Mike Dora

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

This is a minor mod to give Wrench's excellent Sea Vixen FAW2 a 20mm SUU gun pod. It makes the aircraft (always one of my favorites) into quite a handy dogfighter and ground strafer. Just unzip the attached "Objects.zip" folder and drop it into your "VixenFAW2" folder.
 

This isn't just a pure fantasy. Well not quite. Some years ago I was on a sailing trip in the Caribbean, with an instructor who was an ex-FAA aircraft artificer (RN-speak for maintainer). He'd served on board HMS Eagle during her final commission, and told a tale of how 899 Sqn had somehow obtained a SUU-pod from their USN counterparts. The terms of the exchange weren't altogether clear, it seems to have involved a couple of cases of liquid morale restorative from the Eagle's wardroom (a fine RN tradition, history records that in 1945 the British Pacific Fleet used similar "currency" to maintain high serviceability rates for their mainly US-manufactured aircraft).
 
Seems that 899 managed to hang the SUU-pod on one of their Sea Vixens, but there the tale kind of peters out. My friend was very fuzzy on whether they actually managed to get it to fire.
 
What I have done here is assumed that Eagle's ever-creative air engineering department decided to hang the gun pod on the starboard outer pylon, the one that was already wired up for a buddy-buddy refueling pod. I've further assumed that they've somehow managed to adapt the refueling pod's power and control circuits from British to US voltage standards etc, to power and control the gun pod. Unfortunately they weren't able to go as far as altering the Sea Vixen's Pilot Attack Sight (PAS) to give it a lead-computing facility, so the pilot has to do the best he can with a fixed sight. This still works pretty well.
 
As for Controller Aircraft clearance? Shhh... !! (I learned first-hand how the FAA works on a TDY to HMS Ark Royal back in '78!)
 
So try it and have fun with a naughty Vixen!
 
Cheers
 
Mike

Flanders Seasonal Coastal Tiles
 
This is a small add-on to previous third-party terrain packs, providing a set of new seasonal coastal tiles to allow the user to enjoy Stary's seasonal tiles with Edward's Flanders terrain. Installation is a simple 5-stage process, just follow the steps set out in the ReadMe file.
 
My part in this pack has been only to build upon other people's excellent preceding work. Major acknowledgements are due to Edward for filling an important gap by bringing us his comprehensive Flanders front in the first place, and to Stary for his wonderful seasonal upgrade which has brought a new dimension to First Eagles.
 
Serious personal acknowledgements go to B Bandy RFC and NathanKell for all of their advice, encouragement and coaching through the challenges of first-time tile editing. Thanks chaps, it was a long haul but you never let me give up!
 
Any errors or omissions are of course mine and nobody else's (though if someone can figure out a way of extending Stary's new-style buildings and trees onto the coastal terrain that would be great).
 
 
Mike