KPenn5

I've longed wanted a FF F-15C in the game. A F-15C with all the goodies such as JHMCS, 9X, datalink, etc will definitely be great.

question is, will we get a bolt on rifle scope

It's a doctrinal choice by the USAF. I think it's well known how much money the US Military spends on equipment and unlike a lot of other nation's air forces, they can afford to spend money on very dedicated platforms. The Eagle was always looked at as the high end, air superiority fighter, while the F-16 was that jack of all trades, master of none platform that designed to be affordable. All part of that "High/Low" mix that was preached during the Cold War. Everything is political, especially in the defense industry. I also see the merit in having a dedicated air to air platform. That allows those pilots to focus on ONE mission, vs multirole pilots that have to focus on all the missions. It's the same thought as the A-10, you won't find any better CAS pilots than those that fly the warthog, just as you won't find any better air to air pilots than those that fly the Eagle/Raptor

wasn't that part of the Golden Eagle project that came about relatively recently?

Personally, I don't understand the fascination with putting bombs on the C model. Sure someone hung some bombs on a few at one time, but that's not what the purpose of it is. The F-15C is an air superiority fighter. Yeah I get it, the Israeli's used it in an air to ground role, but that was the exception, not the rule. At some point you need to draw a line in the sand. At times, ED's stance on things drives me bonkers. Take the F-16 for example. Serial number 91-342 F-16C Block 50 on 10/27/2006 at precisely 1537 hours, didn't have this loadout, so we aren't modeling it. It's ignorant sometimes. That being said, the USAF has never used the F-15C, or A for that matter, as an air to ground platform. Now if they said they were modeling an Israeli F-15A with no air to ground abilities, then I could understand the uproar. Because the C model is a pure Air Superiority fighter, were the E model was intended as a long range strike platform to replace the F-111, and just so happens to have an air to air capability.

As far as I know, only the Israelis have used the light gray eagle in any sort of air to ground capacity. I have never read of anyone else doing it. I don't understand the love affair with having the F-15C doing air to ground, especially when that was never its thing. We can talk about obscure situations all day long, but the fact is, the Eagle was and is an air superiority fighter. If you want an Eagle for air to ground, we already have the Mudhen (for how long, no one knows) in DCS. It's the same as using the A-10 in air to air, yes, it technically can carry air to air missiles, but was it really designed to patrol no fly zones, ready to take on MiG's or Sukhoi's penetrating denied airspace?

You're not the only one.

So Eagle Dynamics delayed the patch for “stoppers” or whatever they called it, then released the patch that has caused issues from people playing. Nice work! ive spent most of the afternoon rebooting and repairing to no avail, so multiplayer is pretty much off the table right now.

I knew of Pardo's push long before I read Robin Olds' book. Of course Pardo had large brass ones, he was a Texan!

That’s the exact thing I’ve heard! listening to the Fighter Pilot Podcast on the Phantom, it was apparently pretty stable landing on the boat. Apparently, cat shots were the difficult part, as you had to be careful not to over rotate the jet.

Pardon me if I missed this, but will HB model the ability to cart start the Phantom, vs the typical huffer start?

I think there was only around 12 Phantoms that ended up getting the one piece windscreen, spread between RF-4’s, F-4E’s and the F-4G

The F-4S was supposedly the ultimate Navy Phantom. Listening to the FPP on the Phantom, apparently the S was well liked. Upgraded Avionics, early HOTAS, Smokeless and powerful engines, and slats.

As a huge Phantom lover, I'm actually against the more modern versions, as they don't really represent the Phantom. Sure, having a Hornet radar with AMRAAM's and fancy screens sound nice, but as someone already stated, we have an F/A-18 to do Hornet things. Again, stealing a line from someone else, the serious upgrades to the F-4 and MiG-21's were done to help countries that really can't afford to just outright replace said airframe. The upgraded Phantom's aren't frontline fighters either, but more like a poor man's F-15E Strike Eagle.

Something about the Euro One scheme always struck me as beautiful. The F-4's looked stunning in it. Of course the Spangdahlem birds would fit real nice with the Viper in a hunter killer combo. I think they were the only mixed Wild Weasel squadron. Although, we would have to do it backwards from practice with the Viper hunting and the Rhino doing the killing of the SAM's