing could use some work (the book is published in Belgium), but the mistakes are mainly minor typos and grammar mistakes that don't negate the accuracy and usefulness of the information. Many of my F-4 books end being focused on the USAF F-4E or even exclusively centered on USAF variants. This is easily the best book I have on Navy Phantoms for equipment details other than the NATOPs manual. Sweet! When I checked the credits, I found Maarten Waterloo among the text contributors. Maarten is a true F-4 Phanatic, whose website is a treasure to behold as well in case you have never seen it: http://members.chello.nl/m.waterloo/index.html

I think Adam Sandler already had a solution along those lines in this movie: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Don't_Mess_with_the_Zohan I genuinely liked if not loved that movie. Unfortunately, life isn't like the movies. But I think one movie ultimately got it right:

Third Wire has turned into a Monkey's Paw. You will get what you wish for, but you will certainly gets something you don't want or expect in return.

Or those that don't like objects the size of B-29s suddenly popping into view rather than growing steadily from 1 pixel as it once was in SFP1.

The load limits for usually listed for full internal fuel. They can be safely uprated by the ratio of the fully loaded weight divided by the actual weight. It is this effect that makes a slatted F-4E appear inferior to an early hard wing F-4E, as the slatted F-4E weighed more fully loaded, but at the same weight, the load ratings were identical. In practice, pilots pulled as many g's as they could/needed in combat, sometimes permanently damaging the airframe, especially during pull-outs from bombing runs and SAM evasion maneuvers. It was such hard hours on the F-4B airframes that necessitated the F-4N rebuilds.

While I would very much like the slotted tail and droopy ailerons, I am overall very happy with the F-4N as it is. The main feature, the ECM fairings, as well as the slick chin pod are there. I have seen valid photos of F-4Ns showing conflicting tail RWR antenna configs--TK's take is very common in the photos. Of course, I would very much appreciate getting the remaining details right, as that is the primary reason to get the DLC instead of modding an existing variant via ini files or even using "fake pilot" method.

I had no concept of what slats were at the time, but this is the 3rd Phantom model I built (1/48) somewhere between the 4th and 6th grade and it mentioned having slats:

These are the images of what an F-4 should look like that were burned in my mind (as well as being what I remember seeing at MacDill AFB open house when the Thunderbirds were F-4Es): This was my 1st F-4 model (1/72) I built in the 2nd grade: This was my 2nd F-4 model (1/32) I built somewhere between the 2nd/3rd grade:

Awesome link. These are from the Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola. I was just there not too long ago.

I am just happy that TK made a hard wing variant at all. As my models growing up had the short gun fairing, I actually like my hard-wing F-4's with the short muzzle :)

I didn't make myself clear: TK's new N-model definitely did not implement droopy ailerons.

Every written description I have read in regular books indicates that many F-4Bs and ALL F-4Ns had slotted stabilators. Locked inboard leading edge flaps are also mentioned every single time. However, the F-4B/F-4N manual I have which was up-to-date as of 1975 makes no mention of the locked leading edge flaps, only the original operation is described while some later modifications to the operation of the blown flaps system are described. There should have been separate performance charts for aircraft with slotted stabilators as well since it affected landing speeds, but no such charts exist. Don't know if this is due to the manual being too close to the initial flights of the F-4N. The few clear photos I can find of F-4Ns either clearly show the slotted stabilator or the leading edge is too indistinct to tell one way or the other. I can also say for sure that dropped ailerons have not been added. I have no further info on AN/AAA-4 in F-4B and F-4N aircraft.

I got it to run A-10C in portrait mode by using the "windowed" option... but it had much lower frame rates at about 20 fps. I never got SF2 to even make it to a menu screen in portrait mode. I have come to the conclusion that I would rather have 60+ FPS with full quality at 1600x1200 than 30-40 fps with wide view. I still have a 24" 1920x1200 monitor that I haven't tried with the new PC yet, but I use that one as a TV monitor in another room since it has every kind of TV input including stereo sound. Whereas these old Samsung 204Bs don't have any HD tv inputs and no sound.

Spirit in the Skies implies that the AAA-4 was never removed from the F-4Bs and the RWR antennas were just shoehorned in around it with the F-4N retaining the never removed AAA-4. But I am pretty sure another source which I can't recall had the AAA-4 being removed and never being restored. Can't remember the other source.

The F-4Bs had their chin IRST replaced with RWR antennas similar to F-4C/F-4D (the F-4C never had an IRST, just an empty fairing and early F-4Ds were slick noses like F-4Js). As the RWR's capabilities were expanded, the chin fairing gained bulges. Look at F-4B photos and you can see this evolution. The F-4Ns were made much later, but the chin fairings went back to the original streamlined shape used by the original F-4Bs. So my question: is the chin fairing on an F-4N still a RWR antenna, empty, or was the IRST restored by given that the RWR could have been relocated to match F-4J/F-4S which have no chin fairing? From all of my reading, I doubt the IRST was restored, but if the both the money and space were there, it would have been smart to restore it. I will have to review my references to find out.

I already had this working correctly with bezel correction when I posted. TrackIR doesn't like Triple Buffering with an AMD ATi gpu, so it is always disabled for me. I didn't need to do anything to the SF2 viewlist to make this work. The actual field of view of the three displays in landscape mode is on the order of 100-120 degrees, so why would I want to be able to look behind me with a 240 fov? SF2 crashes to desktop if the monitor is in portrait rotation (3:4), so I was forced to use landscape (4:3). The flaw I see in the system is that the monitors need to be angled toward me to have correct colors/brightness/contrast whereas the graphics engines of games distort the images to accommodate flat screens. So, theoretically, one big flat panel viewed at the right distance (i.e. matching the game engine's FOV) would have little to no apparent distortion. Whereas the angled monitors will look distorted regardless of the view range.

I just got in an active adapter today to permit me to use three old Samsung Syncmaster 204B 20" 1600x1200 LCD monitors via DVI ports. My card is an AMD 7870 with 2 GB GDDR5 RAM. I wondered if this card could handle flight sims at 3 x 1600 x 1200. It cost me some FPS, but still played well with SF2. In DCS world, I had to go from maxed out settings to medium settings to get similar frame rates. But it worked very well and looked very good. I think the key would be to have 3 1080 TVs at 46" or larger, then it would be even more amazing. I would prefer to use the monitors in portrait mode for more vertical depth, but SF2 would CTD until I went back to landscape orientation. As it is, the wide view angle greatly enchanced my sense of speed and helped me know where I was looking while panning around with Track IR. Looking down into the cockpit and seeing the sides of the aircraft makes you feel like you are really inside a small cramped cockpit. I can see where using a high end card or multigpu would be very useful to use multiple screens and still have high FPS while keeping quality settings maxed out.

It remains to be seen where TK is going to take SF2 development beyond previously announced releases. I doubt it is going to swing back toward what I like/want based on all the hard-coded tweaking during the run up to and after the release of SF2NA. I will use the upcoming Mirage expansion pack to make a decision as to whether I will continue to buy more Third Wire releases. As for the Android game, I don't even have a phone or tablet to play it on. My only cell phone is a basic camera phone issued by my employer and I don't want or own a tablet. DCS, on the other hand, is giving me a MiG-21bis and a UH-1, both aircraft that TK should have provided as flyables. I still find it extremely ironic that exactly as Third Wire began steering away from my preferences, ED steered toward them. I don't think either one consciously did so, certainly not intentionally carving up the market, but the timing and precision couldn't be better for me :)

"KAW" in the title does the trick. Makes finding related downloads exceptionally easy :)

I have always wanted a decent hard core UH-1 and AH-1 simulation as much as an F-4/MiG-21 sim. I am pleasantly surprised by this decision and will most likely thoroughly enjoy this addon if they don't do something grossly wrong. I want a sim that combines all the best features of every sim ever released with a complete planeset ranging from the Wright Flyer to the latest greatest aircraft being built. DCS is short on the map/world and planeset, but is probably the best sim available for just about everything else. Clearly, the planeset is being expanded as rapidly as possible in all directions. If they could just go to a global map like xplane and FSX.

I think all items associated with the once and future KAW release should have a common tag in the title, either KAW or Korea to make them stand out in file searches. In the test I just did, I had to first do a default search of SF2 downloads with just Korea and then a 2nd search with just KAW to cover all the recent releases. If they all had the same tag, probably KAW being the most specific, then they would all show up in the same search. Hard to find or not, it is great to see all this stuff being made accessible instead of wasting away in "beta" installs. The piece are there. Now if someone will put in the effort to glue them together into a single coherent release with lots of spit and polish to make it into a nice addon that looks like payware and is easily installed by noobs :)

Of course Warthogs have the stick in the center ;)