Swordsman422

So, gents, I've decided to stop looking longingly at the sky and start actually getting up there. A former coworker of mine from my days at the hobby shop is now an FO for Fed Ex. He and I both had a passion for aviation, and he decided a few years ago (when he was the age I am now) to get started from zero time and training and work his way up. A few weeks ago he got in touch with me and pointed me in the direction of the flight school he went to, which is an FAA part 141 FBO. I plan on following in his footsteps. Maybe if I am very lucky I can eventually work for the same airline that my father-in-law runs the sheet metal shop for. I start on Saturday.

First lesson went well. Except for a 360 turn for sequencing, I had the aircraft from start-up to shut down. I did have a little assistance on the landing, as it was crosswind. My instructor talked me through the flight instead of showing, which is how I learn best. He even got me to work the radio a couple of times. I did get a little motion sick. You can feel everything in a C172, and it was a hot day so there were lots of thermals. And I may have been concentrating too hard on keeping the vertical speed indicator at zero. Any of you pilots have an idea of how long it takes to get over the movement? But man, you can't beat the view.

I have just turned 34 in may. The school I am going to requires that anyone passing their professional pilot program work for them as a CFI for a period of 18 months after achieving certification. The reasoning is two fold. They want to get back out of you what they put in, and they want you to be able to build your hours towards working for charter, freight, or passenger service. In exchange for this, they cost about 1/3 less than most professional programs. It might be a bit of a struggle for a couple of years, but the end result will be a lot better than what I am doing now.

Reading the geographical area affected by the NOTAM that was rejected by Ukraine that closed off anything at or below 29k feet, that geographical area was pretty wide, going all the way east to the Crimea. Diverting south and west around it would have burned quite a bit of fuel. It's all one. The Ukrainian authorities rejected the 29k NOTAM and continued to provide ARTCC service for the control zone only with the warning that airliners may be under the simultaneous control of Russian ARTCC. So the company made the decision to keep flying the route as published. Foolish, but they weren't the only ones who continued to use it. Aeroflot, Turkish Air, and Lufthansa were among flights within that route segment that have now been ordered to divert. UKCC probably has their hands full right now. You are quite right, Erik. Money should not have been an issue with regards to the safety of its passengers. US airlines were ordered not to use that route at all and as far as I am aware have complied.

If I read the NOTAMs right, the airspace was restricted at altitudes of 7900 feet and below. Anything above has right of transit and this aircraft was at 33,000 feet. 777-200s at cruising speed and altitudes between 30-35k burn 864 US gallons per side per hour. Amsterdam to Kuala Lampur is a 13.5 hour flight at cruise for the 777 assuming a 30 minute each for departure and approach. That's ~23,300 burnt in transit not including what is spent in airport movement and climbout. The 777-200 has a maximum fuel quantity of ~31,000, but likely as not there was less fuel aboard. Less fuel equals less weight equals less fuel burnt and thus a decrease in the per seat operating costs of the flight. Any diversion around airspace that is not restricted is risky and not economical for the airline. They were at 33,000 feet; well above the restriction within the control zone of UKCC. THey were within right of transit and if they had not been, UKCC would have ordered them to alter course appropriately and/or the NOTAM would have included a higher restricted altitude within its geographic area.

I might suggest downloading a skin for the aircraft that you want to make for and see what they've done. Sometimes it isn't that you made the decal wrong, you just don't have the location mapped correctly. In situations like this, it's a bit of trial-and-error to move a decal into the correct location. What I wouldn't give for a 3D skin editor... If it is a default aircraft and you are just wanting to add squadron-specific decals, what I would do is "borrow" a default decal for the aircraft and create your art over the top of it in a new layer, then deleting the original layer. Save it as the same name but with a number that matches the unit number given in the squadron list.ini. I'd be more precise with these directions, but I am not currently home.

Don't know if this has ever been brought up. So, one fine day I fired up SF2 before trading out my tank control yoke for my flight stick and lost my joystick mapping. In the process of remapping my 12 buttons, I noticed under the targeting command list Target Object Under Reticle that wasn't mapped to anything. This command, as says on the tin, will visually target any object, friendly, enemy, air, land, sea, or structure over which the gunsight is centered. I've found this command to be very useful when I want my wingmen to destroy structures adjacent to the primary target or when making a carrier landing and needing to know my distance from the boat. I haven't seen this brought up in topic before, so I thought I'd share.

That's the name of it, Malibu. Sorry, I was posting a couple of days after the fact and a sheet-and-a-half windward. Anyway, I have never seen it being discussed as an answer to the complaint that we cannot target friendly ground objects. When using it as a carrier landing aide, sometimes I pick up one of the aircraft on the flight deck, but it still works well enough.

I dunno about that cat just defending territory. Right after she kicks the dog, she tosses the kid a glance like she's checking on him before continuing to chase the dog. She also stops and returns to her family once she determines the dog is no longer a threat and waits for the kid to get up and run, continuing to impose herself between the child and the direction the danger went. When I was younger, my mother's cat attacked a dalmatian that came into our yard and growled at me. She didn't care much about the dog until it made a threatening noise, then she jumped on its back and rode it tumbling down a hill.

Dave this looks familiar. We have two cats, a brother and sister we named Saul and Ellen (points if anyone gets the reference). They are into everything. I had to change the faucet handles in the bathrooms because Saul likes to turn the water on but he never figured the off part out.

I usually can't get a rate better than 1 a day no matter what I modify, but I tend to get missions 22-26 hours apart starting with the zero hour campaign start time. I have had some success in the Rolling Thunder campaign having it start at 2200 when I am flying A-6s. What I really wish TK had done was have data in each unit block that indicated what time of day the squadron could fly missions and then concentration levels for those missions like we have with mission types. As follows MissionTimeChance_Dawn= MissionTimeChance_Morning= MissionTimeChance_Noon= MissionTimeChance_Afternoon= MissionTimeChance_Dusk= MissionTimeChance_Night= That way, we could tell the game what time of day we wanted each unit to be active and for the player, the likelihood that they would be flying a particular mission type. Unfortunately due to game engine limits that "cost too much" to fix, this is not possible. In order for missions to be a success, the unit has to meet a particular goal. For bombers and escorting fighters, this is no big deal. The target gets destroyed or the escorted aircraft reach their destination. Where it gets hinky is CAP and INTERCEPT missions. In order to be successful at these, a percentage of active enemy aircraft must be destroyed. This is not possible when you are flying a night CAP and the enemy is only using DAY_ONLY fighters that are not active. The game is coded to ALWAYS give you an enemy to kill, so you will never in a campaign have a mission where you do not encounter the enemy in some form or fashion. Personally, I wouldn't mind, say, flying an event that had me doing nothing but drill holes in the sky over the Boat for a 1:45 with nothing encountered, as this is plenty realistic. Alas, the game has no metric for this. Go ahead and create a mission where you just fly. You get a Success even before you take off. If you don't want to end a long campaign with a kill count rivaling Erich Hartmann, you can always modify the needed kills to complete a mission in the MissionText.ini (I think) and have your wingmen do more of the shooting, but even that is not perfect.

Get them both. They both have particular strengths and weaknesses. SF2V will give you a greater variety of missions in the campaigns and a wider variety of flyables, but naval units are limited to carrier itself. SF2NA's missions become very repetitive, but allow you to add battlegroups into campaigns that can be attacked by the enemy. The F-14 is pretty cool to fly, rippling off 6 phoenixes at as many bombers from 100 miles away.

Glad you are okay. News like this makes me so happy that I moved out of Tornado Alley. Back in 1992 I got to watch a tornado skip over my house in Tulsa, Oklahoma taking only a couple of roof shingles before touching back down a mile away and making a real mess. I was twelve. Nearly peed my pants. Anyway, yes, I am very glad to hear that you are safe.

I'm not a terribly big fan of the Revolutionary Guard, but I have a lot of respect for the IRIAF. If their pilots are still learning the lessons we trained them with, then they've gotta be pretty good. And they have some awesome birds.

This movie hasn't been made yet and already I wan't my money back. The first was an incredible film, beautifully shot if not brilliantly acted. So many ideas were way ahead of the time. And the daring subtext, I mean, it was what? twenty years before Brokeback Mountain. In all seriousness, I appreciate the movie for what it is, even if it did permanently label all Tomcat fans as Maverick wanna-bes. They don't need to make another.

Hi all, So, I'd like to take a crack at putting together a campaign package for Operation Desert Fox, the 4-day bombing campaign on Iraq in December of 1998. I'm going to need a little bit of assistance in putting this all together. First, what I'm planning. This will be an air-only campaign with units from USAF, USN, USMC, and RAF. Primary missions will be strike, recon, armed recon, SEAD, and escort, with little to no offensive counter-air. Rate will be at 3 missions a day for 4 days. Flyable aircraft at least for the US will be F-14B/D, F/A-18A/C, S-3B, EA-6B (player dependant), F-16-40/50, AV-8B+ Harrier, with appearances by E-2C, B-1B, and B-52. I can script the campaign and provide the majority of USN/USMC skins not available already. Here is what I need from any willing contributors. The Order of Battle for the RAF that took part in this campaign, including squadrons, types, bases, and mission focus. All the US data is readily available to me, but the info for the RAF is not, and I might as well be a dunce when it comes to sorting out what little I know. Someone good with terrain data to modify the Iraq2003 terrain for use. Texture artists to fill in the gaps on squadron paint that I cannot. Permission from creators of preexisting MODs to use and package them in this campaign. I think I can do a lot of the above on my own, but I know that I am weak in a few areas. Would there be any interest from the community in such a project? I know it had been spoken of before in the SFP1 days.

Fiddling with the water.bmp, I don't have any issues with carrier groups spawning in the desert. They always spawn on the water with enough room for the entire group to maneuver and never run over land, but they tend to stay at the extreme north end of the NAG, probably ~30 miles from shore parallel to Ras Assanya AB. This is single mission only and not really an issue. In campaign, we'll be able to set the anchor point and this won't be a problem.

Nice! I'll fly it. And I'll skin 'cats for you if you like.

Going from a work of fiction (Punk's War, CDR Ward Carroll), NPG carrier station was anchored at a point about 150 miles southeast of Ahmed Al Jaber, which was used as a divert field. That puts our carrier stations almost a direct north of Manama, Bahrain. Cangas, I got your PM, I'll test the Wall when I get home this evening. Thank you.

@ Allen. Thanks! That's very useful. @Wrench: I'm going to run some experimental single missions checking out the space between Doha and the eastern Wall. All Iraqi units will be tasked with DCA only, so there should be no threats to monitor over the gulf. We'll have to work within our limits. Thanks for the use of this map. I'll check that thread out. I totally forgot about it!

Thanks, Wrench. Glad you spoke up. Just to be clear, we'd like to use the Iraq2003 terrain. The only friendly ground territory will be Kuwait, since IIRC, Saudi Arabia refused to allow strikes to operate out of bases in their territory like Al Kharj. Also, I'd like to get permission from Whiteboy Samurai to use his DDG-51, DDG-79, and CG-47s. And Aleks1 for the Enterprise.

Won it twice in the Tomcat, but I usually take extra wingmen on intercepts and select the maximum load of AiM-54s.

Hey, if a campaign is being coded for this terrain, I'll gladly offer my services as a texture artist for USN units. I can knock up some CVW-8 stuff in short order.

Aha, now that I have it in front of me, I see. remove Force001 and Force002 from the campaign.ini. Just leave the service entry. You might want to check out some of the default campaign scripts and use them as a guide.

Check your Force001 and Force 002 entries and make sure those names match the actual force names on the nations.ini. I think you need to change them to USAF and NVietnam.