Mike Dora

Good grief Spinners! You’ve given us a flying Lada! If memory serves, the first generation of this type (before they put hinges in the wings) had about 8 minutes’ endurance when using afterburners. Probably why they invariably flew with 2 drop tanks on the fuselage pylons. (Not that the RAF had much to crow about there, cf EE Lightning - it was so fuel-hungry, it had tanks in its flaps.)

Thank you! This is gloriously nostalgic. I joined the Service in 1972, and many of the locations in the film are familiar, eg my first tour after graduating from Cranwell in 1977 was Leeming, where film’s student pilot flew JPs. Plus the haircuts, cars, fashions were all “normal” then! Thanks again!

This looks very nice, it’ll be the second movie this year to star the Mosquito🙂🙂. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny was the first*. Harrison Ford was in it too. * several passes in the initial “castle” sequence

Nice. Expect you know that c.1970 the original name for the MRCA* was to have been the Panavia Panther? I have a drawing somewhere with that title, showing a more streamlined/less boxy ac, with round “half-cone” intakes like the F-104, Mirage III & TSR 2. *MRCA development was taking so long that in the 1970s the RAF believed that the acronym stood for “Must Refurbish Canberra Again”.

If you modify your machine guns to carry incendiary ammunition in FE2, be careful to carry a letter from your squadron commander certifying that you are on an authorised anti-balloon mission. Otherwise, if captured with incendiary ammunition in your guns, you are liable to being court-martialled by your captors for using ammunition which is illegal for “normal use” under the Geneva Conventions. WW1 was that kind of war.

It’s a Chinese NAAFI van!

Impressive! Thought - replacing the floats with retractable wheels, putting some guns in the wings, could perhaps turn it into a useful fighter?

Love the bombers in the background! Are they the Convair Chicago BI?

Very close to reality. The US offered F-117’s to the UK, but we declined for budgetary reasons.

Nice again, Spinners. That would have given the RAF faster Phantoms than its actual Spey-powered FG1’s and FGR2’s, at about 2/3 the price! Fitting the “fatter”, more powerful Spey (turbofan vs the turbojet J79), with its bigger intakes, not only led to increased intake drag but also messed with the F-4’s fuselage area ruling. As well as costing a lot more. So while our Phantoms could accelerate faster than a standard J79-powered ac, and had greater endurance, they couldn’t fly as fast. As proved when 74 Sqn was equipped with the second-hand J79-powered F-4J(UK)* in the 1980’s. *That clumsy designation always irritated. Being employed in the pure fighter role, the F-4J(UK) should logically have been designated the Phantom F3.

I’ve always liked the Lightning, my home town Arbroath was just 17 miles from RAF Leuchars, home to 3 Lightning sqns* when I was at school. We saw and/or heard them all the time. It was only after joining the RAF that I learned how short its legs were (it even had fuel in its flaps), and what a maintenance nightmare it was. *11, 23 & 74 Sqns, though the latter departed for RAF Tengah, Singapore in 1967.

An American Frightning! Nice, Spinners. So, do we get to sell them probe & drogue-compatible Victor tankers too, so that they have the range to defend more than one (US) county? But Dunlop would have been very pleased with the F-112, it would have boosted their profits. The Frightning’s high-pressure, low-profile mainwheel tyres lasted an average (average) of 3 landings..

My next question, regarding the WW2 Bomber Offensive variant I’m trying to construct. In previous personal mods I became reasonably familiar with the Formation.ini file. Trouble is I’ve forgotten much of what I learned. What I’m trying to do now, is two things. First, to create a large but well-separated bomber formation, to simulate the Bomber Stream. I know how to do the separations, but don’t recall how to get the system to generate a large number of bombers. I keep getting eg “2 Lancasters”. I want 12 or more! Secondly, looking to achieve the opposite with nightfighters. Want eg 1-2 Bf110G, getting whole staffels in close formation. At night.. Advice anyone? I’m thinking it’s all about the combination of Base, Squadron, Flight and Element parameters, but my experimentation is getting nowhere. Thanks Mike

Thanks everyone, It seems that the AircraftCapability parameter controls whether auto-generated ac turn up in non-player flights, depending on time of day.. So if one selects a nighttime mission, DAY_ONLY ac won’t show up and vice-versa. Not actually what I was trying to do, was hoping that if I selected a NIGHT_ONLY ac in the “Single Mission” screen, then only Night (plus Dusk & Dawn?) times would be available. No big problem, can just select the dark times manually. Cheers Mike

I am trying to put together a private WW2 Night Bomber Offensive version of SF2, with Lancasters, Halifaxes, Wellingtons etc, vs the usual suspects: Bf110s, Ju88s, Do217s etc. Am frustrated just now though by the Time of Day issue. The standard SF2 Mission Creator system offers the normal, full range of SF2 times, from Dawn through to Night. Is there any way one can limit the range of mission times to just Dusk, Night and Dawn? Seems rather unbalanced to set heavy bombers against heavy fighters in broad daylight. (In the real world, we learned that lesson the hard way at Wilhelmshaven in December 1939.. ) Cheers Mike

Perhaps indicates how much it has (not) been used? Operational Typhoons - RAF, Luftwaffe, AMI etc - all typically have a grimy stain above the outlet over the port wing root.

Sorry chaps. This is clearly not an RAF Typhoon. Where is the teacup holder? We do maintain our standards you know..

Thank you Macalena for giving me the opportunity to air one of my own longtime obsessions puzzlements. Why did the USAF choose to spell the name of the F-86 correctly, ie “Sabre”, vs the usual American spelling for the corresponding sword, “Saber”?

Hurrah for the Rocks!

Perhaps the point is, if you’re nuked, you’re nuked? Recall from my RAF training* that one could expect the following sequence from a nuclear detonation: flash; heat/radiation; blast. Given that the Bang would arrive with the blast, by then one was already well and truly fried and thus rather disinterested in any resulting noise.** Cheers Stay Well Mike *our RAF Regiment training sgt at Cranwell (1976/77) had an endearing habit of referring to the phenomenon as “The Nuclear Holy-Cost”. ** unofficial RAF SOP in the event of detecting a nuclear detonation: “place one’s head between one’s knees, and kiss one’s a*se goodbye”.

Si seulement ça avait pu arriver.. des Crach’feus?

Could try repainting a Frogfoot?

Based on year of first flight, equates to Sopwith Camel remaining operational until 1982, or Spitfire until 2002..

Glad to see that the pilot banged out safely, and is back in QE. But how far we have come. Back in the ‘60s, Scimitars and Sea Vixens went in on a regular basis, sometimes monthly..