Spinners

Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey - British Army, 2018

Embraer Pantera - Força Aérea Brasileira, 2017 CadetteBRA's J-14 'Fire Dragon' given a quick splinter camo and some basic FAB insignia.

Charging skywards...

LTV A-7D Corsair II - No.25 Squadron 'The Night Eagles' Pakistan Air Force, 1975 During the 1973 Yom Kippur War a large number of Pakistan Air Force pilots immediately volunteered to fight against Israel with an initial batch of 16 pilots arriving in Egypt in mid-October and with further batch being prepared for Syria. This quickly came to the attention of President Nixon who despatched Henry Kissinger to Karachi to persuade Pakistan President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto to keep Pakistan out of any involvement in the conflict. Whilst the nature of this meeting between Kissinger and Bhutto has never been officially revealed it is known that Pakistan Air Force pilots in Egypt were immediately withdrawn and those on their way to Syria were turned around in mid-flight. Can it be any coincidence that in early 1974 30 ex-USAF A-7D's were gifted to Pakistan?

Cool Kevin, cool.

Great minds think alike or, perhaps, twisted minds think alike! I'm finished for the night now but I'll reshape the fin flash tomorrow and get No.11 squadron done too.

McDonnell Douglas Eagle F.1 - No.5 Squadron, RAF Strike Command, 1985

Get 'em. Get 'em all.

Excellent! **********************************************************************************************************************************

After a difficult start, with some founding members of the consortium bailing out and the ever constant threat of cancellation in the high inflation 1970's, Panavia's Tornado programme had matured to produce an outstanding aircraft but by the mid-1980's the Panavia consortium could see the end of the production line looming and began to openly discuss a follow-on programme. Politically, they were steered away from anything that might interfere or compete with the recently launched Eurofighter project and with whispers that both the US and the Soviet Union were studying low-observable technologies the Panavia board decided to seek funding for a small tactical attack aircraft with stealth technology based on the 'in house' MBB (Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm) Lampyridae design for a medium range missile-armed interceptor. Scaled around a non-afterburning version of the General Electric F101 (licence built by the Turbo-Union consortium) rated at 18,000lbs dry thrust the development of the Firefly initially proceeded quickly helped by data from MBB's previously secret scale models and wind tunnel testing but the fall of the Berlin Wall in late 1989 led to a sharp reduction in funding and with almost no possibility of a production order from Germany due to the expected costs of reunification. The programme was effectively reduced to a 'technology demonstrator' status with BAe Warton being selected for the manufacture of a single prototype with the UK government independently issuing BAe with a paid study contract to explore the possibility of equipping the aircraft for carrier operations in a seperate UK only programme confusingly known as Firefly NSF (Naval Strike Fighter). However, the success of the F-117 Nighthawk in the Gulf War of 1991 led to the programme securing full development funding and an initial production order for 200 Lampyridae for Germany, Italy and the UK was authorised in June 1991 with an additional UK order for 40 Firefly NSF's. The first flight of Firefly P.01 took place from Warton on April 29th, 1993 almost a full year before the first flight of the Eurofighter prototype and this was almost immediately followed by an export order for 80 Firefly aircraft for Saudi Arabia (as an amendment to 'Al Yamamah II') leading to much heated debate in the UK on the export of stealth technology and a later scandal regarding alleged bribes to Saudi officials. The first production aircraft was the Firefly GR.1 for the RAF and the first examples entered service in 1997 with No.41 squadron. The first Firefly NSF's entered service with 767 Naval Air Squadron of the Royal Navy in 2001 as the Firefly GR.4 only remaining in service until 2010 when they were sold to India. Russouk2004's cracking little MBB Lampyridae has a beautifully simple single PSD template available making it easy to produce an 'in service' example of the Firefly.

A company was created to make it.... but they folded!

BAe/SAAB AF2000 Lodjur (Lynx) - F21, Flygvapnet, 1985 Russouk2004's splendid 'Barracuda' design with a Flygvapnet skin and national markings.

BAe/SAAB AF2000 Wildcat FRS.1 - 899 Naval Air Squadron, Royal Navy, 1982

Cool Bird!

I enjoy a good dig around in the SF1 archives and rediscovered this so gave it a basic grey skin. You realise it's big when you go to tweak a decal co-ordinate and it starts with 45 despite being well behind the cockpit!

SF1 downloads section - I think it's in the 'Modern Aircraft' towards the front. It needs a bit of TLC.

LOL The break hasn't stopped this place being full of F-16's so here's an antidote...

Not sure about cockpit and avionics but you can reference the Netz where possible. Other than that just check that all .ini files are in ANSI format (they might already be so).

Black Sea Patrol cadeteBRA's J-14 dressed up in Ukrainian markings

Love the 'Six' designs!

Dassault/Dornier AlphaJet - Ukrainian Air Force, 2009

SF2 cannot end! I mean to say, what would people whinge about? Despite being borderline fanboi I can see that TK's 'game' is running out of steam but how long will it take DCS (or whatever) to match the stock Third Wire planeset? 5 years? And how long will it take DCS (or whatever) to match the planeset we see in the Downloads section here at Combat Ace? 10 years? Dunno. But what I do know is that mobiles/tablets leave me cold so TK's plans in that area are of no interest to me although I wish him well and suspect he'll make a success of it. BTW nice posts FC!

Just French and Spanish variants with (possibly) Libyan and Iraqi skins. South Africa as a DLC.

Streakeagle's thoughtful thread 'Competition for SF series' over at Third Wire got me wondering about what to (possibly) jump to if the end is nigh. Out of curiosity, I bought and installed Lock-On (CD version - £5) this morning and after four 'flights' before uninstalling. I've tried it before but my PC was a bit weak back in 2008 but I was quite excited to buy it so cheap. However, it was a huge disappointment. Perhaps I've been enjoying SF too long to adapt but I really didn't find the options very intuitive and gave up. Any thoughts on what to try next?