PFunk

Getting back into SF. Anything I need to have that's new?

Mine would be Chuck Yeager’s Air Combat. I distinctly remember having to make sure I had the manual because it required you to type in a word from a specific page before the game would spin up. The next one was the original DOS version of Jetfighter, followed by F-19 Stealth Fighter by Microprose.

I’ve taken five years’ vacation from simming and modding to get through grad school. I’ve decided to get back into it a little.

Hey, @Wrench, Glad to see you’re still engaged around here. Hope life is treating you well.

Cool. Thanks. It’s been a long time since I’ve tried modding,

Hey, guys. It’s been a long time, but I’m tentatively wading back into some mapmaking. Which file do I edit to push “the Wall” back from the current limitation and which value do I change? I know it induces some instability in the game engine, so what setting do you guys generally use?

What I am seeing is a man who used his diagnosis as a fulcrum and an inspiration to lead an amazing and accomplished life. I'm reading all of this and thinking, "this guy's story would make a hell of a book". You have steadfastly refused to allow your condition to dictate the terms of life to you, and that makes you an extraordinary individual. God bless you and your wife and my best wishes for you both.

I hope he or she made them bleed.

I suppose this is true. Something for us to keep in mind the next time we get asked for help.

Dying. Dying laughing over here.

The concept of "liberte, egalite, fraternity" is foreign to a part of the world that has only known conquest and tyrants for centuries. There are no Washingtons, Jeffersons, or Dantons in the Middle East or Southwest Asia because that sort of figure is an anathema to that culture. One of the things I learned over there as a student traveler in the mid-90s that made me despair for any real, lasting solution to the violence was that family and clan mean more than national identity. Under those circumstances, it is difficult to impossible to get people to rally behind a national flag, although Daesh had no trouble getting people to rally behind theirs because while it meant conquest and tyrannical rule, it was also an appeal to ancient family lines and traditions. Therefore, I was not surprised when the Iraqi army, trained and equipped by the Americans, abandoned their Abrams tanks and heavy emplacements at the mere sight of a bunch of guys in Toyota mini-trucks spray-painted in camo. Is it frustrating? Of course. It wasn't going to happen any other way, unfortunately.

Even the Air Force admits that the F-15 airframe (in whatever configuration) will no longer be survivable in contested airspace within the next 5-7 years given the development of modern AD systems. As someone noted wisely before, this is a stopgap measure until something more capable can be made. The F-22, while impressive, was never really meant to be multirole. The F-35 was meant to be an airborne Swiss Army knife but, like most Swiss Army knives, fails to be really good at any of the things its equipped for and tends to break very easily. The F-35 was a great idea on paper (hey, let's make the next F-16) but feature creep really hurt the development of the plane. Hypervelocity weapons delivered by platforms like the B-21 Raider are going to be the game-changer in warfare. Even the most optimistically-written sales brochure for Russian air defense systems won't be able to keep up with an object traveling at five to six times the speed of sound. They had a hard enough time with the SR-71 Blackbird and that was with the SA-10 in the field.

I love the idea. I really do. I would suggest using Piecemeal's Desert 4 terrain. It's a little more comprehensive. I think @Wrench may have even added some updates to it. However, as much as I hate to rain on anyone's parade, I would advise against scenarios after the one in 1993. The current avionics .dll do not allow for the detection of active-homing missiles like the AIM-120 and the AA-12. I am not a fan of getting blown out of the sky without knowing why or how it happened, even though that probably would happen to pilots in real life these days as fast as tech is evolving. The US Air Force will gladly admit that the F-15 and F-16 will no longer be able to operate in contested airspace after about 2028 with the level of AD hardware being generated.

My word, that must have given pilots the weirdest sensation to fly. The arrangement just looks so odd compared to the modern design of multiseat combat aircraft. The only one I can think of that is still in use is the Platypus.

Hope everyone had a good Christmas. Wish everyone a better new year.