UnknownPilot

Cliff, I don't mean to belabor the point, so I apologize, but honestly, I think this is a limitation of the controls. The thing to do is to get visual confirmation before shooting, but that can be difficult to do in the heat of battle whether it be via the F3 key, or the mouse keys. As you know, you have to be "zoomed out" most of the time to maintain SA and perspective, but when it comes to locating or ID'ing a target, I find it important to zoom in on it. The way I do that is with the zoom keys (left and right mouse buttons) mapped to my joystick, along with the main views as well (so I can either zoom straight in on something I'm looking at, or jump to a higher zoom view (like F3), then zoom furhter if needed, and then either zoom back out if I have time, or with a flick of my thumb bounce the view back out to where it started from, or to an even wider view (like F1 or F2)). The arrow keys are their own limitation of course, but mostly it's about the view control. I think either something like the Cougar, with it's microstick and mapping functionality, or maybe even Track IR (much as I don't like the idea of being blasted in the face with IR all night long), would be what you need. That will give you greater control and speed. (even if you are using the mouse in one hand for view and the arrows in the other, the zoom is slow, so you need to be able to quickly change a FOV, but would have to either let go of the mouse and cross hands, or let go of the arrow keys) Or.... use the cheat of the red square and yellow diamond as a worst case scenario. That way you will know what it is you have locked up and are shooting at. :) The parachute is cool, I don't think I've ever seen that in SF2:V. Regarding the landing, I picked up a bad habit from IL2 - what a friend of mine calls a "combat landing", which is basically what it is (since in IL2 online the idea to get down and stopped as quickly as possible before you get vulched, and thereby gain your points for kills and re-plane to get back up there) - and what I will do is basically dive the runway. If I'm coming in really hot, I use scissors and barrell rolls to slow me down. But there is a benefit to this. You will find that if you go to F3, you see more up over the dash (at least I've found tha to be true in the Skyhawk, I would imagine it's engine-wide). However zoomed that far in you can't see your instruments, and all your control inputs are magnifyed (plus it's just hard to deal with such tunnel vision as well). Yet, when zoomed back out to F2, where I prefer to fly, the dash covers up more of what's ahead of you. And as you slow down for landing, in order to slow your descent rate, you get the nose up and then can't see anything. However, if you go a bit faster and drop harder, you can have your nose down more, allowing you to see. This requires more altitude to start with, and results in basically "diving the runway". Of course it also results in a problem if you leave it that way as you'll slam into the ground and break the plane. So you have to arrest your vertical and forward speed at the last minute with a flair. The right amount of flair at the right time can result in the gentlist of landings from a rather steep and hard drop. Naturally this is made easier in some planes than in others (such as the F-104 lol). Give that a try and see if helps you maintain visibility with the runway for long enough. Just try it with a generic throwaway pilot in single missions (I made one called Generic "Interrogator" Testpilot, which I use for practice and to try out new planes - if he dies or fails, it doesn't matter). As to target tracking in the wind screen, I actually don't have too much difficulty there, although you're right, it is poorer than others. Although I use padlock frequently as well which helps.

Your touchy-feely heart-ache does not stand up to the facts. You are absolutely incorrect. Sorry. I know it sounds harsh and people don't "like" it, but facts and history and science aren't normally "pretty" or palatable, but they stand nevertheless. It IS inevitable, and it DOES benefit the entire species going forward. That's just a cold hard fact (well, 2 actually lol).

That's a typically selfish liberal viewpoint and response. You can't look at it as just your own family, you have to look at the race as a whole. Would you prefer to have humanity living without indoor plumbing and working your fingers to the bone for every day of your (what would be in that case) miserable existance? People die. So what? Sometimes they are close to you, most of the time not. If they choose to go in, well, they know the risks, who are you to tell them what to do with their lives? It would be no different if your brother or son died in a sporting accident, should we then rail against sports as well? So the bottom line is that war has progressed humanity, it has enabled us to reach for the stars, to eventually make sure that we can outlive even our solar system, to reach heights previously unimagined, and to actually enjoy a good quality of life - that does not come without a price (just like freedom). Didn't you just say you can't have it both ways? As for taking saddam out, I said that population control is necessary, and that war in and of itself is one way to accomplish it since people are far too squeamish and selfish to go for birth reductions. To suggest that this means leaving global bullies in power is just inane - as that would have only a localized effect on the population, and not have the benefit of tech improvement, and of course, ultimately be impossible anyway, as eventually they would come knocking on our door and we'd have to deal with it. That was a really spurious comment there. When you get right down to it, my comment was in response to the idea that "humanity loses" from war, in fact, it does not, it benefits in every way imaginable.

War is hell, as they say, and sometimes s**t happens. I would say the pilot would probably continue to fly. As to whether or not you wish to continue it is entirely your call. But when you say that landing and combat are all BVR, what do you mean? I personally have found the 106 to be a very good close in fighter. It's got great power and speed with reasonable turning ability. Armed with even the USAF's dud sidewinders and the 20mm gunpod, you should be every bit as good in close as with the 104. But it was really the landing comment that confused me, I don't know what you mean by that.....

http://www.iraqwatch.org/profiles/chemical.html They had them. They either hid or loaned or otherwise stashed them, but they had them. Either way, the UN had been sanctioning for years to no effect. Someone had to have the balls to go in and give teeth to the desires behind the sanctions. And it's funny too how nobody said s**t when Bubba launched cruise missiles against them, that was a-ok because it was a demoncrat. Iraq had WMDs, but that was the wrong reason to "sell" it, either way, going in was the right call and something that someone had to do.

Yes, of course, doing what nature has required we do in order to survive means we lose. And hell, to say nothing of breaking the sound barrier, supersonic passenger craft, RADAR, wireless communication, computers, reaching the moon (and combinind this with the previous 2, satellites granting everything from GPS to TV to Internet to Radio to phone calls planet-wide), advances in medicine (from the battlefields of the late 1700's to Josef Mengela - even to research in actuated prosthetics (cyberlimbs) and implants), synthetic rubber, synthetic fuels, the near limitless potential of atomic power, far greater understanding of the sea and of weather (and thereby, of the planet itself, ranging from how it came to be the way it is, to ways of better reading it to deal with catastrophies), even fledgling steps at controling the weather, oh, and other fun stuff like super-chargers, turbo-chargers, jet engines, fuel injection, lighter materials, stronger materials (aluminum alloys and titanium) and better heat resistant materials (carbon fiber and carbon carbon)...... I could go on forever. Basically the entire modern world and all of technology is driven by military needs. It also boosts the economy of the winning nations (eg, the great depression to WWII to coming out as one of the richest nations in the world). And it helps trim the population as well (well, it USED to, damn liberals are screwing that part all up) - and yes, that is vital. This rock really can't support 6.5 billion properly, we WILL collapse under our own weight, and sooner rather than later, and there will be massive chaos and starvation and devestation on a scale far greater than any war (short of a nuclear war). Mankind is a social mammal. Social mammals need to be aggressive and competitive to survive. For us, that can and does lead to war (thanks in no small part to our capacity for abstract thought). To get rid of what causes war, you will doom the entire race to a slow but inevitable death. And if you simply enforce it through legal means (which would be the height of irony), then you will cause problems elsewhere as that build up behind the dam will find other cracks to spring out of.

Thought I'd post a little of what we here in the mid-atlantic region are currently dealing with. First we got hit in December, with what *was* a huge amount of snow, here's some pics from that storm's aftermath. When I went outside, that's the first thing I saw. The tonneau cover was rolled up, so that snow first filled the bed, then piled up that high. Now, it is an R/T, so it's an inch lower than standard Dakotas (from the factory), but it's hardly on the street, that's just a *bit* of snow there. lol My backyard is under there, somewhere.... It always makes me feel really good when I see Old Glory fly, and this one is rather heavy so it takes a stiff wind to do it. Plus with the wintry scene, it gave it all a very Valley Forge feeling to me, so I snapped a couple of it - This was a really weird overhang, I've never seen it before. It didn't last too long though once the sun came up - We dug our way out of that, and it soon was washed and melted away. Last weekend (not this past, the one before), we got a few inches that was comparatively speaking, just a light dusting, but that didn't last either. Then this past Friday night into Saturday we got hammered, worse than before! There was a wild snow drift out my back door - Here's a similar back yard shot to compare the new aftermath - (yes, that is a snow blower under all that, but it refused to work this season, so I had to dig out by hand.... twice (so far) ) Thought this was a nice view out the back - (That big, round, bushy Japanese Maple is about waist high on me) Kinda thought this one was neat, shows the accumulation on the roof slightly, but mainly just how much the Eagle managed to catch - Once I started to dig my way out, I wanted to get a shot of just how crazy deep it was - But that didn't seem to do it justice, so I took another for scale - I don't know exactly how high my knee is, but I'm about 6'2", so it should give some idea. And that wasn't even the deepest area, that is at the top of the driveway, about halfway down it was even deeper. And now!..... after we dug ourselves out Saturday and Sunday, we are getting major snow again tonight. As I type we've already gotten several inches. It's supposed to go on through the night, until at least noon tomorrow. About 10 to 15 inches are called for on this go. For those who are currently experiencing summer right now, if you think the heat is bad, just be glad you aren't buried under all this.

Yeah, but you're surrounded by hot girls wearing thongs, or not very much more if they do (wear more). I'd find that to be way more preferable.

I've been through several pilots since I last posted here. It got to the point where I just got embarrassed about it coming in every few posts with a brand new pilot. I figured I'd just spare everyone. lol I did hit upon something though. It occurred to me that all of my pilots get killed or captured, and the furthest into a campaign that I've made it has been 8 missions. I'd guess that my average is probably about 5 missions per pilot. And here's the thing, it's all from flak. Now, I'll admit, early on I was really crazy and pushing the limits all the time (playing in the flak, trying to get more points, those damn fangs are just too big and keep ending up in my floor boards), but later campaigns I really settled down. Once I was home free - I did everything right, I had started rippling bombs 2 or more at a time, hitting the target, directing #2 for maybe once more, dropping my remaining load (if any), in a hap-hazard hurry, and telling everyone to bug out. On this mission, as many previous ones, I changed the route to avoid population centers and came in from mountains to the south, hit the target, rounded up everyone, was egressing, saw the trouble, and realized that the AI wouldn't fly NOE with me, so I just turned them loose while I bolted for the hills I had just come from. I crested the top, rolled inverted, and if it had been an open pit I could have picked flowers as I skimmed the top and backside. Once down, I knew I was safe, but I kept my head down and just played in the valleys, watching my radar on ground mapping to try to avoid potential flak. I did see something though, and couldn't help myself, I went after it, turned out to be a radar site, and I strafed and killed it, and got lucky, got the heck out of there and went back to getting home. At this point I was far clear of the heat up north and was climbing for cruising. Then puff started appearing all around me. I saw a dock that wasn't on my radar, I swung right to avoid flying over it, and then spied another mini-dock on the other side of a small hill to the right, so I cut back left to try to split them, more flak was trying to track me, I was within a quarter mile of the gulf..... BOOM! Nothing but incandescent gas and bits of shrapnel. A damned 100mm gun nailed me dead on, while I was jinking like mad at a high rate of speed, after a terrific mission. Needless to say I had had it at that point. That was when I contemplated my pilot situation I mentioned above. I reasoned that, with behavior like that, it's just not feasible for someone to survive. We'd have no living pilots from that war, except for maybe those who started so late they didn't get more than a mission or 2 assigned to them. So I did some research here, and found entries for range finders and ballistic computers on the 58 and 100mm guns, and I dropped them from 6 to 5.5. I don't know if that field can take a partial value (since it was 6, not 6.0), so I don't know if the result is really what I wanted, but... I can say this, it's still dangerous, still scary, and I have straightened up my flying even more. So far seems so good, and I have high hopes. We will see I suppose.

Bad quality? That's some serious resolution for a cell phone! Nice pics though.

Technically, it's the first flag of these United States, and not of the 13 colonies. It just happens that it was adopted and used in the war that ended up leading to that situation. As to why, well, I don't want to get way off topic and start any online arguments, so I won't go into full detail, only say that it's symbolic. That I am a patriot that believes in the ideals of The Founders, the ideals this nation was built upon, and NOT with the current communist regime and hysteria that has swept the nation since the days of the hippies. There are more than a few of us who simply can not, with any good conscience, hoist the current 50 star flag. I'm always open to further discussion in a thread meant for it, or PM though, so feel free. Barbeque you say?! heh, yeah, if I could even reach the grill. lol Looks like we are up to about 4 feet of accumulation on the grassy areas. Would be even more but there was a slight melt over Sunday and Monday. Still snowing, with a blizzard warning in effect till midnight tonight, and supposed to just keep snowing until 3, with lots of strong winds. I'm looking at a lot of work tomorrow. I just hope that the office is closed again, because I don't think I'll get dug out until the late afternoon. The stuff I did earlier today is gone. You wouldn't even know I was out there shoveling. lol

Weird, I don't see an edit button on my post, I was going to edit the title, try to make it little less obscure. hm I wish I could take the pics you suggest, but unfortunately, sometime in January, we had a really bad rain storm, and the rain soaked the flag, and the wind took it and just snapped the pole. The weirdest thing too, because it's an aluminum tube, yet the break was clean, almost like it was cut. However it something similar happened to other people in other places over an hour away, and the flag and pole were left here, and otherwise intact, so I doubt it was foul play. Just very odd how it broke. I woke up one morning to see the flag in my front yard dogwood, and the pole leaning up against it. So right now the flag is hanging on the clothes line downstairs until the weather breaks and I can repair the pole. This storm was bad. A state of emergency has been declared, and the snow has been going solidly since about 8pm last night. It's not supposed to let up until midnight tonight. It has almost completely filled in the front ramp that I had cleared, and piled up on the truck like it was Saturday all over again. I'd say we have a good foot to 14 inches already. I was actully just out there trying to dig myself out again, knowing it was still snowing, I figured it to be better than just waiting and trying to do it all before work in the morning, but it was really a waste of time, it was filling in almost as fast as I could shovel it out. It's insane. I may be forced to take another day off tomorrow (the only part about that that would suck would be if the building was open - today it was closed, which has only happened maybe twice in the last 10 years apparently).

Looks awesome. And Vanessa looked like a lot of fun too!

Nice mountains and the trees are spectacular down low. From up high it fades out in a weird way making it look like looking at it from a bad angle on an old LCD (but I'd guess that would be easy enough for a terrain painter to fix, as this is more of a tech demo than anything else). It did remind me of something old school. Anyone remember 4K World from the early 90s? http://www.scene.org/file.php?file=/mirrors/hornet/demos/1996/0-9/4kworld.zip&fileinfo (you will need either MS-DOS (including Win9x) or Windows 2000 to run this, I'm not sure if it works on XP or not, the one machine I tried it on didn't like it) Speaking of seeing the shuttle come in to really show-case it, makes me think about how cool it would be if Orbiter could use this (Outerra) as well. Currently while Orbiter does do the entire planet, it only does it as a solid sphere with no 3D aspects and only a painted texture wrapped on the surface. Adding terrain like that would be simply awesome.

I looked through the Utilities/Tools/Patches areas of downloads for both Gens, but didn't find anything like it. I'm looking for something more reminiscent of the IL2 QMB (Quick Mission Builder), or even the LOMAC version (can't recall what that was called now though) - something that lets you pick your plane, your flight, the opposition plane(s) (in both type and number) and set the AI levels for friendly and enemy, choose weather, starting alt, differential (who has an alt advantage and how much), even perhaps more fancy options like LOMAC where you can choose head on, tail chase, being chased, etc. Basically something like Instant Action but with settings that I can tweak. The Create Mission feature rocks. It's like the UQMG (I think made by Lowengrin) for IL2 on 'roids. But sometimes you really just want to grab any plane and go up against any other plane (say MiG vs MiG, or non-fighter sweep authorized planes like the F-5 or Expansion Pack 2.0 modified F-100, or whatever), and don't always want to have a full blown mission surrounding it either. I was just curious if there is such a thing out there. :)

Delta

Yeah, would have to be taken out of context - since I've heard rumors about the old-guard sabre rattling in Russia, trying to re-establish the USSR, and well, with that worthless POS being such a communist himself, one would expect him to be welcomed with open arms as a true comrade. I looked at the snopes page on it, and they have a longer version of the clip.... why were the Guards goose-stepping? That seemed a little out of place to me (given the historical context and all....).

It's not rock.... it's Metal! I think it fits. Especially when you see it set against that video. It's energetic, even manic; fast past, aggressive, and serious. Which is pretty much what a furball is. Plus, I'm a metal-head, and an Iced Earth fan, and an aero-geek who loves WWI kites, so.... I think it's pretty much a given that I would like it. hehe Oh and, yes, those paintings do indeed rock too.

Seeing the title, I immediately thought of this - That video is new (to me) though, I know (and love) the song, but by happy coincidence when I searched for it just now, that fan-made video came up.

Yeah, nothing wrong with meeting people online at all. Been there, done that, will do it again. 5'6" 210 doesn't necessarily mean fat. Granted, you are going on visual guestimation not an actual scale reading, but... I had dated someone who was about 5'7"-ish and around 220. Here's the thing... I had no idea how much she weighed, and never asked, because I never cared. One day I was remarking about how I am actually heavier than I look and surprise a lot of people as a result (I'm 6'2", I looked about 200/210 or so, was actually 240 at the time - now down to 225 but think I still look basically the same), and she revealed to me that she was 220 herself. I was shocked and didn't beleive it at first. I teased her about palming some lead weights on the scale or something. So yeah, weight itself really doesn't matter. For me, as long as they have shape and no fat rolls, it's all good (meaning they can be a bit "overly" rounded and carry a few extra pounds, ie, a TRUE BBW (not the jabba the huts that try to call themselves BBW when there's nothing "beautiful" about them lol)). However, if your taste is on the skinny side, then it is what it is I suppose. One does need to be at least somewhat physically interested. I would just suggest trying out some of the softer girls. They are a hell of a lot of fun. Just use good judgement and don't go too soft, if you know what I mean. lol As for the situation, well, that's one way of getting out of it. But the problem there is she may think you are still interested, and/or end up more hurt in the end when you dodge her going forward. Even though she may have "lied", you made the snap judgement that there would be no chemistry (which is your're right of course, as mentioned, one does need at least some physical attraction), but using an old pic or fudging some numbers is really not the same thing as leading someone on, ya know? I would have just asked her why she didn't use a current picture, and if there really could be no hope of chemistry for me, I would have been straight up with her and apologized (even though it was her fault - more of an condolence than apology if you know what I mean). It might sting, but at least she walks away knowing what's up and why, and that she had only herself to blame (afterall, a current pic may have let you bypass her entirely and she would never have been in the position to be rejected), and perhaps she'll use more accurate info and pictures going forward to find those who would actually be intested in her. - Anyway, that's just my 2¢ But a funny story though.

That's neither pragmatic, nor common sense - it's being a smart ass.

It's not something I've actually tried myself, so it's good to see the results panned out that way.

I like Canada. Quebec, not so much. hee And I love to joke and tease, but all in good fun (because hosers rock). How do Canadians spell the name of their country? C, Eh?, N, Eh?, D, Eh? Like, grab your toques and take off, eh!

Does that mean that the entire terrain is compressed? Or just cut short? Or just smaller in terms of distances? What I mean is, would a mountain end up being only 63% as high as it should be (compressed), or would you just not be able to reach certain points on a map that should be within it's borders (cropped/cut short), or would cities, bases, mountains etc just be 63% closer to one another, but with their sizes intact (smaller in terms of distances)? Sorry if it's a stupid question, just something I've wondered about.

They could get there, it just took 'em a while. The Albatros D.Va had a cieling of 20,500ft, and the Camel could reach 19,000ft. The biggest issues for them were first the pilots, then engine power, which is what drove supercharger development. Many people would feel the effects of o2 deprivation, but they didn't know what it was - they called it altitude sickness. What maps are you flying over mostly? I know what you mean about how some sims do it better than others, but some of that is related to the aircraft itself too, and also the map. For instance, take the Expansion Pack 2.0 North Vietnam map for SF2:V, there are some RTAFB bases high in the mountains (about 3,000 ft), and the peaks reach up into the clouds up to anywhere from 6 to 9 thousand feet. When you are at the base of them, they appear quite large indeed, so you do get the impression of height/scale. But on the other hand, when you are able to reach 30,000 ft in a matter of seconds, how high can it really feel? Compare to a slow moving kite that takes 35 minutes to reach just 16,400ft (Albatros D.Va). Once you get acclimated to that speed and climb rate, it'll feel like it really is much higher. Add to that terrain detail and also terrain surface type (flat, mountainous, etc), and it can just compound from there. (ie, you get a better sense of altitude flying over the hilly terrain of South Vietnam than you do over the ocean out of sight of land) For sake of comparison, take Orbiter. That sim is focused on space flight and orbital mechanics. Even though it DOES model atmospheres and atmospheric flight, it's really not the point, so it takes a back seat. It's most concerned with amospheres for drag, re-entry, max Q, landing, and air-breathing engines. As a result, there are only painted details for planet textures (no 3D features at all). And that, combined with the fact that you are in rockets which can reach space in a matter of a few scant minutes (reaching space and orbital insertion aren't the same thing remember, hehe ) it basically ends up meaning that 80,000 feet up isn't that big a deal, and it just doesn't FEEL very high either. If you're up for an experiment, try finding some really old, slow (and if possible, open pit) plane to download, and some very mountainous or canyon rich terrain to fly on, and see if you feel a difference. (I'm not saying you will - I'm curious myself, it's just a hypothesis, but one that seems sound)