Boresight

Hello people, Tried " Southwest United States for SF2 1.0 " scenario yesterday... amazing scenario. And it does give a hint of how spectacular " Top Gun Campaigns " might be. I know it's vacation time for many, but come on, anybody heard anything about Aggie ?

Hello, Updating on the JDAMs deployment. At first all the above mentioned failures when deploying JDAMs, also happened to me. But my fault was: trying to hit moving naval vessels with them, I think. (Besides guided missiles, I bellive only Laser Guided Bombs (not JDAMs), manage to adjust their trajectory to track moving targets.) I managed to hit non moving ground targets, or even ships docked at port. Always in the same fashion: roughly - 35 or - 40 degrees step dive, and within 6 miles distance. (Don't recall the altitude now.) That was it.

I support that. The DCS: MiG-21 bis, is a very promising chosen path already. However, something like for ex.a realistically featured MiG-29 A, with the various avionics systems represented - like the Shchel-3UM (Helmet Mounted Sight), would really be outstanding. For example, titles like BMS Falcon and DCS: Black Shark, are already portray those kind of features VERY realistically. The theatre of operations / scenario / plot, could well be related to the "Iron Curtain", an international conflict somewhere above the East / West Germany of the 80's.

Hello everyone, Well I'm having problems for the 1st. time trying to extract a Cat file, on my SF2 merged install. - I'm trying to extract the file: F-14A_COCKPIT.INI, modded aircraft, from the TMF F-14 Super Pack 1.21. - I'm using the SF2_Extractor_setup_Apr2012 from the Third Wire site. - It works well extracting the files from the original aircraft folder: C:\Program Files (x86)\ThirdWire\Strike Fighters 2\Objects\ObjectData025.CAT - But, doesn't work with the files from the modded aircraft folder: C:\Users\Miguel\Saved Games\ThirdWire\StrikeFighters2 NorthAtlantic\Objects\Aircraft\F-14A_82 The message I get from the extractor: " Error opening this .CAT file, no files can be extracted. " Thank you for your help.

To give an impression on what I was talking, about instrument panel lighting: Before and after tweaking with the light values.

Caesar, Thank you very much for your prompt help. I'm just trying to give some more light to the F-14A '82 (for instance) instrument panel, so that when doing night landings aboard the carrier, I can see the gauges better, as in their original state I find difficult to read them at night. In the past I tweaked with the below parameters at the COCKPIT.INI, with great sucess: - NightLightColor; - NightLightOn; - LightRange. EDIT I must be out of my mind... or, it was just I was rusty on this stuff. You were absolutely right - all it takes is: open the COCKPIT.INI with the 'notepad' !!! Only the original Third Wire aircraft need the Cat Extractor ! Thank you again Caesar !

Hello again everyone, I would really appreciate your help at this matter. Every time I try to do a night landing with the Tomcat or any other aircraft aboard the Carrier, it's desolating. Although I do manage to get some 80 % successful landings, and I know it's supposed to be a very hard and intimidating task at the real life, it's frustrating because one always has to: - confirm the right trajectory on the map; - be very precise with the flight pattern; - read carefully the ILS needles; - read carefully the symbols on the VDI; - keep an eye on the flight path marker; - always physically spot the carrier at the last seconds before touch down, (otherwise there's no instrumentation who will help you). So, could anyone tell me, how to put just the respective deck lights along the runway on the bloody thing ? I don't care about OLS or 'Fresnels' or whatever, just the deck lights would be an amazing help already. (The pics below show the aircraft at less than 1 mile to the Carrier; inclement weather; somewhere at 22:40 PM.) Thank you all !

Hello again, Thank you Fubar, for the detailed explanations. Yes the vídeos show that the deck lights really are of low intensity, contrary to the idea I always had. (Thought the idea was. to be the most intense possible at night to help the pilots locating and landing, on the carrier easily.) Well I imagine it must be something related with security procedures, don't know. Particularly in the 1st. vídeo, even the most intense light is the one at the tower and not on the deck.

I see... wait, I thought that one was " Jet Thunder " !

EDIT This is what I'm talking about: http://combatace.com/topic/82176-leatherneck-mig-21bis/

DCS ? And what about " DCS: MiG-21 bis " ? Sounds promising. Anyone heard of it ? Is that project going to be released or what ?

Hello again Fubar, I've tried the mod, and clearly the deck lights are there (as well as others), but is it possible to augment the light intensity with a 'cat extractor' or something ? Thank you.

Fubar, you've done everything ! In fact, I've been searching for something like this a while back today, because I had a little recollection it existed some mod related, from many months ago. However I didn't find anything, until you post here your Carrier Deck Illumination mod. This is why I gladly keep my subscription plan here. Thank you lot, will install it shortly!

So... does anyone have news from JSF Aggie ?

Hahaha ! That might be dangerous, as Iceman could be tempted to miss the runway and run down Maverick! Well, it would be great to see this campaign to continue to develop, if possible with the things I've mentioned above also. I've sent a pm to JSF Aggie already, but we will have to wait I think.

About Spectrum Holobyte's " TOPGUN: Fire at Will ! " That was maybe one of the "sims" most responsible for my enthusiasm for combat flight simulations in the mid 90’s, here at Portugal. And the very first culprit for my acquaintance with the mighty F-14 Tomcat. Never again I got that feeling of immersion you mentioned on “ TOPGUN: Fire at Will ! “, with any other sim. One really felt as “being part of something”. Surely it was by no means a “ BMS Falcon “ feature wise and all that, and it was indeed a bit arcade sometimes. But it did had several strong points: - plot immersion throughout the all game; - F-14 Tomcat / RIO / AIM-54 missile, main features roughly depicted; - Merlin (the RIO), really helped calling out for dangerous / important situations, etc; - more than 40 missions (in 1 training series – TOPGUN school, and 3 combat campaigns – Cuba, N. Korea and Libya); - diversity of scenarios and enemy aircraft – MiG-21, MiG-23, Mi-24 Hind, Su-27, Mirage 2000 C, MiG-29, (almost impossible to dogfight against this one); - carrier landings (even at night). The HUD symbols, were not as realistic as in “ Fleet Defender “, but still they were very reasonable in terms of reality and helped to keep some of the “simulator genre” feeling: - missile and gun Rmin & Rmax scale for each weapon; - pitch lader; - velocity vector; - missile boresight; - gun aiming piper; - target box, etc. One could even "buzz the tower" at the last training mission, with the respective scene where guy get's the coffee spilled all over him. Truly nostalgic.

Hello MigBuster, which one is this ?

Everyone go ahead and feel free to leave your opinions here about my sugestion.

Hello, For older operative systems, like MS-DOS; Windows 95; Windows 98, there was: - Fleet Defender - very good in terms of realism for that time; - TOPGUN: Fire at Will - with lots of missions and strong sense of plot immersion; - some others from the 90's I don't recall now. Stuff like Ace Combat, Afterburner, etc, are totally arcadish. EDIT: There's also Tomcat Alley !! For the ones who like that style. What you might be looking for, and will probably be the most accurate F-14A simulator so far, may come out in a few months is: " Aerosoft F-14a " for FSX. Although one will need "tacpack" to use weapons. http://forum.aerosoft.com/index.php?/topic/59569-f-14-x-preview/

Hello again JSF Aggie and everyone, As i said before, this campaign sounds promising. Do you plan to: replicate more or less, (just some) of the most significant NAS Miramar ground structures, (their positioning relative to each other) - hangars, buildings, control tower, radar tower, etc ? I.e.: the famous Hangar Nr. 2 - with the " TOPGUN " or " Fightertown USA " logo's ? Not pretending to be boring, it's just that, that kind of stuff really is iconic, and for me it's some kind of "cult" material ! I believe it would undoubtedly add a supreme immersion feeling on that campaign. Thank you.

Essentially, one must adapt to each aircraft's flight profiles. Let's say (in SF 2 series), if you're flying the F-14 A, the corner speed - where the aircraft turns best, would be (roughly) from the 380 to 450 kts i believe. Certainly you can get temporarily bellow that speed (by pulling harder on the stick, NOT by reducing power), if you're very close to gaining an angle on the enemy, or going for a snapshot. (See energy fight vs angles fight - though there are more people here, who can explain this better than me.) If you intend to use mission editor, and create a mission purely to dogfight in the F-14, I believe only guns, 2 sidewinders and 50 % internal fuel (or even 25 %) will do, to get the absolute minimum weight you need, so the Tomcat performs best. If you want to fly the regular "fighter sweep" missions, then, maybe you should add some Sparrow missiles. Thank you Wrench, but I was also not understanding the "ATM", which I recall now, must be "at the moment"...