ShrikeHawk

(What if) Israel got their hands on French F4U-7s...

Thanks Heck. Does that mean you've modded some of the FMs yourself?

Finally got SF2i and am lovin' it. Stary, your terrain update rocks! Thanks much.

Just installed FE2 and am totally loving it! It looks great. But now I'm ready to install more planes. However, I don't see anything specifically made for FE2. Are they out there and I am looking in the wrong place? Can the old FE aircraft play in FE2 or do they need to be updated to work properly as in SF2? One more thing. Didn't there used to be a Sopwith Pup and a Sopwith Triplane here? They are my faves and I can't find them anymore.

Egressing from a mission...trying out new clouds...

Positively stunning terrain, MigBuster! Is that default SF2:I or an addon?

Makin' trouble in a Hot Rod F-8C Just found C5's gorgeous FJ-3M. Took it out for a test drive.

I think it's hard to guage how important a GIB is during ACM. Primarily, his role is to keep an eye on his gear, isn't it? So how much help is really when it comes to watching the skies. Thing is, "there's the right way, the wrong way, and the Navy way." The Navy has a habit of doing things they way want to and ignoring trends set by the other branches. So the Navy often insists on twin engines because if one engine dies you still have the other. Bailing out over the ocean (sometimes full of sharks) is a lot more problematic than bailing out over land. I expect the Navy has similar reasoning when it comes to seats aboard a fighter.

Just wanted to toss in this in real quick. C5 - I tried out both your F-8C Early and Late in Hard mode, which I'm not used to...and I still love them both. Granted, I couldn't yank 'n bank the way I'm used to and I actually had to e-fight a lot more. Still, I ended up with 9 kills (6 gun kills/3 missile kills) in two missions. This F-8C FM rules!

I cannot offer more "facts", but I will offer a point of logic. I agree with SE's points above and one of the F-8 strengths strikes me as most poignant: -- "5. Safer and more predictable at the high AoAs required for ACM." Imagine you're tangling with a Mig-17 and the Mig pilot is good. As SE pointed out, a properly flown energy fighter either wins or gets a draw against an angles fighter. So the fight has gone on for a while and inevitably the average altitude has dropped below Angels 5. You are now in a very dangerous place. If you push the flight envelope too hard, you'll stall. In fact, whether in the F-8 or F-4, you'll stall out sooner than the Mig will. Below 5K, you may or may not have enough altitude to recover. Your confidence can't be high because one wrong move and you're likely to end up as a big hole in the ground or a guest at the Hanoi Hilton. So you back off a bit. You have to. It's do that or die. If you're an F-4 pilot you're safe flight envelope is smaller so you back off more. If you're in an F-8, you have "more confidence" (though you still gotta be sweatin' bullets) and you're able to push your machine a little harder in the turns than your counterpart in the F-4. Let's face it, even in energy fighting you still gotta turn sometimes; it's not all up and down maneuvering. So the F-8's slight advantage in turning is now MULTIPLIED by the psychological advantage the F-8 gives it's pilot. Let's not only consider the great pilots who knew how to push their mount to within an inch of maximum performance. Let's consider the average pilot in any particular flying corps. The bulk of pilots would fit in this realm and thus more shooters to bring their guns/missiles to bear. The "fact" that the F-8 allows the pilot to become more aggressive is a distinct advantage. From Boelke all the way to Ritchie and Cunningham, it's always stated that the more aggressive pilot is the more successful pilot. So if a plane, like the Spitfire for instance, gives the pilot the confidence to "be" aggressive, then it only makes that plane a "better" plane, doesn't it?

Okay, that would explain it. I fly in normal. I'll have to give it a try in hard just to see what your true vision was.

Yeah, it does seem that SE's computations just prove what many (including me) are saying. Though it looks like the F-4 has the turning advantage at sea-level, the F-8 has the advantage at middle and high altitudes. But now I have a question. Is the TMF F-8C flight model modeled close to correct? I love flying that one, but it's performance is waaay superior to TK's F-8E. So which is closer to the real deal?

Several times someone has commented about the Crusader pilot trying out the F-4 and eventually wondering why the F-4 EVER lost. But we still haven't heard specifically why he felt that way. So I will guess. I think the F-8 pilots were trained in energy fighting. They had to if they expected to win against a more nimble opponent in the Mig-17. It's certain death to fight the other guy's fight, so you have to force the fight into your best flight envelope. The F-8 was a better energy fighter so it's pilots learned to play to that advantage. So, when the F-8 pilot is placed into the Phantom, he's given an even BETTER "energy fighter", which consequently means it's also an even poorer turner. This is true because the F-4's heavy twin engines make it a weighty monster, but at least fast in the straightaway. Add in BVR capability, and there's little doubt the Crusader pilot would say the F-4 should win. So I don't believe his statement is proof that the F-4 was an equivalent turner to the F-8. It just proves that the F-4 was a great overall combat aircraft. In a fight between the two, I'd hate to be in the F-8 when "approaching" the engagement. But once the fight gets into knife-fighting range, gimme the F-8 every time.

Yes, the multi-mission ability was the F-4's strongest attribute. It's no surprise that the Navy went this direction. A carrier has only so much space for aircraft. So planes that can carry out many different missions will almost always get the nod from the Navy. Unfortunately, the infamous "they" in the upper echelons of government decided the dogfight was dead and there was no longer a need for agility or even a gun in planned fighters such as the F-4. Luckily, McDonnell-Douglas still made a very good airframe that overcame the shortcomings of thinking from "they." More so, our pilots got the most out of a weapons platform rather than a traditional fighter. It would've been great if only the F-8 had a better ground-attack ability. Or what if we'd stuck a J79 and an afterburner on the Skyhawk? That would've scared the bejeezus out of the Mig-21 pilots!

Debates over which aircraft is "better" are always amusing. I'm always left wondering "better" in what regard? If enough pilots claim the F-8 is a better dogfighter, then I would tend to believe them. I don't think this is the case because it possessed guns, rather because it maneuvered better in a dogfight. The analysis above clearly proves it could not maneuver as well as the Mig-17. This is clear and everybody knows that up front anyway. It does NOT prove that it's maneuvering capacity was similar or congruent to the F-4. Yet both were fighters that racked up an impressive number of kills. So which is better? I think it's a matter of personal taste. My fighting style with the F-4 is completely different from my fighting style with the F-8. With the F-4, I use those awesome J79s to keep distance between me and my target, then squeeze off a sparrow when I lock him up. In the game at least, using the sparrow is practically an assured kill. I avoid using the sidewinders because effective use of them means I have to get in close and that means maneuvering with the target which the F-4 does only marginally well. With the F-8, I still can't exactly turn with the Mig-17; energy fighting is still important here. But I CAN still maneuver more aggressively and operate effectively in knife-fighting range. Just like in real life, I still get a lot of kills with the 'winder, but at least with the F-8 I can often get into position to use them. With the F-4, it's rare that I have a "successful" 'winder attack. If the F-8 could have maneuvered on a par with the Mig-17, I think we would've seen a lot more more gun kills. As it was, F-8 pilots had a struggle to even get into missile-firing position with the sidewinder (not the far easier targeting with a sparrow). If pilots of the time had been formally trained to maneuver for gun kills (instead of relying on missile technology) we would've seen even more. The gun wasn't useless. Situations for it to excel were not available at the time nor was creating those situations taught at the time. I don't see either the F-8 or F-4 as better than the other. They are different fighting concepts designed for different fighting styles.