Swordsman422

Furball Aero put out a decal sheet covering that VF-32 livery from the Lebanon cruise. I have a copy of it and can scan the tail art.

Yeah... I made those. Thanks.

From an article in Aviation Weekly about the Sparrowhawk HUD upgrade for the F-14B: "On top of all this, the system had to be more reliable, more maintainable and, in the case of the HUD, surpass the performance of the more sophisticated HUD in the F-14D, which was built by Kaiser Electronics. Reliability was key. Specifically, mean time between maintenance actions (MTBMA) had to be improved over the current rate of 50 hours, and the program goal is to reach at least 750 hours MTBMA." https://www.aviationtoday.com/2003/11/01/new-hud-for-the-tomcat/

If nothing else, the raw tedium of editing 8 texture files 10-12 times per livery is why I haven't been more prolific. I'm willing to help pull this effort forward, but I think a lot of us are holding up to see how this feature shakes out. If it's handled poorly (which I doubt) I won't have a lot of interest in contributing more.

I'm looking at the PS CC sub right now. A lot of what has prevented me from doing more is that my CS4 isn't up to spec anymore, so I get a lot of errors in the layers I have to manually repair, which is a tedious pain. But my financial situation is now to the point where I can spare $20/month to upgrade.

You're right Nealius. I had thought we had CVW-1's OEF deployment covered. We have CVN-71, VF-102's complete stable for that cruise, and I thought appropriate skins for VFA-82 and -86, VMFA-251, and VAW-123 but nope. All of those are from separate cruises on different ships. I'm a bit frustrated by the gap we have in our available carriers and surface combatants. A lot of us like 1970s ops and we're missing so much. CVN-65, the Kitty Hawk-class, CV-67, and the early Nimitz class are all absent, as are A-7s and pre-TRAM A-6s. We're getting the Forrestal-class but the first one to operate Tomcats was USS Ranger in 1980. And nevermind the collection of cruisers and destroyers before the Tico and Arleigh Burke... This really should be a community effort. My talents are modest, but I'm willing to help out.

I haven't had any issues with either the GBU-12 or GBU-16. Were you within the release parameters and did you have the laser latched? If I'm bombing, I only go to the pilot's seat for release and then return to the RIO's seat for bombing.

Anything is better than having to look Kelly McGillis full in the face at any age. I'd rather walk for an hour around my neighbor's horse farm and kiss whatever I found on the bottom of my boot.:megalol:

Kelly McGillis!? Well, that's a lunch I don't get to keep down. That's it, I quit and I'm going to fly Hornets.

Like Northstar pointed out, it's the longest serving variant. It's also the only Tomcat in service with a foreign air force, and at the end of the Tomcat's US service still made up a significant percentage of the fleet. Every squadron that ever flew the F-14 flew the A first, and some of them that's all they ever had. Pretty much any scenario taking place before 1988 the F-14A is the only one available, and after that year it was still the most common until the mid 1990s. By comparison, the F-14B served only 9 (and at a maximum 6 at once) fleet squadrons and the F-14D only served 4 (max 3 at once) versus the F-14A's 28 fleet squadrons, including by 1987 ALL at once.

I like how the discussion on when the glove vanes were deactivated just blew right past the SME who stated when it happened. The -135-GR we have in hand now would have had them bolted shut at time of representation (mid 90's), so the vanes won't be missed on this model. I'm apathetic as to whether they'll appear on the earlier versions, since I won't be spending much time in the flight regimens where they'd be deployed, so my opinions on whether they should be included end there.

Looks great, Isoko! Another one I was just in the beginnings of working on. Lol. Alright, what's next...

Cool. Guess I'll find another project, then. If you need a list of BuNos for the OEF deployment, I've got one. Looking forward to seeing the finished product.

Oh, nice. Are you doing the whole squadron or just a few? I have JUST started lining up my tail decals and sorting the Modex/BuNo list. This is where I'm at so far...

BKR!

Nothing really to show yet, but I've started working on VF-211 1999-2002, covering two cruises aboard the USS John C. Stennis. As usual it'll be a full pack of 10 aircraft based around their OEF stable. WIP shots when I have them.

They did, but not with the livery seen in the trailer. That livery actually belongs on a -70-GR or a -75-GR. The VF-1 livery for the -135-GR we have would look more like this:

Both of the VF-1 and VF-84 skins in the trailer were never on the -135-GR as represented. But then again, neither was the VF-21 and VF-111...

That's very odd. The problem I get is that the new F-14A replaces the old AI model on OpenBeta.

Those are called glove vanes, and will probably only be with the -135-GR (Early) and the -95-GR if we get them at all.

Yes you can. Conversions aren't particularly hard... In your liveries folder, create a new folder called F-14A-135-GR and drop desired liveries inside.

On the upside, livery conversions are not particularly difficult...

Nope. Only VF-21, VF-111, VF-154, and VF-211 for right now.

Got it. Somewhat of a dearth of liveries just yet. VF-21, -111, -154, and -211. Took the Black Knights bird for a spin. Victory205 was right is saying that the engines won't just come apart on you, but I had to actively TRY to get an engine stall (tail slide from a vertical climb). The right engine stalled and gave me an alert, but an easy throttle back and stabilizing flight and the engine took it like a champ.

The -135GR (Late) that we're getting is a contemporary of the F-14B we already have. The mid-80's model and IIAF/IRIAF version are coming later, and if I read the road map right, options will eventually exist to, at least visually, represent even earlier Tomcat models. Looks like they're out to satisfy as many customers as they can.