SDirickson

About the Coast Guard for a sec. If you want to be in command of a ship, the CG is the way to go. In the Navy, it might be 18 years before you get full command of a ship, and after that, you're off to a staff job. In the CG, you start rotating between CO and XO of increasingly large commands after as little as eight years.

FHO is right about the Marine's having strict standards. They are second only to the AF. Talk to an Army and Navy recruiter as well, see what they can do. You might be able to make a service transfer. I have a friend with multiple arrests and things on his record, including drug usage, and he was able to get a waiver to enlist in the Army. Another had severe athsma and attempted suicide and she was able to enlist as well. And as a servicemember, you'll hold a clearence level of some type. They're serious about those background checks. I had a guy interview me for hours because my mother has a dual citizenship with Sweden. Also, make sure that the Marine Corps is what you want. I'll tell you, I could never be a Marine. I'm definately not hooah enough. But absolutely don't lie on the forms. Its not worth it if they find out. The best option is to talk to different recruiters. No matter whats on your record, if you can display to them enough willingness to join the military, they'll find a way for you. Just be persistant and honest.

I often download aircraft purely on the quality of the VC. If it doesn't have one, or if its just a simple job, I can't enjoy flying the plane. Also, most aircraft designers that take the time to create an excellent VC have already created a great aircraft to go with it. You'll be hard pressed to find a terrible aircraft with an excellent panel.

I've loved the Frogfoot ever since I heard of how effective it was in Afghanistan. But, I don't think its really suited for multiplay. I'd try and find one or two dedicated flight simmers and fly some coop missions.

Lets see if we can get a few people flyin around tonight. I'll probably be in a helo of some sort flying around North Island NAS in San Diego.

lol, yeah, unfortunately its 2200 and I'm just gettin home

You haven't even seen a real acronym till you go to a Navy base. CINCCOMSUBLANT. CORTRAMIDWEST. AMMARFLOLANCOM. KGHASDFHHDAFKSDAF.

This has always been a little bit of a pet peeve with me. I've always been impressed with sims that accurately model heat seeking weaponry. Jane's F/A-18 was good about this. A Sidewinder would lock onto aircraft, the sun and even flaming crashsites. On the other hand, Mavericks would lock onto ground targets and even aircraft. Granted, each missile had better performance against the appropriate targets. I was just thinking, how difficult would it be to assign realistic and simple heat values to every significant object in the game? It would create a very realistic systems environment, meaning aircraft mounting primative heat-seekers would have to be very careful when they launch their missiles. It would also mean, pilots running low on stores could attempt to use AGM's against slowmoving cargo aircraft or AAM's against soft targets. Its not a very high priority issue, certainly not one to spend large amounts of code on. Seems like a simple integer value for non critical objects could be used, and for more important things like aircraft and vehicles, intricate heat tables could be used. All told, it would greatly improve the immersion of the sim. You'd have to coach your plane into a chase position, below the target and not pointed towards the sun in order to gain the most succesful shot. It would also really increase the usefulness and realism of nightvision and infrared systems. It would definately be a selling point to have the first really accurate infrared systems in a sim, instead of the normal simple green tinted goggles normally used.

"Q: Is this another Falcon, or based on Falcon code? A: No, this is a new development. All code used has been/will be developed or purchased by G2I and GenAvSims specifically for this project including the X-Plane engine which is being used as the code base for Fighter Ops. The lessons learned from years of work on the falcon code will enable us the opportunity to design a new simulator free of all the limitations inherent in the 6 year old falcon code. " Straight from the FAQ at fighterops.com Definately enough to spark my interest.

When I saw the screenshots, they looked really familiar, and it wasn't until I saw the tie-in to X-Plane that I realized it. The terrain textures and some of the aircraft models look to be taken straight from X-Plane. Seems like, from the start, one of the primary complaints with F4 was the "riding on rails" feeling of the flightmodel. With X-Plane, you're definately not gonna have that anymore.

A friend and I went camping a few weeks ago in Lost Maples National Park. Its a beautiful place, lots of water. Right on the Sabinal River, about 100 miles west of San Antonio.

Likewise...

Let us hope, possibly, that we faithful BioHaz members may get a chance to help with the Alpha and Beta testing. It's probably too much to ask, but it never hurt X-Plane development if you need a precedent.

Like the head-bob feature in LO-MAC, I'd definately want it as a user-controlled feature, especially for people with TrackIR. TrackIR can be disorienting in itself, without having to worry about which way your eyes are going to tilt in a turn.

The .tga file that contains the lettering and insignia for the Su-25 got currupted somehow while I was installing some skins through LoMan, and unfortunately it couldn't replace them with the backups. Could someone out there extract the original nomera.tga files from the appropriate CDDS file and email it to me? I'd be much obliged.

Worked like a charm, GD. Thanks a bundle. Yeah, the numbers worked just fine for the skin I installed earlier, but all my original skins got bunked. Nice to know that if you ever have a corrupt file, someone can just extract the working one and fix you right up.

Lex, I'm suprised Arnold hasn't made it mandatory for CA yet.

I think its in WorldTexturesTGA.cdds I think you just run the CDDS Browser in LoMan, open that file and extract the nomera.tga from it.

Bump Just looking for a little help here, folks. It'll only take five minutes and LoMan.

Alright, how come nobody has so far mentioned the absolute Gods of Rock and Roll, to use Jack Black's phrase? Led Zeppelin Come on guys, you can't have modern heavy metal or anything else along those lines without Led Zepp. I mean, jesus. The only music I consistantly listen to is Led Zepp, CCR, the Doors, Days of the New and Radiohead. Chevelle, Moby and Modest Mouse are up there too. Seriously though, I just scanned through the whole thread again to no mention of Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones and John Bonham's contribution to music.

Its definately a reflection of where they're from in U.S. I can't stand going to school in South Carolina, compared to my home state of Texas. Seems like the average girl in SC is about ten pounds heavier than in Texas. Everyone I call attractive is considered anorexic by the locals, haha. As for height, I've never really noticed anything profoundly different.

I installed the Su-25 skin and it messed up my original .tga file that controls insignia and numbers for the Frogfoot. Hopefully someone out there can extract their original nomera.tga and email it to me.

rofl Ever see the L337 version of Romeo and Juliet or Hamlet? www.albinoblacksheep.com

You can try doing what I used to on DOD. Take a transparency pen and mark a dot on the center of your screen. It'll work, if you're really adamant about AG padlocking. I used to do this to add a crosshair to my sniper rifle, hehe.

Whoa, looking pretty good.