streakeagle

The gunsight functions as a bombsight, but unlike in reality, the sight is fixed at one angle (which varies with the type of air-to-ground weapon selected). So, you have to figure out what kind of profile makes that depression angle accurate, i.e. start diving from 10,000 feet and 3 or 4 nm from target then hold the sight on the target and release at 3 or 4 thousand feet. Alternatively, you can choose your own start height/distance and release angle, then adjust the depression angle in the ini file until it matches where your bombs are hitting. Of course, it would be nice if TK would allow you to set the depression angle to any value you want while flying, but he considers that outside of the boundaries of his "sim-lite" marketing approach. I find that if you use a steep approach angle and release at the lowest possible altitude that will allow you to pull up from that steep angle, you can get very accurate with just a little practice. Of course, when you use my super low release technique, if you spend too much time lining up the sight before the release, then you might go too low. You can take damage from your own bombs, but far more likely you won't be able to pull out and will impact into the ground.

Most likely, purely coincidence. I have had almost every aircraft with a gun have a jam at one time or another since this feature has been added. Firing long bursts definitely increases the probability of a jam. The F-8 Crusdader jams quite a bit (which is realistic) and the Mk4 Mod0 gunpod for the Navy Phantoms jams very easily as well. But I have had jams with F-100s and even the F-4E's 20mm Vulcan.

Most WWI guns and some WW2 guns can be recharged manually from the cockpit to try to clear a jam. Other than the fact that rotary cannons feed the next round whether the previous round fired or not, I don't know of any modern guns that should permit you to clear a jam while in the air.

This is a new feature that is borrowed from First Eagles, so I have no idea how it is implemented. I don't know the different jam probabilities or how jamming depends on what difficulty settings. I generally play on Hard settings, so I am not so good at providing tech support on the differences between Easy, Normal, and Hard.

Typically, jams are caused by firing the guns while under unusual g-loads. High-g turns can cause problems with feed/extraction mechanisms. Low, no, or negative g-loads can cause problems as well. The problem is the that most gun designs were engineered on the ground with a simple level 1-g load. Air combat really tests an engineers ability to feed ammo and eject casings rapidly no matter what the environment. Typical guns use belts of ammo chained together as in the classic 0.50 cal M2. Linked belts tend to break, twist, and/or bind such that the gun cannot load the next round. In conventional designs, casings are typically ejected by the force of the gases used to propel the round, possibly being assisted by gravity to help with the ejection path. Under high loads, the casings don't follow the intended path and get stuck in the chamber where the next round is supposed to go. Once a shot has been fired and the next round could not/would not automatically feed, there is usually no means to try to feed another round manually. The rotary cannon design went with a linkless chute type of feed: the rounds are essentially rolled through a chute into a chamber where they can be rammed into the barrel(s). While there can be some feed issues, especially under high g-loads, the whole process is driven mechanically and has a good chance of being cleared if a problem does occur. Fired or not, the rounds are extracted mechanically as well. Typically, on internal installations, the spent casings are fed back into the ammo drum. This eliminates any possibility of loose brass hurting the aircraft (think air intakes). So the entire process is from loading to extraction is precise and controlled as it needs to be if you are going to fire up to 100 rounds per second! The problem with the multi-barrel gatling gun is size and weight. A pair of single-barrel revolver cannons can produce nearly the same effective rate of fire (less mass to spool up, but more limited by barrel temperatures) for a fraction of the weight. So, if you have the room, a gatling gun is probably the best way to go, but for a small lightweight installation, revolver cannon get the job done (think F-5).

Some gun installations are more likely to jam than others. Take as few shots as possible and use short controlled well-aimed bursts to reduce the likelyhood of a jam. If you are using spray-n-pray, you will jam almost any gun in the game very quickly. Some weapons on some aircraft were notorious for jamming, notably the F-8 Crusader's 20mm cannons. There is a reason the "Last Gunfighter" got most of its kills with AIM-9s! The 20mm Vulcan rotary cannon has many disadvantages, but in most versions of it, reliability is not one of them. Without even checking the gun data, I am sure TK has modeled this advantage. Though I bet TK hasn't modeled the spool-up time that greatly reduces the effective rate of fire. While always quoted as having selectable 3000 or 6000 rounds per minute, the fact is over short bursts, the 6-barrels do not instantly spin up from 0 rpm to 500 or 1000 rpm. But even if the effective rate of fire isn't much better than most quad-mounted single barrel 20mm cannon, as long as the feed mechanism doesn't jam, the gun is self-clearing when hydraulically or electically powered. Of course, some would say the caliber is too small compared to many aircraft that have 23mm, 27mm, or 30mm cannon. If the purpose of the gun is air-to-air, the modern version of the 20mm round is more than adequate. Why else would the US stick with one design for so long when other versions are available in 25mm (AV-8B Harrier) and 30mm (4-barrel version of GAU-8 used in gunpods for F-15E)?

I hosted a 24-hour/7-days-a-week server for SFP1 and WoV for a couple of years. It does bring in more traffic than having no server at all, but you can only host a dogfight session unattended. Besides that, here are the key problems with hosting: Stability: a person with a bad connection can crash the server (typically those with dialup and some DSL ISPs exhibited this behavior) Settings: no two people want to fly with the same settings. I was a hardcore "all hard settings" host for most of the two years. The hard settings turned away many newbies and some veterans. I myself can stand anything less, since "hard" makes the weapons and flight models as detailed and realistic as they can be on this game engine. The number one settings issue is being able to see the "HUD" box and/or mini radar display versus having a "clean" realistic display with no text clutter, etc. TK solved that problem for me by adding the display toggle, mapped to "alt-d" by default. I set full hard settings except for HUD and visual spotting, but once in the game, each player can use "alt-d" to get the screen view he prefers... I must admit the targeting box with player ids is useful during training. Install options: which patch level and what addons? The average person comes online with the game as purchased, which is easily patched up to whatever level is desired. But expecting a noobie to install a ton of addons one at a time is unrealistic. In my experience, stock/patched is the way to go. However, special packages such as those by CheckSix! are very easy to install and can add important/fun aircraft that draw crowds: F-14, F-5, and Saab Draken. So, if the community can agree to an online package and someone puts it together into a single drag-n-drop or self-install package, that is really the way to go. Game: When I originally started hosting, there was only SFP1. Then came WoV and SFG. I figured out how to get SFG to work with SFP1 in Hyperlobby and would alternate hosting SFP1 and WoV nightly or weekly. I found more people would fly if I hosted the WoV and therefore stopped hosting the CheckSix! package which used SFP1 as its base. Now we have SFP1, SFG, WoV, WoE, WoI, and FE. While I have hosted and played all of those online, WoV is still the most popular. The stock planeset for WoV has a lot of appeal. If WoI was officially supported on Hyperlobby rather than requiring a hack to get it to work (i.e. copying and renaming the exe to WoV.exe and then pointing the Hyperlobby path for WoV to the WoI folder), WoI might be even more populare due to its planeset: Mirages , F-15s, and F-16s in addition to the typical TW F-4/A-4 combo. I personally like the merged WoE/WoV install for online MP: huge, great planeset with a stock install (even the F-104G is automatically included now). However, I only had a few people ever participate when I hosted that, maybe more people would support it now. Boredom: most people get tired of dogfight mode fairly quickly. Either they get burned badly by the veterans, or they want more realistic situations than the everyone for themself deathmatch. Once a group decides to fly co-op, it is just a matter of time before they get bored with that and leave for a more capable and interesting multiplayer sim like the IL-2 series. I have never seen a virtual squadron fly this sim series for more than a year, usually less than 2 months. However, there is a small core group that has been playing SFP1 online since its release. For people that like the half-decent stock flight models and somewhat realistic avionics/weapons/damage modeling of the 60's timeframe, there is no better sim. The number of people actively playing these games online is so few, that having more than 1 or 2 servers up is wasteful. Everyone needs to fly on the same server or you might as well be playing single player. I will gladly provide tech support to anyone trying to host/play multiplayer for Third Wire sims. I do not normally have the time to actively fly with a squadron, but I can pop in an out, especially if I get an email telling me when and where to be. Good Luck!

I got this stick to give to my parents neighbor. I promised him one of my old computers a long time ago and finally got it set up the way I wanted. He doesn't have the money to get PCs, as far as I know he is still using the last one I gave him (a Pentium III 650MHz). The one I am giving him now is built to the same specs as my longtime primary PC: P3 1.2GHz Tualatin with 1GB PC133 RAM and a Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB. I have set it up with most of my games: Third Wire series, Aces High 2, Operation Flashpoint, etc. So I got this joystick so he could enjoy the games as well as I have. I used to buy a Microsoft Precision Pro 2 USB for these situations, they were only $20 and better than most sticks except for higher end HOTAS setups. I got the AV8R for $40 at Best Buy. I was pleasantly surprised: It felt good, has plenty of buttons/switches, twisty rudder, and dual throttles.

For the record, I finally got this project working 100%. Every button/trigger is wired into a button on the MS Sidewinder board. My next goal is to build a reasonable replica of the Martin Baker ejection seat using wood (at least basic angles, shape and dimensions), then buy some actual seat cushions from eBay. If I get that far, I may build a similarly simplified wooden pit to the approximate dimensions of the F-4 pit... but that depends on how much space I have after I move closer to my "new" job I started back in February.

My wife thought she wanted a small laptop for checking email, facebook, browsing the internet, etc. while sitting in the living room watching TV... Then she discovered the main tradeoff... it may be fast enough to do routine chores, but it is much slower and the relatively low resoltion of the display doesn't give you much real estate to work with for browsing or reading documents. So now she has flipped 180 degrees. She wants a laptop that will let her play World of Warcraft while watching TV in the living room... and to give her the speed and quality of graphics she is used to, that means a 1600x1200 or 1920x1200 display with a graphics chip strong enough to drive the game at that resolution. Work gives both of us laptops (and her work laptop is probably strong enough to do what she wants), so I prefer to build my own desktop as a pure hobby/gaming machine.

You get one install of a 3rd Wire sim. So which sim? Easy choice: WoV has carriers, most diverse flyable planeset, and is based on history (the carriers are what make it a slightly better deal than WoI). 1 mod takes care of just about everything from planes to terrain to missions: YAP (even better carrier, much better terrain, almost every plane/object you could want, and of course 100 detailed historical missions). However, the arrival of SF2 changes the situation. I want WoV2. If I have to do it myself, I can force YAP/YAP2 to work with WoV2.

Great video. Showcases the wide variety of aircraft, weapons, and ground objects available in this sim in a way that is very entertaining especially with the choice of music.

Multiplayer has almost always been at the bottom of TK's list. He does infer he may someday make a dedicated MP version of the game (with flyable MiGs!). But, knowing what he is already committed to doing and that his financial stability depends on continuously releasing new titles, I don't see how he can do a multiplayer game anytime soon without subcontracting out the network code. I don't think TK will hire someone to code for him and I doubt he can afford to take the time to write his own multiplayer code. If Microsoft provides another free alternative to DirectPlay that TK can plug into his game with relative ease, then maybe TK might be able to squeeze in the multiplayer version. So here is the roadmap I see that must be followed for us to see TK release an MP version of the SF2 game system based on his own statements: 1) MS replaces DirectPlay with an easy to learn and use system that is up to date in terms of handling routers and firewalls. 2) TK finishes his current project list (which he revealed at his forums and is quite a big list when you count conversion of all the original sims to Vista plus the Suez addon and 2 or more other unspecified games/addons). 3) The available planeset from previously released games/addons provides fully flyable versions of MiG-17s, MiG-19s, MiG-21s, MiG-23s, Su-7s, etc. 4) A certain hot location run by Satan freezes over solid. With any luck, all of these conditions will have been met by the time my son is old enough to fly with/against me.

Once a working cat extractor is posted, I may look into whether it is worth merging my textures with TK's new cockpits. The new pits are great in details and texture resolution, but don't quite look photoreal. But the new cockpits are different from the old, so it may be too much work for me to adapt my textures to the new pits.

If you like multiplayer, try Aces High II from http://www2.hitechcreations.com/frindex.html It is free to download. There are offline missions to use for practice (you can create your own, but the game comes with a few and there are many available from other players). But it is mainly a subscription massive multiplayer online game, which you can try for free for 2 weeks. Warning: the free 2 week subscription will make you an addict! IL-2 has better graphics and more detailed/complicated engine management (not necessarily more realistic), but IMHO Aces High II has far better flight/gunnery/damage models. I prefer BOB2 over IL-2. BOB2 is truly amazing: graphics, terrain, realism, AI, huge bomber raids, etc. The only limitation to BOB2 is the planeset/map/campaign: you better like flying only Spitfires, Hurricanes, Bf-109s, etc. over the English Channel. Having said all that, the IL-2 series is the most comprehensive WW2 flight sim ever released, I can't imagine any combat flight simmer not having owned it/played it. IL-2 1946 has everything wrapped into one big package, so it is the way to go. While I own every IL-2 release (except 1946), I have never really gotten into it, but I thoroughly enjoyed taking off/landing on aircraft carriers with F4U Corsairs: challenging and fun.

It is a shame the F-104G could not still be in this package :(

Did you see the cockpit textures? My hi-res mods for the F-4 may have just become mostly obsolete! http://www.thirdwire.com/images/sf2_05.jpg You can see at least 3 different F-4 pits in the screenshots and the hi-res skins look great too. Look at the F-4E, it has the short gun muzzle, maybe even the hard wing with no slats? Strike Fighters and its 3d models are being brought up to the WoI graphics standard. It is already on sale and I have already bought it. Will install it and play later tonight... I am late for work now.

Historically, the North Vietnamese had so few MiGs while the USAF/USN had an overwhelming number of aircraft that the MiGs were generally restricted to flying radar directed point-intercepts of vulnerable bombers attacking North Vietnam. So, it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to create a separate campaign with no MiGs for South Vietnam action.

While I would be happy to fly a Cessna 152, Piper Cub (especially a tricked out Super Cub), or better yet a Pitts Special biplane... But I think getting the chance to fly the X-15 would be the ultimate: a spaceplane. The X-15 was to the space shuttle what Project Mercury was to Project Apollo. It was the small, sports car version of the shuttle. Like the SR-71, it looks advanced enough to be featured in modern sci-fi movies as a space ship. Space... the final frontier... Air is good, space is better

The Cobra maneuver as executed in airshows may be of little defensive value, but the point of the maneuver was to show how superior the Su-27 was to F-14/F-15/F-16 aircraft in high-AoA flight which translates into high pitch/turn rates and superior controlability at the limits normally used reached and exceeded during air-to-air combat. The F/A-18 was the only US fighter prior to the F-22 capable of similar performance, though of even less usefulness due to its much lower thrust-to-weight ratio compared to the Su-27. The ability to instantly point the nose of your aircraft in any direction without losing control is extremely useful both offensively and defensively since the best defense is a good offense: i.e. imagine being able to snap back 120 degrees to lob and AIM-9X at a target who thought he was pursing you. The US and Germany teamed up to build the X-31 to specifically explore post-stall maneuverability even more aggressive than the Cobra. While not as maneuverable as the X-31, the F-22 is certainly more capable than the Su-27 in this area. How many Su-27s have you seen perched at 5,000 feet with their nose about 80 to 85 degrees pitched up while the aircraft is moving horizontally at less than 50 mph, almost a hover? I have seen an F-22 do that while waiting to perform at an airshow and was duly impressed with the awesome controllability this displayed.

For perspective on aircraft technology, consider the time it took to develop and produce the A-12/SR-71 compared to the F-22. Sure the F-22 takes advantage of modern materials and micro-miniature electronic technology, but the idea for this aircraft started around 1980 and they are just now entering service in significant numbers over 25 years later. The A-12/SR-71 is in some ways still a more advanced airframe and propulsion system. It was conceived around 1958 and flying operational sorties by 1963. To me, the aerospace technology explosion peaked with the light-weight fighter program (F-16/F-17) and the last Apollo mission. The space shuttle was under-funded and as a result lacked the performance that would have made it truly useful and cost-effective compared to conventional rockets. Now the budget has shrunk so much, we are taking a step backwards to Apollo-like conventional rockets and to do so, we first have to ground the space shuttle so we can spend a few years funding development for its replacement. Imagine if the USAF had to ground the F-4 in the middle of Vietnam to afford development of the F-15 and that the end result was a based on the previous generation, the F-86. That is the direction our manned space program is heading. Fortunately, the commerical space industry is finally going the direction that NASA originally wanted: an orbiter with reliability, maintenance requirements, and turn-around time little different from an airliner... and if they succeed, not only will they have done it on a fraction of the budget NASA has ever had, but they will actually make a profit once fully operational. If anyone can pull this off, Burt Rutan can. He is already an aerospace engineering legend, but if his work on a commercial space shuttle is as successful as it promises to be, it could put him up there with Werner Von Braun and Kelly Johnson.

Had the money kept rolling in and NASA continued to be lucky in terms of avoiding fatal accidents, we were supposed to have a permanent moon base by 1980 and be attempting a trip to Mars by 2010. Living on the moon would have accelerated the R&D necessary to survive an extended trip to mars as well as providing a great staging area/launch platform. Even with the current space station in place, the limited budget has kept the pace of advancement down to a crawl compared to the Mercury/Gemini/Apollo whirlwind. Space travel costs, how far do you want to go? I am of the opinion that it is critical to the survival of the human race for people to permanently live on Mars and/or any othe inhabitable body in our Solar system independent of all support from Earth. That way if a catastrophic disaster kills off everyone on Earth, humanity will still be around. Of course, if we are able to spread to other locations in our solar system, then our next goal should be to get to another star system before our Solar system dies. We need to simultaneously dump a ton of resources in Mars colonization via conventional technology and alternative sub-atomic faster-than-light theories that might be extendable to the macro world. It would be cool if before we could build a conventional spaceship to get to Mars, we figured out how to instantly jump there within the next 10 or 20 years

As I figured, combat is a downgrade compared to anything released since 1999... But, when used for its intended purpose (learning to fly airshow routines), it is both fun and challenging. Basically, you see the required flight path in the sky as a flat ribbon. You fly the path as closely as possible staying withing the ribbon by pitching and rolling. You are scored on how well you can match the ribbon in %, so 100% represents a perfect flight. If you aren't flying solo are flight lead, i.e. you are wing or slot, you can focus more on staying in formation instead of imaginary ribbons (such things can be turned off if you think you can fly the routine without them). The problem I see is that the view system is lacking for proper formation flying... TrackIR is unsupported and your view always auto centers. As yet, I am unsure of how well multiplayer works. With good net code, it could be the best way to play once you get the basics down in single player.

I met a former Romanian MiG-29 pilot on a jobsite one time. I had no trouble grilling him for as much information as he could give me. There was a bit of a language barrier, but he had picked up English very fast in the year he had been working here as a maintenance supervisor in an injection molding plant. It bothered me greatly to see someone who once flew fighter jets working so hard for so little money. I hope he succeeded in transitioning to commercial flying in the U.S. I have forgotten his name, but always wonder what happened to him.

It isn't that much more to get a 4870 instead of a 4850, so why did you take the lesser card? If I were building a PC right now, I would bet getting a 4870 with 1GB RAM. But I won't be building any PCs until I move to Kissimmee... need to keep cash in the bank for down payment/closing. After I move and see how my finances are doing, I will start looking at new PC options. By then, AMD might have a competitive cpu which will help drive prices down even lower than they are.