Typhoid

I finally just nuked the $#@^^ thing!!

"I: kick the tire,light the fire,brief on guard and first one in the air is lead.(An old Naval Aviator saying) those were generally the missions that worked out the best..... "With what TK has done and all the terrific modders out there contributing to the sim it becomes tremendous. Where can you get a sim that lets you fly almost every aircraft from the Wright brothers to the F-22 or F-35. It even lets you fly missions and campaigns. IMHO it is the BEST!!!" My opinion too! This is a great sim and the modding community has made it absolutely awesome!! Where else can you log in and get a complete standalone mod from a whole range of modding teams for specific periods to go along with the core sim? And given the number of real flyers here, that alone is testament to just how good it is at the current level of fidelity. Besides - as someone pointed out a while back, if this was really, really precise - you'd spend an hour just running the checklists to get engine start and launched! If you want to throw lots of switches - there is MS Flight Simulator. Now, having said that, back in ancient times when I was still with the Mirage Factory team I know there was a definite effort to get the Phantom flight characteristics correct to include adverse yaw and spin characteristics. So it just depends on how much effort one wants to put into it for how much realism before you just go fly it in the sim.

Happy Birthday!!

brings new meaning to the term "aluminum farm". I agree - scrapping the metal makes more sense than just burying them.

yep. I got back from a mission to land back aboard - and had to pursue the carrier through the French countryside. The carrier kept right on going - at sea level. I tried to land anyway and landed a hundred feet up on the pasture. So I think the short answer is that any watermap will work, but the custom made ones for the terrain will work - correctly. Carefully planning the mission will take care of this.

after catching up with this, I think it is easier than outlined. I updated one of the old WWII terrains by taking one of the other watermaps.bmp files and simply renaming it. Worked great. I don't think you need to work a new water map for each terrain - just take one and ensure that the terrain ini is looking for that one, whatever it's named. I'll do some more on this over the weekend. Also found out that once you do that, you can edit your mission start location to launch and recover from any carrier that you've added via the mission editor. The carrier shows up as one of the choices when editing your mission. So full at-sea ops on whatever terrain you choose to mod. pictures over the weekend. --- confirmed. It doesn't matter what you name the watermap.bmp file - just as long as you reference it the same in the ini file. I used the same file for a bunch of terrains. And also, you can enter a carrier under the add ground object selection, and then edit the carrier capable mission to launch and recover from that carrier by selecting it as the launch and recovery airport.

probably for spare parts. Having been a squadron aircraft maintenance officer at the end of a very, very long supply line - I think this makes a lot of sense. Good move. I rather doubt we'll fly any of them. Would be nice though.

It was a fun little plane to fly back in the day. I look forward to being able to fly it again sometime in the sim.

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday, shipmates!

I'll disagree, Gepard, I don't think the Euro will survive for the long term. Not that I have any wish to see it crash nor will I make any short or mid-term prediction (sorry Major Lee). The problem with the Eurozone is that it is still made up of a lot of very different economies and governments. Trying to mash those together into a common currency and economy, with an unelected Euro Parliment, was, in my humble opinion, pushing things too far too fast. Those economies are still very much different and with very different government policies there is not much to hold a common currency together. The old European Common Market with a common trade zone was great and was about as far integration should have gone. The idea of pushing a common currency before a true common economy evolved was a case of, as we put it, putting the cart before the horse. What is unfolding now is the situation where some countries are being supported by others, which will only go on so long. (why should Germans work until they are 70+ so that Greeks can retire at 50?) I don't see this working out well in the long term for the Euro. Greece is on the verge of bankruptcy. Italy, Spain, Portugal and Ireland are close behind. The Euro won't last. But I will not put a time prediction on it. I think it will be in the "two week" range for a long time yet. Just my (borrowed) two cents...... Incidently - much the same happening here between the states. California is financially terminal and will default on its bonds within a year or two. California is already printing state script. Essentially, California is "Enron by the Sea" or "Greece on the Pacific".

sigh.................. reminds me of the picture of the Black Sea at midnight

I disagree. The fundamental cause of the recession was government intervention in the banking process going all the way back to the Community Reinvestment Act. The problems caused by that government/community-activist shakedown of the banks was made worse by the Wall St idiots who bundled the bad loans into derivatives that no one could accurately value and then sold as investments. Much of those bad loans products were then on the books of the various financial institutions as part of their secure reserves - but were essentially worthless because of the CRA loans they were based on. Once the financial meltdown started, then I agree - a series of bad choices were made in the intervention to rescue the financial system from the previous interventions. One key point - the TARP was supposed to bail out the financial system by purchasing the bad assets. (hence the name). Those funds were appropriated for that specific purpose. Once in the hands of the new regime, however, those funds were used to buy into the companies, including car companies, with stock purchases and restructures contrary to bankruptcy laws. in short - the TARP funds were misappropriated and used in a takeover move as opposed to a bail out. combined with the incompetent mis-management of the Federal Reserve and intentional debasement of the currency - and we have a really, really bad situation as a result of government intervention. so of course - the proposed solution is more government intervention. How well has that worked out so far?

Sounds like a plan!! Scooter time!

I will not argue against critical comments of the current banking system. I'll help hold the rope!! But that is not what capitalism is. That is my point. The current banking process is an abomination and a product of socialist government interference/siezure. But that goes into another argument.

Lexx, Some good points but overly simplistic. Yes, the government is debasing the currency and have subverted the banking system in the pursuit of monetary manipulation. That is NOT Capitalism!!! That is government interference and control of portions of the economy in an attempt to implement a measure of control over the economy. And many of the Wall Street bankers have bought their influence with the government, including the Temporary Resident of the White House and his party (see Goldman Sachs). And yes - that corruption crosses party lines. If you want me to join you on the picket lines against THAT - I'm with you!! Where your description falls a little short, in my humble economic opinion, is that you have taken the generalization too far and made the claim that all wealth represents a debt by someone else and that the banks are stealing all wealth. Not true. Wealth is more accurately represented in ownership. As in stock ownership. If you have savings in the bank, mutual funds, 401k's, employee stock options, etc., you have wealth which is an ownership stake in the economy. That is not a debt - that is ownership in the means of production. Only free market capitalism gives you that option and THAT is what capitalism really is. Ownership. Any other government controlled economy in the end results in precisely what you stated - a debt by someone to the individual masquerading as wealth. A government pension (social security for example) is pure debt and can be taken away by the stroke of the congressional pen. You own nothing. You have no wealth beyond what the government in its infinite wisdom and benevolence chooses to give you. You are but a serf to the state and subject to the whims of the elite rulers, however it is they came to power. That is where the OWS drones fail in their bit. What they are protesting is precisely what they propose to implement - just in different terms. They are their own worst enemy. It is no coincidence that the Communist Party of the USA and the Nazi Party of the USA both endorse OWS.

Capitalism is about putting your money and time at risk and developing a product or service that people want. Working for a business is working for the capitalist who puts it all on the line. The rewards are in line with the risk. If all you risk is your time, you are compensated accordingly. If you want to be paid more, be worth more to the business owners, whether those owners are direct owners in a small business or stockholders represented by on-site managers. If you risk your money by investing, you are rewarded accordingly. If you start and build a business - you are also rewarded accordingly. Success is not assured. Success is dependent upon the business owner making the right decisions and delivering a product or service that others are willing to pay for. that is Free Market Capitalism. Not any other phony description.

perhaps not - but I don't recall seeing anyone at any time actually celebrating the death of an aircrew, even an enemy. We cheered a combat kill and the safe return of ours - but we didn't celebrate the deaths of the pilots. I don't recall ever seeing anyone celebrating the death of a pilot at an airshow! There may be some low-life somewhere. In the above discussions people were joking about the loss of the plane before it was known that the pilot didn't make it.

On target Jug!! Most of those who are critical of free market economies, corporations and private businesses don't understand how any of them actually work. Economic illiteracy is rampant. Businesses create jobs - but those are the people in them that make them work and generate opportunities. Penalize the risk takers and you will eliminate risk-taking - which is precisely the results we now see.

to be fair, I don't think anyone knew that one of them hadn't made it out. It was initially thought that there was only one guy and he was OK. Hence, the light-hearted comments. When one of our own survives such an event - the irreverent humor dominates. That is part of the brotherhood of tactical aviation. When one doesn't make it, regardless of the country, people are respectful of the loss. The fact that one didn't make it was only recently reported. Take that into account.

News update today indicated that the plane that went down at the air-show in China was a two-seater, the pilot didn't make it.

Somehow, I think the theme of the party will be a little different than it used to be........... "X-47B flies gear up for the first time". So what? What will be impressive is when it lands for the first time gear up. no, wait......................