Skyviper

That's an awesome pilot right there. Hard enough making a landing with one wheel no they do it on a carrier. That's pretty awesome.

Well I mean who wouldn't jump on a couch after nailing some super model?

I heard he did a little NASCAR racing too

I've been practicing at this for a while and finally got good enough to be crappy lol I just wanted to share this moment with you. Honestly I think I need to adjust some settings with the throttle so they can be more sensitive.

If I can do it I know you can! I've destroyed both planes so many times it's not even funny. However I was watching this show called Jetstream and there's a segment where F-18 Students learn about aerial refueling. This is a neat little show honestly.

Oh that's nice! I'll get one of those someday (if things go well)

My thing is this. The VFX program has taught us no single aircraft is suitable for all of the services. F-4, F-111, have taught us this back in the day. Just as there is no single tool that can do every job. There is no single aircraft that can do every job. Something will have to be compromised. Personally I like having a lot of options to handle a task. Sometimes the job will call for a knife and sometimes the job will call for a scalpel.

Thank you ... the track is youtube safe.

ooooh nice! What kind of seat are you planning on using?

I've yet to have dealing with the A team but from what I gathered by reading the information on the website (years ago) and from what I heard here. I'm not really missing anything. I mean it used to get under my skin really bad that a lot neat mods I saw available here required me to go to A team to get the needed files. But once there it seemed like you had to run gauntlet on top of giving some person ALL of your personal information. After all that you may or may not have access to the downloads. So that was a huge red flag for me. If I have to do all this stuff just to get a small chance at downloading the needed files then forget all of that noise.

Quick Aircraft Facts: F-16 Fighting Falcon a.k.a. F-16 Viper Hello! Since this is CombatACE.com I can say that most of you knew this segment might pop up eventually, and since this CombatACE.com I can say that most of you are familiar with this aircraft and all of its facts. So I humbly present this QAF video about the F-16 as a test more so than something to watch. A test as in I'd like to know what areas I should focus on. There were a lot of things that I wished I could pack into the time slot; however I hope the presentation accomplishes its mission with covering the the majority of the facts, history, and providing enough information to get people interested in learning more about the F-16 and other aircraft while at the same time providing them with enough information so they can be well informed about an aircraft. I mentioned in the past that I loved to watch the show Wings that came on discovery. However with time becoming more and more limited I figured the QAF program can do what Wings did, inform interested people about aircraft, but do it in a matter of minutes. So without further ado here's the latest QAF video about the F-16. Our next video will feature the F-35. Thank you for your time and please enjoy the video.

Quick Aircraft Facts: F-35 Lightning ll The F-35 Lightning ll is currently being produced and will replace aging fleets of aircraft for military branches all over the world. Her first flight was on December 15, 2006 and she entered service for the United States Marine corps in 2015, The United States Air Force in 2016 and finally she entered service for the United States Navy in 2019. She is a single-seat fifth generation fighter jet with stealth capabilities produced Lockheed Martin. This segment of Quick Aircraft Facts will feature the F-35 Lightning ll and will to tell you more about her story in 3 minutes or less. I want to thank you all for taking the time to watch and support the QAF videos. Please enjoy the video.

C-130s typically don't get people excited ... unless they're bringing supplies, painted in Blue Angels colors, or equipped with a variety of weapons and 105mm Howitzer. This segment of Quick Aircraft Facts is all about the AC-130.

**crosses fingers** please, please don't be a copy/paste knock off of the 1st one with agenda pushing bull crap spread throughout the movie.

Well when you put it that way ... it's just about better than a Black Friday deal. And like Wrench says it has everything in one convenient package.

Yeah I understand that. I won't lie either. It is a bit too pricey for considering the graphics engine, the age of the series overall, the fact that DCS is leaps and bounds better. Thirdwire is an independent developer however and if I could I would support the guy in all possible ways. SF2 series for me will always have a special place in my heart, and on my desktop. In fact it's a damn good entry series into combat flight simulation. My adventure started with a little box "Wings over Europe: Cold War Gone Hot" that I bought at a Big Lots. Then from there I ran into this weird website called CombatACE ... seriously what the hell is a mod and why is this really big website filled with them? Is it even legal? A little click here a little click there, next thing I know I downloaded some Column5 mods, NATO mods, got a couple of more mods here and there and I felt like the ruler of my own universe. So Thirdwire for me has a nostalgia factor, and that small company somewhere in Texas is still kicking and trying to stay on top of things. So $200 worth of games for $100 is something I wish I could buy with my broke butt. I mean you get help out Thirdwire and then you can get more bang for your buck because CombatACE has all kinds of mods that work best with a Full 5 merge install. So one package for endless possibilities throughout various era's of aviation.

So I have a question. I'm trying to determine how many Huey's were lost in Vietnam. One source is saying that a total 1,925 were lost in combat and 1,380 were lost to accidents. Another source provides a list of the variants and their losses in Vietnam. I came up with the total of 3,009 that were lost. Another total that came up was 3,305. These numbers have me wondering. What is a good website that can be used to collect various statistics about military aircraft?

Developer Interview with Ciprian Bacioiu by Andre Ford Each day, thousands of people are faced with the challenges unemployment presents them. What some may view as the end others view being laid off as a new beginning. Ciprian Bacioiu, a independent game developer, is trying to create a new beginning with his latest project. He states "I'm a Linux 1st game developer trying to establish myself in the gaming market as a developer of coffee-break games: Games you can play in your coffee break, intense and able to scratch a quick itch!" He is a lone developer working on his game in a workshop with his two cats RTFM and Wilson. This interview will share the tale of how unemployment provided a rare commodity to help him complete his project. The commodity is time and there isn't a lot of it left for the Bearded Giant to complete his new game called Space Mercs. The game will focus on a player's piloting skills as they get a chance to fly in large scale space battles. These battles will be filled with hundreds of ships, including capital ships as they engage each other. While a free demo of the game is available, in about 7 weeks the full game will be released for players to enjoy thoroughly either at home or while on their coffee break. Thank you so much Ciprian for taking the time to do this interview. Please tell us, how long you have been in the game development industry and what are some titles you have worked on in the past? I've been making games since 2006 and first entered the industry as a professional game designer in 2010 for Gameloft. There I worked on titles such as Nova 3, The Dark Knight Rises and quite a few more. Over the next 9 years I worked for companies like Mobility-Games/Disney (Frozen: Free Fall), as a freelance developer (game porting), Indie developer and even spent some time in the publishing side of the industry up till May this year! What motivated you to create Space Merchs and focus more on the player's skills as a pilot than other factors? Time is the biggest motivation. If I had as much time as I needed I would have developed Space Mercs as a 4X game - economy et all, however my savings only covered up to three months of development. As such I decided to lower my scope and do what I do best - offer the best experience I can deliver while focusing on a single core aspect. And in this case, what I wanted to achieve with the game is giving the player the feeling that he's a badass space pilot who can fly through intense areas while dodging bullets! On your Imgur post you mentioned that you were laid off while you're developing Space Mercs. Obviously being unemployed presents it's own challenges. So how do you cope with and or conquer the combined challenges of being laid off and game development? Being unemployed offers me access to a scarce resources in today's age - time to work on my own things. While holding a full time job, development can be sporadic. Nowadays I lock myself in my workshop with my two cats and tinker on my humble toys. I have the experienced required to get another job if I wanted too (9 years as a professional game developer) so I didn't feel the need to rush and jump on a new 9-to-5 job. Instead I calculated my savings and decided that if I have to go down, might as well go down guns blazing. Make a new game, release it and cross my fingers that revenue will be enough to support me for 3 more months so I can deliver another one. Space Mercs is looking awesome so far. It looks like a fun and casual game that can be very challenging as well. What are some features that players can look forward to seeing? My favourite thing to do in Space Mercs right now is to jump in on a huge 150+ space ship battle. The enemies don't all focus on you - you're really just another enemy ship for them, a speck on their radar. They pick their targets and engage other fighters from your team so you have the ability to do something you can't in most games - enjoy watching a huge space battle unfold. Ships blowing up, ships jumping in, huge battleships launching missiles - that is a sight to see. But things take a turn for the worst when you see the red light at the top of your cockpit turn on because someone is targeting you. And it's still a nice sensation, even while working on the game for 12-16 hours a day. There is a comment your Imgur post by Jimicus about Space Mercs which reads "Hey, it’s a cross between Asteroids and Elite!" What are your thoughts about that? It's so close to reality that I might steal the comment and use it in an official fashion! The funny thing is I don't have a powerful computer at home - I'm stuck on a mini form factor PC with an integrated GPU so I cannot play games like Elite Dangerous or X4 foundations. I can almost play X2 - the Threat with plenty of ships on screen. So when I began developing the game I wanted to make sure it works on an integrated GPU (Intel HD 4000) while looking good and supporting at least 100 ships on-screen even at those low specs! So saying that the game is a cross between Asteroids and Elite is extremely spot on! Just like Asteroids it works on pretty much every pc that supports Windows or Linux. And it resembles Elite dangerous in the game's cockpit form. I love Elite Dangerous, I so wish I could play it right now. But if the game sells decently enough (700-800 copies) I might just afford the graphics card upgrade to get a better GPU and play E:D. Speaking of the game's features, which was your most difficult feature to develop and what lessons did you learn from the process? The hardest thing right now is making it fair to the player; when you're in a battle bullets are everywhere. I'm only half-joking when I say that the only things that outnumber the projectiles on-screen are the number of stars in the background. When bullets come at you from behind well, it's hard to avoid them. I've spent the last two days working on the cockpit radar to find a way to track bullets from behind the player, so he can get an idea if something is coming towards him and roll/side boost out of the way. Kind of a silly question here. Were you able to include all of the features you'd like to have in the game? The game has been in development for 1.5 months. Everything you see on the steam page or in the imgur post, or on my twitter, was done in that period. The entire game is built around the mechanics I'm working on now. Duel mode? That takes little to no effort outside of balancing the enemies in the game. Survival mode (everspace-esque) is the main gameplay loop with jump gates and the loadout screen. I believe I budgeted my time well enough to be able to add everything. Worst case there's going to be 1-2 weeks delay to account for proper QA testing of the game because I really do not want to release it unpolished. Sometimes, when we create things they may not turn out the way we wanted them to. However there are times when something unexpected happens. During development of Space Mercs, has there been something in the game that didn't work out the way you hoped it would but, in the end, turned out to be a pleasant surprise that you decided to keep in the game? Yes, initially, I wanted the game to play more like the first Rogue Squadron, on a planet. There's an early prototype of that here (https://imgur.com/gallery/MvBhJtD) and it was extremely fun. However ship pathfinding in-between the buildings coupled with performance issues when more than 20 ships were in-game ended up being a no-no. So I decided to just set the game in space and that opened up the ability to have battles with hundreds of ships. Which makes things more interesting. Depending on the success of Space Mercs, what are some other games that you would like to make? Would you ever bring elements back from classic games such as StarLancer, FreeLancer, or Wing Commander? At this points, things are simple for me. I need to sell about 700 copies of the game on Steam during the first month in order to have another 3 month runaway to make another game. Anything past that is a bonus that can be used/spent to extend and improve Space Mercs into something a bit more sandbox-y. Instead of receiving credits at the end of a mission and using them to upgrade your ship's hardpoints and internals I'd want to add the ability to do ware trading, and add more purchasable ships. I couldn't do this with my limited budget and time frame but if the game sells well enough, it's totally going in! Fun Question: If you had the resources and funding, what would be a game you'd really like to make? If you'd have asked me that question 4-5 years ago I would have a sure answer. Nowadays, I'm boggled down by experience and scope so I tend to think small and more granular. Back then I would have said that if money wasn't a problem and I could afford to pay a few artists I'd make a game in the vein of Dragon Age: Origns. An RPG that focuses on storyline and Character Development in which my players could fall in love with their party members and their personality. Now I'd just want to make something that's really fun and can pick you up after a hard day at work. Something you can play and come back to again and again on your own time and pace. Do you have any final thoughts you'd like to share with your supporters? Please wishlist Space Mercs on Steam! With the way steam's algorithm works - the more wishlists I have, the more chances I get a better placement and better launch week sales. If you like the concept behind Space Mercs and you want to see the game expanded - or other games from me in the future, it's imperative you wishlist the game! It's the best way to support me at this point! Thank you so much for taking the time to tell us your story and I'm sure the members here who are interested in Space Mercs would certainly love to show you their support. We invite you to check out the links below and share your thoughts about Space Mercs

Yeah well what I can say they're sucking all the fun out of being a PC player these days. I remember walking in this ancient structure called a video store back in the day. And back then they would let you rent PC games (before people started becoming punks with uploading viruses and copying disks). I would remember looking at PC games and seeing all of the great graphics and marveling at all the cool people that played those games with those awesome graphics on their computers. They were not limited like a console was, they were an amazing class of people ... now everything has the same damn memory and graphics capabilities

I wonder if this means Combat Flight Simulation will be a boom again?

The U-2 Dragon Lady may have gotten her start in the Cold War, but she's still a valuable aircraft to have in the USAF as she still has some advantages over modern day surveillance methods. In today's video, interested ones, will get a brief history of the Dragon Lady.

In this Quick Aircraft Facts video, we'll be discussing the one, the only, the very sleek, the very sexy SR-71 Blackbird Special Thanks to Lockheed Martin for providing the SR-71 Footage!

Thank you! I just finished reading some stats on that site