Vampyre

I see that exact airframe almost every day. It is prepared to become a gate guardian here at NAS Whidbey Island... as soon as the area they want to place it in is ready.

Yup, KSP... Very fun and very addictive. I've burned through a lot of Kerbals building questionable launch vehicles of dubious quality. It's amazing how the tiniest mistake can have the worst consequences... In its current state DCS would be a poor space simulator.

Like the G-21?:thumbup: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grumman_G-21_Goose I still think it will be a Tomcat though.

Pizza and Burritos are staple flying foods... you can eat them both single handed! Hopefully Leatherneck are going to be working on the Tomcat so I can want for an OV-10 Bronco now. A or D... it doesn't matter, although both would be great.

I got qualified in Guam as well. The shop was Guam Tropical Dive Station and my Instructor was Simon Pridmore... Great instructor by the way. My first dive was Gab Gab Beach. Definitely get your advanced open water cert. It's totally worth it because then you can see the entirety of the Blue Hole and also do the SMS Kormoran and Toki Maru dive. For now you can dive Fish Eye Pier area, It's a great beach dive with lots of coral and fish and it's shallow, no more than 30ft so you get a lot of bottom time... Oh and do it both during the day and at night... it really is like two different worlds as soon as the sun sets. I had an encounter with a very large Great Hammerhead while diving in Florida. Visibility was about 40-50 feet at about 40 feet down. When I say very large, it is not an exaggeration, we are talking a fish of about 10 to 12 foot long... ish. My 4" dive knife seemed rather pathetic in light of the size and power of this shark and luckily he was not interested in my dive buddy or I at all. We didn't see him approach and he was gone just as fast but that couple of minutes made the dive the most memorable one I have had to date. When I was in Guam I didn't see a single shark even though I know they are there.

I have not dove Turtle Bay but I hear the currents are a bit strong there... I did dive the Corsair on the south side of Oahu. The Corsair is one of my favorite WWII planes so I had to dive that one. I mostly snorkel in Hawaii... there is a lot to see relatively close to shore where its mostly shallow. Hanama is nice and Kaneohe Bay as well. There are turtles in both of those places as well.

I love diving. I've been to a bunch of dive sites around Guam (where I first qualified), went pearl diving off Bahrain, Phuket Thailand many times, Hawaii (although the best areas are accessible by snorkeling), Key West Florida and The kelp beds off San Diego. Was going to go to Truk Island to see the WWII wrecks in the harbor at the end of September in 2001 but my plans were changed. I'd still like to see that.

I will be happy with any variant of the Tomcat Leatherneck decides to produce. The A model is the only variant to have scored air to air kills. The B/D models have tremendous performance due to the F-110 engines. All of them have Long range intercept and long range precision strike capabilities. The 30% increase has to do with the power plant used... in the case of the B/D model Tomcats that is the General Electric F-110-GE-400. The A model had the craptastic Pratt & Whitney TF-30-P-414A which was always considered an interim engine until the F-401-PW-400 was developed. As we know the F-401 engine never made it to production and eventually (after the loss of many F-14 airframes to engine failures) the Navy decided on the F-110 to power the B(A+) and D model Tomcats as the definitive engine. The TF-30 (A) to F-110 (B/D) is where the 30% increase in thrust occurred. The Navy tested weapons on the Tomcat that were never approved for fleet use on the aircraft... mainly due to costs. The AIM-120 is one of those weapons. Fleet Tomcats never carried the AMRAAM. Other weapons tested but not adopted were the AGM-88 HARM, AGM-62 Walleye. Not exactly true. The Tomcat was designed from the start with an air to ground capability consisting of mainly free fall ordnance. The addition of AAQ-14 Lantirn pod made the Tomcat the King Kong of precision strike aircraft and enabled their use as a potent ISR platform and fast FAC. The Hornet, while it carries a wider variety of ordnance types has poor range/loiter capabilities, poor weapons "bring back" ability, up until the incorporation of ATFLIR a poor Targeting Pod and the vast majority are single seat aircraft which creates a limit on their combat capability due to task saturation. The RIO's display provides a much larger screen with superior picture for the display of FLIR imagery. Here's a list of air to ground weapons the F-14 was cleared to use: Mk.82 (BLU-111A/B) Iron Bombs Mk.83 (BLU-110A/B) Iron Bombs Mk.84 Iron Bombs Mk-36 Mine Mk-62 Mine GBU-10 GBU-12 GBU-16 GBU-24 GBU-31 JDAM GBU-38 JDAM Mk-20 Rockeye CBU-78 Gator CBU-99 CBU-100 Zuni 5" FFAR in a 4 round LAU-10 pod

http://www.amazon.com/Soviet-Tactical-Aviation-Yefim-Gordon/dp/1902109236 This is a great reference book on Soviet tactical aircraft and the units that operated them in the cold war. I bought it on a whim a few years ago and it is a real gem for information on Soviet tactical aviation.

From personal experience, aircraft will get stuck in the grass... actually it is stuck in the dirt as the grass doesn't do anything to hold a 25 ton jet up. We had a F/A-18 get stuck back in 2010 when the move director let one of the main mount tires go off the concrete while trying to position the jet at compass rose. It sank all the way to the axle lever in an instant and would have sank further if the axle lever had not been planted firmly on the concrete. The jet was pulled out the next day by the base crash crane. It happens so the trick is to be a better pilot and not allow yourself to make those mistakes... or fly the P-51 or similar low ground pressure aircraft that are designed for operations on unimproved strips.

Indeed, I threw the size comment out there to speculate on the market they were aiming for. I've done a little more digging and found that the KC-390 has a lot of potential as a tactical transport, tanker and special operations aircraft. I believe there was even mention of its use as a fire fighting aircraft. It looks really promising.

If it is true... Oh my, that is the greatest news I have recieved this year. If not, there might be a lynch mob. I have to find my NFM-500 and dust it off now.

I can see where the functionality of the Warthog stick is tempting to map all of the commands to but the real Black Shark was a late 80's early 90's design and the number of HOTAS functions on the real helo are very limited. I don't care much for the Black Shark and prefer to fly it how it is so while flying the helo I would rather just flip switches in the cockpit. I can see the utility of the setup though and it gives me some ideas for other aircraft I do like that I have a need to optimize. Thanks for the post. Oh, and just so you know, the Navy F-14's never had an APU. Grumman had it as an option for the airframe but the Navy never bought it.

MiG-27K... although I voted Su-24M because the Flogger J2 wasn't on the list

Now that's a nice looking Transport... Looks about C-130 size, maybe a little smaller. Its hard to tell. Thanks for the pics.

Or maybe a Tomcat... one can dream right?

I'm pretty sure that aircraft is a pre-production machine... the cockpit does not look like the F-117 pit I saw at Holloman about 10 years ago.

I'd fly a tanker, HC-130, MC-130, KC-130, Victor K2, KC-10A, KA-6D, S-3B, EKA-3B. I'd like to fly any and all military missions as the achievement of mission goals and teamwork are far more important to me than racking up kills just to rack up kills. The problem is that the size of the current map is far too small to require tankers for anything other than ambiance.

Yes, its a fixed wing aircraft. It requires forward speed to generate lift. I actually would love to have a DCS level Tomcat of any version in the game.

LOL... so is it rotary winged, lighter than air or tilt-rotor then?

The two variants VEAO are doing (Mk IV and Mk XVI) are both Fast Bombers, not Fighter Bombers. That means no guns. I'm hoping for someone to do a Fighter Bomber Mk VI version which relates more directly to the mission set of the P-38 Lightning.

Because the Hind has been used in conflicts all over the world and is an iconic aircraft. I'd like to see the Mi-24A, Mi-24V and Mi-24P before any iteration of the Mi-28... but that's just me.

It's been my experience that a plan is something to deviate from. Unforeseen circumstances have a tendency to require changes to any plan and to blindly stick to a faulty plan is just plain ignorant. It's interesting watching the progression of the next big release. Back to the topic: I'd like to see combined arms developed for WWII. It seems like a natural development alongside the aircraft and maps being developed and hopefully we can have warships and other naval assets as well. As for tanks, I prefer the Sd.Kfz. 171 Panther.

Or the front seat of an Apache!:thumbup:

Well, I do differ. The stated goal of DCS World, from what I have read, is to be more than just a flight simulator. It seems not everyone shares the idea of ED's grand scheme of a digital combat simulator and only consider DCS World to be just a flight simulator. ED's vision is far broader than just flight simulation and that is the disconnect for a lot of the players who have flown aircraft in DCS (Flaming Cliffs, LOMAC, Su-27 Flanker) for many years... they think it is just a flight sim and the effort ED is putting into other areas to improve the immersion level for all aspects of its digital combat simulator is a waste of resources. That kind of thinking will keep your niche market a niche market. Expansion of the options within the simulation will serve to draw in more people. Computer simulations are similar to movies or theatre in that they require the willing suspension of disbelief by the audience to be successful. If EDGE is the game changer I think it is then the features I have mentioned may be possible for the first time and open up so many more possibilities. That was the purpose of my post in a thread for DCS World 2.0 and new maps vice the wish list thread. The terrain varieties are essential to any DCS armored/helicopter/ship simulation and for immersion of the players who wish to truly use the digital combat simulator to its fullest extent. It doesn't matter for jet aircraft flying thousands of feet in the air so it is not needed right? I see the list as being a necessary list of terrain features to truly make for an engrossing virtual battlefield. I have been happy with everything ED has done to improve the game and make it more like a simulation to date. As for the attitude perception you have dredged from my post, it is indeed your opinion... as is almost everything posted on these forums. Assuming it was aimed at me, I'm not sure where your "we the customers" argument comes from but you need not put words in my mouth that I did not utter.