Thog10

Well, after watching wave after wave of AI controlled F-100s get torched by the tail gunners of a flight of Il-28s, I am not sure how they would do against the Russian flying dreadnaughts. As ridiculous as they might be, someone very skilled did put a whole lot of time into them.

I bought the IL-2 DVD. I am not sure how the steam install will work for you, but it is a great game. It is just one game. However, it has the combined content of at least five separate releases and add-ons. (Il-2, Il-2 Forgotten Battles, Il-2 Aces Expansion, Pacific Fighters, Pe-2, and Il-2 1946-add-on)

Right now I am working on a campaign that features the Nimitz and her air wing from her maiden 1976-77 cruise. The USAF has all but withdrawn from Dhimar, and the Dhimari air force is severely under equipped. This cruise book is a useful starting point for the job: http://www.navysite.de/cruisebooks/cvn68-77/index.html Before SF2 came out, I was starting to work on a 1959 Campaign based around the Forrestal's air wing (A4D's, F8U-2's, F4D's, A3D-2's, and AD-6's) with a few USAF F-100s and a Dhimari air force composed of F-86F's, P-80C's, T-33's, F-51D's, and whatever else they could scrounge out of the garage. Mercs were present with F-86F-40's. I was going to do that campaign in a separate install with pre-1962 designations. Right now the project is on hold as I enjoy flying the revamped F-4J. Here's the cruise book for that time period: http://www.navysite.de/cruisebooks/cv59-60/index.html

It's amazing to go from a campaign where you only have AIM-9Bs to one flying with the navy and AIM-9Gs.

Hmm, I did not realize it had come in with WOI. Well, it does make a nice addition.

The F-100D in SF2 has a radar-ranging gunsight that will lock on any aircraft along the boresight. This is a capability that I don't believe was previously modeled in Wings Series. If you extract the Objectdata003 file, you will find "F-100D_Avionics.ini" which describes the AN/APG-30A which I believe was used both in the F-86 as well as the Hun. Take that .ini file and drop it in the F-86 folder of your choice. Then add the following two lines in the F-86x-xx.ini file: (Here an F-86F-40) [AircraftData] AircraftFullName=F-86F-40 Sabre AircraftDataFile=F-86F-40_data.ini CockpitDataFile=F-86F-40_cockpit.ini HangarScreen=Sabre_Hanger.bmp LoadingScreen=_loading.bmp LoadoutImage=F86F-40_Loadout.bmp LoadoutFile=F86F-40_loadout.ini AvionicsDLL=Avionics60.dll AvionicsDataFilename=F-100D_avionics.ini Once those two steps are completed, you should have a working and radar-ranging gunsight in your Sabre. You can test that its working by pressing your "next radar target" button after the gunsight has had a chance to lock on. If the lock breaks and then re-aquires, it's working. Happy Hunting!

The only thing that I do that requires more than a netbook's power involves the wares of Thirdwire. That said, I do like my desktop for flying around the Dhimari skies.

hmm, I got 68% on the initial link, but got 100% on the associated advanced southern test. Being raised in Charleston, SC probably threw the first test a bit.

If MF's A-7E is a possibility, I would have to go with it. The Echo's avionics give you excellent ground-pounding ability. If not, probably the scooter. I do like having the late model A-4s that let you know where the SAM sites are, and they make a pretty good dogfighter as long as you can keep up your energy.

The problem is when you loose all your wingmen in the same fashion...

in a recent SF2 campaign mission (all settings on hard)... I was flying a F-100D in a furball against several MiG-17s and Hawker Hunters. After having just dispatched a Fresco, I turned and found myself looking at the tailpipe of a Hunter not more than a mile and a half distant. Since the aircraft was flying straight and level, I switched to my sidewinders. Getting good tone, I fired a sidewinder that flew directly at the Hunter and exploded just aft of the jet. (Does the game model proximity fuzes?) The Hunter kept on going. Not wanting to waste 20mm, I loosed another 9B. The second missle also exploded on or near the Hunter, but the aircraft kept flying, and even began to try to evade me. By this time I had closed the distance with him. I set my sights on him, fired a short burst, and that was the end of that. I was a bit confused. Perhaps the missles had actually missed. When I finished the mission, I looked at the stats pages. I had two hits with my sidewinders, but no kills were credited to the missiles. The Hunter had been finished with the guns.

Has there been any thought to creating a separate download category for SF2 and its add-ons? I am assuming that there will be a day when mods created for the original series and those created for the updated one will not play too nicely together. Just a thought...

well, I'll add my 50th... this really is thread filler...

I am also having a great time with SF2. Has SF2 added a working radar-assisted lead computing gunsight to the F-100, or have I just never noticed it before?

Merry Christmas!

The toolkits were fun, and Vark111 did have some good .lib's. I remember how photo-realistic I thought USNF looked the first time I booted it up. I also remember having to upgrade my computer to 16mb of ram to run ATF.

Ah, I see. I was confused over which bear was which. Well, many thanks to all who create mods.

Wow, thanks for the alpha release. On my first flight one of the bears succeeded in dodging 3 AIM-7Es before I got it with a sidewinder. Then I made the mistake of closing to engage the second with my gunpod. My Phantom did not survive the encounter with the bear's gunners. Many thanks!

Tu-95, Tu-22M, Su-25

Finland

I've particularly enjoyed dropping a couple Rockeyes on the lines of MiGs. Does anyone know if destroying aircraft on the ground has any effect on the number that will come up to meet you in the following missions?

I definately second re-creating the old USNF campaign (that was later repackaged on Fighters Anthology), especially once the new Tomcat from MF comes out. (Waiting very patiently...) I do wonder why the navy would choose to part a carrier in the Black Sea and expect it to be much more than a target for waves of Backfires. I love this map, but the AI definately needs some help with the mountains. I've lost a few wingmen to the sides of hills, and tanks have been placed in some interesting locations. At one point a line of T-72s was dug in on the face of a cliff. Physics seemed to have been taking a lunch break. Overall, though, it is a beautiful job. I enjoyed reading about its creation at SimHQ, and I look forward to future articles. img00009.bmp Perhaps I shouldn't be carrying a full load if I expect to get over that ridge...

Also, there are not aircraft parked at every airfield. If you cycle through external views of aircraft (defalt F6) you should come across some 0kt-parked-on-tarmac aircraft after a couple dozen keystrokes.

Beautiful! I was just flying around enjoying the Ukrainian countryside so much that I didn't notice the flight of MiG-21s that came out of nowhere.* You might want to make mention that the program installs the terrain into the exact folder that you specify in the installation. I had to move the "Blacksea" folder from the WoE directory into the terrain folder after it installed. *My hats off to TK for the recent patches. I have never before been shamed by the humble fishbed as much as I have in the past couple of days.

Ha! And on the day that I finally broke down and bought WOI because I needed an up to date WO* for my week off. Well, I'm glad to support TK, and now I have even more flying to do this week. (Flying or installing various mods? Hmm, probably a bit of both.) Happy patching, everybody!