JediMaster

I wouldn't want to be a Siberian Tiger right now... I always thought it would be great to be some kind of bird, though.

A fighter on the ground is a threat to no one but ground crew.

Flying a fighter in MSFS is like flying training missions. You can't do anything different from the other planes, except for the addition of carrier ops in the latest expansion. There's no combat of any type. There ARE missions of a sort now, but they don't involve blowing up or shooting anything.

Reminds me of the old Jane's Longbow days where it wouldn't run right on a FAT32 drive but ran fine on a FAT16 one!

The printed manual came with the original F4 releases, before it went to jewel case/pdf manual, and well before F4:AF's release. AF just has that booklet, which is more a quick ref guide.

We're testing Vista here. What a major PITA. So many programs won't work with it...I'm referring to older programs that are still in widespread use, along with websites that were designed around the lax security in XP that Vista won't allow to work. IMHO some things were changed in Vista just for the sake of changing them and it was unnecessary. The docs/settings folder being switched to "users" for one. It does confuse some programs. I've already decided never to dump my XP machine, and just buy a new one when I decide to go with Vista.

"Similar to, but more complex and with more payload capacity than the B-1 Lancer" More complex? I wouldn't bet on that one. Also, NO ONE calls it the Lancer! Come on, get with the program!

I still can't believe it can have the endurance at low level a P-3 does.

Oh there's no doubt that's what's happening here. The question is has the tech evolved to the point where you can make it work better now, or is everyone wasting their time?

As I mentioned before, it's a compromise. Naturally everyone wishes they had something designed just for them. I think in the USAF and USN and certainly the USMC's case, it's not that they want it so much as they need it because there are no alternatives other than keeping old designs in production, and in the USMC's case that's not even an option! Legacy Bugs and Harriers are out of production.

Until we can more accurately simulate the cockpit ops of these modern fighters, there's little point in releasing them. You wouldn't want to fly an F-4 with a P-51 cockpit, would you?

It will have German, Italian, and British planes certainly. So hopefully the bias will be equal.

Good comms is important. Even if something isn't working right, it's good to know they're AWARE of it.

I remember the first time I saw the trees on the islands all changed back in Dec 01. That was a surprise!

That will certainly almost always fix it, but there's no doubt it's a drastic step!

Rafale is smaller than the Super Bug, it's more in the legacy Bug class. That's why I think almost every pic I've seen of one in operation has had 3 massive fuel tanks underneath. Just like we're facing with our planes, the Rafale was built under a Cold War design philosophy. In modern ops it's being forced to do things differently from the way the designers conceived it. Of course, there are some odd configs for planes out there. You'll have older planes upgraded with newer avionics than the newer planes have! There are F-15s that are 20 yrs old with better radars than 5 yr old Super Hornets. I believe "stealth" is listed as a requirement for a "5th gen" fighter, but how MUCH stealth isn't specified.

No no, the P-8 is coming. That will be great, really. Where's the sarcasm smiley?

Right, but those rules don't say "visible from XYZ distance."

Yeah, that's fairly certain. On the one hand, this is needed because thanks to delays since the early 90s there's no time left (or money) to develop something new. On the other, they bit off more than they should have with trying to make this one-size-fits-all medium fighter. I'm a strong believer in not putting all your eggs in one basket. There's still no guarantee the GE engine will ever be produced for the F-35. Can you imagine a day 20 yrs from now where we have an F-15-style grounding because of the P&W engine...across a fleet of 2000 planes in the US alone? With nothing else but a handful of Raptors and Super Bugs and maybe some A-10s to cover??? Each service should've stuck with making their own plane for their own needs instead of giving every service something they DON'T need because the OTHER guys use it and making it the Joint Compromise.

The situation could be far better if they weren't spending money in the WRONG ways. I see it here all the time. There's no money for X, but they waste money on Y. Why is that? Because that's what that area's budget says they can have. It's totally stupid.

The F-22 simply because no one else is willing to spend that much on R&D and production for one. The only thing the F-22 can't do is be cheap.

LOL, I work at Patrick AFB and even I miss half the rocket launches! Especially the Delta 2s, they're just not impressive.

Anyone who watched Futurama knows what Xmas is.

USMC (definite), UK (likely but not certain), other Harrier operators looking to replace theirs (Italy? Spain? who knows?) Don't forget there was a supersonic Harrier in development that was cancelled long ago, before the "Harrier II" we all now know (ie AV-8B/GR.5+) was in service).

Where did you get the idea I thought they had? I meant when they first resumed the flights they weren't at the frequency they are now, but the news was all over it when they started, not now that they've actually increased the ops tempo.