ordway

The bird almost scored a goal!

Nice! It's wild seeing the pics on my large screen.

Great Job, Thanks! Now WHERE did you get the idea for this campaign :)

Fantastic! What an effort!

I am getting to work again on a "South African terrain" (Angola and Nambia [sW Africa]). I've been working on it for four years off and on. The vast terrain variety and vast kilometers/miles needed for an Angolan terrain from orange desert, to white sand, to pink bush terrain to white bush terrain to orange bush terrain, to green river land to dense forest to mountain terrain has been a bugaboo for many modelers (including myself) I believe. There just does not seem to be any easy way to model all this massive variety even half-way well. However, I am going at it again and it feels much better this time around-my third attempt. My Photoshop/Gimp skills have much improved. So, that's what I have to offer in the future. Richard

One article I read yesterday about this had the Chinese warning about a possible future collision! Ram Jaeger!

Nice Description for this fine series! What altitude or altitudes did you fly against the P-51?

ERASED! I've been gone too long.

The MIG-23's combat record is also an indication of how effective it was. Unfortunately, it will likely never be known. The record is sharply disputed depending on whether you were from from the Soviet Bloc or the American Bloc. Reports exist of it gaining complete air superiority against the South African's Mirage F1s over Angola.(F1 fighter pilot Dick Lord).. Soviet Bloc people claim that although it got slaughtered against Israeli F-15s and F-16s in the Becca Valley, that it still got a few kills against the superior F-16's and F-15s. However, no confirming wreckage was ever presented. When the MiG-23s were working,many had a working IRST (infrared search and tracking system) that would let the MiG-23s engage without using radar to give themselves away. Apparently, a standard Eastern Bloc joke went something like "the cheapest way to get a MiG-23 was to buy a plot of land and wait for one to crash on it." At the very least, the MiG-23 was an effective fighter against the South Africans around 1986. An interesting comparison is with the MiG-25 which almost certainly shot down a US F-18 and disrupted some American air operations during the Iraqi Wars.. The MiG-23 could not claim this and so you could definitely make a case that the MiG-23 was not effective for the time it was operational.

Just me, but I find many Warsaw pact fighters have better radar and all aspect missiles (read MIG-23 and MIG-25). I have only rear aspect missiles. If I approach them at 50 feet AGL(above ground level) and beam their radars (Turn 90 degrees to them and their missiles so losing their lock) when (if) they even lock on me, I can get close and use my small size and good climb to get on their tails. It is also quite fun to plan a pincer movement with four F-5s. Put two high up approaching the MIGs from far on my side and I and my wing man stay at 50 feet AGL. When my poor wingmen act as decoys, I can stay undetected and completely get on the MIGs tails undetected while they are messing with my other flight. Also I can use close to the same tactic and dive to the ground while applying afterburner and lose my wing men and flight and approach at 50 feet undetected while the rest of my flight stays higher and distracts the MIGs. It is also called a hi-lo tactic. If you are at a higher altitude and get detected by MIGs, you can also dive straight down and beam them that way and then hide in ground clutter at 50 ft AGL and ambush them that way. (EDIT- added more description on beaming)

Wow, nice find! I noticed what ginormous stick movements the pilot was making...Talk about a" pilot's airplane!"

Have you tried extracting and putting all the F-100 files (especially the .lod files) into the new Super Mystere folder? Sometimes for me, this will solve all problems. There's so much legal stuff, that I hesitate to do this for a download for the public. But you, of course, can. Richard

Wow, this photo shows a wicked Akureyl Airport close to what one of the SFP2 NA screenshots shows. It must be an extremely pleasant field for jets to land at -Snicker, Snicker, Snicker. http://www.isavia.is/english/airports/other-airports

The map is also black for me and even when I zoom in, it sometimes turns black again and I have to keep playing with the zoom back and forth.

Hmmm, maybe because it is one of the last PC flight sim developers left that hasn't gone out of business and you want them to keep giving us more flight sims? Sorry to be snarky, but unfortunately it seems to be probably true.

WIP: 1) A SAAF Angola/Namibia (SW Africa) terrain. Now that the Mirage F1AZ, Mirage F1CZ and Impala are released, It is finally time for them to have something to fly over.

Thanks for the feedback. (EDIT: I have reduced the size without changing anything else...I hope). Making the two versions of the F1Az and CZ simultaneously and making them as accurate as possible was literally a nightmare of six months work of mishing and mashing many aircaft together..a feature would not work and then with one change would suddenly start working. Then I would take a feature to Abobe to make it more realistic and it would not work. I would take an exasperated break and work on the as-messy skin with up to three meshes clashing on a skin edge and not knowing where any of the meshes ended or began and then taking a break from that and going back to the as-messy cockpit HUD and weapon features which would start working with one tiny change, etc. Half the time a new feature I wanted, I could not get to work and I would have to arrange a work around that would suddenly stop working. Notice in spite of our extremely talented community, no one has released this sand and green SAAF complex F1 skin, aircraft or SAAF cockpit before (I was the one who released the orignal low res F1CZ cockpit thats been out for a while). To put it mildly, this has been a complete bitch. I do not have the talent to start an aircraft from scratch so I have to work with what I was given. Finally after six months, I did not know anymore which item would turn on a feature in any single aircraft and which would suddenly stop it from working which made me hesitant finally to erase anything. As it was, I tried to lighten up the number of extraneous files even before the current release! But yes, you are right. I will try to erase uneeded files and re-release a cleaned up version without messing up a feature...it might take a while. 2) As to which aircraft are different from one another in the same big folder...I believe if they are in the same folder there should be no differences...but with the complex spider web of relationships between different files and meshes there could be some differences...but I think not. Basically, I did this as a labor of love, because during the cold war as an American stationed there, I lived (and almost died there several times) in Africa and part of me still lives there I think. Richard Edit: Thanks, I have reduced the file size, but kept everything else the same as far as I can tell. -

Yes, however I think that TK is making a Mirage F1CZ for SF2...so I don't want to spoil his thunder :) Some aircraft are almost seamless to transport to SF2... and others like the Mig-23 are terrible and literally impossible to transport everything. I'll have to see.

Yes, I have been mulling it. Right now I am trying to work on the terrain for it to fly over! I know (or think) that TK is working on a Mirage F1CZ...so I don't want to spoil his thunder...however, I don't think he is working on a Mirage F1AZ (radically different cockpit than the CZ fighter version).

I just released both the flyable SAAF Mirage F1CZ and the SAAF Mirage F1AZ available here: I just released both the flyable SAAF Mirage F1CZ and the SAAF Mirage F1AZ available here: http://combatace.com...-modified-sfp1/ http://combatace.com...-modified-sfp1/ Resized to 68% (was 1024 x 768) - Click image to enlarge Resized to 68% (was 1024 x 768) - Click image to enlarge

I just released both the flyable SAAF Mirage F1CZ and the SAAF Mirage F1AZ available here: http://combatace.com...-modified-sfp1/ http://combatace.com...-modified-sfp1/ Resized to 68% (was 1024 x 768) - Click image to enlarge Resized to 68% (was 1024 x 768) - Click image to enlarge

I just released both the flyable SAAF Mirage F1CZ and the SAAF Mirage F1AZ available here: http://combatace.com/files/file/12323-mig-fighter-saaf-mirage-f1az-fighterbomber-saaf-modified-sfp1/ http://combatace.com/files/file/12322-mig-killer-saaf-mirage-f1cz-saaf-modified-sfp1/ Flyable SAAF Mirage F1CZ 3 Squadron No. 213 Johan Rankin (sand and green camouflage) Thirdwire's SFP1 at combatace.com Flyable SAAF Mirage F1AZ No. 229 (Sand and Green camouflage) Thirdwire's SFP1 at combatace.com