ARM505

I think the guy was wondering why the pilot was harassing the convoy so obsessively, not commenting on the quality of his flying! The flight dynamics look great though. Re the dust, it just needs to be a little wider and more diffuse (and only over appropriate surfaces), otherwise like somebody said, enemy aircraft are just going to be drooling when they see all the little dust trails advancing on their ground forces! I can't understand the lyrics of that music - is that the Russian equivalent of country and western or something?!

You guys are all in a little huddle up there....I'm waaaay down south!

Yes, I saw some very good ones. They weren't here though....they were over theeeerrrreeeee, waaay over there...far away from here in other words...

Exactly, or at least kill the tyre life...but in sims, we get a shiny new jet every time! ;) There's plenty that should be done (but isn't) in sims to prolong aircraft life span - people will happily pull beyond the airframes G limit, fly all day at 104% etc. I like to try and moderate myself to what what be done IRL, otherwise I feel instinctively bad for the poor old 'plane!

..and (notably) they do specifically mention that it can engage Mavericks/Walleyes, and track artillery or mortar shells, unless I read it wrong! Actually, they make it (the Buk) sound like the be-all and end-all of missile systems! Interesting, thanks.

HOTAS, HOTAS, HOTAS. I didn't bother playing LO seriously until I got a Cougar...so anything with lots of buttons and programmability is pretty much a necessity. Or lots of practice with the kb!

No, they shouldn't take futile shots that could never have hit, ever.....

2 seats.....

Love those little gyros on the fins...and I can just imagine that collection of Strykers on the radio.....'zzzzzzzccccrrtt..OK, when he pops over the hill, his frame rate will take a crippling hit...thats our chance to nail him with guns!....cccccccrttt' :)

Gee, they've released this at the same time as the new IL2 patch... AGAIN!! Do these guys synchronise this or something?! I'm not complaining mind you, just seemed odd.

"The drag data for ECM MPS-410 ”Omul”, L-081 ”Fantasmagoria”, ODAB-500 is fixed." So, these things don't act like deployed parachutes under the wings then?

Hey PK, We need more Seff Efrican players! - PM me for more info, or go to http://games.saix.net/cgi-bin/sgsbb/ikonboard.cgi?;act=SF;f=163 and register - we all tend to hang out around there, but there aren't too many of us. The lack of dedicated server software has really hampered the development of online games (and hence the community) for us as SGS can't set up local servers like they do for IL2 etc, and our pings obviously suck for the rest of the planet. You can get Lock on (original, needed for installing FC) for about R100, it's being resold as a rerelease by CNA, Makro etc. http://www.naturalsense.co.za has FC as far as I know, not sure of the price.

By 'DamIt' I take it you've been slaughtering them by the thousand then? LOL :-)

No, they're squirrels. I thought you of all people would know!

Ah. True, good point. I just felt that the Lockon world is always 'SAM-rich'! And they always spot me right away, doh! Must fly lower, must fly lower....

Is this 'Mirror Wars'?

Well, if the AI SAMs can shoot down Mavericks, they're going to turn *these* things into dust...how on earth will they be employed in this sim without being annihilated?

I had this happen too, but the screen would only be black in certain situations. I could still hear the jet, and so I pressed F2. The screen was still black, but when I moved the mouse, I could see the external view from certain view angles. The gfx were a bit screwed up though, with lines radiating all over the place. I couldn't access the menu, the cursor would appear but no quit menu. Odd. It only happened once though.

You guys have too much time on your hands!

Or just give us the fire extinguishers the actual plane has! I can understand that if the plane's on fire then it might disintegrate/explode - I'd just like to have what is actually on board the real plane.

Yup, I'm from Africa - South Africa. Mcnab (as mentioned above) is as well. I actually speak English as my home language. Maar, soos die meeste Suid Afrikaners, kan ons ten minste Afrikaans en Engels praat. My vrou is eintlik Afrikaans. Snaaks, ne? 'Black Shark' = 'Swart Haai', in Afrikaans. That South African attack heli, the 'Rooivalk' translates as 'Red Falcon'. P.S. We don't have Lions and Cheetahs wandering around our front gardens. You'd be surprised at some peoples perception of Africa, although I've been to the wilder places too (Sudan, Burundi, Angola, Liberia, Sierra Leone), and they're pretty wild. No (or few) animals though, they seem to have gotten axed for food!

Yes, that book that the scan came from said that initially flares had worked very effectively against the Redeye missile (And SA-7? Were some captured and used against the Russians?), but in the first three days following the deployment of the Stinger, four Su-25's were shot down. The addition of the armour plate and effective fire extinguishers resulted in a dramatic reduction in losses. In fact, this book said that no more Su-25's were actually shot down by Stingers once the mods were made, although there were several planes that did actually make it back to base, but were write-offs. The book goes on to say that 23 Su25's were lost if Afghanistan (roughly 10% of Soviet fixed wing losses in the conflict, one loss to 2800 combat flight hours) Thats why I complained about lacking fire extinguishers in the previous post. In the past few days I've been making up some Afghanistan type scenarios with the Grach, and Stingers featured prominently. It's so easy for one to clip you and get an engine fire going, and then it's tickets for you. If the fire doesn't go out, and most don't, you have to eject within seconds. Sometimes you can fly with a fire for ages, but normally not. And in any case, you just don't know - so IRL, when you would try and preserve your own life, you would be forced to eject. Which is what I do. And regarding that pilot from the scanned section, I was just asking about the missile shootdowns - the following section, describing how he won the Hero of the Soviet Union award - well, let me just say that he earned it. Absolutely no disrespect was ever intended towards that person.

I get tired of watching them loiter over SAM sites, oblivious to the beeping of the RWR, then reacting with brilliant evasion tactics the millisecond the missile is actually launched. The problem isn't their evasion skills (which are uncannily good sometimes) it's the skill of not getting into that situation in the first place. They should have some sort of situational awareness model, that says 'ok, I got a spike from there, and now it's there. There should be a SAM roughly there then, so best I give that general zone the appropriate respect, and maybe I should fly a bit lower or something...' Something like that. Easier said than done I suppose.

Yes, I thought it was very interesting, and I was hoping somebody would have some more input on that particular event or any more flying stories from the battles there. We tend to have more info on Western conflicts, it would be nice to hear some Russian pilot accounts of the fights they've had. I figured out what happened in the thread though. I was discussing the Topgun reference, and somebody thought I was talking about the text of the scan I posted. Total miscommunication. Ah well, the vagaries of this medium of communication.

On second thoughts, don't answer. I don't know how we got there, I'll just leave it at that.