streakeagle

If you believe this statement: "Other points..... no other fighters used the wing design? Yeah? And......? That just means there were other goals in mind. Has nothing to do with the price of tea in China. Ditto the T-Tail." I can't have a rational argument with you. T-tails are an absolute disaster for combat aircraft since they become ineffective when pulling high angles of attack. No fighters use t-tails. Likewise, low aspect ratio wings with high loadings optimized purely for speed are an equally terrible design choice for combat aircraft. The F-104 was the only design to go to that extreme and that mistake was never made again by Lockheed or anyone else. That isn't heated rhetoric, its physics. Most of the early supersonic designs had poor handling qualities, but the X-3, F-104, and F-101 with similar wing/tail layouts were all poorly designed for high angles of attack. Many planes and pilots were lost because of this design. The F-104 looks cool and thanks to its engine, the J-79, was a world class technical achievement, but its combat record is less than stellar. It was only produced in significant numbers because Lockheed used dirty politics to force it on our allies seeking an affordable supersonic fighter. Those countries that flew the F-104 the longest were those that didn't have the budget to replace them. Some pilots did love the F-104 (Andy Bush at SimHQ is one of them), but most of those never flew the F-104 against MiG-21s and Hawker Hunters. I don't know what history you are reading, but the Luftwaffe hated the F-104. They kept upgrading their F-4s, though.

Looks like a compromise between the YF-23 and the Su-27. I would bet that it is a match if not better than the F-22 in terms of flight performance/agility, but the key to beating the F-22 is being just as stealthy while having a comparable radar capability. I have no idea how good the Russians are at making aircraft stealthy. But it sure does look nice.

For the most part, these are readily adaptable to the SF2 series, but the base bitmaps are the old 512x512 templates. Of course, most of the details are done with decals. So, if you don't mind less detailed panel lines, these skins still look pretty great. In some cases, you might be able to use the newer SF2 bitmaps. But on the one skind I converted (VF-92 1968), some of the unit colors are painted on the bitmaps. Also, some of the markings are on the decals and on the newer bitmaps, you have to edit the decals to mask out the stencils that have been duplicated (or paint over the duplicates on the bitmaps). I have gotten lazy, so I just used the orignal skins as is (with the bitmaps renamed as necessary to match the version of the F-4 they are being used on). I would like to see MyTai01, Sundowner, and Paul Nortess (Fist of the Fleet) combine their knowledge, attention to detail, and skills together to produce a single set of skins for all USN aircraft that would be near flawless.

Aspect ratio heavily influences lift/drag ratio and lift induced drag. The F-104 style wing was only used on a few aircraft: X-3, F-104, and X-15. The only use for that wing is low zero-lift drag, which is good for maximizing top speed if you have enough engine power to go fast enough to make enough lift without using much AoA. This wing is OK if you want to point your nose up, climb to 50,000 feet, level off, and go supersonic. It is worthless for just about anything else. With such a small wing, any external payload hung on pylons will quickly kill the low drag advantage by significantly increasing the zero-lift drag AND requiring a higher AoA to maintain level flight. The deltas and very similar swept trapezoidals (basically deltas with clipped tips) live with a higher zero-lift drag, but have advantages as transonic and supersonic speeds are approached. They are also much better than the short, straight F-104 wings at low speeds since they can generate quite a bit of lift at high AoAs if you have the power to compensate for the drag. The ultimate proof in the flaw of the F-104's wing design was the fact that virtually no other fighter aircraft used it in the 50+ years since it was originally designed. Modern high T/W fighters with LERX wings can go as fast or faster than the F-104 AND turn AND land at half the speed. The F-4's wing was already superior to the F-104 overall, but the F-104 had high-speed maneuvering flaps that made it a bit more competitive at lower speeds. Once the F-4E got slats that were equivalent, it performed much better than the F-104. The only other fighter in service with a wing similar to the F-104 was the F-5, but the F-5 wing was not designed with Mach 2.0 in mind, has a higher aspect ratio, and a lower wing loading. Once the F-5E arrived with a few refinements, it became one of the most agile fighters in the world at low speeds. The F-5's limitation was thrust-weight ratio, which was fixed two different ways: they heavily redesigned YF-17 and the very similar F-5G/F-20. The key upgrade Lockheed made to try to make the F-104 competitive with modern lightweight fighters was change the wing and tail (the t-tail was a huge problem as well... look how many modern fighters use those). But bad politics and a bad reputation kept the Lancer from ever seeing the light of day no matter how competitive it would have been. The F-104 was a response to Korean War F-86 pilots tired of having MiG-15s able to climb above them to safety and attack or retreat at will: boom-n-zoom energy fighters. But given the same data, look what the Soviet response was to the Korean war: upengine the MiG-15 and add a good gunsight, double the engines to make the MiG-19, but sweep the wing a bit more to get a higher speed. Neither were as fast as the F-104, but F-104s would have a very hard time consistently beating either one using guns or the AIM-9B. But the MiG-19 was the contemporary of the F-100, the Soviet match for the F-104 was the MiG-21, which was as fast as the F-104 AND could turn better than any other Mach 2 fighter. The price the MiG-21 paid for its advantages were short range/low endurance and very little payload. In daylight conditions with ground controlled intercept and well trained pilots on short range intercept missions, the MiG-21 was clearly the most effective fighter of its generation (think Vietnam). But, mess with any one or more of those variables, and the big F-4 style fighter dominates (think Israeli wars). Many Arab MiG-21s were lost to empty fuel tanks that didn't get counted towards the Israeli's arleady superior kill ratio. The Fang would have been the US equivalent to the MiG-21: no range or payload, but a hell of a fast, agile aircraft. The F-5 was more or less a more marketable derivative of the same development path using smaller, cheaper engines and not trying to optimize the design for top speed. I think if the Fang had been built and served in Vietnam instead of the F-104, the US would have gotten a better measure of exactly what type of fighter its next generation needed to be. The Fang would have done a great job as an air superiority type used for CAP and sweeps, especially if it had a refueling probe. The MiG-17 would been much less of a threat. The MiG-21 would have been dominated. The US might have built a fighter more like the F-16 or F-18 instead of the F-15 instead of waiting for budget cuts and political pressure to force them to build/buy lightweight fighters. As it was, as soon as the cold war budget expanded with Reagan's election, the military was back to making huge fighters. The F-22 is huge. Only advances in materials, engines, controls, and aerodynamics allow it to be more agile than smaller F-16s despite being larger than F-15s. But once again, the budget cuts have come, and the F-22s have been canceled. The US will be lucky to get a useful number of F-35s. The F/A-18Es may be less than impressive aircraft compared to the F-22 and F-35, but the Navy actually got away with buying them. After all this time, the optimum size for a multirole supersonic fighter jet in terms of dimensions and weight is still the size of an F-4 (compare the numbers with a Super Hornet, they are darn near identical if you don't look at the actual shape/layout). The F-16 size is much cheaper, but can't carry the payload and avionics you can cram into a fighter 50% larger.

The carrier model has to be built with aircraft on the deck. I believe the latest betas of Digital Overload's Nimitz class is availble for free with F/A-18 Hornets on the deck.

This is a thread about posting screenshots. I took some screenshots and posted them. End of story. If someone isn't happy with the content, then maybe they shouldn't have sold their soul to the devil... I mean done business with 05.

The successes of the F-105 against the MiG-17 is what helped seal the deal to make the gun armed F-4E. The F-105 was far less maneuverable than the F-4 and its pilots were only tasked and trained for strike missions, yet it was getting a good number of kills. After adding the gun, quite a few more MiGs were killed by F-4s than there would have been if no gun or gun pod was ever carried. I wonder how many opportunities the Navy missed because they almost never carried guns in Vietnam? Of course, the majority of kills were still scored with missiles, but the threat of the gun makes the enemy a little more cautious, especially with head-on passes.

CVAN-65 USS Enterprise circa 1968 with VF-92: By streakeagle at 2010-01-24 By streakeagle at 2010-01-24 By streakeagle at 2010-01-24 By streakeagle at 2010-01-24 By streakeagle at 2010-01-24 Notice in these photos as in my screenshots that 215 is an F-4B (67) with the RWR tail cap and chin pod, whereas 214 is an early F-4B with the slick tail and chin pod. TK's attention to detail on the F-4 variants (both inside and out) make the SF2 series well worth the money even if you are happy with the SF1 series. By streakeagle, shot with HP pstc7200 at 2010-01-24 By streakeagle, shot with HP pstc7200 at 2010-01-24

The weight quoted on that page is the maximum takeoff weight, which is much lower than an F-104G. But what matters is empty weight, so that if both are carrying the same amount of fuel and ammo, the one with the lower empty weight will have the better thrust:weight ratio. As for the efficiency of the F-104 wing: no other fighter used anything like it until stealth considerations entered the picture. It was a great wing for low drag but a poor wing for high lift. Aircraft dogfight at subsonic speeds and the ones that can generate the most lift at the lowest speeds are the ones that turn the best. Delta wings in one form or the other are the best for supersonic flight. Why else would Concorde and the Tu-144 use such wings given they wanted the best shape for high endurance at supersonic speeds. But if you have tremendous thrust with correspondingly high speeds, you don't need much of a wing, so the X-15 used a wing very similar to the F-104. In general, most fighter planes need to do more than fly straight and level at high speeds, so the F-104's wing turned out to be a very poor choice. Lockheed understood this and developed the Lancer to try to solve the problem, but the Lancer was a decade too late. The F-16 was a much better solution than the F-104 ever could have been. The N-102 Fang doesn't have the advanced body blending and LERX wing of the F-16, but in many ways, it would have been like having an F-16 long before the F-16 was even on the drawing board.

I think it was even lighter than the F-104. Sustained turn performance would have suffered much like the MiG-21, but thrust-to-weight would have been outstanding and improved as the J-79 improved. The USAF simply had no interest in light weight air superiority fighters and only bought the F-16 when it was forced on them. If this aircraft supported in-flight refueling, it would have made a huge impact on the air-to-air kill ratios in Vietnam. But it might have suffered the same endurance problems as the MiG-21. Of course, all I can do is speculate. If the F-5 had been designed with that kind of thrust-to-weight ratio and wingloading, it would have been even more successful than it was. Of course, that is what the YF-17 was all about. From the Fang all the way to the F/A-18 was a steady evolution. But the final F/A-18E/F design is anything but a cheap, lightweight fighter!

The N-102 Fang was Northrop's proposal to compete for the USAF F-104 contract. This aircraft deserves a life in the SF series as much as any other "what-if"! Go here for some info: http://sobchak.wordpress.com/2009/08/10/northrop-n-102-fang-il-progenitore-del-moderno-caccia-leggero/ Like the F-104, it was to be powered by a single J-79 engine. The layout is very similar to the MiG-21, except that it has an underbelly intake scoop much like the F-16. When you consider the date of this design (1953), it was top notch. Unlike the F-104, I bet this baby would have been competitive in the turning arena while still climbing and dashing as fast as the F-104. For some reason, Northrop is always cursed when it comes to winning contracts and producing aircraft for the USA. Northrop designs are usually great, but almsot always get blackballed for numerous political and economic reasons. It is a shame it never got past the mock-up stage.

This was the first time I had a chance to build the mission to do this since the F-101 and F-102 became available. It is rushed, so the location is terrible (SF fictional desert) and the skins are defaults with whatever unit was programmed in by TK. To save time, I simply extracted one of TK's missions (F-4 vs MiG-21), put the MiG flight far away, then copy and pasted the player flight repeatedly only editing the start position. So, you have to be fast on the "pause" key or they start maneuvering to engage the enemy and/or merge toward a common waypoint. As I find the time, I will find a better location, maybe Germany? The pyramids? Low pass over a good looking base? Ultimately, I would like to do a little fraps video and have waves fly by: F-80/F-94/F-84G/F-84F/F-86A/F-86D/F-89, F-100/F-101/F-102/F-104/F-105/F-106, and F-4/F-5/F-111/F-15/F-16/F-117.

Yummy!

Generations By streakeagle at 2010-01-10

I love the mods, but I have been focused on flying mainly stock aircraft way back when I hosted multiplayer all the time. I recently started using mods again for several reasons: 1) There is no longer any multiplayer in SF2, so I don't have to match the host and or have clients match my host. 2) My 3 year old son likes to "fly" (more like crash) airplanes that match my models hanging on the ceiling or those in his die-cast collection, which includes aircraft like the C-130, Jaguar, and Constellation. 3) The release of the F-101 and F-102 allow me to fly the entire the Century series. 4) I also tested all of the Razbam stuff for compatibility and still love flying the F2H. The SF2 series makes it so much easier to manage mods, especially weapons and fuel tanks, that I don't mind suffering through re-installing mods corrupted by patching.

Impressive work. It is a shame that TK doesn't use an accurrate shape for the globe instead of forcing you to deal with the same problems cartographers have always had converting a curved surface into a flat one. While there are a few other game engine design choices that annoy me, the flat maps with miles scaled down to kilometers is a big limitation keeping this lite sim from being turned into a great hard core sim. But, TK only intends for this sim to remain lite and fun, so who am I to complain about the world being flat and badly distorted?

Gotta love the Razbam F2H2 Banshee!

Going from XP to Win 7 with DX10 support gave me both better looking effects and higher framerates. None of my older games have had any problems running on Win 7 so far (still in the process of installing my library since I wiped my hard drive to go 64-bit).

To the best of my knowledge, never in human history has such a dramatic change occurred without terrible amounts of blood spilling. The Berlin Wall marked the beginning of a tidal wave that ended with the total collapse of the Soviet Union. There is simply no precedent of such a global power giving up its control so quickly AND peacefully. Though, to be fair, the UK did give up its massive colonial empire relatively peacefully with a little prodding from the USA during WW2. But, correct me if I am wrong, the UK did so over a span of decades slowly shrinking and with some fighting. On a historical scale, the collapse of Soviet Communism occurred in a flash with hardly a shot fired. I still don't understand how this happened. Traditionally, those in power hold out and fight to the bitter end, which in this case could have produced the expected WW3 scenario in Germany. Alternatively, the people rise up and kill everyone they blame for their problems such as in the French Revolution and Bolshevik Revolution. Of course the American Revolution was a one of a kind as well. Most people that rise up and fight in a revolution do so because their very lives are in danger. The French and Russians were starving and/or dying in unpopular wars. But, the people of the 13 colonies decided that they hated their tax rates so much that they would die to have the right to vote for lowering them. If only they could see how we are being taxed now despite our right to vote! Hooray for Germany! As bad as they were, the experiences of WW2 and the Cold War should make Germany an even greater country than it ever would have been otherwise. Reunification must have been painful in some ways (and to some extent probably still is). But it was not right for one people and so many families to remain so divided for so long. I would like to see Korea unified. They essentially have the same problem and both the North and South would have much to gain if the Communists collapsed and merged with the South.

CombatAce is not most forums :) Of course, it is nice if you pay a subsription fee every now and then if you are using bandwidth here.

I installed this without any problems, but the paratroops did not show up in the loadout selection screen. None of the files seemed to be right and when I finally got a paratroop to show up, he was huge, larger then the C-119. After much struggling, I made the paratroops work by going to Capun'a site and getting the paratroops from his C-47A. Strangely enough, the bitmaps matched. So I am not sure what was wrong with the C-119 paratroops which appeared to be the same model. Both the C-119 and C-47A paratroops call for an effect that doesn't exist. So, while the aircraft looks good and flys well, the paratroops part needs to be reviewed and fixed.

The bitmaps for the AA-3 missiles in this SF2 package were renamed to match the lod names, but that doesn't work. The missiles have no textures and show up black in the game. Both lod files for the ir and radar AA-3 missiles specify "aa-3.bmp", so either the bmps need to be renamed back to "aa-3.bmp" or the lod files for the AA-3s need to be edited to point to the new names. Renaming the bmps is by far easier. The Su-15 is one of the jewels of the SF series. What other sim allows you to try to intercept B-52s, B-1s, and/or FB-111s in an Su-15 or try to slip by Su-15s while flying one of the bombers? The model and pit are awesome. P.S. This is another candidate for the DirectX 10 effects edits.

I think it is safe to say that HOTAS setups have a lot of features and that no two people will ever agree on what the best feature set should be or which model available on the market meets their requirements best. About the only thing that I think the majority of high-end HOTAS owners might be able to agree on is that CH has the highest quality product backed with excellent customer support. But, to date, the first and only decent HOTAS with force feedback is the Logitech G940. Combined with the split throttle and assuming the quality of the product is acceptable, Logitech deserves and will get a bunch of new customers who already had CH or other competing products. I am not surprised to see RuggButt say he went back to CH after getting the Logitech, though. If you like the feel and functionality of CH a whole lot, force feedback and a split throttle isn't enough to justify switching. I like my X-52 Pro a lot as it is a product improved version of my still functional and much loved X-36. I know a lot of people can't stand Saitek and have had terrible experiences with their quality and support, but that hasn't been my experience. I would like to try a Logitech G940 in person before deciding to replace a stick that is already working perfectly and whose layout and button programming I have been using since August of 2000 (when I got my X-36). But, if I were going to get a new stick, the G940 is the best candidate for me. It has a lot in common with the Saitek X-52 Pro plus force feedback. The new Saitek stick with its rigid strain gauge sensor has no appeal to me whatsoever. So, I know for sure my next stick won't be a Saitek despite 9 years of enjoying my X-36 USB, X-45, and X-52 Pro. Despite all the positive things offered by CH, I just don't like the look, feel, or layout of their HOTAS, especially the throttle. If the pricing of their new military grade A-10 HOTAS isn't too unreasonable, they might actually sell me a stick. But the force feedback and similarity in layout to the Saitek still makes the G940 much more appealing to me.

The F-111's sure look good... but the afterburner effect isn't working for me. The only thing I see that let's me know I am in afterburner besides nozzle animation is the glow on the rear of the aircraft. I see the effects file is there and are pointing to the tga file, but no flames edit: this is in a merged SF2I install on Windows 7 using an ATi 4890 1GB.

There is a small problem with this package: the engine sound is in a folder called "Sound" which should be called "Sounds". So, if you install this package and try it out before installing the other F-101 packages, then you will have no engine sound. The other packages have it right, but then you will end up with a spare unwanted "sound" folder in your mods if you don't pay attention to your mods folder. I love the entire F-101 series. They may not be the best aircraft to knock down fighters, especially MiG-17s, but they are challenging to fly and look awesome!