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I voted for mega, because it's a million times bigger than single. So yeah, please give us a million sexy skins and squadrons.

Not to go off topic too much, but some feedback as to the status of the Third Wire store since it's being discussed here...I bought SFI from the store about a month or 2 ago. Upon purchase I was immediately presented with a link to download SFI, but I didn't receive an email with my key for future downloads. The problem seemed to be related to the third wire store having an old email address from the time when I bought SFE and SFNA and then not having the opportunity to change it when I made my new purchase. So I emailed Third Wire customer support with a copy of my paypal receipt and I received an email with my new key the same day. Very good customer service as far as I'm concerned.

Had the link to the knowlege Base post not been given, I could have confirmed it's SF2 Europe. I only own SF2:E, SF2:NA and SF2:I and I have the A-7D_75 and A-7D_78 from my purchase of SF2:E.

Great info Mig Buster - much appreciated! OK so in initial concept and design AIM-7 was there, but due to USAF decisions it didn't make it on to the oiginal Falcon. What about those F-16A Block 1 assembled at Fokker in the Netherlands or SABCA in Belgium; was it the same for those? Or were they given the option to include some variances in their assembly, such as those part{s) that would support the Sparrow?

I'll have to work on my google-fu, because I didn't save the link for that specific page and now can't find it - doh! I remember I came upon it via a link, to a link, to a link. It was actually a webpage about the Westinghouse Electric AN/APG 66 Radar used for the F-16A/B. I did find links to these 2 AN/APG-66 info webpages: link 1, link 2. I don't know how credible the avitop webpage is, because it seems to be a site that of all things provides sales pages for GA aircraft. They do have a fun interaractive F-16A webpage though, with a F-16 wireframe image that you can click on to get info pages on main components. The 2nd is for Doutech Services which is a company that services and repairs the AN/APG-66 radar among others. Both pages mention it as a radar primarily deployed on the F-16A/B (also Cessna Citation, Orion P-3 and Piper Cheyene II) and mention it's capable of firing Sidewinders, Sparrows and AMRAAMS. There were 3 version of the AN/APG-66 radar for the Falcon; original, v2 and V2(a), so it's hard to know if they're saying the original could handle the sparrows or one of the 2 upgrades. From what I've read, the Mid Life Upgrades of the mid 1990's for the Netherlands and Belgium built Falcons, refitted them with the AN/APG-66 V2(a) and not the newer AN/APG-68 radar. The avitop page specifically mentions that an OCU (Operational Capability Upgrade) was required to have the radar support AMRAAMs. That's more or less what the other webpage I found was stating; that the original radar could support the sidewinder and sparrow. And that when the AIM-7M became avaialable in 1982, it could have been deployed on the F-16A. I never found anything that mentioned any Airfore actually mounting Sparrows on it, just that it could be done. I find it interesting, that for 3rdWire's F-16A Netz only the mid pylon can be fitted with a SAHR missile like the AIM-7M; did TK or whoever created that aircraft know something about this capability? Or is that a coincidence of that pylon also being able to support other weapon types? Anyhow, there are folks here who have fathoms more knowledge about such things than a novice such as I. So maybe then can jump in and set the record straight.

Absolutely. Some of the best and most fun I've had with SF2 is flying the A-6A Intruder I got in-game by importing the WOV model and tweaking a cockpit. Equally as fun, the Canadair Mk VI Sabre wich I modded rails onto to support the AIM-9b Sidewinder - somethin the RCAF did test-trial IRL during 1959-60. I enjoy doing simple mods, so I don't mind if I missed an existing mod or 2.

I tried all of the Fighting Falcons in Nato Fighters 5 and no offense to the creators, but I did not like. They were slow and sluggish and the Floggers and Fishbeds flew circles around them. If they got on my 6 I could never outclimb or outmaneuver them. Whereas the SF2I Netz performs the way I've read it should with me able to match the Migs and I'm really enjoying flying it. If the Falcons in the Viper Pak are much better, well...the NF5 ones made me a bit shy of making the effort to download and try others. As well, I'm aiming for a 1982 timeline, so i don't want to fly a block C. [Edit}: realized later that I stated that wrong; should have written F-16C Block 25. I'd read that the Belgium and Netherlands built F-16As could equip AIM-7s from 1982 onward, but that web article might have been incorrect. I guess I might have down the equivalent of that latter, generic mod you mentioned, but I've enjoyed the effort so it's not a big deal. The reason for not just using the SF2I Falcon is that I don't want to fly a Netz with its Pythons in Iceland, Germany or Sweden. I downloaded Migbusters Falcon skins for Belgium, Denmark, Netherlands and Norway and are enjoying flying F-16A under the airforces of those NATO nations. By import, I was only referring to a few INIs which I extracted to a F-16A aircraft folder to accomodate the missile change and Migbusters skins.

Beginner's luck I guess, but I found it almost immediately - in the F-16A_SMS_WPN2E.TGA file. It looks like those files only support 5 letters in lenght, so I think I'm just going to go with "AIM-7M". [Edit ] And I'm guessing for the sake of thoroughness, I should change the SHFR2 to AIM-7E and the PYTH3 to AIM-7F? At least those 2 other sparrows varants are also showing in my F-16A's available stores and are available on the mid pylon drop-down.

For SF2 I believe I've only seen 3 graphic file types; BMP, TGA, DDS. Are there other graphic types? TGA and BMP I've quite familar with, but DDS not so much. IIRC that's a file format for S3TC compressed textures; at least I've only come across it before for MS Flight Simulator 9 and 10 aircraft textures. My problem is, none of my graphics editing apps support that type and I'm no fan of GIMP. Would such a cockpit dash display as weapon selected be a DDS file?

Thanks for the info. I've at times done similar graphics editng for button and labels to mod a Virtual TableTop app, so I'll give the latter suggestion a go. I have no illusions though, that finding it is going to be a challenge. I'm using Mue's CAT extractor though, so maybe with some logical filtering I can track it down.

I bought SF2:I and I extracted the F-16A_Netz's INIs and brought it over as a flyable aircraft for SF2:NA and SF2:E. I also edited the F-16's data and loadout INI's to use AIM-7M Sparrows. The Sparrows are working very well when fired in radar search mode and for missions they show up in my available stores and are mountable for custom loadouts. The only problem I'm having, is that the selected weapon display in the F-16A's cockpit identifies them as Python 4s. I'm guessing that's some hold over from SF2:I, but I can't find where and what INI I can change it within? If anyone know how to get the Sparrows to display correctly on the sected weapon display, I'd very much appreciate it.

Well things are now smokin - SAM trails are showing and I can even see where they're aiming for my chaff! Copying those INIs did the trick. I agree about the other Effects, I'll copy the rest over.

Right...I've been paying too much attention to I and my Flights' kills on that screen. I'll make sure I note the SAM types. OK Righteous, looks like you've pointed to a problem. I don't have any of those INI files in my SF2NA \Effects folder - just a LongRangeMissileEffect.INI. However, I have all 3 in my Nato Fighters 5 MOD's \Effects folder. I've been away from SF2 for a bit and it's possilbe I'm remembering incorrectly and that my last flights before I returned were with NF5. I'm going to copy those INIs from NF5 to SF2NA and do some testing.

Many thanks for the replies. Yes all 3 of those data INI settings are correct. Not pertaining to visuals but audio....my "BoosterSoundName=Missile", and both my SustainerSoundName and InFlightSoundName have no values set. Should I set them to what's in your data INI? I'm referring to settings in the SA-5's data INI, which is the only SAM weapon in my \Weapons folder. Should I also have a folder in there for the SA-2 too? I checked the Weapons Pack 2 archive I installed and it doesn't have any SAMs in its \Weapons folder? I'm flying missions in 1982, so I'm thinking it's SA-5s being fired at me.

Yesterday when I was flying a CAP mission, enroute well before any enemy aircraft were present there was a missile fired call. So I pushed the target last object in radio call key [R] and that put the target indicator on a SAM site at 12nm range. I turned my F-16A beam to that SAM site and watched, but I didn't observe any smoke whatsoever berfore the SAM slammed into me - unfortunately didn't see the missile graphic either. I was flyiing over the beta Donbass terrain and I was running SF2NA and have the Weapons pack 2 installed. I confirmed that the long range missile and smoke related files are there in my \Effects folder. I recall in the past being able to see such smoke trails, but absolutely nothing now. I also have Menvra's RealSKY mod installed and have my Effects setting at "unlimitted", since that no longer seems to cause SF2 to crash and Menvra mentioned some post processing benefits with that setting for his sky mod. My gaming rig has a 33" display which I run at 1080p - typically in games I can easily see such effects. I'm wondering if something in my install mix is causing SAM smoke to no longer be visible?