firehawkordy

Well, it's been a while but plain and simple my simming PC is messed up and I'm too broke to get a new one until next year. That and I need both a new graphics card and a new flight controller. It's frustrating as hell since there are other games that I've had to stop playing util I can get things taken care of. On the plus side a few years ago I started a new hobby writing very bad fan fiction. I've written a few stories base on a few anime shows I like and the one I'm doing now is at 28 chapters and 250K+ words. Funny, when I was a kid in school I hated to write anything and I would choke when a teacher would assign a five hundred word essay. Now I find that I'm writing ten thousand word chapters and if I write less than that I feel that I didn't put in enough effort. Most of my stories are of the what if kind and my main work uses the canon plot and setting as the foundation but everything else was tossed out making the story line an alternative universe. I plan at some point to start writing stories based on FSX and Strike Fighters but that's a long way off. I hope all my friends are doing well and having fun enjoying their own hobbies and pastimes. We finally got the last kid out of the house and on her own somewhat. I'm still taking care of the youngest grandsons and trying to find things to do to fill my time since I retired four years ago. Had it not been for the little incompetent monkey that took the department over as manager I would have retired this year with thirty years but ....yeah, he's one of those guys that's afraid the senior most underling will be a threat to his authority. That's what I hate about working for civilians, they don't understand that to a Vet a supervisor is in a position that we don't want to have because of the BS one has to put up with. But, Karma has struck and the upper management had finally had enough of his never finishing or delivering what he stared or promised and his blaming others for his screw ups. He was let go a couple of weeks ago and since he was management and not union there was no appeal to their decision. His superior had offered me my old job back since the hospital had split from the County and is now it's own entity my past employment and retirement doesn't count. Saying that however my wife said no, my back is just too messed up to take the offer. All in all I and the family are doing great and to add to our house we wound up taking in two more kittens. Our male is not happy, he know has four females to deal with and is very insecure. I can't understand, I thought every male would love a harem.

I understand your wanting to integrate systems that are missing but as was said in a round about way is that this sim started out with a scenario for a Mid-East war as was done in the manga and anime Area 88. That said, the aircraft used were the Century Series along with their Navy and Soviet counterparts so any avionics that were coded were from that generation of aircraft. It took a few years to even get a CCIP ironed out and posted as a mod. The only thing we really got as far as AV/ORD systems as time went on were ECM pods and Chaff/Flare dispensers in the base game Wing Over Europe, if I remember right correct me if I'm wrong, on the modders side were the ordnance addons. I was a beta for a lot of those mods and put my years as an AO to use helping to tweek anything that went boom along with other AOs and AMMO Troop members here. As said before, this is THE modders sight for Third Wire games so if you have an idea try to make it work within the limits of the game, I agree that not having a working RAT is a drag, no pun intended, but to have one you would need to modify not only the ini's and other files but the airframe itself to have the thing show ingame and that includes the animations as well. If you just want to gundeck it and have the thing work in the cockpit without having and external model then it could possibly work as long as you can get the game files to cooperate. I'm sure that you'd get a few folks to beta the thing for you. Hopefully you'll either get it working yourself, inspire someone else to make one or go completely bat-s**t crazy mid point. Either way you have company in all three situations. IYAOYAS!

IYAOYAS!!! Loved this, unfortunately or fortunately, depending on which side of the bombs you're on, ALPHA strikes were done away with long ago as they are now called Stike Packages. That said, the last time I saw an Alpha was in 1980 as an ABF on the Sarartoga. The squadron AO's did the loading and I and my crew were busy doing the fueling part. I think it took eight fuel crews an hour and a half to top off every bird that was to be launched using two hoses per pump station. The last aircraft we serviced were hot fuels and it's not fun having an A-6 dumping it's exhaust on you in the catwalks. Did you know that the Intruder airframes had the exhaust ducts angled at a downward angle to improve short field take offs? It's not bad on shore but on the flight deck in summer? I think we all sweated off ten pounds from that afternoon. Thanks for reviving some good memories and some of the hairier ones too.

Same from me, Happy fathers day. At least none of you guys got a phone call from one of your best friends from the service wishing you a happy Mother :censored:'s Day. Still acting as a father, got rid of my kids only for the youngest to move back in and have two babies back to back. Step daughter so I can't be blamed, her real father screwed up raising her and only now is she getting along with me. Anyway, I'm the duty babysitter today since she at least has a job and not sitting around collecting welfare. I love my youngest grandsons though, the one year olds favorite thing right now is climbing on my lap and then falling asleep. At least he's getting somewhat easier to take care of, his brother is much more demanding and drives me nuts trying to figure out if he's in need of changing, feeding or holding. Sometimes it's none of those things so I fallback to the last resort, I get their grandmother to handle him.

That's the thing, I have given donations in the past to cover his costs but when you get told you're downloading too fast/much so I'm banning you it kind of kills my giving spirit. I never could undersand why he took all of his toys out of here and really doesn't like to share. Oh well, it's his site and stuff to do as he wishes, not going to let it bug me. Life is too short, and retirement is too fun to worry about shtuff like this.

Got banned from there last year acorrding to him it was too many downloads in one day. I was trying to get one of the campaigns that was in chunks and I was doing one at a time. I guess you have to the download one every 24 hrs and hope that it's not too fast. What ever, the forums are dead as far as I can tell and I don't really do any of the SF games anymore so **** it, I have everything I need on a spare drive and I'm sure that I can get anyting else from my buds. I do have to say that I'm proud to share company with such esteemed riff raff.

Viggen, you have to tell me how because not matter what fix I use the damn thing fails to load, and I've done everything listed on the Nexus and other sites.

If I remember the Zuni's were HE Frag with a point detonating fuse and the 2.75's were HE, HE Incindery and Flechete. They wanted to cause the most damage and casualties to Mr Charles on the ground. Flechete was not used as much as the HE and HE Frag because the VC would usually be dug in when they srang a bushwahck along the waterways. HE stood the best chance to take out those positions while flechete works good mostly on troops in the open. I also forgot that Napalm was used by them also, I remember hearing stories by one of my mentors that had been in VAL-4 telling the younger Ordies how nasty that stuff was to mix up.

Steam is pre-ordering it now for $59.99 One of the only shooters that I waste time with nowdays, I do have FO3 but it won't run on my Win7 maching and the PC that has XP installed won't support it. One day I will have Three running but I don't know when. Guess I'll see what is new on the Nexus and then go shoot up the Wasteland

I concur on the LAU-68 for the 7 shot pod having loaded quite a few on HAL-5's HH-1K's. The Ponies carried other ordnance aside from gun and rocket pods as the pics on this page show..... http://www.blackpony.org/bunos.htm Click the BUNO's that are blue for the pics, most of the shots show cluster bombs but I'm not sure of the type, it is feasible that they also carried the MK20 Rockeye series more often than not.

Storm, yeah it might be a slight bias but we were established to support not only the Teams but to provide dedicated CSAR capability, even the AF has sole CSAR helo units, and I have worked with the one out of Portland Ore so I really have no bad things to say about them. It's the fact that Tier 1 assets from all branches AND a few allied nations prefered to use our aircraft and crews when they had a choice. I know it sounds like "we're better, the rest suck" but it's more than just something simple as that. Having seen a break down on what will be lost the two things that stood out from that was this, Loss of assets 40%, 0% support for West Coast/West Pac Teams and other forces. I don't know about you but if someone said you lose almost half of your support for ANY branches SpecWar units that would be a matter of concern. Besides you know me, and you know the pride I take on those units, it would be terrible if I didn't rant on what is being done to destroy something that actually works instead of looking for what really needs to be cut, and believe me, there is fat in all the services that can be done away with and not hurt combat capability. I know that I'm not the only Firehawk or Redwolf that wants to know the real reason we're getting shut down again, considering that units that we helped either get started or continue have been suspiciously quite during this whole affair.

Less than 5 years after being reformed the Navy again decides to decommission both SEAL Team helicopter support squadrons....AGAIN. Let me put that in perspective, at the end FY15, the Navy will once again be dependant on other services that have conflicting agendas, tactics and SOPs instead of an organic force that understands what the Teams need down to the lowest level for transport and support. HAL-5 set the base line and standards for low-level NVG operations in the 80's with HCS -5 continuing and fine tuning doctrine from 1988 til it's stand down in 2006. Both Reserve units HCS-5 and HCS-4 did multple tours to both combat theaters in the post 9/11 period until 2006, WITHOUT loss of life or aircraft to enemy action while the Army and AF assets went down to enemy action sometimes almost daily. As far as I'm concerned this is a slap in the face of everyone from the HAL and HCS communites as well as the guys that took on the mission in 2011 HSC-4 and HSC-5. I met some of those folks at various times due to shipmates from HSC-5 retiring or assuming command in the "new" Firehawks and knowing some of the Sr Enlisted they are not happy, to quote one man, "If they do this ( shutting down the units) don't recommission them later, I don't know if we can take the heartache". The Community that I came from and retired from have a very colorful heritage starting with HA(L)-3 and HC-7 from Vietnam and continuing with HAL-4/HAL-5, HSC-4/HCS-5 and later HSC-4&5. To think that at one point the Navy recognised it's mistake when it shut down the HCS units and reforming them 5 years later only to be enamorred with the cost savings of gutting not one but two Special Warfare support units is an insult and grave injustice to all the hard work, hours and emotions ivested in said units and heritage. My only wish is that if they do this and then wake up 5 or ten years down the line and ask for volunteers to start up again, everyman and woman that has experience give those asking the middle finger and walk away. Not that I'm or any of my mates are bitter about it.

I remember seeing this in HAL-5's Line Shack in the mid 1980's. Back then I was a seasoned AO3 in my first helo command and my only HH-1K unit. HAL-5 was a legacy squadron that was manned in the early days by HA(L)-3 Veterans. Of all the units I was in during the 80's and 90's the HA(L)-3 legacy units, HAL-5 & HCS-5, were in the top 3 of my favorites. Nothing like being in a Special Warfare unit to make you feel, well, special. Getting back to the video, one of the old Seawolves that was in the shop watching with us took up the story of the bird that crashed, and it being 29 yeqars ago I really can't remember what was said, but how he said it, with a crack in his voice told us that he was seeing it like it happened the other day. We gave him his space and I don't think I ever saw that shop so subdued in my entire time I was there. That crash and seeing the guys doing the salvage along with the first hand account hit us hard as we saw what our units job really was. If I remember right, I think one or two guys that were thinking about going aircrew transfered to VP-65 the next day.