Dave

He was a hell of a soldier. S!

Congrats Rio.

Dave, I know I haven't written you that much in the last couple of days. We arrived on station in the Northern portion of the Indian Ocean and flying missions in support of the guys on the ground in Afghanistan. It is hot, sweaty work out here but for the most part we are keeping on top of what is going on with the ground events. Not as much bomb dropping as people back home hear on the news. Rather it is a lot of putting airplanes in the air over a spot and having them loiter in a zone where a bunch of ops are going on. When the guys on the ground need help, the E-3 or E-2's or even the regional commander calls out to the assets in the zone and has the closes aircraft fly in, talk to the FAC on the ground, bombs go down range and shooting stops. If the guys on the ground don't have contact then the planes hit the tankers and come home. The F-18's are hitting the tankers something like six or seven times while doing their mission. Our guys are hitting the tankers are hitting about three or four times and flying for something close to 6.5 hours. For those on the CA board who like to do things in real time imagine taking a cat shot and then sitting in the same gear, same seat for two hours to Afghanistan and then loiter for two hours, hitting a tanker in that time frame, then flying home for two hours to find the ship and land. Then getting out the plane, spend an hour in debrief before your finally allowed to grab some shut eye. No getting up to use the bathroom and eating a brown bag that is usually composed of a sandwich, juice box, and some chips. The bathroom in our jet is basically a funnel that the guys are able to maneuver kind of sort off near themselves and piss into. The women have to wear diapers or do something called tactical dehydration, which is where they don't drink a whole bunch before manning up and only take small sips from a bottle while flying. Just recently one of our jets almost had a mission abort because one of our male crew members couldn't aim down the funnel and ended up shorting out some of the electronics on his side which control our weapon system. Luckily the guy in the other seat was able to pick up the slack. This NFO has a running contest on a new name, it is either going to be whiz or bladder. Kids can be so cruel can't they. :) A large number of the crew fly a mission and then have a day off and then fly a mission. They also try and rotate it so not the same guys are flying the same days. So today you might fly the day hop and then two days later your flying the night hop. The hardest part out here as well has been our mail situation. Due to issues with our C-2's they are having to surface ship us our mail. SO that means about once every two weeks we have a massive mail call because our supply ships bring out the mail when they come out to replenish us. So I haven't seen your package yet. I am sure it is some where in the mail warehouse in Bahrain, but where it is I don't know. Don't worry, a package my wife sent me early on back in early august hasn't arrived yet either, but on the other hand a package she sent out around the 11th arrive to me yesterday. God, military postal system is so confusing. For the most part we have set ourselves into a routine out here and gotten a schedule down for most of us. It is pretty easy as you know to regiment your life. Get up at x time, go to breakfast at y time, meeting at z time, etc, etc, etc. That seems to be the only way to keep sane out here for us. Break your day down into easy segments that you can handle and then take a break either by getting up to go to the store, go to the head, heck even sneak back to the berthing and sit watch about ten to fifteen minutes of the TV or slide over to your rack just try to enjoy some quick personal time. For the smokers they have the smoke pit, for the non-smokers they have to make up the time some how some way so they find ways to look busy without being real busy. It is even harder on us Airdales to do stuff like that because of trying to support the flight schedule and other maintenance on jets. After hours we go back to our berthing, grab a shower and either settle down to our racks with a book or a portable game box. Others will stay up and watch a movie or get involved with finding a corner to watch a movie on either their personal DVD player or PC. A few others will start card games like Hearts, Spades, Cribbage, Euchre, etc. Something to take your mind of the boredom. Others will find time to go and work out after work come back all hot and sweaty again but feeling better cause they just did 15 miles on a treadmill or was able to beat level 9 on an elliptical or stationary bike. I have my own schedule which is going to the gym on M/W/F and Saturday's if needed. I usually do about an hour on the elliptical machine followed by a quick fifteen minute brisk walk on the treadmills. Then it is shower, in to my sleeping gear and in bed with a book. On the rest of the week it is usually off from work and either working on some side projects that I brought out with me, playing a couple of video games that I have loaded on my laptop (one of which you might like called Modern Air Power Series: Air War Over Vietnam published by HPS Simulations), or just getting a shower and heading straight to bed. I brought a slew of books like I mentioned a couple of letters ago out with me. What is even worst is that I have picked up a couple more books while I was in Singapore. I am a pretty voracious reader so at times I have been able to finish a large Tom Clancy sized book in about a week at other times it takes me a couple of weeks to read a book because I want to read it more for comprehension and a deeper understanding of the topic. Other then that things are going well as they can on the home front. I just can't wait to get home for a while Charlie

Hey B Can this terrain be the subject of NATO Fighters 5?

Europe going hot....

Look at the top right of the screen you will see your name and a drop down box.

Check PM Col Gibbon. I think you might like what I have to say.

Some weapon testing for NF4+.

There are some stupid ass people out there.

Well I for one love to have you all here at CA. I have made some good friends an its all because we all have a love for simming in common.

Have you checked out the download section under weapons packs?

Phuc Yu airfield?

Guys need NATO Fighters 4+ help. Mostly just information. Can you guys PM me?

Right on! But anyone who has seen that thread does have to admit, it is intersting and I learned something.

Yes.

Congrats. Thule will be great, if you like cold.

Wow X Ray, looking good.

Its the SF2:E terrain with goodies from Stary and crew for NF4+.

The problem with what you are saying is no one has argued what the spelling is of Stratofortress. I have books that have both spellings of the Ahit, Ayit. I am not saying the spelling should not be looked at but I would rather have the sim out and working right, then it getting stalled because of an something that does not seem to have a definative answer. Once again though I am convinced it should be Ayit, but who am I? Its just my opinion based on the evidence supplied from the post at Thirdwire. If it can go either way then I am not going to be upset about it.

And they say Germans don't have a sense of humor.

And that is my point. It will just be an ini edit if TK doesn't change it. Although I agree it should be Ayit, its not a show stopper.

Well as streakeagle put it, its not going to affect the flight model and its ability to fight. So its rivet counting of the highest degree of extreme.

Ron This is a damn nice plane. Just awesome.

Read the readme my friend it explains all.

Oh I can wait, have you contacted Old Diego about using any of his objects?