ragnarokryan

Has anybody heard anything recently about the Lavi?

I'm just glad he's ok, what's a little bit longer wait!

I would appreciate that, thank you.

Gepard, can you find that article? I've actually been researching this and can find absolutely no evidence to support it. There is one exception from that time (Joel Aranoff) but his story is unique in the fact that he was Jewish, flew three tours in Vietnam as a USAF Phantom pilot, volunteered for a fourth and was denied, resigned his commission, immigrated to Israel and became a citizen, applied to the IAF and was accepted - the very first and something of a gamble for the Israelis who figured it might be worth it to have his experience while they were standing up their Phantom squadrons - and then flew in the Yom Kippur War. Joel didn't remain in the IAF or Israel, his career wasn't completely successful (apparently due to not mastering Hebrew) and he ended up returning to the US after some years. There were also a handful of US veteran helicopter pilots who may have flown during that time but I'm having a very difficult time tracking anything about them. Joel Aranoff's story might give the "Americans in the IAF" story its beginning, but Americans were not pulled from active squadrons and thrown into combat against Egypt or Syria. Here is an excerpt from something I've been working on: In 1973 the IAF is accused by Egypt and Syria of having Americans in the cockpit due to the change in flying style they noticed. In reality it was the IAF recognizing that its tactics weren’t working, and the entire IAF was able to pivot on its heels and quickly adopt new tactics which enabled survival in the worlds densest Air Defense system. [cit. On Flexibility] During the war Americans did fly combat jets to Israel. Like the Soviet union supplying the Arab militaries, the US finally began to supply Israel with materiel, including aircraft. Desperately needed were A-4s and F-4s which had suffered terrible losses to modern Soviet-made SAMs and AAA, especially during the first few days of the war. “Almost a hundred F-4s from Air Force units headed east to join the Israelis. More Navy Phantoms soon followed. A half dozen Israeli pilots arrived at Miramar three days after Mugs got orders to give up the shop’s A-4s. A serious, secretive bunch, the Israeli pilots expressed profound gratitude for the help. The Israelis flew the Topgun A-4s across the country and crossed the Atlantic, tanking en route before stopping in Portugal or Spain. For the American crews who delivered aircraft straight to Tel Nof, they discover not just an air force at war, but an entire people. The families of the flight crews lived in tents around the runways. Wives hung laundry out to dry next to missile batteries. Their country and lives were threatened. There could be no greater stakes for any patriot. The dynamics of the situation were so very different from the Vietnam War. More than a few of the U.S. pilots would have gladly stayed and flown into combat with the Israelis.” [Topgun: An American Story by Dan Pedersen] Dan’s assertion that American pilots wanted to stay and fight is backed up by the memories of others: “Chesterman said the Israelis welcomed the American pilots with a friendly meal on base, during which he and his fellow pilots “did our best to drink all their booze.” One of the Israeli pilots who had been drinking with them suddenly excused himself, saying he needed to return to the war. Only then did the Americans realize he had been drinking iced tea, not beer. “Segars – the pilot who “fired at Muammar Gaddafi,” as Chesterman put it – earnestly tried to convince the Israelis to let him join the battle. But the several beers he had just downed “disabused him of opportunity to go fight in someone else’s war, Chesterman said.” [ https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-pilots-reunite-with-israeli-brothers-in-arms-from-yom-kippur-war/ ] Segars - and any other American volunteer - would have certainly been declined even if they hadn’t been drinking. The Israeli’s had developed a unique and distinctive method of aerial warfare and throwing a pilot who isn’t used to such methods into such an environment would at best end with confusion. Israeli pilots in the heat of battle would be unlikely to be able to communicate with a non-Hebrew speaking American who was as unfamiliar with the battle space as he was the language.

Yeah this is, realistically, something I could end up doing in a few years also. Where did you find it? I'd be interested in contacting whoever made it to get some ideas and inspiration. No details listed on the imgur page.

Try the solution I posted earlier. I didn't need to use dgVoodoo, only Tackleberry's patch to fix the menus/textures, and then I just created a shortcut to IAFJETS.EXE and added the switch to the target line in the shortcut. It's very stable, and very smooth.

I'm sorry, I can't help. I downloaded these files long ago but I never used them. Maybe someone who is more familiar with the mod can help you out. Best of luck!

I'm glad you were able to fix the cockpit lag with dgVoodoo. I tried that as well and was unsuccessful. I did some digging on my hard drive and found SuperPro 9.4: here is a link on dropbox which I can leave up for a little while https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ky9j24npeqfw77p/AAC9UMQNPL0lDIJbKR9YS_hqa?dl=0 I've never installed it before so I don't know which order you should try. Good luck!

Did the Tackleberry Patch work well for you? Everything except the .BAT file worked for me, so I the menus were all fixed but flying around gave me tons of stutter - unplayable. I had given up on IAF/USAF until a few months ago when I learned a trick to make the games work perfectly. Create a shortcut to the file, then in the "Target" add a switch like this: -SingleCpuOrders -Cpu2 The game hates multiple processors, which is what Tackleberrys bat file fixed of course, except that it never worked for me.

The USMC sent technicians to Taiwan in the 1950's. While there, the Marines installed sidewinder rails and missiles on ROC F-86's, which they used against PLAAF MiGs. Sidewinders were sold extensively to our allies (you mentioned the Israelis, IIRC they didn't get sidewinders until the late 1960's. They also used captured Soviet missiles, based on the sidewinder, and home-made Shafrir's) and I believe sidewinders could be wired up to any airplane. How was that done? It's beyond me, sorry. I just know that it could be done. Perhaps someone else will have a better answer for you.

The BMS portion is, yes. You can find Falcon 4.0 for sale still on eBay, or through GOG.com. Falcon 4.0 is included in their Falcon Collection (it's on sale at the moment, $5 is hard to beat for four games I think, if you include Falcon 3, Hornet and MiG-29 its five or six games) IIRC you don't want the Allied Force version of Falcon 4.0, just the original. Someone who knows more might need to correct me. https://www.gog.com/game/falcon_collection

If you are referring to me, I appreciate that but I am most definitely not a producer - I'm firmly in the consumer camp. You can tell the real producers when you start downloading the excellent mods. There is some stunning work to be found here! I'm curious to know how your view limiting experiment goes. I haven't done the trick above yet, but I would imagine that the cockpit gets in the way of your view like it does in real life. The artificial limit on the cockpit view seems a little excessive; to me at least.

I asked the creator of TacView if it worked in SF2. He said no, and there were no plans to.

These are my thoughts, maybe someone else can help. I'm thinking of contemporary documents only here. Publications produced at the time for aircraft in service and the tactical doctrine published by various air arms during these conflicts. Reference Materials - Airplane Flying Manuals / Pilot Operating Handbooks -- WWII and Prior -- Jet Age through Vietnam -- Post Vietnam - Air Combat Tactics -- WWII and Prior -- Jet Age through Vietnam -- Post Vietnam - Miscellaneous (This would be the place for modern documents which analyze the past, or sim-specific tips and tricks)

Hey Erik, Most of manuals I have are pdfs. The structure looks good, dividing it up in years is a good idea. Dividing it up further by country / service might be taking it too far. For example, regarding WWII - I have a bunch of USN doctrine/tactics manuals, and some from the USAAF, some British, and German stuff too. But lumping it all together by era might actually be easier. Lastly, nobody should be posting F-35 manuals or current doctrine, techniques or procedures, but I imagine that the people who have that stuff already know that. I'd be curious to know what everyone else thinks.

I was speaking only of military flight manuals and associated tactics. Historical, not current tactics for obvious reasons.

That's a great idea. I know way back when someone produced a program for IL-2 which took in game data and generated E-M graphs. You could compare any aircraft to another and determine if you would fight best with energy or angles. I don't have the skills to do anything like that at all. What might also be nice is a download area for files like the ones above. I have quite a few others and I can't be the only one interested in contemporary documents. It would be nice to have a place online to collect all of those documents - and not have them cost $10 each to download.

שנה תובה, נשר And may this be but a first step!