Swordsman422

Where would this world be without digital editing, I wonder. All this talk of immersion makes me wonder where you kids were when flight sim "cockpits" were rendered as low-res 2D overlays you couldn't interact with.

Heh. God, no. That post was entirely lacking in subtext of any kind. I do think it's a funny story, though.

So, funny story, the R-3/K-13 was based on an AiM-9B recovered unexploded from a Chinese MiG-17 where it had gotten lodged when fired from a Taiwanese F-86.

Maybe instead of sunglasses, animate the visor and have moving it be in the Jester menu. "Hey Jester, visor's up/down." Though TBH, regulations usually require visors be down at least in critical phases of flight. Though having a clear or tinted visor depending on night or day flying would be neat.

Knowing something about flight helmets, I can actually chime in a bit. Standard daylight visors on the helmets are smoke grey and have about the same effectiveness of unpolarized sunglasses. They do cover a much larger area, so you don't have gaps in your peripherals like sunglasses do. But that's the standard daylight visor. There are gradient visors which are fully transparent at the cheek/mask line that fade to shaded towards the brow. Iridium visors also exist, which offer about the same protection as iridium sunglasses. Finally, you can also get spectral visors, which block against a particular color of light, but they can tint your vision and thus negatively affect your ability to read or see specific colors. If I was ever doing any flying that required a helmet, I just used either the standard or gradient visor.

A visor function would be pretty neat, seeing as how there actually is one on the helmet. Unfortunately, in my experience flying into the sun in real life isn't much better with sunglasses or visor on. It just makes the glare bearable enough to read your instruments and find your horizon.

I can do it without VR or Track IR. It just takes a bit of practice. Get into precontact and put your wing sweep in bomb mode, one click down on the wing mode switch. Trim for level flight, approach the basket slowly and power back half a notch right before you contact the basket. I usually keep my eyes on the drough nacelle on the tanker wing with occasionally glances at the tanker fuselage, making sure to park both the nacelle and the roundel in a specific place in my canopy and being mindful of both direction and rate of its movement. Make VERY MINOR corrections when you have to make them, usually half or less what you want to make, and don't blink particularly often. Unless the tanker is in an orbit, these techniques really help me hold connection for the entire transfer. If the tanker is in an orbit or turn, I rudder in to the turn with it, first more than tanker's rate to catch up and then slack off rudder to match turn rate, keeping an eye on his wing to determine if he's leveling out and steadying up. Once transfer is complete, back out slowly, drift over to formation position, start trimming as you set sweep to auto and continue to hold level. Once trimmed out and all aircraft are complete, kiss off and continue mission. I wouldn't call myself the best basket fencer, or even particularly good at it, but using these techniques has helped me hold contact without VR.

VF-31 also used the callsign "Bandwagon" and VF-143 frequently went by "Tap" or "Taproom."

Ah. You young kids these days with your internet slang and your obsession with medieval siege weapons...

Can you? Are you sure it's not F-14AAD-1 without the A on the end? Does it include Chapters 31-36 and 39 and the functionality data for the AN/AAS-42? I'm sure we, Heatblur, and the US Navy would love to have a link to it.

I actually second a wish one day for the 70/75-GRs, and least as a visual model. I'll take a pass on the P-412 engine. I know there were only ~ a hundred of them but how they got frankensteined over the years fascinates me, and until the early 1990s were kept a match in capability to the more modern blocks. BuNo 159025 is at the museum at Patriots Point, and it's so interesting to see a jet that is a fully modern F-14A in front and vintage 1970's relic in the back. Adding to this argument, the 70/75 served longer than the B(U) did and wouldn't need avionics modelling beyond the scope of the module to create.

Delta only, and literally the very last part of the very last F-14 cruise.

It's going to take a different approach than using the system DCS inherited from Flanker 2.0. Back when it was originally devised, the old AI F-14 model only had to represent two F-14 squadrons in VF-51 and VF-111. Dynamic modexes might seem like an easy fix, but to pull it off to the degree that HB expects from themselves, it's a bigger plate than it initially appears. New technology will have to be developed to handle the placement, size, and kerning issues for even straight digits. Anybody holding their breath for this one is probably gonna drown.

The ultimate solution is dynamic modexes, but that's a problem that's going to be long on solving and is a can of worms that's been opened several times. Still, I look forward to the day when a squadron of 12 jets can be rendered with decent accuracy by 2 or 3 skins.

Notice that they don't really pay attention to these threads anymore except to come in and occasionally straightjacket the lunatics. As soon as the paranoid rants begin, the objective discussion of the topic based on facts and SME testimony are lost. I believe Heatblur has said before that they cannot discuss missile API developments and aren't responsible for weapon behavior once it departs the aircraft, but maybe that's the cover-up for the true narrative that ThEy'Re BrEaKiNg ThE gAmE oN pUrPoSe. Same.

And any AI eyeballs track through mountains and clouds. But where's the complaining about the AI always knowing where their opponent is?

Far as I know, it was consistent by the label until ~1993 when VF-213's livery moved away from the constellation rudder. The retro jet seen for the last cruise used a custom paint mix that doesn't match any fed standard paint chip.

He's not the troll. He just has "concerns" over his "game experience" and "balance" being in danger because Heatblur is out to specifically ruin his experience. No, no. I'm the troll, and I'm being so gleefully. And truthfully, whatever problem he's having with DCS, I'm not having and I'm choosing to say so in a snarky way.

I think it should be the last thing Heatblur fixes before the F-14 leaves EA. I don't know what I've been doing wrong, but I have absolutely no trouble getting blown out of the sky by ARH and SARH missiles in the F-14 even with the jammer on and maneuvering. Nor have I had any trouble killing Tomcats with these same missiles. Hell, just before this post I was doing 1v1 F-14As against the AI. He was jamming, I was jamming, and our missiles both hit. How do I use the ECM to make myself invulnerable?

Unsurprising, since the actual pigment recipes changed in 1989/1990, and changed again just four years ago. I've just reached the point of "eh, looks close enough" when it comes to my skins, which is both a lazy attitude and why I haven't released anything in *checks calendar* quite a few months.

Darker colors show skin fatigue and dirt bleed less, and it cuts down on both maintenance and paint costs. This is why the USMC Harrier fleet started going all gunship grey in 2010.

Vallejo's 237 is notoriously too blue for the official chip. Mission Models makes it too purple. Model Master enamel was almost dead on, if a bit too matt, but Model Master got shuttered last year. I'm hoping Ammo by Mig is close enough. You wanna take a real deep dive, have a go... https://www.sae.org/standardsdev/colorchips/#:~:text=AMS-STD-595 defines a,available to conduct these activities. Bear in mind that the color procurement process changed as recently as 2017, leading to this being a thing... This is 375 before and after the procurement change. And for the curious, the pigment recipes for the 595B procurement period, which began in FY90:

The bottom color is light grey vice light ghost. Any other variation can be chalked up to production dye batches, which is another PITA we have to deal with. FS35237 has an official chip, but various dye batches won't always match exactly. Judging by the dates, CVW-7 had just returned from a deployment, so weathering, corrosion control layers, and sun fading are all playing a factor in how the paint looks. This cruise was an evaluation for TPS concepts, so we aren't seeing final patterns or paint colors here either. This is the crap that makes skinning for DCS so damned hard. The actual paint doesn't always match the chip, and can be several percentage points off in tone, then add in the other factors that affect paint, and then how those colors appear in the DCS environment, and you have a real challenge. One of the pictures I frequently look at to remind me of this fact is a VF-14 bird from the early 1980s that is "supposed" to be FS26440, but the corrosion control touch ups look almost sky blue and the story is that the CC paint cans in the shop were from a different batch than the depot, but it was labelled the same color.

First off, wow, that's only the second photo of that livery I have ever seen. Second, yeah, I can confirm for you that those aren't the same standard TPS colors. Not sure what the top or side colors are, but I know that the bottom is actually FS36373. The early 1980s were an interesting transitional time where they were pitching paint colors at the wall to see what worked. You can only trust the official Federal Standard paint chips when it comes to not just color but specular quality. Any copies put out by other entities are suspect at best, as I'm sure you've noticed. Edit: Checked with some of my more knowledgeable buddies in the hobby. That VF-143 livery is, top to bottom, FS35237, FS36375, and FS36373. The aircraft itself is an 85GR manufactured in 1975 and delivered directly to VF-143. You can still see she's lacking the L-bracket tail stiffeners and alpha probe on the nose, so at the time of this photo is unmodified. I wish I could find a photo of her port side. I'm betting she still has 7-hole GGVs. Edit#2: Here's AG107 from the same cruise. This jet is from the 80GR production block and still has the 7-hole vents.

Photos are great for detail references, but not so great for colors. Lighting conditions, exposure time, and many other factors can affect the true colors. The absolute best thing to do is actually get color swatches or paint codes for the colors required. According to Geoff at Furball AeroDesign, the VF-213 rudder is FS35183 Medium Blue.