Southernap

Yup, I too enjoy the film since I first watched in 1991. That year I ended up owning all 3 versions - the novel, the PC sim by Rowan software (later makers of MiG Alley) and also the video. Because of the tension of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and the built up of US forces in Operation Desert Shield, the film was not release for theatres but went straight to video instead.

What? The film wasn't released to theaters? Like heck it wasn't, There was a special showing at both NAS Oceana and NAS Whidbey Island base theaters the weekend before it was nationally released. When it was released was after Desert Storm had ended and it only made $14.4 million total around the world before Paramount shelved it (it cost them $35mil to produce it). Inside the A-6 community on a whole they laugh at it in the same way that the F-14 folks laugh at Top Gun.

I work on the EA-6B and most of the typical load outs are like this:

SEAD: ALQ-99, Drop tank, ALQ-99, Drop Tank, ALQ-99

Long Range SEAD: ALQ-99, Drop Tank, Drop Tank, Drop Tank, ALQ-99

HARM Shooter: ALQ-99, AGM-88 (or drop tank), ALQ-99, Drop tank (or AGM-88), ALQ-99

Long Range Harm: ALQ-99, AGM-88 (or drop tank), drop tank, drop tank (or AGM-88), ALQ-99

Electronic Warfare Close Air Support: ALQ-99, ALQ-99, Drop Tank, Drop Tank, ALQ-99, ALQ-99

Anti-Surface warfare support (or Mine warefare support, or battlegroup air defense, or amphibious support): ALQ-99, Drop tank, ALQ-99, Drop tank, ALE-43 Chaff pod (or swap it the first ALQ-99). The Chaff would be laid in front of the bad guys and then all heck breaks loose while they are trying to burn through the Chaff.

What is really interesting is that a portion of the S-3 is still flying folks. Fairchild-Republic used off the shelf parts in designing thier close support aircraft and one of those parts was the GE TF34 that was then being used on the newly introduced Lockheed S-3. They found it was an easy to maintain engine that gave good preformance at the altitude bands they wanted it to operate at.

All four Marine EA-6B squadrons are based at MCAS Cherry Point. Along with that VAQ-209, the Naval Reseve EA-6B squadron, is based at NAF Washington (aka AFB Andrews). So any of those units could of used Wilmington airport for training purposes. Heck I have know aircrew to plan a cross country flight just so they can grab lunch at a resturant either at a certain base club or a certain resturant out in town, simply because they cook something that is to die for.

Actually guns can jam in level flight as well. When the F4F's went to the six gun configuration in the F4F-4, the way the guns were installed into the wing by the engineers put the guns at about a 12degree off vertical. This was primarly to fit the two additional guns along with thier ammo in the same space the four guns occupied in the wings. In turn this would cause the guns to jam up at times if their ammo wasn't greased and in the trays proprerly or just because the great god Grog hated the aviatiors. These were the aviation variant of John Brownings M2 .50cal, which was one of the most reliable machine guns designed. Other reasons that a gun could jam even in level or low-g flight are including but not excluding, poor maintenance done on the gun, a poorly manufactured round, heck I have even seen guns jam because the belts weren't properly greased.

It take a couple of years of hard training and even the even then every so often the "Pros from Dover" can't do it right. Remember you are flying an aicraft was basically an aircraft that was redesigned from a twin engine night fighter to a daylight jet fighter. Also remember that at there was no computer control system to help you land. Instead you had to depend on a landing signal officer who would show you a pair of batons like this.

Just pratice a lot and you should get better. Like I said even the Pros can't hack it and if you don't believe that just look at youtube for aircraft carrier bolters. That is even with the advance electronics in these aircraft. The only thing that doesn't bolter is the computer, however no one trusts the computer all the time.

Dave,

I don't think it a baseball bat will do. I think we need to get in touch with the underground and call out the A-Team!

I finally just got caught up with all of the postings and think it is a hoot. I remember hearing about Vaorware about four years ago while over at at SimHQ and the reviewer at the time mentioned they were still in beta waiting for various designers/coders Real Life to get sorted before progressing beyond beta, it looked promsing thought. Yt it always seems as though the program is in "development" sort of like Duke Nukem 3d.

That being said one of the funnier things is it appears that someone hacked Stiglr's profile over there because if you hover your mouse over his name and try to select the homepage you are directed to some malware homepage titled "Naysayers.com" and all over it are hits for mental health and family planning. I would assume that his homepage would of directed you to Vaorware's homepage.

I wouldn't sweat this completely. I have a feeling that just like MS Office is migrating to try and be an online only item. I have a feeling that MSFS might become an online enty that is provided by a service similar to Steam. That is what you buy online or via a store might be enough of the software to store your personal hangar and pilot stats. Everything from the scenery to maybe even live or pusedo-live ATC is being provided from some sort of server farm. Doing it this way would lead to better multiplayer via the internet. That way you don't have eight or nine different programs open just to have others flying with you.

I also believe that some of this is fallout from the whole Vista/DX10 and Games for Windows fiascos. A number of gaming studios that were owned by MS have been shuttered up because of issues trying to get the games to work well on Vista, along with issues trying to make DX10 work. Finally the Games for Windows idea didn't work completely well out of the gate for MS. So they are probably re-structuring the Flight Sim crew to prevent some of those issues again. It isn't the end of the world, just some change in it.

Oh and Microsoft weren't the original publishers of the franchise that actually belongs to a company called Logitech. I remember playing FS 2.0 on my C64 way back in the 80's. Complete with wires representing the space needle and the Cascade mountains. I also remember the only planes you could fly was a C182 or a Sopwith Camel. The Camel went with a simple combat flight sim where you tried to fly and drop bombs on a target range someplace. Again with wire graphics, not look at the game and all the different aircraft you can fly.

Charlielima,

I laughed pretty hard about your comment being in the back of that C141. I was in Nellis during a Red Flag with an EA-6B outfit. Due to an accident one of our planes was damaged by a tow tractor. I was the duty section leader and had to get both my Maintenance Master Chief and my Maintenance/Material Control Officer from an after party of a retirement ceremony of another chief. They were dressed to the hilt in thier blues. My MMCPO had seemingly be in since Ely flew that Curtiss off the Pennsylvania. Anyhow, I picked them up at the MGM Grand out in town, drove them back onboard Nellis, with my MMCPO in front and the MMCO in the back. As we approached the gate there was an E-3 Air Policeman who upon seeing all the gold on the MMCPO, popped tall and saulted. The AP then said "Good Evening Admiral". My MMCPO with out missing a beat saluted him back and stated "Good evening specialist". As we drove on all of us were dying laughing in the car.

PC Magizine article on Microsoft shutting down ACES Studio the designer of "Flight Simulation"

They say it might be changing who MSFS is presented to the rest of the world, for example they may go the way of STEAM (ie you download an access portal and the main software is on servers at another location). If not that way then they may do something via Microsoft's LIVE service. If they chose either of these ideas, it might be a benny to all the general flight sim pilots. It might be easier to run virtual airlines and have more online players flying around each other.

TRIM?

Just remember it hasn't always been the fighter bubba's that have intercepted the Soviet Naval Aviation snooper

Here is a P-3 with a TU-142F NATO callsign=Bear Foxtrot

A KA-6D of VA-95 with a TU-95D NATO callsign=Bear Delta

A-6E of VA-115 with a TU-16G

As to recording everything. You betcha buddy. Both sides were recording. If the Soviets overflew a US Carrier Battle Group, most of the time it was both the ships and any airborne EA-3B's or EA-6B's that were recording. AV-MF or Soviet Naval Aviation had a pair of specific aircraft built strictly for ELINT/Recon efforts. One was the TU-95E Bear E, it has a camera package installed in the bomb bay along with additional ESM attenna. The other was the TU-16D with were modified variants of the TU-16C to specifically carry ESM/ELINT equipment. Both versions would do the same thing that RC-135 Rivet Joint or EP-3 Aries aircraft would do. That is troll along in international airspace listening.

Here is a F-4J intercepting a Bear E

Some of third party Soveit/WARSAW PACT aircraft use the Soviet designations for the weapons and others use the NATO designations. If my memory serves me right, I think that WOx series games use the NATO designations. So in the game the AA-7 Apex in some loadouts will be designated as "AA-7" while in some of the third party aircraft it is designated as "R-23". There are some files in the download section while help to decipher between the two and if memory serves me right there is a knowledge base article on how to correct the issue.

The first thing I would check is to make sure that your keys are properly mapped to the right funtion. You can do that trough the options selection at the title screen.

Second what sort of airplane are you flying? If you are flying something with a gun mounted inside of it, then you should see the gunsight switch from an upright to a spot a couple of inches down. That is supposed to represent setting the gun for strafing. Also if you are only loading one type of bomb (ie mk82) on all of of your pylons then the first time you select Air to Ground it will only cycle up the bombs or the gun because that is all you have loaded.

After that I can't think of anything else that might keep you from dropping bombs from the top of my head with out further information.

This has been an interesting topic to read. It appears that there are three different topics flowing in here, the first being how to defeat the in game SA-6 system, second how the in game ECM capabilities compare to real life, and finally why stealth doesn't seem to work when compared to the hollywood reality.

The first thing that comes to mind as I was reading this topic is how even with the most modern aircraft with some of the most modern ECM system install a pilot can still suffer the silk let down. If you don't believe me look up the Scott O'Grady story and read that. His F-16C was zapped by a SA-6b system while he was enforcing the no-fly zone over Bosina in the early 1990's. Even though there was some faulty intelligence about the location of Serbian Air Defense sites, the ECM system in his aircraft went into automatic mode but still couldn't prevent the kill. So you really need to be on the ball when entering hostile terroritry and be ready for nearly everything. The same is true of low-observibilty technology. Remember it was an SA-3B that zapped an F-117 and another that possibly damaged a second one during the bombing campaign in support of Kosovo. That loss again was through stupidty, mainly from the NATO air commander constantly have the F-117 use the same ingress and egress route at exactly the same time with the same amount of offensive ECM. Theoritically a forty plus year old missile shouldn't have been able to zap the vaunted F-117. However, once you become constant in the battle against air defense systems then you will die from the magic BB theory.

Second thing the way the US has been doing stealth is down two different tracks. The first one (ala F-117) is that if they can't track you or produce a good enough fire control solution on you, well then you should only have to worry about the unmarked air defense site along your route in. The other way is to just keep them from spotting you out right (ala the B-2 and nearly any other flying wing design), if the bad guys don't see you coming in the first place then they will only have a few moment to try and put a BB in your way to catch you. Even that some times isn't completely guarentted but if it gets you that much closer to the target with out being shot at, well then all the better.

As to the game what I have found the best is to try and add an extra pair of wingmen to act as Weasels or Iron Hands. That is load them up to bear with ARM's and cluster bombs. Once the SAM's start to fly I let loose with this flight and let them do the SEAD thing. Once that they have expended thier ordnance I immediately send them home. I also try very hard to fly as low as possible and once I cross into hostile terrority have my throttle up as close to afterburner as possible. That was the guns can't train on me as fast as possible and I put as much earth between be and the radar sites which guide SAMs my way. If I have to fly up high (like in CAP missions or on the intercept missions) well then you really need to trust to visability and manuvering. Remember that a SAM is just an enemy fighter that is trying to kill you by ramming you. So use the energy in your airplane to manuver and make the missile burn up more of its. You can always replace lost energy with your engine power, a missile can't.

I would also hazard that the Russians are looking for friendly ports to have thier Med based fleet visit for fuel and supplies. So that maybe tied in with the deal.

"I give you these top of the line fighters to replace your fifty year plus old British built aircraft, along with free overhaul at my factories. In exchange you let me build a couple of piers and fuel depot and a few warehouses and let my warships and other flagged ships visit your ports free of charge. What do you say?"

The F-22 wont go overseas to the Mid-East because it is too destablizing. If we give the Isrealis the F-22, then by various treaties Egypt is going to get some as well as the Jordanians, and the Saudis. The same thing happened with the F-16 when the Isrealis, then the Egyptians, and then Turks got them; along with the M-48 MBT when the Isrealis got that in the 60's the US gave some to the Jordan to maintain the status quo. I just don't see the US Congressional critters going to allow that to happen. That being said the Isrealis have already signed a MOU (memo of understanding) that if costs are good for them then they would be willing to front some money in a buy of the F-35 to defray the expenses of development.

With the costs of the F-22 at this point the only nation that may be able to afford it beyond the US might be Japan. However, the sticking point there (just like it was with the F-16 and the F-15) is the electronics. The Japanese want what is coming off the factory floor along with the license to build the same, not some stripped down export model. The laws about export with some controlled items keeps Lockheeds hands tied in that sense so the Japanese are still shopping around for a replacement of thier F-15's if not going the F-2 route (ie creating thier own internal mod with some of thier own improvements tacked on as well)

Make sure that that the file XXX.ini is labeled the same as the directory that it is stored in otherwise the game engine won't see it.

what ever happened to that guy that was supposed to get a Harrier from PepsiCo.

Sued pepsi for false advertising

Sounds like your campaign files were corrupted somehow. The easiest way to fix this will be to uninstall WOI, delete the directory and do a clean install. What I usually do prior to patching is a clean install and then slowly add on the mods that way I can figure out which one is causing any issues (or just doesn't work period) after the patch is installed.

To load up a full MER on the inner stations (2 and 4) of any of the A-6 variants (A-6A, A-6B, A-6C, A-6E, and even the proposed A-6F, and A-6G) you had to remove the main landing gear doors. On most USN aircraft ths was not done for a number of reasons the primary being maintenance issues regarding having to re-rig the main landing gear doors. Which requires a jack job to swing the gear and trying to achieve that on an aircraft carrier is a serious pain in the arse. Some USMC aircraft did this the end of the Vietnam war when they were shore based, however it was not the norm rather a requirement to achieve maxium bomb load against NVA targets in South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.

The cobra manuver is strictly an airshow manuver. There is no advantage in using it in modern combat. When some of the more modern air to air missiles have enlarged seeker cones and improved manuverability to combat 4th generation fighters

Charlie Lima,

The long range shore base naval bomber with in the US Navy died with the P6M Seamaster program. It was realized that it could be done cheaper, faster, quicker by either carrier based aviation or by the oncoming Polaris missile system. To give the Navy credit though it really worked hard to make the last seaplane work about 8 years after the concept was proven to be obsolete.