Fubar512

That's an issue with a value in your environmentsystem.ini file.  Try renaming its extension, from "ini" to "bak", and let the system load the default one, as a trouble-shooting step.
 
It could be in either the horizon height or horizon color entries.

So let me understand this...you don't like the fact that carrier aircraft are engaging afterburners and going to full flaps prior to a cat launch?   That flap behavior is there by design on all naval aircraft in the series, and is controlled by an AI parameter in the aircraft's data.ini, under "flapsettings".  There are separate flap settings for takeoff, landing, and catapult launches.  
 
And BTW, full flaps and AB are SOP during cat shots in real life.
 

The NCC-1701 has been available for at least the last five years, as part of FastCargo's "Secret Intercept" mission pack.

One doesn't have to modify anything.  Just fly during the period that the AIM-4D was available, and if it's not loaded by default (check the loadout screen to make sure), select it for yourself and your wingmen from the IRM stations pulldown.
 
IIRC, it should be the default IRM during 1965-1967 on the D and early E models.

Check your speaker setup in windows control panel, under sound/speakers/Configure .  Make sure that it matches your configuration, like so:
 

 

They do but what good what it do you in-game?  
 
Terrains in this series are not true to scale.  The features on real aerial maps would not be in their correct locations, or have the correct elevations when transposed to ingame "reality".  Last, but not least, it won't work, as the game engine generates lo-res versions of what ever terrain tiles are loaded to populate the in-flight map.  If one where to replace the normal tiles with versions that used a simple black & white checkerboard pattern, guess what your in-flight map would look like? 

Actually, it is exactly that easy.  Though you do have to watch what you copy back, as TK & Company often add features that may cause an incompatibility with certain mods (as you may have recently discovered with the Razbam A-6 series). 
 
I usually create duplicates of the ini files, and save them as text files to prevent them from being over-written.  After I apply a patch or install a DLC, I simply copy them back as .ini files, and I'm good to go.  A word of warning, though.  Several of us have encountered situations were the series seems to "fix itself" back to a default state, without any prompting, so always have your files backed up.

I can upload it to you when I get home from work tonight (which will be after 11 PM Eastern Time).

1) The series was only intended to be played from one side, so the game engine will assume that you are flying a Western Powers/NATO or Israeli aircraft.
 
2) AWACs are only available by default with SF2NA, or on any terrain that meets the "naval map" parameters established with SF2NA
 
3) "Red Crown" is not an AWACs callsign.  It is a GCI station. Red Crown referred to a GCI controller on a ship in the Gulf of Tonkin, during the Vietnam war.