streakeagle

I just thought of something... if the stick shaker still works, I need to figure out if there is a way to get a force-feedback signal to it. Since the Saitek doesn't support force feedback, maybe I should get a stick that does? Cheap solution: get a new rumble pad and use it to build my joystick rather than cutting up my x-45. I just tried my wife's Saitek P2500... should do the trick :)

I got lucky, a guy on eBay is parting out his F-4 cockpit collection. I can't afford to get the instrument panel, but look what I got: It comes with everything but the stick grip, including the $100 metal connector lug that my stick grip doesn't have. It is costing me $545 including shipping, which means I have now spent over $1,000 on a stupid stick. I feel bad about spending so much money on something of such limited value. But I have never wasted any money on cigarettes. Very little money on alcohol (compared to most people I have known). The only other things I have wasted money on besides flight related hobbies is 1980 Corvettes/gas, guns/bullets. and music/video. Oh wait... that's actually quite a bit of money wasted and quite a bit more than the total money I have spent on PCs and flight sims. The difference is CDs were $10 or $15 here and there, where PC/fllight simming tends to be $500 or $1,000 here and there. Enough about the guilt I am feeling over blowing so much money on a hunk of metal... Once I get this assembly, I need to mount it to a sheet of wood (or maybe a frame). My X-45 is standing by to be mutilated to become the interface to the PC. Since the X-45 has more buttons than the B-8 stick, I figure I can used the spare buttons to make an aux panel with armament and/or radar controls which use real knobs and switches. Third Wire's weapon selection system of Next/Previous air-weapon doesn't match well with the F-4's missile station selector knob, but I could make a 2 position knob that would look like the F-4 panel, but really only activate Next Weapon and use the shift key to get previous weapon (rather than using 2 switches, so that I can have more functions). So, I guess my project is going to consist of: mounting the F-4 stick interfacing the F-4 stick as much as possible with the X-45 adding a simulated instrument panel interfacing left over switches from the x-45 stick and placing the throttle in the correct position on the left arm building a semi-scale replica of the F-4 ejection seat out of plywood I don't have a whole lot of free time right now, but that is going to get better within a year or two. I am changing jobs so that I don't have to travel so much, and once I move closer, won't have to waste as much time commuting. Until I move, I will be losing 2 hours a day to commuting... yuck! When I have been in town for my current job, home is only 25 or 30 minutes away, not 1 hour. Once I get settled into my new job and get moved into a new home... I can see a future filled with delusions of being an F-4 pilot complete with a helmet, O2 mask, g-suit, and flight suit :) Is there something wrong with me?

AIM-9Bs just aren't useful against human players that see the missile coming, chop their throttles, and turn into the shot. I only gets kills with an AIM-9B against people that are inexperienced and try to blindly extend in full afterburner. But I had one shot with an AIM-9B during online multiplayer dogfight that really stands out. We were probably 7 or 8 thousand feet up and my opponent dove for the deck. I chopped my throttle and pushed through with negative g's into a 70 or 80 degree dive. I pointed at his exhaust, unloaded the g, and fired the AIM-9 without regard for tone, his lack of afterburner, or the fact that the ground filled my entire field of view. The guy I was flying against was an online veteran. He knew that I always fired AIM-9Bs just to scare people into turning toward me (I am good at high deflection snapshots with guns). He knew that AIM-9Bs rarely hit with the afterburner off or when pointed at the ground. He was so sure that he wouldn't get hit that he completetly ignored my shot. His airplane disintegrated when the AIM-9B went up his tailpipe. I don't know if the missile tracked or not, maybe it was just a lucky collision, either way I hit and killed him. It was a miracle shot that I have never duplicated. Now AIM-9Ds are a lot more useful. And AIM-9Gs and AIM-9Hs are a lot more likely to get decent hits under adverse conditions, almost comparable to the AIM-9L. Unfortunately, my favorite ride, the F-4E, only carries USAF AIM-9B/E/J missiles. None of those are nearly as good as the Navy variants, though the J seems to be noticably better than the B and E.

You have to get the "loud" tone, which isn't so loud in the stock sound files. You can't be pulling hardly any g. More importantly, the target has to either be flying straight or in a very gentle turn. Targets with after burner on are much easier to hit, but with patience, a non-afterburning target dies just as easy as long as he isn't maneuvering and you have a solid tone on hm before firing. 50% is about right, though if you catch a strike flight of 4 flying straight and level you might get lucky and get 3 or 4 out of the 4. All of my info is based on full hard settings... I don't know how things work at any other level.

Loss of a dog is pretty hard. They are very affectionate and have colorful personalities that make them such wonderful pets/friends/family members. I find that the relatively short lifespans of dogs is the one real weakness in having them as a pet. You get so attached to them, then 10 or 15 years later, they are gone. Of course, unlike human relationships, if you get past grieving, you can easily find another dog that you will love as much as the last one. But do you want to get another one after feeling such painful loss? When I was about 7 or 8 years old, I had a parakeet that I loved. But he jumped off my finger and landed on the floor. I quickly discovered that our cat had hidden under the bed. She pounced on the bird and killed it with one bite to the chest. I never cried more for any other pet I have lost over the years. That day, my parents went out and got me another parakeet almost identical to the one that died. But it was never the same, and because I didn't really care for him, my mom gave him away to my Aunt. Of course about 5 years later, I missed having a pet bird. I was going to get another parakeet, but my dad chipped in to upgrade to a Cockatiel. Of course he just died a week ago after almost 27 years. While I loved that bird, he had a great personality, and I will never forget him, I have yet to shed a tear over his loss. Besides being hardened by the stresses of life, I think over time that I have learned to invert my emotions. Instead of grieving for his death, I am thankful for all the time I spent with him. I have simply accepted death as a part of life and appreciate the short precious time that others have spent with me over the years.

Keep it short and simple: www.MajorLee.com www.MajLee.com www.Aerodrome.com

He was having problems staying on his perch, falling off more and more frequently. He was having trouble eating his food. But some days he looked very healthy and happy. I got him in 1981, he wasn't newborn, but was very young (8-20 weeks? I don't know). He was very smart and learned to whistle many songs such as Jingle Bells, Taps, and Charge. He could not pronounce words very clearly, but he had a decent vocabulary. He refused to learn to whistle Dixie... which is strange since he picked up almost any other sound he heard, including the microwave oven humming then going ding when finished. The old Irish Spring commercials which had someone whistling a tune always got his attention and made him very happy. His cage was always in my room from 1981 until 1989 when I joined the Navy. My parents had him until I got out of the Navy in 1997. He got very depressed when I originally left, and would get depressed again if he saw me too much while I was home on leave. He would pull out his feathers to the point of bleeding a little while depressed. When I got married in 2003, my parents were stuck with him again off and on as my job has required much travel and my wife cannot handle animals. I was home 3 weeks in December/January and my mom thought he was getting very ill, so I took him back. He perked up while he was with me. He was happiest sitting on my shoulder. My 1 year old son loved to try to touch him. I had not done much more than give him food and water and say hello over the weekend. I left for work down in Miami early in the morning and didn't even think to check on him. My wife found him dead the afternoon. I have shed no tears. I feel the loss of my longest living pet, but my life has kept me focused on so many other things and I knew that he was very old and his health was failing. But whether or not I show or feel grief, I cannot forget this little bird that was a part of my family for so long. It is so strange seeing the empty cage. My parents buried him in their back yard behind the shed where my pet snake and guinea pig were buried so very long ago. Rest in peace Igor. I do not intend to get another bird. Birds do not belong in cages. Igor had lost the ability to fly for any extended period with any skill many years ago due to having had his wings clipped for so long and being afraid of flying. In recent years, he would just about have a heart attack if he fell from my shoulder and had to land on the floor. However, I want my son to grow up exposed to all sorts of animals the way I did. I will try to teach him to appreciate wild animals, animals at the zoo, and other people's pets. But if he ever really wants a bird, then I will build a very large cage (almost an aviary) and make sure there are enough birds for them to feel happy without being dependent on human affection. Hopefully, he will be happy with having dogs, cats, perhaps a snake, and/or guinea pig.

Tech support for hooking up the PCs is easy... I can get you there: 1. each PC has to have an ethernet port 2. each PC has to have a unique TCP/IP address on the same subnet with the same subnet mask, the simplest way to achieve this is with an off-the-shelf 4-port router which automatically configures the ethernet settings for any pc plugged into it. 3. If you are using only 4 pits, a 4-port router will do the job by itself since it can handle 4 pcs, if you are going to use more than 4, you have several options: a. use a wireless router and make sure the additional PCs support wireless ethernet b. get an 8-port switch and hook all of the pcs to the 8-port, then hook the 8-port switch to the 4-port router. c. get just the 8-port switch and manually configure the ip addresses/subnet masks. If you have internet, you may want to use the 4-port router so all pcs can share the internet connection. If you don't have internet, you can fearlessly drop all firewalls/anti-virus software while playing to make connecting easier and more reliable. So in short: You need either a router, a switch, or both and an ethernet cable for each pc to be hardwired to the router or switch, possible needing one more cable to connect a router to the switch if you choose to get both. I am against using wireless for this purpose since you want solid reliable fast comms for gaming. If you have some cash (since this will cost a lot more than 10/100 ethernet hardware), make sure each PC has a gigabit ethernet port and that you use a gigabit ethernet switch to join them all together. Most new PCs come with gigabit lan, so it is the switch that will cost a lot more. The in-game interface makes it very easy to connect once you have all the pcs on a LAN together (i.e. hardwired to the same switch). One person chooses to be host, the others refresh their list to find the host and join it. If you had 6 pcs... you could have more than one host so that several different groups could be flying in separate games. i.e. 1 guy could host a dogfight while another guy could host a coop, while the remaining people choose whichever host they want to play on.

If you can somehow link the canard braking position to the wheel-brake key, that would be the best way to model it... especially if the fact that wheel-brakes can't be applied in flight also prevents deployment of the canard in flight. Any other method I can think of would permit deployment in flight... which is unacceptable.

If you are going to hold up the Gripen until the FM and control surface movement can me modeled correctly, then it will be on hold indefinitely until TK decides to model complex fly-by-wire systems that mix control surface movements as required by the specific flight/load conditions. For a taste of what you are up against, go here: http://www.dtas2007.nl/userfiles/file/Pape...Ansell-Blom.pdf The canards normally move together and act together with the elevons to balance loads required to achieve desired pitch angles. So there is some kind of digital schedule that decides how much to move the canards and how much to move the elevons depending on the speed, alt, g-load, etc. In emergencies, the system will automatically move the canards independently as required to compensate for damage to other control surfaces. Some interesting tidbits can be found here: http://www.gripen.com/NR/rdonlyres/4894FED...ws_2000_02.pdff From what I have gathered at various websites/photos/writeups, etc: Inboard elevons are essentially used as elevators but in such a way to behave as flaps for certain configurations such as landing and takeoff. There is a very complex interaction between canards and elevons that depends on cg position, aoa, speed, alt, g-load, etc. Outboard elevons definitely perform aileron function, I am not sure if they are used as flaps... but based on the the complexity of the fly-by-wire system, I am sure every surface is used to the fullest extent to minimize drag and/or maximize lift. Here is a quote from a book on controls (Stability and Control of Conventional and Unconventional Aircraft Configurations A Generic Approach): "The SAAB JAS 39 Gripen control definition includes a movable canard surface in combination with four elevons, rudder, and leading-edge flaps. It is possible to obtain a choice of either max. L/D-ratio or max. lift, depending on what is needed at a specific flight condition, using the canard and the trailing-edge control surfaces in combination. At cruise and manouvre conditions, the canard and elevons are optimized for low trim drag. At low speed, high lift is desired for short field performance rather than low drag. The emphasis is then to carry a high load on the canard to provide a substantial lift increase by deflecting the wing elevon trailing-edge down for trim. Thus, to obtain a high trim load on the canard, good canard high-lift characteristics were important in the choice of the planform for the close-coupled canard layout." I have yet to find any references specifying max deflection angles, but assuming that the surfaces are at max deflection, photos such as these could get you in the ballpark: http://ipmsstockholm.org/magazine/2000/04/...l_gripen_07.htm

Given that you don't have the time or interest in doing both front and back seats... My interest is in having the T-38A as flown by the Thunderbirds, so my vote is for the front seat.

With all the issues people have had with hard drive failures, I would think most SFP1 modders should use RAID 1. Using 2 drives to do the job of 1 is costly in terms of power, noise, initial purchase cost, and 1 more potential point of failure. But the benefit of being able to run your PC even if 1 drive completely fails and to be able to rebuild the 1 that failed automatically is worth it. Plus, you can read files from the drive faster since RAID 1 permits reading from both drives at the same time. Both my wife and I have RAID 1 and furthermore we mirror our personal photos/videos and other important documents between our pcs. So 4 hard drives have to fail for me to lose important files. I have considered using RAID 0+1, but I can't bring myself to use 4 drives just to get a slight speed gain in writing. Drives will fail with time... of course the hope would be that the drives would outlast the life of the PC given about a 3 to 5 year replacement cycle.

The main reason the US has not lost many aircraft to SAMs in recent wars is that the US takes out the SAMs on the first day of combat :) But even an F-117 has been lost to SAM shots... when an opportunity presents itself, an unexpected good ole IRM can be devastating. US SAMs haven't gotten much of an opportunity against aircraft, since F-15s take out enemy fighters right after the enemy SAMs have been wiped out :) Israelis haven't forgotten how effective SAMs can be, but haven't had to face serious numbers of them for quite some time either.

Jed Eckert: How did you get shot down, Colonel? Col. Andy Tanner: It was five to one. I got four.

Is it any surprise to anyone who knows me that I love the F-4 (inside and out)? RAZBAM's F2H is a pleasure to fly as much as their Skyraider is. I wish RAZBAM could do more, I like his 3d work quite a bit.

This error can happen if you plug the joystick into a different USB port and haven't re-installed the driver since doing so. This just happend to me when I moved my PC to another room and moved by rudder pedals from a front usb port to one at the rear of my pc case. Try leaving the stick plugged in to the current USB port and re-install the driver (you may have to reboot), then you should be able to program the profile.

The place to fly this sim online is Hyperlobby. There are very few people who come online at any given time. If you want to find someone, you need to go to the Wings Over Vietnam chat room in Hyperlobby every night between 8pm and 11pm eastern standard time. If you wait around a few nights, someone will show up. Look for doghouse or the 531ghost squadron. While the WOV Hyperlobby is not specifically set up to work with WOE, it can be made to work, but first you have to find someone else with WOE willing to play online to make it worth the effort to get it working right. SFP1, WOV, and WOE are all the same when it comes to playing online, so directions on how to get one working right generally apply to the others. Getting these sims to play well online can be challenging for some people depending on their internet connection/router/firewall setup and general ability with computers/Windows. What little online community there is can be very helpful. They know how to get it set up and working. However, if you are rude and/or impatient, you will be ignored. If you have Windows XP, I suggest you learn about Hamachi and download/install it since it is used by almost everyone who flies online. It is a virtual private network that allows people to play online without wasting so much time trying to fight routers and firewalls. Go here to learn more and/or get it: https://secure.logmein.com/products/hamachi/vpn.asp?lang=en Please read the information found here: http://bbs.thirdwire.com/phpBB/viewtopic.p...65f82e34bd3c8c6 Everything said there about Wings Over Vietnam applies to Wings Over Europe. If you have already installed and patched your game correctly, reading and understanding the info in the above post will make it easier for others to help you.

USAF guys can whine all they want... serving in the USN during its best days with max funding and manpower still looks like a gulag compared to serving in the USAF on its worst days. I caught the last dying gasps of the Reagan mega-Navy era and saw the full effect of the post cold war draw down during my service from 1989 to 1997. I know a lot of USAF people were pink slipped in that same era and dumped into an economy that didn't want or need them (i.e. airlines were and still are downsizing), but quite a few sailors went that same route. Just as bad or worse, the ones remaining in service have had to bear arduous sea duty rotations that make TDY in the USAF look like paid vacation. But USAF and USN aside, the guys I feel bad for at this point are the Army and Marine men that keep rotating to Iraq and Afghanistan. The stress and dangers I faced during submarine duty are miniscule compared to the risks and actual losses suffered the past several years. They are the ones truly bearing the burden.

I had an issue with long stutters/pauses after patching from 2.06 to 2.07 and applying multiskin. I uninstalled, deleted the folder, then reinstalled and applied patch 2.07. Everything works great, though I haven't applied multiskin yet. Since I already had Rowan's BoB, I waited until this game was well patched before spending any time on it. I don't remember when I finally purchased/downloaded it, but my download starts with 2.06, so it wasn't too long ago. I haven't had much time to play with it. After I realized there was a 2.07 patch, I spent the night (i.e. lost many hours of sleep) playing this sim. I played a bit last night as well. No game will ever be perfect, but this one is almost as good as the hardware and technology permit. Jug, I have no idea what is causing your problem, but as suggested above, get over to the Shockwave forums and surely the BDG guys will be able to figure out what's going wrong and help you fix it. The reward for you efforts will be having the fun of diving in on large hordes of Ju87 Stukas, Ju88s, and He111s amidst swirling dogfights with Bf109s... utterly amazing. I die a lot ignoring the escorts and taking down as many bombers as I can. When I want to dogfight, I play the 1v1 mission against a HERO pilot. It is much easier flying the Spit, the Bf109 requires a lot more skill to exploit its power advantage, but the AI makes it a good fight either way.

Whenever there is a topic about which sims are the best, the IL-2 series always gets touted as the best WW2 combat flight sim. For multiplayer, I personally much prefer Aces High, though you have to pay a monthly fee and either play in a wild-n-crazy arena or have to wait for special historical scenarios. For offline play, I think Battle of Britain 2 is the best. Aside from not having multiplayer, it has great graphics, is very detailed/realistic, and is amazingly immersive. The AI is among the best I have ever played against and there is everything from single missions to full-blown strategic campaigns. Unlike IL-2, I feel like I am in the middle of WW2: there are planes everywhere, the tracers don't look like cartoons or lasers, the radio chatter sounds fairly good, and the carnage resulting from a massive, escorted German bomber raid mixing it up with British interceptors is impressive. When I take hits, I feel them. There is smoke and fire everywhere on the ground from bomb attacks and downed aircraft. Only one other game has given me the awesome sight of a sky full of hundreds of planes (Aces High 2). It is practically a study sim complete with clickable 3d cockpits and engine management, but is at its best in simulating the complete Battle of Britain. Originally, to play a campaign, you had to act as the overall strategic commander as well as fly any missions that interested you. The latest patch gives you the ability to simply fly the missions assigned to you. Of course, the results of your missions still impact the overall campaign dynamics. Despite awesome graphics, the IL-2 series has never really caught my interest. I every game in the series except the latest 1946, but I hesitate to buy that since I have never spent more than a few hours playing the other versions. Whatever it is that seems to be missing from IL-2 appears to have been captured by BoB2. My one hope is that some day they finally get around to giving MiG Alley the same treatment. I love MiG Alley even more than the original BoB, so naturally I expect that I would enjoy MiG Alley 2 more than BoB2. That's saying alot given that after years of playing combat flight sims, playing BoB2 leaves me feeling shock and awe with every massive air battle. Perhaps some day the Flying Tigers sim based on this engine will be released. If that day every comes, they have my money. I don't know if anyone could pry my fingers from my joystick if I could fly P-40Bs over Burma with the same level of detail/immersion/realism as BoB2. If multiplayer support is ever added and well implemented, this could end up being one of the greatest flight sims of all time.

Historically, after each new game release, TK has released patches that brought the previous releases up to the same standard as the latest release. For example, WOV added support for aircraft carrier takeoffs/landings and SFP1 was patched to SP3 level to match. WOE added clouds and 1970s avionics and SFP1/WOV were patched to current 083006 level to match. However, TK seems to have been overwhelmed since releasing First Eagles... consumed with both the FE Addon and WOI. Additionally, FE needed improvements specific to low-speed prop planes. The improvements made for FE have not yet been retrofitted to the SFP1 series. Perhaps some of the improvements are incompatible/unneeded for jet sims and will never be merged with the SFP1 core engine? Only TK knows for sure what changes he made and which ones will be universally applied to the series, but I can say with reasonably high confidence that WOI improvments will make it back to SFP1/WOV/WOE. It is just a matter of whether the FE game series will continue to develop independently or if it can/will be merged with/back into the core SFP1 engine. I prefer a unified game engine in which any of the terrain, aircraft, weapons, etc. work interchangably between sims. But I can understand the need to keep the file sizes down to what you need, especially when marketing your games via download. A WWI sim doesn't need support for HUDs, afterburners, radar, etc. while a jet sim doesn't need support for rotary engines and machine gun reload/unjam switches. It will be interesting to see where TK goes with this series after WOI is released.

SFP1 is nice with the F-104G and lower SAM/AAA density makes it far less demanding on lower-end systems. SFP1 is missing a historical terrain/background when the obvious choice for the planeset/time-frame was Vietnam or the middle-east. WOE has a great planeset and historical terrain, the actual combat is still fictional. WOV provides for me the best planeset/terrain/historical background plus carrier operations are built in out-of-the-box. This is the sim I wanted when I bought Jane's USAF and later SFP1: a solid Vietnam F-4/F-105/MiG-21 sim.

Graphics Falcon 4.0 has addons to enhance graphics, but anyone who has played modern games can see F4.0 is a generation behind. Likewise, SFP1 series has limited detail for terrain compared to modern sims, but the aircraft/ground object details and textures are unbeatable. LOMAC set a new standard that slowed down even the best hardware available when it was released and still drops framerates substantially with max quality settings in certain situations. 1) LOMAC 2) SFP1/WOV/WOE 3) Falcon 4.0 Difficulty/Realism (especially avionics) Falcon 4.0 set a standard that has only been challenged by Jane's F/A-18. LOMAC is done well, but lacks the clickable cockpit and dynamic campaigns. SFP1 series is called a "sim-lite" by its own creator, but certain elements are actually capable of being more realistic than any sim currently available, but not out-of-the-box. 1) Falcon 4.0 2) LOMAC 3) SFP1/WOV/WOE Gameplay Falcon 4.0 is very scalable, toned down it is as easy to play as SFP1 series. Scaled up, it is the most challenging combat flight sim ever released (thought Jane's F/A-18 runs a close 2nd). SFP1 is fun and can be very challenging, but the AI has its limitations which can destroy immersion and make the game too easy even on hardest stettings. LOMAC isn't too much different than Falcon 4.0 or SFP1, but the environment seems more sterile and the modern avionics/weapons make air-to-air combat a boring stand-off BVR fight between missiles, radar, and ecm. If you can get in close for a good gunfight, it is fun. Air-to-ground operations are fairly detailed and interesting. 1) Falcon 4.0 2) SFP1/WOV/WOE 3) LOMAC Multiplayer LOMAC is so solid for online conectivity that it is used by the virtual Thunderbirds. The built-in ability to fly opposing sides provides a good environment for squad vs squad fights. Falcon 4.0 is pretty good for online in its latest implementation (Allied Force), but leans toward co-op with its focus on flying F-16s. SFP1 series simply does not provide enough multiplayer options to hold interest for most online players. Connectivity has its issues as well. 1) LOMAC 2) Falcon 4.0 3) SFP1/WOV/WOE Variety SFP1 series is king here: almost no limit to what you can fly or where you can fly. Number and quantity of addons is unbelievable and most are free. LOMAC out-of-the-box isn't bad, but doesn't leave much room for addons beyond reskinning unless you enjoy flying aircraft that have the same cockpit/capability of a stock aircraft while using a different 3d model. Falcon 4.0 has tons of addons and to a certain extent allows you to fly other aircraft, but clearly this sim is focused on flying Falcons and at this point those marketing Falcon 4 Allied Force don't want anyone distributing the kind of mods that kept Falcon 4 around for so long. 1) SFP1/WOV/WOE 2) LOMAC 3) Falcon 4.0 While I own all of these sims (and many more), the combination of limited time and personal preferences leave me playing primarily the SFP1 series and WOV in particular. I like the historical flavor and much prefer flying F-4s, F-105s, F-8s, F-100s, A-4s, etc. I also prefer using older weapons that are unreliable and have limited release envelopes that require far more flying skills and tactics to hit both air and ground targets. I have done full-blown ramp starts with Falcon 4.0. I think the level of detail is awesome. But I don't have the time to waste and I am bored by air combat dominated by the use of all-aspect heat-seekers (AIM-9L/M) and AMRAAM. For others, Falcon 4.0 is the ultimate in gameplay (hence my labeling it #1 above), but for me, I almost never play it. I enjoy flying the F-15 in LOMAC, but I am not too excited by using AIM-9L/Ms and AMRAAMs nor by facing opponents equipped with the same or better weapons.

The USAF made an update to that design, and called it the A-10 :)

My sentiments exactly. Though the F4U Corsair gives the P-51D a good run for my favorite WW2 aircraft. WWI: Sopwith Camel Between the wars: hard to say, P-26 Peashooter maybe? But this list has only fighters. If there is any 1 aircraft I might actually love as much or more than all of the above, it is the B-17 Flying Fortress. The why for all of those is quite subjective: I simply love the way these aircraft look, love their history, too. I happened to grow up with F-4s and UH-1s flying overhead, so I am partial to those two aircraft.