Spino

I've been looking for an early skin for the Prowler!

If something like this actually happened, I think we already had a starting point in DCS for it, although I'm not sure if it would be feasible to use it. Anyone who has done some flying in the HB Tomcat consistently is probably aware that HB nerfed the maneuverability on it shortly before the F-14A was released. They did this because it was overperforming, and not realistic. Rewind to the '90s when Grumman was working on the ST-21 design, and one of the things that they were going to change was the shape of the wing gloves - bulging them outward to mimic the shape of the wing glove vanes that earlier F-14s had (but rarely used). This was supposed to improve the plane in several ways; it was apparently projected to increase the strength of the wing glove (a problem on the F-14 that probably was behind the weight limit on stations 1B and 8B), add increased fuel tankage in place of the old vanes that were welded shut anyway, and increase lift and maneuverability across the board (but especially at high Mach numbers where the old glove vanes were supposed to deploy). I think it wouldn't be unreasonable for the overperforming FM of the F-14B (as it was in early versions of 2.5.6) to be close to what the ST-21 might have been like. Of course it would need to be tweaked since the extra maneuverability didn't necessarily carry over into high speed flight and the ST-21 would have had a more powerful F-110 derivative (I believe Grumman specced the most powerful version available in the '90s, the GE-129, which may be the same version we have in the Viper) and there were a few other changes such as increased weight and flaps redesign. But then, this all assumes that the overperformimg FM that the F-14 used to have would actually be made available (and I see no reason why HB would allow that to be used, unfortunate as that is). So likely the flight model would have to be redone from scratch using available F-14 data and ad-libbing the increased performance based on what little we know about Grumman's projections for the ST-21. Then the external model would have to be redone and the cockpit would have to basically be completely new. Then there's the radar and other avionics (which wouldn't be too hard to get "right" since all we know about them was that the radar would likely have been similar to the one in the F-15E and that the cockpit would have been modern enough to have MFDs and very few steam gauges). Circa 2003-2005 the ST-21 would probably have gotten the same JHMCS upgrade that the Hornet had, along with the AIM-9X as well. But there's the code work going into all this, and finding someone (or more likely several) who is up to this and willing to do it will be anything but easy. That's basically my take on what an ST-21 mod might be like and what it would take to make it happen.

There's a fair bit of interest in it from what I've seen. It's kind of like Grinnelli's F-22 mod, but for Tomcat fans.

@Hawkeye60I'm working on something that I'd like to use the Fletcher mod for, for public release. I don't need to make changes to the mod itself, just include it as an in-game object for what amounts to a set of single missions. Is this okay with you, or are you who I should ask about this?

I'd like to see the F-7U Cutlass. I know the F4D was faster and more powerful, but the F-7U could be a huge problem for a lot of the other DCS planes because it was capable of some pretty incredible 16G maneuvers. Now I know that G capability is not directly related to turn radius, but given the wing area of the Cutlass, it might be the case here.

Did you ever get that torpedo working? Torp bombers would be so cool!

I am totally for this! Go Go GO! Seriously though I have long dreamed of having an ST-21 in DCS. No one has ever brought it to life in any sim that I'm aware of, and what better place than DCS? I would definitely pay for something like this if it became available. Unfortunately as other people have said the 3d model would be the easy part, unless you were somehow able to take the flight model of the F-14B (as it was in say, DCS 2.5.5 or early 2.5.6 versions) and stick it on with some minor tweaks. Even at that, you still have to model the aircraft systems, which would not be easy. If there's enough interest in this then great, but there might not be.

How about a Ferrari? That would go well in red with the Island Hoppers skin for nibbylot's AH-6

Does this pass integrity check? LOL.

How do you install the skins? I tried extracting them to the AH-6J folder in mods but it doesn't show up.

Patch notes are posted.

It's getting close to being live!