exhausted

Mm, that's not how defamation works so no, it's not defamation to say a career criminal should not have his callsign honored. He used that callsign to campaign for his political office, which is where he committed the crimes. Alright, alright nobody's picking on you. I didn't say you took the position that the callsign should be "Duke" so we can all cool it now.

MALS-13 in Yuma, myself... I level but entirely connected to the bird. Curled into many an intake for a blend, lol. Always gonna be connected to this bird myself.

Hold up, before getting too high up on your horse... Cunningham is a career criminal, so no I would not like to see the "Duke" callsign used for a pilot or RIO in an F-4 module. Randall Cunningham was convicted for conspiracy to commit bribery, mail fraud, wire fraud and tax evasion in 2006. He was freed completely by way of presidential pardon. Nobody should be confused about what the pardon does or does not do: it does not make Randall Cunningham innocent, he's guilty as sin.

That still has too much to do with sheer numbers, in terms of those measures. The Air Force probably had more kills out of numbers alone, whereas the Navy had an actual fighting training program that produced a higher k:d ratio in the Vietnam-era timeframe you keep referencing. Even well into Vietnam, the Air Force did not appreciably prioritize fighter training, out of fear of training accidents affecting the SAC budget. Air crew is a sheer numbers issue as well, and it's hard to determine whether the Air Force had more -E crews than the Marine and Navy term had of -J crews, especially since deployment rotations were measured completely differently. So, if you are talking about earlier service records then this should be the most persuasive reason to prioritize the Navy and Marines' variant, which is how the Phantom was conceived. These branches introduced the Phantom into service much earlier and introduced the type into active service in much high numbers, much earlier than the Air Force in Vietnam. And, the issues with the -E have already covered in depth, so other than the diminished a-a radar performance, probable fuel trade offs and enormous doctrinal differences unique to the -E versus the -J, then I don't want to beat a dead horse.

I would go for a flyable F-4G Weasel in an instant!

It's cool... I am not of the opinion that raw production numbers should be the sole determinant factor, especially when F-4Es came in more flavors than there were 'official variants' of the F-4. It looks like they clipped away the Phantom's best features and made the appeasement choice. I guess you could always use this -E variant to fly for Egypt, Israel or Iran to make it more interesting. However, I will be abstaining from this round. In a few years, maybe there will be a proper tailhook variant.

I used that comparison, because I don't think the PBJs were obscure or rare. They were in use by some 16 squadrons, all meant for one theater during WWII. In all honesty, there were probably more local variations on F-4E models than there were of PBJ models.

The naval version was original version, designed without the gun. Gun wasn't added until ten years after the Phantom went into service.

Duke was a pilot, not a RIO. Besides, he's also an American politician-turned-convicted-felon who just got released from federal custody by way of "good old boy" pardon. While I can't think of a RIO name, I can think of a proper pilot name: perhaps the naval Phantoms should use "Bull" for the front seat, after the Great Santini.

No interest in a land-only variant that doesn't perform the Phantom's intended use. Starting the F-4 line with a USAF gun-nose phantom is like starting a B-25 line with a Navy radar-nose PBJ instead. A swing and a miss; not to detract from the enjoyment of others. We may not ever get a proper -B, -J, -N or -S F-4, but the devs have spoken. Another wash.

Hard pass on the non naval variants I could understand maybe a C or a D, but an E is out of the question for me.

Plus, please

I think people don't understand how the Harrier works. It's an unconventional plane that treats you badly when you fly it conventionally. But, when you think through all the things it could do, you are able to bring those techniques into a fight. Online, an F-16 jockey thought I was easy pickings. First he tried a circle fight, and lost that to my trust vectoring. Then he tried extending and zoom climbing, which he lost because I turned on water injection. Finally, he settled on gaining tons of speed and flying wide circles, which worked in his favor but not long because of his fuel situation. The Harrier rocks, and if you have hubris when trying to shoot one down then you are in for a terrible surprise.

AMRAAMS

Well hold on now about your rationale about me being stubborn - the argument is the F-4E is inferior to the S, based on what the F-4 is designed to do. I'm not going to fault the air force on making a wise choice to yield the Navy's program, but I won't credit the air force either for turning out an aircraft that is inferior as both a fighter and an interceptor. It is also inferior because they took a carrier capable beast and clipped it for land lubbers . I suppose that leaves the strike capabilities, but even the E's capabilities aren't appreciably ahead of the S, given they were both substantially inferior to every other strike aircraft in the Navy, Marine Corps or the land lubber branch's inventory. This isn't really correct. Japan's F-4EJs are quite distinct. Iran's Phantoms had a modified layout. Germany's -F was basically also an E, but built from its inception with appreciable differences. We are talking about substantial differences, including incompatibility with aerial refueling used by every other country, except the US and Iran. I wouldn't poopoo on the large number of F-4Ss the Marines used from land as quite capable STRIKE FIGHTERS, in many ways eclipsing the F-4E in both capability and doctrine -- into the 1990s. The S may not be exclusively restricted to land use, as the E, but it is not exclusively a carrier aircraft, by design or doctrine of use. That being said, I agree the E will not please everyone or even come close in representing a Navy design that was intended to fill a seaborn role for all intents and purposes. And I suppose a J or S will not satisfy purists who either want a permanently attached gun or who cannot be satisfied with a skin for a D, which would actually make sense and represent many of the countries that operate the F-4, to include the USAF, ROK and Iran. So yeah, ED must consider the audience for the Phantom is not unified behind the USAF model at all. Should they do both? I don't know, but I do know I wouldn't drop money on the less capable land version of the iconic carrier aircraft.

Yea, I'm not too sure about that seeing the E is basically a worse S with a bunch of extra stuff bolted on, depending on the customer. The E was just a stopgap made in reaction to an environment the USAF was incapable of anticipating. Take from that, what you will. Totally not saying that, in fact the basic F-4E doesn't do well modeling its role for most of its customers AT ALL. The mods absolutely matter here. We are talking about: -different radars -different cockpit instruments -different variations of cockpit layouts -various types of wings -different flight modeling -different situational awareness suites Basically everything is so different for each country, you would just have to settle for reskins and have a generic E that doesn't work the way we want it to. Also, the basic E is incapable with refueling with 90% of the nations it flew with, unless ED clears a additional modules and we already know this is unlikely. So what you want is a dedicated ground attack aircraft, like an F-15E, which is coming. You could settle on the frankenstein patchwork that is the F-4E, or you can get a really good module that does what the F-4 was designed to do as a carrier based, multi-role fighter-bomber with the J/S. Best to include or rather prioritize the Marine Corps/Navy F-4J or S, because I don't see the E really adding anything all that interesting that the F-4S can't do in the 70s-80s scenario you mentioned. Unless you want to fly opfor on the PG map

I'm not sure how you arrived at this at all. The F-4E will be irrelevant as a ground attack aircraft as soon as the F-15E and A-6E are out, and both are already confirmed. All you are getting for an F-4E is a downgrade from the purebreds. I get some of you want an internal gun, but what's the point? It costs you in radar ability and doesn't really give you what you want anyway. If you're USAF, you already have better choices with the F-15, F-16 and soon F-15E. If you are Iran, you're going to be outgunned as soon as you're airborne. If you are Egypt or South Korea, you won't even have a map. So what about Israel? Wrong version, you can have a USAF F-4E or an Israeli F-4E, but you can't have both without multiple versions with individual improvements. Look how well that worked for DCS: F-16. So, really what's the point? I wouldn't even buy the -E. Don't even get me started on all the different updates with Greece, Turkey and Germany. On the other hand, with the J or S, you get a much more modern suite, in the aircraft as it was meant to be used. If it is smart weapons you are after, then wait for the A-6E. And you get carrier capability for both. Why would you want to settle on an -E module that really does nothing the F-4 was designed for?

F-4E is just too limited. The F-4J and S are the probably the best choices, and actually fill a variety of roles. We have too many aircraft carriers that would go to waste on yet another air force sled. If you want to go USAF that bad, then slap a D skin on your J and go to work. You can't do the reverse and make the -E carrier capable.

It's not much of an exploit - it's a damn liability. Against many Western fighters, the MiG-29 suffers from speed loss and long recovery times. It feels like, if you set the MiG-29 and the F-16 up at the same high AOA, at a speed under 200 KIAS, the F-16 would want to pick up speed 2-3 faster than the MiG-29. Your AOA limiter override is a better tool to foil shooting solutions or gain a snap shot. Flaps will not only cash in all your airspeed but leave you in serious debt.

I normally fly stable. But when I go online with the 2.7 beta I get massive load times. When I spawn, it takes about a minute to load the scenery and the cockpit. If I'm flying, my plane has crashed before my screen refreshes. Then sometimes the game just never finishes loading, gets nonresponsive and it's a hard PC crash. Any tips to prevent this?

EULA aside, this does not tend to bother me at all. I'm not a modder - just a guy who's been simming since 1994. The game performs well past any security expectation one should even expect. Perhaps too much so. I am more than willing to tolerate some level of exploit if it opens some potential for modding in this game in a way the community finds interesting.

I liked it.

Another variation would be the Su-25 Scorpion, if we could add A-10 weapons, HUD and basically some new custom gauges

F-4S or maybe J. It wouldn't make sense for B, C, D, E or F.

Yea you probably would be wrong to assume that convenience. If someone is posting about it, they probably thought of all the silly little simple steps you did.