UnknownPilot

Depends on how you use them, but the Eagle and Tomcat both are great gun fighters with excellent handling and rudder authority (I LOVE planes with good rudder authority). (and of course, it is fun to pop a MiG at 50+ miles with a Phoenix. I love to imagine the thoughts of the other pilots in the flight when out of NOwhere one of their members just goes bang! ) You'll love the OV-10A. I've seen it listed separately in the download section, but like I said, it's part of the 4 part expansion pack for Strike Fighters 2: Vietnam. I'd start with that pack before anything else, honestly. But either way... The Tiger and Cougar are both sweet flying planes, but you'll probably want to edit their begin and end use dates in order to get something to fly against in the instant missions. Speaking of which, I think I need to work on some carrier missions for my early Cats. I probably should get the MiG 15 for the Cougar, but it really does a nice job against the 17s too if you use it correctly. But it would be nice to be able to come back and trap after a successful mission. Too bad a campaign doesn't exist for either of this. :/ The T-45 really isn't a fighter, but it's fun to fly. For that matter, so is the Cessna that comes with the Expansion Pack. The Phantom is a plane for the ages, it "belongs" in Vietnam, but yet also runs clear into the 2000s (modern era). I really like the B, but the J is just a great plane all around (IF you clean it up - drop your tanks and start using your missiles, oh, and keep your speed up), but both lack the handling of the Air Force's E - and of course, all of those are stock SF2:V planes. That's where the Kurnass comes in. The F-4E Kurnass - TMF and the F-4E Kurnass (Early) - TMF are late 60s/early 70s, so not exactly the modern era. They are downloaded planes, and they are based off of the F-4E (I am just quirky in that when flying under US colors, I prefer the USN F-4s because to my mind, the F-4 is a Navy plane, even though I know the F-4E is superior). - the MF Kurnass's have vices and strenghts. They can lull you into a sense of security then bite you and snap into a flat spin. Yet they can also surprise you with what they can/will do as well. (and if the AI could "think", those MiG 17 pilots would be surprised as hell to see the IAF in their front yard. hehe ) All in all, it really gives you a sense of being in a plane that is almost an entity of it's own. I could probably ramble on for ages. But, yeah, if you're into older planes, and in specific Stick and Rudder planes, then grab the Cougar and Tiger, and if you don't go for the whole Expansion Pack, at least get the OV-10A Bronco. And maybe the Goshawk just for laughs. Oh, and look into and downloads for the Skyhawk and Skyraider. Personally I love the stock ones (um.... I think the A-1 is stock, might be part of the XPG), and they are really "stick and rudder" planes, but I'm certain the downloadable ones will be excellent as well. For just flying around, the Cessna 180 is great. OH... and the F4D(aka F-6) Skyray. Another Ed Heinemann Master Piece (same guy behind the A-1 and A-4). Wild to look at, phenomenal climb rate, excellent as a fighter, and a bit quirky (which is a good thing, hehe). There's recently been an SF2 update for it, so grab that and you're set.

The MF F-14A with the SF2 Update pack is superb. If you're into new(er) stuff, the F-15A is excellent as well. (feels like what I'd expect an F-16 to feel like, not an Eagle (hyper roll and the dead stop almost feels like there is the Falcon's FBW computer in there.... but then I'm not really a modern jet guy, so...... ). The SF2:V Expansion Pack Gold has many planes as part of it that are excellent. One of my favorites is the OV-10A Bronco. Great little fun, a total blast to fly. The F-101s are excellent. The F-104C-10 would be a must-have (for me). The F-106 (I think it comes with the Exp. Pack Gold) rocks. The B-58 Hustler (TMF I think? I'm at work right now, sorry) is another excellent addition, although it has a weird Elevon placement thing that I haven't figured out how to edit yet. And the MF Kurnass pack, has 3, 1 of which I can't get working yet, the other 2 required heavy editing for SF2:V, but once done, they are simply awesome. Also, the MiG-23S is another great one. Oh! And I can't forget to mention the F9F-8 Cougar and F-11F-1 Tiger. (Grumman r0x0rz my b0x0rz ) Some of those are Gen 1, some are Gen 2, some of the Gen 1 require editing, some don't. But the bottom line is, editing or not, Gen 1 or not, they work, so I count them. :) They all have excellent models and pits, and flight models, and are a blast to use. (come to think of it, I would even add the T-45 Goshawk to that list as well)

If talking "brittain", then it's gotta be Eire, Wales or Scotland (Shirley Manson, 'nuff said). Not that there aren't hot English girls, there are, just something about those northern gingers.

Excuse me?! I don't know where you get off with the attitude or what you are implying here, but it doesn't sit well. Yeah, because 8GB compares to 1.44MB, right? A DVD can not get eaten, it can not get accidentally over-written, it can not be damaged when you hit a bump on the road while transporting it, it can not be damaged by being near a powerful magnet, it has no exeternal enclosure or power source to go bad, no motors to go bad, and since it gets burned and put on the shelf untill needed, almost never gets handled. No, you are locked into your system by habit and preference and are arguing flips and twists to try to make it seem better (perhaps even to yourself). It just doesn't add up. I have been a tech, a consultant, and now network admin. I have not been doing something wrong. Here is more of your attitude. The simple and pure fact of the matter is this - hard drives are NOT reliable. Adding dozens of them only increases the burden on the operator and increases expenditure with a low return in reliability. You don't have to like that, but it IS a fact. I could take you on a tour of any data center in the world. There is no buisness that will put it's data (ie, money) in the hands of such a risky strategy as you employ. Getting facetious about it and calling other methods slow or "unreliable" just indicates your lack of experience, but also changes nothing in the matter. More of what I mean, you've taken this personal, and must apparently feel threatened by my comments about your method. Don't - it's your data, and your time, and your money. Do what makes you feel good and go in peace. But stop with the attitude and the flawed arguments. I've shown many ways to not spend a fortune to do the job right. You've chosen to close your eyes, plug your ears and go "la la la la la! I can't hear you!" in order to make this argument. Optical media doesn't fail (you can damage it, but it doesn't die on it's own - y'know, like hard drives do). Tape fails FAR less often than hard drives do. IF one uses hard drives, then yes, make several, then several more. Spend large sums of money on 5 or 10 drives and go nuts writing and tracking your data. Or spend a fraction and get a few tapes, or a couple DVDs (and supplement that with better data management). Anything is better than nothing. But this idea that hard drives are *better* or that tape is too expensive, is simply preposterous, and the result of a lack of experience and knowledge. Tis a shame it brought out such attitude and veracity, really didn't want to go down this road....

Probably. There is just something enticing about a foreign accent, and I know girls dig it in guys too, so that may be part of it. :)

While I have never had a PS/u take out drives, I have seen it frag MoBo's and CPUs. Both expensive enough that I simply will never use cheap power supplies. If they don't, then they don't belong in the data protection buisness. There is 1, and only 1 way to backup large amounts of production data ("production data" is business critical data, and in the case of internet storage companies, that is YOUR data that you've placed on their servers). Yes, as I referenced previously, however, I have been handling optical for so long now that that just doesn't happen anymore. Plus in the case of a backup (rather than a frequently accessed item like audio CD), it will rarely, if ever, get handled and so that problem reduces to almost zero. I'm simply trying to stress the difference between a backup, and a mere copy that someone is calling a backup (but isn't). Bottom line is, be as careful as you want with your hard drives, it almost doesn't matter. I have personally experienced too many drive deaths while taking all precautions. You are free to use your own method, just be aware, while you USE it as a backup, it's actually (technically) not. And it's not safe - just BETTER than doing nothing at all (again, want to stress that, you and are are in agreement that if it's all ya got, do it, because it's better than not doing anything). DVDs are actually rather large. If you break it down and organize your data, then you could put your hyper critical data on to 1 or more DVDs (and that generally won't be more than a couple for the typical person, if even that), and then the stuff that you could live without but would rather not, on to more plentiful and less secure HDDs and USB thumb drives. Tapes are NOT that slow. 120MB/second is NOT that slow. Capacity is up to 800GB native now (meaning uncompressed storage). Just how many terabytes are you suggesting most people currently have spinning? And how much of that do you think actually needs to be backed up (and isn't cache files, installed apps, things they can re-download for free, and duplicated files)? LTOs are self contained cartridges and don't see the abuse that old audio cassettes do, so they last a heck of a lot longer. Yes, they CAN get "eaten" (I've seen it), but that's a rare event - a hard drive going tits up is not. Not really a tough choice there, tape is simply more reliable. (and cheaper than disk) Tape libraries (and auto-loaders) handle jobs that run across multiple tapes. As we are currently using LTO3 for tape inventory and compatibility (with ohter sites) reasons, we are working on a 400GB native tape size. Our full backup spans only 2 tapes. We'll be hitting 3 soon, but we have plenty of backup window to work with and tons of spare slots in the library. When taken to the business production level (yes, I realize this is beyond the level of the typical consumer, I'm just explaining...), backups are done nightly on a scheduled and automated rotation. Typically speaking, at the end of each week a full backup will be done, and then each of the first 4 days of the week, a differential backup is done, backing up only those files which have been modified or added since the last full backup. The dailies are re-written once a week, the weeklies are rewritten once a month, the monthlies are rewritten once a year, and the yearlies are typically held indefinitely for legal purposes. In this way you almost instantly span across several tape sets and are in NO danger of losing everything should a tape get eaten. This is my point - there are true backups, and then there are copies. You seem to be interested in copies. (reiterating once again, this is better than not doing anything at all, I just wanted to point out that it's not technically an actual backup and also highlight the dangers that still exist - wasn't mean to turn into an argument)

HDD is "Hard Disk Drive", and so would just be 1 (HDDs would be multiple, generally speaking, but I don't mean to put words in Widow's mouth) Actually, it's much more than that. Those places are businesses, and your data is their production data. That would not and could not be trusted to "multiple hard drives", it would remain online on "multiple hard drives" so that it is always accessible to you, but rest assured, they would do nightly backups of it as well. (to tape) The real benefit of online storage is that it is actually backed up properly and thus, always available and safe, and it's easier and cheaper than buying the gear and doing it yourself (IF you trust another party with your data, I'm not comfortable with that, personally). However, as I mentioned above, RAID comes in many levels, and is not a backup in anyway. It's simply a form of data protection from HARDWARE failure - there are many more threats to your data than that. Also, if configured for it, RAID can withstand that hardware failure, keep running, and even be repaired on the fly (hotswap RAID 5s). The chance of losing all drives in 1 event is both very unlikely, and also highlights why it is data protection, or harware redundancy to increase uptime, but NOT a backup in any way. And you would not implement a RAID (for protection) without taking other precautions as well, such as putting it on a file server which does nothing but serve files (ie, not used as a workstation), has limited internet access behind a firewall, up to date virus protection, and finally with a good UPS/power conditioner which would smooth out brownouts, safely shutdown during blackouts and protect from lightning strikes. This too can be further enhanced when getting into server room or data center design. RAID can do mirroring, striping, or striping with parity. Mirroring is just that, using hardware to simultaneously read and write to 2 drives (or arrays). This is expensive in terms of disk storage (as you get only 50% usability out of your total capacity). This can survive the loss of 1 drive and keep going, can be repaired/rebuilt, and does not offer any speed enhancement Striping (without parity) is purely about speed. It access multiple drives at once to increase total data throughput, but offers no protection of any kind. And since you lose ALL your data if 1 drive dies, it's actually LESS secure than if you used just 1 drive alone. Striping with partiy is the same as above, except that it writes parity data across all the drives in the array (and requires 3 or more), and offers a slight read performance boost, while at the same time offering protection from a single drive failure. However, if you lose 2 more more at once, your data is lost. Fortunately you can replace the dead drive and rebuild the array from the parity data. Some controllers allow you to do this on the fly (that is, with your data still accessible during the process) More expensive striping+parity (ie, RAID 5 (as virtually nobody uses 3 anymore)) implementations will not only be hot swappable (meaning you don't have to shut down to replace a drive OR rebuild the array), but also include 1 (or more) "hot spares". In the event of a drive failure, the controller will activate the hot spare (a spare drive resident in the array and online, but not PART of the array) and rebuild itself with it. You can then replace the dead drive at your leisure, and the replacement then becomes the new hot spare. This reduces the chance of losing the array to multiple drive loss by reducing the window to replace the dead drive to virtually 0 (only the amount of time it takes to rebuild itself) And a more recent trend is to combine types, such as mirroring 2 striped arrays, or striping across 2 or more mirror sets, etc. Using this technique you can increase your drive loss window to more than 2 drives at once (so long as it's not within any single sub-array). That about covers the basics of it I think.

Lexx, here's where I'm coming from: In essence, one can call a spare copy of anything a "backup", because when you make a backup, ultimately, you are making a copy of the data in question. However... extending that, you could call a second copy of a file stored in the very same working directory a "backup", but have you really backed it up in that case? You may have some protection from corruption of that particular file from the application using it (or your own editing), but it would be more accurately labeled a spare, or a copy, or even a "draft" (in M$ Office parlence). The reason is, if anything should happen to that drive, all your multiple copies are gone. Yes, I realize you know this, I'm just starting at the beginning so bear with me. Ok, so, the next step is to plug in a second HDD (Hard Disk Drive) into the machine and then make a copy or your file on each drive. Now, if 1 drive fails, then you still have your "backup", right? However, as you know, that doesn't protect against lightning strikes, or even software corruption (OS going crazy, viruses, etc - even user error) So then the next step is to use an external and removable HDD to copy your file to, then put it on the shelf. This way you are not protected against fried internals, software corruption and have an extra measure against user error. It's getting better, but... it's still just a copy. Only slightly safer than if it were sitting on the same drive it's being used on. In this case, it's sort of like a manual off-line mirror set, or essentially a RAID. But... as any IT person will tell you, even a RAID 5 OF RAID 5s with multiple hot spares still isn't a backup. It's just protection against hardware related downtime, nothing more. So, the question then becomes, what's different about an externa USB drive and a DVD or tape? Simply put, the stability and transportability of the media. What if your spare drive is knocked to the floor? What if it gets zapped with static? What if it gets too close to a powerful magnetic field? What if it is handled too roughly in transit (anywhere)? What if it's just it's time to spontaneously die? What if software/OS corruption takes it out when you attempt to either use it, or even update it? You CAN use a method of manually/religiously making copies of copies of copies on multitudes of external drives, and can incrementally increase your protection level, but, technically speaking (and feel free to call it nitpicking/splitting hairs if you like) it's still just multiple copies and NOT a (true) backup. I'm not sure what problems you guys have experienced with optical media, and it's by no means ideal or safEST, but it's better than a hard drive. The best thing we currently have is tape. The only real problem with optical is that it's data surface is exposed and easy to corrupt physically. But on the plus side, it's also immune to EMR and static (within reason). Optical is write once read many, tapes can be locked (like old school 3.5" flopies), both can be easily transported, both are media only and can be placed into any compatible drive, and as such both are actually more suited to off-site storage as well. This is why they are what one would call "true backups". Though there again, you could split that hair even further if you want to insist on backup software and schedules (as opposed to manual file copy). And just to toss in one other bit - I barely trust HDDs that are permenantly inside a machine on the (earthquake safe) east coast. Any drive that gets handled and moved around (ie, external HDD).... forget it. That's like playing with matches in an oxygen rich environment, you're just asking for trouble.

I am in IT. Disaster recovery is one of the things I am tasked with and have spent much time considering. I will repeat, a harddrive is NOT a backup. It can be a copy, but a copy is NOT a backup. What that means is that a true, proper backup is something that resides on stable media. That means either optical or tape. Right now those are our only options. And as such, it is NOT easy for the home user to backup. Never has been. Simply making a copy to another hard drive doesn't cut it. It is better than nothing, but it is not sufficient. (using a hard drive as a pseudo-backup is like using outdated anti-virus, it's a false sense of security, I would never trust anything that would qualify as "production data" on anything less than a DVD or LTO) Edit, we posted at the same time. Edit 2 - 120MB/sec is not slow. And with 800GB native capacity, you can pop one in, and let it run over night, no fuss, no muss.

I dunno about bitchy, never having interacted with them, but they sure look good. :) I've heard that European girls are more approachable and pleasant than American girls. Not sure how true that is, just something I've heard.

Can't read your expression there, but $1000 for a current gen buisness class tape drive is dirt cheap. (actually, I looked on CDW and it's more like $1,800, but that is still cheap and I'm sure there are other ways to get it for less than that) Even standalone drives have always been much more expensive and just about out of reach to the home user. Or... they would be too low capacity and speed to be useful. LTO4 has the capacity and the speed, and now has the price as well. Basically a set of imaged drives you maintain by hand. Works... but is a lot of work. Would be easier just to get a higher end SATA RAID card with hot spare capability and run RAID 5 with hot spare. (I'm assuming there are SATA cards for that, I know SATA likes 0 and 1, and that SCSI does 5 with hot spare, but I haven't looked into all the latest and greatest SATA RAID cards yet) I do the same thing. I've never bought the current capacity level. Always half of what is current, and no more. Very much disagree. Unless you are comfortable giving your data to an outside company AND have unlimited bandwitdh (as per FC's suggestion which certainly has it's benefits), then backups are quite difficult. Always have been. Making a copy to an external USB drive is not a backup. ANY hard drive is not a backup. A backup is something that is on inert and reliable media, namely tape or optical. Something you can put on a shelf and forget about until you need it and it won't degrade or be affected much by being dropped or by EM (DLT tapes were tough bastages, haven't really tested LTOs as severly yet, but they are still better than any HDD). And the problem has always been backup capacity and speed and cost. And it's only getting worse as drives expand and people find ways to fill them.

Damn, sorry to hear about your job. Wish you luck in finding a new one soon. Regarding drives, I'm with ya. I've lost more drives than 3 people ought to have. At one point several years ago I had even made the switch to SCSI. The thinking being that SCSI drives are supposed to be more reliable, so I should have more secure data - they weren't and I didn't. Right now I have my data spread out on multiple machines (which is good and bad), and have most of the important data on redundant arrays. In my home PC I have a mirror set for data which has most of my most important stuff on it. And I have already lost a drive (or was it 2? can't remember now) in it, but fortunately was able to replace the dead drive and re-create the mirror. So yeah, at a minimum you want a redundant array, mirror set or RAID 5, and ideally want you hyper-valuable data to exist in multiple. An external USB drive 'works' (and I use that term loosely), but it's not really a backup, it's just another hard drive, and a non-redundant one at that. DVD-Rs are a good option in a lot of cases as well. The best thing may well be an LTO drive. We just purchased a new one here at work, it's a 38 tape expandable library with an LTO3 drive from Quantum for less than $7,000. That is not cheap, certainly, however.... who needs a 38 tape library at home? Instead, dropping down to just a standalone LTO4 drive should be in the $1,000 area, which is within reach for the home market (finally). And that gives 800GB native capacity. Of course, as with anything, all one needs is money, and in this case, it doesn't really help. I just get carried away at times.

(had wrong clip before, doh!)

Um.... literally.

I have. She was insulting and made people walk her dog and entertain. My god! It's the end of the world! Don't just fire her, break out the stake and kindling! The point stands - the liberal run school system has systematically weakend the entire population over the last several decades, and now some sailors got sand in their snizz and are crying about their hurt feelings. It's pathetic. And no, I am NOT slamming Navy personell - just those who cried over the alledged treatment.

...but! The Balladeer is Waylon Jennings!

Good point. There normally are at least 2 ways to see almost every situtation, and there are positives to most things that people only see as negatives.

So wait... there's a manhunt because they were seen on camera doing the world a favor (and their job)?! Yeah, that makes sense. They should get a chewing out from their bosses for being caught on film, but that's IT. It's not like they did anything wrong. You may get a dressing down for getting rude with a customer, but you won't have a manhunt out for you, ya know?

Yes, a law was broken. Oh noes!!111! ::: gasp ::: Whatever shall we do? The problem is NOT that someone broke a law or even was "unprofessional" at their job. The problem is that people are acting like this was some huge breech of security and safety - it wasn't. Lexx had a run at me and one other for saying that. My point was that our society has gotten so overly pussified and bureaucratic that it won't be long before you have to wear a seatbelt to take a s**t. It's not about whether it's your own saftey or that of others, and it's not even about if it's a life threat or merely pain, or even just sadness, everyone today is told that they need to be protected from it ALL. More evidence? A Sailor, fired for cursing! That's what sailors DO! - http://www.aolnews.com/nation/article/cursing-female-navy-captain-holly-graf-booted-from-ship/19383341?icid=main|netscape|dl1|link5|http%3A%2F%2Fwww.aolnews.com%2Fnation%2Farticle%2Fcursing-female-navy-captain-holly-graf-booted-from-ship%2F19383341 But that's insensitive these days. Can't be real, can't be normal, can't risk saying something that might hurt some tossers poor little sensibilities.... The way we have gotten is just plain disgusting.

Being brand new, we can assume the pots aren't too spikey (they may be, but it's less likely), so you probably don't need to increase the filter or deadzone. First thing to do is, as I said, find the slider menu (it's been a few months since I fired up IL2, I think it's from the main menu under hardware), then start pulling down the ones on the left. The scale is broken down into (I think 10) zones. On the screen they are laid out left to right, and map to the stick such that left-most is stick center, and right-most is stick extreme. (yes, L to R = Center to Full Extent, I think I got that backwards in my previous post, sorry for any confusion) There are scales for Pitch, Roll, and Yaw. You probably don't need to mess with yaw, and pitch will be more important than roll, but I personally match both pitch and roll to each other. You will have to simply experiment and find what works well for you. I would recommend first firing up the QMB before touching the sliders and wrangling a plane around, see how it feels. Then go into the sliders and start dropping down the ones on the left. You might try starting at 10 and working your way up in 10's till you reach 100. Then go back into the QMB and repeat your test and see how it feels. I personally use a scale that ramps up. Most of the sliders from about the 6th on are 100, but the first is really low, and it is an increasing (curved) ramp, rather than linear (straight diagonnal). But this is a very personal thing to each pilot and his controls. You will need to find what works best for you, and you can only do that through experimentation. (also, differnet planes respond differently. Ideally I'd use a different scale for 190s than for other planes, but since I don't use 190s exclusively, I don't dedicate it to them - I'm just saying once you get one tuned in, you may find in another plane that it feels more or less sensitive, that would be why, just something to keep in mind) As for energy fighting. That is a long and complicated subject all it's own. In it's most primitive state, yes, it could be described (vaguely) as diving onto your opponent to kill him - as per the Boelcke Dicta. But true energy fighting is so very much more than that. As I said, it's not intuitive at all (it seems like it is once you understand it though), and isn't something that people take to quickly, and isn't something that is easy to convey over the net. (I'm always happy to answer questions though, feel free to PM any time. )

Ok, let's slow down a sec. As I mentioned before, stalls and spins are not the same, JM was talking about spins for some reason when you asked about stalls. This distinction is important and you shouldn't be confused by it. When a plane stalls, it just "stops flying". The airflow separates from the wings either due to angle of attack, or speed, or both. As long as you aren't under excessive G-load, or in a bad position, and don't aggrevate the matter, it won't enter into a spin (which is basically what the name implies). In IL2, a sure-fire way to induce a spin is to be banked during a stall and then continue to feed elevator into it. Or, to give it a boot of rudder during the same situation. Then you need to do what JM said, stick centered, opposite rudder, and in some cases give opposite aileron and stick down (but not normally). Ideally, you want to be intune with the plane enough so that when it does stall, immediately ease back on the stick. Roll level if you aren't, and gently nose down (if you aren't already diving). This will build your speed back up and return the airflow to the wings. Even better is to ride the edge of the stall without going over, but that comes only with experience. Again, listen to the sound, when you hear the buffeting, you're approaching a stall, time to consider getting more speed. Now, with that out of the way... you mention difficulties in holding the stick back and blasting the AI baddies. If that is your preferred style, I would first recommend setting the flight model difficulties to a lower/easier setting. That is NOT meant as an insult, so please don't take it as such. It's just that in a full simulation, that idea simply will not work. Secondly, regardless of your difficulty settings, since you're fighting the AI, if you're doing QMB missions, I would recommend setting their skill level on the low end, AND, giving them heavier planes. The AI can't handle energy fighters all that well. So if you want to use a Spit, take a late mark up against a 190A8. Or ignore sides and put the AI in a P-47. That will give you what you mention above - the ability to roll, pull back, and then get your sights on him and blast him. Alternately, you could go with an I-153 or Zero as your ride - or even a Yak3. Then most planes will be worse turners than you. Don't sweat it though, everyone starts out that way. It just takes stick time. There is no 2 ways around it. In time, you'll be more comfortable with the plane you are flying, and you can start to venture into energy tactics, but that is not easy to wrap your head around if you are just getting started (absolutely not intuitive). As for Spit vs Hurri, it's just like the Mustang or Corsair. The Jug and Hellcat did all the work, but those 2 poser-mobiles get all the glory. However, the Hurri is a turning fiend. Be sure. It's shortcomming is it's lack of speed. Speed is life. Speed is more important than turning, but that takes us back to energy tactics again. But it does raise another point - if you are approaching a stall, or if you do stall - give up the chase. Don't force the plane into a stall through target fixation, and don't ham fist it into a spin through the same. Be gentle on the controls. Suggest what you want the plane to do rather than man-handling it. Keep your speed up as much as possible as often as possible. If you get a program called IL2 Compare, you will see the relative turn rates at speeds for various planes. The peak is the "corner speed", you want to try to stay around there. But you also don't want to over-control it and force an accelerated stall either. Something else to look at it is your stick slider settings within IL2. Most people will adust those. There are some that leave it at all 100s across the board. But most of us find it way too over sensitive like that because our sticks are much shorter than the real things were. IL2 doesn't map your stick to the plane's stick on a 1:1 basis. Your stick represents the amount of force you are commanding your virtual pilot to exert. And there is a maximum that he can (50lbs, IIRC). As speeds increase and control forces increase, the amount your planes stick will actually move will reduce. So if you think of your stick as a scale, and the more you pull it, the more weight (force) you are applying, then the sliders, break down how much of the called for force in that area of movement actually get's applied. Ok, that was confusing. Let's try it this way - at full back, you are saying "exert 50lbs on the stick". If that last slider in the menu is dropped to 50%, then when you pull your stick back all the way you will be saying "exert 25lbs on the stick". In other words, if you go with a stepped scale on those sliders, starting very low on the left and reaching 100 on the right, you will be able to apply more physical stick movement (the one in your actual hand) for a given plane reaction, making the plane less sensitive, and thereby easier to control. And something else to check is the quality of your joystick's pots. Find a stick analyzer (I think there is one in the windows control panel, but I've had my Cougar and it's own software for so long I can't remember). Move your stick around and watch what it does on the analyzer. Hold it in various places as well. If it jerks around, you may want to consider cleaning the pots (just spraying contact cleaner in there can help (make sure to unplug the stick first lol, then let it dry totally), but somtimes for best results you want to disassemble them - but great care is needed in that, because you CAN ruin them, and your stick in the process), or you can increase the filter slider, which will smooth out those jerks a bit (albeit at a slight loss of repsonse). If it jumps around in the center in particular, you can increase the dead-zone slider (basically making the center (aka, no input zone) larger). Again, that too does result in some loss of response, but if either or both smooth out your inputs, then it's worth it. Calibrating and tuning your hardware will make a night and day difference, even before getting into issues of experience and skill. GL.

Liberalism run amok and at it's finest. The back side of the hand out coin is the "safety" insanity, physical, mental, feelings, everything must be protected - so you can't hear or say something that might offend (anybody), you can't compete (because you might lose - musical chairs now has enough chairs for everyone - and where competition can't be removed entirely, participation trophies are handed out), you can't have fun becaues you might get scraped (we are 1 step away from wrapping kids in bubble wrap and having all bikes manufactured with permanent training wheels on them), parents can not discipline their children (because it might sting, so "time out" is the most you are allowed), and you must be surveiled at all times and are not allowed to defend yourself (as you will be prosecuted if you try, even if the criminal was in your home late at night). It's sickening. There was no safety issue here. No security issue here. It's all invented. The liberal media is always looking for another way to cause panic and tighten gov't controls even more, to show the nation how "dangerous" life is, and how much we all desperately need big brother to look over us 24/7. Whoever reported this to the press should be lynched. I'll even donate the rope. Agreed, and if that had been the case, it wouldn't be a media sensation. ;)

The "backwards" part is in claiming that what isn't selfish is, and vice versa, and also ascribing some specificly bad association with selfishness. In other words - "An unborn is a human being and its out of selfishness and ignorance not to acknowledge that.", the selfishness is in that stance in and of itself. It also implies that selfishness is also an inherently bad thing (it can be, but many things can be, that doesn't mean they are inherently so). I never said it was bad to be selfish. I just pointed out how that is the root of grief, and this notion that we are somehow "special", and that as such, innately valuable in some way. But you are right however, we probably won't do much to convince the other on the matter. And so I don't wish to push for any sort of argument. I just didn't want you to think I was trying to insult you or call you, yourself, backward or anything.