KJakker

I thought I should give everyone a heads up. The Wing Commander:SAGA team has relesed a final trailer for "Wing Commander Saga: The Darkest Dawn" which includes the game's release date. You can read more on the site at the WC:SAGA website. Recent articles of interest are the "You are cleared to launch, Wing Commander" about the trailer, "Campaign With a Twist" giving a breif commentary about what to exspect from the campaign, and "'Let's Play' - Khan's Darkest Dawn" about a lets play video of "The Darkest Dawn" campaign's first mission. As one of the Beta Testers for Wing Commander Saga I will say that Wing Commander fans are in for a treat. If you are not a WC fan or have never played Wing Commander but like the Space Firghter Combat games like FreeSpace, X-wing, TIE Firghter, and Starlancer I highly recomend that you give it a try once it is relesed. If you don't want to wait till the end of the trailer for the release date then click below.

In a video I watched on you tube titled "Meet the B-52", a number of still shots and film footage of the B-52 set to music, I came across an interesting clip of HUD video in the middle of it. In the video from 2:09 to 2:59 the music stops and there is a clip of HUD footage from a fighter trying to intercept a B-52 in a training mission with the voices of the pilots cursing in frustration as they attempt to engage it. I was wondering if anyone knew anything about this HUD clip? Meet the B-52 HUD Clip Link

According to what could find the B-52 has "Six AN/ALE-20 flare dispensers, with a total of 96 flares" and "eight AN/ALE-24 chaff dispensers, with a total of 1,125 bundles of chaff."

Well at least some people got a kick out of the clip. When I saw this clip it reminded me of an article in what I think was a newer Air and Space Magazine issue written by a former B-52 crew member. He talked about how in a training exercise, in Alaska I think, during the early 1980's his unit was acting as an attacking force verses Alaska based air defense units. Due to the rules of the exercise they had to use flight profiles that put the bombers at a significant disadvantage and did not allow them to use the full capability of the aircraft. As a result the fighter pilots intercepting them were getting rather smug about it and B-52 crews PO at them for it. Eventually they brought the situation to the attention I think the Group/Wing commander who sort of looked the other way and told them something like "I expected you to fly to the best of your ability" or words to that effect. They B-52 crews in the unit took that as permission to toss the exercise artificially imposed rules out the bomb bay. They instead planned to fly the mission to the full capability of their aircraft and their training and realistically did not bother telling anyone what they were going to do. As a result they came in from a surprise ingress route following the terrain at something like 200 feet AGL at high speed with their EW equipment making a hash of the defenders tactical communications. Most of the defending fighters were unable to find locate the B-52s. One got shot down by friendly fire when he lost situational awareness wile trying to intercept and crossed out of his air defense zone into a neighboring one and an F-4 Phantom got shot down by one of the B-52's 20mm tail gun when the bomber he was following popped the speed breaks and forced him into cannon range. By the end of the mission all of the B-52 hit their targets and only one defending fighter managed to get off a shot at one bomber, which I think was a miss if I remember the article correctly, and that was as it was coming off of the target after its bomb run. It has been awhile since I read the article but I think what I described is more or less correct. I wish I could remember the article title or issue number so I could look it up again. That voices on that clip make me think that that must have been the kind of frustration the defending fighter pilots in that training exercise must have felt.

I read that there was and XF8U-3 Crusader III project in development but I have not seen any recent info. I was wondering if anyone knew what the status of the project is.

Since getting the F-86D/L rocket pack to fire like that of the Lightning I have been working on getting the weapons bays of a number of add-on aircraft animating properly. The following aircraft were not working properly on an external visual level on my system. Julhelm's A/F-24 Shadowcat, Dels F-23A Black Widow II, F-22A Raptor by Dave, and FastCargo's F-35A/B/C Lightning II. The F-102 and F-106 from the Mirage Factory are a bit of a different story. I have managed to get most of these aircraft weapons bay animation working correctly as it seems that some of them simply had the wrong AnimationID= entry in their AircraftData.ini. I am still having a few minor problems however. In the case of the F-22A and F-23, and to a lesser extent the A/F-24, the AIM-120's are going straight out through the front of the aircraft like they are being rail launched instead of being ejected ventrally. I put EjectVelocity=0.0,0.0,-40.0 in the weapon stations concerned as according to the knowledge base... ...that setting should make the missiles eject with the 40G's of force that I have read the LAU-142/A AVEL produces however I am not seeing this behavior. Secondly I was wondering if there is a way to have two animations occur at the same time. The reason I am asking is that when I drop bombs from the F-35's weapons bays the weapons bay animation works fine but the other door for the associated sides missile bay does not open in conjunction with it and so visually interferes with the released bomb, they look perfect when launching AMRAAM's however. If I could make duplicate weapons bay entries that occupied the same StationGroupID= slot but activate both of there respective sides animations together it would solve the visual appearance problem. The MF F-102 I have working perfectly, including the rockets in the bay-doors, using the same method as I did on the F-86D/L. The new F-102 included in the NATO Fighters 4+ Update pack in another story however. Finally I can't seem to get all of the stations in the F-106's bay working automatically unless I make all four AIM-4 stations into a single group. I saw someone else's post that has lead me to believe that it is impossible to leave the group as they are while keep an automatic doors with the existing model. Is this so? Thank you.

I don't think their is an existing "Bofors 57mm L70 Mk3" AKA "57 mm/70 (2.25") Mark 110 Mod 0" in the game. The attached file is the one I created for myself from this data source http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNSweden_57-70_mk123.htm combined with some existing similar guns as temples. I hope it is useful to you.

The picture is not the silhouette of a Mig-23 but a nose on view of an AIM-7 Sparrow. Compare and Contrast This. http://cdn.theatlant...f22_003_200.jpg With This. http://gigapan.org/g...apshots/204942/

I at one point had problems with the F-22's Bay's as well. Take a look at the "Modified Missiles" 7zip file I attached to this post. It contains an AIM-120A, AIM-120B, and AIM-120C, meant for use in the F-22's missile bays. I also included the slightly modified version of the "Weapon Stations" entry in the F-22A_DATA.ini that I use in conjunction with them. Just remember to back up the F-22A_DATA.INI before you change it. See how my modified version does for you.

I have an issue that has been nagging me for awhile and I was just reminded of it a little while ago while playing a mission. A number of times I have been in a situation where I have an enemy aircraft in a perfect firing solution, my radar locked on with the targets wing tips touching the edges of the gun sight. However when I pull the trigger the stream of shells from my cannon, instead of passing through the center of my sight and the target in it, it passes to the side of the my piper. As such I find myself having to fire longer burst and drag my sight across the target instead of holding a lead pursuit or 6'oclock level position to get hits. This is only on some aircraft and I have not done an analysis of which aircraft specifically seem to be having this issue (I think that all stock aircraft issue free) but it is something that has felt off to me at times. If there is and issue could this be the result of some aircraft have problems with the ranging calculations or alignment of their gun sights relative to the line of fire of the aircraft's gun? Alternately could SF2 gun sights being 2D and not actually focused to infinity like on a real aircraft be distorting the sight picture? Or could it be a different reason all together? If it is an alignment/ranging issue what INI entry's would I need to change to adjust it? It is possible it is nothing but I thought it can't hurt to ask.

MigBuster and dtmdragon, I think I know what has been happening now. The aircraft I was flying today was missing the AimAngles=, AmmoWeightFull=, AmmoWeightFired=, data points in the data.ini. I will have to take a look at some of the others aircraft I have downloaded and compare and contrast their data and gun performance with that information in mind. Thank you for your help.

That is the episode I was remembering.

I had forgotten about the general's medals, and I think they were Warthogs actually (and not the kind tanks fear).

I just thought I would let it be known that WC:SAGA is now undergoing beta testing.

All these jokes about shooting things other than missiles from the SAM launchers reminded me of the old Disney cartoon TailSpins. In it the Thembrians, which are a parody of the Soviet Union, drop pianos from their bombers and shoot bathtubs as AAA. When one of the Thembrian characters is ask why they don't use bombs he replied "Why, we're not at war." It has been twenty years since I have seen that show but those scenes and that line stick in my head for some reason.

A question, as well as a sort of what if idea, that I have have had about AIM-4 is this. How would the AIM-4 airframe have preformed if it had been equipped with a seeker head/electronics system, rocket motor upgrades, and proximity fuse, equivalent technologically to those its counterpart AIM-9 models received between 1964-1988?

cJ, I caught you "the Viper driver didn't become a Lawn Dart (har-de-har-har, for anyone who gets it)." line. In Caesar's second DACT report the F-16 went into the ground is one idea of what you might mean. However I think you were referring to the second possibility, Viper fighters from Battlestar Galactica look like flying lawn darts. , I know, delete after viewing if you wish. Now back on topic, EricJ, I noticed that you fly USN aircraft quite a bit. Could you do a few DACT reports with various F-15 and F-16 models against some worthy adversaries? Also how about flying the Tornado? I have only seen them once each my Caesar and EricJ as adversaries(without missiles on them). How about showing what the Tornado can do from the pilots perspective? Finally any advice on how to go about doing a DACT report? I usually forget to take screen shots in the heat of the fight. Maybe I need to map that key to the Joystick? I really wish that SF2 had the ability to recored tracks like LOMAC. It would make it a lot easier.

Wrench, thanks for the help. I pulled a copy of the PIT1.INI from the American Southwest terrain. Issue resolved. Baltika, I will be on the lookout for your next update.

I just had a chance to this terrain and I have to say that I am impressed. However I noticed two errors that I wanted to let you know about. The first of these I an M55 AAA gun in a lake. The second is shadows generated by aircraft revetments. However this could just be my install. Other than that I love the the terrain, it's beautiful.

I had a question concerning the differences in the categories used in the SF1 and SF2 downloads section of the site. How come the SF2 section does not have the same amount of detail in its top level and sub-category level organization? I think it would make it easier, especially for new users, to find specific files for the SF2 series if the SF2 Downloads section were organized in the same way as the SF1 Downloads are. What would it take to fill in the missing categories and move the appropriate files into them?

Thank you for the reply and the file.

I have to say that I very much like reading these DACT reports. In fact you have gotten trying to find all of the aircraft used in them. However two of them I am having difficulty finding. The "EPE" variant of the the Super Hornet (I have a normal F/A-18E/F) and the "PAK-FA" from the latest report. Would you be wiling to point me in the direction the files for those two? Also how did you put the F-29 Polecat into a spin? I thought it was supposed to be near imposable to do that with a forward swept wing aircraft.

Yes, I was aware that the downloads section can be searched. However many aircraft names are like Mig-25 or P-38 and the search engine does not like search terms with - sings in them and sometime does not allow terms less than three characters long which a lot of aircraft and ground object names have. In comparison SF1 has and easily found "> SF/WO* Add-On Aircraft > WW2 Aircraft> Allied Aircraft> Allied Fighters" structure. That allows one to refine the focus of a search before entering a search term.

Thanks for the reply. I was letting my library science training guide my thinking. I should have known it would not be as simple as it looked.

Just thought I would drop a link relevant to this topic. The images in the article are all thumbnail images. The M830A1 High Explosive Anti-Tank-Multi Purpose - Tracer (HEAT-MP-T) round.