streakeagle

As for the cost of my fleet of 1/350 aircraft: most are old style plastic injection molded aircraft. Tamiya has some nice 1/350 aircraft sets intended for their 1/350 CVA-65 Enterprise. My F-4's that have glass canopies, the Su-33s, and MiG-29s are Trumpeter's 1/350 naval jets for carrier models. The F9Fs, A-4s, and F-8s are from Corsair Armada. The Shapeways models aren't cheap, but they aren't expensive either. Pricing in standard materials is almost the same as Trumpeter kits. I always buy them in the best material to get the best quality, so that doubles the price. The MiG-21s and MiG-17s are Shapeways.

The old B-17 solitaire game had a really good feel to it. It was more like a role playing game than a tactical board game. I was always attached to each of the crew members and rooted for the gunners to become aces. As in reality, it felt like a tragedy when any of my crew died and especially when the whole airplane was lost. I got Hornet Leader when it originally came out so many years ago, it is amazing that it is not only still being sold, but expanded into several similar games centered on other aircraft, such as Phantom Leader. But I didn't enjoy playing it. I didn't feel like I was flying. I felt like I was just setting up dominoes and then watching them fall at the whims of the cards and the dice. Two player games that alternated turns (i.e. no secret plotted moves) and that had fast/easy game mechanics are what I preferred for solitaire. I had some 1/285 GHQ miniatures covering 1980s armor (M60A3, M1A1, M2/M3, M113, T-80, BMP-2, and a whole bunch of tiny infantry). I used the modern "Combined Arms" development of the Command Decision WW2 miniatures rules to play it. It was fast playing and fun even by myself. I also had the complete GDW Assault series, which was essentially the same game but with hex maps and counters. I hardly played Assault. I find the adaptation to miniatures made it both visually more pleasing and played faster/easier. I didn't even have terrain to play on, just an open floor. When I threw away all of my games, I threw away my 1/285 miniatures. GHQ is still in business and I have been tempted to buy them again, but I know they will just sit in a case and collect dust. I already own and store more stuff than I want or need between books, model airplanes, old PC games, etc. So I have maintained spending discipline to save my money for things I will actually use.

For WW1 games (and just about any other type of game), there are lots of miniatures available on Shapeways: 3D Printing Service in various scales. The models tend to have a bit of a rough texture, but overall the detail and shapes are correct.

My 1/350 miniatures for Birds of Prey.

The only air combat game I have left is Birds of Prey. I have giant felt hex maps that can be placed on the floor to support using miniatures. I built several stands and a collection of 1/350 miniatures to play, but I have no one to play with. I tried to sit down and re-learn the rules to play solitaire, but it is a time-consuming chore. Without anyone to play it with me, I would rather spend the time flying DCS World.

The problem with MiG-19s is that by the numbers, they were exceptional aircraft. Low drag, high power-to-weight. Then because of the swept wing (rather than a lower aspect ratio delta or trapezoidal used by Mach 2 fighters), it is inherently more agile, too. Compared to the MiG-21, it has only two weaknesses: top speed and stability/control at transonic/supersonic speeds. My question is this: if the MiG-19 was so good, why did the Soviets dump it like a hot potato in favor of the mostly inferior MiG-21? One big issue with the MiG-19 is Soviet service was that it was flat out dangerous. It could explode in mid flight. Pilots hated it. Also, the USSR, like the USA, was bitten by the speed is life bug and also needed to potentially intercept supersonic bombers, so the MiG-21 was the better short range/high altitude interceptor. Consider the fact that China kept the MiG-19 and derivatives of it operational for decades. They worked out the kinks and thought it was a great platform. But look at its combat record in Vietnam. The MiG-19 was only used in small numbers, so you can't draw very good conclusions. But I will say this, despite having fantastic performance, the Vietnamese pilots didn't care for the MiG-19 very much, or more correctly, the Chinese copies they were flying. Some Vietnamese pilots preferred the agility and guns of the MiG-17, others loved the ability to use MiG-21s to engage and disengage at will with quick Atoll shots on unsuspecting and/or overloaded F-4s and F-105s. Like the USSR, the VPAF found the MiG-19 unreliable. But it was MiG-19s that got Major Bob Lodge, who otherwise most likely would have been the first US ace of the war. They got him because of their tactics and his target fixation, not because of the MiG-19's performance. At the same time, the only supersonic gun kill in history was by an F-4 against a MiG-19. If the MiG-19 was such a fantastic fighter, why didn't it make an impact in the Arab-Israeli wars? First: Israel tended to knock out enemy fighters with pre-emptive strikes while they were sitting on the ground. Second: the one time they were caught with their pants down in 1973, SAMs were the star of the show and the first line fighters were MiG-21s. Many would argue that Arab pilots were not skilled, but if you study the records of both sides, you will find that Egypt had decent pilots, but they were hamstrung by Soviet equipment performance limitations (such as incredibly short range/endurance) and doctrine on top of the exceptionally good planning, training, skill, and luck of the IAF. In DCS World, the flight model is theoretically exceptionally accurate. The F-5E in a 1 vs 1 is essentially helpless against a properly flown MiG-19PF. The MiG-19 is able to turn better, climb better, and accelerate better. The MiG-21bis is only competitive with afterburner. But continuous use of afterburner kills the endurance of the MiG-21. As the MiG-19 is not commonly flown on multiplayer servers, people who know how to fly them can be very successful since almost no one knows how exceptional their ACM performance can be. My conclusion about MiG-19 performance is that flight sims do not properly reflect the problems that kept the MiG-19 from being a popular and successful fighter in reality. In flight sims, a MiG-19 with an accurate flight model IS supposed to be a UFO compared to its contemporaries and even much later aircraft until the advent of the US "teen" series fighters. In much the same way the MiG-17 was a problem in Vietnam, the MiG-19 should have been a problem for "teen" fighters until AMRAAM and the AIM-9L/M/X missiles become common. So, maybe China had the right idea to continue using it in parallel with MiG-21 derivatives. But if flight sims modeled the problems that MiG-19s really had and if you only had one life to lose in flight sims, most people wouldn't fly the MiG-19 despite its UFO performance, because no one wants to fly an aircraft that has a better chance of killing you than the enemy. Now, as it applies to Strike Fighters series games: AI don't use the hard flight model. If you plug in the correct performance numbers for the MiG-19, it will still be a UFO, partly because it really was the good and partly because of the way the AI flight model works. I can say that a skilled pilot flying the MiG-19 in SFP1/WoX mutliplayer was essentially unbeatable by any other aircraft until a patch crippled the MiG-19 a little bit and turned the F-8 Crusader into a magic UFO that could beat all other aircraft. One fact to consider is that in flight sims, focused on the player, 1 vs 1 performance is everything. But in reality, the slightly inferior F4F beat the hell out of the A6M Zero once US pilots learned how to fly as a team. In DCS World, a lone F-5E has little chance against an AI MiG-19 with high pilot quality. But with two player flown F-5Es vs two AI MiG-19s, the odds go in favor of the players if they use good tactics... except that the AI flight model and gunnery skill is even worse in DCS World than it is in SF series games, so sometimes you just can't beat them even if you properly execute the correct tactics. Overall, in SF series games, I never found it necessary to mod the AI enemies. I understood how the AI was flying and could generally beat them. It was actually pleasant to see the AI do something unexpected and beat me every now and then. I wouldn't spend a lot of time trying to make the MiG-19 FM better, because the AI doesn't really use the full FM. Learn the vulnerability of the AI's tactics and exploit it, then the FM won't matter as much. SF AI is predominately horizontal turning tactics. Creative use of the vertical, rolling scissors, and "Top Gun" movie style sudden slow down tactics can beat just about any AI no matter how good their flight model is.

Until I had to move in a hurry and didn't have room to store my games any more, I had nearly every board game/miniature rules set ever sold covering air combat at a 1:1 scale from WW1 to Modern. I didn't have time to give them away or sell them, so I just took them to work and threw them in a dumpster. I didn't have TSR's Dawn Patrol, but I did have their release of Air War (a modern jet game originally published by SPI). I did have several WW1 games/miniatures rules. My favorite WW1 game was the Nova Game Designs' Ace of Aces series. Each player used a book that showed photos or drawings of aircraft from various ranges/angles and the combination of the chosen maneuvers determined which page each player turned to. It was fast and fun, anyone could play with very little training. Yet, it was almost like playing a flight sim because you didn't waste any time plotting moves or take turns on a map. The most complex rivaled Air War in its attempt to model the physics of flight: Avalon Hill's Knights of the Air. The closest I had to Dawn Patrol was GDW's Blue Max. I can't remember the names of the WW1 miniatures rules that I had. The only air combat game I ever got any friends to play on a regular basis was Avalon Hill's Air Force/Dauntless series for WW2 (originally published by Battleline). It was fairly easy to learn to play and used pre-plotted moves. The Avalon Hill version had colorful, attractive aircraft data cards that turned boring tables of numbers into colorful bar charts that were curved to somewhat resemble instruments. Only a handful of people ever tried my more complex jet games, like Air War, GDW's Air Superority/Air Strike series that morphed onto Clash of Arms Speed of Heat series. Avalon Hill's Flight Leader was a much simpler jet combat game that anyone could play like Air Force/Dauntless. Despite its simplicity and speed of play, it was almost as realistic as the other games with combat results comparing well with historical results. If you want the ultimate tactical air combat game, it is Birds of Prey. Tony Valle, a long time Air Superiority fan, also has a PhD and wrote pc simulations. He came up with a nomograph solution for board game flight modeling that allows players to fly the aircraft almost as realistically as a PC flight sim with the game turns taking no longer than the older complex sims and only requiring the ability to add and subtract. It is a jet era game. The time/distance scale doesn't have sufficient resolution to handle WW2 fighters very well and can't even come close to modeling ultra slow WW1 biplanes. It is an amazing achievement and represents what I was hoping to find when I bought all of those other games and miniatures rules. Unfortunately, there aren't many people who actually own and play it. I have no interest in playing online/by email and I don't know anyone who will play face to face. As it stands, in the time it took for someone to develop the best possible game mechanics for dogfighting, PC simulations became the best way to get that kind of experience and with the advent of VR, I have little interest in studying and applying board game rules when I can feel like I am really flying inside any kind of airplane I choose from WW1 to the present. But if someone near Orlando, FL was actually interested in playing tabletop air combat games face-to-face, I would be interested in doing so.

In the cockpit ini file, there will be items that move the cockpit around based on pulling g loads. If it is commented, they should be easy to find, if not you will have to learn to read the ini file to understand which blocks are part of actual instrumentation and which ones are causing head movement. Make a backup of the ini, delete what you believe to be the code causing the problem, then run a test flight. To delete it properly, you have to delete the entire block and delete the reference calling for that block. But just deleting the code inside the block will get the job done.

VorpX is what keeps changing. Now I can use Starry's Strike Fighters 2 DirectX 10 profile that I uploaded to the VorpX Cloud profiles without any issues again. OpenXR/Windows Mixed Reality was recently added so that I can now use my Reverb G2 natively (as in no longer needing SteamVR). I have the graphics set to unlimited at 4K resolution and it looks fantastic in VR with framerates locked at 90 fps (native frame rate for my G2). There are some limitations with this setup, but overall it looks and works great. I have installed SF2 Vietnam Air & Ground War and SF2 Wings Over Korea. If only it had multiplayer functionality comparable to DCS World, though I would settle for the original multiplayer in SFP1/WoX.

I can't wait for the Crusader, it is inevitable, but the time table is never accurate from Leatherneck. I can't wait to get their F4U-1D Corsair as well, which will be added the Korea server as a stand-in for the F4U-4. DCS keeps me busy enough that I very rarely fire up SF2. Sometimes I just feel like fighting in an F-4 or Century series aircraft. I have gotten VR to kind of work with VorpX, and unlike DCS World, VR runs with the fps maxed out for a fairly decent experience minus the fact that your head isn't really free to move around and the rear cockpit is not modeled. I usually fly DCS for 1 to 4 hours every night and sometimes for most of the weekend except for when I am sleeping, eating, or doing chores. That used to be my SF2 schedule before I had a PC that could run DCS well and the plane set expanded beyond the A-10, Ka-50, and P-51D. It seemed like the Fw190D9, UH-1, MiG-21, F-86, and MiG-15 all came out really close together, which kept me busy for quite some time. The DCS UH-1 experience in VR on the Vietnam server is fantastic. The UH-1 is currently a little too tough. It can sustain quite a few hits from rifles and machine guns. But that allows you to have more fun shooting/blowing things up than would be possible if it was realistic. I will still keep SF2 on my hard drive as long as it remains compatible. I hope TK is able to maintain compatibility over the years even if he never makes any other patches or content for the game.

While computer hardware can be goofy, Microsoft Windows is always goofy. Just a matter if you use the parts that are broken. In this case, they did something to a function everyone will notice. However, not everyone has the problem. Typical Windows.

I migrated to Windows 10 because I was running VR on an Oculus Rift/Rift S and at one point the patches for the Oculus software required Windows 10 to move forward. The biggest problem I had was that I upgraded my existing Windows 7 install rather than starting with a blank hard drive. The problem is that USB 3 is native to Windows 10 whereas Windows 7 required drivers, so my Oculus Rift and Rift S headsets were crippled by Windows 10 being confused/broken by Windows 7 USB drivers. After struggling to get stability, I ended up installing Windows 10 on a clean SSD. From that point forward, Windows 10 only gave me the trouble that Windows Update periodically causes... until Windows Update somehow got broken and I had to do a clean install to recover. I will migrate to Windows 11 whenever it makes sense but I am in no hurry to be an early adopter unless it somehow makes DCS World run faster/better. As for Strike Fighters Project 2, it remains the sole sim supporting the Post WW2 to modern jet era. I hope TK is able to follow through with his Windows 10 update and that it generates enough interest to justify moving forward with SF2 development. But the failure to hit the crowdfunding target tells me that SF2 isn't going to continue development and the lack of communication from TK well past the time the update was supposed to be completed isn't very encouraging either. The opening of the Discord channel was a good sign, though. Only time will tell. In the mean time, DCS World continues to be my primary flight sim with online PVE servers for Korea and Vietnam consuming most of my flight time. I just wish DCS had the F2H-2 Banshee for Korea and the F-4 for Vietnam, but the F-86, P-51, and MiG-15 are great for Korea and the UH-1, F-5, A-4E, MiG-19, and MiG-21 are great for Vietnam.

I observed some bizarre windows minimization behavior the other day. Applications that normally stayed open and in the background while playing DCS World in VR kept minimizing to the task bar. After a day or two the problem went away. It pretty much has to be Microsoft and their never ending patches.

What a great series of photos! F-86 Sabres were the Hollywood stars of Korea. The F9F Panthers, F-80 Shooting Stars, and F-84 Thunderjets were popular, too. But the World II era props flying the majority of close air support and interdiction were really the backbone of the Korean War: P-51 Mustangs, F4U Corsairs, and AD Skyraiders for the USAF and USN. F-94 Starfires, F3D Skyknights, and F2H Banshees are much less known to most people, but are my favorites despite their limited impact on the overall war. The Banshee in particular not only was better than the F9F in the carrier-based fighter-bomber role, but its high altitude performance and long range made it a better escort for B-29s and recon (kind of the U-2 of the war). The night/all-weather F2H-2N Banshees served in very small numbers, but to me were the coolest of the radar interceptor/night fighters.

I have everything but the JF-17. Pre-ordering this was a no-brainer. But I am more interested in upcoming releases: Early F-14A, F-8J, and F4U-1D.

Take advantage of the 2-week free trials: try every module, one at a time, before you decide what to buy. I can't hurt. There are enough modules to keep you busy for quite some time before you would need to make a decision.

If your present PC can run DCS World (a 100% free download), you can get the free A-4E-C Skyhawk addon aircraft and fly it from carriers or ground bases on the online Vietnam server. Mastering the A-4E could keep you busy while you wait for a good sale to buy the F-16C.

In my opinion, the F-14A/B is the best modern jet because I prefer air-to-air and it dominates both the WVR and BVR arenas in the F-14B configuration. But two-seaters have limitations: you either have to deal with a less than capable AI RIO or fly multiplayer and hope to find a human RIO, preferably one more skilled than the AI. Presently, the F/A-18C is the best all around modern jet because it is very good at just about everything except for range and power-to-weight. The F-16C at its current patch level does not beat the F/A-18 in sustained turn rate the way it should, but is otherwise a good mashup of F-14 and F/A-18 performance being among the best in both air-to-air and air-to-ground. The F-16C is not a carrier based plane, that means a little less fun for me. I love carrier operations almost as much as combat, especially with the SuperCarrier addon module. Air-to-air refueling is very challenging and fun in DCS World. For me, the F-16 is the hardest to refuel with sensitive controls and a touchy throttle.

I had written a long comparison post, but I deleted it in favor of saying this: You can do a 2-week free trial and decide for yourself if it is worth the money. But I would never pay full price when you can always wait for a sale. The summer sale just ended, so the next one might be a fall sale? The Christmas sale used to really drop prices, but these days, most sales are the same: 50% off for older releases, 0-20% off for newer ones. I can't recall what the F-16C price is on sale.

Photo of a patch: http://usmilitarypatches.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10004/36tfw_f100_sb_2~0.jpg

Project Shoehorn was the US Navy program to retrofit its Vietnam aircraft with RWR/ECM including the ALE series chaff/flare dispensers. The F-8 received the ALE-29 series with a pair of 15-round boxes. It was designed for dropping chaff and you can see that in the control panel switch functions. But per the F-8 manual, it could carry flares, too. But there was no way to choose flare or chaff, just the ability to select one or both pods and determine how many and how fast to deploy countermeasures. So, if flares were available and loaded, it would have been possible to load one with flares and one with chaff, then use the selector to drop the one you wanted or both. The focus was on defeating SA-2s, but later in the war, shoulder fired SA-7s became a threat, so it is possible that flares may have been carried. AIM-4 limititations: You have to turn on cooling in anticipation of combat, which takes a while. Once you turn on cooling, it has a time limit and runs out of cooling. You have to hold the firing solution for several seconds before the missile launches. Small warhead with no proximity fuse: the missile must score a direct kinetic hit and even then may not do significant damage. It was not a dogfight weapon at all (like the early AIM-7 and AIM-9B). Against maneuvering MiGs, you could never meet all of the firing constraints, and even if you did, it probably missed. The USAF insisted on switching to the AIM-4 and consequently saw its ability to score kills against VPAF MiGs dramatically reduced until they switched back to AIM-9s. The AIM-9B was far easier to use and far more reliable even though it also had similar launch g and minimum range limits. The AIM-9D was available almost immediately at the start of the Vietnam War and was far superior to the AIM-9B and AIM-4D as reflected by all the kills the Navy scored with it. Robin Olds immediately recognized the mistake of switching to the AIM-4 and ordered his mechanics to create an adapter to permit using the AIM-9B. The USAF leadership (dominated by the Curtis LeMay nuclear war/strategic bomber crowd) was horrible for the duration of the war constantly making bad strategic and tactical decisions that cost many planes and pilots. It was only after the war that the USAF admitted its training and tactics were horrible and that the Navy's AIM-9 was the future instead of continuing development of its AIM-9E/J series. The AIM-4 went away with the Century series interceptors, with the AIM-54 being the only derivative to remain in service in any capacity with US forces. The Iranians praised the AIM-54 can claimed many kills. In US Navy service, it had a history of poor reliability during test and training shots and the few times it was fired in combat, it failed.

I may be able to dig up some F-8 operational info. I don't know if my sources go into that level of detail. But here is where I discussed Oyster flight's 1972 May loadouts with 2xAIM-4D and an ecm pod in the forward AIM-7 well. Note: there is also an ecm pod under one of the AIM-4Ds. Oyster Flight Loadout on May 10, 1972 - The Pub - CombatACE

Historically, USAF AIM-9Es and AIM-9Js performed the same or worse than AIM-9Bs, while the USN very hastily deployed AIM-9Ds with excellent results (around 40-60%) and the AIM-9G and AIM-9H had results comparable to the AIM-9L (around 80%). Late AIM-9Js as deployed on F-15s supposedly solved the early AIM-9J problems, but the AIM-9L, derived from the AIM-9G/H series was far superior, so the USAF finally gave up and switched to the USN derived variants that were comparable in range and speed, more maneuverable, all-aspect, and more reliable. The AIM-4D had dismal performance in Vietnam, worse than the AIM-9B. But the USAF really insisted on using them rather than the USN developed AIM-9. Politics and pride don't mix well with making good decisions that effect combat effectiveness.

MiG encounters were relatively rare. The Vietnamese didn't have many and on most days used them very sparingly. The Navy mainly faced MiG-17s which had no IRMs. SA-2s were fired on a daily basis. The Navy needed chaff far more than they needed flares. So, you shouldn't be looking for what the aircraft was capable of carrying, but instead looking for documentation of what they actually carried. For example, the F-4 could in theory carry 4 x AIM-9 and 4 x AIM-7. But the USAF and USN used different loadouts based on their own experience and judgement. The USAF had crappy AIM-9s and favored carrying AIM-7s, but the USAF also liked to put an ecm pod in one of the forward AIM-7 wells. The USAF also liked to carry the AIM-4D instead of the AIM-9. So even on May 10, 1972, during the biggest day of air-to-air combat during the entire war, Major Lodge's Oyster flight of F-4Ds was carrying 1 x AIM-4D on each wing pylon, either 2 or 3 AIM-7 + ECM pod. The USN had great AIM-9s and almost always carried 4xAIM-9. But since the F-4 couldn't fire the forward AIM-7s without dropping the centerline tank and the Navy had horrible results with the AIM-7, they usually only carried 2xAIM-7 in the rear wells. Unlike the USAF, Navy F-4s could carry 2xAIM-9 and bombs under each wing plyon, so it was quite common for USN CAP/Escort F-4s to carry some bombs as well as missiles to provide some SEAD for the attack aircraft. Whereas in the game, carrying 4xAIM-9 and 4xAIM-7 is typical and generally the most effective loadout.