streakeagle

If they combine Wings of Prey's graphics with Aces High's realism and view system, they might have a winner. Those who have played Aces High for over a decade are not going to downgrade the flight and damage modeling for eye candy. Good graphics and some sort of system to make the game easy enough to appeal to newbies could attract a bigger crowd than very difficult with uglier graphics Aces High. But even if they do everything right, is there a market for another WW2 online air combat sim as that market has been shrinking very fast? Realistic = steep learning curve and high workloads that repel most people.

I love model rocketry. Never got past building D-engined birds, but I converted the Estes Commanche 3 stage kit to be all D engines and had a blast :) http://archive.rocketreviews.com/reviews/all/est_comanche3.shtml Can't wait until my son is ready to build his first rocket. As a kid, my first rocktet was this one: http://www.rocketreviews.com/reviews/all/oop_est_obital_transport.shtml The hobby shop owner said I was too young to build it myself, especially since it was my first one (I was in the 3rd grade). I brought it back a week later fully built and not too bad for a 3rd grader. My favorite one based on looks and flight excitement was a boost-glider, the Sky Dart: http://www.rocketreviews.com/reviews/all/oop_est_skydart.shtml Mine flew very well and looked as good as the kit photo (was in 6th grade by that time). Although I truly loved and flew the X-Ray more than any of them: http://www.spacemodeling.org/jimz/k-18.htm I also had a molded Estes RTF X-15 that was great for low altitude easy recovery in small launch areas. http://www.ninfinger.org/rockets/nostalgia/77estcov.html My brother made a beautiful Mosquito, but we used the biggest engine for the first flight (A10-3T same as for my X-15) and we never saw it again. In the Navy, beside the Commanche, I made my own all-aluminum folding fin, spin stabilized, shoulder launched rockets. Go here for some photos: http://sites.google.com/site/streakeagle68/hobbies/rockets There is a pick of me with my Commanche as well as some cardboard prototypes before design failures forced me to go all-aluminum. The photo that of the black field is a charred black field... big fire resulting from the erratic flight of the last cardboard prototype. Fortunately, the Fire Department put it out before it threatened any homes and they didn't charge or fine any of us.

the job of the HUD pitch bars is to show the angle. If 10 degrees is above the 3dmodels's hud glass, then that is where it would want to draw it... But in the HUD configuration, you set the boundaries for drawing the HUD so that anything outside of the glass gets clipped. If you look over the HUD parameters, I am sure you can find the variables that limit the drawing area for the HUD.

W is weight not mass W = m * g, so W/g = m = mass in kg. I bet that will change your numbers a bit :)

Already refuted. Less substantial evidence than the last time. Apparently, the guy making the claim is not a Ph.D. nor did he specialize in biology, just your run of the mill astrophysics type propped up by a media business needing a flashy story to generate income. Good thing I didn't get my hopes up too high.

Falcon 4.0 is still one of the best hard core sims ever released. In the Allied Force flavor, most of the original bugs are squashed and some of the graphics have been improved plus many other little feature upgrades. As long as you enjoy flying the F-16 and don't mind dated graphics, this could be the best flight sim you ever buy. I don't know anything about Apache Air Assault. I already have more quality sims than I can play and my PC is very old, so I am not getting any more sims until I can afford an upgrade AND have the time to play them. If I had a decent machine and time, I would already be playing the DCS A-10/Black Shark series and Rise Of Flight.

I am wondering it it was a bug... or if TK modeled pilot wounds, and yours was fatally wounded? Upon further review of your logs... clearly a bug since it declared you were shot down. I could be curious to know which direction the bug went: You should have been killed/shot down, but it let you keep flying, or you were not shot down, but it erroneously declared you to be shot down.

Regardless of theory and probabilities, nothing in science is 100% accepted until you have rock solid proof... in this case, literally. I am skeptical myself, because similar claims have been made before and refuted. But if it is confirmed, it will mark a turning point in history. If life is absolutely known to exist elsewhere, it isn't too big of a reach to accept that there will be intelligent life comparable or superior to us elsewhere. If micro lifeforms can arrive by meteor, it also raises questions about the origins of life on Earth. We need the ability to "jump" to other solar systems and find other Earth-like planets suitable for replacing our own, or the ability to terraform Mars or another body in our solar system to ensure the human race lives a bit longer than the limits of our own planet permit. But we can't even afford to replace the space shuttle, much less go to the Moon to build a stepping stone to Mars exploration. If it had not been for the Cold War arms race for ICBMs, we might not even have satellites or have ever put people into space. Given that politics then were little different than they are now, it is incomprehensible that the US government was able to fund the Apollo program. To this day there are significant numbers of US citizens angry that the government wasted so much money on the space program... as they text someone on their high tech touch screen phone that can reach anywhere in the world via satellite for just tens of dollars per month. But I'm not bitter ;)

Huge significance... and I hear nothing about it on the radio or TV. Perhaps if it is confirmed by the 100 experts it will take the media by storm.

As far as I know, internal systems are not controlled by dates. Unlike external stores, they are hard coded into the aircraft's data.ini file. If an aircraft starts out with no ECM, is upgraded to have some ECM, and is upgraded againe with even better ECM, the only way to model it correctly is to create three separate aircraft variants with the appropriate start/stop dates. Stock aircraft like the F-4 variants showcase this technique of reflecting avionics upgrades.

Tell me that was just a skit from SNL or something like that.

I won't buy it until I get a new rig, too. Maybe a year from now?

I love the look of the Buc. What an awesome aircraft :)

Just like almost all online SF community members hang out at CombatAce, nearly all submarine summers hang out at subsim.com In the case of aircraft, I enjoy flying older ones more than modern ones because the advanced electronics make combat boring. Of course my favorites are the middle generations that were difficult to fly with early less capable electronics. But with submarines, there is no middle range in the sims. You either play WW2 with no advanced electronics and no submerged sub vs. sub combat. Or you play modern with very capable sonar and advanced wire guided torpedos. I like sub vs. sub combat, so the modern is the only one I like. I would like to drive the Nautilus SSN-571, Skipjack SSN-585, and Soviet November Classes. At the same time, the era still includes a lot of WW2 diesel types with the Soviet Whiskey and Foxtrot classes. Even the US was still operating traditional diesels as well as the advanced Blueback class using the tear drop shaped hull. So the late 1950s through the late 1960s was as interesting and diverse for submarines as it was for aircraft. But there is no sim available covering that period. Now there is an independent project in progress covering the 1950s/1960s submarines. Sub versus sub with no towed arrays or advanced narrowband sonar systems. Most of the passive broadband and narrowband sonar systems did not even have CRTs, the displays were printers with an electronic stylus literally burning a trace on the paper. I trained in school on an old LOFAR system that still used the paper to show frequency vs time info. The instructors joked about how you could "smell" a contact on a broadband system as the intensity of the burn increased with the strength of the contact. The torpedoes can still be wire guided, but they are slower and short ranged. If the guy ever finishes it, it will be the most interesting era for me.

I hope it all works out. Obviously, you have gotten past a lot already :) But you still have a long way to go. In retrospect, even if my vision had not disqualified me, I am pretty sure I would not have made it through the Air Force Academy. On the other hand, when I resigned from the USMA at West Point early in the first fall semester, I had absolutely nothing to motivate me to stay. Would the promise of a chance of becoming a pilot have kept me there? As it stands, the path I ended up taking was a fairly long hard road, but got me to the point where I am as happy as anyone can be. My only regrets after all of these years are never having served as an officer and never having gotten a pilots license. I hope you can keep us updated about your progress... all the way to the day you are flying real missions in whatever aircraft you ultimately drive!

I have never ever seen or heard of the effect depicted at the end of the video after years of reading every aviation book I could get my hands on and watching every show I could. Well worth watchin it :)

Here is someone who experienced a similar problem and fixed it: http://bbs.thirdwire.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=8224&p=51217&hilit=+white+radar#p51217

If I knew the answer, I would gladly tell you. But in all of my years playing this sim and following almost every associated forum, I don't recall ever having this problem or any posts about it. I started with a Voodoo 5500 and have been using ATi cards ever since, all of which had various driver issues over the years, just not this issue. Perhaps you are using an nVidia product? Radar screen goes white...

The base where we moored was surrounded by trees. As we were there in October, the leaves were on the ground in such large quantities that the access road was indistinguishable from the shoulders. I drove a shuttle van between the hotel and the base on my duty days and had trouble following the road during the day and even more trouble at night. The large 4-legged animal with horns frequenly blocking the road must have been a Roosevelt Elk? Didn't ever get a good look at his head, always assumed it was a Moose since I was in Canada. I believe the Navy Research base we moored at was Nanoose. There was a buoy in the center of the bay and a bald eagle would circle around and then perch on it and scaring away all of the other birds and small animals (i.e. the area would go silent before I could even see the Eagle). I stood a lot of watches overnight in the cold and rain. Didn't really enjoy the trip other than seeing the Mk 50 torpedoes try to find us in shallow water at slow speeds. Hint: never, ever volunteer to be a diesel submarine sailor if a nuclear boat is available. Nuke boats are much more comfy, if a sub can ever be considered to be comfy.

I was a Submarine Sonar Tech in the United States Navy. I served from 1989 to 1997 (exactly 8 years). I was on USS Dolphin, AGSS-555, when I went to Canada (twice) to act as a torpedo target. Both times to the same range. Our sub was so small (165 feet, designed for a crew of 20 but manned by a crew of 40), that we stayed in a hotel in Nanaimo. I had trouble getting between the base and the town because the road was covered in maple leaves and frequently blocked by a moose. I went in October of 1995 and about the same time in 1996. The North Pacific is very cold, especially when 20 foot waves are coming down while standing lookout in the sail and cruising at 2-7 kts on the surface.

The key mapping should be identical if you are patched up to the point where animations became available via the numeric keys. Aside from adding vector thrust keys, HUD mode toggle (Alt-D), and default mappings for animations, I don't think there have been any key mapping changes since the original Walmart release of SFP1.

Try here: http://bbs.thirdwire.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=6892 Or here: http://sites.google.com/site/streakeagle68/pc-games/strike-fighters/key-map For the most recent releases from me. My last site died when I moved and couldn't get Verzion FIOS anymore. I have now abandoned using ISPs for hosting. For now, Google is free and does the job :)

AFAIK, the only reason FE exists is because a certain someone bank rolled it, who might also be the certain someone who bought BioHaz from Jeff and created CombatAce, who might also be the same someone who created Alienware computers and then sold out to Dell before the market collapsed. Be thankful FE exists at all... much less FE2. I am simply happy that the expansion to FE1 was completed as I can't imagine any WWI sim without the Camel and the Dr.I. Of couse, I would love to see TK round out the planeset with Nieuports, Sopwiths, E.IIIs, etc. But at least there is a moddable framework up to SF2 standards that can be expanded without bounds by third parties. A detailed, accurate bug list might lead up to a minor bug fix patch. But I don't play nearly enough to have any complaints... just single missions every now and then. As for mission editing, If you have no patience to edit using notepad, I am pretty sure you can import the terrain and aircraft into SF2, at least well enough to create missions? Once, again, I have never had the time nor interest to even try to import/export stuff between FE and SF. But I know that some people have experience doing so. The difficulty would be what types of missions are supported in FE versus those in SF2.

View File 650404 First F-105 Losses for SF2V Three F-105Ds were shot down on April 4, 1965. At least two of them were lost to MiG-17s from the 921st Regiment at Noi Bai. These were the first US aircraft lost to VPAF MiGs in Vietnam. Zinc flight of the 354th TFS was bounced while orbiting the Initial Point. The lead pair of F-105s never saw the MiGs and did not respond to radio calls. One pair of MiGs fired on the lead pair of F-105s and badly damaged them. The trailing pair of F-105s evaded another pair of MiGs. The damaged F-105s tried to divert to Da Nang, but could not make it. Both pilots ejected at sea, but neither survived. Zinc 01, Maj Frank Bennett in 59-1754, drowned before being recovered. Zinc 02, Capt James Magnusson in 59-1764, was never found and declared MIA. /*****Sources******************************************************************/ A. USAF "Red Baron" WSEG Report 116 Event II-1 Incredibly detailed account. (very detailed, most accurate) B. Osprey Combat Aircraft 84 F-105 Thunderchief Units of the Vietnam War by Peter E. Davies, pp. 24-25. (general account) C. Osprey Combat Aircraft 25 MiG-17 and MiG-19 Units of the Vietnam War by Istvan Toperczer, pp. 30-31. (from enemy's perspective) D. http://taskforceomegainc.org/m007.html (interesting but very inaccurate) /*****Design*******************************************************************/ After extensive testing, this mission uses the following design decisions: Written for a stock SF2V install, no mods required. The stock environment does not permit multiple levels and types of clouds/haze. So the only the haze and cirrus layer are modeled. The F-105 mission is a STRIKE on the Thanh Hoa "Dragon's Jaw" bridge. The initial aircraft positions reflect WSEG Report 116 Event II-1. The F-105s are in an orbit at the IP, 10 miles south of the bridge. The mission starts when the 2nd pair of MiGs are first detected by Zinc 03 & 04. The lead pair of MiGs start very close to the lead pair of F-105s. The lead pair of F-105s have poor pilot quality to simulate their unresponsiveness. This almost guarantees that the MiG-17s will immediately shoot down Zinc 01 & 02. The trailing F-105s are modeled as a separate flight with the same Zinc callsign. This permits historical positioning of the aircraft and different pilot quality. The player is flying as Zinc 03 (Zinc 01 of the 2nd Zinc flight in the game). The MiG-17s have been broken up into two flights. This permits historical starting positions and target objectives. Two flights of F-100s were in the area and may have gotten one or more MiG kills. However, the F-105s never saw them, so I have left them out. Outcomes are typically very close to the historical results. /*****Playing Tips*************************************************************/ The mission begins with the enemy very close at 7 o'clock and closing fast. The first thing the player should do is jettison all ordnance and break hard. The player should also issue a "break" or "cover me" command to his wingman. If the player survives, try to support any other survivors. Continuing the bridge attack after escaping the MiGs is the only way to "win", but the game engine victory conditions should be ignored for this mission. A true victory is landing at Da Nang with more than two F-105s. It is possible to pick up some kills, but very risky, so consider disengaging. In reality, the undamaged F-105s ignored the MiGs to help the damaged ones. Do the following to make this mission challenging and realistic: ONLY USE THE NORMAL IN-COCKPIT VIEWS: <F1>, <F2>, and <F3> Do not use map <M>, target <T>, padlock <F4>, or any view target <F8> keys. Doing so provides the player with exceptional situational awareness. The player unrealistically always knows everyone's location. This extra knowledge allows a skilled player to escape and possibly kill MiG-17s. Be proficient with the POV hat, look up <NUM 5> key, and zoom view controls. Due to the way the game renders distant targets, spotting MiGs is very hard. MiGs that are not very close cannot be seen at all when zoomed out. Learn to zoom in and scan the horizon for small moving dots. This will be frustrating and the spotting distances may seem unrealistic. The end results are exceptionally realistic. The player may frequently get lost or disoriented. Like real pilots, level out and/or use check turns to find your way back. It will take skill and luck to spot MiGs. It requires even more skill and luck to get one or more kills. Of course, TrackIR makes this whole process much easier and realistic. Play the mission several times following these restrictions. Once used to it, the player will learn two skills critical to real pilots: 1) Visual scanning discipline to focus and pick out distant contacts. 2) Situational awareness to mentally track planes not within view. Good luck! /******************************************************************************/ This mission was designed by Stephen "streakeagle" Flores. For questions/comments, send email to: streak_eagle@hotmail.com This mission is intended solely for free distribution. It may be copied or changed by anyone as long as it is not for profit. Submitter streakeagle Submitted 01/20/2011 Category User Made Missions