JediMaster

I still remember the first time I flew it in SWOTL 15 years ago. That thing tore through B-17 formations like a slower, heavier Me-262.

That's because the 34 is just a new name for the 27IB.

The FB-22 "may" happen, but it's not even planned at this point. The F-22B 2-seater was planned but was dropped years ago, well before any prototype would've been built, as too expensive for how many they'd be building. It was felt that F-15D's and simulators would be sufficient, especially as the 22 was going to be the easiest to "fly", and learning to fight follows after.

That's good! You've taken your first step into a larger world.

Il-2 46 DVD has EVERYTHING ever released by Oleg for Il-2, including the add-ons between Pac Fighters and 46 that weren't released to retail in the West. Apparently if you have the one with the bonus 2nd DVD, it even has a copy of the ORIGINAL Il-2 (pre-Forgotten Battles).

Many sims disable collisions between AI planes because otherwise you'd see a ton of dead AI planes on the ground. Il-2 is one of the few that allows it...I know as I flew a coop mission last night and oddly every AI plane in our flight (that wasn't human flown) managed to run into one another and there was this string of damaged planes bellylanding across the Finnish ice.

First Eagles offers the ability to add lots of planes and terrains, but comes with very few out of the box. The campaign is a different class from RB's, but that game had a massive budget and team by comparison. FE is a great lite game that lets you fly and fight with little fuss, but it's not the all-encompassing obsession that RB2/3D was. If you have CFS3, there's also the Over Flanders Field Phase 2 mod out, a total conversion that runs over 1 GB in size. It has its own limitations due to the CFS3 engine (just as attempts to put WWI planes in SFP1 and WoV/WoE had problems due to limitations), but offers an alternative take on doing a WWI sim. I have both.

A true delight!

Apparently this is also not yet the last of the patches!

I heard it can see Paris Hilton's chest at 50 miles!! :yes:

Honestly, it's better for you than coke. Er, less harmful. Anyway, I can't believe he's copping to doing blow just 5 years ago.

I eagerly await this one. I was astounded when I saw the lines for part 2 last year, I'm guessing they'll be just as big this time around.

As the patches have progressed, TW has improved the capabilities of the engine. The result is the game requires more out of your PC now then it did 2 years ago. The 5600 was a mid-range DX9 first-gen card from nVidia. Since then, the card has been greatly surpassed. It is a 4 yr old card now, as you can see from this review back then: http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=1797&p=15 I would think you could turn down the details, otherwise you may have to keep the game at its 2005 or so patch level. Your card has simply stood still while the gaming world has moved on.

I've not done it myself, but I'd guess under X:\Program Files\Ubisoft\IL-2 Sturmovik 1946\Missions\Single\<plane nationality>\<plane designation of what you fly as>?

You had all the digital downloads? '46, Pe-2, Sturms over Manchuria? Wow, I thought only the diehards had all that. Anyway, there's a single patch to bring you up to 4.08m. It's about 150MB. I have no memory where I DL'd it from.

[Cartman] Sweet! [/Cartman]

E-2 has that big ol' radar which sees surface targets at a LONG range.

I'm surprised it's kept rather quiet...although again I think of people complaining about the cost that could be incurred by these "free" flights and I'm not.

Airbus' complaint seems to stem from the fact that they're civil aircraft-only and don't like competing against a company that does civil and military. No one is stopping them from going military, too. Actually, their tanker and transport programs are military as well. However, since Airbus is multinational and most countries want a national defense company and not multinational, they face an uphill battle there. I doubt Boeing will split in half to satisfy them. The funny thing is Boeing also does rockets, yet I don't recall Airbus complaining about that. Oh, that's right, they don't do that either. The companies are NOT equal. Perhaps their civil aircraft subsidiaries are (which in Airbus is the whole company), but not the rest. Both sides need to acknowledge that.

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.