crl848

The Coral one is quite good. http://www.simviation.com/fs2004military79.htm

Makes sense, they clearly didn't know how to sail so 'elf and safety probably ruled that out. Reality TV eh? How disappointing. Job perks sound good anyway!

Being a realism hater myself, I have always been scared of Falcon in its various incarnations. Maybe I should bite the bullet and get it.

Thanks. Must have missed that in LOMAC - what should I be doing? I like the idea of proper recce missions - it'd be nice to have target photos in the sim briefing. I might even fly one or two myself. Not so keen on refueling. Flying formation with an airliner is not one of my favourite passtimes. Lots of people seem to like it though. I just haven't got time to fly 2 hr missions.

Craig, I saw that one on the telly. Were the Top Gear & 3 men fly-bys a set up, or do you guys spend all your time buzzing boats in the channel?

The stupidity of the comments on youtube never cease to amaze me.

In an idle moment today, I thought about what features I'd like to see in a sim. I'm no realism fanatic and I like it to be fun, but here are a few things that aren't in the sims I play anyway (SF series and LOMAC). 1. Ability to do proper circuits and landing procedures. I'd like to enter the pattern, and have the formation perform a proper break, downwind leg etc. on my command. Especially important in carrier ops. 2. Better CAS procedures with FACs and ground troops involved. E.g. 2 clicks south of the tree line, hit my smoke etc. 3. Rescue operations if you or a flight member gets shot down. Not sure how this would work without being boring, but at the moment it takes a real mental effort to care about a downed comrade. I should really check for a chute (not SF ) , check him out on the radio, ask for an extraction, hit bad guys trying to capture him, perform RESCAP fuel permitting etc. 4. Something to make me care about waypoint timing and precision attacks, like a virtual kneeboard. I remember the old DI Tornado game had a time early/late indication in the cockpit, which you had to use to hit the target at the right time as the rest of your flight who would attack from different directions at the same time. In SF, the randomly generated missions will generally have a full strike package (SEAD, strike, CAP etc.) but unless I've written down the waypoint info I can't time it properly. I reckon that if you have to write things down outside the sim, it's not fun anymore. 5. Seamless swapping between lead/wingman/element positions (in planning, not in flight like Jane's USAF). It's nice to not always be in charge. Anyone recommend a sim or have other odd wish lists?

JB's Thud Ridge is the original and best book about Thud operations in pack 6. I have a first edition copy from 1969 IIRC. His second book Going Downtown is not so good to put it mildly. Anyone read this one? http://www.amazon.com/Rupert-Red-Two-Thund...8680&sr=8-1 And what about this one from Paul Gillcrist? How is it different to Feet Wet? http://www.amazon.com/Sea-Legs-Paul-Gillcr...=pd_sim_b_img_6

I think he IS them, practically. Phil runs the show, AFAIK the other designers are freelancers apart from Dano who is the only other full time employee.

Spark, you should post on their board. They are receptive to criticism from informed sources.

> I looked at it but do you have to buy the initial target list, then buy missions latter? Yes. I think that some ground objects are included in the mission sets. > and where are the planes? Included in the mission sets, so you have to buy the ones with the planes you want. > do the ground objects get added to your folder and then you can use them in other missions or YAP-only? You can use them in other missions. However YAP uses get-arounds like invisible targets to do its own missions and these can end up in a random mission, so it's a bit hit and miss. Just make sure not to take any screenshots Love the Hun too!!

50s/60s Fleet Air Arm: Scimitar Sea Vixen Buccaneer Fly Navy!

It certainly is an unstable mod. I had to do a lot of weapons pack editing to get Argie weapons right but it worked in the end. Also I can only play in campaign as a SHAR and then only for 1 campaign before the whole install crashes. I've got a zipped version that I unpack every time I want to have a bash. Great fun though.

Sony, USAFMTL, thanks for the clarification.

Guys, I am confused. I have tried to be polite and constructive in my discussion of the flight model. Also I admitted that I was wrong - though I think that the discussion was illuminating. Also there is no mention of fuel tank problems in this post. Have I transgressed any unwritten rules? Streakeagle, you were right about the FM modding, it is a bitch. I have managed to get the stock F-4b to stall and spin but not in any recoverable manner!

I agree as I said previously.

Streak, I have the same feeling about the lift/drag, as I'm sure most people do from flying other sims. Maybe I'll give FM tweaking a go as you suggest, though my education in physics ended 20 years ago at school Otherwise thanks and I hope that more is achievable with the new service pack.

For further discussion of the flight model see here: http://forum.combatace.com/index.php?showt...mp;#entry111934 If you're here for the jokes, keep reading

I should preface my remarks by saying that I am not a flight model modder like Streakeagle and Kreelin, and I am totally in awe of their work. That said: I was afraid that this discussion would get bogged down in specifics of F-4 models, specifically slatted vs. non-slatted versions. From what you say, Streakeagle, it looks as if Kreelin's current FM is pretty good for a (slatted) F-4G. It departs at about 25 units AOA instead of 30 and it kind of rolls/yaws (barrel rolls?) in the direction of turn (i.e. down). Neutralising controls works initially for recovery, or normal spin recovery procedures of stick forward/opposite rudder seems to work if a spin develops. Trouble is, I believe that all of the F-4 models in the stock game at least are non-slatted and therefore prone to the issues I describe above. Selfishly, I would like someone to develop a flight model that I can paste into the other F-4s that exhibits departure/spin and adverse yaw, so that you have to use rudder to roll as described in practically every pilot's F-4 book. Personally, I am not a stickler for exact performance to the numbers, for a couple of reasons: (1) to the extent that the enemy aircraft are over-modeled, it is frustrating to be held to exact real life standards, and (2) the friendly AI have difficulty flying accurate FMs with stalls/spins as you note in your post Streakeagle. To that extent, Kreelin's work on the F-4G seems great as the wingmen can handle it, and you are not punished too much compared to the Migs. However, this FM seems more appropriate to late F-4 models than the ones that populate the game - which is fine since it is appropriate to the model it has been released with. Selfishly, I would be very grateful if someone who knows what they are doing could make a FM that could be used for the other types of F-4. I realise that waiting for the new service pack makes sense, but seeing as Kreelin has done great work for this release, I wonder how difficult it would be to adapt this FM to model the behaviour of described in the sources above?

I don't pretend to be a real anything driver (well OK, BMW), but this is a well-known flight characteristic of at least the hard winged F-4s, i.e. that it should yaw away from the direction of intended roll. So if you have left aileron on in a left hand turn, too much AOA (how much is too much? No idea) will result in a rapid yaw to the right and departure. Now I don't know if the F-4G was hard or slatted wing or a combination depending on model, but I think that a combination of adverse yaw effects and departure would make for a pretty sweet F-4 flight model.

Thanks Kreelin. As evidence see the following: From the book "Sierra Hotel": http://books.google.com/books?id=3bABwDOEx...IKHKd2khraXq0aI From the Natops manual: http://books.google.com/books?id=oeJuJtjK4...k_mg7wXsMNNPrTg Andy Bush discussed the SFP1 F-4 flight model here: http://www.simhq.com/_air/air_030b.html

This is one beautiful bird, thanks guys. I have a question on the new flight model. It's nice to have an F-4 that departs controlled flight. I believe that the F-4 generally did this while under the influence of adverse yaw at high angles of attack. I.e., if the pilot tried to use ailerons to roll when at high AOA, the aircraft would yaw in the opposite direction and stall/spin. Hence Phantom pilots rolled with the rudder at high AOA. I always thought that TK did a good job with this in SFP1: if you pull lots of G in any of the F-4 models, you get the stall buffet and then the aircraft gradually yaws outside the turn and you have to apply in-turn rudder to keep it going the direction you want (though of course there is no departure). In this F-4G flight model, the departure occurs with an in-turn yaw, and is in fact controllable with out-turn rudder. Isn't this the wrong way around? If so can it be changed? I merely ask as it would be fantastic to have an F-4 that combined departure with adverse yaw.

Fun flame war under the 1st video too.

I've been a simmer for a few years - Chuck Yeager's Air Combat, Tornado, DID sims, Jane's, MSFS etc. I've always been looking for a replacement for Chuck's, flying F-4 vs. Mig 21. USNF, the offical sequel didn't really do it for me. Finally I saw SFP1 previewed in a magazine and got it at the end of 2002. Of course it was not quite there yet as we all know, so I put it back on the shelf. Then I bought WOV when it came out, and got into the mods. Re-installed SF. Flyable Mig 21s with cockpits - finally a worthy replacement for CYAC! "There I was in my [F-4] at [20,000ft] when I saw [5 Mig 21s] and [5 Mig 21s]. The guys in those planes were [excellent]".

I second that. I'm running an f-14 campaign now.