Mike Dora

At slight tangent to this thread, include “Braveheart”. Absolutely awful. To portray The Wallace as a kilted highland peasant (with a Glasgow accent!), is like portraying George Washington as a Native American brave. With a Brooklyn accent. All they got right were the names. But even here they got the chronology wrong.

Don’t know about specific impulse etc Wrench, But I do know that the Propulsion Flight would get awfully upset if any of their ac spent too long away on detachment at a foreign base. Meant that they would have to swap out all the engines for “de-coking”..

“I thought all Spey powered Phantoms were smokeless? Not like the J79s at all, only smokeless in burner” Not just Spey-powered ac, Wrench, but all RAF ac had cleaner exhausts than their US and European NATO counterparts. We used a more refined fuel, F-34 AVTUR (aka JP-8 or Jet A-1), rather than the wider-cut F-40 AVTAG (aka JP-4) used by everybody else. I think most of NATO changed over to AVTUR in the late 1980s. I’ve seen the difference myself when working with our Hercules C1 fleet back in 1978-79. When watching them flying around our base at Lyneham, you had to look quite hard to see the exhaust smoke. When operating overseas (inc in USA) and thus refuelled locally, they very noticeably trailed the Herc’s trademark “4 skidmarks in the sky”. I’ve (perhaps chauvinistically) set all British jet/turboprop ac in all my SF2 versions to have CleanExhaustEmitter. It’s a matter of maintaining one’s standards, chaps ;)

Suspect the top one is a USAF F-4C/D, you can see that the leading edge of the starboard inboard wing pylon curves down. That was a distinguishing feature of USAF F-4s. On USN/USMC/RN/RAF F-4s, the inboard wing pylons had a straight leading edge, as on the RAF FG1 in the lower picture. BTW, for completeness the bottom one is a Phantom FG1 of 43 Sqn, RAF Leuchars*, circa 1969-1972, but you probably know that! By 1973 most RAF Phantoms were wearing the red/blue “tactical” roundel (which should have been the Type E, but was never formally designated) in place of the red/white/blue Type D roundels in the pic. 43 didn’t use FGR2s, it was formed on FG1s originally ordered for the Fleet Air Arm (likely for 899 Sqn on HMS EAGLE), but rendered surplus to RN requirements when the 1960s Wilson government decided that the Navy didn’t need aircraft carriers any more. *20 miles from my home town. In my high school years we saw and/or heard 43 Sqn ‘Tooms (and 5 & 23 Sqn Frightnings) overhead almost daily 🙂🙂

_Very_ nice PP! Some Shacklebomber trivia for you: - Early in its career, it was known as “20,000 rivets in close formation”. Later in in its career, “20,000 rivets in loose formation”. - The AEW2 operator, 8 Sqn, served in the Middle East from 1920 until 1971, primarily with tactical ac, ultimately the Hunter. RAF lore has it that towards the end of that time, the 8 Sqn pilots committed some serious transgression that mightily upset the Air Force Board. So they were disbanded as an overseas single-seat jet fighter sqn, and reformed on superannuated 4-engine piston prop jobs in the North of Scotland.. - During RAF stations’ annual Taceval (= US operational readiness inspection) exercises, 8 Sqn Shackletons often made unannounced, uncleared “intruder” landings. They were meant to simulate Soviet Bears (the obvious (only?) similarity being the 4 contra-props..) - When on an early training detachment to Malta (RAF Luqa) in 1974, I was in the tower when a Shackleton took off for return to Lossiemouth. As it unstuck, the captain requested permission for a low-level run and break. The reply: “terribly sorry old chap, but we can’t afford to close the airfield for that long”.

Pretty impressive, an ancient B-52 intercepting a couple of Flankers? But as some have pointed out, these interceptions have been going on, each way, since the Fifties.

“In-game wise, it's not as destructive as it could be. Pretty to look at, but you're better off with fragmentation bombs or standard HE (my opinion only)” Wrench, You remind me of when a school friend applied to join the RAF back in 1972 (same year I joined). At the Officer and Aircrew Selection Centre, then at RAF Biggin Hill, they asked him “would you drop napalm on an undefended village?” He replied “oh no. A fragmentation bomb is _far_ more effective.” He didn’t get in.

Inspired by GunnySonics’ find of the 1978 Buccaneer video, I found this impressive documentary of 617’s last days as a Vulcan sqn: All of the attitudes, professionalism, behaviour (!) ring true, the RAF as I remember it. Of course as most here probably know, ironically the Vulcan went into action for the first time just a few months after this documentary was filmed. By then the ac used for 617’s last sortie, was sitting just across the fence from my office at RAF Hendon, in the RAFM car park. In 26 pieces..

Like especially the taxiing scene, with a whole lot of P-47s weaving from side to side to see where they’re going. Also love the cockpit closeups with their Hollywood supersized canopies!

Excellent! One can almost smell the burnt AVTUR.. Also hugely nostalgic - did my air movements course in late 1978, culminating with a hands-on practical, moving a Nimrod det from Kinloss to Gib that December.

View File FAA Skyrays It is little-known history* that in the late 1950s, their Lordships of the Admiralty recognised that the Supermarine Scimitar was an unmitigated failure. As an American observer noted at the time, only the British could build a jet fighter with 22,000lbs thrust, that still remained stubbornly subsonic. Not only was its performance rather disappointing (British understatement?), the Scimitar was extremely unreliable. At one point it required 1000 maintenance hours per flying hour, and over 50% of the Scimitar fleet was lost in accidents. Its best contribution to the Fleet, was as a Ground Instructional Airframe (which is where the author first saw one, at RNAS Arbroath in the late 1960s). In an act of some desperation, therefore, in 1958 the Admiralty cancelled the remaining 50% of Scimitar production, and instead discreetly obtained 40 F4D-1 Skyrays from US Navy stocks. Capt Eric (“Winkle”) Brown was highly influential in this decision. A navy test pilot with the world record for carrier take-offs and landings (2,407 and 2,271 respectively), and an objectively strong advocate of American naval ac designs, his advice on procuring the Skyray was decisive. (Besides, he was a Scotsman. From the right side of the country)(ie the East Coast - did I mention that I'm from Arbroath?). Modified to carry the British Firestreak IR missile, and also to perform the light strike/attack role, the F4D-1 thus entered RN service as the Skyray F1. These ac proved to be particularly useful on the smaller British carriers, Victorious, Centaur and Hermes. For example, in Hermes, the Skyray allowed 892 Sqn to deploy a full 12-ac sqn, instead of the originally-mooted 8-ac Sea Vixen "sqn-lite". This had the serendipitious additional social advantage of eliminating all the Sea Vixen coal-hole observers from the Wardroom. Later in their career, 20 RN Skyrays were modified to FAW2 standard. This entailed replacing the original AN/APQ-50A radar with a lightweight version of the Lightning's AI23 "Airpass" radar, installing compatibility for both the Red Top all-aspect IR missile and the US Bullpup AGM, and replacing the original 4 x Colt 20mm cannon with a harder-hitting package of 4 x ADEN 30mm cannon (albeit with halved ammunition loads). Deployed in HMS Victorious in 1965 during the Malaysian Confrontation, one of these Skyray FAW2’s shared with an RAF Javelin in the double kill of 2 Indonesian C-130B’s, caught in the act of attempting to infiltrate Indonesion paratroopers into Borneo. The RN’s Skyrays were finally retired with the decommissioning of HMS Eagle in 1972. Their last service was to familiarise a generation of FAA pilots with USN ac types, in preparation for the introduction of the superlative F-4K Phantom (another Winkle Brown protogé). *Alternative history. The reader is encouraged to decipher what is fact, and what is fiction above. For it is not all the latter.. :) Installation: the usual, simply download and unzip the "Objects" folder, and drop it into your SF2 mod directory of preference. Always always always backup your original stuff before trying out new mods like this. Credits: this mod is based on the SF2 Skyray 1.1 mod, which I think is the work of Julhelm and NeverEnough. Regret not sure to whom credit is due for the Firestreak, Red Top and Bullpup missiles, and the SNEB Can, so if I missed you out, sorry, but I tip my hat to you! Legal Stuff: all the usual disclaimers, ie use at own risk, always always always backup your original stuff before trying out new mods like this (bears repeating). Plus this mod is consistent with both Queen's Regulations for the Royal Navy, and the Official Secrets Act. Cheers, Tally-Ho etc Mike D Submitter Mike Dora Submitted 05/08/2020 Category What If Hangar  

British Poles don’t always need Spitfires. Sometimes a narwhal tusk is enough* 😉 *forgive bias. When I went to RAFC Cranwell in 1976, Deputy Commandant Air Cdre Maisner was from Warsaw 🇬🇧🇵🇱🇵🇱🇬🇧. We had 16 Polish sqns during WW2, last RAF Polish veterans didn’t finally wash out until 1980s. **tragic though that 2 died. When will the bad guys learn that it doesn’t work, esp in Britain? cf Glasgow airport attack 2007, defeated by a baggage handler.

I believe that “theoretically” it wasn’t a suicide bomb, the official idea was that the pilot would set the thing on course to the target, release the canopy, then clamber out (no bang seat), and parachute down to safety (captivity?). However. Consider that it would be doing 350kt or more, look at that great big pulse jet right above and behind the cockpit, and imagine the chances of a successful bale out. Not perhaps a job for a chap seeking a long and successful career in the Luftwaffe. Mike

Red Ten is the spare, it always goes with the team on overseas deployments. It also acts as a camera ship for occasions like this. But - what happened to the Blue Angels? Over here in NY we were told that it was going to be a combined Reds/Blues/Thunderbirds/F-35 flypast. Sadly I missed it anyway, was down at the Jersey shore, though I did see the Reds when they were over here about 10 years ago. Mike

Just remember that the old Ark’s full air group was: 14 Buccs, 10 Phantoms, 4 Gannets, 8 Sea Kings, and 2 (plane guard) Wessex. At least that’s what she carried when I had the privilege to be on board back in 1978. Mike

All this illustrates is the level of ignorance in modern society. Fifty-year-old Russian bombers make routine approach to US coastline, just like we do to theirs? Shock horror! It’s like the British press breathlessly announcing stuff like “the RAF intercepted 5-6 Russian planes approaching Britain last year”. During the Cold War we intercepted 2-3/week.. As for the quoted “greeting”? Just normal aircrew-aircrew banter, nothing more.

The first 20-25 minutes brought back memories of Initial Officer Training there in 1976-77. The combat kit & the rifles were different, but the RAF Regiment SNCOs treated us with just the same fond loving care! The nephew of a friend of mine is at Cranwell right now, from all reports the initial stages are still the same.. :)) PS made me smile to see the same RAF issue _furniture_ in the cadets’ rooms, as we were still using 20 years later.

Maybe Rumpler built upon the Fokker “stealth” Cellon covering experiment?

Many Thanks Stephen! When you say the CIV is "previous", do you mean that you did it before, or is it something we can still look forward to please? Mike

Thanks Eugene, But did I miss something? I wasn't aware Stephen1918 had done the Rumpler CI and CIV, where can I find them? (esp the latter). Cheers Mike

I need some advice please on the workings of the *_nations.ini file in some SF2 terrain folders. Asking because I see two different formats for the contents of the file, such as this in the "TimorNO" terrain: [LimitedNationList] FriendlyNation001=Australia FriendlyNation002=AustralianNavy FriendlyNation003=NewZealand EnemyNation001=Indonesia EnemyNation002=China and this in the "Formosa" terrain: [Nation001] NationID=024 Name=Taiwan DisplayName=Republic of China Air Force Alignment=FRIENDLY PilotNameList=NamesChineseWG.lst RankList=RanksUSAF.lst CallsignList=CallsignsUS.lst Formation.Fighter=USFighter Formation.Attack=USFighter Formation.Bomber=USBomber Formation.Transport=USBomber Formation.Tank=USTank Formation.MobileAD=USAD PilotTrainingStandard=Normal GenderRatio=0 [Nation002] NationID=023 Name=China DisplayName=PLAAF Alignment=ENEMY PilotNameList=NamesChineseYP.lst RankList=RanksPLA.lst CallsignList=CallsignsUS.lst Formation.Fighter=SovietFighter Formation.Attack=SovietFighter Formation.Bomber=SovietBomber Formation.Transport=SovietBomber Formation.Tank=SovietTank Formation.MobileAD=SovietAD PilotTrainingStandard=Normal GenderRatio=0 Which of these is the correct format please, and if they're both "correct", why are they different? Thanks Mike

Back in the early Nineties there was a rumour that the fighter of the future would have two crew, a pilot and a dog. The pilot’s job would be to feed the dog. The dog’s job would be to bite the pilot if he touched anything.