Arrow

Mostly, I'd just like wingmates to be able to effectively defend themselves while only equipped with external ECM, chaff & flare pods. I'd say I'd love more eyecandy and higher fidelity sound, etc...but the truth of the matter is my gaming rig isn't that terrific at powering DCS and IL2 BoS & I won't be upgrading anytime soon. I'm not much for online competitive multiplay, but co-op mplay would be a nice, fun feature. The other thing I'd love to see in a SF3 if the Vietnam theater were updated for it, is a few nice terrain objects for some of the legacy French Indochina forts and blockhouses in N. Vietnam. That way it'd be possible to do a French Indochina air war in Tonkin featuring recon and a heckuva lot of mud moving. And on that note, I'd like to see transport, air drops and para drops in a new edition. With all that, I'd be able to recreate some of those harrowing air mission flown in the Flying Boxcar.

Excellent catch MigBuster, that was indeed the problem - all is good now. And doh!...to me being so preoccupied with the radar that I didn't even notice the HUD.

Version 1.1 is what I downloaded with a Zip archive name of; CF-188B V1.1.zip. That's what I installed, but still no radar?

I'll 3rd this - running Win7 64 bit Ultimate and TrackIR is always available as soon as I'm on the tarmac or deck, even with mouse view enabled.

$30 say what?!? The individual entries in the SF2 series haven't sold at that price for quite some time. I bought SF2 Euro and SF2 NA last year at $39.99 a pop, which ended up costing me about $53 CDN. I would have been a lot happier to have bought them at a 25% discount for $30. ;) With the mission & campaign editors throw in, it's the most I've spent on a flight sim in over a decade - even FSX Steam with enough add-ons that I can't count them on 2 hands, cost less. I'm only interested in still acquiring SF2 Israel and SF2 Vietnam, so if I were to opt for the Expansion 1 pack (I'm well read on the Suez Crisis, so don't see why I wouldn't) this will save me $10. I do prefer to buy them one at a time though, as that usually make me more committed to flying that particular entry and exhausting some of the game play before I move on...so I don't know. It does also get me all of those individual downloadable planes -most importantly the Mirage- so there's certainly that. ;)

Great news! Any chance the download of the recent picks could be hosted on a different site than Zippyshare. When I click the button on that site to start the download it pops up a form asking me to install a file download manager. Yeah sure...no way in hell I'm doing that.

Wow, didn't know this mod was even available. I used to love flying Razbam's Skyraider in WoV and doing close support missions. I don't own SF2 Vietnam yet and wasn't planning on getting it anytime soon, but this is very tempting.

Yep, now that you mention it I seem to recall reading that too.

Ah well, no doubt it would have been very attractive to my country's air force. I know our RCAF are insistent upon a 2 engine requirement, so the F-17 would have checked that box. To the best of my knowledge, the RCAF has never made use of the F-18s strong capability for landing on Aircraft Carriers. Mostly because my country's navy hasn't owned an aircraft carrier since 1969 - doh! I'm guessing other navy's don't allow aircraft from other nations to land on their carriers anyways. That said, I'm betting that strong F-18 undercarriage has saved some RCAF pilots from injuries on poor landings.

I did a post and some searching a while back about this very question. From all I could find, it appears that the creator of this game (TK) never provided guidelines on how to do build a custom campaign. The current official campaign mod tool from 3rd Wire, is just a simple tool that lets you change the aircraft in an existing campaign to any nation's aircraft that you have installed. From all my reading in some of the forums here and a few external ones, it appears the only way to create a custom campaign is to modify the file for an existing one. That said, I couldn't find a document or posting that explained in detail many of the settings in a campaign file. I'd personally love to attempt some Northern campaigns (Iceland, North Baltic or Bering Straight), but trying to figure out the file was too daunting a task. Maybe I missed something though and one of the vets here could expand upon or correct what I've said?

Question that comes to mind; would that aircraft be more like an evolution of the F-5E Skoshi Tiger, or more similar to the F-18 Hornet? Or might it even be something more akin to the F-16 Falcon? I admittedly know very little about the YF-17, but I'm very intrigued.

I just got into SF2 last year myself - so also late to the party. That said, I did have a good deal of play time with Strike Fighters 1, Wings over Vietnam and Wings over Europe. As to what mods are best, it depends on what Strike Fighter 2 theater you buy. If you buy SF2 Europe, IMO NATO Fighters 5 is a must have mod as it adds a number of the fan-modded aircraft and a new campaign. There's also the big Weapons Mod, which adds a lot of the missing armaments. If you get SF2 Vietnam, then I believe a terrain mod called Green Hell is still available which provides quite an update of terrain features. For SF2 North Atlantic, I prefer the fan-made Icelandic terrain mod as I encountered some unrealistic targeting by enemy aircraft with the default. There's still lots of fan modding going on; just look at some of the threads in this forum and the file announcement forum. There lots of replayability via all the fan mods and if you purchase the Mission editor,you can create missions to your hearts content. I'm really a SF2 n00b too though, so hopefully a more experienced player will comment.

Wow, nice documentary! I wasn't aware Northrop had a YF-17 evolution of the F-5 that got that far in development. My nation's air force managed to get 20+ years service out of the CF-5A Freedom Fighter, so I'm guessing the YF-17 was probably high on their 4th gen procurement list. Cool to see a callout to the Canadian, Australian and Spanish air forces, as the 1st foreign forces to procure the Hornet. My country's RCAF loves the 1st edition hornets so much that they just bought 24 used birds from Australia - doh! Shades of the RCN's disastrous procurement of used UK subs, induces some fear & anxiety in me about that recent purchase. This has me pumped to put in more stick time with the CF-188, which I recently downloaded here.

Here are the images...

Yeah Blackjack team! The TU-160 ranks among the most elegant Russian aircraft ever designed - gotta love those curves and lines. :) Can't wait to see this bird with a skin on it. Unfortunately, I'm no more skilled than you with this.

With the recent change in political climate in Brazil, if the USAF wants use of the Boa Vista or Manaus Air Force base they'll likely have them. That said, Columbia is by far the more ideal location, with both Barranquilla and Marandúa Air Force bases being much closer and strategically located to Venezuela's largest cities and military bases. The Brazilian bases would require 1 or more refuelings and if I recall the geography correctly, for some air craft that would involve refueling in Venezueluan air space. Leveraging bases in Columbia would most likely be a bigger political challenge though.

With the all that's transpired in Venezuela over the past few months and the arrival of roughly 100 soldiers from the Russian Federation this week, this South American country has grabbed even more of my attention. I was always under the impression that they had an unusual collection of aircraft and were aware that even my countries' RCAF sold them 2nd hand CF-5As at one point. That said, I was surprised to find that their current air force is comprised of Sukhoi Su-30Ms (35) and F-16As (16.) That leads me to think a war of air supremacy between them and any likely adversaries, probably wouldn't be a stowing-fighters-in-revetments engagement that we've seen in some recent Middle East wars. They also have Mil Mi-17 (10) and Eurocopter Cougar (6) helos and a Boeing 707 tanker. All the aircraft are currently available for SF2 with the exception of the Cougar helo and I didn't check for the 707. Correct me if I'm wrong in my assumption though, that the Mi-17 is more or less the same helo as the Mi-8M which has already been modded? Unfortunately the terrain doesn't exist - closest to the theater is Central America and coastal Ecuador. Knowing nothing about how terrains are created for this game, I'm imagining a country the size of Venezuela (roughly 900-800 miles if your place a rectangle around it) with 3 significant mountain ranges, some deep basins and highly varied coastline would be one heckuva challenge. Not to mention that some part of Brazil or Columbia containing air bases would have to be created too. Without any skill to make it happen, I'll just dream about it. ;) I'm curious though if any other fans of this game think Venezuela would be an interesting theater to run some SF2 missions in? [Edit] I hope I'm not coming across as callous or insensitive, with suggesting a theater in which countless civilians are currently suffering. Like the handful of other conflicts raging around the globe, hardly a day goes by where I don't thing about those people - especially the children. But maybe it isn't cool to consider gaming in a theater where events are currently unfolding?

So if it's possible to do switchable stations, is it also possible to switch what avionic displays are show? I'm thinking things like radar and target acquisition screens. What about a DSO HUD?

The word is that the Su-30's are fully operational and they still have 12 on order from Russia. It's hard to say about the F-16s, but from all I've read I get the impression that the Venezuela government dumps a lot of money into their military. Whether the Falcons can still fly & fight, is probably dependent on whether a foreign nation on friendly terms with Venezuela has active F-16 squadrons and enough parts to trade. I personally can't think of who that nation might me - Pakistan or Turkey perhaps?

Well yes, if the US Navy were to get involved IMO it will quickly be game over for Venezuela. If however it was an air superiority war involving say the Brazilian or Columbian Air Forces, that could be a different story. Something else to consider, is whether an air operation involving the US would have to be solely undertaken by the Navy? Both Columbia and Brazil are on friendly enough terms -& more importantly unfriendly enough terms with Venezuela- that air bases there could be made available for the USAF. Not to mention, Panama is within operational range of Venezuela for a number of USAF aircraft and can be flown to from the US without the need to fly over a foreign countries air space. In the event of a conflict, Panamá Pacífico International Airport (formerly Howards Air Force Base), could possibly be leveraged to support USAF aircraft. The latter is no doubt highly unlikely due to the late 90's treaties. And what about the Marines - wouldn't they want to get in on the action?

Just out of curiosity, what sort of visual/graphical difference is there between having EffectsDetail set on 'Unlimited' and 'High'. I know mine is currenlty set to Unlimited, but I seem to recall with WoV and WoE having to set it to High to get decent frame rates. I can't recall if there was a noticable difference though?

Oh wow - very cool! Does his mean I can dream of some modder some day creating a Strike Eagle with switchable Wizzo and Pilot positions like in my beloved Janes F-15 combat sim? :-P

I thought that would be the answer, but wanted confirmation I was just doing some wishful dreaming. ;) Now that I think about it, the screen I noticed was actually on the weapon officer's (not sure if USSR bomber jets had the equivalent of that) console and SF2 can't model such features.

That's cool and I can imagine a few existing cockpits that could work. What about that special optical bomb sight? In some of the images I've viewed of the blackjack's cockpit, I got the impression that sight was a square screen mounted into the cockpit and almost looked like a small, brownish TV screen. Am I mistaking it for something else, or is than indeed that special sight? And is so, would it be possible to model it and fit it into one of the existing cockpits?

I wasn't aware of that sight, although I might very well of seen its listing when I viewed the Blackjack's detail page in a strategy game I play called Command Modern Air Naval Operations. Can something like that bombsight be modeled with accurately with the SF2 game engine? And if possible, where will you locate it in the cockpit?