JediMaster

Bureaucracy is a wonderful thing, isn't it?

This has always been the problem with the Euro acquisition process...they buy simple now and plan to upgrade later. Then when the price for upgrade later comes up, they balk that it wasn't done in the first place! Like, uh, hello? That's why it didn't cost MORE to start with! The problem is the Typhoon dates from an early 80's requirement. It took 20 years to be made, not in small part because of the multinational conflict of requirements. Too many cooks in the kitchen and such. France went their own way because their requirements differed a little too much, they thought they could do it faster, and naturally they thought they'd be better. As it stands, Rafale barely beat the Typhoon into service and just now got a "quick fix" upgrade to release AG weapons for deployment to Afghanistan--like its big sister, it also was designed for AA work first. By contrast, the F-22 was designed to the same idea--AA work only--but before service entry was modified to the point that it will be possible to use AG weapons (not all, but a few) right away. Why is that? More money spent up front. You have to pay one way or the other. However, it seems the Euro public by and large wants to spend .05% of GDP on defense.

On the contrary, not only can I wait, I can wait a long time!

I believe it was a deliberate 4/1 spoof on their part.

The EA-3...now THAT was a whale of a plane.

Right, the problem with Op DS is that it's much later than the planes available for the game generally model. With Tornados, F-111s, F-15Es, F-16Cs, and F-15Cs it is possible to simulate it to a certain extent, but no one has done a campaign like Burning Sands '91 for it.

The Su-34 will replace the Su-24 as a long-range interdiction plane. It will fill the same roles as the F-111 and F-15E. I'm sure its performance compared to a regular Flanker is similar to the Beagle's performance compared to the standard F-15C. The Su-33KUB is a combat-capable trainer (hence the large nose radar the 34 doesn't have) for teaching carrier ops. It's literally a 33 with a 2nd seat but side-by-side instead of front-back. The last plane I can think of that did that was the TF-102, actually.

The A-10 isn't too tough, but the Russian planes require some real time to learn and the F-15 can be a bit frustrating.

That's hard to say. By and large the community went with every addon and merged them for FB+AEP+PF as a single game. Should you only have an earlier version with fewer planes/maps to use, there are a number of problems you could encounter trying to use these downloads. Not just needing an object or map you don't have, but other things have changed over the years as well and a mission could be impossible to complete or such as a result. The safest bet would be to look for the oldest files you can find, from back when FB was alone out there! I think that was 2003? I believe AEP came out in 2004 and Pac Fighters was 2005? My memory is a bit fuzzy...

Where'd you get the ATT from?

I remember flying a B-1B in F4 (modded) and attacking an airfield with 84 82's blasting it to pieces. It was FUN. I was at around 200ft when I dropped them. They were retarded bombs, of course, or I would not have lived.

The Daily Show is perfect at skewering those two-faced politicians.

Sorry, the Su-34/32FN/27IB is not the best looking 2-seat Flanker. That honor goes to the Su-27/33KUB! http://www.lindenhillimports.com/su-27kub.htm http://www.patricksaviation.com/videos/Guest/60/

I remember reading that the F-16XL actually seemed to perform better than the conventional version.

It's not always so much how FAR you pull the stick back, it's how FAST. For example, full back in half a second = blackout. Take 1.5 seconds, no blackout.

Oh, so it works if your flight of planes have dissimilar loadouts. I was thinking of the buddy lasing deals where say a GR.4 lases and a Jaguar drops, or something like that. Those are different flights.

Reminds me of that scene in Under Siege when Tommy Lee Jones goes flying backwards when it fires.

Do you mean this one? The FH-1? http://www.boeing.com/history/mdc/phantom1.htm In that case, no, it's never been done. http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/sys...f-4-history.htm Or do you mean this one, the F4H-1 nee F-4A? http://usslexington.com/index.php?option=c...&Itemid=106 As fewer than 50 F-4As were built before production switched to the B, it's a minor footnote to the plane's overall history.

Me either. I played a lot of GRAW last fall and winter, once the OGR coop patch came out, but the existing maps got old fast and new maps tended to be very low quality. Then you had ones with retarded respawning enemies (you would see them do it, and sometimes right next to you!) and 25 snipers in one block...they got old even faster. I'll probably get GRAW2, but seeing the way people are talking about GRAW2 on the 360 I'm not sure it will be sufficiently better.

Someone's looking for a job in the 3d modeling world.

Well, the flip side of that is planes in reality took far fewer hits on average to be shot down or at least knocked out of the fight. For every "miracle plane" with 100 holes in it there were numerous others that went down after just a burst or two.

If you have Wings over Europe, which I'm not certain of, I would recommend the "all in one" NATO Fighters 1 and 2 add ons. Lots of stuff with minimal hassle. Unfortunately, there hasn't been a lot of bundling like that because people have gotten all pissy about their stuff being with someone else's or whatever, so often you have to do everything separately yourself. First Eagles is the same type of situation, with little bundling and most stuff separate. I'd say the easiest things to do are usually just adding planes. The 2nd easiest is terrains, followed closely by the Weapons Pack for the SFP1/WoX series which is required if you want to use the weapons on a lot of the add on planes. Without it, you may have a plane with nothing but a gun. Of course, for Il-2 the only addons are commercial or just skins, nothing complicated there--unless you buy multiple addons and then there can be a dance as to which ones get installed when and how in the patching process...

That depends on your definition of "best". Best at what? Most kills? That would mean a WWII-era plane. Best carrier-launched? The S-3B. Best land-based? P-3C Update III. Best helo? One of the Seahawks, the Romeo I think. It all depends on your criteria.

Crazy Glue bonds these trooper's helmets to suspend them in midair!

I'm 99 44/100% certain you can't have offboard designation in these games.