FastCargo

Most cost per person airliner EVER! "Excuse me sir, your ticket will cost you 300,000 dollars for a one way trip from Minsk to Moscow..." FC

More than likely no. Those were A models (of which we aren't doing because there is an excellent one available in SF2E) and that paint scheme was very short lived from the introduction of operational service (Nov 74) to when the first Compass Ghost schemes start rolling off the line in St. Louis (Oct 75). FC

Okay, right now F-15R leads the fight for designation...I have no problem staying with that. Advanced Eagle currently is the top of the name list. However, if someone comes up with something more interesting to consider... FC

Okay folks, there is a BIG temptation to dive into politics (that some have already succumbed to) or to make tasteless jokes with the passing of Senator Kennedy. Not here, not now. FC

You're killing me man, you're killing me! I like the M or R suffix...now just a name to explain why the M or R... And no, Max Eagle or Rambo Eagle are NOT in consideration! Advanced Eagle sounds good...official too. Just....I don't know...too matter of fact I guess... FC

Eh...kinda dull. The informal designation for the Silent Eagle is the F-15SE. There is precedent of course...Japan's dual seaters are F-15DJs, the Singapore version is the F-15SG. So although having a letter in specific order as versions appear has recent precedent (the Super Hornet E, F, and G models)...but it's not a hard and fast rule. It's currently designated the F-15X, but I honestly hate the letter...it's used too many times already in Ace Combat style designs. As far as names...I'm mulling Ultra Eagle myself... FC

There is no WOI campaign expansion pack yet. At least, not a ThirdWire produced one. FC

The idea of course was to provide for a fictional Eagle variant that was a logical outgrowth of past modifications to the real thing. Included are the obvious: ACTIVE thrust vectoring nozzles. Silent Eagle CFT weps bays and canted vertical stabs. F119 engines. SniperXR pod and IRST (when so equipped). However, there are some more subtle changes which have not actually been put on an F-15: Mid-canopy bow deleted. Engine intakes redesigned for better stealth characteristics (S-shaped tunnels and rhomboid intake lips). Smaller in-plane canards. Very little of this aircraft is far fetched, and the only real concession I made to gameplay is keeping the internal gun in the right wing root. For beauty reasons, I made the canards smaller and in-plane, realizing that a setup like that could be fraught with airflow problems (though the Su-30 and it's variants seem just fine...). Otherwise, none of the stuff this bird has dives into the Ace Combat realm...I don't believe in unrealistic augmenting of basically sound designs. Now, as to what to designate and call it... FC

FC

The short answer is yes...but you have to work at it. SF2 aircraft now include a file called ****_USERLIST.INI. That file for each aircraft simply lists what 'Nations' used that particular aircraft and what years they used it. The terrains have a file called ****_NATIONS.INI that lists the nations involved in that terrain. So you can already see the benefit...the sim looks at the date and terrain, then compares the USERLIST and NATIONS ini files and simply determines where they intersect for each aircraft. FC

That really has nothing to do with an aircraft being better in an air combat sense. Life on a carrier is hard on aircraft...ask Typhoid, he was a MX officer at one point for Tomcats. It'll never be known if a navalized version of the F-15 would have fared any better. MigBuster's analysis of the relative strengths and weaknesses of the Eagle and Tomcat is spot on. Having flown with operators of both aircraft, the sense I get is that in a lot of ways, the aircraft were roughly evenly matched due to various tradeoffs...a trait that continued with the updates to both aircraft. I will also say that exercises that pit various aircraft against each other tend to have their own issues, because you can setup the exercises to favor one side or the other. This can be good for training (make your life harder in training than when the missiles REALLY start flying) but can be bad for straight up evals. Even when the missiles start flying for real, there still isn't a pure objective analysis. Skill of the pilots, tactics, ROE, weather, etc can all play a significant part in the results of an air combat matchup. FC

Okay, so far I've been using a small utility called...Useful File Utilities (UFU). It's shareware, but has a 15 time use rule. The nice thing is that it can not only rename files to all caps in batch mode, but can do it in subdirectories. So I've been simply doing an *.ini search (within UFU) in each mod directory (including those in progress, the whole mod at once), sending the list to the basket (a queue), then running the renamer. Works like a champ, doesn't mess with files already in caps. Fast...just a bit difficult to use at first (UI is not intuitive). The other program is a little utility called ANSI2Uni, and unlike UFU that you have to install, ANSI2Uni is a standalone, and is freeware. Will do multiple files at once...and most importantly will NOT screw up files already in Unicode. Unfortunately, I haven't seen a 'subdirectory' option yet, so it takes a little longer because you have to go through directories one by one. Eval still in progress... Obviously, before using either one of these...BACKUP your crap first!!!! I won't take responsibility if you tube up your install.... FC