streakeagle

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.

Absolutely. WOE not only lets you pick the resolution, but also the aspect ratio. So at 1920x1200 you need 16:10 aspect ratio. This gives you an undistorted view. I have run at this resolution on my work laptop. I have also played at 1920x1080 with 16:9 aspect ratio on my 46" LCD TV. Either way, the game looks and plays great.

Either one can be modded to play anyway you like. i.e. you can add F-15s and A-10s to WOV and change the available years as well as adding European terrain user addons. and you can add carriers and F-8s, A-6s, etc. to WOE as well as a Vietnam terrain user addon. Buy one or the other and if you really enjoy the core engine, buy the other one as soon as you can afford it and enjoy the best of both worlds, perhaps even having a merged install.

The WOV install is completely unharmed by this process... But there are some consequences for the WOE install. Random single player missions choose aircraft from the available pool based on the year selected without regard for terrain or nationality. This means that you might see Vietnam planesets flying over Europe and vice versa. Besides seeing incorrect aircraft over the selected terrain, the markings favor the WOE install, i.e. you will see Soviet markings while engaging MiGs/Sus over Vietnam. The good news is that you can always play the unmerged WOV to get appropriate random single player missions. If you are primarily flying campaigns or playing online multiplayer, the merged install is the way to go (everyone must have the same merged install setup to play online) with more of everything to choose from without having to switch installs: more terrain, more planes, more campaigns all built into a single install without having to do any mods.

There have always been mod fans in the community that bow and pray to modders for new material. There have always been modders who feel empowered by having a fan base dependent on them. If modders weren't glory hounds, there would never be any sneak peaks months or even years before files were ready for download. The mods would simply be posted when they were usable, perhaps even without a name in the credits other than an email address for tech support. If modders weren't seeking popularity, they would never be offended by criiticism either. So what if someone doesn't like your files? Who cares what is posted about it? Those that want the files will download them, those that don't want the files will whine about whatever it is they don't like. To be offended by criticism is indicative of seeking approval in the first place. Since public approval is the "pay" for free user mods, it is nice if the community "pays" the modder for his work. But modders should recognize that people who are happy frequently make no comment at all, while people who are unhappy are the most vocal. When you publish a file for everyone to see (or even a preview screenshot), expect to mainly hear from those who have a problem with it. Consider yourself fortunate if you mainly get a positive response. No matter how good a modder is, you can't change human nature. If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen. Including a EULA with free user mods made for this sim is hilarious to me: suggesting that no one should share them or change them without your approval defeats the whole purpose of having an open sim that supports free user mods! If you post an unlocked file for free download, good luck on enforcing some arbitrary EULA. There is no precedent in the real world for prosecuting people who share or mod something for no monetary gain when it was free to begin with. Pulling files that were once available for free is equally funny to me. You may technically own the rights to any file you create, but once it enters the public domain, you pretty much forfeit your right to control distribution. Arguably, posting any unlocked file at open community websites pretty much makes it public domain. It is just plain stupid to make a file available to the general public for free for years, then because you get mad at whoever, expect that everyone should stop using/sharing that file. When I was a kid, there was a very politically incorrect term for someone who offers a gift and then demands it back: Indian-giver. If someone wants to talk about "class", someone who is an "Indian-giver" has no class. Payware is another story. Files created for profit clearly cannot be shared without risking legal prosecution. But even payware has limits to what you can enforce with a EULA. The idea that of telling someone they can't post screenshots because they show payware addons in them is ludicrous. It may be your model, but someone else made the game, and the owner of the likeness is the original manufacturer of the object being modeled. If anyone gets prosecuted over a payware screenshot, it should be the payware provider if they haven't been licensed the right to distribute models based on objects created by very big companies who want their cut for things they designed and built. Even funnier to me is trying to tell someone how to use a mod. "You can't post that screenshot because it shows our mod being used in ways it wasn't intended!" Again, the sim is open for a reason and any files produced for it are going to be used to suit the end user's taste. I would love to see a lawsuit over screenshots showing 3d models from YAP mixed with fantasy elements, such as a Robotech fighter operating from a YAP carrier. As long as someone paid you for your models and doesn't distribute them for free, you will have a hard time getting a judge to award a conviction for merely showing a screenshot of your files being used in a way you didn't intend. It's cool if you make good mods and distribute them. It's really cool if your mods are good enough to be payware. But just because you are a good modder and/or charge money for your mods does not make you king of the game community. At the same time, if you are an end-user, there is an old rule: don't bite the hand that feeds you. Be kind to modders if you want to continue to get mods from them. Over the years, many of the most popular modders have been easily offended and pulled their files. If you can't live without a certain mod: download it while it is available and burn it to a cd/dvd and/or store it on a mirrored RAID array. Sometimes mods come and go pretty quick around here. If you are a late-comer and want an old mod that was pulled, posting such a request publicly will stir up a hornet's nest like this one. Simply PM/email long-time veterans of the community who will usually help you directly or send you to someone who can help you without disturbing the Force at all.

I hope he does arm and train his entire civil population. It is a good thing for EVERYONE to be armed... better yet to be armed and trained. If at least 51% of the population is against Chavez staying in power forever, that's 51% of the population capable of resisting a forced extenstion of his term, which is likely if he can't get the vote to go the way he wants it to. If the US really wanted to put pressure on him, we would stop buying his oil and see how well his "socialist" intentions work without cash flow. Probably about as well as the former Soviet Union worked without US grain imports. As long as he isn't doing anything more than talking or harassing his own people, who cares what he does? The main problem is that he seems to be aligning other countries into his way of thinking, which can be as bad for the US as Chavez having invaded and taken over such countries. If the US ever figures out how to treat South American countries properly, maybe people like Chavez wouldn't be able to find allies or even come to power in the first place? The US has spent too many years sending "diplomats" and "military advisors" to help remove/install/support governments with little concern for the people under those governments. How many authoritarian dictatorships in South America has the US supported? I am not talking about enlightened despots, but little Hitlers that killed/imprisoned/tortured anyone that opposed them. Chavez and Castro pretty much represent Karma at work for the US. But the situation in South America is far from being the fault of US influence... No government can exist or function without the co-operation of the majority of the population. Until the majority of people in South America accept responsibility for their governments, they will continue to be plagued with corruption and oppressive dictatorships. Somehow, revolutions and/or "elections" in South America merely change who the dictator is rather than change the actual form of government. But it is easy for me to sit here comfortably eating my fast food and watching HD TV while others have to deal with very bad conditions beyond their control and would have to risk their life and their family's lives if they want any change at all. Fortunately for me, a lot of other people in the USA have already made and are still making the sacrifices necessary to give me the life I want.

I generally prefer to use few or no mods to make it easy for newbies with clean installs to join. The mods I like are ones that don't affect the other players: hi-res pits addon pits for migs additional terrains don't hurt as long as everyone has the terrain the host is using. I have been flying with a VMFA-531 install that mods some skins and adds terrains, but has no noticeable impact when joining/hosting with others that have stock installs. of course I modded my VMFA-531 install to have hi-res F-4 pits and mig pits, and still fly just fine with the other 531 guys. I don't use the whole mig-21 addons, i have spliced in just the pits so that I don't tamper with the stock data ini file... i.e. I am trying not to cheat other than adding mig-21 3d pit with proper radar and rwr per the particular MiG-21 variant.

Storm, thanks for showing up. Also a new WOV player showed up and proved capable of hosting via hyperlobby on his first try... which I would say is impressive given the past history of this sim series, but lately I have seen total newbies succeed on first try as well. So, the trend looks good as long as people keep showing up. Unfortunately, VMFA531 wasn't there at all tonight.

I am online with hyperlobby wov room and combatace teamspeak lobby right now (8:26 PM EST on 4 Dec 2007)... but don't see any of the 531 and doghouse went to a concert. I am going to switch to something else if I don't see anyone soon.

This is a nice supplement. Looking forward to the F-89 package as well.

It seems to be that "European One" camo was not used until the early '80s and the 48th converted to F-111Fs in 1977... So you shouldn't find any pics of operational 48th TFW F-4D's in Euro One (as opposed to museum birds painted any way the museum sees fit).

The stock F-4 FMs are generous and forgiving as are the FMs of most stock aircraft. This was a purposeful choice on the part of TK: make the FMs easy enough for anyone to fly. At the same time, TK managed to keep a lot of the relative differences between FMs: a MiG-17 will pretty much turn tighter than any plane in the game while heavier aircraft like the F-105 have to rely more an power/speed and less on turn performance. The main flaw I have found in many of TK's FMs is too high of lift/drag ratios. Aircraft seem to float quite a bit with idle throttle making landings a bit difficult since the aircraft's sink rate won't drop the way it should as you cut the throttle. The AI has gotten a lot better since I originally made my F-4B FM. Presently, the AI can fly it fairly well. TK added an AI FM customization feature that didn't exist when I made the F-4B, so the AI can be "taught" to fly it even better without messing up how they fly the other aircraft in the game. At this point, the main problem with using realistic FMs is that they need to be implemented on every aircraft, or the game becomes very unbalanced. As for stock hard wing F-4s (F-4B/C/D/J/K/M) vs stock slatted F-4s (F-4E), the relative differences between these aircraft are modeled aside from the departure characteristic. The stock F-4E handles high-aoa hard turning much better and it really shows if you play online MP. The differences are emphasized even more since the F-4E is not penalized in weight or drag for having an internal gun while all other variants carry a centerline gun pod by default. Generating a realistic FM that has detailed and correct lift and drag characteristics is difficult and time consuming. Adding stall characteristics is not. If you can read a text file (which is what the data.ini files are), then you can see the obvious differences between aircraft that stall the way you want and ones that don't. Stability issues such as how the aircraft repsonds to control inputs as a function of AoA are perhaps the most difficult to model since they partly depend on the lift/drag definitions but also include interaction between other parameters that are not easily estimated or adjusted. Feel free to try FM modding. If you do so, you will learn a lot about the math that goes into modeling flight and how much potential the SFP1 FM engine has. You will also learn that the stock FMs aren't so terribly bad and even make a good starting point since TK has already solved most of the stability and control issues, leaving you free to focus on thrust, lift, and drag curves. Alternatively, you may learn that FM data is incomprehensible to most people without spending a lot of time studying college level material on physics and flight dynamics.

Every game in the series is based off the core SFP1 engine. Every time a new game is released, the other games receive patches to bring it up to the same standard as the new release. So technically, if you have SFP1, you never need to buy the later games. However, each new game comes with: new terrain, new stock aircraft, new missions, new campaigns, etc. If you are happy with the terrain, aircraft, missions, and campaigns available to you with SFP1, then you shouldn't buy any of the other releases... Unless you want to show your appreciation for TK's efforts by paying him for his continued support of SFP1. SFP1 did not originally have aircraft carriers, clouds, 1970's avionics, V/STOL thrust vectoring support, animated water, ecm/chaff/flares, etc. TK has provided these at no charge unlike the IL-2 series, which always requires you to buy the next game to get the patch benefits. $30 once every year or two isn't bad for the support, especially when you consider IL-2 series games sold for $50. I love TK's SFP1 series and want to see continued support/growth, so I show my appreciation by buying everything he releases.

The addition of slats to the F-4E (which the F-4G was converted from) pretty much eliminated the nasty departure characteristics of the F-4. It is the primary reason that slats were added. The enhanced turn performance was a nice secondary gain. With slats, the F-4 could pull a lot more AOA before stalling and had a nice docile mushy stall rather than snapping into a flat spin. The slatted models were: late F-4E (early F-4E was upgraded except for Thunderbirds), F-4F, F-4G, late F-4S. All others would have the nasty stall/spin behavior with only a modest excursion beyond the safe AOA limit. From the USAF pilot's manual (TO 1F-4E-1): Accelerated stalls produce only mild to moderate buffet. Wing-rock normally does not occur below 25 units AOA, and often does not occur until reaching 28-30 units AOA. Departures which occur above 30 units tend to be gentle, and are predominately roll rather than yaw. Normal recoveries are positive. Prompt neutralization of controls will generally effect recovery from accelerated stall approaches. Control of angle of attack with stick position is of paramount importance to effect recovery from the stall. Oscillations in roll and yaw which may be present during recovery should be allowed to damp themselves out and should not be coutnered with aileron or rudder. In other words, when you depart, the aircraft pretty much just rolls to one side and if you let go of the stick, it will fix itself. This is quite different from the F-4B/C/D/J which will depart around 25 units AOA by yawing violently and most likely enter into a non-recoverable flat-spin. For those of you have have never heard about it or tried it, I made a very realistic F-4B FM for Strike Fighters Service Pack 2a (SP2a). My post at the Thirdwire forums contains a link to the file: http://bbs.thirdwire.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=7986#7986 If you make an SFP1 install and patch it up to SP2a, you will get almost exactly the stall behavior from the NATOPs manual. After Wings Over Vietnam came out, SP3 was released, which changed the stall behavior. Most of the my F-4B FM works as originally intended, but accelerated stalls at high speeds will not depart the way they used to. Now you have to bleed your speed down quite a bit to get the aircraft wing rock/yaw behavior that leads to the flat spin. I am hoping that the next service pack/patch brings over the stall/spin code from 1st Eagles and permit me to restore the behavior lost after SP3.

Sparrow counting is a tedious hobby. Pouring over hundreds if not thousands of combat sortie photos trying to glimpse a Sparrow fin in the forward bay is challenging. First, there is the camera angle: most inflight F-4 photos are shot from an angle where the Sparrows are not visible. Then there is the loadout: bombs/missiles and wing tanks frequently block the view as well. The number of shots where you can actually see a full 4-Sparrow loadout are quite few compared to the number of photos available. Most of those show no centerline store. The exception seems to be RAF Phantoms, which have been frequently photographed with 4 Sparrows and either a centerline tank or gunpod. Last night, after reviewing every book I have with F-4 photos, I found maybe 4 showing USAF/USN F-4s with 4 Sparrows and a centerline tank. While the quantity was low, they were combat sortie photos: aircraft taking-off or en route to assigned CAP/escort missions. I don't know why the number of photos showing this is so low, but clearly F-4s could and did fly combat missions with centerline tanks and 4 Sparrows. There were only about 5 or 10 more showing 4 Sparrows with no centerline stores. These photos were mostly publicity photos, though some may have been cases where the centerline tank had been jettisoned. It would seem that only 2 Sparrows are carried for several reasons: 1. Forward bay(s) may be occupied by ECM and/or targeting pod(s). 2. Aircraft's mission is not air superiority: 2 Sparrows are a bare minimum defensive load, saving 1,000 lbs+ for fuel/ground ordance or lower drag/higher speed. 3. To reduce maintenance costs: Sparrow reliability falls off rapidly with captive flight hours (flying multiple sorites without ever being fired). Carrying fewer Sparrows when they are not needed means less time/money wasted working on them. 4. The actual supply of Sparrows may not have been high enough to easily equip all available aircraft with a full loadout, so only MiGCAP planes may have gotten priority? While researching F-4 Sparrow loadouts last night, I discovered that flight leaders received AIM-9Js while wingmen continued getting AIM-9Es during 1972 due to shortages of AIM-9Js.

the home for "VTE" is here: http://falcon4.nekromantix.com/ I found the F-4E fairly controllable in OFP, I don't know about Armed Assault. I do no that the AH-1 in Armed Assault (including the latest patches) seems harder to control than the AH-1 in OFP. Zipping across the maps remains an issue, though the MiG-21 and me stayed close with a tight turning circle/vertical loop fight. The MiG-21 flew into the ground once. It would be interesting to see how an online MP mission involving 8 or more aircraft for each side would turn out. It is not very realistic in any way shape or form... yet if fun and immersive.

I finally got my MC-2/B-8 stick grip. Despite using the stock number for an actual F-4 grip on eBay, it has the hand rest that was not present on F-4 grips. It is definitely used, but has been restored to a nearly new condition. I would have been happier without the hand rest, but the stick looks good and all the buttons work. Now I have to figure out how I am going to use it :)

Early production yokes had an issue as discussed in the Saitek support forums. Apparently, customers with bad yokes have to ship them to Saitek at their own expense. I wouldn't buy one until I am sure that the one I get is a later fixed version.