sugarblues

Happy Birthday! I've still got all of his skins loaded - I can remember getting excited when they were released! SB

Conte di Cavour..... just prior to entering Taranto's Mare Grande, 8th November, 1940. Nice Hinch... too bad we don't have Skippy's stringbag to recreate the 11th of November 1940... or come to think of it, a terrain for the place to do it! SB

A good read Ghost - thanks for posting the link! SB

Wow... Looking better every day! I can't wait to get my hands on this baby...I'll have to try my own hand at making some RN skins... SB

It was a lousy day to be attacking a bridge... but even worse if you were guarding it... We managed to do so well, they sent us back to clean up the nearby airfield the next day. At least the wx was nicer... SB... having fun with Scimitars...

Veltro, Looking sweet... Your new model got me looking around the net at Nimrod photos - I found this 3-view on the Flight International site - it shows the searchlight and the bomb bay in detail! Here's the link if you're interested...Nimrod Cutaway There's stuff on there I never noticed before! SB

Thanks for the info - very much. Here's a link to the Thunder and Lightnings details shots of Buccaneer fueslages; I'm sorry for not re-posting the pics - but I always hesitate before I copy copyrighted stuff... Very good images of anything you'd like to see, and a great site for all British flying things of the period! http://www.thunder-and-lightnings.co.uk/bu...full/faa037.jpgBucc Fuselage detail images Hope this helps, and again, thanks for the info! SB

Lovely again! Forgive my ignorance, but what do you mean by "AUP" ? Can't figure that one out. I notice in the most recent picture the bulged belly - do you know if both versions you talked about will have that - or will the early version have the non-bulged standard bomb bay doors... and of course, feel free to tell me to wait and see! Don't want to push for any info you don't want to pass! SB

Beautiful! SB

Thanks, I've been reading a lot about the early RNAS shipborne activities; I wonder if it's time to get carrier ops into the sim! SB

Buccs and Intruders complimented each other nicely... the Buccs were faster and longer ranged at low altitude, but the A-6's were the true "all weather" bird, still able to hit her targets when everybody else simply stayed on the boat. As for the 111 - another excellent low level striker, with an attack capability that probably fell somewhere in between the two (FC could tell us!). And don't forget - if the UK Treasury bean-counters hadn't cancelled the F-111K, they'd probably never become associated with the Blackburn - and the fights in the officer's mess' regarding who was better would still be going on! As for the A7 - for an aircraft who's role started out as "light strike" they more than proved they were a great design. Ah, the good old days when the good guys actually flew more than 1 type of aircraft from a single company... SB

If you really want to be creative, you could do what I did with my WoV install; I have separate USN and USMC Phantoms - just copy the a/c folder, rename the appropriate .ini's (in my case F4B and F4B_USMC). That way my Leatherneck Phantoms carry gunpods, and my Brownshoe boys carry the 600 Gal tank. If you're into campaigns - don't forget to go into the campaign files and make the appropriate mods to the individual squadron entrys. SB

Hippo birdie two Ewes! SB

Yeah, I've read the same thing about the Bull... It never ceases to amaze me that the nation that basically invented the aircraft carrier has had such an endless list of truly awful aircraft to fly off of them... Some very nice exceptions, but the interwar period especially seemed to have some of the ugliest, poorest performing aircraft ever to leave the drawing board. On the subject of exceptions - One aircraft of the period I've always had a soft spot for is the Fairey Flycatcher. Every time I see a photo of one of those tiny things flying over Courageous etc. I get a funny feeling... imagine, being out in the middle of the med out of sight of land, in an aircraft so small I'm certainly you could put it under your arm and carry to your quarters at the end of flight ops...! SB

...now the truth can be revealed... In reality, the Blackburn Blackburn couldn't fly at all. The truth was that it was so ugly, the earth repelled them! SB

Skippy, I just spent some time pouring over Bucc plans, and have to admit the only thing I can understand is that like you discovered, the plans I have are junk! The photo's certainly don't lie... I imagine the RAE's Bucc's probably stuck with the original "as built" wingtips because fatigue was never an issue with them... just a guess. SB

Skippy, I've read in one of the umpteen books I've got on Buccs that they re-used the old wingtips, but I have to admit I have a hard time believing that they'd actually have them cluttering up the storage bins for all those years... 'course, the Navy never throws anything away, so I guess it's possible... The original S.1 wingtips do have a "sliver" at the end... it's hard to notice - especially on those anti-flash white paintjobs, but it's there... at least I don't think I'm imagining it! SB

Skippy, Be careful with the wingtips - although the all the later RAF birds used the "later" wing state, at some point after the infamous fatigue life problem, the RAF switched back to the old style smaller wingtips that were more common on the S.1's and the early S.2's - If I recall correctly they were "draggier" but relieved the loading somewhat, so the idea was to extend the life of the fleet by back-fitting... SB

Boy, I feel like dying every time you post your wip shots of the Bucc, Russo! It'll be fantastic to see that baby in overall EDSG with 809NAS' Phoenix on the tail... thanks for sharing the pics! Very nice work indeed... Didn't you also consider an S.1 at some point, or am I imagining things again... SB

Thanks to Eric and the team - it's been great watching the development, and the end product is absolutely fantastic. BZ to all! SB

Ghost, They will be keeping INS 300 won't they ? The White Tigers are too famous to disappear! As for the re-use of names, etc., don't forget, most of the Navies in the world that started with RN traditions have always re-used names... It's only been in recent times where politics have played a more active role where "non-traditional" names have started cropping up. SB

Tsk Tsk Tsk Skippy... Queen Elizabeth was the Queen Mum... QEII is the present Boss! But like you guys, I was truly hoping to have a new Eagle or Victorious... if they had to use BB names, they could've at least brought back Warspite or Renown...ships that actually "did" something... the last QE spent most of her time sitting on a pile of gin bottles in Alex harbour, and the PoW... well, she was a hoodoo ship, wasn't she ? W.R.T. the catapults; the ships are designed with the new electro-magnetic catapults in mind - simply not fitted. The idea is go with STOVL for now, but be able to convert the ships to CATOBAR at a later date if necessary. That's assuming the USN gets them to the point where they can shoot planes off the pointy bit without exploding the ordnance first! As Hinch said - it's going to be interesting to see if there's enough escorts available for a proper battle group by the time these ships get to sea, not to mention if there'll be enough aircraft and aircrews...

Hi, My copy came a week or so ago, and like you, all I can say is "impressive". I'm loving every minute of it. I don't have any problems at all - that issue you've got with the music isn't present on my system. I have to admit to being a wee-bit humbled too... I can land on the carriers in all the other SFP/WO* sims without any problems, but it took me 20 passes to finally grab a wire with the Crusader... in real life, they would have bingoed me to Da Nang for sure...(very embrassing!) I really enjoy the immersion - the attention to detail in the missions makes every simply "feel just right". All in all, worth the entry price, and I'll be purchasing the follow-on sets for sure! SB