MigBuster

Had provision for them from about block 15 - they were even test fired in the 70s - although not used till 89 Politics involved potentially (to do with F-15) - also read the AIM-120 was being thought about in the 70s so they thought they would wait. The SCANG story from Desert Storm is immense - F-16A Block 10s with dumb bombs and no F-4G weasal support hitting around 10 SAM sites - most SAMS launched at 1 flight in the history of aviation - got rewarded with an upgrade to F-16CJ Block 52 afterwards.

Get the impression from Vipers in the Storm most USAF F-16s went in big formations dropping MK82/84s with CCRP (well at the start anyway) - almost like F-105 / B-17s

Well deserved - showed courage to get the guy out.

Due for release in March 2014 as a DCS module

Not good - if you take the files out of the mod folder does the game start okay? Which files did you extract from menutext.cat?

Works on Vista - download at Benchmark sims forums havnt seen any zero A-A campaign mods

BMS is the latest and greatest Falcon version. Falcon 4.0 is still payware so can only suggest looking harder for the disk or getting a copy from ebay etc. If you like hardcore combat sims then the only alternative is DCS World ( A-10C). regards

Wicked!

I remember I remember an RAF pilot saying a very similar thing in an interview - either John Nichol or John Peters (shot down in Tornado GR1 1991) - so expect its same all round. Unless the jets flying in a straight line I expect you probably don't really get a say where the shells end up twisting all over the sky!

Got to say that Mission editor is truly a marvel (and no I didn't request it) - makes it really easy to make realistic YAP style missions and makes modding far easier - sadly i guess most cant be bothered to do that. gawd even if the source code became available - that would need to be coordinated team effort - just like BMS in fact - dedicated C++ programmers working for years and years and staying friendly during that time.

Well had nothing else to do so thought I would piece together the legacy - should be mostly there

Welcome and thanks for your opinion. Being true DX10 SF2 has far greater potential than BMS currently in the graphics department. BMS has a terrain engine similar in scope to the older SF2 games - however BMS has less resolution and fps potential and the water is not flat in places. With SF2NA (which I gather you don't have) a new terrain engine was created - but probably didn't turn out as good as TW hoped - but the Sea is pretty spectacular.

No I don't think so - I don't have access to the models so never bothered with them.

Hello everyone, A very busy week here in the office. I’ve finished the alpha version of the Fw 190D-9 manual. Really enjoyed it. Starting on the 109K-4 manual next week, should be easier and quicker. Had a lot of fun scouring gigabytes of scanned original documents looking for info on cockpit controls, system diagrams, procedures, numbers, etc. Totally new experience for me, even after what, 14 years of doing flight simulations. Thanks to the manual and a certain button in the Dora cockpit, we have a new office meme. We’ve always been a memetastic group. Most people don’t realize just how juvenile a bunch of flight sim developers can be. One minute we’ll have an aircraft designer with 20 years of experience designing real planes fill out the whiteboard with formulas in order to double-check some flight test curves, and the next minute he’s bellowing animal sounds and making Gumbys faces. We were woefully short on a DCS meme, and now, thankfully, we have one. We could not be happier. There is a little thing stuck in the far back corner of the Dora’s left console that the manuals call the Flugzeugvernichter, that is, Aircraft Self-Destruct. Somehow the word Vernichter just really stuck, and now the entire office presses invisible buttons and yells “Vernichter”. We also have to add it to the end of every German aviation term we can. Spreizklappenanzeigen? Spreizklappenanzeigen Vernichter! Kraftstoffverneblerleitung? Kraftstoffverneblerleitung Vernichter! What do you call a device that destroys your ability to disable the self-destruct button for your aircraft? A Flugzeugvernichtervernichtervernichter. As any inside joke, it’s probably weird to anyone outside out small group of old friends, but, well, we enjoy the heck out of it right now. Now, another really exciting thing we’re doing this week is playing with Oculus Rift. It’s pretty good, although the implementation is pretty basic at the moment. No 6DOF yet, and the world outside is a bit warpy and it looks like you’re inside an egg, but the immersion of being inside the cockpit is just superb. It is such an incredible breakthrough, the feeling is so life-like, that words simply cannot describe it. Once I put it on, I don't want to take it off. Could spend hours just flying over the landscape and watching things move around. Also, it’s really fun to bug people wearing a full face mask while playing a game. As you can see everything they’re doing on the screen, we love to add extra immersion by kicking and poking the player at the right moment. Also, it’s extremely annoying and maddening when those louts at the office break my immersion by kicking and poking me while I’m trying to enjoy an awesome gadget. And finally, here’s a sneak peak at something else that's really beginning to shape up nicely. Hope you guys have a good weekend!

Apparently.... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-26052931

Not up to speed on the X-47 - I've seen it land by itself on a carrier - but any weapons drops would have to have the usual UAV team of humans to authorize it first. Suspect its remote controlled with a limited autonomous type ability. Wonder if it can take evasive action by itself - execute evasive pattern delta 3 You thinking of buying one then - says they are small fighter jet size - might not fit in the garage :)

That's pretty much what John Will has stated on f-16net (possibly why they limited the F-14D to 37 degrees also) - not sure what they really affected. There was an F-16 VISTA with Thrust Vectoring nozzle that demonstrated 100+ degrees AOA and could do the slow controlled spin and cobra type stunts - should be a vid on You tube.

Love this - one of the best docs out there.

Yeah the F-16 design is as a pure visual dogfighter only - but the USAF wanted it A-G from almost the off - political reasons given (Same for why it didn't carry the AIM-7 till 10 years later) Technically the F-16C Block 40/50 were redesigned internally to meet the USAF requirement to be even more A-G and the F-35A is usually compared with the B50 ( on paper they have comparable TW & WL figures).

They are properly out of control though by the looks of things. As I understand it here they are just switching off the limits on the FLCS using a 'paddle' switch and then pressing the right or left rudder pedal to induce a controlled spin. Pretty much all 3rd gens have that issue

Air Combat Command's challenge: Buy new or modernize older aircraft After a tense budget battle last year, the Air Force is gearing up to defend what service officials have called a series of hard choices about what to keep and what to dump. With finances tight, the biggest fight is over whether to modernize older platforms or risk a capabilities gap while pushing that funding toward recapitalization programs. Charged with keeping the combat air forces ready to go at a moment’s notice is Gen. Michael Hostage, head of Air Combat Command. He discussed the upcoming budget and challenges the Air Force faces Jan. 27 in a wide-ranging interview. Q. What should we expect to see for ACC in this coming budget? A. We made some very hard choices. The only way you save the amount of money that we are being told we have to cut from the budget is to make entire weapon systems go away. We talked specifically about the A-10, a weapon system I would dearly love to continue in the inventory because there are tactical problems out there that would be perfectly suited for the A-10. I have other ways to solve that tactical problem. It may not be as elegant as the A-10, but I can still get the job done, but that solution is usable in another level of conflict in which the A-10 is totally useless. It does not make any sense to cut the other program and cut A-10s if I have to give one up for the other. I really save the big bucks when I take an entire [platform] and shut it down because I save the squadrons of those airplanes but I also save the logistics infrastructure, the training infrastructure and all of the overhead. Q. Should we expect to see multiple platforms removed from the budget? A. Yes. That is the only way to make the numbers meet, the direction we were given. Now, again, whether the politics will let us do those things are another thing. Unfortunately, if I am told, “OK, we understand about the A-10, you can take half the A-10 fleet” — that, sadly, does not leave me in a very good place because now we have to keep all of that infrastructure that supports the A-10. I get to save some portion of money by cutting certain squadrons, but they will save the large dollars that goes with that infrastructure piece, and now I have to go after squadrons of other airplanes so I reduce the overall capability of the Air Force, and I am in a worse place then I would have been if I just cut the whole A-10 fleet. Q. Do you believe those program cuts can make it through Congress? A. Your guess is as good as mine. With the budget, we told them what we thought we needed to do, and now it is a matter of the politics of things, whether they will allow us to do it. There is a lot of opposition on the Hill, but that opposition does not come with money saying, “Here. You use this money and keep that fleet.” They are just saying, “No, you cannot get rid of that fleet.” But they are still cutting the budget so I have to do something, and, unfortunately, the something that is left is worse than cutting the A-10 fleet. It is far worse for the nation if I have to keep the A-10 and cut a bunch of other stuff because they will not give me enough money to keep it all. Q. ISR is another area that has been politically difficult in the past. Is that impacting your plans? A. Well, we are being driven by politics to take on a weapon system that is very expensive, the Global Hawk. It appears that I will be told I have to continue to purchase Global Hawks, and given the budget picture that we have, I cannot afford both the U-2 and the Global Hawk. I will likely have to give up the U-2. What that means is that we are going to have to spend buckets of money to get the Global Hawk up to some semblance of capability that the U-2 currently has. It is going to cost a lot of money, and it is going to take time, and as I lose the U-2 fleet, I now have a high-altitude ISR fleet that is not very useful in a contested environment. It will change how I am able to employ that airplane in a high-end fight or a contested domain. Q. Are there any programs you would fight tooth and nail for in the budget? A. I am going to fight to the death to protect the F-35 because I truly believe the only way we will make it through the next decade is with a sufficient fleet of F-35s. If you gave me all the money I needed to refurbish the F-15 and the F-16 fleets, they would still become tactically obsolete by the middle of the next decade. Our adversaries are building fleets that will overmatch our legacy fleet, no matter what I do, by the middle of the next decade. I have to provide an Air Force that in the middle of the next decade has sufficient fifth-generation capability that whatever residual fourth-generation capability I still have is viable and tactically useful. I am willing to trade the refurbishment of the fourth gen to ensure that I continue to get that fifth-gen capability. I am fighting to the end, to the death, to keep the F-35 program on track. For me, that means not a single airplane cut from the program, because every time our allies and our partners see the United States Air Force back away, they get weak in the knees. Q. So you remain committed to the 1,763 figure that has come out? A. Absolutely. Not one plane less. Q. What about upgrades to the F-22? A. The F-22, when it was produced, was flying with computers that were already so out of date you would not find them in a kid’s game console in somebody’s home gaming system. But I was forced to use that because that was the spec that was written by the acquisition process when I was going to buy the F-22. Then, I have to go through the [service life extension plan] and [cost and assessment program evaluation] efforts with airplanes to try to get modern technology into my legacy fleet. That is why the current upgrade programs to the F-22 I put easily as critical as my F-35 fleet. If I do not keep that F-22 fleet viable, the F-35 fleet frankly will be irrelevant. The F-35 is not built as an air superiority platform. It needs the F-22. Because I got such a pitifully tiny fleet, I’ve got to ensure I will have every single one of those F-22s as capable as it possibly can be. Q. Has the readiness issue subsided? A. The bottom line is, despite the budget deal, we are still going to the same spot at the bottom of the cliff that we were going to when they started the sequestration madness. They have shallowed the glide path a little bit over the next two years, but we pay it all back in the out years and we still hit at the same spot at the bottom of the cliff. We still have an urgent need to be allowed to reshape our force, to resize ourselves to fit within the amount of money the country is putting for defense, and as long as Congress is stopping us from doing that, we are going to have difficulty making readiness. Q. Given budget constraints, how do you encourage the development of new technology? A. What I am trying to spark is partnerships between labs and industry to produce capability of this leading edge technology that potentially is out there. Q. What areas might have the highest probability of payback? A. Obviously, we are very interested in directed energy. We are very interested in the materials technology that is burgeoning. Nanotechnology is very exciting and holds some great promise. There are some interesting technological areas out there, but I am sure not going to give away secrets of what the cool toys are we are looking for next. I want my adversaries to be surprised. http://www.airforcetimes.com/article/20140202/NEWS04/302020005